Tuesday, December 1, 2015

John 3:36

Dr. Ronnie Wolfe

This is one of the greatest verses in the Bible, if there is such a thing--they are all God's word. The statements made in this verse are in negative correlation, which means that one statement is positive and one is negative, together making a full statement of the condition of man whether saved or lost.

The First Statement - Positive
He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life.  This statement is simple and straightforward. The person who is believing (believeth) on the Son (believing, a gift from God, Eph. 2:8-9) hath (has) everlasting life.

By the grace of God a person must believe on the Son, Jesus Christ, as the object of his faith. He must have a complete surrender to and a commitment to the Son, depending upon His character and His work done in his righteous life and his ignominious death as our substitute, suffering in our place, the just for the unjust (1 Peter 3:18), that he might bring us to God. This is eternal life, and every true believer in Jesus Christ has everlasting life (Rom. 8:1). This life, then, never ends but is eternal in its nature, because it is dependent upon the eternal life of its object, Jesus Christ, who said, "before Abraham was I am" (John 8:58), and he was "before all things" (Col. 1:17).

The Second Statement - Negative
. . . and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him.  The man who is lost in his sins, and never comes to know that he has broken God's law, does not believe on the Son, so he shall not see life, for Christ is the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father but by me. (John 14:6).

A lost person cannot see life, because he is in darkness (See Matt. 4:16). Not only so, but he is blinded (John 12:40; 2 Cor. 4:4; 1 John 2:11).

Through God's grace, faith opens the minds of the spiritually blind and allows them to see the kingdom of God (John 3:3) and to enter into the straight gate (Matt. 7:13) to serve the living God (Heb. 9:14). This is what believing is all about.

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