The Gospel of Love
One of the most powerful and beloved summaries of the gospel is found in John 3:16:
“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”
To truly understand and receive this gospel, one must know both the God who gave and the Son who was given. Jesus affirmed this in His prayer:
“And this is life eternal, that they might know Thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent.” (John 17:3)
Knowing the Only True God
Today, many confess confusion about who or what God is. Like the Samaritan woman to whom Jesus said, “Ye worship ye know not what” (John 4:22), people often worship without true understanding.
This message is dedicated to the knowledge of the only true God and His only begotten Son, for this knowledge is the foundation of eternal life (John 17:3).
God, who no one has seen (John 1:18), reveals Himself through three means:
His Word
His creation
His Son Jesus Christ, who is “the express image of His person” (Hebrews 1:3)
Creation itself—the heavens, galaxies, and stars—declares the glory of a God so immense that human understanding falls short (Psalm 19:1). Our galaxy alone, the Milky Way, contains over 100 billion stars, and is but one among billions. This vastness magnifies the wonder of God’s love in giving His Son for this small world.
The Reality of the Gift
The Bible calls Jesus the only begotten Son. This is not symbolic—it is literal. If Jesus were merely a co-equal figure who was not truly begotten, the gospel would lose its very foundation: the actual giving of a real Son.
To make Jesus indistinguishably co-equal with the Father in every way (as in the concept of the Trinity) undermines the reality of His sonship and His death. If God alone possesses immortality (1 Timothy 6:16), and Jesus is equally and inherently immortal in the same way, then Jesus could not truly die. That would make His death an illusion, not a genuine sacrifice.
But Scripture teaches that Jesus truly died—He was given up for us in reality. His resurrection is only meaningful if His death was real. Thus, to preserve the depth of the gospel, Jesus must be recognized as truly the Son of God, given as the ultimate gift of love.
The Comforter: Another Manifestation of Christ
Jesus promised His disciples “another Comforter” (John 14:16), yet He also said, “I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you” (John 14:18). The Greek word Parakletos, used for both Comforter and Advocate (1 John 2:1), points to the same person—Christ Himself, returning in a different form, through the Spirit.
Jesus, in His glorified state (John 7:39), returned to dwell in His people—not as a third, separate divine being, but as the very same Jesus, now ministering spiritually and personally.
Confusion Through Misconceptions
The popular analogy of the Trinity—likening God to water, ice, and steam—reduces the living God to an impersonal substance. Worse still, the idea of three co-equal divine Beings simply playing the roles of Father, Son, and Spirit undermines the sincerity and reality of God's love. If the roles are mere masks, the gospel becomes theater, not truth.
Such confusion contributes to the loss of personal connection to a loving, self-sacrificing God. Jesus warned, “Take heed that no man deceive you” (Matthew 24:4). True worship must be in spirit and in truth (John 4:24), grounded in the reality of God’s love and Jesus’ sacrifice.
The Heart of the Gospel
The foundation of the gospel is that Jesus is the Son of God, and that God so loved the world that He gave Him—not symbolically, but truly. This love was not theoretical—it was deeply personal and profoundly costly.
“He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?” (Romans 8:32)
This truth is what gives the gospel its power and depth. When the heart grasps the enormity of the Father’s love and the sacrifice of the Son, the only fitting response is total surrender and love in return.
“Love so amazing, so divine,
Demands my life, my soul, my all.”
—Isaac Watts