The divine love of Christ
Is sufficient for our every need
“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.”
John 3:16
Looking to the opening books of the New Testament, we find the life and ministry of Christ on Earth recounted from four distinct perspectives. Each of these four Gospels presents Christ in a specific role in His relationship with us.
Matthew shows us Christ the King, Mark shows Christ the Servant, Luke shows us Christ the Son of Man, and the Apostle John portrays Christ as the Son of God.
The standard Bible format placing John’s Gospel as the final of the four is very fitting. Indeed, John’s Gospel is an excellent introduction to the foundational concepts of Christianity. John’s focus on asserting Christ’s divinity as the living Word, and only begotten Son of God, grants us the ability to more fully understand the agape love upon which the Christian faith is built. It is this divine love that inspires Christ to accept the responsibility of being our king, the burden of being our servant, and the pain of knowing our human infirmities.
This same love motivated God to offer His own Son as a sacrifice for us. Only in His divinity could Christ fulfill the work of attaining God’s righteousness, and only in His love could Christ share that righteousness with us in the form of salvation.
With the above in mind, there’s little surprise that John refers to himself as the “disciple Jesus loved” in his account.
This isn’t to say that John felt more special than any other disciple, or that Jesus treated John with more love than the others. Rather, the message being conveyed is that Christ does love each of us individually for who we are, and encourages us to accept and rely on His love in our lives.
As John is described resting on Christ’s bosom, trusting fully in Christ’s love, we are encouraged to do the same.
In closing, John paints a beautiful picture of Jesus Christ, which summarized is: The divine love of Christ is sufficient for our every need.
