Who is the Promised Seed of Abraham Part Three

The Nugget:

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.

My Comment:

Casual Bible readers, careless Bible readers, and none Bible readers miss the significance of what is taught in John 3:16.

My claim is readily demonstrated. If I were to ask any of the three classes of Bible readers I just mentioned a simple question about John 3:16, they all would be stumped!

Here is my question:

How is John 3:16 related to the question “Who is the Promised Seed of Abraham”?

If you do not know the answer to my question, do you know how or where to find the answer to this important question?

Let me help you quickly learn how to answer my question and, at the same time gain a better understanding of John 3:16.

Here is my answer:

Simply look up John 3:16 in The New Treasury of Scripture Knowledge or my expansion of this resource, The Ultimate Cross Reference Treasury:

begotten. Gr. monogenes, S# G3439, +Luk 7:12, lit. the only one of a family, unique of its kind. Monogenes, applied to Jesus, expresses the unique and eternal relationship of the Son to the Father. As firstborn does not mean born first (Col 1:15 note), neither does only begotten imply a begetting, birth, or origin in time.

In His pre-existence, Jesus was always uniquely the Son of God (Psa 2:7, +*Isa 9:6, Heb 1:8). When used of Christ, only begotten speaks of “unoriginated relationship.” Only begotten “indicates that as the Son of God He was the sole representative of the Being and character of the One who sent Him” (Vine, Expository Dictionary, vol. 3, p. 140).

It is a word picture which portrays the relationship of the Father to the Son in the terms of a Middle Eastern patriarchal family (**Gen 21:12; Gen 22:2; Gen 22:12; Gen 22:16, Heb 11:17).

Isaac, termed Abraham’s only begotten son (Heb 11:17), though Abraham had a prior son Ishmael by Hagar (Gen 16:15) and later sons by Keturah (Gen 25:1, 2, 3, 4, 1Ch 1:32, 33), sustains a unique relationship to Abraham as the son of promise (Gal 4:23).

The same picture, portrayed in parable (Mat 21:37), emphasizes the unique authority of Jesus as sent by the Father (Joh 20:21, 1Jn 4:9), and our responsibility to receive the truth declared by Him (Joh 1:14; Joh 1:18; Joh 3:18, Mat 17:5). Pro 8:24, Col 1:15, Heb 1:6; Heb 11:17, %1Jn 5:18.