John 3:16-21--For God So Loved the World

John 3:16-21
English Standard Version

For God So Loved the World​
16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. 18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. 19 And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. 20 For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. 21 But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God.

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Before we get started, yes, I did remove the quotation marks around the passage today.  Quotation marks and other punctuation parks are not there in the original text, and I don't think this passage is the words of Jesus, but instead is the explanation of those words by John as inspired by the Holy Spirit.  There's a few reasons that I have for thinking this.  First, the tone completely changes.  As we pointed out yesterday, the conversation between Jesus and Nicodemus was more a debate format with each of them asking questions of the other without directly answering each other's questions.  That's not the style of this passage of what I believe to be commentary by the author.  Next is the fact that the audience appears to have changed.  No longer is the text saying talking in second person that "You must be born again" (directed at Nicodemus), but instead it starts speaking in third person plural "that whoever believes in him...."  The audience of this passage is clearly "the world," not just Nicodemus.  Third, it makes sense that John would want to explain what was just said about the serpent in the wilderness since the crucifixion hasn't happened yet.  We've already seen John tell us that it's coming a couple times now but those references have been more direct, the text matches almost exactly with words and phrases used in John's epistles as does his commentary that he provides in John 1, and lastly, this isn't the only time that we'll see the author insert commentary into the middle of the text--John is going to do that quite a bit in His gospel as John's purpose is to explain and prove things, not simply to give people the facts to decide for themselves--John has been very clear that he wants to lead people to a certain conclusion, so think of the book of John as a persuasive argument.  It's totally acceptable during a persuasive argument to stop and frame a quotation and show people how it ties in with your main argument.  Don't let the people get lost in the story, but keep bringing them back to the main point.

Now that we have that out of the way, we can jump in to what is probably the verse that is quote and interpreted correctly most often.  There are other verses that are probably quoted more often out of context and quoted incorrectly, such as "Judge not," but there's not a lot of room to mess up John 3:16, especially if you quote verse 17 along with it, which most people have started to do.  Let's take a brief moment to talk about what it does and doesn't say though because even though it is quoted and interpreted correctly most of the time, there are still places where this verse gets twisted, especially with Universalists.  Remember, the "hook" here is John 3:15 which talks about the serpent in the wilderness and foreshadows the crucifixion.  John desires to explain the motive behind the gospel here to say that it was the love of God the Father for the world that caused the Father to give His one and only Son (remember, the goal of the book is to show us that Jesus is the Son of God, and that in Him we have eternal life....see if you don't find that to be exactly what John is saying here) that whoever believes on Him--notice that's a much smaller subset of the world, and it not everyone--will not perish (that word probably needs defined, which we'll do in a second), but have everlasting life (and there's the main theme of the book).

That word "perish" that we see is most closely associated with physical death in our minds.  Is that what the text is talking about?  Certainly not.  We'll seem this more clearly at the end of Jesus' ministry on earth when we get to the story of Lazarus being raised from the dead, but the idea of "perishing" is to die in your trespasses and sins so that you can never come into the presence of our holy God other than for judgment and condemnation--which is what verse 17 talks about when it says that this time that Jesus came into the world, He did not come to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.  There is a difference in wording there that all those who believe on Him will be saved, but He came so that the entire world could be saved or might be saved.  Salvation is available to all, but only effective for those who believe.  There is a conditional statement set up here.  If someone is part of the world and they believe on His name, then they will receive eternal life (which is the opposite of perishing).  So then, Jesus did not die to save animals, angels, or aliens from other planets, nor did He die only for the Jews, but for all of humankind past, present and future that could be called "the world."  Salvation is not automatically provided to everyone who sincerely believes in anything or anyone.  They must believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and His penal substitutionary atonement for them and that by His death, they will be forgiven and have eternal life.  The passage does not say that there is no condemnation for anyone, rather that there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus (see Romans 8:1), but the rest of the passage is very clear that those who remain "in the world" and refuse to become a part of the kingdom of God are already condemned--that's why Jesus didn't need to come to condemn them because they were already condemned.

We don't like to talk much about condemnation and damnation when we cite this passage because we want to just talk about "the love of God," but God's love forces Him to be just and punish sin just as much as His love compels Him to provide a path of atonement and forgiveness.  God also does not stop being holy just because He's loving and I think it's fair to say that God's holiness is the overarching attribute of God that describes and ties together everything else that God is.  Everything about God is different, set apart, unique and special (that's what "holy" means) and it's not like how we think about those words.  We know that a parent who loves a child will discipline and correct his or her child and not be so permissive that the child does whatever he or she wants.  That would be a form of neglect and child abuse because the child cannot make good, wise, responsible decisions.  In the same way, God is going to correct those He loves, but we also know that judge who let everyone go and never punished anyone would not be a good judge, but a very bad judge because he would not care about the law he swore to uphold or the people that he sword to protect.  So why do we try to think differently when it comes to God?  Certainly He also desires to uphold His perfect Law and protect His people.

Now we return to words that remind us of the prologue of John as well as the beginning of the first epistle of John as we return to the theme of light and darkens--this is not the last time we'll see this.  John renders a verdict or judgment.  The Light (God the Son) came into the world, but the men loved the darkness because their deeds were evil.  Everyone who does wicked, evil things hates the light for fear that their evil, wicked deeds will be exposed, so they choose to live in darkness.  Whoever does what is right (righteous) comes into the light so that their deeds may be clearly seen by all and to make sure that God gets all the glory for the works that God did both in them and through them, because such a "righteous" man knows that God deserves all the credit.

So then, this passage does not stand in opposition to God as Elector as many make it out to be, for it wraps up saying that anyone that is righteous is that way because of what God has done, and not what the man or woman has done.  We need to be willing to read passages in their broader context and not just look for "proof texts" and stop quoting verses when it stops saying what we want it to say.  People love verses 16 and 17 because on their own it sounds like we have a "God of the New Testament" that is all about grace, love, and forgiveness and has given up on that wrath and condemnation stuff that we saw in the Old Testament, but that's not the case.  God is the same yesterday today, and forever, and His Word and His Law will never pass away.