18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.
Introduction
In many ways, our text today is a very simple, straight forward, and self-explanatory text. Nevertheless there are very important truths here that we must not assume, but preach to ourselves anew. In our text, the distinguishing mark between the condemned and the not condemned, is belief in Christ, or the lack thereof. So with that in mind, as far as an outline goes, we will simply ask four basic questions of our text to guide us through it this afternoon. (1, What is belief? 2, What is unbelief? 3, Why are unbelievers condemned already? 4, Why are believers not condemned?)
What is Belief?
Not a Generic Belief
Notice, it is belief in Him that removes condemnation. Not just any belief, not a general belief in a general deity, certainly not belief in any other idol or false god, and obviously not belief in yourself, or your work, or your good deeds – in Jesus only, trusting in Him that your sins are forgiven and you are right with God because of what He has done.
Not Mere Ascent to the Facts
True belief is not generic belief, but it is also not merely an ascent to the facts, as true as they are. Even the demons believe – and shudder (James 2:19)! We’ve seen many people who at one time taught and preached the great truths of the gospel and the reformed faith, and then they leave and become apostate. They at one time agreed with the facts, but by their apostacy proved they never really knew and believed in Christ in faith. “They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us… (1 John 2:19)”
We see as well from 1 John that true belief is not belief at one time. It’s not a moment of decision in the past, or something that you accomplish and then check off the list. It is continual. Not perfect, but persevering. If it goes away, never to return, it was not true belief. As we saw in John 3:16, it’s “all the believing ones” – present tense. And that’s how it is here in verse 18, present tense – “whoever believes.” So, here in verse 18, we are not talking about perfect belief, but persevering belief. Or true belief. That’s important to note here, because on a practical level, even as true believers, our lives can be so riddled with unbelief in certain ways. When we sin, that is in one sense unbelief. We are not believing that obedience to Jesus is better than sin in that instance. We are not believing that sins leads to death and destruction in that instance. We can have that type of unbelief, and yet still be true believers who are not condemned. Just keep that in mind, that what we are talking about here in this verse, is true belief, or ultimate belief.
Faith and Trust in Jesus that He did what He did for you
In verse 17 we saw last week that God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be Saved. How is the world saved? Through Christ. Through Belief in the name of the only Son of God. In other words, conversion. The world is not saved through societal change, better education, promises from politicians, or through a certain standard of living. The world is saved through faith in Jesus Christ. But also, in verse 18, John goes from general language (the world in verse 17) to specific language, (whoever in verse 18; i.e., the individual). So we may ask again from verse 17, “How is the world saved?” To which we can answer, “one person at a time.” How is the world saved? One conversion at a time through the Spirit’s work in gospel preaching.
So thinking about implications of this for us in our own families, this means that through all the good things we do as parents to set our children up for success in life, the most important of all is continual and faithful gospel preaching. It is very easy to become lazy in our parenting. For example, when we are disciplining our children, we can get lazy and not preach the gospel in our discipline. We just preach the law. “Little Johnny, you disobeyed, that was wrong, that’s why you’re being disciplined, and God commands that you obey.” As true as that is, and as consistent as that is with Scripture, that’s just law. That’s not power to save or forgive your child. And when we get lazy, and I’m talking to myself, and stop there, we are teaching our children, to bear the weight of their sin, we’re not teaching them to take their sin to Christ. In our discipline when need gospel preaching, we need to say after all that, “and little Johnny, I forgive you, but what you need most is God to forgive you, and Jesus died for sinners, and if you take your sin to Jesus and trust in Him to forgive you, He will.” There is, of course, so many ways you can communicate that. What we need is Gospel preaching with the coffee grinds in it – strong. We don’t want gospel preaching to be a cup of cream and sugar with coffee added in. If gospel preaching is a cup of coffee, we want straight coffee with the grinds still in it. Something that hits you in the face and wakes you up in the morning. Something you can’t ignore. Something that does something to you. The kind that saves. We want free grace and no condemnation. Predestination and double imputation. Substitution and resurrection. Ascension and intercession. You know, the good stuff. So, belief is not generic, it is specific. It is not merely factual, but it is also faith-full.
Belief is not mere intellectual ascent, it is a heart that is trusting in Christ by faith to be their Savior, as a result of being born again. This is not something you can just do or not do. It is a work of God, in keeping with the consistency of John 3. So belief is a gift and work of God in which faith is expressed by the believer in leaning upon Christ alone for forgiveness, righteousness, and eternal life. It is a faith and trust that what Christ did for salvation, He did for you. As I like to say so often in talking about the Lord’s Supper: we are to take the supper, not only remembering that Christ died as a fact, but believing that He gave His body and blood, for you! “Christ died and rose” is fact. “Christ died and rose for me” is faith – or true belief.
What is Unbelief?
In one sense we could say that if belief is leaning upon Christ. So then on the other hand, we could say that unbelief is leaning upon yourself, or your sin, or an idol, or anything other than Christ. Or just not leaning. It is a refusal to lean upon Christ. A refusal to believe that He died for your sin. A refusal to be forgiven and receive righteousness and eternal life.
Some people say that unbelief leads to sin or that sin leads to unbelief. Both of those are true, but it is also true that unbelief is sin itself. Unbelief can manifest itself in various ways. Unbelief is often a generic belief in a general deity. Unbelief is often belief that does not persevere. Unbelief can be a belief that the gospel is true, yet not believing it in faith for yourself.
Why are Unbelievers condemned already?
For the unbeliever, condemnation does not wait until judgment day, although the “consummation” of their condemnation of course does. Sinners are not struck down and sent to hell immediately, yet the sentence is set and sure: condemnation (unless of course they come to Christ in faith). For the believer the statement is: not condemned. For the unbeliever, the statement is: condemned already. Or we could also say: For the unbeliever the statement is: condemned already. For the believer: justified already.
