Gospel of John, 3:22-36

I'm going to deal with last week first. Now you'd think if I had a substitute, I could train him well enough that he wouldn't leave. We used to call them in the Marine Corps, Irish pennants, you know, those little things that hang. They never kind of go away. You just have to get out clippers and go around your uniform and clip off every little thread, you know. And when you went out for final inspection, you couldn't have any, not a single hair on your neck. You know how they used to get rid of those? with a lighter, a cigarette lighter and a can of right guard.

I think I need a battery. I might need a battery. Those crazy Marines. I know. They're nuts. That's not working. Well, I think it needs a battery. What do you think? I think we can hopefully clear up what we were talking about last week. Courtney made an issue about the fact that all of our sins and all the sins of the world have been paid for. Correct statement?

Then if that's true in John 3.18, he that believes on him is not condemned. But he that believes not is condemned already because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. So his premise is that no longer are sins the condemning issue. That faith or lack thereof is now the condemning issue.

Well, the problem is, as he pointed out, what about somebody who has never heard of the name of the Lord Jesus Christ in his work. And his premise was that, well, the gospel has gone everywhere. So would you say that every human being that shows up on this planet and at some point he leaves this planet has heard about Christ?

I don't think he can make that statement. I don't think it's true. So let's go at it a different way. There's no question that the sins of the world have been, of all human beings have been paid for and they have to be in order for God to be propitiated and to be satisfied about the sin issue. He could not let one single sin not be paid for because he's God and he's holy and he's righteous. So what's the problem here? I think the issue is the attachment to the sin nature. When Christ died on the cross, He paid the penalty for your sins. What did He do with your sin nature? Did He forgive your sin nature? No, He didn't. No, He didn't. What did He do with it? He crucified it. He crucified it. That's exactly right.

So, if you look at Romans 8.3, that what the law could not do, and that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son, in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, notice the word sin, S-I-N, singular, in Greek has a definite article in front of it, it means the sin, the sin nature. He condemned the sin nature in the flesh.

So the sin nature is condemned, right? Not forgiven, condemned. Sin's forgiven, But the nature is not forgiven. So if you happen to be one of those unlucky guys that leaves the planet still attached to your sin nature, what's your fate? You go where it goes. Condemnation. And all of those sins that that sin nature committed are still attached to it. So you die in your sins. You see that? The sin nature being condemned for all eternity, if you're still united to it and still attached to it, then you suffer the consequences that it's going to suffer.

Conversely, if you have believed on the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ, and you have been co-crucified with him, co-buried with him, co-resurrected with him, and now you're united to him in the heavenlies, when you leave this planet, you go where he goes. Where is he? He's in the heavenlies. That's where your union is.

So the issue, you have to distinguish, I think, between sins, the acts of a sinner, and sin, the sinner himself. There's a different fate for both. One's forgiven, the sins, the acts are forgiven. The penalty has been paid. The sinner himself is not. He has been condemned to the death of the cross. So hopefully, that resolves it.

Courtney also talked about 3.20 and 3.21, for everyone that does evil hates the light, neither comes to the light lest his deeds should be reproved, but he that does the truth comes to the light that his deeds may be manifested, they are wrought in God.

I think that the idea that any person attached to a sin nature unaided would seek out the light is ridiculous because this word for loving the darkness, you know what that word for love is there? Agape. Same word that is used when they talk about the love of God. You find extremely high value in the object love. So people that are attached to the sin nature love the darkness. They don't want the light. Don't want anything to do with the light.

See, I think hell is a blessing. And the reason I think that is that you have two choices. You're going to stand as a condemned lost sinner before the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, you talk about a hundred watt bulb. That's something else. The glory of God and the man of Christ standing there. And here you come attached to your sin nature. And this is light, infinite.

