For God so loved the world...

My pastor made a huge mistake a few weeks ago. 

He introduced me, a math freak and devout Bible student, to www.topverses.com, which orders over thirty-one thousand Bible verses by their internet popularity - essentially, what verses people use, quote, misquote, and throw at each other on line the most.

No prizes for guessing what the number one most popular verse is.

"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life" (NIV)

John chapter three, verse sixteen. The verse that's popular enough that rainbow-wigged men spend their days holding it up alongside golf tees on television. The verse that shows up on bumper stickers and t-shirts and probably even fortune cookies.

When Henry Morehouse came to preach at D.L. Moody's Chicago church in or around 1900 (this story comes from Exploring the Gospel of John:An Expository Commentary, by John Phillips, who does not provide a date), he preached for a solid week of revivals on the single verse of text above, John 3:16. In his concluding night, he is quoted as saying the following:

"Suppose I could borrow Jacob's ladder. 
"Suppose I could ascend that shining stairway until my feet stood on the sapphire pavements of the city of God. 
"Suppose I could find Gabriel, the herald angel who stands in the presence of God. 
"Suppose I could say, 'Tell me, Gabriel, how much does God love the world?' 
I know what he would say. 
He would say, 'Henry Morehouse, God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. That's how much God loves the world.' "

What does it really mean? Phillips points out ten key words in the text, five pairs of words that stand out: "God" and "Son" (the giver and the gift), "loved" and "gave" (two revelations of God's benevolence), "world" and "whosoever" (opening His love to all who want it), "believeth" and "have" (faith and trust), and "perish" and "life" (the two paths open to us). And those words can serve as points of emphasis as we pray - reciting 3:16 while stressing a different one of those ten key words each time will give a different meaning to the prayer we thank Him for.

But there's a much more visceral level to its meaning that we should consider as often as possible, literally every time we sin, if that were possible.

I was driving to work this morning, in significant pain from my myopathy, and I was cut off by another car on the residential road I was driving on. A curse word escaped my lips before I was able to stop it, and immediately I found myself apologizing to God for my weakness.

And John 3:16 came to mind.

"God so loved ME that He gave His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ of Nazareth, the most perfect human being Who ever Lived, that if I believe in Him, I will not perish in Hell for eternity but have eternal life with Them."

It struck me how many sins I commit, every day of my life. At fifty-two, I'm over nineteen thousand days into my earthly existence, and multiplying my daily sin count by 19,000 is daunting to contemplate, let alone calculate. How many sins do we commit per day? Is one hundred too high or too low an average? That's five to eight an hour, depending on how much you sleep. Multiply that by the approximately one hundred billion men and women and children who have lived on this earth in its history, by conservative estimates, and you have literally a quadrillion or more days worth of sins that Christ carried on his back when He went to His corporeal death at Calvary in 30 A.D., alongside two criminals whose names are long since lost to time. If I use that one hundred sins per day as an average, that makes...

One hundred quadrillion sins. That looks like 100,000,000,000,000,000.

And that assumes that my nineteen thousand is an average lifespan, my one hundred sins per day is anywhere close, and that the hundred billion number is accurate (it's probably at least ten percent low and maybe as much as fifty percent low).

And Christ carried those to the cross for me.

And you, too.

He suffered so we could casually swear and not be condemned to Hell by our mistake. Or fail to treat others with forgiveness and kindness. Or ignore those in need. As long as we repent and learn from our sins, God is faithful to His pledge and forgives us because we are clothed in Christ's sinless nature, NOT our own. Were we wearing our OWN nature in God's Eyes, we'd be condemned without a second thought. Nineteen thousand sins? Hah! NO amount of tithing is going to make up for THAT!

"For God so loved US that He gave His only Son to be tortured, scourged, and crucified without painkillers (remember, Christ refused all the gall wine intended to help ease pain while on the cross - He intended to feel ALL of the torture on our behalf), that IF WE BELIEVE that He Is Lord, we shall not go to the eternal grave of Hell, but have eternal life with Him."

The difference between the two options is much farther than the east is from the west. It's literally Heaven and Hell - we have no better terms for a dichotomy than that!

And His crucifixion and resurrection were solely so that we would be allowed to choose Heaven!

Can you imagine why anyone could ever understand that and still choose not to believe in His Lordship?