Praying, Overcoming, and the Return of Christ

I confess that, until last night, it had been awhile since I last prayed aloud with my wife apart from our daily pre-meal prayers and daily snipets of "Thank You God for this blessing or for that blessing." There's no doubt in my mind that we continually pray quietly individually, and yet our quiet, indivual prayers are also regarded by our Lord as those of one flesh. We pray for the same things, at the same times, and we know that we do, and we know that God hears our pleas as one prayer, since we are united by God to each other and to His Son.

Last night, we were both tired after engaging in a long day with our 3 children who all display some of the symptoms of a certain illness to varying degrees and who, more importantly, all have all of the symptoms - and display them daily - of a more serious illness called the sin nature. In Mathew 10:28, Jesus says: "Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul (the first illness I described above). Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body (the second illness I described above)in hell."

And so at 10:30 PM, we turned out the lights and I asked if I could pray with my wife. Not surprisingly, she said, "Yes," and so I prayed aloud. We prayed aloud, though she didn't speak. Sometimes she speaks when we pray, but last night she prayed in Spirit. And we both knew the Spirit was praying for us and with us and through us and in us and by us with groans that cannot be expressed with words. It was a blessing to have the presence of the Lord so strong in our bedroom. We, though always comforted and assured that we rest in the palm of His hand, were given an even greater sense of that reality.

Wouldn't it be fitting if I could say that at 11:30, as our prayer concluded, we were given a great night of rest and peace? Alas, it was a difficult night. It was hot, the children were coughing, waking, unable to find their pacifiers, crying, and restless. We were up for hours amidst the best and deepest sleeping time (2-4:30 AM). Am I complaining? Not at all. How could I complain when we are blessed with life and love and air and shelter and food and clothing and, most importantly, the very presence of God dwelling with us in the light and momentary troubles of this life. In John 16:33, Jesus tells His disciples, "In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world."

Jesus has overcome the world, and we are united to Him by faith. John, who records Jesus' saying above, gives us much hope in this regard:

"I write to you, fathers, because you have known Him who is from the beginning. I write to you, young men, because you have overcome the evil one. I write to you, dear children, because you have known the Father. I write to you, fathers, because you have known Him who is from the beginning. I write to you, young men, because you are strong, and the Word of God lives in you, and you have overcome the evil one" (1 John 2:13-14).

"You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the One who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world." (1 John 4:4).

"This is love for God: to obey His commands. And His commands are not burdensome, for everyone born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith. Who is it that overcomes the world? Only he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God" (1 John 5:3-5).

"To him who overcomes, I will give the right to eat from the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God... He who overcomes will not be hurt at all by the second death... To him who overcomes, I will give some of the hidden manna. I will also give him a white stone with a new name written on it, known only to him who receives it... To him who overcomes and does My will to the end, I will give authority over the nations... He who overcomes will be dressed in white. I will never blot out his name from the book of life, but will acknowledge his name before My Father and His angels... Him who overcomes I will make a pillar in the temple of My God. Never again will he leave it. I will write on him the name of My God and the name of the city of My God, the new Jerusalem, which is coming down out of heaven from My God; and I will also write on him My new name... To him who overcomes, I will give the right to sit with Me on My throne, just as I overcame and sat down with My Father on His throne... He who overcomes will inherit all this, and I will be his God and he will be My son" (Revelation 2:7,11,17,26; 3:5,12,21; 21:7).

"They will make war against the Lamb, but the Lamb will overcome them because He is Lord of lords and King of kings—and with Him will be His called, chosen, and faithful followers" (Revelation 17:14). MARANATHA! Come Lord Jesus!

John 3:1-21 (12)

In verses 19-21, John expounds not only the reactions of men toward Christ, but also their motives and reasons for these differing reactions: “This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God.”

The word “verdict” may be misleading, because it denotes the process of judging, rather than the sentence of condemnation. We should notice here that John is describing how the judgment is worked out rather than pronouncing God’s judgment. First, John says, “Light has come into the world.” This establishes the reference point by which people are judged. Their nature and their motives are uncovered by how they react and relate to the light. This light is Jesus Christ, who says elsewhere in this Gospel, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows Me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life” (8:12). John continues, “But men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil.” He tells us men’s reaction and the reason for this reaction. Jesus Christ, the light, has come into the world. But men love darkness instead. This is not because it is irrational to come to the light, nor because these men already have the light, nor because they have something better. They love darkness because their deeds are evil, because they are sinners.

