Divine Wrath Removal - [John 3:31-36]

I happen to be a pretty big fan of children. I think they're pretty amazing. I'm told, now this is an apocryphal story, may or may not be true, but I'm told that there was once a child that was so determined to have her way that she actually, when she was going to be disciplined, negotiated the number of swats she was going to receive.

Her father talked to her and told her that she was going to receive 10 swats.

The child shook her head and said, 11. A little unclear on the concept, but I think it shows, even though it's foolish, silly, it's reflective of an unregenerate heart.

One giving over to rebellion and one that doesn't really care what's good or not, just wants to argue, wants to rebel.

And we live in a world that has this notion of God that goes something like this.

Well, he probably doesn't exist, but if he does, surely he's reasonable.

He could be negotiated with. He'll say 10, I'll say 11. Or maybe what

I'm doing isn't that bad and I'm sure I can negotiate my way into heaven. Like children, unbelievers want to imagine that they will determine what is fair and what is not.

But tonight, we look at a doctrine that is beyond the worst nightmare of the unbeliever.

And many who say they're Christians. Today's churches are stocked with people who believe that they will define what it takes to get to heaven and what it takes to escape hell.

I'd invite you to open your Bibles to John chapter 3, and we're going to be looking at the end of the chapter starting in verse 31 through verse 36.

Of course, people who think that they can define heaven and hell apart from God's word are wrong.

And that's what we're going to see tonight. Well, John 3 began with Nicodemus, the teacher of all

Israel, coming to Jesus at night. Nicodemus had been attracted to Jesus by the signs that he performed, and he knew that Jesus did them by the power of God, but really wasn't sure who

Jesus was. And in answering Nicodemus, Jesus again and again cited the sovereignty of God in salvation.

When he said, you must be born again, that was something that had to be done to Nicodemus, not something that Nicodemus had to do.

And so it goes throughout their interaction. And after he's done speaking with Nicodemus, as we saw this morning, he went to Judea and began baptizing in a fashion similar to that of John the

Baptist, although he did not personally baptize the people who came to him, his disciples did.

And this morning we looked at what is known as the recessional of John the Baptist, his announcement that it was time for him to decrease, to recess, to pull back from the spotlight, and it was time for the

Lord Jesus Christ to increase. And tonight's passage is interesting for a number of reasons, but I think one of them is because experts disagree on who wrote it.

Some think it's the final comments of John the Baptist in his interaction with his disciples, but most say that it is

John the Apostle, and I think they're right. I think this is his final note before he goes into the

Samaritan woman, the woman at the well. So let's go to the text here in John chapter 3.

He who comes from above is above all.

He who is of the earth belongs to the earth and speaks in an earthly way. He who comes from heaven is above all.

He bears witness to what he has seen and heard, yet no one receives his testimony.

Whoever receives his testimony sets his seal to this, that God is true.

For he whom God has sent utters the words of God, for he gives the

Spirit without measure. The Father loves the Son and has given all things into his hand.

Whoever believes the Son has eternal life. Whoever does not obey the

Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.

Now this evening I want to draw your attention to six truths about wrath removal.

In fact, I've termed them wrath -removing realities, so that you will be encouraged about all that God has done for you if you are his.

If you are not saved, or you're not sure if you are saved, I pray this evening would be a lot more life -altering than anything you might be missing.

Not to mention any names. First, wrath -removing reality is, there is only one who can deliver from divine wrath.

Looking again at verse 31, and we're going to see a contrast. And this is repeated, and we'll pick that up in a minute.

But a contrast, first of all, look at verse 31. He who comes from above is above all. He who is of the earth, belongs to the earth, and speaks in an earthly way.

Jesus is uniquely the Son. He's the only one who can deliver from divine wrath.

He is the one, the only one, who comes from above. This is something, it's a consistent theme of John the

Apostle as he presents Jesus as the Christ, the Messiah, the Son of God.

The one in whom we must have faith in order to go to heaven. And so, what better way to say that he is the key, the only deliverer, than to say that he actually came from heaven, which is consistent, again, from John chapter 1, all the way through the

Gospel. And as he is from heaven, his station is above all.

There is nothing and no one on earth to which Jesus is subservient.

He is the king, he's the creator, he's the sustainer. John 1 tells us that, that he is the one who created and sustains all things.

