“I have some immediate questions: One question that I have right off the bat is about the word “believe” in 3:16. Perhaps Jimmy could help shed some light here. Does it mean that I believe that Jesus is the son of God? So does Lucifer, shall he have eternal life?”
While I am sure Jimmy could shed A LOT of light on this subject, I think I have the answer and I shared it in the previous post. The key to understanding John 3:16 is in John 3:13-15. It refers to the story in Numbers 21:4-9.
4 Then they set out from Mount Hor by the way of the Red Sea, to go around the land of Edom; and the people became impatient because of the journey.
5 The people spoke against God and Moses, "Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we loathe this miserable food."
6 The LORD sent fiery serpents among the people and they bit the people, so that many people of Israel died.
7 So the people came to Moses and said, "We have sinned, because we have spoken against the LORD and you; intercede with the LORD, that He may remove the serpents from us." And Moses interceded for the people.
8 Then the LORD said to Moses, "Make a fiery serpent, and set it on a standard; and it shall come about, that everyone who is bitten, when he looks at it, he will live."
9 And Moses made a bronze serpent and set it on the standard; and it came about, that if a serpent bit any man, when he looked to the bronze serpent, he lived.
Numbers 21:4-9 NASB
First off Luke, I was wrong about something. I thought that the story about Israelites being bitten by snakes only made them wish they would die. I was wrong the snakes were killing the Israelites. This is what happens when you reiterate a story by memory and don’t check the source. When they complained to Moses asking Him to intercede with Jehovah to get Him to take the snakes away, Jehovah had Moses do something unexpected. He had Him make a likeness of the snake and lift it up in the wilderness. Then He instructed the people who had been bitten to look upon the snake and they would be healed and not die. There was no merited favor, no works that needed to be done, simply having enough faith to look at the snake to be healed. Simple faith that Jehovah would do what he said He would do.
It is interesting to note that Jehovah did not do what the Israelites wanted Him to do. The most logical thing in their minds was to have G_d get rid of the snakes. Instead He forced them to believe in faith that he would not let them die even if they were bit by one of these deadly snakes. They would still suffer the consequences of their rebellion (being bit by the snakes) but they would not die if they had faith to look upon the image of the snake to be healed.
Yeshua was pointing out that the kind of faith and belief in Him, the Son of Man, is the same kind of faith and belief the Israelites had to exhibit in looking upon the serpent to be healed from the bite of the snake. If we have the belief in faith that He will do what He said He would do then He will be just and faithful and forgive us of our sins. The Word does make reference the demons believing and trembling but not having faith. So the key is faith, not believing that He is the Son of G_d, but believing IN Him and what He did for us. Faith pure and simple nothing more nothing less.
16 "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes IN* Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.
John 3:16 NASB
* emphasis is mine
5 comments:
Luke Skywalker: "I don... I don't believe it!"
Yoda: "That is why you failed."
I think it's the very simplicity of it that is so hard for many to understand and accept.
Hi Arielle. I hope you are well.
"He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God."
I am not sure that belief and faith are binary. Someone who rejects Jesus outright would be condemned, and a person of strong faith would be saved. But what of the lukewarm or the doubting toms? What of an agnostic that says, "I want to believe, and I do love Jesus... but I struggle to accept that the resurrection happened. It very well could have, but I don't know it in my bones."
Is he to be firewood?
What about a Native American before Columbus, that loves and believes strongly in the Great Spirit and loves his neighbors and forgives his enemies? Put to death?
Throw me a bone here. Most of the people I love are going to hell if you are right.
Throw me a bone here. Most of the people I love are going to hell if you are right.
I'm in the same boat. I suspect Eaglewood knows an awful lot of people in the same position too. It's sad to think that so many simply wont believe. That's why evangelism should be at the forefront of all of our minds. If my brother or my friend were standing in the path of a speeding freight train, I would push him out of the way. I suspect you would too. Yet so many Christians have loved ones who are in the path of something FAR worse than a freight train and they will not tell them about it.
Jesus taught very outright that He is the way, the truth and the life. That no man should come to the father except through Him.
The most loving thing I can do for that man on the tracks is to get him out of the way of the train. Even if it offends him. The same is true for the countless loved ones who do not believe. We have to preach the gospel, even if it offends them, because that is the absolute most loving thing we can do.
What a great discussion. This is awesome. Do not forget that truth is truth whether we believe it to be so or not.
Paul says in the book of Romans that those who did not hear a presentation of the gospel as still without excuse because the message of the creator is visable and displayed in nature. If in John 1 God spoke creation into existence through the Word, then nature itself proclaims the very existence of Jesus so everyone is without excuse if they reject the message proclaimed by nature about the very existence of Jesus.
For God so loved the world (that he created through His Son) that He sent His one and only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him (the Son) should not perish, but have ever lasting life. The believe here comes from pisteo which is a spoecific term of making an intellectual summary of the facts and following the intellectual knowlege arrived at through a thoughtful evaluation. This believe is an intellectual believe and not a feelings believe.
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