The Most Abused & Misused Verses in The Bible (Pt. 5)

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Welcome to Trueology, where we study Christian theology, philosophy, and apologetics.

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We do critiques on scholars, politics. We look into events in both classical and modern -day issues.

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We do interviews, debates, and much more. Our goal is providing a Christian resource to edify the saints and to engage the community.

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But most of all, we want to glorify the Lord through our hearts, minds, souls, and strength.

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So, stay with us as we open up the Word of God and look into everything pertaining to life and godliness.

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My name is Belushi Prevalon, coming to you from the Boston area. And right now, you are listening to Trueology, the study of the truth, as it is in Jesus.

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Welcome back to Trueology. My name is Belushi Prevalon, and I am so thankful you can join me once again for another episode because on this week's topic, we will be actually discussing and going through John 3 .16,

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in our very first series, the most abused and misused verses in the Bible.

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Today will actually be the last episode to the series, but obviously in the future,

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I hope to discuss more topics on verses that have been misapplied and misused in theological circles.

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I am going to be going through today, John 3 .16, the most famous verse in all the Bible, and I'm going to be obviously contrasting it with what

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I believe to be the biblical meaning versus the common meaning. I want to take a second to just mention that the resource that I will be using primarily for my notes here has actually come from Dr.

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Meik Mahon's exegesis of John 3 .16. I will leave the link in the description if you want to study that for yourself as well.

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I also want to mention that you can subscribe and follow, comment, like, and share, and all my social media outlets that are going to be in the description also.

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So with that being said, I'm just going to assume you already know what John 3 .16 says, so let's jump right into this.

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The common meaning for John 3 .16 is typically, anyone who is willing to believe will be saved.

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I'm going to contrast that with the biblical meaning, which I believe to be correct here, which is that those who are believing will not perish due to Christ.

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Now, what is the immediate difference in that? Well, the immediate difference is this.

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It's a difference between who can believe, which is the generic view, and those who have believed, which is the particular view.

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The context began with Nicodemus seeking Jesus about certain things that are going on.

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He recognizes that Jesus is a prophet, so he comes to him by night asking questions, and Jesus obviously presents to him the mystery of regeneration, which is laid out in verses 5 through 8.

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Now remember, John 3 is written by the Apostle John in this gospel record, and what is happening in John 3 here, according to the way that the author is presenting the records, the historical record of what

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Jesus said with Nicodemus here, he is actually using this part of his gospel record to reinforce something, an idea that is already woven through what we are encountering here in chapter 3.

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And that idea is the topic of regeneration and how it happens. And now, if you remember, in John 1 -12, we are told that those who receive and believe are those who have the authority to become the sons of God.

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What most people actually usually miss and forget to connect to that verse in 1 -12 is actually the very next verse, which is

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John 1 -13, which explains those who are able to believe and have faith and have the authority to become the sons of God.

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It is not those who were appointed by man or those who are willing of their flesh, but actually those who are born of God.

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This clearly denotes the sovereignty of God in the matter of regeneration and giving them life to be able to reckon themselves as those who truly belong to God.

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So, in John 3 -16 here, we see Jesus confronting or responding to Nicodemus' inquiries here with the mystery of regeneration, as noted in John 3 -5 -8, that the mystery of regeneration is that the

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Spirit of God comes through like the wind and we know not how He actually works.

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But what we are obligated to do is to be faithful to the message of the preaching of the Gospel of God so that being faithful,

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God will exercise His will as the wind blows upon those whom

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He has called to the faith. So, I want to mention at this point that I'm not here to be unnecessarily contentious, but I'm here to give you a proper understanding of the context in which

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John 3 -16 is embedded so that you will not have a superficial sense of worship, but rather an in -depth and contextual and literate sense and understanding of the actual famous verse,

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John 3 -16. So, let's begin, let's just continue here as we make a case for the biblical meaning, which

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I believe to be those believing will not perish due to Christ. So, how do we get there? Well, John 3 -16 really begins with this, for, right?

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The word for here is actually pointing us back to the immediate context. Now, what is the immediate context?

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The immediate context is the illustration from the Old Testament that Jesus draws from in verse 14 -15.

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He talks about Moses and the bronze serpent. Now, the illustration of Moses and the bronze serpent comes into discussion here because Nicodemus is actually just a little confused about the nature and mystery of regeneration that Jesus already disclosed.

