John 3:16

Joh_3:16

God so loved the world, that He gave His-only begotten Son

The gospel in brief

Pliny declares that Cicero once saw the Iliad of Homer written in so small a character that it could be contained in a nutshell.

Peter Bales, a celebrated caligrapher, in the days of Queen Elizabeth, wrote the whole Bible so that it was shut up in a common walnut as its casket. In these days of advanced mechanism even greater marvels in miniature have been achieved, but never has so much meaning been compressed into so small a space as in that famous little word So, in the text. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

The gospel

The text gives a deeper insight into the Divine character than the heavens which declare Gods glory and than those tender mercies of His providence which are over all His works.

I. THE DIVINE LOVE.

1. Its marvellousness. The world is

(1) not the wondrously perfect material universe;

(2) not the world of unfallen angels;

(3) not a world of creatures such as Adam was when pronounced very good. Then had there been no wonder. But

(4) the world the whole of which lieth in wickedness.

2. Its universality.

(1) Salvation is as common as sunshine, yet if a man will close his eyes the sun is of no use to him. So while salvation is for all many put it away from them.

(2) It was originally meant to be so. The Jews denied it because they erred, not knowing the Scripture. The promise to Abraham and renewed to Isaac and repeated by Isaiah was a universal one.

(3) Salvation extends to the most ignorant and the very worst.

II. The Divine Gift. He could give nothing dearer or greater. Some may excel others in kindness; but Gods love is such that in its manifestation it cannot possibly be exceeded. Christ is His unspeakable gift. He gave His Son.

1. To a humbling incarnation.

2. To a laborious servitude.

3. To an ignominious and sacrificial death.

III. THE DIVINE DESIGN.

1. What God wants to do.

(1) To save all men from perishing

(2) To give all everlasting life.

2. The condition upon which He will do it. Faith in His Son. (Mortlock Daniell.)

A triple ray of Gospel light

Here are three great testimonies like the three primary colours which make one white beam.

I. LIGHT UPON THE CHARACTER OF GOD.

1. God loves. The Indian or Chinese will not let you say God loves. It is an impeachment of His dignity and argues need. In a profound sense, however, of yearning for protection, of appreciating the souls of men, of finding a necessity for seeing them blessed, in the sense of pity, mercy, self-effacement, God loves. Had we said this it would have been a marvellous testimony; much more so had Paul or John said it. But love on the lips of Christ has a thousandfold more meaning.

2. God loves the world, the unregenerate world, as a mother loves her wayward no less than her worthy child, though the love be broken-hearted grief. So God loves the rebellious.

3. God loves the world with a distributive affection reaching the whosoerers.

4. God loves it with an affection so deep, self-effacing, self-sacrificing, as to give His only begotten Son. Love is ever giving, and the love of God says not of aught it possesses that it is its own. He keeps not His child. See, then, here in the first line of the Gospel that

(1) It reveals the heart of God.

(2) His habit of sacrifice.

(3) His compassion for every soul.

(4) His desire to save all.

II. LIGHT UPON CHRIST. What a problem has Christ been! The generations have never been able to forget Him. Men have never given Him a small name. The estimates of foes have betrayed their sense of His greatness, and the adoration of friends has lost itself in the endeavour to express it. Who is He? The ages have been a wrestling Jacob whose question has been, What is Thy name? Ask Himself.

1. The only begotten Son of God. The Son is of the nature of the Father--Divine in a sense no other being is. All the Divine fulness of the Godhead is in Him. And His life matches His name.

2. The gift of God: the property of each soul of man. There is no tie which has knit Him to our hearts that He has not knit. He takes our nature, conditions, duties, temptations, sorrows, curse, death. Ours

(1) By evident gift.

(2) By obvious sympathies.

(3) Ours so that all He has and is, the merits of His life, the atonement of His death, is ours.

3. The Saviour. Only Christ has borne this great name. Mohammed is prophet; Buddha is teacher only; Jesus is Saviour. A name

(1) written on the consciousness of every redeemed soul, and

(2) writ large in history.

III. LIGHT ON MAN. Low views of God go together with low views of man. You cannot lose your faith in God without losing your faith in man. Here we see

1. God loves each man, therefore each man is lovable; no heart without a beauty in it that charms the eye of God; no life without some possibility of glory in it which attracts His love.

2. We are capable of faith. There is a Divine dignity in man which lets him lift himself up to God and entrust himself into His arms, and put himself wholly under His guidance and in His power.

3. We are capable of everlasting life. Philosophy as we know it today is a theory of the graveyard only. If we cast away the Lord of life we have to believe in a destiny that is only a tomb. Christ has come that we might have everlasting life. (R. Glover.)

The love of God

I. THE FOUNTAIN OF GRACE IN GODS UNSPEAKABLE LOVE.

1. object. The world: man in his corrupt and miserable state (Joh_5:19).

2. The act.. The love of God is

(1) The love of benevolence (Tit_3:4).

(2) Of complacency (Psa_11:7; Joh_16:27).

3. The degree--So. We are not told how much. It is to be conceived rather than spoken of; admired rather than conceived.

Observe from all this

1. That love is at the bottom of all. We may give a reason for other things, but not for this love (Deu_7:7-8; Mat_11:26).

2. Love is visible in the progress and perfection of our salvation in Christ Rom_5:8). Light is not more conspicuous in the sun.

3. If there were any other cause it must be either

(1) in the merit of Christ; but this was the manifestation not the cause of God s love (1Jn_3:16), or

(2) in our worthiness; but this cannot be (1Jn_4:10; Col_1:24).

The uses of all this.

1. To confute all misapprehensions of God. Satan tempts us to view God as unlovely or to entertain unworthy thoughts of His mercy. But this shows us that He is fuller of love than the sea is of water.

2. To quicken our admiration of the love of God in Christ. Three things commend any favour done us.

(1) The good will of the giver.

(2) The greatness of the gift.

(3) The unworthiness of the recipient. All concur here.

3. To exhort us

(1) To improve this love. It is an invitation to seek after God.

(2) To answer it with a corresponding love.

(3) As love was at the bottom of all grace, so let it be of all duty.

II. THE WAY GOD TOOK TO EXPRESS HIS LOVE. There is a twofold giving of Christ.

1. For us (Rom_8:32). This mightily bespeaks Gods love and care for our salvation. In creation God made us after His own image; in redemption Christ was made after ours. This was the most convenient way to bring about His purposes of grace

(1) That our faith might be more certain.

(a) By His humanity He taught men by doctrine and example.

(b) By His dying He satisfied the justice of God, and so made a way for the course of His mercy to us (Rom_3:25-26).

(c) By His resurrection, which was a visible satisfaction to the world that His sacrifice was accepted (Rom_4:25).

(d) By His ascension the truth of eternal life was more confirmed.

(2) That our hope might be confirmed, being built upon Christs example and promises (1Pe_1:3; Joh_2:25; Joh_12:26).

(3) That our love to God may be more fervent.

(4) That our obedience may be more ready (Heb_5:8-9).

2. To us.

(1) Without Christ there is no recovery of what we lost, viz.,

(a) The image of God. This is restored by Christ, who is the pattern 2Co_3:18) and author (Tit_3:5-6). Till we are in Him we have not this great benefit (2Co_5:17).

(b) The favour of God which Christ died to recover (2Co_5:17).

(c) Fellowship with God (Gen_3:24; cf. Eph_3:12; Heb_4:16).

(2) Without Christ there is no removal of our mlsery--the death and curse, involved in sin. Christ finds us where Adam left us (Joh_3:18).

(3) Without Christ there is no obtaining our proper happiness. Man was made for God, and cannot be happy without Him (Joh_14:6; 1Jn_5:11).

The use of all this is

1. To confute the worlds opinion who measure Gods love by outward things.

2. To excite us to bless God for Jesus Christ (Rom_7:25; 1Co_15:57).

III. THE END OF THIS LOVE. Notice

1. The connection of our duty and privilege. We believe: God gives.

2. The universality of the proposal.

3. The condition.

4. The benefits negatively and positively considered. (T. Manton, D. D.)

The love of God

What subject can be so interesting as this? The gospel in general is a record of the love of God, but there the only begotten Son from the bosom of the Father gives us an epitome of the whole.

I. ITS OBJECT. If God so loved the world, then

1. He loved those who deserved no such love.

2. He loved those who could do nothing to purchase or to procure it.

3. He loved those by whom it was unsolicited and undesired.

4. He must manifest it in a way worthy of Himself.

(1) Was such a love verbal? There is a great deal of such which says, Be ye warmed, etc. Was it sentimental? There are a good many so exquisite in their sensibilities as not to be able to endure a case of woe. Had Gods love been such we had never been redeemed.

(2) Gods love was practical, bountiful, efficient.

II. ITS MANNER. He loved in a way worthy of Himself, and bestowed a gift which proved its greatness.

1. The supreme dignity and worth of the gift--His Son in a sense in which no other being is. Angels are sons because God has created them; Christians because God has adopted them. But Christ is Gods Son by eternal generation; Son in such a sense that He can say of the Father, I and My Father are one, and that the Father can say of Him, Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever.

2. The relation in which the gift stood to the Giver. He was one in whom the Father delighted, not as in a creature with a limited affection, but with a boundless complacency.

3. Does not this teach us that a less valuable gift could not expiate human crime, and that no other price could have been accepted. Had Christs teaching, example, etc., been sufficient His blood would not have been shed. But without shedding of blood is no remission.

4. The only begotten Son so loved the world that He gave Himself. The allegation that if Christ suffered under compulsion it were unjust is true. But Christ was Divine, and therefore independent, and consequently cannot be compelled to suffer. Hence He says, I delight to do Thy will. No man taketh My life from Me.

III. ITS END. It was glorious and justified the means--the salvation of the world. But this great benefit is not dispensed indiscriminately. There must be a cordial acceptance of Gods plan. Two ideas:

1. That of credence. Jesus must be believed to be what the record declares Him to be.

2. But such credence of this testimony that it is accepted by us, and that there is a personal reliance on Christ for salvation. It is with the heart man believeth unto righteousness.

3. Nor is this one act merely; it is an act repeated till a habit is formed, a habit which gives a distinctive denomination to the person--believer.

4. This salvation through faith is negative and positive.

In conclusion:

1. God so loved the world. Then

(1) He has so loved mankind as He has not loved other orders of creatures.

(2) He has carried this attribute m this manifestation to its utmost intensity. This cannot be said of His wisdom or His power.

(3) It was so vast, amazing, rich as to pay down a price that defies all the powers of human or angelic calculation.

2. Has God so loved the world as to give, etc.? Then

(1) Let us cherish views of the Divine character worthy of Him whose we are and whom we serve.

(2) How vital to salvation is faith!

(3) Have we the love of God?

(4) We ought to love one another. (R. Newton, D. D.)

Gods love and its gift

I. THE LOVE OF GOD.

1. If God so loved this guilty world, then what an unplumbed depth of grace must have been in His heart! For the object of His love is not the world in its first condition when He pronounced it very good, but the world ruined by sin and condemned for apostasy. There would have been no wonder had the world been drowned. Yet without any change in our claims or character He loved us. And this love is not a mere relenting which might lead to a respite, or simple regret which might end in a sigh. There is no merit in loving what is lovely. There is nothing about man but his misery to attract the Divine attachment. Mans sin is not his misfortune, but his fault. And the marvel is there is nothing God hates so much as sin, and yet no one He loved so much as the sinner.

2. If God so loved this little world, then surely His love is disinterested. This orb is truly a little one, yet it has called out emotion, which mightier spheres had failed to elicit.

3. If God loved this fallen world and not the world of fallen angels His love must be sovereign. Be not high minded, but fear. God spared not the angels that sinned, and if thou art spared thou hast no reason to boast.

4. The fervour and mightiness of this love arrest our attention--so.

II. THE GIFT OF GODS LOVE. We estimate the value of a gift by various criteria.

1. The resources of the giver. Our Lord declared that the poor widow gave truly more than the wealthy worshippers.

2. The motives of the giver. One may heap favours on a fallen foe to wound his pride.

3. The manner. If it be withheld until wrung out, or if it be offered in a surly spirit, it sinks at once in importance below the lesser boon offered in frank and spontaneous sympathy.

4. The condition of the recipient--whether rich or needy, and in what degree of need, and the extent to which the gift is adapted to him.

Now let the love of God be tested by these criteria.

1. The resources of the Giver are infinite; but in the donation of Christ you see the limits of possibility. If Christ be God what gift superior can be presented? or if He be the Son of God what richer love could be exhibited?

2. Gods motives were perfectly unselfish.

3. His gift is the only one that could have profited us.

4. What adaptation there is in it to mans dire need I

III. THE DESIGN OF GODS LOVE.

1. To rescue man from perishing.

2. To confer upon man the boon of everlasting life.

3. To do this for all who believe:

(1) of every character;

(2) country;

(3) rank;

(4) age. (J. Eadie, D. D.)

The love of God

I. THE OBJECT OF THIS LOVE. The world--not a part of it. The same reasons upon which His love of individuals is justified will justify His love to all.

II. ITS NATURE.

1. Negatively.

(1) Not a delight in the character of men. For an infinite being to sympathize with wicked natures He must be infinitely wicked.

(2) Not a mere emotion, for emotions do not influence the life without the will.

(3) Not fondness for particular persons. There was nothing in any man to warrant this fondness.

(4) Not an involuntary love as is manifest in what it did.

(5) Not an unreasonable state of mind which so often gives rise to a false affection.

2. Positively.

(1) It was the only kind of love that could have been important to man.

(2) It was a reasonable affection.

(3) It was good-will or benevolence.

(4) It was an unselfish kind of love.

(5) God did the good for the sake of the intrinsic and infinite value of the soul. Men had no claim upon Him, but there were infinite reasons why He should not destroy them.

(6) It was disinterested.

(7) It was a love of amazing strength. Here was a world of enemies at war with Him, yet He spared not His own Son.

(8) It was not for a single Christian as such, but for a world of sinners.

(9) It was forbearing.

(10) It was universal.

(11) It was holy.

III. THE REASON FOR THIS WONDERFUL MEASURE OF THE DIVINE GOVERNMENT. Mankind had resisted this government. If God had seemed to connive at this, all other beings might have denied the justice of the law and disobeyed it also. What must be done? Gods relation to the universe demanded of Him either to execute the law or to make demonstration of His estimation of the law. It is easy to see that the honour of the law might be fully sustained by God Himself if He should show before the whole universe His approbation of the law. If God would take upon Himself human nature, and in this nature would stand right out before the universe, and obey the law and suffer its penalty, the law would be perfectly honoured. This was what was done in Christ. (Prof. Finney.)

The love of God

I. How was JESUS GIVEN BY THE FATHER?

1. By His designation and appointment unto death (Act_2:23; Isa_42:1).

2. In parting with Him and setting Him at some distance from Himself for a Joh_16:28; Psa_22:1-2).

3. In delivering Him into the hands of justice to be punished (Rom_8:32).

4. In the application of Him with all the purchases of His blood, and settling all this upon us as an inheritance (Joh_6:32-33; Joh_4:10).

II. HOW THIS GIFT WAS THE HIGHEST, FULLEST MANIFESTATION OF THE LOVE OF GOD THAT EVER THE WORLD SAW. This will be evidenced if you consider

1. How near and dear Christ was to the Father (Col_1:13).

2. To what He gave Him (Luk_22:22).

3. That in giving Christ He gave the richest jewel in His cabinet.

4. On whom the gift was bestowed.

(1) Not on angels; not on human friends, but

(2) upon enemies (Rom_5:8-10).

5. The freeness of the gift (1Jn_4:19).

Corollaries.

1. The exceeding preciousness of souls (1Pe_1:18; Mat_16:26).

2. Those for whom God gave His own Son may warrantably expect any other mercy from Him (Rom_8:32; 1Co_3:20-21).

(1) No other mercy can be so dear to God as Jesus is.

(2) As Jesus was nearer the heart of God than all, so Jesus is in Himself much more excellent than all of them (Rom_9:5).

(3) There is no other mercy you want but you are entitled to it by the gift of Christ (2Co_1:20; 1Ti_6:17).

(4) If God has given you Christ when enemies it is not imaginable He should deny you an inferior mercy now you are reconciled Rom_5:8-10).

3. If the greatest love hath been manifested in the gift of Christ, then the greatest evil and wickedness is manifested in rejecting Him (Heb_2:2-4). (J. Flavel.)

The love of God

I. GOD IS LOVE.

1. It is singular. He first loved.

2. It is personal.

3. It is compassionate. He pities the souls that sin has ruined.

4. It is comprehensive. It extends to all mankind.

II. ITS EXPRESSION.

1. In the gift. This includes

(1) the birth of Christ;

(2) His matchless life and example; and

(3) His sacrifice.

III. ITS RESULTS. It is implied

1. That all are lost.

2. That none need perish; and

3. That whosoever believeth in Him hath everlasting life.

IV. WE LIVE IN THE GLORIOUS DAY OF SALVATION! This should be the tidings of great joy to all people. The return of Christmas should revive our hope and rekindle our zeal to spend and be spent in the Masters service. (L. O.Thompson.)

The love of God

I. LOVE IN ITS GRANDEST SOURCE.

1. God can love and does love. We must beware of making God only an infinite man; yet love in Him must be the same in kind as love in us.

2. Love is more than a Divine attribute. It is as light of which all the attributes are colours.

3. How near this brings Him to our hearts. We admire other qualities; we only love the loving.

4. The Scripture represents everywhere this love as the fountain of redemption.

II. LOVE IN ITS PUREST FORM. It had nothing to attract it and everything to repel it.

1. The world was perishing; it was therefore not complacent, but compassionating love. It is one thing to help the happy and prosperous and another to succour the needy and miserable.

2. The world was guilty. It is harder to love those who add unworthiness to distress. Moral excellence may attract compassion to the wretched, but moral vileness disgusts. But God commendeth His love, etc.

3. The world was at enmity with God. That love is purest which withstands provocations and does good to the injurious. When we were enemies we were reconciled, etc.

