For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.
John 3:16
Christ is Risen!
There are three critical things one must believe in order to be a Christian. The first is Genesis 1:1-3, that God created the world. Someone greater than us made us. Someone, not us, is at the center of the universe. This is critical. Many people do not believe in God, or they don’t think about God, they don’t consider the bigger picture of how did we all come to be here. They know they are here, and want to make the most of the time here, i.e. make money, have fun, etc. If there is no sense of God, then who or what is at the center of everything? Us? Sadly, there are a lot of people who think that.
There are people in the world today who say they believe “in a higher power,” or even stipulate that there is some sort of “god” at work in the universe who don’t necessarily believe in Jesus Christ. They will even stipulate that there is a creator who made everything, but that now that things are made and we are here, that we now are the center of everything. There are a growing number of people who consider themselves “spiritual, non-religious,” who define spirituality in their own way. There is some sense of “god” but no spiritual sense of the right and wrong (though there might be a moral sense of that), or the need for redemption.
The second thing one must believe in order to be a Christian is Genesis 3, that the world fell through the sin of Adam (humanity) and that we are living in a fallen world. There are people who don’t believe in God as Creator who will stipulate that the world is fallen, or at least it is not perfect. There are probably very few people who wouldn’t agree that the world is not perfect. What do we do with that? Just say “well that’s the way it is, and make the best of it?”
Which leads to the third thing we must believe in order to be a Christian—that the fallen world is redeemed through the salvific work of Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God. John 3:16 summarizes the entire Gospel.
God-In this case God is the Creator of the world, the Father, as we have already defined Him earlier in the Creed
So loved-God is love. His motivation in creating the world is out of love. His desire to redeem the world is out of love. The willingness of Christ to die for us is out of love.
The world-This includes the entirety of everything created. There is no pocket of the world that does not need to be redeemed. There is also no human being who is beyond the redemption offered by God, so long as he or she is alive.
He gave-Christ is offered by God the Father to the world, out of love. Some translations use the word “sent” in reference to God offering the Son to the world. Christ wasn’t sent or dispatched to the world, He was given, offered.
The Only-Begotten Son-Here is where it is always helpful to go to the original Greek translation. In Greek in John 3:16 we read Yion, ton monogeni¸ which translates, “the Son, the only-begotten. Many translations leave out “begotten” and say “His only Son.” “Begotten” speaks to a unique relationship between God the Father and Jesus the Son. In this case, the word does not mean “created”, as we will read in the next phrase of the Creed, “begotten, not created.” It means that the Son was sent by the Father, through the Incarnation and then added human nature to His divine nature.
That whoever believes in Him-First, one has to believe that Jesus Christ is the incarnate Son of God. Second, we have to believe that He became a human being, died on the cross and was resurrected from the dead. Third, we have to believe in His words, which are not merely words but also call us to actions.
Should not perish but have eternal life-We will all die an earthly death, but rather than cease to exist, or perish into non-existence, we will enter into eternal life.
We have to believe that God created the world, that the world fell through sin, and that the world needs redemption that can only come through the cross and Resurrection of Christ. This belief, however, and this is critical, has to be personal. I have to believe that God made me. I have to believe that I am not perfect. And I have to believe that Jesus Christ came to redeem me. And thus, I have a role to play in this story. This is not something that WE believe, a story developing around us in which we do not play a part. It is a story in which each of us plays a unique part. We each have an individual role to play in God’s plan for salvation for the world. Christ came to the world, as He says in John 3:17, “not to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through Him.” God wants us to be redeemed, and to find our salvation. We also must want that for ourselves. I must want that for myself. And then do the work that Christ calls us to do—love God, serve others, spread the Gospel—and pray for His grace to enter into the Kingdom of God.
Jesus Christ is the Incarnate Son of God, offered to the world to pay the debt for sin, which is death. St. Paul writes in Romans 6:23, For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. When someone owes a debt to a credit card company, the credit card company does not care who provides the money to pay the bill, only that the bill gets paid. If I owe the credit card company $300, and you either pay the bill or give me the money to pay the bill, you have remitted my bill, my balance then is $0. Since every human being, as a result of the Fall, owed a debt of death, when Christ died on the cross, He did that for each of us, and essentially paid the debt we owe for our sins. The Resurrection reassures us that there is life after “death” and that each of us who has lived in faith, and who has done the work of faith, has the opportunity to enter into the Resurrection, to continue life after our earthly death in the Kingdom of Heaven, which will put us in the same state of Paradise that Adam and Eve enjoyed before the Fall.
O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is Thy name in all the earth! Thou whose glory above the heavens is chanted by the mouths of babes and infants, Thou hast founded a bulwark because of Thy foes, to still the enemy and the avenger. When I look at Thy heavens, the work of Thy fingers, the moon and the stars which Thou hast established; what is man that Thou art mindful of him, and the son of man that Thou dost care for him? Yet Thou hast made him little less than God, and dost crown him with glory and honor. Thou hast given him dominion over the works of Thy hands; Thou has put all things under his feet, all sheep and oxen, and also the beasts of the field, the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea, whatever passes along the paths of the sea. O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is Thy name in all the earth! Psalm 8
Christianity is summed up in three sentences. God made the world (Genesis 1). The world fell through sin (Genesis 3). The world is redeemed through the saving work of Jesus Christ (John 3:16).
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