Mark Murdock Media

The third chapter of John contains the famous passage about how God loved the world and gave His So so that those who believe will not perish, but have eternal life. John 3:16 says, “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.” This is an explanation and expansion of what Jesus had just said in verses 14 and 15, “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up; so that whoever believes will in Him have eternal life.” God wants people to believe in His Son Jesus Christ and receive eternal life. He does not want them to perish. Eternal life is available to whoever will believe in Jesus. The passage goes on in verses 17 through 21 to explain why many do not believe and the consequence of unbelief.

17 "For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him. 18 "He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. 19 "This is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil. 20 "For everyone who does evil hates the Light, and does not come to the Light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. 21 "But he who practices the truth comes to the Light, so that his deeds may be manifested as having been wrought in God."

Everyone who can see has had the experience of turning on the lights when it is dark. The initial experience is almost painful because our eyes are adjusted to the darkness rather than the light. When we wake up early in the morning and it is still dark, and my wife turns on her lamp by the bed, I will often cover my eyes so that the sudden flood of light is not so overwhelming.

John made it plain in chapter 1 that Jesus Himself is the “light” that has come into the world, and that He is the one who “enlightens every man” (John 1:4-9). He is the source of true spiritual light and life, and people must come to Him and believe in Him to receive eternal life and salvation. Why won’t people do this? The Lord explains here that it is because they love the darkness rather than the light because their deeds are evil. They prefer darkness to light, evil to good. They hate the light and avoid it because they know that it exposes the evil of their deeds. They do not want their evil to be revealed and exposed, so they stay in the darkness.

In our culture in the west today we don’t often label things as “evil.” We may use the word about a bombing or mass shooting or other horrible crimes, but largely we tend to reject the idea that people at their core are evil. There seems to be a consensus that everyone is basically OK by nature. But the teaching of Jesus is that we are evil. In Matthew 7:11 He says, “If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give what is good to those who ask Him!” In John 7:7 He says to His brothers, "The world cannot hate you, but it hates Me because I testify of it, that its deeds are evil.” It doesn’t set well with people to be told that they are evil. We don’t like to be told that we are out of step with God and that the things we think and do are wrong. We don’t like the suggestion that elements of our lives are sinful. Yet the consistent teaching of scripture is that we all sin and fall short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23), that there is none righteous (Romans 3:10 and Psalm 14) and that all have gone astray (Isaiah 53:6). This is why we often prefer to remain in the darkness rather than coming into the light of the life of Christ. If we will admit our sin and evil and pursue the truth we will come to the light and believe in Christ.

John has a similar passage using this metaphor of light and darkness in 1 John 1:5-7, "This is the message we have heard from Him and announce to you, that God is Light, and in Him there is no darkness at all. 6 If we say that we have fellowship with Him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth; 7 but if we walk in the Light as He Himself is in the Light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin." In order to have fellowship with God we must walk in the light because He is light. There is no darkness in Him at all. This is one of the big ideas in 1 John, that we can’t continue in a habitual pattern of living in sin and walk with the Lord at the same time (see also 1 John 2:3-6, 2:15-17, 3:4-10 and 5:18).

Many people don’t believe in Christ because they prefer to remain in the darkness where it’s more comfortable. Staying in darkness is easier than coming into the light and believing because it means we don’t have to admit that we have believed wrongly and acted wrongly. In fact we are encouraged today to say that our sin is actually not sin and that the evil we do is actually not evil. Isaiah 5:20 says, “Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; Who substitute darkness for light and light for darkness; Who substitute bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!” The one who wants to do what is right, who wants to please God and do His will, will come to the light, will turn from evil and believe in Jesus Christ.

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