John 3:16 is a verse that Satan has used extensively to mislead the world. You can see it behind goalposts, behind home plate, on billboards along the highway, or painted on rocks. Many people think they understand this verse—they could probably quote it by heart. But as brought out in our booklet John 3:16: Hidden Truths of the Golden Verse, Satan can put this verse in front of people’s eyes while hiding its full meaning from them.
“For God so loved the world,” people recite, but they do not know who or what God is, nor do they understand His love. The love of God is “that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome” (1 John 5:3), but most “Christians” believe that at least the Fourth Commandment is burdensome—and often the Second Commandment, depending on how attached they are to using idols or icons in worshipping their understanding of God.
People quote that God “loved the world,” but they don’t recognize what this means: that God will give everyone an opportunity, that He has not cast off forever those who now are Muslim, Hindu, or in various other religions—people who, in many cases throughout history, have never even heard the name of Jesus Christ. Satan does not want people to truly understand that God has a plan and a purpose and that He is working out a real opportunity for every human being.
Many nod their heads to the fact that God “gave His only begotten Son,” yet they think only about what Jesus did, not considering the Father’s role—that God the Father was the One who gave His Son as a sacrifice for the world. As any parent knows, if you had to watch your child go through something like that, it would be agonizing. People dismiss the Father as the “Old Testament God,” not realizing who the God of the Old Testament actually is. They look to Christ and think only of “what He’s done for me,” not understanding that we must have a living faith, not a dead faith.
Millions believe that God gave His Son so “that whoever believes in Him should not perish,” but they don’t even understand what it means to perish, thinking that perishing instead means to live forever in hellfire. A billion years squared—and more than that—is a long time of torment for anything one can do wrong during one’s short time on Earth! And while so many look forward to “everlasting life,” they do not truly understand the great reward that God offers His children. It’s amazing how much deception there can be about one verse—a verse that everyone thinks he understands.
Their Loving Sacrifice
The Passover is all about God’s love, His sacrifice, and the fact that we can escape perishing. As we approach it, it’s helpful to examine Jesus Christ’s role as both the Lamb of God and the Good Shepherd—and explore what He may have been thinking during that supreme trial, while He was hanging on the stake.
At this time of year, we often read about the original Passover of Exodus 12, which took place nearly 1,500 years before Christ suffered and died on our behalf. But another verse we read when approaching the Passover reminds us that “indeed Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us” (1 Corinthians 5:7). Jesus was sacrificed on the very day of the Passover—just as the original Passover pictured the Lamb of God being slain so our sins could be covered. In Exodus, after each household took a lamb, they put the blood of that lamb over the door and on the two side posts, and any firstborn inside was spared. Israel was God’s firstborn, and we are God’s spiritual firstborn—we must be covered by the blood of the Lamb as well.
What did Jesus endure for us? What did His Father go through? Crucifixion is an awful torture—you would hang from your hands until you couldn’t stand the pain anymore, then you would push up on your feet to relieve your hands, but that would cause pain in your feet. You would go back and forth, always hurting more.
Jesus went through that, and He knew in advance what was going to take place. During His lifetime, He very likely saw individuals hanged on stakes. That may be part of the reason why, on the night He was taken into custody, “He began to be sorrowful and deeply distressed” (Matthew 26:37). Jesus prayed three times about what He would suffer (vv. 39–44)—and no wonder, because He knew what was coming. He could picture it in His mind. Even before He experienced it, He understood enough about crucifixion to know that it was going to be excruciatingly painful. Scripture says that He learned by the things He suffered (Hebrews 5:8). As we approach Passover, we’re reminded of the love of God—of God the Father and of Christ—in going through this for us.
What was Jesus thinking during this supreme trial? The Bible gives us a clue.
We Can Be Confident
The Member of the Godhead who spoke to the children of Israel was not the Father—it was the Word, who became Jesus Christ. We read, “Moses went up, also Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel, and they saw the God of Israel” (Exodus 24:9–10). Yet, according to Jesus, no one “has seen the Father, except He who is from God; He has seen the Father” (John 6:46). Scripture shows that Christ was the God of the Old Testament by telling us that the children of Israel “drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them, and that Rock was Christ” (1 Corinthians 10:4).