And you've got to stand in front of him and be judged. and you love darkness and he says to you okay I'll let you leave my presence and go into darkness into hell what are you going to say yeah where's the door quick it's worse if I have to stay here so I think hell is a blessing because you don't have to spend all eternity in front of the light see that so that's one of my personal opinions One last thing. You can't say though that the world hasn't been convicted of sin because they have been. Because in John 16 the Lord Jesus tells his disciples that the Comforter will come and when he comes he will reprove the world of sin. He's going to convict the world of sin. and of righteousness and of judgment of sin because they don't believe on me okay well what's interesting is is that in the final judgment of all humanity that's going to be the issue not the fact that you did 55 million bad things it's whether you believed on him or not and when you think about it when you study the book of Hebrews the author of Hebrews says how can you reject such a If the Jews who didn't obey God suffered such tremendous recrimination, how can we, who have been offered this grace, if we turn our back on it, what can we expect? See? And so, that's the issue.

It really helps, I think, if we see that societies who have known God, I mean, for instance, our own society here, notice how we're getting more pagan, more pagan, We've had the truth here in this country, and now it's more and more going away from God. Pagan societies are going away, they're not going toward God. And it's because they love the darkness.

I must say, along with that, we're not doing a very good job of presenting the gospel message of grace. We're not doing a good job. We have convoluted it so much with worldly principles and put little legal commitments on it, like commitment, even the fact that we ask them to come forward.

It's not the gospel. The gospel is faith in the person and work of Christ. That's it. And we invite them to leave their world and come to Christ. We're not doing that anymore. We're going in and using their principles, trying to convince them that Christ is the ultimate Advil. rather than the Savior of the world. We're in chapter 3. This is lesson 8. We're going to see if we can get through all of this. Chapter 3, starting in verse 22. This section has a lot to do with actually the final testimony of our friend John the Baptist. So 22 through 25 they describe what's going on after the encounter with Nicodemus in Jerusalem.

After these things Jesus and his disciples came to the land of Judea and there he remained with them and baptized and John was baptizing Anon near Sollum, because there was much water there and they came and were baptized. Or John had not yet been thrown into prison. Now, is the Lord Jesus' public ministry begun yet? Now he's been to Canaan, had this encounter with Nicodemus, but is he the Has he been moved up to the first position so to speak? I don't think so. His public ministry isn't really in the forefront yet and I think the significance of that is verse 24 where John was not yet cast into prison.

That is the end of his ministry and the beginning of the full-time open ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ. He's soon to be executed and he effectively will be put out of the picture when that happens. So the Lord's ministry is going to come a little later than this.

Not that he isn't involved, because he is, but his disciples are doing much of the work and John is still doing his work. What is his work? What's he doing? He has a baptism for what? Repentance. And what's the main job of John the Baptist? What's he doing? He's a forerunner. When you go to John the Baptist and say, John, you're a great fellow, teach me as much as you can, what does he say to you? Go to Christ. That's his job. He's pointing to Christ. That's his soul.

So who were the people? Now, maybe I ought to read some of this. I think this is kind of interesting. Then there arose a dispute between some of John's disciples and the Jews about purification. And they came to John and said to him, Rabbi, he who was with you beyond the Jordan to whom you have testified, behold, he is baptizing and all are coming to him. So what's going on here? Who were the people who were concerned about John losing attention when Jesus had come on the scene? Who were the ones that were concerned about that? John's disciples. Don't you love that?

I mean, we would never be guilty of anything like that. Where do we see this again crop up in the epistles? Yeah, in Corinthians. What's the problem in 1 Corinthians? A problem that Paul has to deal with. He's got to say, hey fellas, Apollos isn't anything. I'm not anything. you know, all the guys around you, you're dividing up into little denominations and sects and you are creating controversy and you're doing it because of your personal jealousy of someone who you like.

But you know, we've grown past all of that in contemporary Christianity, haven't we? That's why we have 75,000 different What's interesting about it is that it seems to be a characteristic of the old Adamic nature for us to put people on pedestals. We just have such a tendency to do that. We read a book by some author and we really like it.