There is no Neutrality
Why are unbelievers condemned already? Because they are not neutral. There is no neutrality. They are enemies and rebels. They are not innocent bystanders. We said last week in verse 17 that Jesus did not come into a morally neutral world to not condemn it and save it. He came into a condemned world, to save it!
Jesus said, “Whoever is not with me is against me” (Luke 11:23). Do Christians take that seriously today? Jesus eliminated any possibility of neutrality. Neutrality is a myth. There are many implications from this, that Christians need to think about.
What else did Jesus say? Matthew 6:24, “No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other.” Unbelief is not a state of neutrality, it is a state of rebellion. How might this affect our evangelistic gospel preaching? Unbelievers are not walking around in a state of ignorant neutrality who simply need more education or the right information. Rather they are walking around in hostile rebellion against the King of Kings. Unbelief is not simply the absence of belief, it is the presence of evil. It is anti-belief, against belief.
1 Kings 18 is an awesome chapter of the Bible. It concerns the time that Ahab was king in Israel, and that was during the time of the prophet Elijah. Ahab was a wicked king, who did not honor Yahweh. Elijah prophesied to Ahab that there would be no rain in Israel until he said so. So Elijah of course then goes into hiding. After the third year of no rain, the Lord tells Elijah to go to Ahab and then God will send rain. Then in 1 Kings 18:17-18 it says this, “When Ahab saw Elijah, Ahab said to him, ‘Is it you, you troubler of Israel?’ And he answered, ‘I have not troubled Israel, but you have, and your father’s house, because you have abandoned the commandments of the Lord and followed the Baals…” So then, Elijah challenged the prophets of Baal to a showdown. They were both to offer a sacrifice to their god, and whichever sacrifice was consumed by fire from heaven, his god was the true God. We of course know how that turns out. But I love what Elijah tells the people when they first gather on Mt. Carmel. He said, “How long will you go limping between two different opinions? If the LORD is God, follow him; but if Baal, then follow him.” What a prophetic challenge that can be applied to gospel preaching today. There are many people today who are limping between two opinions, thinking they can be in some kind of neutral zone. Elijah was not establishing neutral ground when he asked how long they would go limping between two opinions. But rather we are shown that limping between two opinions is to be decidedly in unbelief. If you are limping between two opinions you are still in unbelief. That’s why he says, “How long will you do that!” If Jesus is God, follow Him, but if worldliness, then follow it. If Jesus is God, follow Him, but if you, then do you. If Jesus is God, follow Him, but if your sin is, then follow it. Thinking about the context of John 3 and the conversation with Nicodemus, you just want to shake Nicodemus and say “How long will you limp between two opinions!?” Maybe you want to do that to your children, yeah? Do it. How long are you going to act Christian and reformed on the outside, but in your heart, you cherish sin? Those things don’t offset one another. It’s flat out rebellion. You cannot serve two masters. If you are not for me then you are against me.
Why are Believers not Condemned?
Whoever believes in Him is not condemned. Why are those who believe not condemned? Well, it’s not because they are a better person than someone who does not believe. It is not because they have used the power of their own flesh to be a more spiritual, moral, or religious person. They are not condemned not because they are, in themselves, worthy of no condemnation. It is entirely and only attributable to the sovereign mercy and grace of God. Even the very belief that they have is a belief that was given to them. Salvation is all of grace. But belief itself is not the thing that earns or purchases no condemnation. The gospel writer is simply using it as an identifier: those that believe, they are not condemned, those that do not believe are condemned already. It’s an outward identifier. Albeit, an essential one. The thing that puts the “not” in front of condemned for the believer is not the belief itself, but it is what the Lord Jesus Christ accomplished in redemption that moves the needle from “condemned” to “not condemned.” His life of righteousness, His substitutionary atoning death, and His resurrection, applied to our life by the Spirit, forgives us of our sin, gives us alien righteousness, and guarantees our justification. Jesus Christ came into the world, not to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through Him. He fulfilled all righteousness to give it to us. He took our sin to forgive it. He rose again, to guarantee it. And He intercedes even now, so we’ll believe it. This is what Jesus came to do, to take condemned people, and not condemn them – to take unbelieving people, and give them belief. I said it last week in John 3:17 and I’ll say it again here: Adam took a perfectly good world, and condemned it (why’d he have to go and do that?). Jesus took a perfectly condemned world, and saved (why’d he have to go and do that?). This is the mission of God through the Son: to not condemn. Not because He doesn’t judge or anything like that, but because unbelievers are already condemned. So if you’re an unbeliever, that’s what you need to know: God’s already got you. You are already under wrath and condemnation. You’re walking around with a big sign over you that says, “Condemned.” But the good news of the gospel is that you can have the word “not” put in front of “condemned.” You can have your sins forgiven. You can receive the righteousness of Christ. You can do so through faith; that is, belief.
This is why we’re here. To hear that we’re not condemned. Not because of us, or because there is no judgment, but because of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ that takes our condemnation and buries it in the bottom of the ocean never to be seen again. What comfort this is to the believer. When the enemies of doubt and accusation flood the believer’s heart, when the accuser is nigh, spouting his poison and lies: “you’re a sinner,” “you’re not a real Christian,” “did God really say, ‘not condemned’?” the Lord is there to lift your chin and say “whoever believes in me is not condemned.” The devil might condemn you, your sin might condemn you, others might condemn you, you might condemn you, but if you are in the Lord Jesus Christ, God does not condemn you. And that’s the only judgment that matters. Oh yes, you deserve condemnation, but in the gospel, Jesus gives us what we do not deserve, He gives us what He earned. He earned “no condemnation” for us.
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