Transcript: Understanding John 3:16: The Formula for Eternal Life

The Bible is a Christian. At the start of this series on the teachings of Jesus, I said that there's no church on earth that is teaching people to obey Jesus. Nevertheless, there are a handful of verses that Jesus said, which do get a mention in quite a lot of churches. And the one verse that is most widely taught all over the world, the most famous verse in the Bible, is John 3.16. Listen to it. God loved the world so much that he sent his only begotten Son, so that whosoever receives it shall not perish, but have everlasting life. Now, given that this is the most famous verse in the Bible, I expect that a lot, if not most of you spotted that I changed a couple of key words in it. Did you? But I wonder how many of you realize just how horrendous that change was. Let's take a closer look at the verse. It finishes down here with what I will call the gift, and it certainly is an amazing gift. It says that everlasting life has been made available to everyone on earth. What an incredible possibility! It's about the greatest gift that anyone of us could ever hope to receive. Just imagine it, living forever. And up here, at the start of the verse, we see the source of that gift. We are told that God, the creator of life and the creator of the universe loves us humans so much that he sent his son, Jesus, to earth to make such an amazing offer. That would have to be the most reliable source anyone could imagine for such an otherwise impossible gift. If he really is the creator of the universe, then he does have the credentials to enable him to make good on such a promise. How exciting! These two aspects of the verse, the gift and the source, pretty well sum up the greatest news that anyone could ever imagine. Surely, this is the gospel. The word gospel literally means good news, and it's the greatest news the world has ever heard. As an expression of God's love, He has made eternal life available to you, me, and everyone else on this planet. That's what Jesus Christ came to tell us. However, there is a bit in between the source and the gift that often gets overlooked. That's the part I changed. In an attempt to illustrate how seriously such a small change can distort the true meaning of the whole verse I have labeled this pivotal middle part of the verse the condition on which the gift of everlasting life hinges. This condition is the all-important dividing line between those who receive eternal life and those who do not. We can't just run off with a claim that we have eternal life if we haven't, in fact, met the condition for receiving it. So, what is this condition? In my opinion, the real condition is consistently glossed over. Many, if not most, people would have hardly noticed the difference between what I said and what they instinctively picture whenever they hear John 3.16 being quoted correctly. In other words even when the verse is quoted as it is written in the Bible what people actually hear is closer to what I said The misquoted version which appears on your screen at the moment Let's look at what I said. I said that all you have to do to get eternal life, the only condition, is just that you receive it. In other words, the only thing you need to do to receive eternal life, is to receive eternal life. It's just lying out there, free for anyone. No strings attached. Unconditional. You want it? You got it. Have you ever heard that word, receive? Have you ever heard it used in relation to salvation? It goes something like this. Receive Jesus as your personal Savior. You can have eternal life right now. It's as easy as receiving it. Reach out and take it. Nothing to do, nothing to change, nothing to pay. Jesus did it all for you. Go on, it's free. It's yours. Just take it, please. Take it, please. But of course, that is not what the real John 3.16 says, is it? It says that we need to believe Jesus. Let's put the right words in there. That whosoever believeth on him, that's Jesus. That's the part that is missed over and over again, through interpretation, if not in translation. We need to believe Jesus. Truth is that this is a very, very big condition. Preachers everywhere at least imply there's no need to actually even listen to Jesus, much less believe him, as long as you receive him. And people all over the world, including many of you who are listening to me now, almost never go home and open the Bibles to see if Jesus really did say it that way. Let's consider a little more closely this phrase, receive Jesus as your personal Savior. Notice that it is cleverly worded, so that you don't actually have to receive Jesus himself. You just receive a specific part of him. You supposedly receive the part that saves you. In other words, I'm saved because I said I'm saved. Jesus is my Savior because I said he is my Savior. Don't talk to me about anything that he said, because I was told that I didn't need to worry about that part. I only have to believe that he saved me. Some people have argued that you need to receive Jesus as your Lord, too. Now, that's good. I feel much closer to those people and to those churches. But what I have discovered on closer examination is that they never take the time to listen to him either. And they certainly do not teach people to do the sort of things that Jesus taught his disciples to do. Someone else is always calling the shots, telling you what you need to do to prove that Jesus is your Lord. Stop smoking. Stop drinking. Stop doing drugs. Stop using four-letter words. Stop telling dirty jokes. Get a job. Pay your bills. Join a church. Give some of your money to the church, and be respectable. Don't rot the boat. You see how Jesus himself never gets the slightest chance to be heard? The churches today don't really want Jesus meddling with their business. And they pretty sure you don want him meddling with your plans for your life either If you start following any of his commands there no telling where it would stop So there kind of a silent conspiracy to shut up anyone like myself who would try to get you to listen to the real Jesus, the one in the Bible, not the