John 3:18 “Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.”

Judgment Day is still in the future. On that day God will begin the public trial of mankind. He will present the evidence, good and bad, for each human being. He will pass sentence. The verdict will be final. There is no court of appeal from that court.

That trial isn’t so much for God as it is for us. He already knows every individual outcome. We, and everyone else who ever lived, will be the ones learning for certain where each stands at the last judgment. Jesus tells us that as far as God is concerned, we are all living under our verdict right now. As people who believe in God’s Son, you are living under his love in your salvation every day. But anyone who does not believe “stands condemned already.” Such people are simply killing time until the final sentencing.

Yet, so long as there is life, there is time to come to faith and change God’s verdict. So what stands in the way? So many people who know what is at stake, who know who Jesus claimed to be and what he came to do, resist believing in him. Jesus gives us a little peek into their hearts: “This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God” (John 3:19-21).

People fear what the truth of Jesus will expose about them. That’s not just those who are guilty of some scandal. Most of Nicodemus’s colleagues among the Pharisees lived externally moral lives. Yet Jesus exposed the corruption inside of them–selfishness, lovelessness, arrogance. Two years later he was warning them, “If you do not believe that I am the one I claim to be, you will indeed die in your sins.” They didn’t want to be common sinners in need of God’s grace and Jesus’ saving work.

American founding father Ben Franklin wrote a rather famous letter just weeks before his death. In it he confessed his doubts about Jesus’ divinity and general disinterest in the topic. When he died, he confessed, the question would be answered for him. No doubt he wasn’t more concerned about Jesus in life because that would have meant confronting his many affairs and promiscuous lifestyle, among other things. How many multitudes today don’t simply avoid the light because that would expose and overturn a belief system or lifestyle that is comfortable and cozy with our culture’s broken moral code?

“But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light…” because they can take credit for being so good and superior themselves? No, “so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God.” We have to give credit where credit is due. Faith in Jesus brings real change in those who believe. But any good that comes to light is God’s own work in us, evidence of faith, not a reason to think we don’t need to be saved by God’s one and only Son.

I need what Jesus is giving: not just advice, not a vague sense of inspiration, not a solution for some trouble spot in my life. I need rescue from sin. I need the love of God. I need a life that never ends. That’s why God gave his one and only Son, and why we believe in him.