So up he goes. And then he's up there for a while until you find out that maybe he did something that you don't like. So down he goes, and now you start looking for another one. And when you find that one, up he goes. Now think about this. What if you're the guy on the pedestal? How do you think about that? I've got to tell you, those falls are a long way. And the floor doesn't move when you hit it. It's like they say, it isn't the fall that kills you, it's the sudden stop. That's exactly what happens.

So you have in our society, and I think in all human society, this tendency that if you run into a good author or a good teacher when we years ago we were hanging around Miles you know everybody would try to put old Miles up on the pedestal right and when we when we finally he finally went home to be with the Lord and we had this wonderful memorial service down at what's the name of it Mesa Hills Mesa Hills Bible Church ten guys got up and spoke seven of them had the same story about Miles you know what the story was Well, I discovered Miles, I read his stuff, I contacted him, he helped me, he mentored me, and then that one day I wrote him a letter and told him how great he was and I never heard from him again. Seven of the ten guys told that one story. Does that tell you anything about Miles' understanding what this problem is? So it's a lesson we can all really learn. because how do we love to have warm air blown in our ears?

Watch how John the Baptist deals with this because he does a great job. Question four. John's answer to his disciples is what lesson about the ministry we have. Now watch what he does. He acknowledges that all his joy was fulfilled in that which was thus provoking the displeasure of his disciples. The very thing that they were hassling about was the thing that gave him all the joy. And what was that? I must decrease, he must increase. That's the thing that gave him the joy. He had waited for such a day his whole life. Because he knew what his ministry was. His course was now run.

He was about done and he knew that. He was willing to retire and he was willing to be forgotten. Now granted, there aren't a lot of Christian leaders who are willing to be forgotten. Or they're willing to recognize that their ministry is now over. And they can retire or move on or disappear. So the Spirit of God leads John from the one ray of glory to another. And blessed it is when Jesus is the theme that thus awakens all of our intelligence and all of our desires.

Every single person in this room has a ministry. You know what it is? Jesus. Every one of us has that ministry. And every one of us has to understand that that ministry includes I must decrease, but he must increase. Blessed when we can, each of us, be thus willingly nothing, that he alone may fill all things. Be it so with thy saints, Lord, through thy heavenly grace more and more.

So the true servant of the Lord, whether it's in 60 AD or 2008 AD, recognizes that all he is is a reflector and a pointer to Christ. I mean, the whole principle of us being conformed to the image of Christ is not so that Mike is a really cool Christian. It's so that Christ is manifested. and the focus is on Him.

Down to verse 27. What does verse 27 show us about knowing our position in grace? And the verse is, John answered and said, A man can receive nothing unless it has been given to him from heaven. I've been doing all the talking. I'm running out of gas. What does it show? It's given to us. What's that? It's given to us. It's given to us.

It's grace. It's grace. What is grace? Guys who are in the grace class don't get the answer. What is grace? Give me a little definition of grace. Like I said, people in the grace class don't get the answer, and I know a lot of you worked in the grace class. What is grace? See?

Well, God's riches at Christ's expense. Expense is one thing. Everything he gives us, unmerited, lots of... We've adopted the Macaulay definition, which is unlimited, and unmerited blessings from God based on the totally adequate work of Christ. So we live under a system of grace and that system operates 24-7 based on the principle of unlimited, unlimited, let that soak in, and the next one is even more important, unmerited by you. unmerited blessings from God. He takes Thursday afternoon off. No. And it's all based on the totally adequate work of Christ. It has nothing to do with you.

The only thing where you fit in the equation is you're the receiver. Okay, so here you are, this wonderfully spiritual giant. You've figured out this grace thing. What do you do with it when you see it? Accept it and thank the Lord. What do you do with it? Take it. You take it. You just take it. And you use it. That's what you're supposed to do with it. I don't care if you feel unworthy. I don't even care if you feel too worthy. You just take it and use it. Because you didn't do anything to earn it. And you can't use it up. And it's coming at you all the time. And what do we do? We sit around figuring out reasons why God should up the ante. Or I would be more worthy. Only the sin nature would be that insane.

