The Submission of the One and Only Son

Just a quick word before I get back to the study. If you’re familiar with this kind of bible study, you know I’m handling this rather lightly. Those of you who aren’t familiar with deeper study may feel I’ve gone overboard, but I haven’t.
If you’re up in the Rockies looking for gold, you can walk along the creek banks hoping something will jump up at you, or you can get a sieve and start sifting through the rocks down on the creek bed, examining them carefully. If you stay on the banks, you might find a few nuggets, but if you want to increase your chances of finding real gold, you’ll pan for it (or even sink a shaft).
That’s like the difference between doing ‘devotions’ where you look for something in the bible that can help you out as you do your daily readings and doing a bible study where you search to find the meaning the original author intended. Just like gold will be scattered along the length of the creek bed, so too will the deeper meaning of bible passages be scattered throughout an entire book. A ‘gold’ nugget like John 3:16 is great to have, but when you put it together with the rest of the Gospel of John, you have an entire gold mine, not just a nugget!
So, back to the question I posed in my last blog – What is the significance for us of the submission of “the one and only Son” to the Father?
As we saw, the Father’s plan was not easy for the Son to submit to. When we are struggling with something difficult in our life, we have the assurance that Jesus understands that it is hard. He’s been there, done that. We can confess our struggles to him, knowing he won’t condemn us. Instead, he’ll understand us, and if we let him, he’ll take us to the place where we too can submit to the Father’s will.
The Father’s will for his “one and only Son” was that he should come to earth and die on a cross to take the sins of the world upon himself. When we accept his sacrifice, when we “believe in” him, we receive the eternal life spoken of in John 3:16.
Now it’s time to look at “believe.” Why don’t you look at how John uses “believe” in our two passages? (And you might want to see how he uses it in other passages – you know I’m going to go there!) See what you can figure out for yourself before my next blog.