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Subject 16 : The Gospel According to JOHN
[Chapter 3-10] In What Must We Believe before God? (John 3:21)
(John 3:21)
“But he who does the truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be clearly seen, that they have been done in God.”
Today’s Scripture passage from John 3:21 says, “But he who does the truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be clearly seen, that they have been done in God.” Those who are yet to be born again of the water and the Spirit follow their own thoughts. Anyone who follows his own thoughts is bound to perish because of his deed. But if only we turn our direction from our own thoughts to the Truth of the Lord and believe in Him, we can encounter the true light of salvation and abide in it. The people of this world are still imprisoned in spiritual confusion, where darkness prevails. Once they realize that their souls have fallen into sin, they should no longer place their hope in their own will. Rather, they should place their hope in Jesus, who is the true light. Only then can they become children of God by believing in Jesus who came by the gospel of the water and the Spirit. Through the gospel of the water and the Spirit, our Lord has made us, who had once belonged to darkness, God’s own people all at once (Ephesians 5:8).
We Must Believe in the Gospel of the Water and the Spirit
“He who does the truth comes to the light” (John 3:21). If you believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit, then you have become someone who follows the light of salvation. You should know, however, that those who still do not follow the gospel of the water and the Spirit, and have therefore not been born again, are of those who follow darkness. Those who still do not follow the gospel of the water and the Spirit are the ones who just follow their own will.
The true light of salvation in this world is Jesus, who has saved us from our sins through the gospel of the water and the Spirit. Those, who believe that Jesus came to this earth, was baptized by John the Baptist to take upon all our sins, was crucified, and arose from the dead again in three days, are of those who follow the light of salvation.
The gospel of the water and the Spirit is the very light of salvation in which you and I believe. This gospel of the water and the Spirit is the beautiful light of Truth that has saved us from the sins of the world. To blot out all our sins, our Lord came to this earth and illuminated the light of salvation upon us, and this light of Truth is the very gospel of the water and the Spirit. To be saved by faith, we must all follow the light of Truth, the gospel of the water and the Spirit. All who believe in this true gospel have become followers of the light of salvation.
However, even the believers in the gospel of the water and the Spirit can still fall into their own weaknesses at times. But, even though these believers may be weak, they still live by always placing their faith in the light of Truth. However, despite the fact that the Lord came to this world and has delivered all sinners from their sins, those who do not believe in this are still living mired in their iniquities. While we ourselves believe in Jesus as our Savior through our faith in the gospel of the water and the Spirit, those who are wicked before God do not believe in this true gospel, as it is written in John 3:20, “For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed.” Those who practice evil before God do not believe in the light of salvation, for they hate this light. They are devoting all their efforts just to hide their wickedness.
God said that those who do not follow the light of Truth before God are anxious that their evil deeds might be exposed before Him. In South Korea, there used to be many spies from North Korea, so there were lots of posters admonishing them to turn themselves in to the South Korean authorities, saying, “Do not tremble in fear, but surrender yourself in and come to the light.” Like this, the sinful must be freed from their sins by believing in the gospel Truth of the water and the Spirit. Yet because some people fundamentally do not love God, they do not believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit even as they know it, and therefore they are unable to be freed from their sins. Such people love darkness more than the light. Far too many people are still unable to be freed from their sins, as they do not believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit. Those who love their wickedness do not believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit, for they are afraid that their evilness might be exposed. This is why they are living in darkness trying to hide their wickedness.
All of us must realize that the will of God toward us is to believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit and be remitted from all our sins. What has God told us? He has told us that from the very beginning, everyone is born with his sins. Fundamentally speaking, therefore, everyone is a seed of an evildoer who was born into this world as a sinner from the very beginning, and all such seeds of an evildoer must infallibly believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit with their hearts. Because everyone is fundamentally incapable of practicing goodness, he must believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit. And by doing so, everyone must be saved from his sins.
The Bible says, “There is none righteous, no, not one,
There is none who understands;
There is none who seeks after God.
They have all turned aside;
They have together become unprofitable;
There is none who does good, no, not one” (Romans 3:10-12).
As such, everyone must first expose his wickedness in order to be remitted from his sins, and then he must be saved from all his sins by believing in the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit.
Fundamentally Speaking, as What Kind of People Are We Living before God?
Are humans fundamentally evil or good before God? They are all evil. My fellow believers, because everyone is born into this world with the twelve ingredients of sin, all human beings repeatedly commit these twelve kinds of sins in their lives, committing this sin today and that sin tomorrow. In fact, we don’t just commit a single sin in a day, but we commit dozens of sins. Because we commit so many different sins in so many different ways, we often do not even realize what sins we had committed, and, moreover, we are so busy with our lives that we forget all about our sins. The Bible says there are twelve kinds of sins that are ready to be poured out of our hearts (Mark 7:21-23). Therefore, even if we assume that we commit just one sin in a day, it would take twelve days to make a round of them. We commit adultery today, murder tomorrow, the sin of having evil thoughts the next day, fornication the following day, blasphemy the next day, insanity the following day, and so forth—since we commit all kinds of sin afresh all the time like this, we don’t even know which sins we are committing, nor do we realize just how wicked we are.
God described our human hearts as being confused, empty, without satisfaction, and deep in darkness (Genesis 1:2). To put it differently, God described human beings as piles of sin who have all kinds of iniquities deep in their hearts. As such beings, humans can never do any good. The Apostle Paul therefore said, “For the good that I will to do, I do not do; but the evil I will not to do, that I practice” (Romans 7:19). Because all human beings are fundamentally born as sinners, at every chance, the sins that are deep in their hearts rise up and make them sin.