It's imperative that the believer know his or hers position in grace because grace is the source. of all spiritual supply. Grace is the source of it, not your smarts. Everything from beginning to end of the Christian life depends on a proper faith apprehension of that which God the Father has bestowed upon him with and in his own Son in glory. That comes from J.C. Macintosh. The Christian life depends on the proper faith apprehension of that which the Father has bestowed upon him with and in his own Son in glory."

If you can go through the Word of God and you can find one blessing that you have not been blessed with, one, then the whole thing is a fraud. Just one. I challenge you. See if you can find one blessing in the Word of God that you have not already been blessed with. And then we'll go to the Universalist Church next Sunday. Well, maybe back to the Catholic Church. I'm sorry. Question six. Any discussion on grace? Do you understand what I mean?

Grace is the system and the most wonderful thing there is and we live under it, but we are really pretty ignorant about what it is. We really are. And we need to learn it and be learning it every day so that we can live under it. We know nothing about grace until we're taught. Not a thing. Not a thing. If you think about it outside of salvation in Christ and the body of Christ, Grace does not exist. A person may be gracious to you, but that's not grace. That's not grace.

When John uses the phrase, he who has the bride is the bridegroom, who is the bride in the context? Now, let's talk about that for a minute. Verse 29, he who has the bride is the bridegroom, but the friend of the bridegroom who stands and hears him rejoices greatly because of the bridegroom's voice. Therefore, this joy of mine is fulfilled. He must increase, but I must decrease. So John begins to use this example of the bride, the bridegroom, and the friend of the bridegroom.

So who are these players? Who's the bridegroom? Great. The Lord Jesus Christ is the Bridegroom, right? Who's the Bride? The Church is the Bride. All of us here are the Bride, right? Okay, who's the Friend of the Bridegroom? Who said he was the Friend of the Bridegroom? You mean he's not a part of the bride? How come? Why wouldn't he consider himself as part of the bride? Why does he call himself a friend of the bridegroom? And he doesn't equate himself with the bride.

And granted he's not around when Ephesians 2.11-16 is written, but Ephesians 2.12 says that at that time you were without Christ being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.

Verse 13, but now in Christ Jesus you who were sometimes were far off and are made nigh by the blood of Christ for he is our peace who has made both one. Go on with that, but the point is that Why is there's a groom, got this whole mental picture of a wedding, we have a groom and we have a bride, right? And the Lord Jesus said, who did the Lord Jesus say was the greatest man that ever lived on the earth?

John the Baptist. But John the Baptist refers to himself as the friend of the bridegroom. I would think it would be better to be a bride, but no. He's already in Christ. He is? Yeah. How did he get in there? Because he believed. Believed in what? In the saving grace of Christ. Here's the problem with that. No cross yet. There's a lot of people in the Old Testament that didn't see the cross either.

But are they in Christ? Are they a member of the bride? Well, they're with him. They're with him, but are they a member of the bride? I'll give you another example. How about the thief next to Christ on the cross? And the Lord said today you're going to be with me in paradise. Is that guy a member of the body of Christ? Christ died first. Die for him? Is he a member of the body of Christ and will he be when the wedding feast of the Lamb takes place is he going to show up as walking next to me coming down to be presented to the groom? Answer, no he's not. Why not?

Because Pentecost hadn't happened. What happens at Pentecost? What really goes on there? What's the Holy Spirit do? He creates the body of Christ. That's when it starts. Up until that time, what have we got going? We've got John the Baptist, friend of the bridegroom, wonderful guy. Going to be at the wedding feast? Absolutely. Where's he going to stand? I don't know. To the right of Christ? Somewhere. The point is that we don't appreciate the uniqueness of who we are. that our intimacy and our union with Christ is that of a groom and a bride.

