THE LENGTH AND LIMITS OF LOVE In Length and Limits of Love Part III we endeavored from John 21 to show how the Bible uses our two main words for "Love", AGAPE and PHILE in the dialog between Jesus and Peter at verses 15-17 to fulfill the prophetic words of our Lord in Luke 22 when He told Peter that he was the one chosen to "Strengthen the brethren" on the day of Pentecost. In that portion, along with I Corinthians 16:22, we established the striking difference between the two words this way: AGAPE, is "a love based upon the inherent worth of the object from the viewpoint of the lover" This is not to say there really is something inherently worthy in the object, but only that the lover sees something worthy. We saw that PHILE is "a love based upon an experiential knowledge of the person loved". In the John 21 passage, Jesus twice asks Peter if his love is based upon Who Jesus Is. Peter twice responds that it is from three years of active experiential witness that he truly loves the Lord. Jesus in the third inquiry uses PHILE, and thereby relieves Peter from the terrible burden caused by his threefold denial just after the Lord's arrest. In this issue I want to continue showing the Lengths and some of the Limits of love primarily in John's writings. For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, My interpretation of this verse must of necessity be detailed and somewhat technical from the linguistic side and will no doubt be quite different from what you normally read or hear. All I ask is that you seriously pay attention to what I write and if you argue against it, please do so from Scripture. My main objective will be to show that in 3:16, John is not describing the way things are at that point in time when Jesus is speaking to Nicodemus, but rather he is explaining God's original motivation for sending His Son. This motive is realized way back in John 1:1, and the consequences of Christ's arrival and rejection is explained in John 1:11-12. These verses must color our view of John 3:16 and of course John's Epistles. By observing the tense of the four verbs and one participle in John 3:16, you will see that John is not telling us that God presently loves the world, but only that love was the motive at whatever time He did send His Son. That is a very large difference. John says "For God so loved the world". The Greek verb "loved" is in the Aorist Active Indicative, and refers to "Point action in past time". It says nothing about the present. It cannot possibly be made to say that God presently loves the world in 2008, nor that he loved the world when 3:16 was written! John continues; "That He gave His only begotten Son" Again the verb "gave" is Aorist Active Indicative, point action in past time i.e. the time referred to in John 1:11. "That whosoever believeth in him". Here "believeth" is a Greek Participle, and may be defined as present, active, nominative, masculine, singular. That is a mouthful, but very significant, as shown in my paraphrase below. "Should not perish" This is a Subjunctive verb, with the subjunctive indicating "potential" realization, i.e. that the one believing does not have to perish. "But have everlasting life" This verb is Present Active Subjunctive, and further offers to the one believing the prospect that he may have everlasting life. Now I paraphrase John 3:16 to get the information from the previous paragraph: "For God so loved (Prior to sending His Son) the world (Including his creation and created people) that he gave (Recorded in John 1:1-14) his only begotten son that whosoever is believing (at this present time) in him, should not (need not) perish, but have (may have) everlasting life" So when or to what in the past is John 3:16 referring? Obviously to chapter one, because that is where the sending of the Sent One is recorded. I paraphrase Verse 1; In the beginning was the Word as He existed before the Incarnation. This Word was with God, and was God. Verse 3; He was the creator of all things. see Col.. 1:16, 17. But O my, look at verse 10; He was in the world, His world, made by Him, and the world did not know Him! To grasp the remainder of my message, you must understand verse 11. He came into His own, "his own" is the translation of the Greek word IDIA which is the Neuter form of the adjective, and is properly translated "His own things". He came into that which was His by Creation and Divine right. But His own received him not. This second "his own" is IDIOI which is the Masculine form of the adjective and is properly translated "His own people". This tells us that His own people, the Jewish establishment, did not receive Him. This is a sad situation. Most of those to whom he was sent to deliver from their sins ended up rejecting Him and finally crucifying Him, thus remaining in their sins. But thanks be to God for verse 12. But as many as DID receive Him, to them (that’s us) He gave the power (read "authority" EXOUSIA) to become the sons (read "children" TEKNA) of God. And He limits it to "Those who believe on His name". So then, I have proved that John 3:16 does not mean that God currently loves everyone, but rather based upon all the information from John 1:1 through 3:36, only those who believe in that precious Gift of His Son who in 1:14 "Becomes flesh and dwells among us". Everyone has the potential to move from under His wrath and come under His love, for He is not willing that any should perish, But that all should come to repentance, II Peter 3:9, where the same Greek word is used for "perish" that is in John 3:16. And they must come to repentance if they would make His salvation effectual. I now want to nail John 3:16 down even further by proving that contrary to what you may have heard, God does not love the world any more either! I have never understood why people would want to insist that God still loves the world. He goes out of His way to teach us that this old world is beyond repair, and that we are to escape from it by the New Birth until He takes us out of it. The English word "World" occurs some 80 times in John's Gospel, all but one of them are the word KOSMOS . John 9:32 is the exception where the word AION is used and should be translated as "Age" and not world. In 7:7 the works of this world are said to be "evil". In 8:23, 17:14, 15, 16 neither Jesus nor believers are of this world. In 17:9 Jesus does not pray for the world. In 15:19 the world loves (PHILE by experiential knowledge) it's own (IDIOS the singular of the same word as we saw in John 1:11). In 18:36, the very important teaching that His Kingdom is not of this world. Cf. Phil. 3:20. If the references to the world in John's Gospel are not enough to teach us what God thinks, we certainly ought to take him serious in his First Epistle where this same Greek word KOSMOS occurs 22 times, I John 5:19 telling us that the whole world lies in wickedness. But I want to zero in on I John 2:15-17. But before I do, please be aware that I am limiting my examination of God's love or lack of love for the world to the same author who wrote the Gospel. I do so because John uses exactly the same terms for Love and World in his Epistles that he has used in his Gospel. Every occurrence of "Love" in I John is AGAPE, and every occurrence of "World" is KOSMOS. So we dare not try to make the words in the Gospel have different meanings than those in the Epistle. Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, Does it sound reasonable to you that God would still love the world but tell his believing children who are given the responsibility for declaring to the world His salvation from the world that they must not love the world ? This is similar to telling people that God loves you but He hates your sin. Not so! He loved you enough to send His Son, but until you turn to Him in Faith, Believing what God has done in Christ for your Salvation, you are under nothing but his wrath. Once again, see John 3:16, 18 and 36. Remember, it is not the sinner's sin that goes to hell, but the sinner! I John 2:15-17 is too clear and horrifying to ignore. It says that if anyone loves the world, or the things that are in the world, described as the lust of the flesh, or the lust of the eyes, or the pride of life, all of which I do not have time to review just now, then that person is loving things that have nothing to do with our Heavenly Father, and it proves that the love of the Father is not in him. Folks, I am not tickling ears here. I am deeply concerned that much of the Church of Jesus Christ in our day and in our Country has not laid hold on the importance of Holiness, Sanctification, Dedication, Separation, Faith and Obedience to the Word. The length of the love that God demonstrated in order to save you from the World, the Flesh and the Devil is beyond our comprehension. That the love of God has almost no limits is true, but there are some. I always remember the Rich Young Ruler and how Jesus looked at him and LOVED HIM, all to no avail because the world of riches had hold of him. It is he that does the will of God that abides forever Pastor Hayden
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