My fellow believers, an apple tree bears apples precisely because it is an apple tree. Just like this, so are our lives. An apple tree, when young, only sprouts. But when time goes by, and as the tree grows thicker and matures, it eventually begins to flower in a certain spring. And when the flowers blossom and wither away, fruits are infallibly born there.
When the winter comes, the tree sheds all its leaves, but when the spring comes around, it sprouts again. In the following year, the trunk gets considerably thicker, new sprouts abound even more, and more flowers blossom than the previous year. But what would happen if this apple tree were to say to itself, “This year, I don’t want to bear apples. I want to bear pears instead”? No matter how much the apple tree might want to bear pears, it cannot bear anything else but only apples. An apple tree can only blossom apple flowers, and it can only smell like apples.
That everyone sins against his will, and everyone practices evil even though he does not want to do so, is because everyone is born as a sinner from his very birth. Yet despite this, many people do not realize that they cannot help but sin, and are instead busy only trying to hide their sins and wickedness. The Bible says that those who try to hide their filthy hearts and vile deeds practice hypocrisy and do not come to the light. Why? Because they are afraid that the evil inside them might be exposed—this is why they deceive themselves to be good and virtuous, and why they do not want to come to the light.
Such people must believe in God’s gospel of the water and the Spirit. To do so, they must first submit themselves to God, regardless of whether they are put to shame or not, and confess to Him, “God, I am an evil being. But I want to become sinless before You, and I want to go to Heaven by believing in Jesus. I want to become a righteous person. And I want to bear the nine fruits of the Holy Spirit. So even though I am ashamed of myself, I still want to believe that the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit spoken by Jesus is the Truth.” Like this, everyone must admit to God that he is a sinner, and he must believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit. By saying, “Lord, You are right to say, ‘He who does the truth comes to the light,’” and by believing in and following the Word of Truth, we, who had belonged to darkness, are perfectly justified. It is not by our own efforts that we become light, but it is by God Himself, who is the light, that turns us, who have been darkness itself, into light. When we thus admit our true selves as to be darkness, the Lord comes into us and illuminates us with His light, thereby blessing us to become light.
“But he who does the truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be clearly seen, that they have been done in God” (John 3:21). Those who believe in Jesus as their Savior and in the gospel of the water and the Spirit are all following the Truth. Everyone must follow the light of Truth. It is only beasts like bats that follow darkness. Everyone must follow the light, and all those who follow the light are the ones who have met Jesus properly. All human beings are the same in their basic essence, but which direction they look at is crucially important. My fellow believers, whether you look at the light, or fall deeper into darkness, is what determines your final days.
Those who have not been born again of the water and the Spirit and have not entered into the domain of light hide themselves completely in darkness and never come to the light, for they are afraid that their darkness and filthiness might be exposed. As they continue to hide their wickedness, as if they are burning with a determination to remain in darkness, they are ultimately on their way to hell. They will be cast into the everlasting fire of hell, and they will suffer forever in this dark and burning place. Do you want to end up like these people?
The Word of the Scriptures is the barometer of truth. This Word is God Himself. Do you believe in the written Word spoken by God? Do you believe in the Bible as the Word of God? The flowers beside this pulpit could not exist were it not for our Lord. It is because our Lord is alive that everything on this earth exists. You should believe that this world exists only because our Lord created it in the first place. If God says something, then you must believe in it as the infallible Truth, even if you find it hard to understand it in your own thoughts. For us to follow the light of Truth is none other than to follow God.
When the Triune God created mankind, He said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth” (Genesis 1:26). Our God made man with dust and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and then man became a living being opening his eyes. This very first man thus made was Adam, and Jesus also made his wife Eve. It was from God that Adam and Eve received new life. The Lord of our lives is Jesus.
God told Adam and Eve, “Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die” (Genesis 2:16-17), but Adam and Eve gave in to the temptation of the serpent, Satan, and ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, which God had told them not to. So Adam and Eve ended up deviating from their faith in the Word of God. After they were thus tempted by Satan and went astray from the Word of God, they reached their death according to the law that states, “The wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23).
This is why everyone must be born again from his sins. The Bible says, “And as it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment” (Hebrews 9:27). As everyone has fallen into sin, we are all virtually dead already, but the Bible tells us that we must receive the remission of our sins and new life by believing in the gospel of the water and the Spirit. At first, from the very beginning, it was from our Lord that we had received life. Therefore, now as well, we must receive new life from our Lord once again. If you want to believe in Jesus as your Savior, then you must be born again for sure by believing in the gospel of the water and the Spirit.
Who Is the True Light of Salvation in This World?
The Bible mentions the light of life, and this light, life itself, refers to none other than Jesus. Our Lord Himself said in John 8:12, “I am the light of the world. He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life.” Here, our Lord revealed Himself as “the light of the world,” and He told us that He has blotted out all our sins and has perfectly saved us from sin. Therefore, the true light, the life of mankind, is none other than Jesus. That Jesus has blotted out all our sins of mankind is the very light of salvation for our dark lives. Have you found this true light of salvation? Do you believe in the gospel light of the water and the Spirit?
Our Lord said that those who follow the gospel Truth of the water and the Spirit come to the light. When it says in John 1:9, “That was the true Light which gives light to every man coming into the world,” to whom does this true Light refer? Because there were too many people in this world claiming themselves to be the light, not to mention too many false gods, the Apostle John revealed the Truth by proclaiming, “That was the true Light which gives light to every man coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him. He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him. But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name” (John 1:9-12). The true God is Jesus. The true goodness is also Jesus. And the true love, too, is Jesus. The Lord of true salvation is Jesus also, and He alone is the true God. My fellow believers, we must follow the light that is shone upon each of us.