And John the Baptist understood that. And he understood his joy was totally fulfilled the fact that he could stand there and he has served the bridegroom to the fullest of his extent. He's totally happy with that. Now you and I, like Courtney said last week, it's all about being fair. Well, I can't see John the Baptist being any more elated than he is now. Because he has fulfilled what God has sent him to do. And he understands that being a friend of the bridegroom at the wedding feast is the supreme.

There isn't anybody in creation who is not a member of the body of Christ who is going to think they got short-changed. Because they are going to be totally fulfilled with what they are. How about Moses? Is Moses a member of the Bride of Christ? Absolutely not. Then he's going to walk around all eternity saying, I was born 5000 years too early. He's going to be totally fulfilled.

Anyway, what I find interesting is that here's John the Baptist Early in the Gospel of John, although John wrote it in the 90s, already talking about a distinguishment between the friend of the bridegroom and the bride himself. Do you think he understood that concept? Say that? Do you think John the Baptist understood that concept? No, I really don't.

I think he understood his closeness and his intimacy with the bridegroom. You know, most of us guys at some time in our life have been, you know, the, what do you call it, the number one guy in a wedding? The best man. The best man. And we're really excited for our best buddy here getting married and we're overjoyed. But in no sense do we ever want to take the place of the bride. You know, it's not our role.

In Revelation 21-2, John saw the holy city, the New Jerusalem, coming down from heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. So there's a reference in Revelation 22-17, and the spirit and the bride say, come. And let him that hears say, come. And let him that a thirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely. I don't think we understand, well yeah we do understand, maybe we don't appreciate the uniqueness that we have as members of the body of Christ to be at a point in eternity we become the very bride of the Son of God.

Trick question. The first guy up with a hand gets a prize. I haven't figured out what the prize is yet. In order to be a bride, It's like little Luke in the class in the Sunday school. We have this contest every week and he's got his hand up before the question goes. In order to be a bride, what do you have to have that the groom has?

Same race, same life, same creature. John the Baptist, because he hasn't been recreated in Christ, is not of the same creation as the Lord Jesus Christ is. One of the cool things about the whole identification truths are, is that when we get united to Christ via the cross, when he's resurrected, as in Romans says, to newness of life, new kind and quality of life, so are we. That's a different kind of life, that human life, that's ever been on the planet before, not been here before.

We, in this room, are a unique race of humanity. We're totally unique. And because of what we are intrinsically and organically, we're qualified to be the bride of Christ. Isn't that something? You still look the same, but you are qualified, because you have the same life as the groom.

God, and it wasn't enough. And it was because of the disparity between the two creations, the Adamic man and God. And that's the cool part about this, is now new creatures came one talking the same minus deity, the same life. It's so cool and that's why it explains a lot in Genesis why it wasn't enough. Why walking with God? Why wasn't that enough? That he needed a partner. See, and it is enough now. Now it is, and that's the really cool part. That was question eight, so we'll move on to nine. This is the end of John's ministry.

Why is he so rejoicing? Kind of covered some of this. A couple of things. One, like all fellow servants and prophets, because he was a prophet, he held up the light to guide his generation to Christ, to lead the bride to the bridegroom, and now he had only to retire. He'd done his job. So he stands here at the end of the line of the prophets, and in his own name and theirs, leaves all in the hand of the Son of God. And when he takes up this theme, the glories of him who was greater than he, he gladly does it, he gladly does, does he go on with it.

I don't think we appreciate that when a guy like John the Baptist recognizes that his ministry is over because he's the herald for the Lord Jesus Christ, he's joyful about that. You know, he's not going around recruiting another bunch of guys to get Plan B going, he's done and he knows it. See? He's overjoyed about that. And you know what? It's worked. He's done a wonderful job.

