Of all of the gospels, the gospel of John mentions the word love the most. We get to see so much of Jesus’s time on earth and one thing is clear throughout all of it: the true love of God. Jesus loves each person that he sees. He knows them, he knows they’ve sinned, and he’s ready to die so they wouldn’t be doomed to hell forever.

Even more amazing — this beautiful love continues to us today. Jesus knows us, knows we’ve sinned, and yet died so we wouldn’t be doomed to hell forever either. And in his Word, we get to know just how much God so loved the world (John 3:16) and the extent of what that love means for us (John 15:12).

“For God so loved the world…”

It’s the first time the word “love” is mentioned in the gospel of John. And the person Jesus told this to wasn’t an “ordinary” person, as we’ve come to expect. It was actually a ruler of the Jews.

What Jesus shared, though, wasn’t a philosophical statement. It wasn’t about getting certain concepts right. Rather, Jesus was trying to teach a teacher of Israel about something that far outweighed knowledge.

God loves the world, each person he created within the world he created. And he had one option to save it. So he chose it, and sent his Son.

This is the Son who was speaking the very words to Nicodemus, this ruler of the Jews. The Word was made flesh (John 1:14) and he was sharing the beautiful news, not to be recorded as a prophecy for someday but as something that was coming very soon.

Journaling through connections like these in the John Part I Journal

Because a few years later, Nicodemus would see the other side of the cross and the depth of Christ’s love.

He meets Jesus again, but as the deceased body of the Son, his life given for the world. (John 19:39-40). We can wonder what he was thinking, but the proof was undeniable — Jesus fulfilled the promise of God’s love to the world.

It may have been a surprise for Nicodemus, but it wasn’t a surprise for Jesus.

That night when Nicodemus came to him, when Jesus spoke the well-known words of John 3:16, he knew exactly what it meant — for the world and for him.

He would later go on to tell his disciples in detail just how he would suffer in giving his life for the world.

It wasn’t “For God so felt compelled by duty and justice to save the world that he gave his only Son,” it was love. God did it because he loved us. And as we continue through the rest of John, the love of God becomes even clearer.

“Love one another as I have loved you”

This is not a static love. It’s not something we read about in the Bible, mutter a grateful prayer to God for it, and move on.

This is an all-encompassing love. If we honestly know this true love, it changes our lives and the lives of those around us.

A few moments before Jesus gave up his life, he said these words to those who followed him, “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.” (John 15:12-13)

Just like John 3:16, we know that his words were heavy with a promise he was ready to fulfill — his death. And though he was very clear with his disciples about it, they likely didn’t understand the extent of it.

What they might have better understood at that point as the proof of his love was from John 13.

“Now before the Feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.” (John 13:1)

Their Rabbi, their teacher, did the unthinkable and served them in what seemed to be a humiliating task of washing their feet.

He loved them to the end.

And when he had finished, he made it clear: do the same.

The power of Christ’s sacrificial love in the end was validated by all of the moments in the years leading up to it where Jesus proved his love.

To the ruler of the Jews who came to him at night (John 3).
To the floundering Samaritan woman who heard truth from her Messiah (John 4).
To the adulterous woman who was condemned by others yet forgiven by God (John 8).
To the blind man who ended up seeing better than the Jewish authorities (John 9).
To the exasperated Pilate who was seeking for truth while having to condemn Jesus (John 18).

Jesus never wavered from his love for us as mankind.

And so Jesus’s command to those he loved, those who follow him, is that they continue that love in the world. We are Christ in the world, ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. (2 Corinthians 5:20) And if we don’t have love, we are only making noise (1 Corinthians 13:1).

We love because he first loved us. (1 John 4:19)

In him, we know true love. And in him, we share true love with others.

The John journals

Needless to say, we love studying the gospel of John! And to help us take it a little at a time, we created the John LIGHT journals (in two parts so we don’t miss the details).

So enjoy continuing your study of this book with questions, connections to other parts of the Bible, space for you to think and pray, and a place to really think through who Jesus is. See the inside of the journals below.

Find your own journals in our shop! Shop: evergreencypress.com/shop