Our God is telling us two things. First, He says to us, “You are wicked sinners. Therefore, according to My law, which declares the wages of sin to be death, you must be cast into hell. If you still have your sins intact, then you cannot escape from the law of death that says, ‘Sinners must be cast into hell.’” Secondly, God also says to us, “Nevertheless, I had so much compassion for you that I Myself have saved you. I have blotted out all your sins.” And He has given us the gospel of the water and the Spirit for us to be saved from all our sins. Do you believe in this gospel?
My fellow believers, truly, this is the light of Truth that God is speaking to each and every one of us. Only when we follow this light of Truth can we be saved from our sins. Although everyone else is walking toward darkness, we must never embark on this path.
“That was the true Light which gives light to every man coming into the world” (John 1:9). This light of Truth refers to Jesus. Jesus made this world, and the only God who made the world dwelt on this earth as a Man for 33 years. Through the 33 years of His life on this earth, Jesus completed all His ministries of saving the entire mankind from its sins through the Word of the water, the blood, and the Spirit. He then ascended to Heaven while His disciples were watching Him with their naked eyes. Even after Jesus ascended to Heaven, the history of His salvation on this planet earth still continues. This is why human history, too, belongs to Jesus.
Our Lord is telling us that He has shone the light of salvation to each and every one of us. And He is telling us that He was in this world, and that the world was made by Him. Yet the world did not know Him, and His people did not receive Him even as He came to this earth. However, those who accept what He did on this earth and receive Him as God can become God’s own children. The people of God who have been born again of water and the Spirit receive Jesus. Those who follow the true light accept this true light. Those in this world who follow the Truth, that is, the gospel of the water and the Spirit, accept the light.
But those who follow darkness do not come to the light, for they are afraid that their wickedness might be exposed. In contrast, those who follow the light believe in obedience that everything the Lord spoke is right, even if the light would expose the evil inside them. In consequence, as they are bestowed with His grace, they become righteous, turn into God’s children, and become His glorified people. Those who follow the light of Truth and accept it are those who believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit.
What kind of people, then, are those who accept the gospel of the water and the Spirit given by Jesus? These people believe only in the Word of God, and they follow this Word alone. Paying no heed to man-made thoughts and man-made logic, they believe in and follow only the Word of God, no matter what anyone in this world might say. Like this, only those who believe in and follow God’s Word of Truth alone can be born again from their sins, become sinless, and enter the Kingdom of God. But those who, even as they believe in the Word of God, still place importance on the words of man as well, are deceived by Satan, and as a result they cannot be born again, nor enter the Kingdom of God. Unless they deny their man-made thoughts, they will ultimately fall into destruction, even as they believe in Jesus.
“Permit It to Be So Now, for Thus It Is Fitting for Us to Fulfill All Righteousness” (Matthew 3:15)
It is written in Matthew 3:15-16, “But Jesus answered and said to him, ‘Permit it to be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.’ Then he allowed Him. When He had been baptized, Jesus came up immediately from the water; and behold, the heavens were opened to Him, and He saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting upon Him.” Here, “to fulfill all righteousness” refers to carrying out all righteous works. It was to fulfill all these righteous works that when Jesus came to this earth, He accepted all our sins onto Himself through His baptism, leaving none behind. This is the very first thing Jesus did to save us humans. He was baptized to blot out all the sins of every human being. We must now realize clearly and exactly why Jesus was baptized, and we must believe in this answer.
Jesus came to this world and shed the light of Truth on everyone (John 1:9). Put differently, our God has given us the gift of grace, this baptism that Jesus received to take upon the sins of mankind, so that everyone would be able to return to God and enter the Kingdom of Heaven by believing in Him. Now, we are filled with His grace and Truth. Our Lord has fulfilled all righteousness. He took upon Himself all the sins of all mankind. Those who commit adultery unable to control their lust, those who steal unable to control their greed, those who lie every time they open their mouths—Jesus was baptized to take upon all the sins that these people commit throughout their entire lifetime. And we are all such people who cannot help but commit these sins every day. It was to fulfill all righteousness that John the Baptist baptized Jesus.
This John the Baptist is the High Priest of mankind. The baptism that Jesus received was a ritual where John the Baptist laid his two hands on His head and passed all the sins of this world to Him once and for all, after which Jesus was to go into the water and come out. It was in the Jordan River that Jesus was baptized; why, then, did He have to be baptized in this Jordan River? The Jordan River is the river of death. It is because the wages of sin is death, and because we must be destroyed and cast into hell for our sins, that Jesus came to this Jordan River, the river of death, and was baptized by John the Baptist. Jesus was not baptized by just any man arbitrarily chosen, but He was baptized by John the Baptist, the High Priest of all mankind whom God had prepared for Jesus. All the righteousness of God was to be fulfilled at this moment.
In a form of the laying on of hands, John the Baptist laid his hands on Jesus’ head. The laying on of hands implies ‘to pass on something,’ or ‘to transfer something.’ What, then, was passed on when John’s hands were laid on Jesus? Just as the Israelites’ sins were passed onto the sacrificial animal of the Old Testament when the High Priest laid his hands on it, and just as this sacrificial animal was then vicariously condemned in their place, when John the Baptist laid his hands on Jesus, all the sins of all mankind in this world were passed onto Jesus, and Jesus in turn bore the condemnation of crucifixion later on. It is at this moment that Jesus took upon Himself all your sins.
The Word of God says that Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist to fulfill all righteousness (Matthew 3:15). The method by which God blotted out the sins of mankind was for Jesus to be baptized by John the Baptist. Only when Jesus came to this earth and was baptized could all the sins of mankind be passed onto Him. Do you believe this, that Jesus was baptized and crucified to give us the perfect gift of salvation? Those who believe in this gospel Truth of the water and the Spirit come out to the light and follow the light.