4. The worlds misery and peril were caused by itself. It is always a sore strain on mercy when solicited for the wilful. How natural the reply: It serves you right! God says, Thou hast destroyed thyself, but in Me is thy help.

III. Love IN ITS GREATEST STRENGTH That is a poor philanthropy which can pity without helping: but the philanthropy of God appeared in action. Love is as deeds, not words, desires, or feelings.

1. The love of God was practical in the most costly way. The test of love is sacrifice; the criterion of its strength is the measure of the sacrifice. The Cross was the self-denial of God.

2. Of all sacrifices the chief are those of persons. The highest sphere of value is in persons, not things, although the latter may be very precious.

3. God sacrificed the highest of all persons.

IV. Love IN ITS LOFTIEST PURPOSE. No purpose could be greater. We know the worth of life. All that a man hath will he give for his life. It is the condition of all else that is prized. Salvation is life, not in figure, but in fact. There is a life of the flesh, of the soul, and of the spirit. This life in all its perfection is the end of God. Beginning in the finest portion of our nature it will spread and strengthen until it possesses the whole of it. Man redeemed and renewed is to live to the utmost of his capacity of life. This life is everlasting. Sin brought death and separated from the tree of life: Christ restored access to it.

V. LOVE IN ITS WIDEST SPHERE. The world is not here used in a restrictive sense. It would be difficult to believe, did not facts prove it, that any could be so blinded as to make the world signify the Church. For the fact is, whenever the world is applied to a portion of mankind it always means the wicked. Wherever there is a man in the way to perish, there is the world God loved. There is nothing in the love or sacrifice of the Father and the Son to prevent the whole world being saved. God loved without limit of nation or condition. Conclusion:

1. You have here a pattern and spring of love. Be imitators of God as dear children. If God loved us, etc.

2. What a gospel--good news--is here! God loves you now in spite of all your sins and follies. The only title to love is to be perishing; the only condition of its blessings is to believe.

3. The subject casts a shadow by its very brightness on your unbelief, state, prospects. (A. J. Morris.)

The love of God

This affectionate compassion is set forth

I. BY COMPARISON OF THE PARTIES LOVING AND LOVED. God most high and holy loved the base and wicked world.

II. BY THE MEASURE OF IT. He so loved, that is, so infinitely, so transcendently, so incomprehensibly (Heb_12:3). Such as cannot be sufficiently expressed or conceived (1Jn_3:1).

III. BY THE FRUIT OF HIS LOVE. It was no lip love, but a giving love. Yea, but some things are not worth the giving, therefore

IV. BY THE WORTHINESS OF THE EXIT--His only begotten Son. And that to stand in our stead, and to die on the cross for us (Joh_3:14). Yea, but though never so excellent a gift be given, yet if it be not of use and profit to whom it is given, it doth not so testify love. Therefore

V. It is set forth by THE BENEFIT THAT COMES TO US BY IT.

1. Not perishing.

2. Having eternal life. But perhaps though this gift brings so great profit, yet they to whom it is given must take some great and extraordinary pains to get it, and then Gods love is not so great. Therefore

VI. It is set forth BY THE EASINESS OF THE MEANS whereby we are possessed of the profit of this gift, That whosoever believeth. Yet if this so worthy a gift, of such invaluable worth to the enjoyer, had been restrained to some few sorts of men, the matter had not been so much. Therefore

VII. It is set forth BY THE UNIVERSALITY, that whosoever, be he what he will, so he will but reach forth his hand to take this gift, he shall have it, and all the comfort of it. (J. Dyke.)

The Divine love

I. IN ITS SOURCE. God loved the world.

1. In its guilt, therefore His love was a love of benevolence. He could not take delight in it, but He did wish it well.

2. In its depravity. Therefore His love is self-moved--the world not as made by God, but as ruined by the devil; consequently there was nothing in it to attract the Divine love.

3. The world, not hell, consequently His love was sovereign-free as opposed to necessary. He could have loved fallen angels had such been His pleasure. But He took not hold on angels, but the seed of Abraham. Why? Even so, Father; for so it seemed good in Thy sight.

II. IN ITS MANIFESTATION, in

1. The birth or incarnation of Jesus Christ (1Jn_4:9). This did not engender or excite His love, it only manifested it.

2. In His death or atonement (1Jn_4:10). The Divine love is not the effect, but the cause. The gods of heathenism received but never gave sacrifices.

3. In the Person of the only begotten Son of God.

III. IN ITS DESIGN.

1. It has in view the salvation of every individual.

2. It offers to every individual the supremest, most precious blessing God Himself can bestow.

(1) Endless life.

(2) The very life of God Himself.

3. It offers the supremest blessings on the easiest, cheapest terms. God the Father had a great deal to do, and God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost; but man has nothing to do but to believe. (J. Cynddylan Jones, D. D.)

Immeasurable love

I. IN THE GIFT. Men who love much will give much. Little love forgets to bring water for the feet, but great love breaks its box of alabaster. Consider

1. What this gift was. The Fathers other self. What more could He give? Could you fathers give your sons to die for your enemy?

2. How God gave it: not as you, to some honourable pursuit in which you would not be deprived altogether of your sons company, but as an exile to be born in a manger, to toil as a carpenter, and to die as a felon.

3. When He gave: for there is love in the time.

(1) Jesus was always the gift of God. The promise was made as soon as Adam fell. Throughout the ages the Father stood to His gift. Every sacrifice was a renewal of the gift of grace. The whole system of types betokened that in the fulness of time God would give His Son. Admire the pertinacity of this love. Many a man in a moment of generous excitement can perform a supreme act of benevolence and yet could not bear to look at it calmly from year to year.

(2) It includes all the ages afterwards. God still gives.

II. IN THE PLAN OF SALVATION. What is it to believe in Jesus?

1. To give your firm and cordial assent to the truth of the substitutionary sacrifice of Christ.

2. To accept this for yourself. In Adams sin you did not sin personally, but by committing personal transgression you laid your hand upon it and made it your own. In like manner you must accept and appropriate the atonement of Jesus.

3. Personal trust.

III. IN THE PERSONS FOR WHOM THIS PLAN IS AVAILABLE. God did not so love the world that any man that does not believe in Jesus shall be saved. Whosoever believeth.

1. From the moralist to the utterly vile; from the greyheaded sinner to the boy or maiden.

2. It encircles all degrees of faith.

IV. IN THE DELIVERANCE. Whosoever believes shall not perish, though he is ready to perish. To perish is to lose all hope in Christ, all trust in God, all light in life, all peace in death, all joy.

V. In THE POSSESSION. God gives to every man that believes in Christ everlasting life. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

Gods love for the world

I. THE DIVINE LOVE--WHAT IT IS.

1. The essence of His nature.

2. All His attributes are modifications and manifestations of His love.

3. His law, the order of creation, the arrangement of His providence are expressions of His love.

4. Love is the ground of His perfect happiness.

II. THE SPECIAL FRUIT OF THE DIVINE LOVE. IN THE GIFT OF CHRIST.

1. The origin of Christs mission was the love of God.

2. God gave His Son.

(1) In the councils of eternity.

(2) In His birth in time.

(3) In His death.

3. The relationship between the Father and the Son is the measure of the Divine love.

(1) Not an exalted creature.

(2) Not merely a Son.

(3) Not His Son only by incarnation.

(4) But His only begotten, well beloved, and everlasting Son.

III. THE RECIPIENTS OF THIS GIFT.

1. Not the elect world, which God loves with the love of complacency.

2. But the sinful world, which He loves with the love of compassion.

IV. THE OBJECT CONTEMPLATED IN THE BESTOWAL OF THIS GIFT.

1. To prevent dreadful evil.

2. To bestow unspeakable good. (A. Beith, D. D.)

Gods love to the world

This verse is one of the gems of the Bible, a star of the first magnitude. Observe three things.

I. HOW GOD IS AFFECTED TOWARDS THE COSMOS: He loved it.

1. Who is God? The God of the Bible.

2. What is the cosmos? The world of human life.

3. How they stood affected.

(1) Originally, in harmony.

(2) Latterly, in enmity.

(3) Now, through Christ, in harmony once more: without Christ, still at enmity.

4. New and Divine revelation: God is love.

II. HOW GOD MANIFESTED THIS AFFECTION.

1. What He gave--His Son.

(1) Only begotten.

(2) Well beloved.

2. How He gave.

(1) Lovingly.

(2) Freely.

(3) Wholly.

III. FOR WHAT PURPOSE WAS THIS AFFECTION MANIFESTED.

1. Negatively: that man might not loose himself utterly from God, duty, happiness. Thus was the pity of God manifested.

2. Positively: that man may have life, age during life. (Bible Notes and Queries.)

The love of God in the gift Of a Saviour

These words express the substance of the gospel. No speaker ever had the power of condensing great principles into so narrow a compass as the Lord Jesus.

I. THE PLAN OF SALVATION ORIGINATED IN THE LOVE OF GOD.

1. The idea that God is loving has been doubted or denied.

(1) By those who contend that the world ought to have been made happy and pure. To them the fact that He provides remedies is no proof of His goodness.

(2) By those who suppose that the Bible represents God as originally a stern and inexorable Being placated by Christ, and that now He is only mild and benignant to a few.

2. The text teaches that God was originally disposed to show mercy.

(1) No change has been wrought in His character by the plan of salvation. He was just as worthy of love and confidence before as after the atonement.

(2) God was originally so full of mercy that He was willing to stoop to any sacrifice except that of truth and justice in order to save man.

(3) The plan of salvation was not merely to save man, but to save the name, character, and government of God. This could only be done by allowing His Son to be treated as if He was a sinner, in order to treat the really guilty as if they were righteous, and so to identify the one with the other.

II. THE EXPRESSION OF HIS LOVE WAS THE HIGHEST THAT IT COULD POSSIBLY BE.

1. Such a gift as that of His only begotten Son is the highest conceivable gift, and this Christ intends to convey. The Bible represents God as having the attributes of a kind and tender Father. He loves when He says He loves, and is no cold creation of the imagination. When a man bids his son go into the tented field with every prospect of his dying for the welfare of his country, it is the highest expression of his attachment for that country.

2. But no man has ever manifested such a love as Gods. In a few instances a man has sacrificed his life for his friend, and not a few fathers and mothers endangered their lives for their children. But who has ever given the life of his child for an enemy? But God commendeth, etc. (A. Barnes, D. D.)

Christs mission a revelation of Gods love

I. LOVE IN ITS HIGHEST FORM. Love is a generic term and includes a large number of specific affections. There is a love of friendship, brotherly love, parental love, conjugal love, a love of country or patriotism, and a love of God, or religion. Love is a redeeming quality among the many miseries of our fallen state. It is like the silver ray of sun-light which gleams through the dark cloud when the storm is brewing in the sky. It is like an oasis in the desert, which is a scene of beauty and a home of life amid arid plains doomed to perpetual barrenness. It is like the wood which Moses took and placed in the bitter waters of Mara. It sweetens the cup of human experience. It is the only lasting bond of human society--the only guarantee of the perpetual bliss of heaven, and the only attribute in fallen man which is made an emblem of God, God is love. If love in human form and in a fallen world be so Divine, what must it be in God Himself? Love in man is but a ray from the sun; a drop from the ocean.

II. LOVE IN ITS SUBLIMEST MANIFESTATION. The object of my text is not general, but special. It is to assure us that while the love of God may be traced in every object in nature, and read on every page of Providence, as the colours of the rainbow may be found in every ray of silvery sun-light, yet the brightest and the fullest manifestation of it is in the mission of Jesus into the world to save sinners. In considering this subject, we must carefully bear in mind that Jesus Christ was not a mere man, but God who assumed a human form and nature. Few men in the time of the Saviours advent had any idea of the love of God. Mans true happiness must ever be found in God, and in other beings only as they are Godlike. But to find happiness in such a god as that of which the highest conception is realized in the mythology of Greece, the idolatry of Moab, or the dogmas of the Pharisees is out of the question. Jesus, however, came to overturn these errors and fearful misrepresentations of the Deity, and save the world by proving that God was kind and loving, just and faithful, and therefore deserving of mens love and trust. It is most interesting to study the character of God according to the teaching of Jesus. He represented the Divine Being as a Father who yearned for the return of his prodigal child, welcomed him home, receiving him with open arms and open heart, bidding all his household help him to tell the world his joy, Rejoice with me, for this my son was dead and is alive again, was lost and is found. He represented God as the Good Shepherd, who goes after the lost one until it is found, and bears it to His home upon His shoulders with rejoicing. He represented God as the Good Samaritan who saw men lying in their wounds, robbed by sin of hope and heaven, upon the point of death, and came to save them at his own expense.

III. LOVE IN ITS WIDEST FIELD OF OPERATION. This widest field is the world, for God so loved the world. It is evident that the text cannot mean merely to assert that God loved and admired the material world or the things of the world, as these need no salvation, and are not capable of being saved, and the love of God to the world, in the text, is said to have special reference to its salvation. As the pious Jew of old rambled among the ruins of his glorious temple, turning over with affection its broken columns, cherishing the very dust and stone thereof; so God in Christ, with His loving heart overflowing with sympathy and affection, seeks to gather the broken fragments of humanity together, and rebuild upon a surer basis the temple of man. As mother, sister, or wife walks in the field of blood after the day of dreadful slaughter, with tears of affection flowing from her eyes, the sigh of sorrow rising from her wounded heart and floating upwards to tell its grief to God, and with tenderness of touch turns over the forms of the dead, that she may press once more to her heart, now broken, the object of her warm affection; so God is represented as amid the carnage which sin has made of us, inspired by the love of which my text is speaking, toiling and labouring and suffering, having come to seek and to save those who were lost. God so loved the world! This is the source from which all our blessings flow.

IV. LOVE IN ITS NOBLEST INTENTION.

1. The sad condition of those whom it proposes to affects should not perish. The objects of His love are perishing--perishing, not in body but in soul.

2. The glorious state to which the love of God proposes to raise all He found in this sad condition, but have everlasting life. Life, even of a temporal character, is of so much value that men toil and labour and manifest the deepest concern, in order, not to perpetuate it, but merely to prolong it for a few years.

3. The simple way in which we may become eternally benefited by this saving work of God, whosoever believeth in Him. What an awful curse is unbelief!

4. The impartial manner in which these blessings are offered, whosoever. Were man to make a feast, his invitations would not be to every one, for his ability to provide would have a limit. The richest man could not make a feast for all. But God is not man that He should be deficient. (E. Lewis, B. A.)

Gods love for a sinning world

I. SIN IS THE MOST EXPENSIVE THING IN THE UNIVERSE.

1. It is the violation of an infinitely important law--a law designed and adapted to secure the highest good of the universe.

2. As sin is this it cannot be treated lightly. The entire welfare of a government and its subjects turns upon obedience.

3. The law of God must not be dishonoured by anything He shall do. He must stand by it to retrieve its honour.

4. Hence the expense. Either the law must be executed at the expense of the race, or God must suffer the worse results of disrespect to His law, or a substitute be provided who shall both save the sinner and honour the law.

II. HOW SHALL THE EXPENSE BE MET? Who shall head the subscription? The Father made the first donation.

1. He gave His Son to make the atonement due to law.

2. He gave His Spirit to take charge of this work.

III. FOR WHOM WAS THE GREAT DONATION MADE? By the world cannot be meant any particular part. The Bible and the nature of the case shows that the atonement must have been made for the whole. Otherwise no man could be sure that it was made for himself.

IV. WHAT PROMPTED GOD TO MAKE IT? Love. This love is

1. Not complacency, or it would have been infinitely disgraceful to Himself.

2. Not mere feeling, as in those who are carried away by strong emotion. But

3. Disinterested: for He had nothing to hope or fear; no profit to make out of the saved.

4. Zealous.

5. Most self-denying.

6. Universal because particular. God loved each, therefore all.

7. Most patient.

V. THE GIFT OF GOD MUST BE RECEIVED BY FAITH. This is the only possible way, Gods government is moral because the Saviour is a moral agent. Therefore God cannot influence us unless we give Him our confidence. Lessons:

1. Sinners may place themselves beyond the reach of mercy.

2. This involves them in the greatest responsibility.

3. This responsibility can only be discharged and the sinner saved by accepting the donation of Christ.

4. Accepting that donation let us give it to others. (C. G. Finney, D. D.)

Gods wonderful love

I. ITS CHARACTERISTICS.

1. Eternal: loved. Who can tell when it began?

2. Compassionate: the world.

3. Unspeakable: so

II. ITS MANIFESTATION.

1. Condescending.

2. Sacrificial.

3. Exhaustive.

III. ITS PURPOSE.

1. Broad: whosoever.

2. Limited: believeth.

3. Blessed.

(1) Negative: should not perish.

(2) Positive: have everlasting life. (R. S. MacArthur, D. D.)

The love of God self-originated

The ocean is always moving, but it is not self-moving. The cause of its movements is outside itself, in the moon, and in the wind. Did the wind and the moon let it alone, the Atlantic would for ever be a pacific ocean, quiet, restful, pellucid as an inland lake; it has no power to heave itself. But as for the shoreless sea of the Divine Love, it has the power to move itself; and it did move itself. It rolled in a grand irresistible current towards the shores of our world. Like the Divine Essence, the Divine Love possesses the power of self-determination. (J. C. Jones, D. D.)

Gods love for sinners

I remember the case of a young man who was afflicted with a frightfully loathsome disease. He had to be kept out of sight. But was he neglected? No. I need not tell you who looked after him. There was not a morning but his loving mother bathed his wounds and swathed his limbs, and not an evening that she wearied in her toil. Do you think she had not natural sensitiveness? I knew her to be as sensitive as any lady; but by so much more as she felt the loathsomeness of her work do you see the love that constantly upheld her in doing it. But oh! what is the loathsomeness of cankered wounds compared with the loathsomeness of sin to God? There is but one thing that God hates, and that is sin. Yet with all His hatred of sin how He hangs over the sinner! (S. Coley.)