Is John the Baptist a member of the body of Christ? I think we solved that one. Both John the Baptist and the Lord Jesus bore witness. What's the difference between each one of their witnesses? This might give you another clue as to the differences in the two men. Both of them bore witnesses. What was the difference in their witnesses?

It's in the verses. Verse 31 and 32. Somebody read those. He who comes from above is above all. He who is of the earth is from the earth and speaks of the earth. He who comes from heaven is above all. What he has seen and heard of that he testifies and no one receives his testimony. Okay. What's the difference in the testimony of these two men? John appointed to Christ and Christ appointed to the Father. Well, that's pretty good, but make it simplified even more than that. What did John testify of? Earthly things or heavenly things? Earthly things. How about the Lord Jesus Christ? Heavenly things.

Now, let me translate that into today. Is that same scenario still going on? Is it? Is everything that the witness of the Holy Spirit to us today all heavenly? What do you think? Or we mix it up a little bit with earthly just so you feel comfortable? Here's what I'm after. Because we have been recreated in Christ, where's that man from? So now where are you from? So if you're now suitable for heaven, what aren't you suitable for anymore?

Earth. If believers would just get that in their mind, it would save them so much agony. Because we're always trying to get God to leave his place in the heavenlies and come to the earth and act like an earthly man. And what he's always trying to do is to get us to focus, like Colossians says, since you've been risen with Christ, Seek those things which are above where Christ sits at the right hand of God. Put your affections, your mind, your heart on things above and not on things of the earth. And here's the reason why. For you died and your life now is with Christ in God. Do you see that?

We go right by those verses and never hit us. Wait a minute. I'm a heavenly man now. My whole resource, everything about me is heavenly and because I'm not earthly there's nothing that fits me here. I don't belong here. You see that? We're heavenly people. But the people we love are here. Yes they are. I was just thinking about our prayer requests today. They were all earthly. All earthly. That's exactly right, they are. And I think it points up, and we do this every week, it points up how earthly focused we really are. We really are.

Because is it improper to ask God to come and fix my physical ailment? No, it's not. But how often do you hear, I'm praying for Gene this week, that he becomes more heavenly minded. That Gene would see himself in Christ only. We don't pray like that.

I think we should. I think we should. That Peggy would grow in the knowledge and grace of the Lord Jesus this week because that's where she is. We should pray like that all the time. Don't you think? We're so heavily minded, no earthly good. Isn't that a wonderful statement? Isn't that a wonderful statement?

Who was the guy at Peninsular Bible Church? Ray Stedman? Somebody said that about him. He got his head in the clouds all the time. What good is he to the earth? Well, he's a recruiter. So why, if you look at this now, you're going to see there's a problem here. Here's the Lord Jesus bearing witness to heavenly things and none of these guys are picking up on it. How come? Because they're earthly men, that's why.

If we get farther into the Gospel of John, we're going to find that the Lord says, well, there's a lot of stuff I got to tell you, but you're not going to get it. But I want to send the Spirit of God. What's he going to do to you? Make you a heavenly man?

When that happens, guess what? We can understand. See? But you don't get it all now. Jack? You know, when I was reading through this and looking at your question, and talking about the witness we know, and the fact that Christ's resurrection witnessed that He is the Son of God, the Christ. Yeah. I mean, the resurrection witnesses You know what's interesting, Jack, and we're studying Acts on Tuesday, until those guys actually go through Pentecost, they don't get it. Even between the time of the resurrection up to Christ leaving, angels talking to them, until Pentecost, they're not really with it.

And it's because they're still earthly men, I think. They just can't understand spiritual things. So when Paul gets to Corinthians and he makes that statement that the natural man receives not the things of the Spirit of God, he can't know them. It isn't that he doesn't want to, he can't know them. He doesn't have the Bose hearing aid. He just can't know them because they're being broadcast on channel 9 and he's listening on 4. And he doesn't have the capacity to receive the signal because of who he is. So you get recreated in Christ, the apostles at Pentecost, all of us, we become a resurrected spiritual man.