To fulfill all righteousness by taking upon Himself all our sins from mankind, our Lord was baptized, and through this baptism, He took upon Himself all the sins of everyone on this planet, leaving out none whatsoever: He bore each and every sin, from the original sin that all human beings inherit from their mothers’ wombs to all the personal sins that were ever committed and will ever be committed by them until the day they die. Everyone must believe and accept this Truth of the water and the Spirit, that Jesus took away all our sins by being baptized and dying on the Cross to give us the perfect gift of salvation. This is because our Lord is the true Light that illuminates all those who believe in this true Light. He has bestowed His grace of the remission of sin that makes them God’s children. Whoever believes in the gospel of the water and the Spirit fulfilled by God will receive the remission of all his sins. Do you believe this?
It is by believing in the gospel of the water and the Spirit that one receives the remission of sin. It is not by doing something virtuous on our own that we receive the remission of sin, but it is by believing in what Jesus has done for us that we are remitted from all our sins. By being baptized in the Jordan River, our Lord accepted all the sins of mankind (Matthew 3:15). Where, then, did all our sins go? They were all passed onto the head of Jesus. Because Jesus thus took upon Himself all our sins, according to the very law that He Himself set, declaring the wages of sin to be death, He had to be condemned to death. Only when He bore humiliating, hellish suffering in our place could we be wholly saved.
Let’s turn here to what our Lord Himself said. It is written in John 1:14, “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.” Jesus is indeed full of grace and truth. John 1:29 says, “The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, ‘Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!’”
We need to stop thinking that we can somehow be saved from our sins by doing something and trying on our own. Rather than continuing to entertain such thoughts, we must listen closely to the Word of God, hear what God is saying, and believe in this Word of Truth. Jesus became the Lamb of God who took away the sins of the world by being baptized. We need to calmly and quietly observe here what it is that He has done for us. It is because He has saved us that we can receive the remission of our sins, but if He had failed to save us, then we would still be all bound to hell. Our future, in other words, depends wholly on the Savior. We have already inherited sin. But Jesus has saved all of us to perfection, as it is written, “Therefore, as through one man’s offense judgment came to all men, resulting in condemnation, even so through one Man’s righteous act the free gift came to all men, resulting in justification of life. For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so also by one Man’s obedience many will be made righteous” (Romans 5:18-19). Therefore, if Jesus saves us, then we receive the remission of sins and become righteous, but if He fails to save us, then we cannot avoid being cast into hell, irregardless of how ardently we might believe in Him.
The gospel of the water and the Spirit is the Truth with which our Lord has blotted out the sins of the world. “The next day” in John 1:29 is the day after John the Baptist had baptized Jesus. On the following day after Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist, John saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, “Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” This is why we have to look closely at what our Lord has done for us. Rather than being beholden to our own thoughts, we must come before the Lord by placing our faith in the gospel of Truth, the gospel of the water and the Spirit given by Jesus, just as the Bible says that he who does the truth comes to the light.
John 3:16 says, “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.” God used the expression “world” here to describe each and every human being who is ever born into this world. So put differently, this means that Jesus loved us mankind abundantly. God loved us humans so much that He would go as far as giving us His own Son and making Him accept our sins and be condemned to death in the place of mankind.
We must realize what kind of love has been bestowed on us. By doing so, we can receive the remission of our sins and eternal life that make us God’s children. God’s salvation of Truth is that Jesus came to this earth incarnated in the flesh, accepted all the sins of mankind in the Jordan River when He turned 30, shouldered all our sins to the Cross, and was condemned for us. This gospel of light illuminates the Truth that Jesus took away the sins of the world. Therefore, by believing in the gospel of the water and the Spirit, we can become children of the light, and forever abide in Jesus, who is the Light.
My fellow believers, Jesus took away the sins of the world. Didn’t Jesus then take away all your sins also? He took away all your sins as well. Just how many sins do we commit? We all inherited sin from the very moment we were born from our mothers’ wombs. Even in our childhood, we had committed many sins. Don’t these sins belong to the sins of the world? Of course they do. Did Jesus then take these sins away or not? He already took them all way. When did He take them away? He took them all away long before we were born, almost 2,000 years ago when He was baptized. What about our adolescence? Did we or did we not sin in our teen years? Of course we did. After all, don’t we bear even more fruits of sin as we grow older? The older one gets, the more greedy sins he commits. And because sinners belong to darkness, they are comfortable with sin, and whenever they sin, they yearn to commit even more sins.
This is how the basic human nature is, but still, those who believe in the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit and have received the remission of sin come to the light, for they believe in the Truth. The light is the very God who has blotted out all our sins, and to come to the light is to believe in what God has done for us. Everyone who is saved by believing in this loves the light and comes to the light by admitting his sins and passing them onto God. Whoever wants to receive the remission of sin should first admit his sins and his sinful nature before God, saying honestly, “God, I’ve committed many such sins. I’ve committed so many sins in my past that I am ashamed to mention them all, and there aren’t enough fingers in both my hands to list even the most horrendous sins that I’ve committed.”
We often forget our own sinfulness, in part because of our short memories, but mostly because we willfully try to forget our sinful past. We are so generous to ourselves that we tolerate our own blemishes without a flinch, and yet when it comes to other people’s faults, we keep badgering on and on constantly. There is a saying in Korea that goes, “When someone else has an extramarital affair, it’s adultery, but when I have an affair, it’s just romance.” This saying shows us how generously we deal with our own faults and wrongdoings.