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So, Jesus reckons to Nicodemus that he simply just doesn't believe, and Jesus continues to explain the reason why he's not able, essentially, to believe, and he draws from the example of Moses and how these things actually work as God remains sovereign over the regenerative process that happens in man.

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Once again, we are called to be faithful to the preaching of the kingdom of God, and we are to understand that it is

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God that is at work in bringing those to salvation, and it is not anything that we can impose or any methods that we can display to bring people into a point of decision, but rather it is our faithfulness that God honors in bringing about those whom he will save.

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So, we see here that the illustration of Moses and the bronze serpent in verse 14 -15 here also carries the weight of what

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Jesus has already laid the foundation for before in talking about regeneration in verse 8 and chapter 13 here, along with what has been already the thread that has already been woven from John 1 -13.

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It is those that have been born of God that are able to have the authority to become the sons of God.

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So, already here, we just got into John 3 -16, and there's already a sense where the door is already closed to this modern understanding that John 3 -16 is ultimately giving you the ultimatum question.

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You know, the ball is in your court. Will you choose to believe in Jesus or not believe in Jesus? We already see the door closing here because John 3 -16 begins with explanatory power.

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It is not actually giving us the point of decision. It's not presenting that to us, but rather it is explaining a little illustration that was already presented to us so that we can have a better understanding of what that illustration actually means.

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And here's what the illustration actually means. For God so loved the world, right? He gave his only begotten son.

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So, we began with for, so now let's go into the next phrase. God so loved the world.

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This is God's emphatic love. This is the agape love. This is not just the love that God has, but it is emphatically so.

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So, God so loved the world. So, we are being told through the explanatory power of John 3 -16 here that God so loved the world.

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He has an emphatic love for the world. The world obviously constitutes a specific object because God so loved it, the grammatical structure of his emphatic love towards the world necessitates that we understand exactly what that object is and what is in it.

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Are we to assume that the word world here is everyone past, present, and future?

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Well, that would be a little hasty because the Apostle John actually uses the word world here 26 times in all of his writings, throughout all of his writings to actually reference dirt, like the actual earth.

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And three other times he uses it to mention Jews and Gentiles specifically. 12 other times he uses it to mean all of humanity in general.

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And three times he uses it to mean the world systems. 31 times he uses it to mean the wicked only.

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And 11 other times he uses it to mean the church only. So, which use of the word world are we to understand is being used here by John?

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Well, a good student of the Bible would assume that the context actually gives us that understanding.

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And just like some quotes I have here from some theologians who have also come to the same conclusion, if we are to avoid being too hasty with modern presuppositions about the text, we are told here by them that seeing the varied usage of the word, the context, and thought of each passage is critical, or the meaning of the word world would enter into absurdity.

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Another one has said the word world often has a relative rather than an absolute force. In other words, as these men of God have reckoned in past time in their study of John 3 .16,

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that the word world is not to be already presupposed as every single person, every single human being past, present, and future.

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That is a hasty generalization. But rather, we must seek the immediate context of John 3 .16

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in order to understand what constitutes the world. And since we are already being told that God so loved it, this is already strangling the wide meaning that we always assume that it has.

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So then, let's continue. God's emphatic love gives us clue to the meaning of the word world.

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Now, I have a quote here from Mick Mahon, and it's quite expansive.

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So let's just go through this quote. He begins by saying, in reference to exactly what we're trying to identify here and what constitutes the world, he says this,

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In other words, God cannot love the world more than he loves the church, right? The aorist active indicative form of agape, which is the word in Greek translated love here, is the word so common in the gospel for the highest form of love, right?

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It is used here as often as in the writings of John. So as I mentioned before,

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John uses the word world, and he uses the word world in various ways.

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In order to understand what the sense of world means here, we must obviously seek the immediate context and the forms in the various other ways that John has made differentiations between his usage of it.

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So the quote continues to say, It is use of God's love for his elect, right?

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In 2 Thessalonians 2 .16, we are told that God loves his church. And in Romans 5 .8, we are told that the love of God is towards his church, right?

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If this love, according to Mick Mahon, if this love in John 3 .16 is so great as to be towards the whole world, this would cause the love of God to the whole world to be greater than the love he has for his elect.

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In other words, Mick Mahon is arguing that since in other passages God says that he loves his church, but yet only in John 3 .16

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he so loved the world, which supposedly does not seem to include the church, because it is speaking of what people usually presume as being everyone past, present, and future, everyone without distinction, then we are being told that God has an emphatic love for the world, those who he is not in covenant with, but when he is speaking of his actually blood -brought believers, he has a just regular standard love for them.

