One of the greatest objections to Christian faith is the problem of evil. This world, as the nineteenth century poet Alfred Lord Tennyson called it, is “red in tooth and claw,” bloodstained with suffering, death and grief. Our suffering is comforted by the love of others but even then we often find that love too shallow to address our deepest needs. C.S. Lewis, the Oxford atheist professor turned Christian philosopher once said this, “Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for those desires exists. A baby feels hunger; well, there is such a thing as food. A duckling wants to swim; well, there is such a thing as water. Men feel sexual desire; well, there is such a thing as sex. If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world” (Mere Christianity). So we ask, is there anything more? Is there another love that can turn this bloodstained world into one of joy, hope and deliverance? And if so, how can I have assurance that it’s real? Many would claim there is a love that satisfies our deepest need for consolation, that makes life worth living and that this love somehow forms the basis of our entire existence.
John 3:16 is often said to be the most famous verse in the Bible, it says “For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life.” The reason that’s it’s so well known and often quoted, is that it seems to summarize the entire Bible message in 26 words. God loves the world so much that He sent His Son, Jesus, to provide a way for us to have eternal life in Him. In this simple statement of fact, we find our greatest need identified and met in a way that can’t be compared to any human device.
CONFIRMATION PLEASE?
How can we know we are loved? The answer is simple. Two thousand years ago, someone named Jesus Christ—a figure well known to ancient history—appeared in our world and left it utterly upside down. He changed everything we thought we knew about what it means to be a human, about love and about eternity. He claimed to be the Son of God—pre-existent to our creation—who was sent into our world to die for our sins. He told His disciples that He would be arrested, put on trial and then crucified, and that after three days of being buried, He would come back to life and see them again (Luke5:33-35). He told them this on several occasions but they (understandably) had a hard time understanding what He was trying to communicate. After this all was fulfilled, most of the disciples went on in His footsteps, being put on trial and killed by various authorities for proclaiming the love of God they knew in Jesus.
What happened during this time in history may seem pointless to someone living in the twenty-first century, but it still assures us that our deepest existential needs have already been met. Jesus message was validated not only by the Old Testament prophets who predicted many details about His coming, but by the historical veracity of that coming and His resurrection from the dead. His disciples gave their lives to attest to what they’d seen in Jesus. His appearance is still recognized as the most influential historical event of all time, in terms of sheer consequence.
And beneath this all, was the simple message of John 3:16. God loves us, He loves us so much that He gave His pre-incarnated Son to die for our sins, so that we could have peace with Him in eternity. As the Apostle Paul also comments, “Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:7-8). He is contrasting human notions of goodness with God’s understanding of sin, and tells us that even though our hearts wish to repel God out of sight, He still offers us His love.
PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER
This is why we can have assurance of a love outside of, and bigger than ourselves. It entered into our world to save us from the world. Not that the world is an inherently evil place, God created it and said it was good, but the spiritual condition we all live in now leads to death. God’s act of love in Jesus was not requested or merited by anything other than His mercy. Whereas most acts of kindness we’re familiar with today, are looking for some kind of hidden reward or return, kind of like credit card salespeople who smile so graciously in an attempt to pull you to the side and discuss your credit at the grocery store, the John 3:16 love described in the Bible isn’t looking for anything in return other than our forgiveness.