“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son,
that whoever BELIEVES IN HIM should not perish but have eternal life.”[1]
By now, we
know that the gift in God’s hands is “his
only Son.” Jesus is in God’s hands, the fulfillment of all God’s plans and
purposes to have a people in his own image and likeness. The promise of full
conformity to the likeness of Jesus Christ is guaranteed for all who receive
the gift.
The way that
we receive God’s time-bound Christmas gift is identified as, “whoever believes in him.” While we
still have more to see about this gift, the thing we are called to interact
with is that there is only one way to receive this very first Christmas gift.
We must believe in Jesus Christ.
To be sure
that Jesus said what he really meant to say, and truly meant what he said, here
are some other ways God has advertised his gift. As Christmas retailers use a
whole variety of signs to convince us that they have the best merchandise at
the optimal prices, so God repeatedly clarifies that the supremacy of his gift
is experienced in only one way, through faith in his Son. No matter how God
says it, the meaning is the same.
One way that
God speaks through his book is by showing how things work in real-life
experience. On one occasion, a man was so overwhelmed with the power of God at
work through God’s servants, that he cried out desperate to know what he was
supposed to do in response to all he had heard. Jesus’ friends replied, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be
saved, you and your household.”[2]
As Jesus himself
said in John 3:16, his followers continued to declare as a central part of the
good news. If people believe in Jesus, they will be saved. Because this gift
was an expression of love to the whole world, they could clarify that the offer
was for the man who was asking, as well as all the members of his household. Jesus
said that “whoever” would believe in
him would have eternal life, and so his disciples told every Whoever they met
that they could believe and be saved, just as Jesus had promised.
One thing we
must clarify when we talk about believing in Jesus is that there is a
difference between believing “in” and believing “about." There are many
things we believe about people without believing in them. I believe that Gordie
Howe was a great hockey player, that Queen Elizabeth is the long-time Monarch
of the British Commonwealth, and that Richard Dawkins is a devout follower of
the Evolutionary Religion. I don’t believe "in" any of these people,
even though I believe what history tells of each one.
In the same
way, many people want belief in Jesus to be belief about Jesus. They are okay
if they can just believe the warm-fuzzy Christmas stories about Jesus, as long
as they are not expected to believe in him. However, as desirable as some think
this to be, it is not one of the options that God offers (neither is it really
desirable if we understand what God is offering us).
God’s book
describes the fuller nature of belief like this: “if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your
heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart
one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.”[3]To
believe in Jesus means to believe in your heart that Jesus Christ died for our
sins, and that God raised him from the dead. This is not mere believing facts,
but having a heart-changing experience of belief where we know that Jesus laid
down his life for his friends, and was raised from the dead in eternal victory
over sin, death, hell, and Satan.
Along with a heart
belief in Jesus that transforms us from the inside out, there is an outer
expression of belief that shows in our open confession of Jesus Christ as Lord.
When we have such a heart-belief in Jesus that we will openly confess him as
Lord, we have experienced the kind of belief Jesus was talking about in his late-night conversation with Nicodemus.
One of the
rallying cries of God’s book is when one of Jesus’ apostles presented this
confident testimony: “For I am not
ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who
believes.”[4]The
“everyone” in this verse is
synonymous with the “whoever” of John
3:16. “Whoever” believes in Jesus, in
fact, “everyone” who believes in Jesus,
experiences the power of God for their salvation.
To clarify
that belief “in” Jesus is more than
believing “about” Jesus, God’s book interchanges the word “faith” with the word “belief."
When we are told that we must believe in Jesus in order to receive God’s gift,
it means we believe in him in that way that puts our faith in him. The belief Jesus
is talking about, that God’s whole book is talking about, is the kind that
trusts Jesus in every way the word of God reveals.
It is like a
man believing in a particular young lady so much that he has the faith to ask
her to marry him. And it is like a young lady believing in a young man so much
that she has the faith to say yes to his marriage proposal. The young couple both
loves each other and trusts each other in such a way that they want to be
together for as long as they both shall live. That is how believing in someone
and having faith in that someone is actually the same thing.
Using the
synonym “faith," God’s book writes, “For
by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it
is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.”[5]The
grace that God’s book speaks about is identical to the message of John 3:16. Jesus
said that God so loved the world that he graciously gave his only Son so that
whoever believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. God’s servant,
Paul, wrote that the grace God showed us in giving his Son for our salvation
saves everyone who has faith. God’s grace gives the gift; our faith receives
the gift.
One more
passage should leave the point well taken, that believing in Jesus means
putting our faith in him. When the apostle Paul was writing a young man named Timothy,
who was like a son to him, he said, “you
have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise
for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.”[6]This
was Paul’s reminder that Timothy had already been acquainted with the sacred
writings of God’s book, and that these sacred writings were able to give Timothy
the wisdom for salvation that came “through
faith in Christ Jesus.”
We all know
what it looks like for people to open their Christmas presents. Whether it is
pulling tissues out of a gift bag to uncover what it contains, or tearing the
wrapping paper off to expose the gift, or even to follow the clues to find
where some unusually shaped gift is hidden, gifts are given, received, and
opened in whatever way is required to enjoy and experience the gift.
God himself
has given us a gift, the gift that gives the whole meaning to Christmas, and to
life itself, leaving us with the options of receiving or rejecting the gift. No
matter what else we choose to do, there must be no mistaking that the way to
open the gift God has given is by the kind of believing in Jesus Christ that is
true and genuine faith in his name.
We must
remember that his is all about how people can know God in that born-again kind
of way Jesus was teaching. It is only through faith in the Son of God, God’s
gift to the world, that we can know God and his love for the world. Now that
you know how to open the gift, I trust you will take whatever steps necessary
to put your faith in God’s Son, our Lord Jesus Christ.
And, with such
a hope as this, don’t forget to have a blessed “About Christ” Day!
Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures
are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version
Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good
News Publishers.)
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