No one will escape their sin’s condemnation unless they lift their eyes to the crucified Savior and entrust their salvation to the risen Lord Jesus. Continuing his sermon series in John, today R.C. Sproul proclaims the gospel from one of the most famous—and most distorted—passages of Scripture. Get R.C. Sproul’s commentary on the gospel of John for your donation of any amount: https://gift.renewingyourmind.org/3732/john-commentary Learn more about the gospel, the good news of salvation found in Jesus Christ alone: Meet Today’s Teacher: R.C. Sproul (1939–2017) was known for his ability to winsomely and clearly communicate deep, practical truths from God’s Word. He was founder of Ligonier Ministries, first minister of preaching and teaching at Saint Andrew’s Chapel, first president of Reformation Bible College, and executive editor of Tabletalk magazine. Meet the Host: Nathan W. Bingham is vice president of ministry engagement for Ligonier Ministries, executive producer and host of Renewing Your Mind, host of the Ask Ligonier podcast, and a graduate of Presbyterian Theological College in Melbourne, Australia. Nathan joined Ligonier in 2012 and lives in Central Florida with his wife and four children. Renewing Your Mind is a donor-supported outreach of Ligonier Ministries. Explore all of our podcasts: https://www.ligonier.org/podcasts
Are you one of those that gets angry when you hear there's only one way to God? The question is, why should there be one, not why is there only one? It's why is there one at all? Well, God loves the world enough to send the only one. He doesn't love the world enough to say you can ignore the only one.
You have heard that complaint, haven't you? That it's not fair that there's only one way. That it's arrogant for the Christian to make that claim. But it's not arrogant. It's the truth. And it's a loving thing to tell a fallen sinner. Hi, I'm Nathan W. Bingham, and welcome to the Sunday edition of Renewing Your Mind.
As we come to the final sermon in this short series from John's Gospel, we continue Jesus' conversation with Nicodemus, in which he tells him that the Son of Man must be lifted up. And we come to the famous and often misunderstood text, John 3.16. As this is the final time that we'll be in, John, it's also the final day that you can request R.C. Sproul's commentary on John.
Before midnight tonight, give a year-end gift of any amount in support of Renewing Your Mind at renewingyourmind.org, and we'll get this hardcover volume to you as our way of saying thank you. Every gift between now and December 31st makes a difference and will be used to help fuel the global outreach of Ligonier Ministries. Well, here's Dr. Sproul in John chapter 3.
Now, Jesus, in this discussion with Nicodemus, uses this title, Son of Man. And He's saying to Nicodemus, Nicodemus, you're talking to the One who has come down from heaven. You are talking to the Son of Man in person, and you don't understand these basic truths that my Father has revealed in the Old Testament.
And now after having this claim, he answers the question that Nicodemus had raised, how can these things be? And Jesus now directs him back to the pages of the Old Testament when He says in verse 14, as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.
Well, this reference back to an event that took place in the wilderness experience with the Israelites in the Old Testament is recorded for us in the book of Numbers. In Numbers chapter 21, beginning at verse 4, then they journeyed from Mount Hor by the way of the Red Sea to go around the land of Edom. And the soul of the people became very discouraged along the way. Does that sound familiar?
That's the daily description of the attitude of the children of Israel during the wilderness experience. And so the people spoke against God and against Moses. saying, why have you brought us out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? There's no food, no water, and our soul loathes this worthless bread.
And so the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people, and many of the people of Israel died. You get the picture. God has delivered these people from slavery, from bondage. He's now provided for their physical needs supernaturally with the manna on the floor.
And now these people are so ungrateful that they begin to speak against God and they speak against Moses and they say, why have you brought us out of Egypt? Why have you brought us to this terrible place, this dreadful wilderness, terrible desert with this stinking manna that has become loathsome to us? that we have to collect every day in order to live.
And so God responds to this rebellion of His people by sending a plague on them. This time the plague's not against the Egyptians, it's against them. He sends an infestation of poisonous snakes whose venom is described as being like fire. I mean, I don't know if you've ever contemplated this particular episode in redemptive history.
I can't think of a few things that are worse than imagining being just thrown into a pit of vipers where all around me are these fiery serpents, one bite of which can be fatal. It's something like out of the Raiders of the Lost Ark when you begin to graphically understand what's going on here. Therefore, the people came to Moses and said, we've made some bad choices here.
That's the way the next edition of the New Testament will be in our culture. We have sinned, and we have spoken against the Lord. Moses, we've spoken against you. So please pray to the Lord that He will take away these serpents from us." And so Moses prayed for the people.