The power of Gods love

We often hear of counter currents, but was there ever such a counter current as is implied here! One of the most important and wonderful ocean currents is the Gulf Stream. It takes its rise in the Gulf of Mexico and sweeps across through the heart of the mighty Atlantic to the Arctic Seas; and by its strong currents, more rapid than that of the Mississippi, it engulfs every other ocean stream that comes athwart its course, making it tributary to its own grand mission of washing the shores and ameliorating the climate of the sea-bound countries of Europe. So God loved the world. His love is a mighty stream of warm, generous commiseration sweeping with mighty force towards that moral Arctic Sea sin has made of our world. And such was the strength of the current that it swept into its own bosom the mighty stream of Gods love of complacency towards His only begotten Son, so that He was borne on its bosom into this world, where, by suffering and death, He became the author of eternal salvation to all them that obey Him. (A. J. Parry)

The love of God

In human governments, justice is central, and love incidental. In the Divine government, love is the central element, and justice only incidental. God wishes to exhaust all means of kindness before His hand takes hold on justice. When the waves of penalty begin to come in in fearful tides, then He banks up against them. His goodness is the levee between justice and the sinful soul. (H. W. Beecher.)

God is love

God is love, and there is a something about love which always wins love. When love puts on her own golden armour, and bears her sword bright with her own unselfishness, she goeth on conquering and to conquer. Let a man once apprehend that God is love, that this is Gods very essence, and he must at once love God. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

A royal gift

Plutarch, the Greek historian, tells a story to this effect: An ancient king once gave a present of a large sum of money to a personal friend, and was gently taken to task for his generosity. What! was his astonished exclamation, would you not have me be liberal? Let the world know that when the king gives he gives generously, like a king. Upon this, he made a second present of equal value.

Faith in Christ is certain salvation

We lately read in the papers an illustration of the way of salvation. A man had been condemned in a Spanish court to be shot, but being an American citizen and also of English birth, the consuls of the two countries interposed, and declared that the Spanish authorities had no power to put him to death. What did they do to secure his life when their protest was not sufficient? They wrapped him up in their flags, they covered him with the Stars and Stripes and the Union Jack, and defied the executioners. Now fire a shot if you dare, for if you do so, you defy the nations represented by those flags, and you will bring the powers of those two great empires upon you. There stood the man, and before him the soldiery, and though a single shot might have ended his life, yet he was as invulnerable as though encased in triple steel. Even so Jesus Christ has taken my poor guilty soul ever since I believed in Him, and has wrapped around me the blood-red flag of His atoning sacrifice, and before God can destroy me or any other soul that is wrapped in the atonement, He must insult His Son and dishonour His sacrifice, and that He will never do, blessed be His name. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

Believe only

It is said that some years ago a vessel sailing on the northern coast of the South American continent, was observed to make signals of distress. When hailed by another vessel, they reported themselves as Dying for water! Dip it up then, was the response, you are in the mouth of the Amazon river. There was fresh water all around them, they had nothing to do but to dip it up, and yet they were dying of thirst, because they thought themselves to be surrounded by the salt sea. How often are men ignorant of their mercies? How sad that they should perish for lack of knowledge! Jesus is near the seeker even when he is tossed upon oceans of doubt. The sinner has but to stoop down and drink and live. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

We must believe or perish

When a shipwrecked sailor, left to the mercy of the waves, has no help within reach or view but a spar or mast, how will he cling to it, how firmly he will clasp it--he will hold it as life itself. If a passing billow sweep him from it, with all his might he will make for it again, and grasp it faster than ever. To part is to perish; and so he clings--and how anxiously! So the awakened sinner feels. The ocean of wrath surrounds him; its billows and its waves go over him. Hell yawns beneath to engulf him. The vessel is an utter wreck. All its floating timbers are very rottenness. Oh, how he strains his eye searching for a mast, a plank, a spar! His eye rests on the only hope, the only rock in the wide ocean of wrath, the Rock of Ages, the Lord Jesus. He makes for the Saviour--he clasps Him--he cleaves to Him. Every terror of sin and of unworthiness that strives to loosen his hold only makes him grasp with more terrible and death-like tenacity, for he knows that to part company is to perish. (R. B.Nichol.)

The love of God is a necessity of His own nature

God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, etc. The life and death of Christ was but the working out of the love of God. The affection and the yearning of heart towards His erring creatures was just the same in God before Christ came, that Christ showed it to be while He was on earth. It is just the same still. There is no change in God, or in His love. Man nor woman need fear disappointment there. It has been the custom of some, a custom too much prevailing, to represent God as being under no manner of obligation to do anything for His creatures after they had broken His law. The trouble with this statement is that there is a great deal of truth in it; and yet it has been made in such a manner as to give a very wrong impression. In Gods own nature there is a necessity for His efforts for mans redemption. (H. W. Beecher.)

The word so

Come, ye surveyors, bring your chains, and try to make a survey of this word so. Nay, that is not enough. Come hither, ye that make our national surveys, and lay down charts for all nations. Come ye, who map the sea and land, and make a chart of this word so. Nay, I must go further. Come hither, ye astronomers, that with your optic glasses spy out spaces before which imagination staggers, come hither and encounter calculations worthy of all your powers! When you have measured between the horns of space, here is a task that will defy you--God so loved the world. If you enter into that, you will know that all this love is to you--that while Jehovah loves the world, yet He loves you as much as if there were nobody else in all the world to love. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

The glory of the Gospel

It is not like a banquet, accommodated to the tastes and wants of so many and no more. Like a masterpiece of music, its virtues are independent of numbers. (D. Thomas, D. D.)

Gods mercy is free

Let me tell thee that the mercy of God flows freely. It wants no money and no price from thee, no fitness of frames and feelings, no preparation of good works or penitence. Free as the brook which leaps from the mountain side, at which every weary traveller may drink, so free is the mercy of God. Free as the sun that shineth, and gilds the mountains brow, and makes glad the valleys without fee or reward, so free is the mercy of God to every needy sinner. Free as the air which belts the earth and penetrates the peasants cottage as well as the royal palace without purchase or premium, so free is the mercy of God in Christ. It tarrieth not for thee: it cometh to thee as thou art. It way layeth thee in love; it meeteth thee in tenderness. Ask not how thou shalt get it. Thou needst not climb to heaven, nor descend to hell for it; the word is nigh thee; on thy lip, and in thy heart if thou believest on the Lord Jesus with thy heart, and with thy mouth makest confession of Him, thou shalt be saved.

What is it to perish

What is it to perish? It is to die in our sins, without bright angels to smile upon us as they wait to carry us away from earth; to die without the Saviours glorious presence to cheer us in the valley of the shadow of death. It is to be turned away from the shut door of our Fathers mercy, because, like the foolish virgins, we are not ready when the bridegroom comes. To perish is to lose the smile of God, the company of the redeemed, the society of angels, the glories of the heavenly world, and, with no ray of comfort or gleam of hope, to be driven away into outer darkness, into misery and woe, without deliverance and without end. The thought of this awful perdition made Jesus weep over Jerusalem and say, O Jerusalem, Jerusalem: thou that killest the prophets and stonest them that are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, as a hen doth gather her brood under her wings, and ye would not. (Rev. R. Brewin.)

Whosoever

Whosoever has a finger for babes, and an arm for old men; it has an eye for the quick, and a smile for the dull. Young men and maidens, whosoever offers its embrace to you! Good and bad, honourable or disreputable, this whosoever speaks to you all with equal truth! Kings and queens may find room in it; and so may thieves and beggars. Peers and paupers sit on one seat in this word. Whosoever has a special voice for you, my hearer! Do you answer, But I am an oddity? Whosoever includes all the oddities. I always have a warm side towards odd, eccentric, out-of-the-way people, because I am one myself, at least so I am often said to be. I am deeply thankful for this blessed text; for if I am a lot unmentioned in any other catalogue, I know that this includes me: I am beyond all question under the shade of whosoever. No end of odd people come to the Tabernacle, or read my sermons; but they are all within the range of whosoever. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

Whosoever

When the great mutiny in India had been brought to a close, and peace was being made between the government and the rebels, the Queen caused a proclamation to be made throughout the rebel provinces that all who should lay down their arms, and come to certain appointed places by a fixed day, should receive forgiveness, with some exceptions. Ah! these exceptions. The poor fellows who knew they could not be forgiven, but must be put to death, never came. The love of God knows no exceptions; whosoever will ,nay come. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

Whosoever

Somebody said he would rather read Whosoever than see his own name, because he should be afraid it might refer to some other man who might have the same name. This was well brought out in a prison the other day, when the chaplain said to me, I want to describe a scene that occurred here some time ago. Our Commissioners went to the Governor of the State and got him to give his consent to grant pardons to five men on account of their good behaviour. The Governor said the record was to be kept secret; the men were to know nothing about it; and at the end of six months the criminals were brought out, the roll was called, and the President of the Commission came up and spoke to them; then putting his hand in his pocket he drew out the papers and said to those 1,100 convicts, I hold in my hand pardons for five men. I never witnessed anything like it. Every man held his breath, and was as silent as death. Then the Commissioner went on to tell how they obtained these pardons; that it was the Governor who granted them, and the chaplain said the suspense was so great that he spoke to the Commissioner and asked him to first read out the names of those who were pardoned before he spoke further, and the first name was given out thus, Reuben Johnson will come out and get his pardon. He held out the papers but no one came. He looked all around, expecting to see a man spring forward at once; still no one arose, and he turned to the officer of the prison and said, Are all the convicts here? Yes, was the reply. Then, Reuben Johnson will come and get his pardon. The real Reuben Johnson was all this time looking around to see where Reuben was; and the chaplain beckoned to him, and he turned and looked around and behind him, thinking some other man must be meant. A second time he beckoned to Reuben, and called to him, and the second time the man looked around to see where Reuben was, until at last the chaplain said to him, You are the man, Reuben; and he rose up out of his seat and sank back again, thinking it could not be true. He had been there for nineteen years, having been placed there for life; and when he came up and took his pardon he could hardly believe his eyes, and he went back to his seat and wept like a child: and then, when the convicts were marched back to their cells, Reuben had been so long in the habit of falling into line and taking the lock step with the rest that he fell into his place, and the chaplain had to say, Reuben, come out; you are a free man. (D. L. Moody.)

The naturalness of Gods love

When William Knibb had been preaching from this text in Jamaica, returning home he came up with an old black woman, and he said to her, What do you think of the great love of God? Simplicity is often allied to sublimity. Think, massa! she replied; Me think it be just like Him. So it is. St. Peter says, According to His abundant mercy He hath begotten us again. It is just like Him. It is as a father pitieth his children. (S. Coley.)

Christ not the cause but the manifestation of Gods love

The law of gravitation existed from the foundation of the world, it daily exerted its influence, keeping the stars in their orbits, and swinging them around their respective centres. The mysterious force, however, was unknown until discovered by Sir Isaac Newton, and published in his writings. It existed from the first; only a century or two ago was it made manifest. In like manner the love of God existed from eternity, from days of old. It burnt as hot in the days of Noah and of Abraham, as on the Incarnation morn or the Atonement eve. All through the ages it governed the world with a view to its final redemption. But in the Incarnation and Propitiation was it revealed, only then did it force itself upon the obtuse vision of the world. Ye have believed that I came out from God. I came forth from--out of--the Father, and am come into the world. Not only He came from God, but He came out of God. John the Baptist came from God. (J. C. Jones, D. D.)

The love of God as seen in the gift of Christ

A story has been often told of the fondness of parents for their children; how in a famine in the East a father and mother were reduced to absolute starvation, and the only possibility of preserving the life of the family was to sell one of the children into slavery. So they considered it. The pinch of hunger became unbearable, and their children pleading for bread tugged so painfully at their heart-strings, that they must entertain the idea of selling one to save the lives of the rest. They had four sons. Who of these should be sold? It must not be the first: how could they spare their firstborn? The second was so strangely like his father that he seemed a reproduction of him, and the mother said that she would never part with him. The third was so singularly like the mother that the father said he would sooner die than that this dear boy should go into bondage; and as for the fourth, he was their Benjamin, their last, their darling, and they could not part with him. They concluded that it were better for them all to die together than willingly to part with any one of their children. Do you not sympathize with them? I see you do. Yet God so loved us that, to put it very strongly, He seemed to love us better than His only Son, and did not spare Him that He might spare us. He permitted His Son to perish from among men that whosoever believeth in Him might not perish, but have everlasting life. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

The love of God in the gift of Christ

When Jesus looked at the poor widow He found a new rule of arithmetic. When she dropped in her two mites He said that she had given more than they all. What new rule was this? Many had given much, but the Lord looked at what they had left. This woman had given all. Try God by His own rule. He had but one Son--His only begotten. If He had taken every star from the sky, and manipulated those stars, and moulded them all into a gigantic body of which every star was an atom; and then if He had taken every seraph from His throne and made a mighty amalgam of all souls into one, and had put that giant mind into that gigantic body, and given that body and soul for man, it would have been as nothing to this. A word of His could have restored the dismantled heavens; but God Himself cannot make an only-begotten Son. (S. Coley.)

Gods provision of the sacrifice

Transport yourselves in imagination to Athens or Rome; observe closely the images of the gods, in motley crowds on either hand of you; see the rivers of red blood flowing towards them. No marvel that Pauls spirit was stirred within him as he saw the city wholly given to idolatry. Come with me again to Jerusalem. Behold the image of the invisible God lifted up on Calvary. Does blood flow towards it No: blood flows from it. Here, then, we have hit upon the radical difference between paganism and Christianity. Blood to the image: that is the essence of paganism. Blood from the image: that is the essence of Christianity. The heathen gods demand a sacrifice, but never provide it; the gospel God both demands it and provides it. He gave His only-begotten Son. (J. G. Jones, D. D.)

Gods love and justice in sacrifice

King Zeleueus decreed that whosoever committed a particular offence should lose his eyes; and the first person found guilty was his own son. What a company would be gathered, and what an anxious inquiry there would be! What will the king do? Will he set aside the law because the offender is royal? Amid the hush of that gathered company the officer sternly commanded to do his duty dashed out one of the princes eyes. Stop, said the king, take the other from me. This was done. This will show that the love of the king was seen all the more from the justice of his administration. (S. Coley.)

Salvation

I. ITS ORIGIN IN THE LOVE OF GOD, which will appear after we consider that

1. Man by nature is in a state of degradation and spiritual death by reason of sin.

2. The essential means of salvation is the free gift of God.

II. THE MANIFESTATION OF THIS LOVE. Observe

1. The gift.

2. The faithfulness of the Father in this transaction.

3. The part which the Son took in this stupendous work.

4. The necessity of this gift.

III. THE MEANS BY WHICH WE BECOME PERSONALLY INTERESTED IN THIS GIFT.

1. There must be repentance.

2. There must be faith. (J. Gaskin, M. A.)

The cost and cheapness of salvation

A preacher had gone down into a coal mine during the noon-hour to tell the miners of the glad tidings of salvation. Meeting the foreman on his way back to the shaft he asked him what he thought of Gods manner of saving men. Oh, it is too cheap, I cannot believe in such a religion as that. Without an immediate reply to his remark the preacher asked, How do you get out of this place? Simply by getting into the cage, was the reply. And does it take long to get to the top? Oh, no; only a few seconds. Well, that certainly is very easy and simple. But do you not need help to raise yourself? said the preacher. Of course not, replied the miner, As I have said, you have nothing to do but to get into the cage. But what about the people who sunk the shaft, and perfected all this arrangement? Was there much labour or expense about it? Yes, indeed; that was a laborious and expensive work. The shaft is a thousand feet deep, and it was sunk at great cost to the proprietors; but it is our way out, and without it we should never be able to get to the surface. Just so, and when Gods Word tells you that whosoever believeth on the Son of God hath everlasting life, you say, Too cheap, forgetting that Gods work to bring you and others out of the pit of destruction was accomplished at a vast cost, the price being the death of His only-begotten Son. (W. Baxendale.)

Redemption through Christ

I. MEN NEED DELIVERANCE FROM DEATH.

II. GODS LOVE IS SO GREAT AS TO PROMPT TO DELIVERANCE.

III. THIS DELIVERANCE HAS BEEN WROUGHT OUT BY SELF-SACRIFICE ON THE PART OF GOD.

IV. THIS DELIVERANCE IS MADE OURS BY A PERSONAL FAITH IN THE LORD JESUS CHRIST. (C. D. Barrows.)

Redemption

I. THE DOCTRINE. God so loved, etc.

1. The first cause of redemption--the love of God to man. Christ died not that God might, but because He did love us.

(1) This is a doctrine distinctive of the Bible. You find it nowhere else. Men talk about the mercy of God, but if we give up the ideas of God obtained from the Scriptures how do we know that He is a God of love? What is there in nature to suggest it? There we see the reign of law: sin and suffer.

(2) The presence of such a truth in the Bible forms one of the most powerful vindications of its authority. If it contained nothing different from other books we might reasonably question its Divine origin.

(3) But familiarity has deadened the force and beauty of this great Bible truth in those who have heard it so often.

(4) Here, however, is the marvel of marvels--standing alone in the universe--that God loves a race that has defied and insulted Him.

2. The mode of human redemption. Gods love could not be a powerless thing dealing in fine sentiment and words of pity. It had a great end in view which could only be secured by an unparalleled sacrifice. He gave His only begotten Son.

(1) The designation of the Redeemer is peculiar and significant. Unlike other sons, He has a position of His own, and His name is an incidental but most powerful proof of His Divinity.

(2) The Redeemer was given, not to be a mere teacher or example, but to be the propitiation for sin.

3. The extent of human redemption. It would not be easy to find language more free and comprehensive than the world … whosoever. All are not saved, but none need be unpardoned. An universal need is here universally provided for.

II. THE DUTY. God has lavished the love of His heart on us and requires the trust and love of ours. Nothing can be simpler or more common than trust, the childs first lesson and act. This is illustrated in the miracles of Christ. Only believe that Jesus has the will and the power to save and your confidence will not be disappointed.

1. Faith is different from knowledge. Yet there must be some knowledge. But there may be little knowledge and strong faith, and much knowledge and no faith. There are many well-instructed people who shrink from the thought of infidelity. Yet infidelity is the want of trust in God and Christ. Faith is the souls own rest in Jesus as its own Redeemer.

