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Summary
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” (John 3:16 KJV)
That must be the most quoted Bible verse in Modern Evangelical America. It’s a stunningly beautiful verse that can turn into an absolutely horrifying threat when quoted by someone trying to get their own way at the end of a sermon. Let me be clear: There is no eternal life without “belief,” but what is “belief” and “whosoever believes”?
Is “belief” an emotional thing, a logical deduction, or right theology, ritual, or deed? “To believe” in Greek is the verbal form of the noun that is normally translated “faith,” and both mean trust. If you trust that someone is Good and good to you, you naturally do what they say.
Charles Blondin crossed Niagara Falls on a tightrope around 300 times in the mid-19th century. On one occasion, he crossed with a wheelbarrow. Thousands of adoring fans greeted him on the American side. He asked, “Do you believe that I can cross back over with someone in the wheelbarrow?” They chanted “We believe! We believe! We believe!” He then quieted the crowd and asked, “So, who will get in the wheelbarrow?” No one said a word.
As I heard the story, one man finally did — his manager. (We know that at least once he crossed on Blondin’s back, for we have pictures.) So, would you get in the wheelbarrow? If so, that would be trust, faith, and belief in Charles Blondin.
In John 12, on Palm Sunday, thousands of adoring fans greeted Jesus in Jerusalem. Then John writes, “Though he had done so many signs before them, they still did not believe… they could not believe.”
“God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believes…”
If God’s gift is a test of my ability to believe, and failure means not only falling 200 feet into the Niagara River but endless conscious torment at the hands of the God that I’m supposed to trust, then the last thing I’m able to do is trust that God.
But maybe John 3:16 is not a threat but a promise? And maybe we should read it in context?
John 3:1-3, “Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. This man came to Jesus by night and said to him, ‘Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him.’ Jesus answered him, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born [and or “begotten”] again [and or “from above, anew”] he cannot see the kingdom of God.’”
Nicodemus is afraid. He had seen “signs”; he’s beginning to wake from the illusion of his own control. If we believe what John has already told us — that “In the beginning was the Word… all things were made through him” — then all of space and time exist like a thought in the mind of God, and Jesus is that thought. Do you see what this means?
It means that God is not asking you to get into the wheelbarrow; it means that you are, and always have been, in the wheelbarrow. If you wake up in the wheelbarrow on the tightrope, 200 feet above the Niagara River, and do not trust the one holding the wheelbarrow, you’ll freak out, pass out, and maybe burst into flames.
Faith isn’t payment for salvation; faith is the ability to endure salvation who is the Presence of God, the face of God, the One you long for: Jesus. He’s the one holding the wheelbarrow. When John saw Him on the island of Patmos in Revelation chapter one, he dropped as though dead until Jesus bent down and touched him, saying, “I am the first and the last… We went fishing together, I even let you pretend to be my manager — John, it’s your friend, Jesus.”
John 3:4, “Unless one is born of water and Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘Y’all must [not ‘may,’ but ‘must’] be born [and begotten] again [from above].”
Have you been “born again”? Do you feel “born again?” It seems the first time was a rather dramatic and significant event. Perhaps you have been begotten (conceived) but must still be born?
Scripture tells us that Jesus is “the firstborn of all creation, firstborn from the dead, firstborn of many brethren (and sistren).” Which clearly implies that as Jesus speaks to Nicodemus in the dark in John 3, the Unborn Firstborn is speaking to the Unborn Must Be Born, saying, “Nick you’re terrified to die, and you haven’t even been born.”
Being born is terrifying. I’ve witnessed it four times and appear to have blocked out the memory of my own birth. Just imagine: You’re floating in a warm Jacuzzi, everything you need supplied by this amazing umbilical cord — it’s actually a part of you, the part that attaches you to your womb world, your water filled womb world. Suddenly, all your security turns into insecurity, your control into an illusion. Your entire world turns against you. Travail crushes you, forcing you to expire one world that you might inspire a new world, one of spirit, wind, breath (all one word in Greek and Hebrew).
Imagine being a twin in the womb, watching the birth of your brother. You would wonder, “Is there life after birth? Is there such a thing as a mother?” Imagine John at the cross on Good Friday.
When my firstborn was born after 24 hours of hard labor, he was bruised and battered. His head had been pressed into a cone. He wouldn’t stop screaming. The nurse cleaned him up and placed him in my arms, and he wouldn’t stop screaming. He was terrified. It was as if he’d been dreaming the most pleasant dream and suddenly woke up in a wheelbarrow on a tightrope 200 feet above the Niagara River. The nurse said, “Speak to him; he knows your voice.” I did. And instantly he grew still; he knew he was at home. I thought, “How did he know my voice? How did he come to have faith in me? How can these things be?”
John 3:9-12, “Nicodemus said to him, ‘How can these things be?’ Jesus answered him… ‘If I have told you earthly things and you did not believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things?’”
How did my son know my voice? I used to speak to my wife’s belly every evening. Imagine: when I spoke, everything in Jonathan’s world would move, vibrating to the sound of my voice. And yet, I was not a thing in his world. Are there things in this world that cannot be explained by this world? How about Reason (Logos), Truth, Beauty (Goodness), Life, and Love? Perhaps they’re signs of another world, and the fact that you can recognize those signs testifies to the fact that you are being made for that other world.
If a baby could reason in the womb, it would surely wonder “What are these hands, eyes, mouth, and lungs for? They’re useless in my womb world. The only thing that matters is this amazing Cord.”
“God is Love,” wrote John, “And he who loves is born of God and knows God.” That thing that knows and trusts Love, that loves Love, who is our Father, is called “faith.” Jonathan had faith in me although I had never been a thing in his entire world.
Well, as we were rejoicing that Jon was with us, and as he was screaming in terror, the most horrific, gross and disgusting thing came out of my wife. And it was attached to that cord, the Umbilical Cord: It was the Placenta — the amniotic sack that had actually been my son’s entire world.
I know that we think the selves (psyches) that we have created and the world that we have constructed are pretty cool, but one day — after birth — I think we’ll look back at them lying in the valley of Gehenna and say, “eww, yuck… gross” (see Isaiah 66:23-24). Those things are what we have done, but you and I are what God has done and is doing.
My son knew my voice, for it came to him every day as a word that made everything move, and he recognized my voice, for he is my own flesh. Faith is the revelation that God is trustworthy. And faith is the trust that receives the revelation. Faith in you is Christ in you.
John 3:16-17, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son (Didn’t Jesus just tell us that we must be begotten and become sons? And yet Jesus is the “only begotten son”?) that whoever believes [literally “that all the believing,” which can mean “whoever believes” or “everyone, believing” or both] may not be lost, but have the life of the age to come. For God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world (not some of the world) might be saved through him.”
God knows that “the adam (humanity)” does not have faith. It is why each of us is “not good” and “alone.” God in Christ Jesus did not die on the tree in the garden to see whether or not you have faith; God in Christ Jesus gave His life on the tree in the garden so that you would have faith.
John 3:21, “The one doing the Truth comes to the Light that it may be clearly seen that his works have been worked in God.”
In the dark, Nicodemus came to the Light, for the Light was already shining in his own tomb. John tells us that it was Nicodemus who went with Joseph of Arimathea and asked Pilate for the body of Jesus, so that, like a seed, they could place it in the tomb by the tree in the garden on the Holy Mountain.
He sought Jesus, for from the foundation of the world, Jesus had been seeking him. And you seek Jesus… That’s not a threat; that’s the Promise in you. That’s the Gospel.