Regardless, all the sins that we committed in our past for whatever reason, intentionally or unintentionally, are the sins that we committed in this world. Jesus took away all such sins of the world. Even before we were born on this earth, our Lord already knew that we would commit sin until we die, and with this knowledge, He shouldered even the sins that we were yet to commit. This is why the Bible says that our Lord Jesus was full of grace and truth, as it is written, “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14). Do you believe in this Word? Jesus took away our sins wholly and perfectly.
It’s a given fact that everyone lives in this world, regardless of whether his life is short or long. John the Baptist, having passed our sins to Jesus, testified, “Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29) All the sins that we commit while living in this world belong to the sins of the world. Only when we believe that all the sins committed not just by us, but also by the generations both before and after us, were passed onto Jesus, can we be freed from the sins of the world and live our lives as a shining light.
My fellow believers, Jesus said, “He who does the truth comes to the light.” All such people who come to this light by placing their faith in what Jesus, God Himself, the true Light and the true Savior, has done for them, will receive the remission of their sins. Whoever believes in this Word today will be remitted from all his sins by faith. My fellow believers, you and I still have not lived out all our lives. But sooner or later, we will all die eventually. The Bible says that it is appointed for men to be born once and die once, and that there is judgment afterwards (Hebrews 9:27) While it is indeed appointed for all of us to be born once and die once, for those of us who have been born again by believing in the gospel of the water and the Spirit while living in this world, there is no judgment but only eternal life awaiting us.
My fellow believers, just as the Bible says, “The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29), the gospel of the water and the Spirit is the light. Since our Lord shouldered all our sins by being baptized and shed His blood unto His death on the Cross, is there still sin left in this world, or is there none? There is no sin any longer. Were all our sins passed onto Jesus or not? They were all passed. As all the sins in our hearts were passed onto Jesus, we have now received the remission of our sins by faith.
“And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14). Jesus the only begotten Son of God, who is full of grace and Truth, has blotted out all our sins by being baptized and shedding His blood on the Cross. This is the gospel of the water and the Spirit. The only true light of this world is Jesus alone, and to save us, He was baptized and died—this is the very light and the real Truth. Jesus, God Himself and our Savior, never lies, and therefore exactly according to the promise He had made even before the foundation of the world, He Himself has completed our salvation once and for all.
By Fulfilling All Righteousness, Our Lord Has Delivered Us from All Our Sins Once and for All
It is written in John 19:15-18: “But they cried out, ‘Away with Him, away with Him! Crucify Him!’ Pilate said to them, ‘Shall I crucify your King?’ The chief priests answered, ‘We have no king but Caesar!’ Then he delivered Him to them to be crucified. Then they took Jesus and led Him away. And He, bearing His cross, went out to a place called the Place of a Skull, which is called in Hebrew, Golgotha, where they crucified Him, and two others with Him, one on either side, and Jesus in the center.”
John 19:28-30 continue to say, “After this, Jesus, knowing that all things were now accomplished, that the Scripture might be fulfilled, said, ‘I thirst!’ Now a vessel full of sour wine was sitting there; and they filled a sponge with sour wine, put it on hyssop, and put it to His mouth. So when Jesus had received the sour wine, He said, ‘It is finished!’ And bowing His head, He gave up His spirit.”
Do you follow the light? Can you believe in the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit? Can each of you accept into the heart this Word, that through His baptism and Cross, Jesus finished blotting out the sins of the world?
It is said that he who follows God comes to the light of Truth. He who is born again of water and the Spirit follows our Lord. Those, who have become righteous by believing in what the Lord has done for them, gladly praise the Lord. Three years after being baptized, Jesus went to the Cross, was crucified, shed His blood, and declared just before His death, “It is finished!” He then arose from the dead again in three days, just as He had promised. The resurrected Jesus manifested Himself to the eleven Apostles, was seen by over five hundred brethren at once (1 Corinthians 15:6), bore witness for 40 days, and promised, “Just as I ascended, so shall I return.” He will surely come again as the Bible says, “Behold, He is coming with clouds, and every eye will see Him, even they who pierced Him. And all the tribes of the earth will mourn because of Him” (Revelation 1:7). Though when our Lord first came, He was born in a stable in a small town, and He blotted out all our sins perfectly but quietly, the Bible tells us that the Messiah that is to come again will return majestically as the King of kings and descend as the Lord of judgment.
Therefore, everyone must believe in the Truth, that Jesus has blotted out all his sins once and for all. God has allowed whoever believes in this Light to be clothed in the grace of the remission of sin. “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). Jesus said that God did not send His Son to condemn the world, but so that through Him the world may be saved (John 3:17). But anyone who does not believe in Jesus’ gospel of the water and the Spirit and instead follows falsehoods until the very end will surely be condemned. Because such people do not believe in the name of the only begotten Son of God, they are already condemned. It is written, “And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed” (John 3:19-20). Here, “practicing evil” is not to believe in the light. To refuse to believe in and accept into our hearts the salvation that the Lord has fulfilled for us is the evilest of all sin.
It is my sincerest hope that none of you would ever end up like such people. The Bible says that it was not to condemn the world that God sent His Son to this world. Jesus did not come to this earth to condemn us. He came to this earth to send to Heaven all the souls that believe in His merits that have completely blotted out all our sins. Like this, Jesus is the true Light that has saved us from our sins.
The Almighty who has blotted out all our sins is no one else but Jesus. No one else therefore can be our Savior. No eloquent speaker is the Savior, nor is the dogma of any renowned denomination the real Truth. Our Lord, the Creator who made this universe, is the only Savior who came to dwell among us, as the Word became flesh to deliver mankind that had fallen into sin from the mire of sin. Only this Jesus alone could blot out all our sins. Jesus loved us humans so much that He forsook His throne of glory, came to this earth in a humble form, and took upon Himself all our sins by being baptized. Now, anyone can be saved from all his sins once and for all by believing in the gospel of the water and the Spirit.
