WEDNESDAY 8th
John 3:36
(NIV) ‘Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God’s wrath remains on them.’
(ESV) ‘Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.’
As we continue from yesterday, this verse shows to us the importance of believing in the Son. As I said yesterday our decision is the difference between spending eternity in Heaven in the presence of God or spending eternity in hell, eternally cut off from God. Now, I am aware that I am writing these devotions for us as a Church family and we know the things that I am sharing, but we need to regularly go over what we believe and why we believe so that we don’t just fall into a place of complacency and take what we have and who we are ‘In Christ’ for granted.
It has cost to bring us salvation and to grant us eternal life, and as a result we should have hearts that are constantly and continually grateful for all that God has done in Christ Jesus, and for the incredible sacrifice he made on our behalf.
Today we will consider what has been made available to us – life! Our text calls it ‘eternal life’ We see it again throughout the gospel of John, in John 3:16, ‘eternal life’, in John 20:31 the text we started with on Sunday it is called ‘life in his name’, In John 10:28 it is called ‘abundant life’.
Ephesians 2:1 tells us that outside of Christ we were dead – that is spiritually dead – cut off from God because of our sin and transgression, but in Christ we have been made alive, because by grace which is through faith we have been saved, made alive – spiritually alive, and the life that is given to us at salvation is eternal, abundant life. If you are saved, you are more alive today than you were on the day in which you were born, because on that day, although you were physically alive, you were spiritually dead. But now in Christ Jesus you are spiritually alive as well.
In John’s gospel we have some important verses concerning this ‘life’ which is available through Jesus. It is only available through him, John 14:6 ‘I am the way, the truth and the life’, that is he himself is life, which comes out in his analogy in John 6 when he calls himself the ‘bread of life’. (vv35,48) In verses 51 and 54 of John 6, Jesus says that mankind must partake of him as the ‘bread of life’ to be able to receive eternal life. Therefore, the teaching of Scripture is crystal clear that there is no other source with which we can go to, to receive eternal life. Echoed though the preaching of Peter in Acts 4:12 ‘And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.’
Reminding of ourselves of where we started on Sunday with John 20:30-31 ‘Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.’ I will conclude this three day introduction by bringing us to a place where we give thanks from grateful hearts, for the Son of God, who loved us and gave himself for us, and who by the wooing of the Holy Spirit has drawn us to himself, bringing us to that place of believing faith and the receiving of life which should be causing us to be rejoicing with joy unspeakable and full of glory for the half as never yet been told! (italic from the hymn, ‘I have found his grace is all complete’)