JOHN162 - Jesus Came into an Already Condemned World to Save

0:00 Hey everybody, it's Matt. This is the 10-minute Bible hour podcast. And yesterday we started working on really some very weighty material that comes up between John 3.16 and John 3.21. There's beautiful stuff in this passage about the life that is in Christ that has been given freely to us because God wanted to save the world.

0:20 Yes, wonderful. Also, there's some very real talk in here about the state of the world as it stands, which is condemned. We are in a very bad situation, and there's a reason that God is doing the saving through Christ. It's because we are in need of saving. It can be hard to admit, it isn't super fashionable to admit that in these modern times, but this is what we're getting in the text, and this is what John is pushing us towards.

0:47 So we're going to look at the rest of this stuff in John 3, and then we're going to bounce over to look at some stuff that John wrote in the form of a letter in 1 John chapter 1 today as well. With that said, I'm going to have my close personal friend Jeffrey Foote play some music and then we'll get back at it.

1:25 And the default setting of our situation is condemnation. Jesus did not come into an already perfectly fine world with a bunch of perfectly fine people to introduce condemnation and then save us from a problem he created or pointed out. He came into a world that was already condemned and is that serpent on the stick that's lifted up, in whom there is life.

1:48 But now John is going to get out some kind of device that apparently can peer through our chest, into our heart, into our souls, and absolutely nailed us to the wall as to where the fault is in all of this. Verse 19, this is the verdict. Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil.

2:08 John is basically accusing us of obfuscating and making excuses and trying to project blame, and he's trying to suggest that we like to pretend that we are somehow innocent victims in all of this. But John's language nails us to the wall. We have ownership of this. Yes, by the grace of God, redemptive things happen in the world and even through us.

2:31 But men love darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Where do you get away with that? In the darkness, not in the light. Everyone who does evil hates the light and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God.

2:51 So John's not willing to let us get away with anything here. It's not just that we have this difficult situation that is already condemned that we inherit. It is that we have ownership. Why? Because the Bible teaches from beginning to end that there is something wrong with us. We are damaged. We have a disease.

3:11 These injuries, in part, are self-inflicted. We have a lust for the elevation of self and a built-in resistance that is born of sin, a resistance that is to God. This is a massive problem, a problem that is introduced to us with the language of curse from the very beginning of Genesis. This situation that is being addressed here in John 3, it's a curse.

3:36 That curse is addressed in the middle of Galatians. And in the middle of Galatians, Paul talks about Jesus becoming the curse for us, like we talked about a few days ago. Now, some might look at this passage and say, well, for God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.

3:55 So that means that everybody was in this bad situation, and then through Jesus, everyone will not be in that bad situation. Some people would call that perspective universalism. But the very next verse seems to shoot that down. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, there is one. But now on the other hand, whoever does not believe in him stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God's one and only Son.

4:22 God is perfectly gracious, God is perfectly just, God is perfectly aware of the dire situation in which we find ourselves, and God built a perfect plan to save executed through Christ. That's the picture John is painting for us here in John. But he doesn't stop the painting in this book. The painting continues in a letter John wrote, probably around the same time that he was writing this gospel.

4:47 We now call this letter First John, and just listen to how this letter opens in light of what we just saw in John chapter 3, verses 16 through 21. Here we are. This we proclaim concerning the word of life. Sounds a lot like John 1 1. And we bear witness to this light, to this truth. So he's making the same point.

5:18 He's leaning on like this isn't some kind of just philosophy. We are witnesses to this. He goes on. First John 1 2. The life appeared, and we have seen it and testified to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life which was with the Father and has appeared to us. We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us.

5:40 And our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son, Jesus Christ. We write this to make our joy complete. This is the message we have heard from Him and declare to you. God is light. In him there is no darkness at all. See the way it's it's one thing or the other. John really doesn't let his audience wriggle or play around in shades of gray.

6:05 John hits these opposites starkly. God is light, in him there is no darkness at all. We're also getting all this stuff about life versus death, grace versus judgment, eternal life versus condemnation. So the same themes are all coming through here. God is light, in him there is no darkness at all. If we claim to have fellowship with him, yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth.

6:32 But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his son, purifies us from all sin. Okay, you remember that stuff back here in John 3? This is the verdict. Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil.

6:50 Everyone who does evil hates the light and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God. God is the giver of light, light issues from him, God is the giver of life, life issues from him.

7:10 John is describing sin as darkness and as deception, and he goes on here in 1 John 1:8. If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. You see what he's doing? He's doubling down on John 3. Like, look, I know it's not comfortable, I know it's not fun, I know it might not square with whatever the fashionable psychology says, but the reality is if we say we are without sin, without darkness, we deceive ourselves and the truth isn't in us.

7:39 We got to be honest about the situation we find ourselves in. But now, just like John 3 in the passage we've been looking at here over these couple of days, so also in 1 John 1, we get the your situation is dire, friends, from John. But then we get, but there is good news, there is hope, and there is life.

7:59 Listen to me. I'm trying to help you. Listen to this message. If we claim to be without sin, 1 John 1 8, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, conversely, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. If we claim we've not sinned, we make him out to be a liar, and his word has no place in our lives.

8:24 My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have one who speaks to the Father in our defense, Jesus Christ, the righteous one. He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins and not only for ours, but also for the sins of the whole world. Now that word world, cosmos, it's you know one of the ones you learn on your first day of study in the Bible or seminary, it doesn't just describe the physical world, it describes, well, you hear it, it has like cosmos in it, right?

8:53 Like the it's a it's a very big picture, both concrete and abstract description of the world. And some people like to look at passages like this and just say, well, it says world. So clearly, what John means there in John 3 and in 1 John 1 and into 2, I read you just a little bit of two there, is that everybody was in a bad spot and now everybody's going to be in a good spot because of Jesus.

9:17 But the surrounding context makes it clear that no, there are two possible outcomes being within the grace of God, being subject to the judgment of God. And the default setting of our situation is judgment. Again, as my friend Jeff likes to say, Jesus didn't come into a neutral world to save some and condemn others.

9:41 He came into a condemned world to offer salvation to any who would have it. It's a scary thing to admit to ourselves that our situation is dire physically and spiritually, but it's a foolish thing to deny it. Reality says our situation is dire, scripture says our situation is dire, and John is not gonna let his audience wriggle on this.

10:06 He's trying to push us to get us to admit the situation that we're in, not a neutral world, but a condemned world. And as we are realistic and honest about that, then the beauty and the wonder and the awesomeness and the opportunity that comes with what God has done with Christ coming into the world to offer life, it it becomes all the more evident to us.

10:32 And then we get to that place that John is trying to get us to of the right response. Remember, John tells us that Jesus did a bunch more stuff, but that he wrote down what he wrote down here so that we would behold and believe, and by believing have life in his name. And John seems to be saying there's only two ways to come at this.

10:54 It's the judgment of God or it's the grace of God, and thank God that the grace of God has been made available through Christ. This is heavy stuff, so heavy that it carried over from a Monday into a Tuesday. It's both incredibly simple and direct, and also very difficult. But again, thank God, literally, that Jesus has stepped into this condemned world to offer salvation to any who would have it.

11:16 We are nowhere near done with this concept. In fact, this exact concept is going to come up again in the very next passage, which is about John the Baptist, and we'll turn the page toward that next time around. I'm Matt, this is the 10 Minute Bible Hour Podcast. Let's do this again soon.