John 3:17

Ver. 17. “ For God sent not his Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through him. ”

For: the purpose of the mission of the Son, as it is indicated in this verse, proves that this mission is indeed a work of love (John 3:16). The word, world, is repeated three times with emphasis. Nicodemus must hear in such a way as no more to forget that the divine benevolence embraces all humanity. The universalism of Paul, in its germ, is in these John 3:16-17. The first clause, by its negative form, is intended to exclude the Jewish idea, according to which the immediate purpose of the coming of the Messiah was to execute the judgment on the Gentile nations. Our versions translate, κρίνειν, in general, with the meaning condemn; Meyer himself still defends this meaning. It is explained thus: “Jesus did not come to execute a judgment of condemnation on the sinful world.” But why should not Jesus have said κατακρίνειν, to condemn, if He had this thought?

What He means to say is, that His coming into the world has for its purpose, not an act of judgment, but a work of salvation. Reuss concludes from this saying that “the idea of a future and universal judgment is repudiated” in our Gospel. But the future judgment is clearly taught in John 3:27-28. The idea which Jesus sets aside in this saying, is only that the present coming of the Messiah has for its purpose a great external judicial act, like that which the Pharisee Nicodemus was certainly expecting. If a judgment is to take place as a personal act of the Messiah, it does not appertain to this coming. However, although the purpose of His coming is to save, not to judge, a judgment, but an altogether different one from that of which the Jews were thinking, was about to be effected because of that coming: a judgment of a moral nature, in which it is not Jesus who will pronounce the sentence, but every man will himself decide his own salvation or perdition.