2. The text makes no distinction in the kind or degree of faith. It is doubtless better to have a firm than a weak faith. Still, if a man have faith at all he will be saved.

III. THE PROMISE. Eternal life.

1. A present realization.

2. More abundantly hereafter. Of this the unbeliever is deprived in time and eternity. He that believeth not is dead already. (J. Guiness Rogers, B. A.)

The Christians creed

I. Its first article is--GOD LOVES THE WORLD. Easy to say, impossible to realize in all its augustness. The great question is, What does God feel? Agnostics do not know whether He is force or Father. But when they cannot tell what you yearn to know Jesus comes, and there is light over all the darkness and despair of life. On any lips this would be a wonderful word, but in the lips of Christ love meant all that was in His own heart. Himself the embodiment of love, He lifts our eyes to heaven and says, God loves, not made, rules, judges, but loves; and not the Church, but the world, and every individual in it. Mankind is not a larger family for God to love than is yours for you.

II. Its second article is--GOD HAS GIVEN US HIS SON. Love is ever giving. It gives its best. Our best earthly gifts are our friends, and God gives us the best friend. And He is ours absolutely, individually, and for ever--all He is and all He has. Value the gift which cost God so much.

III. The third article is--WHOSOEVER BELIEVETH IN CHRIST, etc. The condition upon which we are to receive salvation is universally practicable. If there were any other it would shut some one out. All our training in this world is a training for faith. All the joys of life are joys of trust. It is not a question whether faith shall be the condition of salvation. It is a necessity in the nature of things. If you suspect any you shrink from them. Doubt is the great gulf fixed between you and God, but faith is the link which binds us to Him. All that is needed, therefore, is the entrustment of the heart to God. Conclusion: That is our creed.

1. Repent of treating it so negligently.

2. Be not ashamed of it.

3. Fear not its future. Man will want no new one until all that wakes up our need of Christ is destroyed. (R. Glover.)

The everlastings

I. The everlasting FATHER.

II. The everlasting SON.

III. The everlasting LOVE.

IV. The everlasting LIFE. (J. C. Jones.)

The morality of the Evangelical faith

I. In these words I find my religion, theology, ethics, and politics, politics being one of the chief branches of ethics.

1. The Divine love for mankind.

2. The mission of the love of God for salvation.

3. Faith in the Son of God the condition of salvation.

4. Eternal life the gift of Divine love to all who believe in Christ.

II. Evangelical Christians have claimed one of these truths as preeminently their own. Faith in Christ as the condition of salvation is the very heart of the Gospel. Whitefield the Calvinist and Wesley the Arminian differed on many points, but when a man asked, What must I do to be saved? each gave the same answer.

III. Luther maintained that justification by faith was the test of a standing or a falling Church. We go further. It is as necessary to preach that men are sanctified by faith. Faith is the root of morality as well as the condition of pardon. Heb_11:1-40., which illustrates the triumphs of faith, is an unfinished fragment. You must add to it the story of the saintliness, heroism, righteousness, and charity of sixty generations; even then it remains a fragment still.

IV. To believe in Christ--what is it? Not the mere acceptance, however cordial, of the Christian creed. It is to have confidence in Christ, unreserved, unqualified, unmeasured. Whatever dignity Christ claims, faith reverently acknowledges. Whatever relations He assumes to God and to man, it concedes. Whatever authority He asserts, it submits to. When He teaches, faith admits His teaching as absolute truth. When He commands, faith accepts His precepts as the perfect law of life. When He promises, faith relies on Him to fulfil. To admit some of Christs claims and to reject the rest; to listen to His declarations that His blood is shed for the remission of sins; to refuse to listen, or to listen incredulously, when He speaks as the moral ruler of the race, this is inconsistent with faith in Him. (R. W. Dale, D. D.)

The power of this gospel of love on its first proclamation

If we could but hear the words for the first time, and without prepossessions either of Pharisaic error or logical orthodoxy, hear them with nothing but consciousness of sin and thirst for life, before the love of God had been hardened into doctrine, and the only begotten Son has become a quarrel for the schools. Do your gods love you? asked a missionary of some Indians. The gods never think of loving, was the cheerless answer. The text before us was read. Read it again, asked the arrested pagan. That is large light, read it again. A third time the blessed words were repeated; and with this emphatic response, That is true, I feel it. On one occasion a missionary was dictating to a native amanuensis the translation of the First Epistle, and when he reached the passage, Now are we the sons of God, the poor child of heathenism burst into tears, and exclaimed, It is too much, it is too much; let me put it, Now are we permitted to kiss His feet. (A. J. Morris.)

Gods love for man

The missionary Nott was once reading and explaining this passage to some awakened Tahitians. One of his auditors asked: Is it then really true that God has so loved you and us that He gave His only begotten Son for us? Nott stedfastly affirmed that the gospel which he was preaching was really true; upon which the Tahitian cried out: Oh, and thou canst speak of such love without tears!--himself weeping from shame and joy. (R. Besser, D. D.)

The love of God

When Bonplau the botanist climbed one of the loftiest peaks of the Andes, he found it a volcano. The rim of the crater was covered with scoriae, and everything that looked like blasting and desolation, but just in one little crevice there was a tiny bright flower.

There it grew in beauty. Like enough the seed had dropped from a bird. The shower had fallen, the sun had shone, and the flower had grown there waving in the wind amidst surrounding desolation. The flower growing there on the rim of that fire funnel is something like the grand and beautiful love of God. He has planted flowers on the rim of perdition, on the very edge of that rim. (S. Coley.)

Whosoever

When John Williams sailed in his missionary ship, he said as he touched a shore where he had never been before, where no foot of white man had ever trod, wherever he preached for the first time he had this for his text. No text could bear him beyond this. He could stand anywhere, on any shore, and cry, God so loved the world. (S. Coley.)

Whosoever

I thank God for this word whosoever, remarked Richard Baxter, did it read, there is mercy for Richard Baxter, I am so vile, so sinful, that I would have thought it must have meant some other Richard Baxter; but this word whosoever includes the worst of all the Baxters that ever lived.

The universality of the atonement

Suppose a will is made by a rich man bequeathing certain property to certain unknown persons, described only by the name of the elect. They are not described otherwise than by this term, and all agree that although the maker of the will had the individuals definitely in his mind, yet that he left no description of them, which either the persons themselves, the courts, nor any living mortal can understand. Now such a will is of necessity altogether null and void. No living man can claim under such a will, and none the better though these elect were described as residents of Oberlin. Since it does not embrace all the residents of Oberlin, and does not define which of them, all is lost. All having an equal claim and none any definite claim, none can inherit. If the atonement were made in this way, no living man would have any valid reason for believing himself one of the elect, prior to his reception of the Gospel Hence he would have no authority to believe and receive its blessings by faith. In fact, the atonement must be wholly void--on this supposition--unless a special revelation is made to the persons for whom it is intended. (C. G. Finney, D.D.)

The personal appropriation of the atonement

During a revival season, a young man came to me in the inquiry room, and showed me a card like the following:

GOD SO LOVED THE WORLD, THAT HE GAVE HIS ONLY BEGOTTEN SON, THAT BELIEVING ON HIM SHOULD NOT PERISH, BUT HAVE EVERLASTING LIFE.

In the blank space, the young man had written his own name in full. Said he: My superintendent gave me this card on condition that I would write my name in the blank space. If I had known what it was, I never would have promised; for I have had no peace since that day. That night, on his knees, he found peace. Let the teacher prepare such cards, and try the plan. I have tried it with powerful effect. It makes this seem personal, and puts me in the place of whosoever. (A. F. Schauffer.)

A mothers lesson

A young soldier was shot on the battlefield, and dragged by a comrade aside to die. He shut his eyes, and all his past life flashed before him. It seemed but an instant of time. He looked forward and saw eternity, like a great gulf, ready to swallow him up, with his sins as so many weights sinking him deeper and deeper. Suddenly a lesson, which his pious mother taught him when a little boy at her knee, stood before him in shining letters. It was a lesson he heard repeated again and again and again; she was never tired of imprinting it on his memory before she died; it was her only legacy. In the gaiety of life he had forgotten it. He had lost his hold on it, but it had never quite lost its hold on him; and now, in the hour of peril, it threw out to him a rope of mercy. What was it? God so loved the world, etc. He caught the rope; it seemed let down from heaven. Lord, I believe, he cried; save me, or I perish! Till he died, a few hours after, he said little but this one prayer: Lord, I believe; save me, or I perish! a prayer never uttered by the penitent soul in vain. (Clerical Anecdotes.)

The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Joh 3:16-19. For God so loved the world, &c. — Here our Lord proceeds to inform Nicodemus, that men owed the blessings above mentioned to the free and immense love of God the Father, who desired their salvation with such ardency, that he sent his only-begotten Son to bestow it upon them; and that it is designed for all that will accept of it in the way God hath appointed. God, says he, so loved the world, that is, all men under heaven; even those that despise his love, and will for that cause finally perish, that he gave his only-begotten Son, truly and seriously: and the Son of God gave himself, (Gal 2:20,) truly and seriously; that whosoever believeth in him — With that faith which worketh by love, and holdeth fast the beginning of his confidence steadfast to the end; should not perish — Under the sentence of divine justice, as he otherwise must have done; but have everlasting life — The life of grace, and the life of glory, through the mere mercy of God, and the infinite merits of his Son. For God sent not his Son to condemn the world — To execute that vengeance upon them which their guilt might have taught them to fear; nor did he send him to destroy the Gentile nations, which prejudiced Jews have supposed would be one principal end of the Messiah’s coming. God, says Grotius, is often described as an avenger in the Old Testament: therefore the guilty might reasonably expect, that when his Son came into the world, it would be to execute vengeance in his Father’s name. But that the world through him might be saved — Even all, without exception, who will hearken to the overtures of the gospel. He that believeth on him — With his heart unto righteousness; is not condemned — Is acquitted, is justified before God, how many and great soever his past sins may have been, and however unpardonable according to the tenor of the Mosaic law: but he that believeth not — Whatever his external profession and privileges may be; is condemned already — Remains under the sentence of his former guilt; yea, and subjects himself, by his refusal of the only remedy, to still greater and more aggravated condemnation and wo; because, notwithstanding the incontrovertible evidence given of Jesus’s divine mission, and of his being the true Messiah, he hath not believed in the name, the glorious name of the only-begotten Son of God — Though expressly revealed to him, that he might believe in him. “Though the name of a person be often put for the person himself, yet it may be further intimated here, in that expression, that the person spoken of is greatly magnificent; and therefore it is generally used to express either God the Father, or our Lord Jesus Christ.” — Doddridge. And this is the condemnation — The cause of it, the crime that fills up the measure of men’s iniquities, and is the principal reason of their speedy and final ruin; that light is come into the world — Divine and glorious light, the day-spring from on high, the light of the glorious gospel, through the incarnation of the Eternal Word, and the preaching of his forerunner preparing the way before him; and men loved darkness rather than light — Ignorance of the divine truth rather than the knowledge of it, folly rather than wisdom, sin rather than righteousness; because their deeds were evil — And they had not so much fear of God before their eyes, or so much concern for their own everlasting salvation, as to resolve on a thorough reformation of their conduct.

Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

EXPLANATORY AND CRITICAL NOTES

Joh_3:16-21. These verses are confidently held by many to contain the reflections of the Evangelist, and not to be a continuation of our Lord’s discourse. But

(1) there is not the slightest indication of a transition from Christ’s words to a disciple’s comments on them; and

(2) we cannot think that our Lord would have let Nicodemus depart without a distinct assertion that the Son of man was none other than the Son of God, as the Baptist declared Him to be; and without further instruction in the mystery of redemption. Nicodemus was, we may believe, now a humble learner, and that now our Lord’s discourse flowed on uninterruptedly. The discourse is not, we may affirm, reported in full. The Evangelist, directed by the Spirit, recorded what was of universal interest and importance; and perhaps also we have at the close a condensation of our Lord’s utterance. St. John did not profess to have recorded every word spoken by the Saviour, any more than all His actions (Joh_20:30; Joh_21:25; Act_20:35). God so loved, etc.—The love, and not the wrath of God, is the source of redemption for mankind. Gave His only begotten Son (2Co_9:15).—It was during this conversation most likely that John first heard this striking title (1Jn_4:9). Believeth upon (εἰς).—Implying the idea of assured trust in the Son as the all-merciful and almighty.

Joh_3:17. Condemn.—Better judge (κρίνειν). “It means originally to separate, and in the moral sense to separate good from evil. Passing from the act to the effect, it may mean to absolve; but as the usual effect of separation is to exclude the evil, the word has attached to itself frequently the idea of condemnation” (Watkins). Judgment is not the end of Christ’s coming, but salvation. That the world, etc.—How condemnatory of sectarian limitations of the power of Christ’s saving work!

Joh_3:18-19. But though Christ did not come to judge, the effect of His coming is judgment. And this judgment is not an arbitrary act. It is the result of men’s own choice. Those who remain in the bondage of sin shall taste the penalty of sin (Rom_6:23). This is their judgment. This judgment is made imperative by the entrance of light into the world. It was then evident that men loved darkness rather than light—darkness absolutely (σκότος) in contradistinction to light.

Joh_3:20-21. Here the explanation of this awful choice made by unrenewed humanity is given. He that doeth evil, etc.—Doeth (πράσσων), or practiseth, evil (φαῦλα), or bad actions. To see such actions for a moment in the light of eternal truth is to condemn them. Those who find pleasure in them therefore avoid the light. But he that doeth (ποιῶν) truth, etc.—ποιῶν “implies effective realisation—in good-doing the product remains” (Godet). “Right action is true thought realised” (Westcott). “Among mankind before Christ there mingle two kinds of men. With the appearance of Jesus their separation begins” (Lücke). And with this word of hope to Nicodemus—hope that he was of the number of those doing truth—the interview with him ends.

Joh_3:22. After, etc.—I.e. after the occurrences related from Joh_3:13 in the previous chapter. The land of Judæa means the country districts of Judæa. No further record of this work, in which our Lord must have increased the number of His followers, is given, as Jesus did not baptise personally, but through His disciples (Joh_4:2).

MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.—Joh_3:16-21

The blessedness to which the Spirit leads us through regeneration.—Faith in Christ, as St. John points out, is the means through which men attain to the new life (Joh_3:15). We must surrender ourselves and trust in Him for all. But faith also is “the gift of God.” Of ourselves alone we cannot attain it; for sin has darkened our spiritual vision and weakened our spiritual power. But faith is given by the Spirit (1Co_12:9). He transforms our nature—through Him it is born anew. The darkness is cleared away from our spiritual vision, and spiritual strength is given to those who have no might. And thus the spiritually renewed are led to rejoice in—

I. The unchanging divine love, which is revealed as the eternal spring of redemption.—

1. It was not from an unwilling God that mercy was won for perishing men. God Himself is fons et origo of all the mercy and goodness and love which have been showered on men, sinful as they were, through the long course of history.

2. Nay, more: when no man could “redeem his brother, or bring to God a ransom for him,” God sent His only-begotten Son, gave Him up to live and die for man’s salvation.

3. And the reception of and participation in this heavenly gift is assured to those who believe. And those who thus receive Christ and His salvation are led ever more joyfully to understand the mystery of the divine love—to realise “that God sent not His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved” (Joh_3:17).

II. Those who are spiritually renewed rejoice in having escaped from the terrible judgment of unbelievers.—“He that believeth not is condemned already,” etc. (Joh_3:18-20)

1. Those who turn away in unbelief from God’s dear Son bring judgment upon themselves, and shut themselves out from the divine mercy in Christ. They reject Christ’s expiation of the offended divine law, and the means by which the new spiritual life is alone begotten in men; thus the final judgment will simply be a declaration of their self-condemnation. They will stand self-condemned before the Judge (Rev_6:16).

2. And, as a result of this rejection of Christ, the light of men, the unbelieving sink into ever deeper darkness, the heart becomes hardened, the dominion of evil is ever more firmly established. Evil becomes their good—they devour iniquity (Pro_19:28), wickedness is sweet in their mouths (Job_20:12). And because of this they hate the light, for it intrudes on their peace, and threatens to snatch their pleasure from them. But the end is certain; it is condemnation—eternal loss. Thus the Spirit brings before believers this terrible result of unbelief as a warning; and they are led thereby more fully and even tremblingly to rejoice in their salvation.

III. And, last, the blessedness of the new life is a cause of rejoicing.—

1. It is free from the fear of judgment; for over the believer the Eternal Judge Himself has cast the shield of His grace. “There is no condemnation to them who are in Christ Jesus,” etc. (Rom_8:1). The eternal judgment will be but the open manifestation of God’s love to His people; and in the judgments and trials that overtake them here they realise “not tokens of wrath, but of gracious chastisement.”

2. And in the life of faith men ever seek the light—desire ever more fully to know themselves, their weaknesses, their follies, their sinfulness; and to know Christ and the gospel of His grace, that those evils may, through the grace of His indwelling Spirit, be ever more eliminated. By the truth enlightened, they order their way and work to the honour of God, in all things seeking to adorn the doctrine of God their Saviour, and to demonstrate that the life they now live in the flesh they live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved them and gave Himself for them; they work out their own salvation with fear and trembling, knowing and acknowledging that it is God who works in them, etc. (Php_2:13), so that their “deeds may be made manifest that they are wrought in God.”

Joh_3:16-21. The office of the Holy Ghost.—This office has two sides: the Holy Ghost gathers together and separates—unites and divides.

I. He reveals the love of God.—

1. The object of this love: God loved the world.

2. The manner and kind of this love: God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Song of Solomon 3. The condition of this love: whosoever believeth in Him.

4. The purpose of this love: God gives His Son that we may not perish, but that we may have eternal life. Not that He might judge the world; but that the world through Him might be saved.

II. He executes judgment.—

1. Through His continued pentecostal activity, in that He reveals the love of God in Christ to us poor sinful men, and to a lost world, and in that He shows the mighty so (οὕτω) of this love. He not only gathers the Church, but in so doing carries out a solemn judgment. It is a momentous fact that those who believe are not judged, whilst the unbelieving are judged already.