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So he's saying here that this would mean that there's a greater love for the world than a greater love for his elect or his church here.

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But, according to this quote, once again as we continue here, but the Savior states, he's quoting

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Jesus here in John 15 .13, Greater love has no man than this, than to lay down one's life for his friends.

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If this is true, then the love which is spoken of in John 3 .16 is the greatest love, and we would agree with that.

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Thus, if this is true, and no greater love can be exemplified than this love which causes one to lay one's life down for his friends, then the world of necessity is universally saved, since God so loves it.

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So what is McMahon saying here as we study the text together here? He's saying that the world, if it is so loved by God, and God laid his life down for the world, everyone past, present, and future, then that means by necessity the world has to be saved, because Jesus' work of redemption accomplishes something.

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But not only that, but the world is identified as God's friends, necessarily, because the greatest kind of act of love that can be demonstrated is laying your life down for your friends, as noted by Jesus in John 15 .13.

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So McMahon continues to say, this is certainly not true. It is true, though, that the love which is stated here is the greatest love

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God ever had, but it is for his elect. And, of course, I would agree with that, because it is true.

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As we get into John 3 .16 here, we are being told that what constitutes the world is those that God so loved in the world.

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In other words, the emphatic love of God gives us clue to who the world is. And since there is correlation in other scriptures that are able to give us a better clarity and even emphasis on who constitutes the world here, we know that the only ones that God can so love cannot be greater than those that he already bought, which is the

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Church. So, in other words, this is not every person past, present, and future, but we can ask, is it the known world only?

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Is it just the Jews and Gentiles? No, but rather it is the Church, those who are reckoned as covenant friends of God.

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Now, another quote, surprise, surprise, from McMahon here is, this is the love which is stated for us, pointing to the

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Church. In Romans 8 .31 -32, it says, What then shall we say to these things?

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If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?

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In 1 John 4 .9 -10, it says this, In this the love of God was manifest toward us, that God sent his only

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Son into the world, that we might live through him. And this is love, not that we love

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God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.

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So, we conclude with the idea that propitiation, God's love and his giving are all intrinsically linked together here and paralleled in John 3 .16.

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So, we must understand that understanding the world here helps us to understand the very next phrase.

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As we allow John 3 .16 to kind of flow together, we must not allow the presupposing ideas from outside of the text to cloud our understanding of it, but rather we are to read it in its natural sequence.

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We go from the illustration from the Old Testament, and then we get the explanation of what that illustration from the

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Old Testament means. We are being told that the reason the illustration makes sense is because God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten

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Son for it. Those whom he gave his Son for are those for whom he really emphatically loved.

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And we see that manifest throughout all other passages of Scripture where we get the clarification of those that constitute the world.

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You see, and the reason why we can come to that conclusion is because the propitiation, God's love, and the giving of his

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Son are so well connected that they're in such a sequence and flow that cannot be broken, because if they are, we tend to make the text kind of malleable.

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But rather, allowing John 3 .16 to illuminate us on the identification of the world here, we are to leave the linkage of propitiation,

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God's love, and the giving of his Son to remain, or else we lose the sense of the author here.

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What am I saying? When we read, God gave his only begotten Son, what does that constitute?

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What does that include? Does it only include the Incarnation? Does it only include the work, righteous life of Christ?

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Does it only include the death, the resurrection of Christ? It doesn't only include those, but it also includes the intercession of Christ.

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Typically, we have a tendency to break these things apart. And when we break these things apart, no wonder the common view makes so much sense.

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But if we allow the full expression of what God has done here in Scripture to just testify on its own, then it is clear to see that the giving of the

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Son was intentional. And it included not only the Incarnation, the work, the death, and the resurrection, and the intercession of Christ, but we see that all the giving of the

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Son was for the purpose of, for those whom God loved to have a specific benefit, which we see at the end of John 3 .16.

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So, the giving of the Son was intentional and for the purpose of supplying each and every needed accomplishment for man's salvation.

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Hey folks, thank you so much for tuning in to Truology. My name is Belushi Prevalon, and if this has been a help to you in any way, please like, share, and subscribe.

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And if you haven't already done so, right now on Spotify, you can vote for the next episode. Now, I already have a bunch of things lined up, but I want to give you, the audience, the opportunity to participate on what

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Truology will be covering next. So, go to Spotify, type in Truology, vote for the next episode, and I will see you next time as we study the truth.