You are now reading this book, but have you received the remission of your sins once and for all? As for myself, I have become a righteous man by believing in the gospel of the water and the Spirit, the light of salvation. My fellow believers, nothing that God did for us when He came to this earth is not of the light.
My fellow believers, why did our Lord have to come to this earth incarnated in the flesh of man? And why did He have to be baptized? Why is it recorded in so many places in the Bible that Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist? Why does it say that Jesus took away the sins of this world by being baptized? Why did the Apostle John bear witness of John the Baptist? Why did Jesus have to die on the Cross? Why did Jesus say on His death, “It is finished”?
My fellow believers, today, I have expounded upon this light of Truth. I have explained to you the core essence of the Truth of the real gospel. There are countless passages in the Bible, but here, I have testified about this Light, that our Lord came to this earth and has saved us, and I have preached on the Truth of His acts that have wholly saved us from all our sins. Now, our salvation depends on whether or not we believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit. As there was the Light that illuminated everyone (John 1:9), to all who received Him, those who believed in His name, He gave the right to become God’s children (John 1:12). Do you believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit? Each of you must believe in this Truth. If you do not each believe in this, then you are bound to hell. Each and every breathing man and woman born as a human being must follow Jesus, who is God Himself, the Savior, and the true Light. To follow the Light is to believe in the written Word that shows the works the Lord has done for us humans, by going to God’s Church where the Lord’s works are preached exactly, and by hearing and learning from it.
There are so many people in this world who think they are better than Jesus. Today’s people are so arrogant that they call themselves as God’s servants, and yet they remain silent on the gospel of the water and the Spirit and are only busy to exalt themselves. Not realizing that only Jesus’ gospel Word of the water and the Spirit is true, they yak away as if they can save others. In particular, there are many people in this world who claim to preach the gospel, but what we must know is not the false gospels that these people preach, but the real gospel, the gospel of the water and the Spirit. I do not want you to be deceived by such lies and remain unsaved to forever dwell in darkness.
For Jesus to blot out our sins and to be condemned in our place, He had to be baptized by John the Baptist. If Jesus had died on the Cross without first being baptized, then His death would have had no effect. It would not have been effective precisely because this is not in accordance to the law of salvation that He Himself established. Just as the Bible says that our Lord was full of grace and truth, Jesus took upon Himself our sins once and for all, and it is by accepting this Truth into our hearts that we shall receive the remission of our sins and preach the gospel.
My fellow believers, I believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit. There is no one in this world, not even one, whom you can trust. Because everyone is always changing, what comes out of man cannot be the real Truth. We must believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit, the method of salvation that our Lord fulfilled, for only this gospel of the water and the Spirit fulfilled by the Lord is the real Truth. When it comes to following the light, this is the very gateway one has to pass by faith. Anyone who does not believe in and follow the gospel of the water and the Spirit fulfilled by the Lord cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven, nor become His servant, far less receive and enjoy all the God-given blessings. Our Lord is the real Light of Truth and the Savior who came to this earth.
Do you believe in what Jesus said in John 3:16, that “for God so loved the world that he gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life”? When those who claim to have received eternal life without believing in this Word are asked, “Have you become righteous?” they answer, “How could I become righteous? How could an insufficient human being ever claim to be a righteous person?” Even though many people wonder, “How could I become righteous?” those who follow the Truth, even as they are insufficient, can say confidently that they have come to the light, received the remission of their sins, and have now become righteous. God is the Light of Truth, and we are darkness in essence. While our seeds are such that we cannot avoid but sin with our flesh, the light is fundamentally of God the Holy One. And for us, it is by believing in the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit given by Jesus the true Light, that we are sanctified by faith.
We have been nothing more than piles of sin since our birth. We are sinners, and therefore we should be cast into hell and we deserve to be condemned. This is why we are desperately in need of God’s mercy. Because we need His salvation of love, we must admit our sinful selves to God, believe in what He has done for us, and thereby receive the remission of our sins. We must confess, “You are right, Lord. I can’t help but sin until the day I die. In my flesh I am always insufficient and I sin all the time. But even so, I am a righteous man, for I believe in the Truth that the Lord took away all my sins of the world by being baptized and shedding His blood. I thank You, Lord. I believe in what You have done for me.”
At first, I, too, found it hard to understand what is meant by Jesus taking away the sins of the world. At that time, since my understanding was that Jesus took away only my original sin when He took away the sins of this world, I could not quite grasp the entirety of the Truth, and wondered to myself, “How could Jesus take away all my sins when I have committed so many sins in this world? And how could He take away the sins of my children, when they are not even born yet? It makes no sense.” But these were only my own wicked thoughts. Precisely because Jesus is God and the Savior of mankind, all these things were more than possible. Because Jesus is God Himself, He could blot out all the sins of this world once and for all. And we, too, have been sanctified once and for all by believing in the gospel of the water and the Spirit that He fulfilled for us.
My fellow believers, how could we ever know the sins we would commit tomorrow with our flesh? Imagine you are walking on the streets and someone steps on your foot. Wouldn’t you get angry right away, demanding that this man apologize to you, as if you were about to punch him in the face? What kind words would you ever say to him? Just a minute ago you might have been all smiling, but in a blink of the eye you can get upset and vent your anger, committing sin in no time without even realizing it. This is what we are. Because our Lord is God Himself, He knew very well that we are all like this, and that is why He took away all our sins beforehand almost 2,000 years ago.
