“Power Moment Wednesday”
Beloved,
John 3:16 explained
Let’s break down John 3:16 phrase by phrase in order to grasp what it truly says.
“For God so loved the world”
These six introductory words identify the force that drives God’s plan forward: God’s incalculable, insurmountable and unquestionable love for humans that He created in His own image (Genesis 1:27).
Consider this: God’s love is so unimaginably great (https://lifehopeandtruth.com/god/who-is-god/god-is-love/)that the apostle John was inspired to write, “God is love” (1 John 4:8).
John did not say “God loves” or “God has love”—but that God is love. That is, He is defined by love. He is composed of love. It’s His very essence. His every thought, word and action is driven by pure, untainted love. That is the God we serve!
The Greek word translated “world” in John 3:16 is kosmos, which, according to Thayer’s Greek Lexicon, means “the inhabitants of the earth, men, the human race.”
“The foundation of everything in God’s plan is God’s incomparable love—as summarized in these opening words of the verse.
”This phrase then could be reworded to say, “For the Creator so loved His creation.”
Mankind alone, in the entire created order, is God’s crown jewel. We read in Hebrews 2:7 that human beings were crowned with glory and honor, given the immense privilege of being made in the image of God (https://lifehopeandtruth.com/life/what-is-the-meaning-of-life/made-in-the-image-of-god/), to resemble Him in shape and form and to have a mind like His—able to think, create and imagine, albeit on a much lower plane.
Tragically, though, mankind has used that mind—the very mind God gave us!—to live contrary to Him. The sad reality is that the world, the kosmos, resists its Creator (Romans 8:7; John 15:18).
Mankind’s entrenched hostility toward God has led every human being into sin (Romans 3:23). The result of that sin, which began with Adam and Eve, has been misery, suffering, death, every evil in the world and, ultimately, the great gulf of separation between the creation and the Creator (Isaiah 59:2).
But God still loves His creation and has a plan to save mankind from sin and death—as the rest of this verse explains. But the foundation of everything in God’s plan is God’s incomparable love—as summarized in these opening words of the verse