BOUNDLESS LOVE

“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that “whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting “life”. John 3:16.

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This verse does not refer to Calvary but to God’s Love. It is a revelation of the character of God. Jesus foretold His death on the Cross in verse 14 and this scripture tells us why he had to die upon the Cross. It was because “God so loved”. The verse may be divided into four distinct parts.

1. The ORIGIN OF LOVE. God. It was the love which is in God and the love which is God that produced Calvary. God is love. That is His nature. God could not reveal His love any other way but through reconciliation. “God commendeth His love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Romans 5.8. Love springs forth from God for He is the source of love.

2. The OBJECT OF LOVE. The world. “God so loved the world”. The world was created by God through Jesus Christ. The world is God’s by creative right. By sin, and because of sin, it refused to serve or honour Him. Yet He loved it. Not only the people in it but His whole creation. And because “God so loved the world” He redeemed it after the fall. So we have our third part.

3. The OBLATION OF LOVE. True love is not selfish in its works. Love sacrifices. The greater the love the greater the sacrifices it will make. And “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son”. His greatest treasure – that which He loved beyond all things else beside He gave to the world and for the world. If you could measure God’s love for Jesus – and it is infinite – then you could measure God’s love for you.

4. The ORDINANCE OF LOVE. “That whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life”. The ordinance of that immeasurable love extends to all mankind. “Whosoever believeth”. Not “whosoever is” but “whosoever believeth. The emphatic assurance of eternal Life being the portion of such believers is established by the use of the Hebrew idiom – a negative and a positive statement in one. “Shall not perish”. That is the negative. “BUT have everlasting Life”. That is the contrasting positive. No one believing this – no one receiving this, can ever doubt the security of a recipient of God’s gift of love. It is a “so love”. A love which is inexpressible by finite words because it springs from an infinite source. It bestows an infinite gift on every believer which lasts through infinite ages because of God’s infinite love.

And this infinite capacity of God’s love is expressed in the soul that loves Jesus; for Jesus is God’s love made manifest, the gift of God’s love to man.

Leslie Barrowcliff.

13.8.1941