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Thank you. You know, typically, let me just make a quick note before I continue here. You know, typically, there's several traditions that have tried to wrestle with a particular question throughout church history.

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And the question is, regardless of who you think the world is referencing here, here's a question for you.

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And here's two traditions that answer it quite differently. The question is, why aren't we saved right now if Christ died for us?

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You know, if you're non -Reformed, you'll answer that probably in this way. You must initiate the effect of the redemption that has been made for you, so that you can then get access to the intercession of Christ.

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Whereas if you were Reformed, which is what I'm advocating for here, is that God is unfolding the effect of the redemption in history.

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The intercession of Christ makes that sure. Let me say that again in contrast. The non -Reformed position would be, you must initiate the effect of the redemption, and then you can gain access to the intercession.

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And the Reformed view would be, God is unfolding the effect of the redemption in history. And the intercession of Christ is what makes that absolutely sure, because Christ is the mediator between God and man.

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And those who are joined to him have been joined to him since the foundations of the world. And because he is the great high priest who fails not, those whom the redemption of his blood is applied through throughout history, are made manifest through the

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Holy Spirit working through the preaching of the gospel in time, and for sure. So then let's continue.

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Those are just two traditions that try to make sense of that question. And the reason I bring it up is because the tendency, once again, is to break up the giving of the

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Son from the love of God, and the propitiation for which the

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Son came into the world. And we tend to isolate those things in such a sense that we make it potential to gain the intercession, when really it's the intercession that's in the backdrop of the reason why the redemption is being accomplished in the world.

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So then, where are we? We are for God so loved the world, he gave his only begotten

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Son, so that whosoever believes. Now, if you've ever actually heard a sermon, almost in any church across America, this is the center of it all.

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Whosoever, right? Typically, when this point is brought up, it's, you know, put your name there, you know, make it personal.

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You know, if Bill believes, if Jill believes, if Andy believes, if Daniel believes, right?

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Just put your name there. Make it personal. God is speaking to you. He's giving you the choice. If you will believe in Jesus, then you will not perish, but have everlasting life.

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But is that what the text is actually saying? Is that what whosoever actually means? I mean, I know we live in modern -day

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America, and we have a sense of whosoever meaning any person who is able to believe.

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I know that's the presupposition that we come into the text with, but is that what the author John intended?

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I mean, already we are kind of strangling this kind of meaning that is giving us the ultimatum between believe or not believe, accept or reject.

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And here we come to the crux of it all, whosoever. And are we getting the sense that John is actually giving us the balls -in -your -court mentality, if you will believe or if you will not believe?

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No, we are not, because whosoever actually does not attest to the ability of anyone exercising faith or making the decision to exercise faith.

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But rather, whosoever, broken up in the Greek, actually says this, pas, which means all, cha, which means the, and pistouan, which means everyone believing, so the believing ones.

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So whosoever is not saying anyone who is able to believe. It is actually saying the believing ones, so everyone believing.

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In other words, it's not speaking of anyone who is, it's not speaking generically of, or potentially of anyone, but rather, this is speaking of the person who is exercising faith.

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In other words, this is particular, not general. This is the most limiting term, not the most inclusive term.

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This is not merely put -your -name -there kind of theology. This is actually more, this is the purpose for which the stone was given, so that the believing ones, anyone who is putting their trust in Jesus will find him to ultimately be a perfect savior.

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But rather, what this text is not saying is that, okay, now the ball is in your court.

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Are you going to exercise and make the decision to believe in Jesus or not?

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Typically, that's what it said, but is that what John is saying? I think we can clearly see, just from the breakup in grammatical structure of the word, pas, cha, pistouan, everyone believing, it is not saying that, but rather, it is a limiting term rather than an inclusive term.

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Another quote from Mick Mahon here, to give us just more shape to what I'm advocating for on this channel at this moment, is that the goodness and wisdom of God has given

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Christ as an oblation to whosoever believes. Those hapistouan, or the believing ones, partake of what

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God gave in his love, which is his only begotten Son.

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To believe is immediately linked to Jesus' instruction in John 3, 3, those who are born again and who perceive the things of the kingdom.

