John 3:16-21

ADDITIONAL NOTES BY THE AMERICAN EDITOR.

XIV.

The passage from John 3:16 to John 3:21 is supposed by Westcott, and by Milligan and Moulton, among the most recent writers on this Gospel, as well as by the writers whom Godet mentions, to contain reflections of the evangelist on the words of Jesus already spoken. On the other hand, Alford, Keil and others hold that these are the words of Jesus. The grounds on which the former view is maintained are the three referred to by Godet, and one or two others which may be closely united with them. As for these three, it must be admitted that they are deserving of serious consideration.

The argument from the past tenses cannot be pressed, as it might be in some other writings, for the tendency towards the use of the aorist instead of the perfect is manifest in the New Testament, and, in this case, the reference in John 3:16-17 is apparently to the act of love already accomplished, and besides, the ἦν of John 3:19 may be intended to cover a time before the appearance of the light, as well as the time of or after that appearance. The argument derived from μονογενής, to which other peculiar expressions are added by Westcott, such as do the truth, is the only one of weight. It would seem not improbable that John may have taken this word from Jesus, but the use of it by Jesus in this early conversation with Nicodemus is a thing hardly to have been expected. Was it not too soon after His first coming forward as a teacher, and was it not unlikely that He would have employed this peculiar term for the first time in a conversation with such a man?

The argument derived from the fact that Nicodemus takes no longer any part in the conversation is of comparatively little force, because at John 3:14 Jesus passes from the earthly to the heavenly things, respecting which Nicodemus might naturally have been only a listener to what was told him. The connection of the 16th verse with what precedes by for is possible consistently with either view, but, considering the absence of any statement pointing to the writer as giving his own thought, it favors the assigning of the words to Jesus.

The natural and easy progress of the discourse, if they are thus understood, and the appropriate close which they form to all that is said, together with the antecedent probability that the evangelist would not so abruptly join his own words to those of Jesus, are the arguments which bear most strongly against those already mentioned. The only instance in which it may be regarded as clear that the evangelist in any such way weaves his own matter into the narrative, is in the latter part of ch. 12, and there he only gives a kind of summary, at the close of Jesus' public work, of His teachings and their results.

This, however, is quite a different thing from an immediate joining of his own words to those of Jesus as if they belonged to the same development of thought. It is claimed, indeed, that the writer connects his own reflections with the words of John the Baptist at the end of this chapter. But even if this is admitted, it will be observed (a) that John 3:31 is not so closely connected with John 3:30 as John 3:16 is with John 3:15 (John 3:16 opens with γάρ, while John 3:31 has an independent construction); (b) that it is less difficult to suppose that Jesus used the words of John 3:16-21, than that John the Baptist used those of John 3:31 ff.; and (c) that the writer may more easily be supposed to have been ready to supplement what John said with his own thoughts, than to add words of his own to what Jesus had said. It may be added (d) that by thus closely joining his own reflections to the discourse of Jesus, he must have known that he was not unlikely to mislead the reader, and to make him suppose that Jesus had uttered those central words of the Gospel (John 3:16), which He had not uttered. Is it probable that, in the first case where he presented Jesus' own testimony in words, he would have allowed himself to make such an impression? While it cannot be said, therefore, that John 3:16-21 are certainly not the words of John, there are strong grounds to believe that they are not, and the probability of the case must be regarded as favoring the assigning them to Jesus.

In the verses of this discourse with Nicodemus we meet, for the first time in this Gospel, the words ζωὴ αἰώνιος. The careful examination of the use of this phrase by this author will make the following points manifest:

a) The phrase ζωὴ αἰώνιος is used as substantially equivalent to ζωή. For example, when Jesus says John 5:24: He that believeth hath eternal life, and in John 5:40: that ye may have life, it cannot be doubted that the ζωή of the latter case is the ζωὴ αἰώνιος of the former.