2. How is this judgment, this separation, effected? Attend first to the effect which the heart experiences in which the Holy Spirit witnesses to the love of God. Christ is the light which penetrates into the heart of man, and reveals the existing darkness. The man is dismayed, but he fears the struggle. He resolves to remain as he is. Thus arises the opposition to this apprehension by the Spirit. But because the Holy Spirit does not leave hold of the man who has been convicted, the opposition may gradually become hatred of the light that shines in on his darkness. The man then enters on the way of darkness, in which his deeds are evil, and does not come to the light, so that his works may not be detected, and lose their delight, etc.—Appuhn in J. L. Sommer’s “Evang. Per.”

Joh_3:16-21. The double office of the Holy Spirit.—He is:

I. A guide to the way of salvation, Joh_3:16-18; Joh_3:21.—

1. He holds up to our view the love of God in Christ.

2. He leads us to regard the Saviour as dear and beloved.

3. He enkindles faith in us.

4. He gives us assurance of life eternal.

5. He sanctifies and renews us.

He is further—

II. A judge of those who contemn the great salvation.—

1. He condemns the darkness of unbelief and those who love it.

2. He separates the unbelieving and carnally minded from the community of the faithful.

3. He represents to them their unbelief as the sole cause of their condemnation.—Dr. v. Biarowsky.

Joh_3:16. The love of God.—John is veritably the apostle of love. He alone of all the apostolic band seems to have been chosen to understand somewhat the deeps of this divine love, so that he might tell it to men. The spirit of inspiration chooses fitting instruments; and we must assume that by nature and grace St. John was best fitted to make known the gospel of eternal love. Here, for the first time, he opens for us in his Gospel this eternal spring. Its presence had been implied before, when the revelation of Christ was spoken of; but now it is clearly made known. Notice:—

I. The eternal spring of love.—

1. It is God Himself. He is the fountain of love. Many glorious things are spoken of God. His eternity, “the same yesterday,” etc.; His almighty power, so that He speaks and it is done, etc.; His omniscience, His wisdom, are all brought before us, and evoke our adoration and praise.

2. But this feature of His nature is pre-eminent. It is said God is the righteous One, holy One, etc. But it is not said, He is righteousness, etc. It is said He is love. This is the attribute that runs through and dominates all the others.

3. How comforting is this revelation of the divine love. How it has altered men’s ideas of God, and changed to them the face of the universe! How dark and terrible were men’s thoughts of the heavenly Father in times of old, when they offered children in sacrifice, etc.

4. Now how changed is the face of the universe! Jesus has told us of the Father’s care and love for the fowls of the air, the lilies of the field. And nature now is to the Christian everywhere vocal of love divine. History we read with new light in view of this glorious revelation. And especially in the history of His dealings with men it shines conspicuous; throwing its golden light over all. But further—

II. God first loved the world.—

1. It would have been long ere the world would have come to love Him. But “He first loved us,” and our love would never have blossomed in response to His had He not loved us.

2. And first, what does this imply in its fulness? It implies an eternity of love. In the Son whom He loved from eternity He loved His people. Thus all through the course of the world’s history, even when He seemed to be coming only in wrath, God has been coming in love to men.

3. And we live in times when the most amazing proof of that love has been bestowed. “He gave His only begotten Son,” etc. And in all the Church and history of the Church that divine love speaks in convincing tones—in that word of salvation preached, in those ordinances, the observance of which tends to the soul’s spiritual health, in those gifts of the Spirit given freely to them who believe, in those promises that draw us near to the throne of grace,—in all these the love of God is proclaimed to our wondering eyes.

4. How has that love cared for us and watched over us from infancy until now—not turned aside through waywardness, etc.! God first loved us!

III. Walk in the belief of His love and thus taste its joy.—I. Believe on Him who is the gift and revealer of God’s love. Then love will cast out fear.

2. Love will also strengthen to labour. When the sun rises man goes forth to his work, and when the sun of love in Christ shines on a man he becomes diligent for God. Fear for eternity has vanished, and he labours joyously in time.

3. He who believes in God’s love fears not the storms of temptation or trial. Are they not in God’s hands? Shall they not work together for good?

4. Those who abide in love abide in God and God in them. Thus they can “never perish.” Abiding in God’s love through Christ they are eternally safe—safe amid all the turmoil of time until the rest of the Father’s house is reached. This is heaven on earth, and therefore no condemnation.

Joh_3:17. No condemnation.—How great the truth revealed in those simple words—God sent His Son. Jesus Christ His Son came to earth sent by the Father in love to men. The end of His mission was salvation to our perishing race. This great truth is brought before us in two aspects.

I. No condemnation.—

1. His Son was sent not to condemn. Nay, His very name was a sign and symbol of safety, He was called Jesus—a Saviour.

2. The world lay justly under condemnation. It would have sufficiently vindicated the divine justice to have carried out a sentence of condemnation. And the history of all races and religions shows how conscious men were of being under condemnation,—how they feared that it would be carried into effect.

3. But God’s ways are not man’s ways. His love and pity for men found a way by which this condemnation might be averted.

4. “His tender mercies are over all His works.” This has been shown all down the history of the past. It is seen in His providential dealings with man. He has so ordered the course of nature that “seedtime and harvest, summer and winter,” etc. (Gen_8:22), have visited the earth, made it fruitful. He has sent men rain from heaven and fruitful seasons, etc. (Act_14:17). All this showed His loving care, and might have led men to expect that some further loving purpose lay behind.

5. This gracious purpose is seen in redemption, in His sending the Son—not to condemn the world. But there is a further side of this purpose of God, and that is—

II. Salvation.—

1. No condemnation might still have left us far from God. There was an actual purpose of blessing beyond and above this, in God sending His Son. It was, “that the world through Him might be saved.” God could have destroyed, condemned the world without sending the Son. But it was necessary in order to the world’s salvation that He should come.

2. He came to save His people from their sins. It was sin that lay at the basis of alienation and condemnation; and Jesus came not in wrath but in love, to save men from it, by taking away, in His own sufferings and death, the sins of the world.

3. How great was this salvation which He brought. Moses was privileged to lead Israel out of Egyptian bondage, and Joshua to lead the ransomed people into the Land of Promise. But the Son was sent to deliver the world from the bondage of sin, and bring unto all believers the promise of a heavenly inheritance.

4. God sent the Son for this great end. “He is the Author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey Him” (Heb_5:9).

5. And He alone could undertake this office; for He is Emmanuel, “God with us.” He is God with men—in all the fulness of the divine power. The Creator, the Preserver, etc., who took upon Him the form of a servant, but whose glory was manifest in the flesh. He is God for men. He was sent and came to stand in man’s room. He has authority and power to do so. Men died in Him unto sin. Through faith in Him they live. And He is God in men—in those who believe. “Christ in us the hope of glory.” Here is salvation. With Him in us and we in Him, how can we perish? Nay, a world shall be saved! The last shall not outnumber the saved. The purpose of God towards the world shall not fail (Act_3:20-21).

Lessons.—

1. Consider the greatness of God’s love in Christ! He might have destroyed the world, as at the flood, etc. But He chose the way of love, which meant the way of self-sacrifice and humiliation for the Song of Solomon 2. How shall they escape who neglect so great salvation? (Heb_2:3).

3. Let the divine love constrain us to faith and willing submission. Thus shall we best glorify His name by believing in Jesus.

Joh_3:20. Love not the darkness.—Sin is darkness. It leads to men turning away from the light, i.e. from God, as Adam and Eve hid themselves from God when they had fallen.

I. Sin in its nature is darkness.—

1. It is a denial of man’s dependence on God, and an attempt to cut the life loose from Him—“to be as gods.”

2. This ends in disobedience to the divine law, which is man’s light; and in turning away from the source of that light.

3. All ways that lead from God lead to darkness and death.

II. The results of sin lead to ever-increasing alienation and darkness.—

1. How terribly this has been brought out in the world’s history! “Darkness covered the earth, and gross darkness the people.” And men became so accustomed to this state that they loved darkness rather than light.

2. Indeed the entrance of light became a pain. There were still ways in which it could make itself felt, through conscience, through the shame which men often felt at sin; for God’s image, though broken, was not entirely destroyed. But this entrance of the light brought pain. It brought restriction to the lower nature, which had now gained the ascendency, and it showed how far men had fallen, to what height they must attain.

3. Thus they came to love darkness rather than light, and this was their condemnation. Not that they were sinful and in darkness, but because they clung to it even after the light had come. And thus Christ, who came to save, becomes in the nature of things their Judge (Joh_15:22-24).

III. The way of escape from the darkness of sin.—

1. “Awake, thou that sleepest,” etc. (Eph_5:14). The light has come.

2. Christ brings the true knowledge of God, of ourselves, and of the way of salvation.

3. The sun of righteousness has arisen, and with that rising the hope and promise of escape from the darkness of self and sin, to those who believe.

Joh_3:22-24. Our Lord’s ministry in rural Judea.—In Jerusalem our Lord came unto His own—the very centre of the Theocracy—and His own received Him not. He therefore turned His face again toward Galilee. But on the way He lingered in the rural parts of Judea with His disciples, attracting men to Him, and baptising, not personally, but through His disciples, those who believed on Him (Joh_4:1). Who those disciples were we cannot well determine. Peter was not there, it would seem; for although a disciple, he had in the meantime returned to his avocation (Mar_1:16-18). John the Evangelist was with Him, and perhaps one or two of the others already called. Probably, also, some who attached themselves to Him on this ministry. We notice:

I. The initiation of Christian baptism.—

1. By the command, in Mat_28:19, baptism was ordained as an universal possession for all people—a means of grace designed for all ages.

2. In reply to the question why Christ Himself did not baptise but through His disciples, the answer which seems most conclusive is that He desired that all His people should have the assurance that baptism by the hands of His disciples is to be accounted as His baptism.

II. The earnest activity of the Saviour.—

1. “Work while it is called to-day” was a prominent characteristic of His activity;

2. And in every place, at all times, He must needs be about His Father’s business—a happy example for all His true disciples never to neglect opportunities of proclaiming the truth of God.

III. The result of this activity.—

1. It seems to have been phenomenal—“the same baptiseth, and all men come to Him” (Joh_3:26). Disciples were gathered.

2. Here again to the babes—simple countryfolk—were revealed the things which were hid from the wise and prudent in Jerusalem.

HOMILETIC NOTES

Joh_3:16. The greatness of the divine love.—A well-known proverb is, Like draws to like. But here there is an immense dissimilarity.

1. Who is God? The Being of beings, the Almighty, the Light of lights.

2. What are you?—a shadow, a vapour. The greatness of faith.—

1. In faith God has chosen His people to blessedness from the beginning (2Th_2:13);

2. Through faith they can come by Christ’s blood to a throne of grace (Rom_3:25);

3. Through faith they come to God (Heb_11:7);

4. Through faith they have peace with God (Rom_5:1);

5. Through faith they receive forgiveness of sin (Act_10:43);

6. Through faith they are accounted righteous (Rom_4:5);

7. Through faith they overcome the world (1Jn_5:4);

8. The end of faith is the salvation of the soul (1Pe_1:9). Happy and blest are they who have believed. The greatness of this word.—Frederick of Denmark chose this verse as his “sleeping cup.” Receiving this great saying in faith he fell asleep in the Lord gently and blessedly. Monica, the mother of Augustine, used it as a heavenly pinion. Hearing it in the course of a sermon, she was so entranced that she began to cry out, “Avolemus, Avolemus!” (Let us soar upward). Abraham Buchholzer, a noted chronologist, held it before him as a shield against the temptations of the enemy. When, on a bed of sickness, he was oppressed with temptation he cried out without ceasing, Not lost, not lost! referring to this verse, “Whosoever believeth shall not perish.” Luther called this verse parva biblia (little Bible), because it contained in it the kernel of the whole of Scripture. And when it was repeated to him on his death-bed he said: “It is my favourite cordial.” Luther also wrote of this verse as follows: “This is one of the best and most glorious of evangels, and were well worth being written in golden letters, not on paper, but where it may be, on the heart; and well would it be if it were the subject of daily meditation in every Christian’s prayer, to strengthen faith, to awake the heart to supplication; for these are words that can turn sorrow into joy, and make the (spiritually) dead alive, if only the heart would steadfastly believe them.” We behold here the contents of evangelical doctrine and the paragon of consolation. If this saying alone is laid hold of truly by faith, it will enable a man in utmost peril to withstand all fiery darts, to be victorious in all temptations, and lay hold of life eternal. Do not shut yourself out; God does not desire that you should be shut out.—From J. J. Weigel.

ILLUSTRATIONS

Joh_3:16. The eternal love of God.—God has not waited for us to love Him; before all time, before we were endowed with life, He thought of us, and thought of doing us good. What He meditated in eternity He has performed in time. His beneficent hand has bestowed every variety of blessings upon us; neither our unfaithfulness nor our ingratitude has dried up the fountain of His goodness to us, or arrested the stream of His bounty. O thou eternal Love, that hast loved me when I could neither know nor acknowledge Thee! immeasurable love! that has made me what I am, that has given me all I possess, and that has yet promised me infinitely more! O love without interruption, without change, that all the bitter waters of my iniquities could not extinguish! Have I any heart, O my God, if I am not penetrated with gratitude and love for Thee?—Fenelon.

Joh_3:16. Shall not the love of God constrain us to love Him?—Are there yet amongst us those who have never felt the love of God as shown in the gift of His Son? Are there hearts which can warm to every benefactor but the greatest, throb kindly towards every friend but that One who died in man’s stead, and give their quick sensibilities to every tale of heroism and philanthropy but that which describes how “the Son of man came to seek and to save that which was lost”? Indeed we must fear that there are yet many whose affections are in full play towards all but God; many who, in the domestic circle and the intercourse of life, show themselves possessed of fervent affections and acute sensibilities, but who are yet utterly indifferent in regard to the things done “for us men and for our salvation.” What shall we say to such? You have not, but surely you must wish to have, a lively sense of the love shown towards you in redemption. Then, when you go hence, read, in one of the Gospels, the account of Jesus Christ’s sufferings and death; read it with prayer that God would take away the heart of stone and give the heart of flesh; and we shall still hope for you that you will know the gushings of a thankful spirit, and feel a thrill of gratitude at the announcement that God so loved you as to give His own Son to die in your stead.—Henry Melvill.

Joh_3:17. The victory of eternal love.—The result of all this is, that the suffering is efficacious—“He taketh away the sin of the world.” The blood of bulls and of goats could never take away sin, but this Man has offered up one sacrifice for sins for ever. “He taketh away;” it is not merely, “He bears the sin of the world.” He takes it away by taking it upon Him. Many an unconscious victim had shed its blood for the sin of the world, and yet the sin remained. Many a great heart had borne the sin of the world, and had broken under the weight, and still the sin remained. There had been many that palliated the sin of the world, and yet it remained. It is possible to disguise the sin of the world, to drive it under the surface, to cover it with a fair exterior, to make excuse for it, but that is not to take it away. It is possible to fight with separate sins of the world, and in some measure to master them, but as long as any sin remains the sin of the world has not been taken away. But Jesus came not to deal with the sins of the world, but with the sin of the world. In human nature strictness in one direction often compensates itself by laxity in another, and men dream that they have overcome sin when they have gained a victory in some isolated fragment of the world of moral duty. But to exchange one sin for another, as Samson the Nazarite did, is not redemption. Nor is the mere escaping from the penalty of sin redemption. Redemption means the removal of sin, not merely of the punishment of sin; and He who dealt with sin effectually by taking it away was Jesus Christ, and Jesus Christ alone. The sin of the world, not the sins. The victory of Christ was over sin as a unity, the whole corruption of human nature which finds expression in separate sins. The sin of the world is regarded as heaped up in one tremendous pile, and that pile laid upon the head of Christ. That was the load which He staggered under. Think of the sin of one life—the sin with which it is born, the sins of childhood, youth, manhood, age; the sins of broken vows, broken oaths, unfulfilled duties; and then multiply that one life by the numbers of all the world, and consider what a foe it was Christ came to reckon with, what a foe it was that He overcame in the body of His flesh through death.—Dr. W. Robertson Nicoll.

The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.

John

THE LAKE AND THE RIVER

Joh 3:16.

I venture to say that my text shows us a lake, a river, a pitcher, and a draught. ‘God so loved the world’-that is the lake. A lake makes a river for itself-’God so loved the world that He gave His . . . Son.’ But the river does not quench any one’s thirst unless he has something to lift the water with: ‘God so loved the world that He gave His . . . Son, that whosoever believeth on Him.’ Last comes the draught: ‘shall not perish, but have everlasting life.’

I. The great lake, God’s love.

Before Jesus Christ came into this world no one ever dreamt of saying ‘God loves.’ Some of the Old Testament psalmists had glimpses of that truth and came pretty near expressing it. But among all the ‘gods many and lords many,’ there were lustful gods and beautiful gods, and idle gods, and fighting gods and peaceful gods: but not one of whom worshippers said, ‘He loves.’ Once it was a new and almost incredible message, but we have grown accustomed to it, and it is not strange any more to us. But if we would try to think of what it means, the whole truth would flash up into fresh newness, and all the miseries and sorrows and perplexities of our lives would drift away down the wind, and we should be no more troubled with them. ‘God loves’ is the greatest thing that can be said by lips.

‘God . . . loved the world.’ Now when we speak of loving a number of individuals-the broader the stream, the shallower it is, is it not? The most intense patriot in England does not love her one ten-thousandth part as well as he loves his own little girl. When we think or feel anything about a great multitude of people, it is like looking at a forest. We do not see the trees, we see the whole wood. But that is not how God loves the world. Suppose I said that I loved the people in India, I should not mean by that that I had any feeling about any individual soul of all those dusky millions, but only that I massed them all together; or made what people call a generalisation of them. But that is not the way in which God loves. He loves all because He loves each. And when we say, ‘God so loved the world,’ we have to break up the mass into its atoms, and to think of each atom as being an object of His love. We all stand out in God’s love just as we should do to one another’s eyes, if we were on the top of a mountain-ridge with a clear sunset sky behind us. Each little black dot of the long procession would be separately visible. And we all stand out like that, every man of us isolated, and getting as much of the love of God as if there was not another creature in the whole universe but God and ourselves. Have you ever realised that when we say, ‘He loved the world,’ that really means, as far as each of us is concerned, He loves me? And just as the whole beams of the sun come pouring down into every eye of the crowd that is looking up to it, so the whole love of God pours down, not upon a multitude, an abstraction, a community, but upon every single soul that makes up that community. He loves us all because He loves us each. We shall never get all the good of that thought until we translate it, and lay it upon our hearts. It is all very well to say, ‘Ah yes! God is love,’ and it is all very well to say He loves ‘the world.’ But I will tell you what is a great deal better-to say-what Paul said-’Who loved me and gave Himself for me.’

