Just Believe! (3:16-21)

JOHN 3:16-21 "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God…

JOHN 3:16-21 …And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God."

JOHN 3:18a (vs. 18a) – Whoever believes in him is not condemned… (v. 16) – whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

MacArthur The free offer of the gospel is broad enough to include the worst sinner who believes …(and) the gospel is narrow enough to exclude the most moral, religious unbeliever.

Elements of Saving Faith… Cognitive BELIEF Confident TRUST Committed OBEDIENCE The Inevitable Result Verifies 1 & 2 Above

JOHN 3:36 Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him. Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life

Morris That person no longer keeps open the possibility that Jesus might be the Son of God and the Savior of the world. Unbelief is the atmosphere in which he lives. He knows of Christianity as a way of life some people choose, but for him it is irrelevant. He knows that Christians talk about faith, but for him it is just a word…

Morris He is not really interested, and he certainly does not know what it is to trust in the sense in which Christians trust Christ. That for him is totally unknown territory. He lives in unbelief, continuing unbelief. He wants nothing else and accordingly he gets nothing else.

CJ Wright Sill, as of old, Man by himself is priced. For thirty pieces Judas sold Himself, not Christ

Morris At a time when our Lord is calling us to be his servants and to stand up for Him in the middle fo a generation that is all too often materialistic, secular, racist, insensitive, unloving, sensual, and just plain selfish, all too often we simply go our own way. We choose our particular piece of darkness and love it so much that we refuse to come out into the light of the gospel of Christ...

Morris …By that refusal we wrote our own binding sentence of condemnation, for “Still, as of old, Man by himself is priced”

MacArthur If you go to hell, you’re going to be sent there, not for something you did, but for what you didn’t do, and it’s BELIEVE in the Lord Jesus Christ.

JOHN 3:19a And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light…

JOHN 1:4-5 In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

JOHN 3:19b-20 …because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed

JOHN 3:21 But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God."