Now, it is not as if these evildoers merely prefer darkness while commending the light and those who come to the light. No, John says, “Everyone who does evil hates the light.” They resent and detest the light. Some run away from it, and some actively oppose it. Paul lashed out at the light until the light struck back and made a believer out of him (Acts 9). The evildoer, the sinner, “will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed.” There is something wrong with the sinner, something wrong with the non-believer. There is something wrong with the person who hears the gospel but does not believe, with the person who argues against Christianity. And there is something wrong with the person who affirms a religion other than the Christianity. What is wrong is that the evildoer fears that his deeds will be exposed. The word rendered “exposed” can also mean to convict or to reprove. This is the reason why people do not come to Christ and believe in Him. The unbeliever is evil, and he does not want to be exposed, convicted, and reproved. He resents and fears the light, and so he runs away from it and hides from it. They would give themselves all sorts of reasons for not coming to the light, fearing that they would be exposed for the depraved individuals that they are. For example, some people might base their unbelief on a work of fiction, a novel based on old and refuted theories about the Christian faith (i.e., The Da Vinci Code). And often their arguments and theories even contradict one another. But they are desperate, and so they will hang on to anything to give them an excuse.

In contrast, “whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God.” The verse literally says, “whoever does the truth,” or as in the NASB, “he who practices the truth.” So in these three verses (v. 19-21), John gives us a picture of one who does evil and one who does the truth. Although John is fond of contrasts and parallels, his description of these two persons do not exactly correspond at every point. The former does evil, but rather than saying that the latter does good, he says that this person does “the truth.” In both his Gospel and his epistles, “truth” is inseparably tied to the person and doctrine of Jesus Christ. Thus the person who welcomes the light is not just one who does good in general, but he is one who follows or practices the teachings of Christ. He comes to the light “so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God.” Here is another point where the contrast is not an exact parallel. The evildoer does not come to the light because his deeds are evil, and he does not want to be exposed, convicted, and reproved. On the other hand, John does not say that the one who comes to the light wishes all to see that his deeds are good, but he wishes to make it known that his deeds have been “done through God,” or literally, “wrought in [or by] God” (NASB). The one who comes to the light does so because God has been working in and through him, which is exactly what we read in Paul: “It is God who works in you to will and to act according to His good purpose” (Philippians 2:13).

Nothing in this particular text tells us why some evildoers remain such. We don’t read that evil is self-caused or that men make themselves evil. In addition, in a context when Paul is talking about the elect and the non-elect, those whom God loves and those whom God hates (Romans 9:13), he mentions that it is up to God to make “some pottery for noble purposes and some for common use” (v. 21). The Gospel of John itself refers to those who “belong” to God and those who “belong” to the devil, and nothing indicates that the people themselves are the ones who decide to whom they will belong. So both the elect and the non-elect are made as such by God for His sovereign purpose to glorify Himself, and that explains why they behave differently in John 3:19-21.

So that’s John 3:1-21, a powerful testimony to the necessity of grace to bring a person to faith in Christ Jesus, and just one of many passages in the Gospel of John that displays God’s sovereignty in human salvation.

John 3:1-21 (11)

Verse 17 closely follows verse 16, and continues to describe Jesus’ mission. To accurately understand it, we must include the context from verses 15-16. There we read that Jesus would be “lifted up,” referring to “the kind of death He was going to die” (12:33). And that God sends His Son out of love to perform the work of atonement on the cross. Keeping this in mind into verse 17, it makes perfect sense to say that “God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through Him.” The present focus is the atonement, and of course the atonement is not mainly to condemn the world, but to save those for whom Christ dies, for whom He makes this atonement. Because of this context, there is a particular sense in which God did not send His Son to condemn the world. The next verse says, “Whoever believes in Him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.” We are able to understand all of this in precisely the sense in which it is intended as long as we keep in mind Christ’s redemptive work as the background. He came to heal the sick, raise the dead, and save the sinners. He did not need to do the opposite – people were already sick, dying, and condemned.

Now consider John 9:39, where Jesus says, “For judgment I have come into this world, so that the blind will see and those who see will become blind.” “Judgment” and “Condemn” are from the same Greek word. Some people might find a verse like this puzzling in light of what we have just read in John 3:17, but the difficulty is easily resolved, because we have noted the precise sense in which 3:17 asserts what it does. When we then take similar care to read John 9:39, we immediately notice that the two verses are in fact talking about different things, or “judgment” in different senses. The word “judgment” here means distinction or separation, that “the blind will see and those who see will become blind.” Matthew 10:34 and Luke 12:49 explain that as well.

Remember the context of this verse, Jesus’ healing of a man born blind. The Pharisees were jealous and hostile, but when questioned by them, the man was grateful and loyal to the One who healed him. The Pharisees threw him out, but Jesus found him and asked, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” The man asked, “Who is He, sir? Tell me so that I may believe in Him.” Jesus said, “You have now seen Him; in fact, He is the One speaking with you.” Then the man said, “Lord, I believe,” and he worshiped Him. Paul writes that “No man can say that Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit” (1 Corinthians 12:3). On the other hand, the Pharisees were hardened, and Jesus said to them, “Your guilt remains.”

