John 3:16

Ver. 16. “ For God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on Him should not perish, but should have eternal life. ”

Here is the ἐπουράνιον, the heavenly mystery, par excellence; Jesus displays the source of the redemptive work, which He has just described; it is the love of God itself. The world, that fallen humanity of which God in the Old Testament had left the largest part outside of His theocratic government and revelation, and which the Pharisees devoted to wrath and judgment, Jesus presents to Nicodemus as the object of the most boundless love: “ God so loved the world...” The gift which God makes to it is the Son, not only the Son of man, as He was called John 3:13-14 in relation to His humanity, but His only-begotten Son. The intention, in fact, is no longer to make prominent the homogeneity of nature between this Redeemer and those whom He is to instruct and save, but the boundlessness of the love of the Father; now this love appears from what this messenger is for the Father Himself. It has been claimed that this term, only-begotten Son, was ascribed to Jesus by the evangelist. For what reason? Because, both in his Prologue (John 1:14-18), and in his Epistle (John 4:9) he himself makes use of it. But this term is, in the LXX., the translation of the Hebrew יָחִיד, H3495, (Psalms 25:16; Psalms 35:17; Pro 4:3).

Why should not Jesus have employed this word if He was, as we cannot doubt (Matthew 11:27; Matthew 21:37), conscious of His unique relation to God? And how should the evangelist have been able to render it in Greek otherwise than the LXX. had rendered it? Man had once offered to God his only son; could God, in a matter of love, remain behind His creature?

The choice of the verb is equally significant; it is the word for giving, and not only for sending; to give, to surrender, and that, if necessary, even to the last limits of sacrifice. The last clause produces the effect of a musical refrain (comp. John 3:14). It is the homage rendered by the Son to the love of the Father from which everything proceeds. The universality of salvation (whosoever), the easiness of the means (believeth), the greatness of the evil prevented (should not perish), the boundlessness, in excellence and in duration, of the good bestowed (eternal life): all these heavenly ideas, new to Nicodemus, are crowded into this sentence, which closes the exposition of the true Messianic salvation. According to this passage, redemption is not extorted from the divine love; it is its thought, it is its work. It is the same with Paul: “ All things are of God, who reconciled us unto Himself by Jesus Christ ” (2 Corinthians 5:18).

This spontaneous love of the Father for the sinful world is not incompatible with the wrath and the threatenings of judgment; for here is not the love of communion, which unites the pardoned sinner to God; but a love of compassion, like that which we feel towards the unfortunate or enemies. The intensity of this love results from the very greatness of the unhappiness which awaits him who is its object. Thus are united in this very expression the two apparently incompatible ideas which are contained in the words: so loved and may not perish. Some theologians, beginning with Erasmus (Neander, Tholuck, Olshausen, Baumlein) have supposed that the conversation of Jesus and Nicodemus closes with John 3:15, and that, from John 3:16, it is the evangelist who speaks, commenting with his own reflections on the words of his Master. This opinion finds its support in the past tenses, loved and were, John 3:19, which seem to designate a more advanced period than that at which Jesus conversed with Nicodemus; in the expression μονογενής, only-begotten Son, which belongs to John's language; finally, in the fact that, from this point, the dialogue-form wholly ceases. The for of John 3:16, is, on this view, designed to introduce John's explanations; and the repetition in the same verse of the words of John 3:15 are, as it were, the affirmation of the disciple answering to the Master's declaration. But, on the other hand, the for of John 3:16 is not a sufficient indication of the passing from the teaching of Jesus to the commentary of the disciple.

The author must have marked much more distinctly such an important transition. Then, how can we imagine that the emotion which bears on the discourse from John 3:13 is already exhausted in John 3:15 ? The increasing exaltation with which Jesus successively presents to Nicodemus the wonders of divine love, the incarnation (John 3:13) and redemption (John 3:14-15), cannot end thus abruptly; the thought can rest only when it has once reached the highest principle from which these unheard of gifts flow, the infinite love of the Father. To give glory to God, is the goal to which the heart of Jesus always tends. Finally, who could believe that He would have dryly sent Nicodemus away after the words of John 3:15, without having given him a glimpse of the effects of the salvation announced, and without having addressed to him for himself a word of encouragement? Would this be the affectionate sympathy of a truly human heart?

The part of Jesus, in that case, would be reduced to that of a cold catechist. The difficulties which have given occasion to this opinion do not seem to us very serious. The past tenses of John 3:19 are justified in the mouth of Jesus, like the reproach of John 3:11: “ You receive not our testimony,” by the attitude, which the population and authorities of the capital had already taken (John 2:19). We have justified by the context the term only-begotten Son, and have seen that it would hardly be natural to refuse it to Jesus Himself. The terms new birth, birth of water and birth of the Spirit (John 3:3; John 3:5) are also not found in the rest of Jesus' discourses; must we, for this reason, doubt that they are His? In a kind of discoursing so original as His, does not the matter, at each moment, create an original form? When we remember that the ἅπαξ λεγόμενα (words employed only once) are counted by hundreds in the Epistles of St. Paul (two hundred and thirty in the first epistle to the Corinthians, one hundred and forty-three in the epistles to the Colossians and Ephesians taken together, one hundred and eighteen in the Ep. to the Hebrews), how can we conclude from the fact that a term is found only once in the discourses of Jesus which have been preserved to us, that it does not really belong to His language?

Finally, the cessation of the dialogue-form results simply from the increasing surprise and humble docility with which Nicodemus, from this point onwards, receives the revelation of the heavenly things. In reality, notwithstanding this silence, the dialogue none the less continues. For, in what follows, as in what precedes, Jesus does not express an idea, does not pronounce a word, which is not in direct relation to the thoughts and needs of His interlocutor, and that as far as John 3:21, where we find, at last, the word of encouragement which naturally closes the conversation, and softens the painful impression which must have been left in the heart of the old man by the abrupt and severe admonition with which it had begun. De Wette and Lucke, while maintaining that the author makes Jesus speak even to the end, nevertheless think that, without himself being conscious of it, he mingled more and more his own reflections with the words of his Master. Nearly the same is also the opinion of Weiss, who thinks that, in general, John has never given an account of the discourses of Jesus except by developing them in his own style. If, in what follows, we find any expression wanting in appropriateness, any thought unconnected with the given situation, it will indeed be necessary to accept such a judgment. If the contrary is the fact, we shall have the right to exclude this last supposition also.

One idea is inseparable from that of redemption, it is that of judgment. Every Pharisee divided man into the saved and the judged, that is to say, into circumcised and uncircumcised, into Jews and Gentiles. Jesus, who has just revealed the redeeming love towards the whole world, unfolds now to Nicodemus the nature of the true judgment. And this revelation also is a complete transformation of the received opinion. It will not be between Jews and Gentiles, it will be between believers and unbelievers, whatever may be their nationality, that the line of demarcation will pass.