Through the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit, our Lord blotted out all our sins once and for all, thus completely fulfilling our salvation. It is not the case that God is somehow still blotting out our sins, as if He was unable to eradicate them once and for all. Jesus is not remitting away our sins in the present progressive tense, but He already fulfilled the remission of all sins 2,000 years ago through the water and the Spirit. It is because our Lord has already blotted out all our sins through the gospel of the water and the Spirit that we have now become sinless by faith.
However, there is one thing that we must all know: We still have insufficient flesh. In other words, although we have been born again and have no sin any longer by believing in the gospel of the water and the Spirit within our hearts, because our flesh is still insufficient, we may very well find ourselves sinning tomorrow. Does this then mean that we would once again revert back to our status as sinners whenever we commit sin? No, you must realize here that this is not the case at all. Didn’t our Lord, after all, take away all our sins long ago through His baptism? Therefore, whenever we sin, we can recognize our sins and confess our faith, thanking God for His grace like this: “Lord, although I am this insufficient, because You took away even these sins, I am still sinless. Thank You, Lord. I praise You for saving such an insufficient person like myself.”
He Who Believes in the Gospel of the Water and the Spirit Is Remitted from All His Sins Once and for All
By believing in the gospel of the water and the Spirit, we can be freed from all condemnation. Our Lord has saved us perfectly through the gospel of the water and the Spirit. The Apostle Paul therefore said, “Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks” (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18). And he also said, “For it is the God who commanded light to shine out of darkness, who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus” (2 Corinthians 4:6).
My fellow believers, Jesus took upon Himself all your sins once and for all through the gospel of the water and the Spirit. Hebrews 9:12 says, “Not with the blood of goats and calves, but with His own blood He entered the Most Holy Place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption.” Put differently, that He entered the Most Holy Place once and for all means that He entered the Kingdom of God at once after fulfilling His mission with the gospel of the water and the Spirit. As such, that Jesus accomplished the eternal redemption that has blotted out all our sins once and for all means that He no longer has to do this ever again. By believing in the gospel of the water and the Spirit fulfilled by the Lord once and for all, you, too, can now receive the remission of your sins once and for all and enter the Kingdom of God.
It is written in Hebrews 10:9-10, “Then He said, ‘Behold, I have come to do Your will, O God.’ He takes away the first that He may establish the second. By that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus once for all.” Here, “that will” means the will of God to blot out all the sins of mankind once and for all through the gospel of the water and the Spirit. The passage here does not say that by that will we would be sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus once and for all, but it describes the salvation of Jesus in the perfect tense by saying that we have been sanctified.
By offering His body, Jesus has already blotted out all our sins. This is the light of salvation. Because Jesus, in giving up His body, was baptized and died on the Cross, and arose from the dead again, it is by believing in Jesus, the God of salvation, that we can come forth to God, who is the Light. It is when we believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit that God approves our faith, saying, “You are right. Your faith is right. My son, on account of your faith, you are forgiven from your sins.”
Hebrews 10:11-18 says, “And every priest stands ministering daily and offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But this Man, after He had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down at the right hand of God, from that time waiting till His enemies are made His footstool. For by one offering He has perfected forever those who are being sanctified. But the Holy Spirit also witnesses to us; for after He had said before, ‘This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, says the LORD: I will put My laws into their hearts, and in their minds I will write them,’ then He adds, ‘Their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more.’ Now where there is remission of these, there is no longer an offering for sin.”
What does it mean when it says here in verse 18, “Now where there is remission of these”? It means that Jesus has remitted away our sins, and therefore all people should receive the Savior in joy. God said that those who follow the true Light are to receive eternal life by believing in what the Lord Jesus has done. This Truth is the gospel of the water and the Spirit. This is the Truth, the real Light. Jesus offered the everlasting sacrifice by offering His own body through His baptism and His bloodshed, and He has made forever perfect all those who have been sanctified by believing in this Truth. This is why, my fellow believers, once you become righteous, you are forever righteous.
Let us now go back to John chapter three again and see what our Lord said. He said, “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). Whoever believes in the gospel of the water and the Spirit will receive eternal life and not be cast into hell. What about you then? Have you received eternal life? When was your faith made whole? Your faith was made whole when you were born again of the gospel of the water and the Spirit. And it is by believing in the gospel of the water and the Spirit that you have been born again, whether you heard this gospel today, yesterday, or a year ago. While it was about 2,000 years ago that Jesus blotted out our sins, it is only now that you and I have realized and believed in this, and have thereby received the remission of our sins.
By being baptized by John the Baptist, shedding His blood on the Cross, and arising from the dead again in three days, Jesus blotted out the sins of the world. On the following day of His baptism, He was testified to by John the Baptist. That Jesus has delivered all sinners from their sins by being baptized by John the Baptist and shedding His blood on the Cross—this is the Truth. This is the very light of Truth. That the Son of God came to this earth means that Jesus came to blot out all our sins with the water, the blood, and the Spirit (1 John 5:4-8).
Countless people, because they do not know the gospel Truth of the water and the Spirit, still say that they have sin. But is there any sin in this world? No! As a matter of fact, since Jesus actually took away all sins, there is no longer any sin left in this world. The only reason why so many people believe themselves to have sin, and are tormented so much by this, is because they have been deceived by Satan.
If you want to be freed and saved from your sins, you must follow the light of Truth given by the Lord. It is not the man-made doctrines that we should follow, but we must follow the light of the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit. We should not be bound by our own thoughts, our own pride, or our own insufficiencies, but we should dwell in the true light by believing in the baptism of Jesus, who took away all our sins, and in His bloodshed on the Cross. As human beings, you have nothing to boast of before God even if you try, and as a seed of an evildoer, you can do no more than practicing hypocrisy and pretending to be someone who you are not.
