“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16 ESV).
I know that you have some variation of the verse above memorized. I say “some version” because when I wrote John 3:16 from memory, the wording did not exactly match any Bible version. My “memorized” John 3:16 was a mishmash of several different texts that I have no doubt heard or read over the years, so I just picked the version closest to mine, the English Standard version.
I guess that is what happens when you grow up reading the Good News translation in the 60s and 70s but hear sermons preached from the King James or New American Standard, only to have the NIV and NLT come barging in later in the decade. Nowadays I usually read the NIV, hear sermons preached in the ESV, and teach Sunday school lessons in the CSB. Regardless of that, the 23rd Psalm always seems to come out of my mouth in good ole King James. It just seems to sound better that way.
No matter the translation/version, the message that speaks to our souls comes out in our heart language. What I know in my heart from the sixteenth verse of John, chapter three, is this: God loves us so much, more than we can comprehend—but then who would want to worship a God that we could fully understand? Not me. The God of the universe, Yahweh, Lord Almighty, Jehovah Lord of Hosts encompasses a boundless love that extends far beyond anything I can imagine.
How do we know that God loves us? My dear friends, there are so many ways we can wrap ourselves up in His blanket of love, but one reason stands out, especially during Holy Week when we celebrate the death and resurrection of Jesus. Yes, it sounds strange to say we celebrate His death, but the truth is that His death is the greatest reason of all to know God’s love. “He gave His only Son” to die for us. For you. For me. For nice people. For weird people who don’t worship the same way we do. For little sweet babies and frail old people and everyone in between. For each one“whoever believes in Him.”
Today the song, “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross,” has been drifting in and out of my head. Its words capture the mood of my heart this week as I contemplate the sadness and horror and pain and violence and love that shows up when I picture my Savior hanging there on that wooden cross. He did that for me. It makes me feel sorrowful and joyful at the same time. I am so inadequate in expressing my gratitude that He died for me, but this song helps me get part of the way there.
The first verse of Isaac Watts’ most famous hymn, “When I survey the wondrous cross, / On which the Prince of glory died, / My richest gain I count but loss, / And pour contempt on all my pride” conveys our helplessness to save ourselves. The Apostle Paul gives us his perspective: “But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ” (Phil. 3:7-8). Whatever we have accumulated—all our “stuff”—is worthless in light of our unrighteousness and God’s holiness. Knowing this, Jesus willingly relinquished His power to pay our debt.
The second verse reminds us to humble ourselves: “Forbid it, Lord, that I should boast / Save in the death of Christ, my God; / All the vain things that charm me most, / I sacrifice them to His blood.” We cling to “all the vain things,” and we invest our time and money in them, thinking that the material world has a permanence that it does not. “Whoever sows to please their flesh,” Paul tells us in Galatians, “from the flesh will reap destruction; whoever sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life” (Gal. 6:8). Our lasting wealth comes only from Christ’s sacrifice on the cross. As Paul concludes, “May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world” (Gal. 6:14). God can use this time during Holy Week to teach us to think of our status as children of God with humility.
The third verse of “When I Survey” begins with a visual image, like a flashback in time, “See from His head, His hands, His feet, / Sorrow and love flow mingled down,” which leads to a poignant question—“Did e’er such love and sorrow meet, / Or thorns compose so rich a crown?” This brings to mind the wretched scene of the soldiers spearing our Savior’s body to prove that He had died: “ . . . one of the soldiers pierced Jesus’ side with a spear, bringing a sudden flow of blood and water” (John 19:34). The “sorrow and love” in the song mirrors the “blood and water” in the Scripture: the sorrow represents the blood of Christ’s physical sacrifice while the love is the reason why He is suffering on the cross. Remember? “For God so loved the world . . . .”
Watts’ song begins with our helplessness and need for humility, which leads to sorrow at the sight of our broken Savior on the cross, but we hear joy at last: “Were the whole realm of nature mine, / That were a present far too small; / Love so amazing, so divine, / Demands my soul, my life, my all!” The “richest gain” and the “vain things” we imagined to be important become infinitesimal compared to an offering of “the whole realm of nature” in gratitude for our Lord’s sacrifice. We who have nothing to offer, nothing to sacrifice, gain so much from the gift of God’s son: “In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace that He lavished on us” (Eph. 1:7-8a). Even a gift of “the whole realm of nature,” which is not even ours to give, cannot compare with the lavish outpouring of God’s love, a love that is “so amazing, so divine.”
God’s love is a love that opens wide to accept “whoever believes in Him” so that they “should not perish but have eternal life.” It is so amazing because it is so divine—God’s Son stepping down from heaven into human flesh to show us in the most physical way possible how much His love could transcend this broken world to give us everlasting life with Him.
My prayer is that you spend a part of this week surveying the wondrous cross. Renew the joy of your salvation. Listen to songs that help you remember just how tremendous was the sacrifice Jesus made for you. Read through the Scripture of that Good Friday that seemed so far removed from anything good until one morning just a few days later . . . .
Happy Easter! He is risen . . . He is risen indeed! I’ll be praying for you.
Guest Contributor: Gloria Kuykendall