And the Lord said to Moses, "'Make a fiery serpent, set it on a pole, and it shall be that everyone who is bitten when he looks at it shall live.'" So Moses made a bronze serpent, put it on a pole, And so it was, if a serpent had bitten anyone, when he looked at the bronze serpent, he lived.
Now what's left unstated in this narrative is the number of people who in their death agony, in the throes of their terror and pain inflicted by these serpents, who died anyway.
They were so preoccupied with their own circumstances that when God gave them a way of escape, when God instructed Moses to make this bronze serpent, attach it to a pole, lift it up in the middle of the camp, and said simply, if anyone wants healing, if anyone wants redemption from this plague, if anyone wants rescue from my judgment, from my wrath, let them simply look at this
and they will be healed. The implication of the text, ladies and gentlemen, is that some looked and some didn't. But now Jesus is listening to Nicodemus, and Nicodemus is listening to this discussion about a second birth and the kingdom of God and seeing the kingdom and entering the kingdom, and Nicodemus says, how can this happen? And Jesus said,
What happened to those people in the Old Testament who were bitten by those serpents? He said, just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up. Usually, the primary understanding of being lifted up in Scripture is to be exalted. Lift up your hearts. Lift up your voices. Lift up your hands.
All the way through the Old Testament liturgy of worship, the idea of exaltation, the idea of glorification is communicated with this idea of being lifted up. And so Jesus says, just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so now must the Son of Man be lifted up. And we could easily see the end of that statement simply to mean, so must I be exalted. So must I be glorified.
Because that's what it's going to take to accomplish this kingdom that I've just announced to you. But when Jesus uses this phrase, lifted up, I think He certainly does mean that nobody's going to get into the kingdom of God who does not exalt Christ. He must lift Him up.
But Jesus is speaking more directly to what has to happen for people to enter into His kingdom, that He must be lifted up upon a cross. that He must be the substitute serpent, if you will. He has to take upon Himself the sting of death. He has to take upon Himself the poison of sin on the cross.
So there's little doubt in the minds of the commentators that when Jesus says to Nicodemus that I, the Son of Man, must be lifted up even as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, that He's referring not simply to His glorification and His exaltation, but He's referring primarily to the cross. Because we are people, ladies and gentlemen, who are snakebit.
who have a poison that goes into the depth of our souls in our fallen humanity. And our only hope is the cross. And that's why when we come into the sanctuary, our mind is on the cross and on the one who was lifted up for us and for our sin. That's your answer, Nicodemus. Just like Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must I, the Son of Man, be lifted up.
And then he goes on to say what? That whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life. Now, there's something significant about the word order here. in John 3.15, that whoever believes in Him should have eternal life? No. But first what is stated is the negative. Whoever believes in the One who is lifted up won't perish.
Do you see how that draws the parallel exactly from the situation in the wilderness? These people who were bitten by these poisonous snakes were going to die. They were in a predicament where they were bent on perishing. And so the remedy that God gave was a remedy to preserve them from certain destruction. And what Jesus is saying here to Nicodemus is, we're in that same state by nature.
that apart from Christ, apart from the cross, we are as exposed to perishing and destruction as those people were who were bitten by deadly snakes. Jesus is saying, as many who believe on Me, they won't perish, just as those in the Old Testament did not perish if they looked. to the bronze serpent.
Now in verse 16, for God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, and whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. This surely is the most famous verse in the New Testament, John 3.16. It's probably the most distorted verse in all of the New Testament as well.
because people who love the universality of this verse hate the particularity of this verse, and let me show that to you. It begins by saying something about the love of God and the object of God's affection. God so loved what? The world. Now let me finish this for you according to contemporary understandings of John 3.16.
God so loved the world that He gave Christ and saves everybody in the world. People draw from this text a doctrine of universal salvation, that God loves the world so much He saves everybody. But obviously that's not what the text says. And those who are particularists and Arminian say that God loved the world enough to provide a way of salvation for everybody in it.
Let's get rid of this election business and predestination doctrine. John 3 doesn't say that either. What John 3 says is that God's love is so deep and so profound, He loved the world enough to send His only begotten Son. Now let me tell you what this doesn't mean. He did not love the world enough to send five saviors. Buddha, Mohammed, Confucius,
And yet our culture tells us that if God were really loving, He would provide avatars galore, that He would provide a smorgasbord of salvation where everybody can believe their own religion and it's okay because God loves the whole world enough that He's not so narrow-minded, not so exclusive that He requires faith in Christ. Because doesn't the Bible say that God loves the world?
Yes, the Bible said He loves the world, and He loves the world how much? Enough to send His monogenes, enough to send His one and only Son. I warn people that at the end of their life, if they stand before God, they better not say, God, why were You not loving enough? to provide fifteen saviors. I say to people, consider this scenario. Suppose that there actually is a God in heaven.