And as I was contemplating this, I thought, what a farce it is when we hear people in the world say things like, well, you know, there are many great religious leaders.

Buddha, Moses, Muhammad, you know, fill in the blank,

Ellen G. White, Joseph Smith, whoever they want to say is a great religious leader. And the truth is what? That even if these people,

I mean, we know that some of these people existed, but even if they existed, they owe their very life and breath to the

Lord Jesus Christ. He is their creator, he sustains their life. Without him, they would be nothing.

So to kind of lump them all together, you know, Mother Teresa, whoever you want to throw out there, and to say these are all significant religious figures is false.

One is God, one is the creator, one is the giver of life, and the rest are just creations.

As I said, I mean, it's unknown, who knows if even Buddha ever existed. But the contrast here in this text appears to be with John the

Baptist. We just got through talking about John the Baptist this morning, and so there's one who comes from above and then there's one who is earthly.

That doesn't mean that the things that John the Baptist said were wrong or incorrect, but there is a definite difference.

The Apostle John, looking back on it, says, he who is of the earth belongs to the earth and speaks in an earthly way.

He's not suggesting that John the Baptist was crass or crude. You know, it's not earthy, it's earthly.

His words did not have a heavenly origin, nor did his being. He was a creator, or a creature, not a creator.

The contrast between these two, between John the Baptist and Jesus, again, is consistent.

As I mentioned many weeks ago, months ago, when we're looking through chapter 1, in our

English Bible, it tells us that Jesus, in the beginning, was the word, using the

English word was. And then it tells us later on in chapter 1 that John was. But if you look at the two words in Greek, they're different.

Why? Because, in the beginning, was the word is indefinite. It has a timelessness to it.

It suggests eternality. Whereas the word affixed to John's name makes it very plain that he had a definite beginning.

He was born into the world. So there's this contrast between the two of them.

Now, it's interesting, I think the second part here, where verse 31 and then into verse 32, again, repeating the, he who comes from heaven is above all, and then in verse 32, he bears witness to what he has seen and heard.

Really, Jesus is the confidant. He's the one who has kind of the inner knowledge.

He's the one who can take us behind the curtain, as it were, who was an eyewitness.

He bears witness to what he has seen and heard. He's not getting his information from a secondary source.

It's not even the Holy Spirit informing him. He knows these things. He was there. He's not a religious innovator.

He's not putting out suggestions or ideas and waiting to see how they are received. He teaches what he has seen and heard in the heavenlies.

In other words, Jesus speaks with authority that is second to none. So our second reality here, wrath -removing reality, is many deserve divine wrath.

Look at verse 32. Yet no one receives his testimony. Here is the eternal

God who knows the Father and the Spirit intimately, who knows the things of God, and who says,

I speak only of the things I have seen and heard. And yet people don't believe him. They don't receive it.

God in the flesh speaks, and no one receives his testimony. That's what the verse says. But I think we'll see in a minute that no one is hyperbolic.

Just as, you know, when John the Baptist, his disciples said this morning, everyone, they're all going over to Jesus to be baptized.

That was hyperbolic, and so is this. But I think it's fair to say that of the many multitudes who heard

Jesus preach, who saw him perform wonders, I mean, think of the feeding of the 5 ,000 and what that all means, that there were thousands more besides that, that the number of actual believers was infinitesimal.

Think about what happens at the crucifixion. They all scatter, and basically the church, such as it was, evaporates, the group of believers.

They all just disperse. So why is it that so few received him?

Why is it that so many rejected Christ? Why do so many people reject him today?

Well, we don't have to look long for the answer. It was back in verse 19 of chapter 3. Listen. The light,

Jesus, has come into the world, and people love the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil.

They don't love him because they don't want to change. Sinners, unbelievers, are predisposed to sin.

They like darkness. If they rejected the Son of God, even after seeing all that he was doing, what makes us think that we can argue, cajole, nudge, convince, or give them enough evidence to get them into the kingdom of God?

It's not like they're just on the edge of believing and that we just have to give them that shove.

The unbelievers' default switch is set to off. It's analog. It's either on or off, and they are off.

They do not have ears to hear. They do not have eyes to see. They do not have hearts of flesh.

They listen to the word of God and say what? I don't believe it.

That can't be. That can't be right. Homosexuality can't be sin. Abortion can't be sin.