Now, there is one other suggestion that I would make to you before I go on, and that is that all through the New Testament, but especially in John’s Gospel, ‘the world’ does not only mean men, but sinful men, men separated from God. And the great and blessed truth taught here is that, however I may drag myself away from God, I cannot drive Him away from me, and that however little I may care for Him, or love Him, or think about Him, it does not make one hairs-breadth of difference as to the fact that He loves me. I know, of course, that if a man does not love Him back again, God’s love has to take shapes that it would not otherwise take, which may be extremely inconvenient for the man. But though the shape may alter, must alter, the fact remains; and every sinful soul on the earth, including Judas Iscariot-who is said to head the list of crimes-has God’s love resting upon him.

II. The river.

Now, to go back to my metaphor, the lake makes a river. ‘God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son.’

So then, it was not Christ’s death that turned God from hating and being angry, but it was God’s love that appointed Christ’s death. If you will only remember that, a great many of the shallow and popular objections to the great doctrine of the Atonement disappear at once. ‘God so loved . . . that He gave.’ But some people say that when we preach that Jesus Christ died for our sins, that God’s wrath might not fall upon men, our teaching is immoral, because it means ‘Christ came, and so God loved.’ It is the other way about, friend. ‘God so loved . . . that He gave.’

But now let me carry you back to the Old Testament. Do you remember the story of the father taking his boy who carried the bundle of wood and the fire, and tramping over the mountains till they reached the place where the sacrifice was to be offered? Do you remember the boy’s question that brings tears quickly to the reader’s eyes: ‘Here is the wood, and here is the fire, where is the lamb’? Do you not think it would be hard for the father to steady his voice and say, ‘My son, God will provide the lamb’? And do you remember the end of that story? ‘The Angel of the Lord said unto Abraham, Because thou hast done this thing, and hast not withheld thy son, thine only son, from Me, therefore blessing I will bless thee,’ etc. Remember that one of the Apostles said, using the very same word that is used in Genesis as to Abraham’s giving up his son to God, ‘He spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up to the death for us all.’ Does not that point to a mysterious parallel? Somehow or other-we have no right to attempt to say how-somehow or other, God not only sent His Son, as it is said in the next verse to my text, but far more tenderly, wonderfully, pathetically, God gave-gave up His Son, and the sacrifice was enhanced, because it was His only begotten Son.

Ah! dear brethren, do not let us be afraid of following out all that is included in that great word, ‘God . . . loved the world.’ For there is no love which does not delight in giving, and there is no love that does not delight in depriving itself, in some fashion, of what it gives. And I, for my part, believe that Paul’s words are to be taken in all their blessed depth and wonderfulness of meaning when he says, ‘He gave up’-as well as gave-’Him to the death for us all.’

And now, do you not think that we are able in some measure to estimate the greatness of that little word ‘so’? ‘God so loved’-so deeply, so holily, so perfectly-that He ‘gave His only begotten Son’; and the gift of that Son is, as it were, the river by which the love of God comes to every soul in the world.

Now there are a great many people who would like to put the middle part of this great text of ours into a parenthesis. They say that we should bring the first words and the last words of this text together, and never mind all that lies between. People who do not like the doctrine of the Cross would say, ‘God so loved the world that He gave . . . everlasting life’; and there an end. ‘If there is a God, and if He loves the world, why cannot He save the world without more ado? There is no need for these interposed clauses. God so loved the world that everybody will go to heaven’-that is the gospel of a great many of you; and it is the gospel of a great many wise and learned people. But it is not John’s Gospel, and it is not Christ’s Gospel. The beginning and the end of the text cannot be buckled up together in that rough-and-ready fashion. They have to be linked by a chain; and there are two links in the chain: God forges the one, and we have to forge the other. ‘God so loved the world that He gave’-then He has done His work. ‘That whosoever believeth’-that is your work. And it is in vain that God forges His link, unless you will forge yours and link it up to His. ‘God so loved the world,’ that is step number one in the process; ‘that He gave,’ that is step number two; and then there comes another ‘that’-’that whosoever believeth,’ that is step number three; and they are all needed before you come to number four, which is the landing-place and not a step-’should not perish, but have everlasting life.’

III. The pitcher.

I come to what I called the pitcher, with which we draw the water for our own use-’that whosoever believeth.’ You perhaps say, ‘Yes, I believe. I accept every word of the Gospel, I quite believe that Jesus Christ died, as a matter of history; and I quite believe that He died for men’s sins.’ And what then? Is that what Jesus Christ meant by believing? To believe about Him is not to believe on Him; and unless you believe on Him you will get no good out of Him. There is the lake, and the river must flow past the shanties in the clearing in the forest, if the men there are to drink. But it may flow past their doors, as broad as the Mississippi, and as deep as the ocean; but they will perish with thirst, unless they dip in their hands, like Gideon’s men, and carry the water to their own lips. Dear friend, what you have to do-and your soul’s salvation, and your peace and joy and nobleness in this life and in the next depend absolutely upon it-is simply to trust in Jesus Christ and His death for your sins.

I sometimes wish we had never heard that word ‘faith.’ For as soon as we begin to talk about ‘faith,’ people begin to think that we are away up in some theological region far above everyday life. Suppose we try to bring it down a little nearer to our businesses and bosoms, and instead of using a word that is kept sacred for employment in religious matters, and saying ‘faith,’ we say ‘trust.’ That is what you give to your wives and husbands, is it not? And that is exactly what you have to give to Jesus Christ, simply to lay hold of Him as a man lays hold of the heart that loves him, and leans his whole weight upon it. Lean hard on Him, hang on Him, or, to take the other metaphor that is one of the Old Testament words for trust, ‘flee for refuge’ to Him. Fancy a man with the avenger of blood at his back, and the point of the pursuer’s spear almost pricking his spine-don’t you think he would make for the City of Refuge with some speed? That is what you have to do. He that believeth, and by trust lays hold of the Hand that holds him up, will never fall; and he that does not lay hold of that Hand will never stand, to say nothing of rising. And so by these two links God’s love of the world is connected with the salvation of the world.

IV. The draught.

Finally, we have here the draught of living water. Did you ever think why our text puts ‘should not perish’ first? Is it not because, unless we put our trust in Him, we shall certainly perish, and because, therefore, that certainty of perishing must be averted before we can have ‘everlasting life’?

Now I am not going to enlarge on these two solemn expressions, ‘perishing’ and ‘everlasting life.’ I only say this: men do not need to wait until they die before they ‘perish.’ There are men and women here now who are dead-dead while they live, and when they come to die, the perishing, which is condemnation and ruin, will only be the making visible, in another condition of life, of what is the fact to-day. Dear brethren, you do not need to die in order to perish in your sins, and, blessed be God, you can have everlasting life before you die. You can have it now, and there is only one way to have it, and that is to lay hold of Him who is the Life. And when you have Jesus Christ in your heart, whom you will be sure to have if you trust Him, then you will have life-life eternal, here and now, and death will only make manifest the eternal life which you had while you were alive here, and will perfect it in fashions that we do not yet know anything about.

Only remember, as I have been trying to show you, the order that runs through this text. Remember the order of these last words, and that we must first of all be delivered from eternal and utter death, before we can be invested with the eternal and absolute life.

Now, dear brethren, I dare say I have never spoken to the great majority of you before; it is quite possible I may never speak to any of you again. I have asked God to help me to speak so as that souls should be drawn to the Saviour. And I beseech you now, as my last word, that you would listen, not to me, but to Him. For it is He that says to us, ‘God so loved the world, that He gave His Son, that whosoever’-’whosoever,’ a blank cheque, like the M. or N. of the Prayer-book, or the A. B. of a schedule; you can put your own name in it-’that whosoever believeth on Him shall not perish, but have’-here, now-’everlasting life.’

Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

3:16-21 Because there are no quotation marks around Jesus’ speech in the Greek text, translators debate where Jesus’ speech ends and John’s commentary begins; 3:16-21 might be John’s commentary.

3:16 The truth that God loved the world is basic to Christian understanding (1 Jn 4:9-10). God’s love extends beyond the limits of race and nation, even to those who oppose him (see “The World” Theme Note). • The Son came to save—not condemn (3:17)—men and women who habitually embrace the darkness (3:19-21).

Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Joh 3:16. Ἠγάπησεν, loved) The Son knows the Father, and the love of the Father: and alone [though but one] bears the best witness [of Him]: comp. Joh 3:35, “The Father loveth the Son, and hath given all things into His hand.”—τὸν κόσμον, the world) [all] the men under heaven, even those who were about to perish (comp. δέ, [autem] moreover—for indeed, Joh 3:19, “And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light”): as being those with whom He was otherwise [i.e. but for the atonement through His Son] angry: Joh 3:36, “He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: but he that believeth not the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him.” Were it not for this, their unbelief would not properly be a fault [guilt] fatal to unbelievers; [but as it is] they ought to have believed that the Son of God was given even for the sake of them also; therefore He was given for their sake. Comp. by all means ch. Joh 12:47, “If any man hear My words and believe not, I judge him not; for I came not to judge the world, but to save the world—the word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day.” Mich. Beckius, “I heard an interpretation (as truly as the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who knows I lie not, loves me) at an inn in Strasburg, in the year 1681, from a possessed woman, through whom Satan in the Latin tongue, in answer to that saying [of Scripture], which I brought against Satan to prove the universal love of God, even extending to that wretched woman still living in the world [according to the then prevalent superstition], whose name was Salome—replied in turn, with a horrible groan, in these words, The believing are the world” [meant].—Disquis. hermen., p. 5.—ἔδωκεν) gave [to be crucified.—V. g.], in truth, and in earnest [in act and in purpose]: Rom 8:32, “He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how” etc. And Christ gave Himself, Gal 2:20, “The Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me,” in truth and in earnest.—εἰς αὐτόν, in Him) as having been [so] lovingly given by God.

Bengel's Gnomon of the New Testament — English translation (T&T Clark, Edinburgh, 1860) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Joh_3:16. Continuation of the address of Jesus to Nicodemus, onwards to Joh_3:21,[162] not, as Erasmus, Rosenmüller, Kuinoel, Paulus, Neander, Tholuck, Olshausen, Maier think (see also Bäumlein), an explanatory meditation of the evangelists own; an assumption justified neither by anything in the text nor by the word ΜΟΝΟΓΕΝΉς, a word which must have been transferred from the language of John to the mouth of Jesus (not vice versa, as Hengstenberg thinks), for it is never elsewhere used by Christ, often as He speaks of His divine sonship. See on Joh_1:14. The reflective character of the following discourse is so fully compatible with the design of Christ to instruct, and the preterites ἠγάπησαν and ἮΝ so little require to be explained from the standing-point of a later time, that there does not seem any sufficient basis for the intermediate view (of Lücke, De Wette, Brückner), that in this continued account of the discourse of Jesus, Joh_3:16 ff., John inserts more explanations and reflections of his own than in the preceding part, how little soever such a supposition would (as Kling and Hengstenberg think) militate against the trustworthiness of John, who, in recording the longer discourses, has exactly in his own living recollection the abundant guarantee of substantial certainty.

οὕτω] so much; see on Gal_3:3.

γάρ] reason of the purpose stated in Joh_3:15.

ἨΓΆΠΗΣΕΝ] loved, with reference to the time of the ἔδωκεν.

τὸν κόσμον] i.e. mankind at large,[163] comp. πᾶς, Joh_3:15; Joh_17:2; 1Jn_2:2.

ΤῸΝ ΜΟΝΟΓ.] to make the proof of His love the stronger, 1Jn_4:9; Heb_11:17; Rom_8:32.

ἔδωκεν] He did not reserve Him for Himself, but gave Him, i.e. to the world. The word means more than ἀπέστειλεν (Joh_3:17), which expresses[164] the manner of the ἔδωκεν, though it does not specially denote the giving up to death, but the state of humiliation as a whole, upon which God caused His Son to enter when He left His pre-existent glory (Joh_17:5), and the final act of which was to be His death (1Jn_4:10). The Indicative following, ὥστε, describes the act objectively as something actually done. See on Gal_2:13; and Klotz ad Devar. 772.

μὴ ἀπόληται, κ.τ.λ.] Concerning the subjunctive, representing an object as present, see Winer, 271 [E. T. p. 377]. The change from the Aorist to the Present is to be noted, whereby the being utterly ruined (by banishment to hell in the Messianic judgment) is spoken of as an act in process of accomplishment; while the possession of the Messianic ζωή is described as now already existing (commencing with regeneration), and as abiding for ever. Comp. on Joh_3:15.

[162] Luther rightly praised the majesty, simplicity, clearness, expressiveness, truth, charm of this discourse. He exceedingly and beyond measure loved this text.

[163] This declaration is the rock upon which the absolute predestination doctrine goes to pieces, and the supposed (by Baur and Hilgenfeld) metaphysical dualism of the anthropology of St. John. Calovius well unfolds our text thus: (1) salutis principium (ἠγάπ.); (2) dilectionis objectum (the κόσμος, not the electi); (3) donum amplissimum (His only-begotten Son); (4) pactum gratiosissimum (faith, not works); (5) finem missionis Christi saluberrimum.

[164] Weizsäcker in the Zeitschr. f. Deutsche Theol. 1857, p. 176, erroneously finds wanting in John an intimation on the part of Christ that He is the Logos who came voluntarily to the world. He is, however, the Logos sent of God, who undertook this mission in the feeling of obedience. Thus the matter is presented throughout the N. T., and the thought that Christ came αὐτοθελής is quite foreign thereto.

Meyer — Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament — English translation by Peter Christie, edited by Frederick Crombie (T&T Clark, 1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Joh 3:16 . Several conservative theologians, Neander, Tholuck, Westcott, are of opinion that the words of Jesus end with Joh 3:15 , and that from Joh 3:16-21 we have an addition by the evangelist. There is much to be said in favour of this idea. The thoughts of these verses are explanatory rather than progressive. Joh 3:16-17 repeat the object of Christ’s mission, which has already been stated. Joh 3:18-19 declare the historic results in faith and unbelief, results which at the date of the conversation were not conspicuous. Joh 3:20-21 exhibit the causes of faith and unbelief. The tenses also forbid us to refer the passage directly to Jesus. In His lips the present would have been more natural. To John looking back on the finished story aorists and perfects are natural. Also, the designation “only begotten son” is not one of the names by which Jesus designates Himself, but it is used by the evangelist, Joh 1:18 and 1Jn 4:9 . οὕτω γὰρ ἠγάπησεν … ζωὴν αἰώνιον . The love of God for the world of men is the source of Christ’s mission with all its blessings. It was this which prompted Him to “give,” that is, to give not solely to the death of the cross alluded to in Joh 3:14 , but to all that the world required for salvation, His only begotten Son. “The change from the aorist ( ἀπόληται ) to the present ( ἔχῃ ) is to be noted, the utter ruin being spoken of as an act, the possession of life eternal as an enduring experience” (Meyer, Weiss, Holtzmann).

The Expositor's Greek Testament, edited by W. Robertson Nicoll (1897–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

ADDITIONAL NOTES BY THE AMERICAN EDITOR.

XIV.

The passage from Joh 3:16 to Joh 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 Joh 3:16-17 is apparently to the act of love already accomplished, and besides, the ἦν of Joh 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 Joh 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 Joh 3:31 is not so closely connected with Joh 3:30 as Joh 3:16 is with Joh 3:15 (Joh 3:16 opens with γάρ, while Joh 3:31 has an independent construction); (b) that it is less difficult to suppose that Jesus used the words of Joh 3:16-21, than that John the Baptist used those of Joh 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 (Joh 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 Joh 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 Joh 5:24 : He that believeth hath eternal life, and in Joh 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. Joh 3:36,Joh 5:24, Joh 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, Joh 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. 1Jn 2:13 : because ye know the Father,Joh 5:20 : we know him that is true).

(d) The eternal lifealso belongs to the future; comp. Joh 6:27, the meat which abideth unto eternal life; Joh 12:25, he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto eternal life; Joh 4:36, gathereth fruit unto eternal life;Joh 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. Joh 6:51, If any man eat of this bread, he shall live forever and the bread is my flesh; Joh 6:54, he that eateth my flesh hath eternal life; Joh 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, Joh 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 ofcondemnation (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 Joh 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. Joh 5:24 ff., is the word κατάκρισις used. This word is, however, found only twice in the New Testament (2Co 3:9; 2Co 7:3). Κατακρίνω does not occur in John’s Gospel, except in the doubtful passage, Joh 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 (Joh 3:20). But the κρίσις which relates to such works and the men who do them is a condemnatory judgment.

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 Joh 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 (Joh 1:14-18), and in his Epistle (Joh 4:9) he himself makes use of it. But this term is, in the LXX., the translation of the Hebrew יָחִיד, H3495, (Psa 25:16; Psa 35:17; Pro 4:3).

Why should not Jesus have employed this word if He was, as we cannot doubt (Mat 11:27; Mat 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. Joh 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” (2Co 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 Joh 3:15, and that, from Joh 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, Joh 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 Joh 3:16, is, on this view, designed to introduce John’s explanations; and the repetition in the same verse of the words of Joh 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 Joh 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 Joh 3:13 is already exhausted in Joh 3:15? The increasing exaltation with which Jesus successively presents to Nicodemus the wonders of divine love, the incarnation (Joh 3:13) and redemption (Joh 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 Joh 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 Joh 3:19 are justified in the mouth of Jesus, like the reproach of Joh 3:11 : “You receive not our testimony,” by the attitude, which the population and authorities of the capital had already taken (Joh 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 (Joh 3:3; Joh 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 Joh 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.