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In other words, it is the regenerated ones who, putting their faith in Jesus, are able to benefit from exactly what

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Jesus was sent to accomplish for them, perfect redemption. In other words, there is no personal ability being appealed to in the text, there is no decisional theology, there's no room for decisional theology or a decisional perspective in the actual context, in the center of the meaning of the most famous verse in the

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Bible, but rather this purpose clause, that whosoever believe, is pointing to the intention of the giving of the

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Son for the believing ones, distinguished by Christ earlier in verses 3 through 8, which includes the nature and mystery of regeneration, which obviously follows

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John 1, 12 through 13. Another quote from Mick Mahon continues to help us gain more color on this, it is the intention of God towards whosoever believes that determines the world of the verse and the direction of His goodness and love.

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In other words, it is because God gave His Son, that was the intention of His Son, was to come into the world to live, to die, to resurrect, and to intercede for those who have been joined unto

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Him. And He is making absolutely sure that those believing ones will be perfectly accomplished, because He is indeed the perfect High Priest, the perfect Savior, the perfect One who has lived, the

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One in whom we have absolute redemption, and God's love was so gracious that He provided that for the believing ones.

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And it was not just the potential of the believing ones, or necessarily the decision of the believing ones, but rather,

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God gave His Son for the absolute perfection of those for whom Christ came.

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So, what is a common objection to this view I have laid here? I'm sure I can hear the screams and shouts already,

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I can hear the shaking and wagging in the head already, I can hear people saying, but it's

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John 3, 16, we all know what that means. And with that objection, which is a common objection because of well -rooted traditions,

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I want to ask you a question. What do you want? Do you want what the text says, or do you want what your tradition has adopted?

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You know, the problem with modern Christianity is that we are no longer students of Scripture. It is more convenient to consume and have our preaching with a hefty load of practicality, with a side of proof texting, than to have it theologically acute and rigorous.

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We are called to live by every word of God. We are called to study to show ourselves approved unto

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God. And yet, when the time comes to actually build our biblical convictions around the ideas embedded by the precision of God's words, we tend to shove them off.

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And we tend to shove those who give attention to the exegesis off. Those who care about definitions and thoughtfulness, and we consider them the true enemies of our traditions we hold dear.

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Shame on us if familiarity actually becomes the new standard for validity. Because that is not how we are called to study and understand

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Scripture. We are not called to come loaded with our presuppositions into it. Obviously, there are good traditions that help us, but we must always be standing on guard for traditions that tend to blind us.

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The traditions that are so embedded in places like John 3 .16 that cause us to, instead of looking critically at the text, we just already assume we know what it means.

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Whosoever, I mean, that's talking about you, that's talking about me, that's talking about anyone in the street who is willing to exercise faith.

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When really, the author has made it very clear that this is a limiting term talking about the purpose of the giving of the

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Son for those believing, and not actually presenting to us a personal decision needing to be made.

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So as we keep those things in mind, and the problem with modern Christianity today, and wherever these traditions have come from, let's remember that there is a science to Bible interpretation.

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And I need to say that again, actually. There is a science to Bible interpretation. And obviously by science,

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I'm just talking about there's a method to Bible interpretation. There's actually a way to come to proper interpretations of the

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Bible. Obviously, this necessitates prayer and devotion and worship, and obviously a regenerated heart and commitment to God's word as being actually

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His word, infallible and true. But when we sit and we endeavor to be students of God's words, there's a science to the way we should interpret the

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Bible, and it goes like this. We must begin not just with mystical spirituality, but rather we must begin when we want to understand

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God's word, we must begin with observation. Meaning we must take the Bible, we must scan through it, we must begin with taking notes, gathering information, tracing and tracking the thought, and then which leads us to our interpretation.

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Now that we see what the words say, we must seek to understand what they mean by taking all the things that we have put together and building an explanation from our observation, making summaries and presenting a thesis of what this must mean in connection to all that has been gathered.

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From then, we can now correctly correlate all that we have, meaning that we seek the rest of the

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Bible to strengthen the thesis, deepening our concept, witnessing Scripture with Scripture, tracking the theme.

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And after all of that, and only after all of that, can we actually come to a proper application, meaning this is where the homiletical persuasion comes from.

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This is where we can relativize the text into our own experience. And only through doing this sequential

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Bible interpretative method can we actually come to the blessing that is embedded in the

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Word of God itself, as is found in Psalm 19. Our hearts will rejoice and our eyes will be enlightened, and we will truly know what

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God is trying to say, than rather allowing our traditions to cloud our understanding.

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Our desire should be to understand the author's intent and build from there. We must know what was being said at the time it was being said and not just interject ourselves in our modern understanding of what the situation actually is.