God cannot be the creator. Adam and Eve cannot have actually existed.

Jesus may have existed, especially since historically now it's been proven, but he can't be

God. He can't be raised from the dead. He can't return and judge me. These are all the things that they believe.

Paul wrote about this in 1 Corinthians. He said this, The natural person does not accept the things of the

Spirit of God, for they are folly to him. They're foolishness. They don't believe them. They don't want to believe them.

They're not going to believe them. They think they're moronic. They think they're stupid. He goes on and he says, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.

They don't believe them because they don't have the Holy Spirit. And apart from the Holy Spirit, the words of Christ, the words of God might as well be in Martian, to pick a language that doesn't exist.

Our first, wrath removing reality. Only one, there's only one who can deliver from divine wrath.

Second one, many deserve divine wrath. And our third, reality is faith that saves from divine wrath.

There is a faith that saves from divine wrath. Look at verse 33. Whoever receives his testimony, faith demands belief in truth claims of Jesus.

You have to believe what he said. Now again, we see that not all reject, as I said earlier, not all reject, that some receive it.

And it is consistent in John's gospel that we see this whoever concept and it's consistently not a whosoever will but a description of who they are.

It is a verbal noun, a, help me out, it's a participle. There's the word

I was looking for. Again, describing a characteristic, a truth about them.

They are receivers. They are those who have, at some point, decided to receive and they just receive.

It's something that's already done and it has ongoing results. Now, this does not indicate that this is a morally neutral person making a choice to receive

Jesus. To receive the testimony of Jesus is to believe all that he is and you cannot do that apart from a working of the spirit.

Again, in context, you must be born again. All these truths are still true. Now, it's interesting here because faith demands that you have to believe in the truth claims of Jesus but it's not just mere belief.

This next part is really fascinating to me. It says, faith is your signature.

It is affixing your name to something. Look at this, verse 33. Whoever receives his testimony sets his seal.

Now, we know about signet rings. We know, you know, the kings would often have them. Rich people would often have them but a lot of people had them.

Some of them weren't so great. I mean, if you were poor, you probably didn't have a really spiffy one but why do you suppose that signet rings were relatively common?

Did you ever watch those western movies and, you know, they go to sign a contract and what do they do?

X. Why? Because they were illiterate. Well, the people in the ancient world were not all scholars.

They weren't sitting around in monasteries, you know, studying and all that stuff. A lot of them were illiterate. So this idea of setting your seal is basically the same as signing a contract, affixing your name to something, saying,

I agree with this and I'm going to sign on it. It's more than signing a petition but it's an agreement. It's like signing a document, a legal document.

And this text, to set one sealed to the testimony of Jesus, means to sign on fully, to affix one's name, as it were, to the truthfulness of the words of Christ, of His testimony.

What are you signing when you, you know, affix your signature, your signet ring, as it were?

It's a declaration. The declaration is this, that God is true.

In a visual picture, believers are affixing their seals to the words of Jesus, affirming that He has faithfully stated what

He has seen and heard, and that the very words of God are true.

To flip it around, to disbelieve Jesus is to do what? It's to call

God a liar. You cannot pick and choose what you will believe in Scripture.

You cannot half -heartedly commit to something that seems reasonable to you, pretty decent to you.

The Lord Jesus Christ will have nothing to do with those who are lukewarm. What does He do with the church at Laodicea when

He says they're lukewarm? Revelation, I'll spit you out of my mouth. When you set your seal to the testimony of the

Lord Jesus Christ, you are affirming all of the Bible, specifically everything it teaches about Him.

There's no trial period, no money -back guarantee, and there are no half -measures.

You are either in or out. You are saved or damned, committed or condemned, redeemed or reprobated.

There are no two ways about it. It is either or. Our fourth wrath -wrenching reality, or whatever it was.

The Trinity, there is a Trinity who saves from wrath. Look at verse 34.

First we'll look at the Son. Really, the messenger. You think about Jesus that way as the messenger.

Look at verse 34. For He whom God has sent utters the words of God.

The verb sent, what do you think that is in the Greek? Harriton is not allowed to guess.

It's the same verb from which we get apostle. The apostles were the official representatives, the sent ones of Jesus, and it's the same verb here that's applied to Him.

