1. It is A Divine love – For God so loved
Here John presents us with the greatest Lover who has loved to the greatest degree. This love is not the love of the creature but the love of the Creator to the creature. God is presented here as the great initiator of love. There is no greater or more glorious love than divine love.
God does not need to be pacified and drawn out by our plight and human efforts to love Him He simply loves because that is His nature. God is not a stern angry unforgiving God, but rather a God whose love motivated Him to create this world knowing that His beloved Son would need to be sent to die for us, to take our place under judgment for our sins. This truly is divine love, a giving love not based on anything man could do but rather on what God had decided to do for mankind.
2. It is A Universal love – …world
God’s love is expressed without partiality or particularity of peoples. An old children’s song says it best, “Red and yellow black and white all are precious in His sight.” To love the world means that God’s love is not conditioned on nationality, or social status. This love smashes through all the national and natural boundaries and saves men of every kindred, tribe, nation, and tongue, and in the process saves the worst of sinners. His love is able to save to the uttermost those whom he has chosen.
3. It is A Sacrificial love – …gave His only begotten Son
The phrase only begotten means “unique.” Jesus is the unique Son of God; there is no one like him, no one who is his equal. Therefore when God gave Jesus, he gave the best gift in the universe.The verb he gave must be taken in the sense of he gave unto death as an offering for sin. This is what Calvary’s cross is all about. Jesus Christ came to give His life a ransom for many.The cross displays in full measure the heinous nature of sin, heinous, because the ransom price cost God the death of His unique and only Son.The cross displays the way of forgiveness consistent with the justice of God. A holy God cannot wink at sin or else He would no longer be holy or just. God provided a way by having the judge (Jesus Christ) stand and receive the punishment of the condemned.The cross displays the full measure of sacrificial love in that God simply gave… He was not coerced, or manipulated to love. He wasn’t moved by any good thing in us, He simply set His love upon us, and it cost Him the very best of Heaven.
John 15:13 “Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends.
Romans 8:32 He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him over for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things?
4. It is A Dividing love – …that whoever believes
To reject and harden your heart towards the love of God is to remain in the camp of unbelief and condemnation. To believe is to leave the loves of this world behind and embrace the only love worth holding on to – God’s love. How you respond to this love will determine your eternal destiny. You will either spend eternity in the Fathers house or you will spend eternity in hell.
5. It is A Delivering love – …shall not perish
This love delivers us from eternal judgment
To “perish” does not merely speak of losing your physical existence; nor does it mean you will be annihilated. As the context (verse 17) indicates, the perishing of which this verse speaks indicates divine condemnation, complete and everlasting, so that one is banished from the presence of the God of love and dwells forever in the presence of a God of wrath.
6. It is A Purposeful love – …but have eternal life
This speaks to the hope and destiny of such love. It means that the relationship between God and man which was broken by mankind’s sin has been restored never to be broken again.
The sweet communion and fellowship with the creator of the universe becomes a reality to the believer here and now. We are able to live our lives in the reality of fellowship with God.