Today, Tuesday August 24
God Sent His Only Son
1 John 4:9-10 & 14
“In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. ….In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. ….And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world.”
In these verses we read three times that “God sent His Son”. First, God sent His Son, “that we might live through Him” (v. 9). Next God sent His Son, “to be the propitiation for our sins” (v. 10). And finally, God sent His Son, “to be the Savior of the world” (v. 14).
Jesus did not come just to be a good example of living a good life. Jesus came to deal with the biggest problem that we have to confront as human beings, and that is our sin against a holy and just God. This is what John is speaking about in this little epistle.
Why was Jesus Christ manifested? "And you know that He was manifested to take away our sins" (1 John 3:5). "For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil" (1 John 3:8). Where did Jesus take away our sins and destroy (render inoperative) the works of the devil? At the cross! God manifested His love at the cross when He gave His Son as a sacrifice there for our sins.
This is the only place in the epistle where Jesus is called God's only-begotten Son. The title is used in John's Gospel (John 1:14). It means "unique, the only one of its kind." The fact that God sent His Son into the world is one evidence of the deity of Jesus Christ. Babies are not sent into the world from some other place; they are born into the world. As the perfect Man, Jesus was born into the world, but as the eternal Son, He was sent into the world.
But the sending of Christ into the world, and His death on the cross, were not prompted by man's love for God. They were prompted by His love for man. The world's attitude toward God is anything but love! We run from God. We try to hide from God. We deny the existence of God. We often even try to fight against God (Psalm 2). We curse God. We have replaced the God of heaven with a god of our own making.
Humanism is the official religion of America today. We have made man his own god! We don’t need the Creator God of the universe. We can fix and take care of everything just fine without His help. We worship the creature rather than the Creator (Romans 1). But God still loved us so much He sent His only Son!
Please never doubt the love of God! He proved it by sending His only precious Son!
God bless!
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