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God Sent His Son - 1 John
God Sent His Son - 1 John
Why Jesus? While listening to a series of bible lessons, the teacher asked the class ‘Why did Jesus come to earth?”. Interestingly, there were several answers that in fact were correct, almost direct quotes from the New Testament. The teacher was looking for a different answer and dismissed the answers as ‘wrong’. He then quoted another verse that also was correct. BUT, he then developed the whole series of lessons from THIS quote, and, since the other quotes didn’t fit the scheme of this series, he made it appears as if this was THE purpose. But the truth is, Jesus came for a multitude of reasons that are all connected in the Bible story!
For example, in John’s epistles, he actually answers this question several different times in different ways, and all of them are TRUE.
9 By this the love of God was manifested in us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him. (1 John 4:9)
Because of sin, death entered the world. We all have sinned and hence were not only appointed to physical death, but were spiritually dead unto God (cp. Heb. 9;27 and Eph. 2:1-2). In Christ, we have been made alive. In Christ we look forward to the resurrection of the body. Because of Christ, we will not be hurt by the 2nd and eternal death.
10 In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. (1 John 4:10)
Propitiation is to turn away wrath. Because of sin, God in righteousness was angry. Thus Paul stated that “the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, (Romans 1:18). Jesus offered himself as the perfect sinless sacrifice for sin and through that, the wrath of God was turned away. Instead of wrath, we now find peace, mercy, grace, and love.
14 We have seen and testify that the Father has sent the Son to be the Savior of the world. (1 John 4:14)
He is the savior of the world in that He died for ‘the world’, hence ‘whosoever’ will may come, ‘as many as’ put their trust in him may be saved.
5 You know that He appeared in order to take away sins; and in Him there is no sin. (1 John 3:5)
Hence, yet again but in different words, we are saved through the death of Jesus in that through death he ‘took away our sins’. They were forgiven, removed, blotted out. We are declared to be righteous.
8 the one who practices sin is of the devil; for the devil has sinned from the beginning. The Son of God appeared for this purpose, to destroy the works of the devil. (1 John 3:8)
The devil was the instigator of sin and all the problems that came with it: death, corruption, greed, etc. Even the earth itself was cursed because of this. All that God had made and declared good, now was corrupted. But, Jesus has undone all that Satan did! The corrupted earth will give way to a new heaven and earth. Pain, sorrows, and sin itself will have no place there. ALL enemies will be defeated. The last enemy will be death itself. Thus we are back to where we began: through Jesus we can live, live forever! Live forever in the presence of God our creator!
Are you ready for that life?
Hugh DeLong