one you supposedly received as your Savior. What they want, and what you want, is eternal life, painlessly and instantly. That part is appealing, and so they keep it in, like they've done with John 3.16. But they tell you that this incredible gift of eternal life is offered absolutely unconditionally to anyone or at least to anyone who follows the rules of their church. So, grab your free ticket and run. Get away from what he actually taught as quickly as you can. And one of the best ways to do that is to go to church. They will never bother you about the things that Jesus taught, and they will give you a hundred reasons why you don't need to take him seriously. For the rest of your life, you will be able to boast that Jesus is your Savior. Why? Because you said he was. You said that you received him as your Savior, and so he has to be your Savior now, whether he likes it or not. But I'm afraid that isn't how it works. Believing Jesus does mean that you will receive him as your Lord. But not just by saying he's your Lord, and not just singing a lot of songs where you call him Lord Lord from start to finish. I mean really making him your new boss, listening to him, and doing anything he asks you to do. Later, when he decides, all the personal Savior stuff can come in his good time. Jesus wants to see evidence that you really do believe him. Not some religious authority who says you don't need to obey him. In a rush to get our free ticket, our entitlement to eternal life the entire church world has trampled all over Jesus. We don't know him. We don't even know what he taught, do we? We could hardly believe what he taught if we haven't taken the time to hear it. All we know is what our religious leaders have told us. Very often, our religious leaders are only parroting what their religious leaders told them. It's been going on for so long now that hardly anyone even thinks to question it. How can you possibly believe someone who you've never listened to? one might as well be saying, God so loved the world that he sent Billy Graham so that whosoever believes Billy Graham or believes the Pope or believes Kenneth Copeland or anyone else teaching this false gospel, whosoever believes them shall not perish but have everlasting life. For certainly it was someone other than Jesus that you listened to and that you believed if you thought you could get eternal life just by saying that you want it and that you receive it without even taking the time to check Jesus out. I hate to rain on your parade, but Jesus never made such an offer. He gives eternal life to whomever he chooses. The choice is not up to you. He is looking for people who will listen to him, people who will believe him even when he makes difficult demands on them. Are you prepared to do that? Jesus said that the way to life is very narrow, and very few people will find it. Whereas the road to hell is wide, and great crowds of people travel on it. I know this is disappointing for many of you but it far better to find that out now than to be hit with it after you die The churches have sold you a phony bill of goods period Until you can recognize that, you will never listen to Jesus and discover what the gospel is really all about. Now, this is the point where the music usually goes all soft and softy. He says, I want every head bowed and every eye closed, no one looking around. And then he asks you to quickly sneak your hand up while no one is looking. Put it up and put it down. And if you do, then you get salvation. Free and easy. They just ask you to say a little prayer, asking Jesus into your heart and accepting Him as your own personal Savior. Well, obviously I'm not going to do that. God's not that desperate. He wants people with some moral backbone. But I am going to ask you to do two things. First, I'm going to ask you to resolve right now that you are not going to go back to your pastor and ask his opinion on this. We already know his opinion. You've known him for some time, and he has not told you that you need to obey Jesus, has he? So trust me, he's not going to tell you to listen to, believe, or obey Jesus now. He'll give you some excuse for not doing it. And the only reason anyone would go back to the pastor at this point would be because you are not prepared to put Jesus first. Okay, so that's the first decision I'm asking you to make. Listen to Jesus, and not to your pastor. Shocking, I know, but vitally necessary. And the second thing I'm going to ask you to do is to get your Bible out and read through the four Gospels. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, all by yourself, over and over if necessary, and with a pen and paper nearby. Collect at least a few dozen things that Jesus told his followers to do. They won't be easy. I still struggle with a lot of them myself. But as you go through them, ask God for the courage to at least try to practice the things that he told his followers to do. If you can do that, then it's much more likely to result in you making a genuine decision to follow Jesus without me or any other human mediator getting in the way. If you would like some encouragement, please contact me. Let me know what you've decided. I'll do what I can to encourage you not to give up on that decision. I think you'll find that when you start moving closer to God in that way, he'll start moving closer to you. you'll begin to experience a transformation in your spirit that will cause you to see just about everything in a whole new way. Think about the context of John 3.16. Jesus was talking to a religious man named Nicodemus. Jesus challenged him, because Nicodemus' religion had not led him into a personal relationship with God. It wasn't just Nicodemus' special problem, however. It's yours too. Forget religion and get things straight between you and the only begotten Son of God. It's over to you now. Your decision. Not an easy one, but if you can meet that all-important condition in the middle of the verse that is believing Jesus and no one else, you shall not perish, but you will have everlasting life. Just trust Jesus and you won't go wrong. And that's the Gospel truth.