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His Only Begotten Son
By Joseph Carman
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The New Living
Translation
John 3:16
"For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son,
so that
everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.
The New King
James Version
John 3:16
For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son,
that
whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.
The King James
Version (Authorized)
John 3:16
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son,
that
whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
Hebrew Names Version of World English Bible
John 3:16
For God so loved the world,
that he
gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish,
but have eternal life.
The New American Standard Bible
John 3:16
"For God so loved the world,
that He
gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish,
but have eternal life.
The American
Standard Version
John 3:16
For God so loved the world,
that he
gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on him should not
perish, but have eternal life.
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A couple of questions and a
couple of my thoughts.
1) Can a believer in "him",
Jesus
that is, can a believer perish?
1b)If you say, "no" then why does the text say "should not perish"?
2) How were the believers and the unbelievers perishing? What did they
lack?
3) After reading the verse again can someone tell me why the Father gave
his only begotten (side ?= what does begotten mean) Son...again according
to this scripture?
3b) Was it to provide forgiveness or was it to provide eternal life for
those who believe and would believe?
My view concerning the "believers" is that they include those who have
been believing by the witness of the Old Covenant and were perishing for
lack of God's life in them a life the Old Covenant could not provide. Also
for those who in hearing the Gospel as Jesus lived it would believe in his
time and then finally those who would come to believe as the Holy Spirit
would reveal Jesus to them through the preaching of the Gospel of Jesus as
Christ in power. Past, present and future so to speak...
See I don't think people perish because they sin...I think people perish
because they don't have eternal life in them. Everyone sins...and sins
will kill things in our lives and had to be paid for, God is bigger than
sin and paid for it...
In addition to that "believing" doesn't save you it is only an
acknowledgement of what God says you need as a sinner and and an agreement
that you need Jesus to receive the gift of eternal life (Confess).
4)
Faith is an
active, flowing and growing life in the Spirit of Christ Jesus engulfed in
his Love, but what if you don't have His Spirit living in you?
Jesus said, God is the God of the living not the dead. Jesus also said
that he came that we might have Life...
The Apostle Paul said if you don't have the Spirit of Christ Jesus living
in you you don't belong to Him (Romans Chapter 8 )
The one thing that I think
Christians these days, and probably for many years now, miss is that we
are not looking forward to eternal life. We have it now. We need to live
it now...that is what the Apostles did and they did great things in the
Name of Jesus.
See prior to John 3:16 Jesus is
sharing with Nicodemus the concept of being born of the Spirit of God.
Jesus says that unless you are born again you cannot see (perceive
understand, discern) the Kingdom of God. It doesn't matter how strictly
you kept the Law of God, or how clean you appeared on the outside...we
needed to be born of HIS Spirit and until then we can not perceive,
understand or discern God's Kingdom. Jesus also told us that the Kingdom
of God is not some place that some can say here it is or there it is, He
said the Kingdom of God is IN US.
Now let me be clear I am not
saying we are all saved and that there is no need for repentence, I am not
a universalist. I emphatically believe we have a God given choice when God
reveals to us the Truth to either receive it or to reject it. But God says
that anybody would could to Him must first believe that He IS.
From experience (Yes I have struggled within my life) I think I have a
good idea why Christians struggle so much with guilt and condemnation in
their lives. It is because they have on the wrong frame of mind, a wrong
focus on who they are IN Christ Jesus. We tend to identify more with our
flesh then we do with the Spirit that resurrected us to new life in Christ
Jesus.
Why? God has said we are new creations, God has said there is no
condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, He has said that he is with
us to the end...We hear that and our flesh says and the enemy says...nope
not you man...look what you did today, yesterday...look how much you want
the wrong things...we look in the mirror at the flesh and identify more
with that than we do with God's Word to us...It is the same mistake Adam
made in the garden. Eve ate of the fruit...God said if they ate they would
die...Eve ate but wasn't dead...Adam saw this with his fleshly eyes...so
he chose to believe what he saw, what he heard the enemy had said, "You
will not surely die..." . Adam took the fruit from his wife choosing to
believe a lie over what God had already told him would happen if He ate of
the fruit of that particular tree. Guess what...They both died spiritually
and eventually physically and passed that on to mankind until Jesus
restored to us Life, His Life.
We put more faith in temporal
things than we do the eternal Word of God. Our sin is our unbelief in
God's Word, but the good news is that even still we are not condemned. We
just need to stop and realign our focus and re-direct our faith in who
God says we
are IN Christ Jesus.
We are forgiven, yes...We continue to sin because we still live in this
world and this flesh that was so much a part of it, but even falling
cannot change that we are God's workmanship created IN Christ Jesus to do
good things, great things...we are the Kingdom of God and when we learn to
identify with that first and foremost then we will mature and grow in his
grace and have Joy and Peace in our lives even in the face of trials and
tribulations. In other words we can have joy and peace despite our
mistakes and even in the face of our problems if we embrace and receive
what God says to us first and foremost.
YBiC
JosephCarmen
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