Frédéric Louis Godet — Commentaries on Luke, John, Romans, and 1 Corinthians — English translation (T&T Clark, Edinburgh, 1870s–1890s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Nothing else but the free love of the Father, is the beginning of our salvation, and Christ is he in whom our righteousness and salvation is resident: and faith is the instrument or mean whereby we apprehend it, and life everlasting is that which is set before us to apprehend.

It is not all one to believe in a thing, and to believe of a thing, for we may not believe (in anything) save only in God, but we may believe (of anything) whatsoever, this saith Nazianzene in his oration of the Spirit.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

For God so loved, &c.--What proclamation of the Gospel has been so oft on the lips of missionaries and preachers in every age since it was first uttered? What has sent such thrilling sensations through millions of mankind? What has been honored to bring such multitudes to the feet of Christ? What to kindle in the cold and selfish breasts of mortals the fires of self-sacrificing love to mankind, as these words of transparent simplicity, yet overpowering majesty? The picture embraces several distinct compartments: "THE WORLD"--in its widest sense--ready "to perish"; the immense "LOVE OF GOD" to that perishing world, measurable only, and conceivable only, by the gift which it drew forth from Him; THE GIFT itself--"He so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son," or, in the language of Paul, "spared not His own Son" (Rom 8:32), or in that addressed to Abraham when ready to offer Isaac on the altar, "withheld not His Son, His only Son, whom He loved" (Gen 22:16); the FRUIT of this stupendous gift--not only deliverance from impending "perdition," but the bestowal of everlasting life; the MODE in which all takes effect--by "believing" on the Son. How would Nicodemus' narrow Judaism become invisible in the blaze of this Sun of righteousness seen rising on "the world" with healing in His wings! (Mal 4:2).

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Verse 16. For God so loved the world] Such a love as that which induced God to give his only begotten son to die for the world could not be described: Jesus Christ does not attempt it. He has put an eternity of meaning in the particle ουτω, so, and left a subject for everlasting contemplation, wonder, and praise, to angels and to men. The same evangelist uses a similar mode of expression, 1Jo 3:1: Behold, WHAT MANNER of love, ποταπην αγαπην, the Father hath bestowed upon us.

From the subject before him, let the reader attend to the following particulars.

First, The world was in a ruinous, condemned state, about to perish everlastingly; and was utterly without power to rescue itself from destruction.

Secondly, That God, through the impulse of his eternal love, provided for its rescue and salvation, by giving his Son to die for it.

Thirdly, That the sacrifice of Jesus was the only mean by which the redemption of man could be effected, and that it is absolutely sufficient to accomplish this gracious design: for it would have been inconsistent with the wisdom of God, to have appointed a sacrifice greater in itself, or less in its merit, than what the urgent necessities of the case required.

Fourthly, That sin must be an indescribable evil, when it required no less a sacrifice, to make atonement for it, than God manifested in the flesh.

Fifthly, That no man is saved through this sacrifice, but he that believes, i.e. who credits what God has spoken concerning Christ, his sacrifice, the end for which it was offered, and the way in which it is to be applied in order to become effectual.

Sixthly, That those who believe receive a double benefit:

1. They are exempted from eternal perdition-that they may not perish.

2. They are brought to eternal glory - that they may have everlasting life. These two benefits point out tacitly the state of man: he is guilty, and therefore exposed to punishment: he is impure, and therefore unfit for glory.

They point out also the two grand operations of grace, by which the salvation of man is effected.

1. Justification, by which the guilt of sin is removed, and consequently the person is no longer obnoxious to perdition.

2. Sanctification, or the purification of his nature, by which he is properly fitted for the kingdom of glory.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

16. For God so loved the world. Christ opens up the first cause, and, as it were, the source of our salvation, and he does so, that no doubt may remain; for our minds cannot find calm repose, until we arrive at the unmerited love of God. As the whole matter of our salvation must not be sought any where else than in Christ, so we must see whence Christ came to us, and why he was offered to be our Savior. Both points are distinctly stated to us: namely, that faith in Christ brings life to all, and that Christ brought life, because the Heavenly Father loves the human race, and wishes that they should not perish. And this order ought to be carefully observed; for such is the wicked ambition which belongs to our nature, that when the question relates to the origin of our salvation, we quickly form diabolical imaginations about our own merits. Accordingly, we imagine that God is reconciled to us, because he has reckoned us worthy that he should look upon us. But Scripture everywhere extols his pure and unmingled mercy, which sets aside all merits.

And the words of Christ mean nothing else, when he declares the cause to be in the love of God. For if we wish to ascend higher, the Spirit shuts the door by the mouth of Paul, when he informs us that this love was founded on the purpose of his will, (Ephesians 1:5.) And, indeed, it is very evident that Christ spoke in this manner, in order to draw away men from the contemplation of themselves to look at the mercy of God alone. Nor does he say that God was moved to deliver us, because he perceived in us something that was worthy of so excellent a blessing, but ascribes the glory of our deliverance entirely to his love. And this is still more clear from what follows; for he adds, that God gave his Son to men, that they may not perish. Hence it follows that, until Christ bestow his aid in rescuing the lost, all are destined to eternal destruction. This is also demonstrated by Paul from a consideration of the time;

for he loved us while we were still enemies by sin, (Romans 5:8, 10.)

And, indeed, where sin reigns, we shall find nothing but the wrath of God, which draws death along with it. It is mercy, therefore, that reconciles us to God, that he may likewise restore us to life.

This mode of expression, however, may appear to be at variance with many passages of Scripture, which lay in Christ the first foundation of the love of God to us, and show that out of him we are hated by God. But we ought to remember — what I have already stated — that the secret love with which the Heavenly Father loved us in himself is higher than all other causes; but that the grace which he wishes to be made known to us, and by which we are excited to the hope of salvation, commences with the reconciliation which was procured through Christ. For since he necessarily hates sin, how shall we believe that we are loved by him, until atonement has been made for those sins on account of which he is justly offended at us? Thus, the love of Christ must intervene for the purpose of reconciling God to us, before we have any experience of his fatherly kindness. But as we are first informed that God, because he loved us, gave his Son to die for us, so it is immediately added, that it is Christ alone on whom, strictly speaking, faith ought to look.

He gave his only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on him may not perish. This, he says, is the proper look of faith, to be fixed on Christ, in whom it beholds the breast of God filled with love: this is a firm and enduring support, to rely on the death of Christ as the only pledge of that love. The word only-begotten is emphatic, (ἐμφατικὸν) to magnify the fervor of the love of God towards us. For as men are not easily convinced that God loves them, in order to remove all doubt, he has expressly stated that we are so very dear to God that, on our account, he did not even spare his only-begotten Son. Since, therefore, God has most abundantly testified his love towards us, whoever is not satisfied with this testimony, and still remains in doubt, offers a high insult to Christ, as if he had been an ordinary man given up at random to death. But we ought rather to consider that, in proportion to the estimation in which God holds his only-begotten Son, so much the more precious did our salvation appear to him, for the ransom of which he chose that his only-begotten Son should die. To this name Christ has a right, because he is by nature the only Son of God; and he communicates this honor to us by adoption, when we are engrafted into his body.

That whosoever believeth on him may not perish. It is a remarkable commendation of faith, that it frees us from everlasting destruction. For he intended expressly to state that, though we appear to have been born to death, undoubted deliverance is offered to us by the faith of Christ; and, therefore, that we ought not to fear death, which otherwise hangs over us. And he has employed the universal term whosoever, both to invite all indiscriminately to partake of life, and to cut off every excuse from unbelievers. Such is also the import of the term World, which he formerly used; for though nothing will be found in the world that is worthy of the favor of God, yet he shows himself to be reconciled to the whole world, when he invites all men without exception to the faith of Christ, which is nothing else than an entrance into life.

Let us remember, on the other hand, that while life is promised universally to all who believe in Christ, still faith is not common to all. For Christ is made known and held out to the view of all, but the elect alone are they whose eyes God opens, that they may seek him by faith. Here, too, is displayed a wonderful effect of faith; for by it we receive Christ such as he is given to us by the Father — that is, as having freed us from the condemnation of eternal death, and made us heirs of eternal life, because, by the sacrifice of his death, he has atoned for our sins, that nothing may prevent God from acknowledging us as his sons. Since, therefore, faith embraces Christ, with the efficacy of his death and the fruit of his resurrection, we need not wonder if by it we obtain likewise the life of Christ.

Still it is not yet very evident why and how faith bestows life upon us. Is it because Christ renews us by his Spirit, that the righteousness of God may live and be vigorous in us; or is it because, having been cleansed by his blood, we are accounted righteous before God by a free pardon? It is indeed certain, that these two things are always joined together; but as the certainty of salvation is the subject now in hand, we ought chiefly to hold by this reason, that we live, because God loves us freely by not imputing to us our sins. For this reason sacrifice is expressly mentioned, by which, together with sins, the curse and death are destroyed. I have already explained the object of these two clauses,

which is, to inform us that in Christ we regain the possession of life, of which we are destitute in ourselves; for in this wretched condition of mankind, redemption, in the order of time, goes before salvation.

John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.

(16) The last verse has spoken of “every one who believeth.” The thought went beyond the limits that Rabbis set to the kingdom of God. Its only limit is humanity. This thought is now repeated and strengthened by the “might not perish,” and the love of God is made the foundation on which it rests. Perhaps no verse in the Bible has been so much explained as this; perhaps no verse can be so little explained. Most young preachers have sermons upon it; older men learn that its meaning must be felt and thought rather than spoken. Still less can it be written; and this Note may not attempt to do more than indicate some lines of thought which may help to lead to others.

God so loved the world.—Familiar as the words are to us, they were uttered to Nicodemus for the first time. They are the revelation of the nature of God, and the ground of our love to God and man. (Comp. Notes on 1Jn_4:7-11.)

His only begotten Son.—Here, once again, the Old Testament Scriptures suggest and explain the words used. Every Jew knew, and loved to think and tell of his forefather who was willing to sacrifice his own and only son in obedience to what he thought to be the will of God (Genesis 22). But Love gives, and does not require, sacrifice. God wills not that Abraham should give his son, but He gave His only begotten Son. The dread power that man has ever conceived—that is not God; the pursuing vengeance that sin has ever imagined—that is not God; the unsatisfied anger that sacrifice has ever suggested—that is not God. But all that human thought has ever gathered of tenderness, forgiveness, love, in the relation of father to only child—all this is, in the faintness of an earth-drawn picture, an approach to the true idea of God. Yes, the true idea is infinitely beyond all this; for the love for the world gives in sacrifice the love for the only begotten Son.

Believeth in.—Better, believeth upon. The preposition is not the same as in the last verse. (Comp. Joh_1:12.) There the thought was of the Son of Man lifted up, in whom every one who believes and can interpret spiritual truth, ever has eternal life. Here the thought is of the Son of God given for the world, and every one who believes upon, casts his whole being upon Him, and, like Abraham, in will rests all upon God, finds that God has provided Himself a lamb for a burnt-offering instead of human sacrifice or death.

Everlasting life.—Better, as the same Greek word is rendered in the previous verse, eternal life. For the meaning of this word see Note on Mat_25:46. It is of frequent use in this Gospel (seventeen times), and always used in reference to life.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

16. For] Explaining how God wills eternal life to every one that believeth.

loved the world] The whole human race: see on Joh_1:10. This would be a revelation to the exclusive Pharisee, brought up to believe that God loved only the chosen people. The word for ‘love,’ agapân, is very frequent both in this Gospel and in the First Epistle, and may be considered characteristic of S. John.

that he gave his only begotten] This would be likely to remind Nicodemus of the offering of Isaac. Comp. 1Jn_4:9; Heb_11:17; Rom_8:32. See note on Joh_1:14.

everlasting life] The Greek is the same as in the previous verse, and the translation should be the same, eternal life. ‘Eternal life’ is one of the phrases of which S. John is fond. It occurs 17 times in the Gospel (only eight in the Synoptics) and six times in the First Epistle. In neither Gospel nor Epistle is ‘eternal’ (aiônios) applied to anything but ‘life.’ On aiônios, which of itself does not necessarily mean ‘everlasting’ or ‘unending,’ see note on Mat_25:46.

16–21. It is much disputed whether what follows is a continuation of Christ’s discourse, or the comment of the Evangelist upon it. The fact that terms characteristic of S. John’s theology are put into the mouth of Christ, e.g. ‘only-begotten’ and ‘the Light,’ cannot settle the question: the substance may still be our Lord’s, though the wording is S. John’s. It seems unlikely that S. John would give us no indication of the change from Christ’s words to his own, if the discourse with Nicodemus really came to a full stop in Joh_3:15. See on Joh_3:31-36.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

For God sent not his Son into the world,.... God did send his Son into the world in the likeness of sinful flesh, being made of a woman, and made under the law; and which is an instance of his great love, and not of any disrespect to his Son, or of any inequality between them: but then this was not

to condemn the world; even any part of it, or any in it: not the Gentiles, as the Jews thought he would; for though God had suffered them to walk in their own ways, and had winked at, or overlooked the times of their ignorance, and had sent no prophet unto them, nor made any revelation of his will, or any discovery of his special grace unto them; yet he sent his Son now, not to destroy them for their idolatry, and wickedness, but to be the Saviour of them: nor the Jews; for as impenitent and unbelieving, and as wicked as they were, he did not accuse them to the Father, nor judge and condemn them; he was to come again in power and great glory, when he would take vengeance on them, and cause wrath to come upon them to the uttermost, for their disbelief and rejection of him; but this was not his business now: nor the wicked of the world in general; to judge, and condemn them, will be his work, when he comes a second time, in the day God has appointed to judge the world in righteousness.

But the end of his mission, and first coming is,

that the world through him might be saved; even the world of the elect in general, whom God determined to save, and has chosen, to obtain salvation by Jesus Christ, and has appointed Christ to be the salvation of; and who being sent, came into the world to seek and save them; and his chosen people among the Gentiles in particular: wherefore he is said to be God's salvation to the ends of the earth: and all the ends of the earth are called upon to look unto him, and be saved by him, Isa 49:6.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

Ver. 16. God so loved the world] This is a sic so without a sicut, just as, there being nothing in nature wherewith to parallel it. The world, that is, all mankind fallen in Adam. This the apostle fitly calleth God’s philanthropy, Tit 3:4, it being a sweet favour to the whole kind of us that any are saved by Christ.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

For God so loved - This does not mean that God approved the conduct of men, but that he had benevolent feelings toward them, or was “earnestly desirous” of their happiness. God hates wickedness, but he still desires the Happiness of those who are sinful. “He hates the sin, but loves the sinner.” A parent may love his child and desire his welfare, and yet be strongly opposed to the conduct of that child. When we approve the conduct of another, this is the love of complacency; when we desire simply their happiness, this is the love of benevolence.

The world - All mankind. It does not mean any particular part of the world, but man as man - the race that had rebelled and that deserved to die. See Joh 6:33; Joh 17:21. His love for the world, or for all mankind, in giving his Son, was shown by these circumstances:

All the world was in ruin, and exposed to the wrath of God. All people were in a hopeless condition. God gave his Son. Man had no claim on him; it was a gift - an undeserved gift. He gave him up to extreme sufferings, even the bitter pains of death on the cross. It was for all the world. He tasted “death for every man,” Heb 2:9. He “died for all,” 2Co 5:15. “He is the propitiation for the sins of the whole world,” 1Jo 2:2.

That he gave - It was a free and unmerited gift. Man had no claim: and when there was no eye to pity or arm to save, it pleased God to give his Son into the hands of men to die in their stead, Gal 1:4; Rom 8:32; Luk 22:19. It was the mere movement of love; the expression of eternal compassion, and of a desire, that sinners should not perish forever.

His only-begotten Son - See the notes at Joh 1:14. This is the highest expression of love of which we can conceive. A parent who should give up his only son to die for others who are guilty if this could or might be done - would show higher love than could be manifested in any other way. So it shows the depth of the love of God, that he was willing. to give his only Son into the hands of sinful men that he might be slain, and thus redeem them from eternal sorrow.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Give his only begotten Son --- God sent not his Son into the world. He was then his Son, his only begotten Son, before he sent him into the world. He was not, therefore, his Son, only by the incarnation, but was his Son from the beginning, as he was also his word from all eternity. This was the constant doctrine of the Church, and of the Fathers, against the heresy of the Arians, that God was always Father,[1] and the Son always the eternal Son of the eternal Father. See note on chap. i. ver. 14. (Witham) --- The world may be saved. Why, says St. Augustine, is Christ called the Saviour of the world, unless from the obligation he took upon himself at his birth? He has come like a good physician, effectually to save mankind. The man, therefore, destroys himself, who refuses to follow the prescriptions of his physician. (St. Augustine)

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[BIBLIOGRAPHY]

Greek: Aei Theos, aei uios; ama pater, ama uios. Arius began his heresy by denying this, as it appears in his letter to Eusebius, of Nicomedia, in St. Epiphanius, hær. 69, p. 731.

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

For God the Father, who is the Lord of all, debtor to none, sufficient to himself,

so loved the world, that is, Gentiles as well as Jews. There is a great contest about the signification of the term, between those who contend for or against the point of universal redemption; but certain it is, that from this term no more can be solidly concluded, than from the terms all and every, which in multitudes of places are taken in a restrained sense for many, or all of such a nation or kind. As this term sometimes signifies all persons, so, in 1Jo 2:21, the Gentiles in opposition to the Jews. Nor, admitting that

the world should signify here every living soul in the place called the world, will any thing follow from it. It is proper enough to say, A man loved such a family to such a degree that he gave his estate to it, though he never intended such a thing to every child or branch of it. So as what is truth in that so vexed a question cannot be determined from any of these universal terms; which must, when all is said that can be said, be expounded by what follows them, and by their reconcilableness to other doctrines of faith.