You must believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit with your heart, and you must spread the true light. This gospel of the water and the Spirit is the very gospel of Truth in which the Apostles of the Early Church believed. Have you been born again and received the remission of your sins by believing in the gospel of the water and the Spirit in a biblically sound way? Are you righteous now?
My fellow believers, the Bible says that to all those who receive Jesus —that is, to those who believe in Jesus as their Savior—God has given the right to become His children (John 1:12). To make us God’s children, Jesus has saved you and me through the gospel of the water and the Spirit. The Bible says that God gives the Holy Spirit as His gift to those who receive this Jesus into their hearts by faith. As the Holy Spirit comes into our hearts, He approves us as God’s children, and He bears witness of this. Because there is the Holy Spirit in the hearts of those who believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit, and because He abhors when they sin, those whose hearts are sinless distance themselves from sin even more. It is not because we try on our own that our hearts are changed, but it is because the Lord Himself changes us through the gospel of the water and the Spirit that our hearts are transformed by faith.
No one is ever sanctified gradually with passing time. It is a great mistake to think that when enough time goes by since we first became Christians, we would all somehow be sanctified and turn into holy people. On the contrary, the older we get, the more sins we commit and the weaker we become. Yet the Holy Spirit has come into the hearts of those who have received the remission of their sins through the gospel of the water and the Spirit given by the Lord, and that is precisely why they do the works of righteousness that please God and serve the gospel; there can be no doubt whatsoever that it is not because we decide to never sin again on this earth that we actually do not sin.
Just as our sins were cut off from us when our hearts believed in what our Lord had done for us, for those who have been born again from sin by believing in the gospel of the water and the Spirit, their lives of faith are a continuation of the kind of life that is lived in holiness by their hearts’ faith. It is the Lord Himself who has blotted out our sins and made us righteous. And it is not by our strength that we lead our lives of faith, but rather, it is by putting on the power of the Lord who has saved us from all our sins that we are living by faith. We need to rise up with faith and fight against those who try to ruin us and stand against us wickedly.
My fellow believers, once you are born again through the gospel of the water and the Spirit, you must live under the guidance of a pastor who also believes in the true gospel, and you must listen to the Word of faith. Only then can you forever enjoy the joy of your newly obtained status as a righteous person, and only then can you live praising the Lord forever. If, on the other hand, you submit yourself to any pastor who has not been born again from his sins and listen to his sermons even after you’ve come to believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit, then you will perish away.
Such pastors who have not been born again from their sins preach in this way: “My fellow believers, let us repent from our sins. Let us repent from all the sins that we committed in the past week.” These liars, having misunderstood 1 John 1:9, which says, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness,” claim that we must cleanse away our sins through our prayers of repentance, but “to confess” in this passage means to confess our true selves, admitting who we really are, not to give prayers of repentance asking God to cleanse away our sins. Do you understand this? The true confession before God is to admit, “Lord, I’ve sinned again. Lord, in my flesh I cannot help but live like this. But I believe that You have saved even such a man like myself through the gospel of the water and the Spirit, and I praise You for this.” It is when we thus admit that we are the seeds of evildoers, and once again meditate upon the gospel of the water and the Spirit, that our souls are made whole. It is then that all the residues in our hearts are cleansed away through the gospel of Truth given by our Lord. The gospel of the water and the Spirit has blotted out all our sins once and for all. It is the merits of Jesus that flows in our hearts as a river of life. We have been cleansed with clean water of this river. This is none other than the very faith that is placed in the gospel of the water and the Spirit, and this is what it means to follow the true Light.
Those who have been born again of water and the Spirit can grow spiritually only when they continue to listen to the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit in God’s Church and serve this gospel. Even if we believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit, if we end up eating spiritual leaven, then we will surely die. The Lord had commanded that if the people of Israel ate leavened bread, they would be cut off from Israel. So the people of Israel, after keeping the rituals of Passover, ate only unleavened bread for a week during the Feast of Unleavened Bread. For God had commanded, “Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread. On the first day you shall remove leaven from your houses. For whoever eats leavened bread from the first day until the seventh day, that person shall be cut off from Israel” (Exodus 12:15).
My fellow believers, you must remember that if you, even after receiving the remission of your sins, listen to the words of untruth that hold man-made thoughts and man-made doctrines, instead of listening to the Word of God, then you will be cut off from God. This is not because God would somehow cancel your salvation mercilessly, but it is because you yourself would be drinking the poison of death and rejecting God’s gift of grace, saying in effect, “God, You failed to blot out all my sins. I am therefore a sinner.” And that’s why you will end up in hell.
The Bible says, “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. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil” (John 3:16-19).
My fellow believers, what will then happen to those who reject the Lord’s Truth with their own carnal thoughts? Such people will all end up like Judas who hung himself to death.
My fellow believers, we must follow Jesus the true Light through the gospel of the water and the Spirit. Whoever follows the gospel of the water and the Spirit before God is remitted from all his sins and made righteous. He who is born again by believing in the gospel of the water and the Spirit praises our Lord. This is precisely why I am now preaching the gospel of the water and the Spirit to you.
In this age and time, when the true gospel is nowhere to be found, those of you who listen to the gospel of the water and the Spirit are truly blessed by God.
I admonish each and every one of you to believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit and to live your life remitted from all your sins. You must listen to the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit, believe in it with all your heart, and receive the remission of your sins. And as you carry on with your life from then on, you must continue to listen to the pure Word, and then enter the Kingdom of Heaven.
We have praised our Lord who has enabled us to live forever in the Kingdom of God. And we will praise Jesus for eternity. I give all my thanks to Him.
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Copyright © 2021 by The New Life Mission