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We must conform our beliefs to the Scriptures. We must examine our traditions and see whether they hold up to what is being presented before us.

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And this can be obviously empirically tested by reading the context, seeing what leads up to the understanding of John 3 .16,

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rather than assuming that since we've grown up with it for so long, we know what it means. This is something that I hope you will benefit from to be able to just take a moment to consider and observe in your own life to see whether you have actually been a good

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Berean and studying these things out to see whether they really are true. So in conclusion, and I will just, you know,

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I'm going to hasten to actually just wrap this up because I think I've made the point here. John 3 .16

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seems to lead us into an explanatory power, explanatory sense of what the illustration and the meaning of regeneration here as being grounded in the purpose for which the

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Son was given, and it was for those believing ones so that they would have everlasting life and not perish.

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They will find Him to be a great and powerful Savior, an absolute Savior that cannot fail because He was given for their faith to complete the work and grace of God and the gift to them

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He was. So then, let's conclude then with this conclusion. And I will actually wrap it up with the same quote that I began this entire series with, which was the quote from N .T.

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Wright on Doug Mu's studies. Remember, I don't really agree with everything N .T.

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Wright says, but this piece of the quote, I believe, is important to what started this series of mine, which was this.

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N .T. Wright says, where he hears the text saying something which is not what his tradition would have said, he will go with the text.

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This is N .T. Wright speaking of Doug Mu. Doug Mu would go with the text instead of his tradition.

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So I would exhort you, Christian, to go with the text, not your traditions. Everyone from the well -instructed middle schooler to the college student to the layperson in the church, even the soccer mom amongst the congregation can learn to interpret the

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Bible. The lie of the devil has been that studying the scripture and actually being theologically minded is a task only for the pastor or the

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Bible college student. No, it is not. Any regenerated person who can read plain words on a page can actually endeavor to praise and seek

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God's face by reading the Bible and reading it in context and in relationship to its own display and connections and themes, rather than relying on someone else completely and utterly to be able to preach the

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Bible to you. We all have that obligation to be good Bereans, so I exhort you to exercise that gift because pastors and leaders and elders are a gift to the church to help us mature and for the work of the ministry.

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But remember, God has given us all the personal responsibility to be able to actually study the scriptures so that we can come to proper conclusions of what he has clearly revealed therein.

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Abuse and misuse of the scriptures can lead to damnable heresies, so it's best not to play chance with our well -meaning communities.

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You know, enough well -meaning people have perished and gone to hell already, so what we need to do is we need to study to show ourselves and prove them to God.

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You know, because we are born again, we have the ability to grow from babes into those that no longer depend upon milk or are malnourished but are now standing and eating upon the meat of the word of God for our benefit and grow for his kingdom's sake.

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So I believe I will actually wrap it up here, but before I do so, I just want to remind you,

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I am not here to cause unnecessary conflict. I am here to encourage you to what has changed my life, which is

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Bible study and the revealed truth of God's word. So with that being said, I would like to thank you, and I'm surprised because I've been meaning to actually leave these episodes under 45 minutes or so, and I'm looking at the time now, and it looks like we're just about 35 minutes, so that's amazing.

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Praise God for that. And I'd like to remind you as we close off here that this was the last episode of our first series, but obviously we will be continuing on many other topics, so I hope you will join me again for the next episode of Truology, and I hope that you will comment and engage with me and share, subscribe, whatever you have to do through the social media outlinks that are being left in the description, along with the study

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I will leave for the notes that I've used here from Dr.

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Mick Mahone. You can check those out yourself, and remember on Spotify, you can participate in voting for the next episode of Truology.

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I always want to engage with those who are interested in voting for those topics so I can see exactly what your interests are for the next episode.

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So once again, my name is Belushi Prevalon. I really appreciate the time you've given, and for those who have been following since the beginning,

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God bless you, and I hope that this is a help to you to understanding the most abused and misused verses of the

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Bible. God bless. Truology is a podcast that seeks to equip, effect, and engage the world through Christ and his wonderful gospel of the kingdom, against which he has promised that the gates of hell shall never prevail, but increased by his government, his law, and grace, till it be presented a glorious church without spot or wrinkle.

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If there's any fear, threat, or worry, remember that the one that has called you according to his purpose and grace has also promised that all enemies will soon be placed under his feet.

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Now, I want you to believe that not because I said it or because it sounds really nice and spiritual, but primarily and wholeheartedly and only and biblically because it's the truth.