Wherever Jesus went and whatever He did, He caused a distinction to be made among men, and a separation between the believing and the unbelieving, the insiders and the outsiders, the elect and the non-elect. Jesus declared, “I did not come to bring peace, but a sword” (Matthew 10:34). But this is different from the emphasis in John 3:17. There the judgment is not a distinction made between people as they exhibit sharply different reactions to the words and works of Christ – that does not come up until verse 19. Rather, “to judge,” rendered “condemn” in John 3:17, is contrasted against “to save,” and that is why some versions translate that “God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through Him.”

Many people read, “God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world” and infer that God has no intention to condemn anyone. But verse 18 refutes that idea: “Whoever believes in Him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.” In other words, the condemnation of sinners and unbelievers is already settled and taken care of. The verse refers to those who hold to a stubborn and persistent unbelief. They are non-Christians, and they will never become Christians. These people, the verse says, are “condemned already.” There is no need for God to send His Son to condemn them. It is already a certainty. If anything, the coming of the Son of God has made the condemnation of the wicked even more clear and certain. The verse says that the unbeliever is condemned “because he has not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.” Verse 36 says, “God’s wrath remains on him.” Christ never propitiated God’s wrath toward the un-believer who remains such.

John 3:1-21 (10)

God’s love is demonstrated in effective action. For the purpose of giving eternal life to those who will believe in Jesus, God sends His Son. God loves the world in this way: every believing one will be saved. God’s saving love is restricted to believers. God does not love unbelievers in a saving way. And the objection to this view follows: By “whoever believes,” many think that God loves every person the same way, and that Christ has died and made atonement for every person. It is suggested that, since Christ has already accomplished His work of atonement, the salvation of each individual now depends on the person’s free choice. A related implication is that all people are able to make such a free choice. Let Vincent Cheung show how this is false:

If I say, “Whoever becomes a fish can breath under water,” the statement is true, but it does not say anything about a person’s ability or willingness to become a fish. Whether or not it is possible for a person to become a fish, one can not infer from the statement itself. Whenever we are talking about something that is impossible with man – such as for a man to turn himself into a fish – it means that it will either never happen, or God must make it happen. One episode in Jesus’ ministry from Matthew 19:23-26 makes exactly this point: “Then Jesus said to His disciples, ‘I tell you the truth, it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.’ When the disciples heard this, they were greatly astonished and asked, ‘Who then can be saved?’ Jesus looked at them and said, ‘With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.’” Jesus didn’t say, “Whoever believes.” He never said that man was able or willing to bring it to pass. Instead, Jesus says plainly that it is impossible for man to be saved, except that God makes it happen, since all things are possible with Him. All we read in John 3:16 is that whoever believes will not perish, but will have eternal life. “Whoever” believes depends on God, not on “whoever,” since only God could make it happen.

We need not stray from the Gospel of John to see this point more clearly. In John 10:26, Jesus says, “You do not believe because you are not My sheep.” So a person is Jesus’ sheep before he believes, and it is because he is His sheep that he believes. How does one become Jesus’ sheep? Verse 29 says, “My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of My Father’s hand.” Jesus’ sheep are what they are because they have been given to Him by the Father, and this is why they believe. In John 8:43-47, Jesus says, “Why is My language not clear to you? Because you are unable to hear what I say. You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desire…He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies. Yet because I tell the truth, you do not believe Me! Can any of you prove Me guilty of sin? If I am telling the truth, why don’t you believe Me? He who belongs to God hears what God says. The reason you do not hear is that you do not belong to God.” In agreement with John 10 but without the “sheep” metaphors, this passage tells us that a person cannot believe Jesus unless he already “belongs” to God.

Finally, John 12:37-40 is even more explicit: “Even after Jesus had done all these miraculous signs in their presence, they still would not believe in Him. This was to fulfill the word of Isaiah the prophet: ‘Lord, who has believed our message and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?’ For this reason they could not believe, because, as Isaiah says elsewhere: ‘He has blinded their eyes and deadened their hearts, so they can neither see with their eyes, nor understand with their hearts, nor turn—and I would heal them.’” They cannot believe, because God actively prevents them! Although it is true to say that men can believe only when God grants faith to them, what John says here is even stronger than that. God must not only cause them to believe, but He must first stop working against them.

Who, then, is the “whoever” in “whoever believes” from John 3:16? It is the person to whom God grants understanding and repentance, thereby displaying His saving love for them. Rather than teaching man’s freedom in salvation, the “whoever believes” in John 3:16 denies salvation from all mankind except those to whom God grants faith in Jesus Christ. Thus once we take into context the whole of John’s Gospel, John 3:16 does not teach man’s ability or willingness to believe in Jesus Christ, but the opposite, that man is unable and unwilling unless God changes both of those things.