John 3:16-17 - Homilies By J.r. Thomson

"The gift of God."

This is the language either of our Lord himself or of the evangelist. If these are Christ's words, they contain his authoritative testimony to his own declaration. If they are the words of John, we have in them the inspired judgment of one who was in most intimate fellowship with Jesus, and who was peculiarly competent to represent his Master's work in accordance with that Master's own mind. Familiar as this comprehensive and sublime utterance is to all Christians, there is danger lest it should become trite, lest it should fail to impress our minds with its most amazing import. Obvious as are the several aspects of the central truth of Christianity here presented, it may be well to bring them successively before the mind.

I. THE MOTIVE WHICH PROMPTED THE GIFT . This was love, an emotion which some think too human to attribute to the Ruler of the universe. But we are justified in believing that we ourselves are susceptible of love only because God has fashioned us in his own likeness. Love is distinguishable from goodness as having more of the character of personal interest. And the relations between God and man being considered, love here must be understood as involving pity and also sacrifice. And whereas human love is often intense in proportion to its narrowness and concentration, Divine love is all-embracing - includes all mankind. This, indeed, follows from the origination of this love in the Divine mind. It was nothing in mankind except their need and sin and helplessness which called forth the benevolence of the heart of the heavenly Father.

II. THE PRECIOUSNESS OF THE GIFT . Great love found its expression in a great gift, worthy of the generous and munificent Benefactor of mankind. The use of the appellation, "only begotten Son," seems to point to the estimation in which Christ was held by the Father, in whose view none was to be compared with Christ. It is not easy for us to realize the value set upon Christ by the Father; but we can look at this gift from our own side, and can form some judgment of the worth of the Lord Jesus to our humanity. Because he was the Son of man the Friend of sinners, and because he was this in his humiliation, and is this in his glory, therefore he is dear and precious to the hearts of those whose nature he deigned to assume, whose lot he deigned to share. He who withholds no good thing from men, withheld not, spared not his own Son, but gave him up for us all.

III. THE INTENTION AND PURPOSE WITH WHICH THE GIFT WAS BESTOWED . As here presented, this was twofold.

1 . The aim was one of deliverance, to secure men from impending condemnation and perdition.

2 . It was also an aim of highest beneficence, we must understand, not the mere continuance of existence, but the perpetuity of the highest well-being - that life which truly deserves the name, and which, being Divine, is also imperishable.

IV. THE CONDITION UPON WHICH THIS GIFT MAY BE ENJOYED . A moral, spiritual gift cannot be bestowed, as can a material boon, independently of the character and religious position of the beneficiary. The greatest gift of God is conferred, not upon the deserving or open the fortunate, but upon the believing. Concerning this condition of faith, it should be remarked that it is

APPLICATION . The word "whosoever" is here employed in order to point out that, in the Divine compassion there is no limitation, in the Divine offer there is no restriction. There is nothing in the purposes of God, nothing in the condition prescribed by Divine wisdom, which can exclude the meanest or the vilest, if only penitent and believing, from the enjoyment of this incomparable gift. - T.