And suppose this God in heaven created the whole world and everybody in it. And suppose among the birds and the fish and the animals, He gave the most exalted position in all of creation to this one to whom He gives His image called human beings. And He says to them, you will be holy even as I am holy. And suppose 15 minutes after He makes them, they revolt against Him.
After He says, if you do this, you will die, and they do that, and He said, well, I'll tell you what, I'm going to provide a way to escape that judgment. And he speaks to Abraham out of paganism, brings him to himself, says, I'm going to make you the father of a great nation.
Suppose he does that, and then he blesses all of the descendants of Abraham and then expands to a whole nation and says, through this nation I'm going to bless the whole world. But this nation repeatedly turns against God. And so God sends prophets to these people and tells them to come back to Him, to come back to Him as an unfaithful spouse returns to their partner, and they kill the prophets.
And then finally, this God says, I'll tell you what, I love you so much that even though you are stiff-necked people, I'm going to send my eternal, only begotten Son into this planet, and I'm going to subject Him to you. And He sends His Son. And the people rise up against His Son and crucify Him.
And yet God loves them enough in all of this that while they're in the act of killing them, God takes the sins of His people and transfers them to His own Son and said, look, if you'll put your trust in Him, if you'll confess your sins and you believe in Him, if you turn your gaze upon Jesus and you do that, here's what. No death. no punishment.
I'm going to give you eternal life with no pain, no tears, no evil, no darkness. Now, suppose He did that. Would you have the guts to come up to God and say, God, you haven't done enough for this world that hates you? Are you one of those that gets angry when you hear there's only one way to God? The question is why should there be one, not why is there only one? It's why is there one at all?
Well, God loves the world enough to send the only one. He doesn't love the world enough to say you can ignore the only one. We need to understand that. because everything out there in that culture says, if God only provides one way of salvation, one savior, then God doesn't really love the world.
But think about the depths of the love that God has displayed by giving us Christ, whose name is not worthy to be mentioned in the same breath
with that of Mohammed or Buddha or Confucius or anybody else because God has one Son who from all eternity beheld the glory of the Father and yet came from the bosom of the Father to be lifted up on a cross that anyone who puts their trust in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.
God didn't send His Son into the world in order to condemn the world, but the world through Him might be saved. And he who believes is not condemned, but he who does not believe is condemned already. If you do not put your faith and trust in Christ, you are like one of those people writhing on the desert floor in the wilderness in the Old Testament who's been bit by a snake and
and there's no pole for you to look at, you will die and you will perish in your sins if you do not embrace the One whom God has sent. He who does not believe is condemned already because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. Why does this seem severe?
This is the condemnation, we are told, that the light has come into the world, but men love the darkness rather than the light because their deeds were evil. For everyone practicing evil hates the light, doesn't come to the light. lest his deeds should be exposed. But he who does the truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be clearly seen, that they have been done in God." Do you get it?
This is our natural state. We're in the darkness, and there's nothing that terrifies us more than the appearance of light. But Jesus is introduced as the light of the world in the very first chapter of this gospel, and this light shines into the darkness. It shines into people who are groveling in pain, who are perishing in their sin, who love the darkness because their deeds are evil.
We are by nature, beloved, children of darkness. It is against the nature of a child of darkness to come to the light because we know what the light represents. It represents exposure. It represents humiliation. You know about the man who sent a letter to 25 guys in town. All has been exposed. Flee at once. And 25 men left town. What would happen if you got a letter like that? All is exposed.
Flee at once. Even as Christians, we still have that tug at our heart where we look for that place to hide in the darkness rather than seeking the light of Christ. God said, this is my condemnation. I sent the light, but you didn't want the light. But all who are of the light, who come to the light, who embrace the light, will not perish but have everlasting life.
In a nutshell, that's the gospel that was heard by Nicodemus in the darkness of the night.
And what good news that is. This is the Sunday edition of Renewing Your Mind, and that was R.C. Sproul concluding a short series in the Gospel of John. If you'd like to study the Gospel more or get a resource to share with a friend, you can request a free copy of Dr. Sproul's book, What is the Gospel? at renewingyourmind.org slash gospel.
2024 has almost come to a close, which means we're about to usher in a new year of gospel outreach, and we need your support. We have plans to expand the reach of Renewing Your Mind, get more study Bibles into the hands of global pastors. Did you know that 95% of global pastors have no formal training?
And continue producing resources to serve this next generation so that they're grounded in the truth of God's Word. When you give a gift or an additional gift, large or small, at renewingyourmind.org, we'll send you Dr. Sproul's line-by-line commentary through John's Gospel as our way of saying thank you. This is the final time we'll be offering this volume.
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