Biblical Concept: John 3:16
NAS John 3:16 "For God so loved the
world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should
not perish, but have eternal life.
3:16a - “For God so loved the world”: This is the greatest expression of
Impersonal Love in the Bible. From the very beginning, the world became filled
with quite an array of sin. God, of
course, would have to deal with this volitional sin. His justice and righteousness required
it. How He did it was through Inclusive
Impersonal Love toward human volitional creatures. God did not leave humanity to the corrupting
influences of fallen angels and human natures to sin. He countered these influences with His
Impersonal Love. God’s Impersonal Love is inclusive. It can only be inclusive.
3:16b - “that He gave His only begotten Son”: God’s Impersonal Love could
only be expressed by His own giving.
‘God, loved, gave, Son’ are the keys of the expression of this Impersonal
love. Only God can satisfy God’s
standards. The Divine giving is quite an
inventive undertaking: “only begotten Son.”
The Loving Creator became One of the creatures to express His Divine
Impersonal Love toward the creatures—now that is inventive! God so loved the
world that He became part of the world He created and would sacrifice Himself
for it—remarkable!
3:16c - “that whoever believes in Him”: The Divine Inclusive Impersonal
Love included a volitional component. The
human volitional creatures are required to use the volition that God gave them,
to respond to the Son Gift. The Son Gift
is inclusive: ‘whoever.” “Believes” = to be convinced. Vocabulary: pistis from peitho
meaning: to persuade, to convince.
Nothing else is needed. It is hard enough to get a human to be convinced
about this Jesus Guy for eternal life.
3:16d - “should not perish”: John
3:16 starts with Divine Inclusive Impersonal Love. However, God exists and functions according
to His Divine attributes and so enters “perish.” God loves His creation period. God also loves His holy, just, and
righteousness character. Fallen humanity
is destined to perish in their desire to sin. God by His nature cannot have anything to do
with sin. God can only judge sin. This makes the Divine Son salvation plan all
the more remarkable and needed. “Not
perish” is me apoletai (mh. avpo,lhtai) with a subjunctive middle inflection is deliberative and
means “may not destroy oneself.” The
volitional creature is accountable for themself.
3:16e – “but have eternal life”: This is why God gave the Son. Freewill failed to keep a position with
God. God provided a way back. God did
everything. Humans utilize the volition God gave them to choose for an eternal
relationship with Him via the Son. The choice is real and honored, but the volitional
creature provides nothing of merit. It
was and is impossible. Happily, God wants human volitional creatures with Him
in heaven. To have humans simply believe
is the challenge.
Now look at the verses previous and following John 3:16
John 3:12-15 12 "If I told you earthly things and
you do not believe, how shall you believe if I tell you heavenly things? 13 "And no one has ascended
into heaven, but He who descended from heaven, even the Son of Man. 14
"And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the
Son of Man be lifted up; 15 that whoever believes may in Him have
eternal life.
John 3:17-20 17
"For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that
the world should be saved through Him. 18 "He who believes in
Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he
has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. 19 "And this is the judgment,
that the light is come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than
the light; for their deeds were evil. 20
"For everyone who does evil hates the light, and does not come to the
light, lest his deeds should be exposed.
So complete was God’s Impersonal Love, and Personally satisfying the
actions of Jesus, now the one sin that separates man from God is the sin of
unbelief in the Person and work of the begotten Son—John 3:12-20.