He was sent. He was God's official representative. He was the ultimate messenger for the

Godhead. Who else would it be, again, that could take us behind the curtain, as it were, to show us, to give us insight into the communications that took place between the

Trinity? Looking at John 17 and the kind of communication that took place between the

Father and the Son. Who could do that except for Jesus? Who else could the

Father entrust such a mission to? Commentator Bruce said this, The Son is the

Father's envoy, His perfect spokesman and revealer. His secretary of state, as it were.

I mean, this is, He is the official guy to implement the Father's policy, to present

His truths. The Spirit, the

Holy Spirit, we could call Him the empowerer. Look at that, verse 34, for He gives the

Spirit without measure. Now this is kind of a tricky one, because I know some people want to twist this and make this into,

God gives the Spirit without measure to every believer. But that's not the context here.

He's giving the Spirit, God the Father is giving the Spirit without measure to the

Son. To the Son. One rabbi put it well, he said about three centuries after the apostle

John wrote this gospel, he said that the Holy Spirit was given to the prophets, of course he was only talking about the

Old Testament, but he said the Holy Spirit was given to the prophets in measure commensurate with their job, with their role, with their mission that God had sent them, sent them with.

So the tougher the task was, the more of the Holy Spirit, the more of the

Holy Spirit was given to them. And I think that's, I think that's a good analogy, or I think that's good thinking on his part.

But now for the Son, the Holy Spirit was given without measure, why? Why? Well, because in his humanness, he had frailty, he had weakness, he was subject to being tired and all these, to being hungry and to sadness and all the things that he wasn't, he wasn't subject to in his deity.

But he's given without measure because he had a mission unlike any other. Not only did he have to give us exactly the words of God, but he had to live a perfect life, suffer a horrendous death and then be raised on the third day.

And this is consistent, by the way, this spirit without measure is consistent with the testimony of John the

Baptist. He said that he saw the spirits descend like a dove and remain on Jesus.

So, the Father. We've seen the Son and the Spirit and now the

Father in verse 35. The Father loves the Son and has given all things into his hand.

From the specific gift of unlimited, unlimited

Holy Spirit, the limitless power of the Holy Spirit, John moves to this more general idea of all things being in or given to the

Son. Now, when you think of all things, I mean, all things obviously covers everything. But what are some, or maybe some of the specific things that come to mind when you think of all things being given to Jesus by the

Father? Authority?

Absolutely, Brian. Okay, he was given,

I think, I think this is kind of an offshoot of the Holy Spirit. I think even in his humanness, he retained omniscience.

But, yeah. Other thoughts? Because I'll tell you, I had one right away. Barry? Okay. Okay, exactly.

Miracles. But I thought about judgment. Listen to Acts 17, a familiar verse, but listen to it, these two verses here.

Acts 17, verses 30 and 31. The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now

He commands all people everywhere to repent. Verse 31, because He has fixed a day on which

He will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom He has appointed.

And of this He has given assurance to all by raising Him from the dead. We don't have to guess who it was because He raised one from the dead to give assurance.

Jesus. He gave Him, when He says He gave Him all things, well, He gave Him judgment.

He's coming back to judge. So, so far we've seen there's only one who can deliver from divine wrath, the

Lord Jesus Christ. Many deserve divine wrath because they reject Him. We see that there's a faith that saves from divine wrath when you affirm the things of Jesus, when you basically sign the contract, affix your signet ring.

And then there's the Trinity who saves from wrath. And our fifth wrath -rattling reality, those who will evade divine wrath.

There are those who will evade divine wrath. Look at verse 36. Whoever believes in the

Son has eternal life. Again, a participle, the one who is believing, the one who is in a constant state of believing, begins the verse.

Now what are the marks of a believer? They have received, just from this text, they have received the testimony of the

Lord Jesus that He is who He says He is. They have believed in the truth of God's Word, in the faithfulness of God, and have entrusted themselves entirely to Him, ceasing to rely upon their own merit.

Now listen, here's where it gets tough. They also have to obey Christ.

How do we know that? Because we're about to see what happens if you don't obey Christ. If you don't obey

Christ, verse 36 says, whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.

Now, to believe in Christ necessarily means that you obey

Him. There's an equivalence here. To believe is to obey. It will not be perfect.

You will not reach a point of sinless perfection in this life. But your sin, instead of bringing you joy, which it did before salvation, causes you to mourn.