(b) The ζωὴ αἰώνιος, according to John's idea, is possessed by the believer as soon as he believes; comp. John 3:36, John 5:24; John 6:54. He that believeth hath eternal life; he that eateth my flesh hath eternal life. It is a thing of the present, therefore, and not merely of the future.

(c) That eternal life is thus present, is indicated by the explanation given by Jesus as to what it is, John 17:3: This is eternal life to know thee, the only true God and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent. The knowledge of God is eternal life, and this knowledge the believer has in this world (comp. 1 John 2:13: because ye know the Father, John 5:20: we know him that is true).

(d) The eternal life also belongs to the future; comp. John 6:27, the meat which abideth unto eternal life; John 12:25, he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto eternal life; John 4:36, gathereth fruit unto eternal life; John 5:29, the resurrection of life.

(e) Eternal life, viewed with reference to the future, is connected in thought with expressions containing the phrase εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα; comp. John 6:51, If any man eat of this bread, he shall live forever and the bread is my flesh; John 6:54, he that eateth my flesh hath eternal life; John 6:58, not as the fathers did eat and died, he that eateth this bread shall live forever. The conclusion which we may draw from these facts is, that, to the view of this author, eternal life is rather a permanent possession of the soul than a future reward; that it begins with the new birth, and continues ever afterwards, as well in this world as in the world to come; that it moves onward uninterruptedly, so that there is no sight or taste of death, John 8:51-52. In this sense, the adjective is qualitative, rather than quantitative eternal life is a peculiar kind of life. But when we ask why this particular qualitative word is used to describe the life, the suggestions of this Gospel lead us to believe that it is due to the fact that the life endures εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα that it never has any experience of death that it is endless. The qualitative word is thus also a quantitative one, and is used because it is quantitative. The endless life begins on earth.

The word judgment, in these verses, is possibly to be interpreted, with Meyer and others, in the sense of condemnation (κατάκρισις), and possibly, with Godet and others, in its own proper sense. It is not to be doubted that, though κρίσις means judgment, it sometimes has in the New Testament the idea of condemnatory judgment carried into it by the force of the context or of the subject under discussion. This is true of the word judgment in our language. That this is the meaning of κρίσις in these verses is indicated by the contrast with the word save; by the contrast between believers and unbelievers, so far as the general representation of the New Testament writers sets forth their fate; by the fact that John 3:19 naturally suggests the idea of condemnatory judgment; and by the references to the final judgment as including all men, which are found elsewhere. The other view is favored by the fact that neither here nor in ch. John 5:24 ff., is the word κατάκρισις used. This word is, however, found only twice in the New Testament (2 Corinthians 3:9; 2 Corinthians 7:3). Κατακρίνω does not occur in John's Gospel, except in the doubtful passage, John 8:1-11. It is to be observed, also, that the tendency of the Johannean thought is towards the inward sphere, rather than the outward; and as his conception of eternal life is not of the future reward or blessedness, so much as of the spiritual life in the soul, never seeing death, so it would seem natural that his idea of the relation of the believer to judgment should be that of having its issues already decided in the soul by the possession of faith, and thus of escaping judgment in its more outward form. While recognizing the force of the considerations in favor of giving to κρίσις the idea of judgment as distinguished from condemnation, the writer of this note believes that the other view is more probably the correct one. Viewed in relation to the decision as to destiny, the believer as truly as the unbeliever, it would seem, must be subject to this decision. In both cases alike, it is made, in the sense here intended, in the man himself. It is made already in each case, and no more in the one than in the other. But if the meaning is condemnation, it is true that the believer is not condemned, and that the unbeliever has been condemned already by and because of his unbelief. The 19th verse supports this meaning, for it represents the κρίσις as being that which is connected only with the rejection of the light, with the loving of darkness, and with the deeds which are evil and are to be reproved (John 3:20). But the κρίσις which relates to such works and the men who do them is a condemnatory judgment.