God is True

He who has received His testimony has set his seal to this, that God is true. For He whom God has sent speaks the words of God; for He gives the Spirit without measure. The Father loves the Son and has given all things into His hand. He who believes in the Son has eternal life; but he who does not obey the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him. (John 3:33-36)

As I returned to these verses this morning and remembered what I meditated on yesterday about them, I realized that I completely missed saying the main point that caused me to begin writing. The list of things contained in the last few verses I made yesterday are all points of truth that are affirmed by each person who receives the testimony of Jesus and all who relay that testimony to others.

What also seems to be the case here is that John is summarizing this chapter and re-covering the main points that he wants us to remember. He is reminding us of how we need to change our concept of God based on the revelations that Jesus came to give us and that are recorded here.

The real truth about God seen in John 3 is that:

• Jesus was sent by the Father to speak the words of God to us.

• God (both the Father and Jesus) gives the Spirit without measure; they are not stingy.

• God loves Jesus (no surprise there) and just as much loves all of us partly because Christ took all of humanity into Himself through His act of redemption (the truly amazing part).

• There is no lack of resources on God's part to accomplish all that He wants to do in and through Jesus and by extension in us. Everything has been put into the hands of Jesus, humanity's new representative and head. Therefore, all who believe and embrace their position and privilege as being in Christ and allow Christ to abide in them also have all resources at their disposal anytime Christ in them moves them to ask for them.

• Any person now who believes these things, who entrusts His life to God's Son as the designated link between our hearts and God's heart, can and will experience eternal life now.

The rest of the verse simply states the truth of reality for any who refuse to believe the incredibly good news of what God is like and what He offers for us to embrace. The only way we can have life is to be in connection with the only Source of life, there is no other option. And even though we continue to experience life here while rejecting God's offer, we are living on grace alone while storing up wrath inside our hearts that is already beginning the work of death inside of us. When our rejection is finally matured and we have sealed our own hearts forever from being able to respond to this grace, then the wrath inside will finish its work of pain and bitterness and we will suffer the second death forever.

Why is this called the wrath of God here? Is it really true that God finally runs out of love and patience and gets mad and punishes those who reject His love by burning them and torturing them? Is this the kind of God that we are supposed to love and embrace?

I praise and thank God that I have come to see that these notions are some of the most diabolical lies of the enemy of God and are patently false. What I am seeing however is that one of the reasons this wrath is called the wrath of God is because it is composed of what we originally were given by God. What I am coming to understand more clearly is that the pure and unconditional love and grace that is always offered to us by God can be corrupted inside of us, distorted, contaminated and amalgamated into what in the end can only be described as wrath. That is an amazing process of morphing from something so pure and powerful to something so deadly and powerful, but that is in fact what really happens.

Sin is the catalyst that causes the power of God's love poured out into our hearts to be contaminated by the lies we refuse to let go of. By clinging to lies about God in the face of revelations of the real truth about Him, we turn the truth of God into a lie within ourselves and the force of His love becomes the force of what now has become bitterness and wrath. This is the sad and amazing power that sin has, to transform something perfectly good into something that destroys us. But the real truth is that when we reject love with our hearts then our own choices so harden our hearts that they eventually become incapable of receiving and giving love. Then when we come into the presence of the Source of irresistible love in the day of final revelation and judgment, our hardened hearts can only experience torture, anguish, fear and bitterness because of our lost capacity to process that love. All of this coalesces into what we know of as wrath, the outbursts of rage resulting from our awareness of our hopeless and lost condition as we realize we have done it to ourselves.

This wrath will be expressed in violence against others around us and particularly towards those who knowingly assisted in our deceptions and misled us about the true character of God. The religious people who professed to know the truth about God and yet used their position and influence over us for their own advantage or pleasure will be the prime recipients of the wrath of all those who they led deeper into deception. And finally, Satan himself will be the greatest target of all the wrath of humanity on that day when it will be fully exposed the terrible work that all of his lies have accomplished in ruining the hearts of those whom God wanted to heal and draw to Himself. (see Isaiah 14:12-21)

The focal point of the great battle we are involved in between Christ and Satan is all around what we choose to believe about the character and attitudes of God. Satan has completely filled our world with myriads of lies about God and wants to completely snuff out any and all truth about Him by replacing it all with his version of reality. But God has sent His own Son into the world to revive the real truth about God that had nearly become extinct 2000 years ago and again is in danger of the same.

But God will never allow the truth of Himself to vanish from the earth completely, though Satan is hell-bent on accomplishing just that. God is bringing about a revival in the hearts of all who are listening to Him personally right now – today. The light of the real truths about God is becoming brighter and is irrepressible even though it is fiercely attacked and discredited. And even though prophecy predicts that there may be a short time just before the end when there will be a massive slaughter launched by evil men that will bring about horrific scenes that we cannot now even imagine, there will still be preserved through it all at least a small remnant of people who will then perfectly reflect the character of God to the world through their steadfast allegiance to Him.

But they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they did not cling to life even in the face of death. (Revelation 12:11 NRSV)

Though the truth about God will be severely challenged it will never become extinct. In the final outcome the real truth about God will prevail and all those who have opposed it will find that their resistance to it has become the very liability that will destroy them instead of those whom they have persecuted and killed. Physical death imposed on God's loyal people is not the death to be feared. But the death that extinguishes one's life for all of eternity because of resistance to the truth about life is the death to be avoided at all costs. And the way to avoid this final death is to accept the truth about God described in these verses and allow the Spirit of God to infuse us with the very life of God.