“35 The Father loves the Son and has given all things into his hand.”
In the last passage we saw that anyone can come to Jesus because the Holy Spirit is given without measure and poured out on the world. The sad part from the rest of the passage is that most people will not receive the testimony of Jesus. Those who do receive the testimony, however, align themselves with God and His truth and set their seal to the authenticity of God. This part of the passage sums up why this all is true and also gives a recap to the point of Chapter 3 as John, the author, is trying to express to the reader. These two concepts are the most profound in Christianity and are also the two points that people get wrong or they have a hard time accepting anything else in Christianity. The first one we will look at today is the relationship between the Father and the Son.
John the Baptist gives two statements in this verse. The first statement is that the Father loves the Son. This is where we can see the differences in the trinity. You have the Father loving the Son, both are God yet two distinct persons, and not only two distinct persons but one loving the other. This is something that John, the author, will continue to show throughout the rest of the gospel. The interaction of the Father and the Son here is the Father’s love for the Son. The Son is the one who came down from heaven and whom people need to receive as testimony, Jesus Christ. There is no animosity with what is being done, though we see in the passage the perfect unity between the trinity. This is a restatement of the One from heaven being above all things but also the reason for it because the Father, knowing the Son is from heaven with Him, loves Him as His own and has then given all things into His hands. This, we must remember, comes as a response from John the Baptist to his disciples who are jealous everyone is going to Jesus. He was reminding them that there is no other way this could have gone but at the same time reminding them of why it is a good thing because God is in perfect unity with Himself. This is perfect unity and understanding of the relationship between the Father and Son. There is love and a giving of everything in the world.
The second statement in this verse is that the Father gave everything into His hands. What this means is that God, with the love that He has for the Son, has given all of the earth to Him. This is what is meant when John the Baptist said before that “Him who comes from heaven is above all” (John 3:31). By coming down to earth, the Son had to give up all the power that John the author shows He has in Chapter 1, but in the Father’s love for the Son He is given it back which shows the perfect unity in God.
For Christians, we must never take for granted the interplay in the trinity, the love that each person in the trinity has for the other is more beautiful than any romance that can be expressed on the earth. Yet there is also going to be heartbreak because how much more amazing is the love that God had for us to give the Son up as the perfect sacrifice for sin. So now we must take confidence with our own walk that the Father loved the Son yet gave Him up that we now have the ability to come to Him, receive the imputed righteousness, and grow in love towards God and each other. We must take this with us when we read the Bible and interact with God in our prayers and interact with each other at church.
For non-Christians, the story of Christianity is not one built on revenge or anger. It is one built on love—not just that God loved you but first God loved Himself and then, even though He perfectly loved Himself, He still gave up a piece to come down in the form of man to die for you. You must understand this relationship between the Father and the Son to come to truly receive Jesus because it instills in Christianity unity at the level of God but also action. A sacrifice had to come down if people were going to be able to build a right relationship with God, yet God did not send a sacrifice from something He did not really care about. Instead, He gave up a piece of Himself to be the perfect sacrifice as only He could. Now, if you receive Jesus, the perfect sacrifice, you will be saved and be made right before God so that you too can enter into the perfect love of God as an adopted child.
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