Christ inspired the writings of the Old Testament—and in the New Testament we read, “Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, ‘Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?’ that is, ‘My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?’” (Matthew 27:46). He was quoting from Psalm 22, which begins with the words Jesus spoke on the stake: “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?”
Why did Christ cry out these words? He did so because God is “of purer eyes than to behold evil and cannot look on wickedness” (Habakkuk 1:13). He cannot look on sin, and we read that “He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him” (2 Corinthians 5:21). Jesus took the penalty of sin, which required death, so we could be made righteous through Him. It was not the law of God that was nailed to the stake—it was sin, represented by Jesus. He never sinned, yet at that moment He represented sin.
We read that “He Himself has said, ‘I will never leave you nor forsake you’” (Hebrews 13:5). Some object to the idea that the Father forsook Christ on the stake, and they may quote that verse along with Joshua 1:5. But the One who spoke those words was Christ—and He spoke them to man, not to Himself. In truth, the ultimate penalty for sin is to be cut off from God—and since Christ represented sin He did, for a short time, experience God turning His back on Him.
After we receive God’s Spirit—that down payment on eternal life—we are truly under grace, not under the penalty of the law. Of course, we must continually strive to obey God with a repentant attitude, but we should also be positive and not fearful—not becoming paranoid over whether we have an unnoticed sin that we haven’t repented of. If that were enough to keep us out of God’s Kingdom, we’d all be lost, because none of us are aware of all the sins we’ve committed.
If we are striving to obey God and have accepted Jesus Christ as our personal Savior, we are under the blood of Christ, and we can be confident. We don’t have to constantly worry, living under a cloud, thinking, I wonder if I’ll make it. Of course, we can still disqualify ourselves by turning away from God—Hebrews 6 and 10 show that. But if we are striving to do what is right, examining ourselves, seeing things we need to change, and overcoming, we will make it. God is able to save us!
Two Prophetic Psalms
Very clearly, Psalm 22 was prophetic of the Messiah, and it tells us what Jesus was likely thinking as He was on the stake. “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me? Why are You so far from helping Me, and from the words of My groaning? O My God, I cry in the daytime, but You do not hear; and in the night season, and am not silent. But You are holy, enthroned in the praises of Israel” (vv. 1–3). Though the Father had to forsake Christ in that moment, Christ didn’t forsake the Father.
We see an obvious connection to Christ’s crucifixion throughout this psalm. “I am a worm,” it says, “and no man; a reproach of men, and despised by the people. All those who see Me ridicule Me; they shoot out the lip, they shake the head, saying, ‘He trusted in the Lord—let Him rescue Him; let Him deliver Him, since He delights in Him’” (vv. 6–8). This is almost word-for-word what we read of in the accounts of Christ’s experience (see Matthew 27:42–43).
Interestingly, Psalm 22:10 reads, “I was cast upon You from birth. From My mother’s womb You have been My God.” God the Father impregnated Mary by the power of the Holy Spirit—He was, of course, Christ’s Father from the womb—yet His people still derided Him just as the psalmist foretold.
Psalm 23 is likely the most famous psalm—just as John 3:16 is likely the most famous individual verse. Considering this, we must understand that the spirit being who currently rules as the god of this world is able to take something with powerful and positive meaning and obscure it, making it so commonplace that millions of people, though they think they know it, do not really understand its profound significance. The late Mr. John Ogwyn pointed out in one of his many Bible Studies that while Psalm 22 reflects what Jesus may have been thinking as He was dying on the stake, Psalm 23 seems to reflect His thoughts about presenting Himself to the Father as the wave sheaf offering after His resurrection. Psalm 22 and Psalm 23 go together—Psalm 22 reflects a sense of being forsaken, while Psalm 23 reflects the recognition that God is the source of salvation.
In Psalm 23, we see this recognition result in exaltation: “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want” or be in need. “He makes me to lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside the still waters. He restores my soul; He leads me in the paths of righteousness for His name’s sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for You are with me” (vv. 1–4). We are God’s sheep. He leads us in the paths of righteousness, but we all go through very difficult times in life. The Shepherd leads His sheep through narrow passages where there might be creatures that could harm them. He knows where the pitfalls are, where the cliffs drop off. He leads us carefully through.
