GOOD NEWS FROM ST. JOHN
THESE few verses contain tremendous sadness, and wonderful joy. Verses 10 and 11 contain the sadness and the rest contain the joy.
How sad is the testimony that when Jesus was born, the world did not recognise him. This reveals the awful darkness of the world. Jesus as the eternal Word created the world, and so gave each human being life and all the blessings that go with it, yet when he came into the world, the world just did not recognise their creator, even though by many acts of divine creation he made himself known. This darkness is the tragedy of the world all down history, and even today. It is not that human beings deny the existence of God, though some say they do, but rather that they only want a god in their own image, and not the true God. Humanity desires to worship, but only on humanity's terms. Human beings want a god to help them and save them when needed, but do not want to submit to the true God of holiness and love. As we shall see later in John’s Gospel, humans love darkness rather than light because their deeds are evil.
The world was blind to Jesus and did not know him. It is a greater sadness that we are told in verse 11 that the Jews did in fact recognise him, but they did not want him and so rejected him. When the wise men came to Jerusalem, the Jews told them where to find the Messiah King. The Jews knew right at the beginning of Christ’s incarnation that he had been born. The Jews rejected their Messiah because they preferred the corruptions that had crept into the Jewish religion. The light of life had come, and they recognised him, but preferred the darkness. This is so terribly sad.
The wonderful joy is in the fact that in spite of the world not recognising Jesus, and the Jews rejecting him, Jesus and his salvation is still offered to all, and anyone whoever they are may come to him, and receive him by faith, and be blest. Verse 12 commences with ‘yet to all’. No one need lose salvation and life. Christ invites us all to come to him that we may have life.
The blessing of receiving, that is believing in his name, is glorious. The blessing is a priceless gift. Jesus gives and the gift is free to us, though won at great and tremendous cost to Christ. The blessing is new birth, life and membership in God’s family. We are given the right to become children of God, and this right is by a supernatural work of God by which we are new born into the family of God. This is a real birth. We can’t observe it physically, except in the difference of character that the Christian displays in living, but it is real. We are born into the kingdom of God. We have the spiritual life of that kingdom. We are born into the family of God, and are children of God. We possess eternal life.
This new birth is a gift of life which is immortal and pure. Being born into the family of God we have God as our Father, and know him as such in our experience. Our life is hid with Christ in God. We are now aliens in this temporal world, for we are really citizens of heaven. We live this temporal life in the care of God, and with the certain knowledge, that when this earthly life is over, we have an inheritance, and we look forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God (Hebrews 11:10).
There is no plumbing the depth of this wonderful gift of being born into the family of God by faith in Christ. However we must understand properly what receiving by faith means. John tells us in verse 12 that we must ‘believe in his name’. What does this mean? Believing in his name means we believe in Jesus as he is and as his Name describes him. The name Christ means ‘appointed by God’. The name Jesus means ‘Saviour’. Believing in his name means believing in Jesus as the Saviour appointed by God to save sinners.
Such faith commences with the acceptance that we need to be saved. This is an acceptance that we are sinners before God, and have placed ourselves by our sin under the just condemnation of God. Faith in his name involves, therefore, sincere and deep repentance, and a hate of the sin we have committed, and of the corruption and sin which is within our hearts. Believing in his Name means that we do not simply believe that Jesus is the Son of God and Saviour, but that we trust in Him as the Saviour for us, and throw ourselves on his grace, mercy and love. Faith in his name means that our whole trust is in Christ for our salvation from the consequences of our sin, and we have no trust or confidence in any works and merits of our own. Indeed belief on his Name means that we have come to the realisation that before God we have nothing of value to bring to God in order to atone for our sin.
With such faith as this, we are truly blest. On the merit of Christ all our sins are cancelled by God, and we are restored to his family by being born again.