A Tour Through John, Lesson 8

<p>For additional notes and resources check out Douglas’ <a href="https://www.douglasjacoby.com/tour-john-lesson-8/" target="_blank"><strong>website.</strong></a></p><p>16 “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.</p><ul><li>Again (from yesterday), the context of John 3:16 is the bronze serpent incident in Numbers 21.</li><li>Notice that this is <i>not </i>a passage about how to become a Christian, but about God´s initiative to save sinful mankind. </li><li>Overtaken by Matt 7:1 as most popular Bible verse.</li><li>Jesus was lifted up, just as the snake (!) was lifted up. We must look at/to <i>him</i>, not to ourselves, if we want to be saved.</li></ul><p>17 “Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. 18 Those who believe in him are not condemned; but those who do not believe are condemned already, because they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God. 19 And this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. 20 For all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed. 21 But those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God.”</p><ul><li>Without faith we stand under the judgment of God. Like the snake-bitten Israelites, we have a mortal problem. The venom of sin circulates in our veins. If we find the cure (looking to Jesus, exalted) then we are cured; otherwise we die--not (fundamentally) because we didn't notice Jesus, but because we have been poisoned.</li><li>Light has come into the world (v.19), yet darkness has not understood it (see 1:5).<ul><li>This resistance is not just a matter of a psychological reflect against the light, or intellectual ignorance, but of moral opposition to the truth.</li><li>When we hear the truth of the