What once made you happy brings you grief. You do not view obedience as a grim matter forced upon you, like, well,

I'll obey if I have to, but as the fondest desire of your heart.

You long for heaven, not merely for its beauty or because you fear hell, but because you long to be with your

Savior, and you long to be free from ever disobeying Him again.

And our sixth truth is that there are those who will suffer divine wrath.

Again, v. 36, whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.

Now, does this put the light of the modern notion that obedience is not mandatory? I think it clearly does.

If you don't obey the Son, then what? The wrath of God remains on you. Does that sound like heaven?

I'm in heaven, but I'm still receiving the wrath of God. How can one read this and conclude that salvation is only the beginning, the first step, and that obedience is a second level that may or may not be attained, but in either case, belief alone, faith alone, profession alone is enough to warrant eternity in heaven.

Now, it's certainly true that we are saved by faith alone, but as we often hear, true faith is never alone.

It is accompanied by works of obedience. It cannot be that the wrath of God comes about only because of rejection in Christ.

You hear that all the time. Why do people go to hell? Because they reject Christ. But look at the text again. The verb does not obey means an unwillingness to, or refusal to comply with the demands of some authority.

It's rebellion. It's not a lack of faith. It is rebellion. They don't obey, they rebel.

They fight against the power. Unbelievers don't need additional information.

They don't need little tour guides on how to get to heaven. They need a new heart, one that grasps the word of God.

Now furthermore, look at that last phrase. The wrath of God remains on him. It doesn't come on him.

It's not a question of they reject Jesus and then the wrath of God comes on them.

It remains on them. What does that say to us? It was there. It needs to be removed.

It's not as though there's some new state here. When you come into this world, you come with the wrath of God on you.

All men come into the world bearing the wrath of God and it needs to be removed. If it's not removed, it remains.

The wrath of God remains on him. It stays there. And it should be noted that God is not...

He doesn't get mad. He's not upset. He's not throwing a fit or any of these other kind of scandalous comments that are made from time to time about God.

He has set... He created everything. He set the level. He said, this is what you must do.

Is He right to be wrathful towards those who rebel against Him?

Absolutely. His wrath, that word, is really settled indignation.

He's indignant that His creatures are in rebellion against Him. They're not functioning as they are created to do.

It is His desire to see His justice done so that His holiness is affirmed and it will be affirmed.

Many believe today that they can determine the nature of God and the nature of His judgment. They imagine a

God who is malleable, who can be folded, spindled, mutilated, molded into whatever image they'd like.

They like to think of God as an earthly human father, one who is subject to emotion, persuasion, coercion.

But God is not a man with whom we may argue. His law is fixed.

His standard is fixed. And His wrath is not satisfied in any other way than through the cross.

Jesus suffered the infinite, righteous, perfect wrath of God against sinners.

He alone removes the wrath of God from the objects of His love. He alone lived a life worthy of heaven.

He alone lived a life worthy of heaven. He alone lived...

There's no other person who ever could have. It had to be God in the flesh to perfectly obey the demands of the law.

And because He was the only one who could do it, the only lamb who could take away the sins of the world,

He alone could pay the price to deliver us from hell. Our natural state is to be under the wrath of Almighty God by virtue of Adam's sin and by virtue of our own proclivity to sin.

But He has delivered us from what we deserve if we are

His. That is, if we belong to Christ, if we believe, and if we obey. Obedience is not optional.

And hell is a place where resurrected bodies, perfectly designed to withstand the eternal torment of an all -powerful

God, that's where those people will be who reject the

Son, who refuse to obey Him. Do not be deceived.

Obedience is not optional. Wrath removal demands that we love the

Lord God, our God, with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and that we obey

Him. Let's pray. Father in Heaven, we just thank You tonight for Your Word, for the

Gospel of Jesus Christ, for You providing the perfect Lamb to take away our sins, that we might be forgiven, that we might have

Your righteous, holy, and perfect wrath removed from us, that we might not be under the burden that we so rightly deserve.

Father, for anyone here tonight, from the oldest to the youngest, who doesn't know

You, Lord, would You open up their eyes even tonight, would You give them a heart of flesh, a heart that beats for You, a heart that yearns to obey

You, and who believes on the Lord Jesus Christ in His person, in His words, and in His work.