Don't Wanna Face Judgment

And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. John 3:14-17

Yesterday our scripture passage told of one method that a person might be separated into a group and be welcomed to the kingdom. As Jesus in the great sermon on the mount was at that time going to the people of the old covenant, He spoke of works and being judged by them. For us as Gentiles, this method and judgment may not even be available to us. Plus, it is fraught with peril in that failure to abide by all the law, of which us Gentiles may not even have a full copy, could cost us everything in the judgment.

If one thinks that our Bible contains the entire law of Moses, well maybe it does and maybe it doesn't. The Israelites in Judah during the reign of Josiah found the book of the law given through Moses. The story is told in 2 Chronicles 34. We might wonder how God's people could even lose such a thing, but they did! For us today, it means that we dare not even count on having the old covenant of works in its entirety as a long, long time has passed between the days of Moses and our days here in the 21st century after Jesus. So, what is this other way, a new covenant perhaps, that we can seek in order to be saved?

In our scripture passage today, Jesus met with the teacher of Israel, Nicodemus, and gave to him the new covenant. The covenant which Jesus would deliver again at the Last Supper, signed and sealed in His body and blood the next day. We can read up from the bottom in the passage of how the world might be saved through Jesus, not condemned by Him (which the Law does so well), by God's love, through His death on the cross (lifted up), and have that eternal life we all desire. Finally, verse 18:

Whoever believes in Him is not condemned.

Therefore, as Paul will tell us later in his letters:

There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus. Romans 8:1

No condemnation means to us: be saved in Christ and don't worry about that judgment. Seems like His way is the better way to me!

Bucky

P.S. Heavenly persimmons! Dis a big 'un!