John 3:16, The Depth of It

Depth of Scripture

The depth of one passage can hit on a wonderful level, and this one passage gives us the totality of the Gospel.  This one phrase tells us so much, but we have to really go beyond just the surface.

"God so loved the world..", let's start with that.  He so loved, not just loved, but so loved, a love beyond anything we could imagine, phantom.  What is the action he takes in manifesting and showing this love? "that he have his one and only Son.." His word became flesh, being both human and divine, perfect, spotless, willing to be a physical visible presence amongst us.  Why do this?   Why this action of love on the part of both the Father and the Son? Remember Jesus said that he willingly was giving his life for us.  "that whoever believes in him might have eternal life and not perish"  Once we believe, we accept him, let him in, develop a relationship with him, we enter into eternal life as we are seen by God through the eyes of Jesus, who died for us to pay the price for all sinners, to have victory over sin and Satan, thus giving that to us by his resurrection.  Not only in the afterlife, but we have now life here, true life and freedom that can be ours in the sanctification process, via the Holy Spirit, once we have accepted Christ, his completed work at the Cross as the source of all our faith, salvation, the whole enchilada.  We don't perish because when we understand sin, the sin nature, have a relationship with Christ, and are then sanctified, the ravages of sin and they are numerous on a spiritual, emotional, financial, and physical level, but our soul wont be dammed to hell for eternal torment knowing we are separated from God, from the light, from paradise, realizing when it's too late just how foolish we were.  In this one verse we find the holistic teaching of the Bible.  If we just look at it literally, we miss much, and we miss the truth of God, his love, mercy, but also the wages of sin, that there is a heaven, but also a hell. 

We miss a lot if we just skim over the Bible, and don't seek holistically,  always with the Message of the Cross as the cornerstone, the Biblical truth as a whole, not just taking what we like from it and ignoring what is uncomfortable, like damnation and hell, both very real.

Shalom and Amen.