Guess what? We now understand the lingo. We can understand, we can be receivers of the witness of the things of heaven. That's the difference. citizens and all that the apathy argument in that we're heavenly citizens we don't belong here so we can sit in this sit in our room and just we're heavenly citizens we don't belong here we just sit and do nothing you know I think there's not that we I guess the problem with that is just it's not that you just sit there in a room and contemplate your heavenly citizenship I manifest Christ. There are all these things as citizens of heaven. We are sojourners here. We are, as you said, either recruiters or just like John the Baptist, pointing to Christ through the manifestation of the new life in us. just to avoid the apathy argument that when you say we're just heavenly citizens, we're not, the earth means nothing. You know, he's left us here for a reason. When my work is done, I'm out of here. I'm home. So I mean, just to avoid that, because we're heavenly citizens here, we are sorcerers, but he has us here for a reason.

Well, we don't, I don't think we appreciate back to the issue of grace, what a powerful motivator grace is, more powerful than law ever could be. And as we begin to understand this grace we live under, you know, we don't sit on our hands. And let me give you one reason why I think it goes through this really sort of weird mind I have.

You know, you only have so much time to do this. You know, the Lord only has you here for a really short amount of time. And if you're Bertha Anderson, you're thinking, hey, a couple of weeks, I'm done. If you're a young person, even then, you think, I only have one time in all of eternity, right here, to do what God has called me to do.

And the grace that comes at me from that does anything but make me apathetic. But it does at the same time restrain me only to do what my father would have me do and nothing else and nothing more. Trust me, when Paul got to the end of his life, his body was worn out because to have a human body functioning with a spiritual life inside can't keep up. It will wear out. It just will.

Did you have a question? Verse 34, what does that mean? For whom God has sent speaks the words of God, for God gives not the spirit by measure unto him. What does that last part mean? The Holy Spirit was here and Christ had 87.5% of him. Does that imply that John the Baptist was involved by the Holy Spirit? No, I'm talking about the Lord Jesus Christ here. He had him full on, just like you and I do. He was not given, the Spirit was not given to the Lord Jesus Christ in measure.

It was like grace, it's unlimited. And it's interesting, at the very end there it says, the father loves his son and has given all things into his hands. What are the all things? You've only got three minutes, so hurry up. What are some of the things, or one of the things, or any of the things, that the Father has put in the hands of the Son?

Well, John 17 says that He's given Him power over all flesh. Okay, that's one. Okay. And Matthew, all authority has been given Him. In heaven and on earth. All those that are going to be saved. will be saved. Just the term Lord expresses that completeness of this authority. Yeah, all of those fit. I would add one little piece to it. Into the hands of the human being, God has given all of his authority and all of his glory to accomplish all of his goals.

They've been put in the hands of this man Sometimes we forget. Was that the second buzzer? Sometimes we forget that the Lord Jesus Christ is a human being. He's a man. And the Father loves the Son and has given everything to Him. Everything that God wants to accomplish in His creation is resident within this man. Which is really cool, I think. The fact that Jesus Christ is a man. Let's see, I had a lot of stuff there.

Does John here give the Jews the gospel message? Verse 36, He who believes in the Son has everlasting life, and he who does not believe in the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides in him. Is that the gospel? Not Paul's gospel. Well, that's right, it's not. What's the difference? What's the difference? Is John's gospel sufficient for the salvation of a Jew at this time? Yeah.

Is it the gospel message that we teach today? No, it's not. The gospel message we teach today is Jesus died according to the scriptures, he was buried and he was resurrected. And that's the only gospel I teach. Oh, I didn't hand out next week's stuff. Let me pray and then I'll hand them out. Dear Father, how we thank you for your grace and your word and how we through it can grow It's in the fullness of what we already are in our son. We pray in his precious name. Amen.