“You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies” (v. 5). God nourishes His people physically and spiritually—even in the presence of enemies while we live in Satan’s world. “You anoint my head with oil” (v. 5). God takes care of us, tending to the bruises and cuts that come along our way.
“My cup runs over” (v. 5)—we all have an abundance of blessings, especially when we consider that none of us deserves anything but death. “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life; and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever” (v. 6). One can see how Christ could have been thinking about these words after He was resurrected—remembering that He had inspired them—and looking forward to appearing before His Father.
The Wave Sheaf Fulfillment
God describes the wave sheaf offering, saying, “Speak to the children of Israel, and say to them: ‘When you come into the land which I give to you, and reap its harvest, then you shall bring a sheaf of the firstfruits of your harvest to the priest. He shall wave the sheaf before the Lord, to be accepted on your behalf; on the day after the Sabbath the priest shall wave it’” (Leviticus 23:10–11). We see that the wave sheaf would have been waved on the day we call Sunday.
“And you shall offer on that day, when you wave the sheaf, a male lamb of the first year, without blemish, as a burnt offering to the Lord…. You shall eat neither bread nor parched grain nor fresh grain until the same day that you have brought an offering to your God” (vv. 12–14). In other words, the Israelites could begin the harvest, but they couldn’t eat of it until after the wave sheaf was offered.
In the New Testament, we see that Jesus, on that Sunday morning—having been resurrected the day before—still had to ascend to His Father.
Mary stood outside by the tomb weeping, and… she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, and did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you seeking?” She, supposing Him to be the gardener, said to Him, “Sir, if You have carried Him away, tell me where You have laid Him, and I will take Him away.” Jesus said to her, “Mary!” She turned and said to Him, “Rabboni!” (which is to say, Teacher). Jesus said to her, “Do not cling to Me, for I have not yet ascended to My Father; but go to My brethren and say to them, ‘I am ascending to My Father and your Father, and to My God and your God’” (John 20:11–17).
Before Christ could be touched, He had to be formally accepted by God the Father as the perfect sacrifice. The fulfillment had come to pass of what the wave sheaf offering had always pictured.
The same day, “as they went to tell His disciples, behold, Jesus met them, saying, ‘Rejoice!’ So they came and held Him by the feet and worshiped Him” (Matthew 28:9). By this time, Christ had ascended to the Father and returned to the earth. He didn’t want anyone to touch Him before He was “waved” before His Father, but afterward He allowed His disciples to hold His feet. It’s difficult to believe that Psalm 23 was not on His mind as He waited to ascend as the wave sheaf.
He Knows His Sheep
Jesus was both the Lamb of God and the Good Shepherd. We read that “John saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, ‘Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!’” (John 1:29). He had to be that perfect sacrificial lamb that had been pictured by the Passover in Exodus 12.
Isaiah wrote that “He was oppressed and He was afflicted, yet He opened not His mouth; He was led as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is silent, so He opened not His mouth” (Isaiah 53:7). Jesus was truly the perfect sacrificial lamb, which is why we are told that “indeed Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us” (1 Corinthians 5:7). The word translated “sacrificed” here literally means slaughtered, as an animal is slaughtered for an offering.
Yet, at the same time, Christ is also our Shepherd, even as the Father was His Shepherd. Notice: “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned, every one, to his own way; and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all” (Isaiah 53:6). We are all guilty of sin. We have all gone astray, like sheep. Despite that truth, Jesus says, “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd gives His life for the sheep” (John 10:11).
When we meditate on Christ’s statement, it’s helpful to remember what we read in Psalm 23 about what the Good Shepherd does—what Christ does for each of us, His sheep. As Jesus said next, “A hireling, he who is not the shepherd, one who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees; and the wolf catches the sheep and scatters them. The hireling flees because he is a hireling and does not care about the sheep. I am the good shepherd; and I know My sheep, and am known by My own” (John 10:12–14).
The Passover is approaching, reminding us that Jesus Christ is both the Lamb of God—who takes away the sins of the world—and the Good Shepherd, who cares for those who are His sheep. He watches over and knows all of us who make up His flock. He laid down His life for a world of sheep gone astray—so that all people, everywhere, could eventually be given an opportunity. “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life” (John 3:16).