God so loved the world that he gave his Son to die for a sacrifice for their sins, to die in their stead, and give a satisfaction for them to his justice. And this Son was not any of his sons by adoption, but his only begotten Son; not so called (as Socinians would have it) because of his singular generation of the virgin without help of man, but from his eternal generation, in whom the Gentiles should trust, Psa 2:12, which none ought to do, but in God alone, Deu 6:13; Jer 17:5.

That whosoever, &c.: the term all is spoken to above; these words restrain the universal term world, and all, to let us know that Christ only died for some in the world, viz. such as should believe in him. Some judge, not improbably, that Christ useth the term world in this verse in the same sense as in 1Jo 2:2. Our evangelist useth to take down the pride of the Jews, who dreamed that the Messiah came only for the benefit of the seed of Abraham, not for the nations of the world, he only came to destroy them; which notion also very well fitteth what we have in the next verse.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

16. Whosoever believeth—From this we learn: 1. That God loved the world before the atonement, and the atonement was the result of his previous love. 2. That in spite of that love the atonement was necessary, to save man from perishing. The atonement was God’s method, adopted by his love, of allowing man to exist and yet not be damned. 3. That the world for which Christ died was not part of the world, nor the elect world, but the whole world. 4. That faith, the faith which accepts Christ, is necessary to bring the atonement in application upon the soul so as to produce salvation. 5. That universal salvation would result but for the individual’s unbelief. 6. The doctrine of justification by faith is as clearly taught, though in different words, in the Gospels and in Christ’s teachings, as in any of the Epistles of Paul.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Vers. 16-21. (3) Divine love and judgment.

For God so loved the world. The Divine love to the whole of humanity in its condition of supreme need, i.e. apart from himself and his grace, has been of such a commanding, exhaustless, immeasurable kind, that it was equal to any emergency, and able to secure for the worst and most degraded, for the outcast, the serpent-bitten and the dying, a means of unlimited deliverance and uplifting. The Divine love is the sublime source of the whole proceeding, and it has been lavished on "the world." This world cannot be the limited "world" of the Augustinian, Calvinian interpreters the world of the elect; it is that "whole world" of which St. John speaks in 1Jn_2:2. "God will have all men to be saved". (1Ti_2:4) Calvin himself says, "Christ brought life, because the heavenly Father loves the human race, and wishes that they should not perish." Pharisaic interpretations of the Old Testament had left the outside world in judgment, to cursing and condign punishment, and had made Abrahamic descent and sacramental privilege the conditions of life and honour and royal freedom. Here the poor world is seen to be the object of such love, that he the Father-God gave, "delivered up," we do not know certainly to "what," but we may judge from the context that it was such a deliverance, or such giving up. as is involved in the uplifting of the Son of man upon his cross of humiliation and shame. But the Lord induces a more wonderful term to denote his own personality. This "Son of man" is none other than his only begotten Son. (cf. notes, Joh_1:14, Joh_1:18) Just as Abraham had not kept back his only begotten son from God, so God has not withheld his perfect Image, his Well-beloved, his Eternal Logos, the perfect ideal of sonship. He gave him with the following view: that whosoever believeth in him (eiv auton) may not perish, but have eternal life. The previous saying is repeated as in a grand refrain for which a deeper reason and fuller explanation have been supplied. Perishing, ruin, the issues of poisonous corruption, might and would, by the force of natural law, work themselves out in the destinies of men. The awful curse was spreading, but it may be arrested. None need be excluded. Looking is living. Believing in this manifestation of Divine love is enough. This is the first, high, main condition. Appropriation of such a Divine gift unriddles the mysteries of the universe, emancipates from the agelong bondage, confers a life which is beyond the conditions or occasions of dissolution. This verse is infinite in its range, and, notwithstanding a certain vagueness and indefiniteness of expression, presents and enshrines the most central truth of Divine revelation. When the terms "gave," "only begotten Son," "believeth," "life," "perishing," "God," "the world," are fully interpreted, then the words of this text gather an ever-augmenting force and fulness of meaning; and they may have been expanded to meet the prejudices of Nicodemus or the difficulties of disciples. The idea of gift and giver and the ends of the giving may have at once suggested to the Pharisaic mind the grand distinction between Israel and the world, and the inquiry may have been made Is not Messiah, then, about to judge the world, to summon all the nations round to hear their doom? To some such heart-deadening query, to some such conscience-benumbing scepticism, our Lord continued No; this love to the world on the part of God, this condition of faith on the side of man, thus laid down, is perfectly honest and sincere

The immensity of God"s love to the world.

The apostle here emphasizes the love which was manifest in the method of salvation.

I THE TRUE ORIGIN OF SALVATION. "God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son." It is God"s love, infinite, eternal, unchangeable.

1. Salvation is not wrung from the Father by the Son. The atonement was the effect, not the cause, of God"s love.

2. This love is no contradiction to the wrath of God, which is implied in this very verse as the doom of unbelievers.

3. It is not inconsistent with the justice of God; for love is here defined as giving the Son to a sacrificial death, which signifies the satisfaction of Divine justice.

4. It is not possible to resolve justice into love under the idea of a dualism of the Divine attributes;" for they are each distinct attributes: as in love God gives, in justice he maintains his inalienable prerogatives as God.

5. Christ does not set forth Gods love with the mere object of assuring us of its reality, but rather to magnify it by the value of the sacrifice which was the design of it.

6. Love is not sacrificed to justice, but becomes all the more transcendently glorious because of the Divine necessity for a satisfaction to justice.

II THE INFINITE SACRIFICE FOR THE WORLD. "He gave his only begotten Son.

1. It was the Son of God who was given by God. In the previous verse his tide is the Son of man, which recalls his humiliation. Here his title recalls his Divine dignity. The union of the two natures in the Person at the Mediator gives an infinite value to his sacrifice.

2. The gift of the Son implies his sacrificial death.

(1) The words do not point to God"s purpose of salvation.

(2) Nor to the gift of the Son to the believer in the application of redemption by his Spirit.

(3) But to his being given up to death, whether it refers to the Father"s act in giving him, (Rom_8:32) or to the Son"s act in giving himself. (Mat_20:28 Gal_1:4) The expression points to sacrifice, because the offerer of the victim in the Levitical economy presented it himself as part of the established ceremony.

3. The unworthy objects of this love. "God so loved the world.

(1) It would be a startling announcement to Nicodemus, with all the narrow particularism of the Pharisee, that this love was destined to extend to the whole world of man outside the borders of Judaism.

(2) There is nothing in God"s love to the world inconsistent with his wrath against sin. He loves all his creatures, but he hates and. punishes their sin, and will not imperil the effects of his love while the obstacles caused by sin stand in the way.

III THE DESIGN OF THE SACRIFICE OF CHRIST. "That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

1. The channel of Divine life is opened by faith.

(1) Faith accepts the Divine testimony respecting Christ as the Redeemer. (1Jn_5:10)

(2) Faith is the instrument of our justification, as it is the means of apprehending the righteousness of Christ.

(3) Faith is the root principle of Christian life. (Gal_2:20)

2. The tremendous evil that is averted. "Should not perish." This implies

a. separation from God both here and hereafter; (2Th_1:9)

b. the sufferings of hell; (Rev_20:10, Rev_20:15)

c. an eternity of punishment. (Mat_25:46)

3. The infinity of the blessings received by faith. "Everlasting life." It is contrasted

a. with the wrath of God; (Joh_3:36)

b. with destruction; (Mat_7:13, Mat_7:14)

c. with eternal fire; (Mat_18:9)

d. with judgment or death. (Joh_5:24)

e. It is everlasting in duration, as well as in excellence.

Vers. 16, 17. "The gift of God.

This is the language either of our Lord himself or of the evangelist. If these are Christ"s words, they contain his authoritative testimony to his own declaration. If they are the words of John, we have in them the inspired judgment of one who was in most intimate fellowship with Jesus, and who was peculiarly competent to represent his Master"s work in accordance with that Master"s own mind. Familiar as this comprehensive and sublime utterance is to all Christians, there is danger lest it should become trite, lest it should fail to impress our minds with its most amazing import. Obvious as are the several aspects of the central truth of Christianity here presented, it may be well to bring them successively before the mind.

I THE MOTIVE WHICH PROMPTED THE GIFT. This was love, an emotion which some think too human to attribute to the Ruler of the universe. But we are justified in believing that we ourselves are susceptible of love only because God has fashioned us in his own likeness. Love is distinguishable from goodness as having more of the character of personal interest. And the relations between God and man being considered, love here must be understood as involving pity and also sacrifice. And whereas human love is often intense in proportion to its narrowness and concentration, Divine love is all-embracing-includes all mankind. This, indeed, follows from the origination of this love in the Divine mind. It was nothing in mankind except their need and sin and helplessness which called forth the benevolence of the heart of the heavenly Father.

II THE PRECIOUSNESS OF THE GIFT. Great love found its expression in a great gift, worthy of the generous and munificent Benefactor of mankind. The use of the appellation, "only begotten Son," seems to point to the estimation in which Christ was held by the Father, in whose view none was to be compared with Christ. It is not easy for us to realize the value set upon Christ by the Father; but we can look at this gift from our own side, and can form some judgment of the worth of the Lord Jesus to our humanity. Because he was the Son of man the Friend of sinners, and because he was this in his humiliation, and is this in his glory, therefore he is dear and precious to the hearts of those whose nature he deigned to assume, whose lot he deigned to share. He who withholds no good thing from men, withheld not, spared not his own Son, but gave him up for us all.

III THE INTENTION AND PURPOSE WITH WHICH THE GIFT WAS BESTOWED. As here presented, this was twofold.

1. The aim was one of deliverance, to secure men from impending condemnation and perdition.

2. It was also an aim of highest beneficence, we must understand, not the mere continuance of existence, but the perpetuity of the highest well-being-that life which truly deserves the name, and which, being Divine, is also imperishable.

IV THE CONDITION UPON WHICH THIS GIFT MAY BE ENJOYED. A moral, spiritual gift cannot be bestowed, as can a material boon, independently of the character and religious position of the beneficiary. The greatest gift of God is conferred, not upon the deserving or open the fortunate, but upon the believing. Concerning this condition of faith, it should be remarked that it is

(1) indispensable upon God"s side, for he is honoured by the grateful acceptance of his free and precious gift. And it is further

(2) indispensable upon man"s side, for the gift must be accepted and appropriated by those for whom it is intended. He who rejects Christ cannot benefit by Christ; it is faith that links the soul to the Savior.

APPLICATION. The word "whosoever" is here employed in order to point out that, in the Divine compassion there is no limitation, in the Divine offer there is no restriction. There is nothing in the purposes of God, nothing in the condition prescribed by Divine wisdom, which can exclude the meanest or the vilest, if only penitent and believing, from the enjoyment of this incomparable gift. T.

HOMILIES BY B. THOMAS Ver. 16. The greatness of God"s love to the world.

This will be seen if we consider

I THE OBJECT OF HIS LOVE. "The world the fallen human family.

1. There was nothing in the world to attract and deserve his love. For he loved the world, not as he made it, but as it made itself by sin. God loves all holy beings. This is natural, as natural as it is for a virtuous father to love a dutiful son. But God loved the world in its disobedience and sin. It was the magnitude and gravitation of his love, and not the attraction of the world.

2. There was much in the world to repel his love. Not only it was not attractive, but it was most repelling. Its fall was deliberate and wilful, and it was indifferent, and even rebellious in its fallen state. The magnitude of any force is measured by the opposing forces it conquers. In this light, how great must be the love of God to the world! He conquered the mightiest oppositions the sin, the disobedience, the bitterest enmity, and the cruelest antagonism of the world. He loved the world in spite of itself.

3. The world deserved punishment perdition. This punishment was hanging over it. Justice called and demanded vengeance, but mercy triumphed over judgment, took justice into its confidence, made a treaty with it, and became responsible for all its heavy claims. What must be the greatness of the love that did this!

4. He loved the whole world. Not a part of it, or a few of its inhabitants, but all alike, and altogether. He might have made a selection, but the selection of Divine love was the whole world. This reveals it as a boundless and fathomless ocean, inexhaustible in its riches, and infinite in its kind impulses. The arms of his love are so everlasting that they took hold of the fallen world and fondled it in their safe and warm embrace.

II THE GIFT OF HIS LOVE. Love is measured by the gifts it presents and the sacrifice it makes. In this light, how great is God"s love to the world!

1. He gave his Son. Think of him as a mere Son good, dutiful, and holy. How great is the gift! To give a holy being, such as an angel, would be a great gift and a manifestation of great love; but he gave his Son.

2. He gave his only begotten Son. To give one son out of many would be a manifestation of great love; but he gave his only Son, and his only begotten Son his equal who was one with him in essence, mind, and heart; the Son of his love, who was ever with him and ever his delight. Such a gift he never gave before, and can never give again. The gift is royal and matchless, the sacrifice is Divine and unique an index of love too high, too broad, too deep, too Divine for mortals to comprehend.

3. He gave his only begotten Son as a sacrifice. To send his Son would be a manifestation of great love, but to give him is a manifestation of a far greater; for he sent his Son to the world as a Messenger of peace, but he gave him as a Sacrifice for the world"s sin. Divine love in the Incarnation appears like a brilliant star, like that star the "wise men" saw in the east; but in the Crucifixion, with all its indignities and agonies, it appears like a sun all ablaze, and filling the universe with its matchless radiance. On Calvary God"s love is on fire, and the flames envelop the world, and even the throne of glory; so that in view of this, how natural is the exclamation of the evangelist elsewhere. "God is love"! When we gaze upon it in sacrifice, we are completely dazzled, so that we can see nothing but love Divine and infinite.

III THE PURPOSE OF HIS LOVE. This is twofold.

1. To save the human race from the greatest calamity. "Should not perish.

(1) Their perdition was inevitable without Gods interference. If the Law were left to take its course, its transgressors would be summarily punished; they were already in the hands of justice, and the verdict was "perdition.

(2) God was under no obligation to interfere. He fully performed his part of the covenant, and surrounded man with all the possibilities and advantages of an obedient and consequently a happy life; but man wilfully neglected his own part, and transgressed the Law of his Creator, and brought upon himself his awful but righteous doom; and there was no stipulation as to mercy, so there was no obligation on the part of God to intercede.

(3) God was under no necessity to interfere. In the exercise of his matchless love in Christ, he was absolutely free and independent, for the world to him is as the small dust of the balance, and its inhabitants as mere grasshoppers. He would be eternally glorious and happy if the guilty world were left to its horrible fate. Consequently, his love is as pure and unselfish as it is glorious and infinite; for what but the most unselfish and intense love could prompt him to hold this guilty world in his arms, and prevent it from falling over the awful precipice?

2. To bring within the reach of all the greatest good. "But have eternal life.

(1) That man may enjoy the greatest good. "Life." Every life is good in itself and very precious; but this life is the highest and best of all; it is spiritual life the life of God in the soul, and represents all good and happiness which the soul needs and is capable of enjoying.

(2) That man may enjoy, the greatest good forever. "Eternal life endless good and happiness. To save the guilty world from perdition manifests great love; but Divine love shines more brilliantly still, when, at the greatest possible sacrifice, not merely saves the world from the greatest calamity, but brings within its reach the greatest good, "eternal life.

IV THE CONDITION ON WHICH THE BLESSINGS OF HIS LOVE MAY BE OBTAINED. There are many good human measures, offering great advantages, but containing disadvantageous clauses, which debar most from the benefit. But throughout the great scheme of redemption, God"s love shines with steady and ever-increasing brilliancy. Even in the condition on which its blessings are offered, simple faith in Christ believeth in him.

1. This condition is essential. The blessings offered could not be received, appropriated effectively, without faith, which means trustful and hearty reception. "Without faith it is impossible to please God;" and it is quite as impossible without it to save and bless man.

2. This condition is reasonable. Is it not reasonable that those who stand in need of salvation should believe and trust their Saviour? Are not the faith and trust demanded by Divine love continually exercised in the affairs of our daily life, as conditions of temporal well being? Reason is on the side of faith and against unbelief.

3. The condition is easy. Divine love could not fix upon an easier condition. A higher condition doubtless could be demanded; but such is the greatness of Divine love, and the intensity of the Divine will that all should avoid perdition and obtain eternal life, that they are offered on the easiest condition possible simple faith, simple trust, and a grateful acceptance of the benefit. This condition is in the power of all; and in view of what God has done through Christ, one would think that it is easier far to believe than not.

4. The same condition is for all, and all partake of the benefit on the same condition. "Whosoever believeth," etc. There is no distinction of any kind, no partiality, no limit. He might make a distinction he had perfect right; but such is the infinitude of his love that he makes none, no distinction, no limit; he leaves this to man himself, but not without every effort of Divine love to direct his conduct and guide his choice.

LESSONS.

1. The tale of God"s love is most eloquently told by its own deeds. If it be asked how much God loved the world, the simple answer is, "God so loved the world that he gave," etc. The gift and sacrifice of love answer with Divine and ever-increasing eloquence.

2. Man"s ruin is entirely of himself; his salvation is entirely of God. The simple progeny of his grace, the pure offspring of his love.

3. It is far easier now for man to enter life than fall into perdition. For between him and perdition there are Divine barriers God"s love, in the agonies of suffering and the eloquence of sacrifice, warning and beseeching him. Between him and life there is nothing but his own unbelief.

4. If anything can bring man to repentance and faith, it is the love of God in the sacrifice of his Son. If this cannot, nothing can.

5. Nothing can show the moral resisting power and perversity of man as much as his going to perdition in spite of Gods love in Christ. What power of madness! What a terrible fall to fall to perdition over the infinite love of God! B.T.

The love of God in deed and truth.

Here the producing cause of the gospel is briefly stated why men need it, and why God sends it. How God regards the world and what he would do for it are here set before us.

I THE WOULD IS A PERISHING WORLD. If those believing in the Son of God will not perish, the conclusion is plain that those who remain unbelieving in Christ will perish. The word might have been, "God so loved the world as to fill it, with all manner of things pleasant to eye and ear and taste, comforts various and numberless for the temporal life of man." But the awful word "perish" is brought in, and so we are forced to think, first of all, not of comforts and blessings, but of perils. Drop the word "perish" out of the text, and the profit of all the rest is gone. The world is a perishing world, and we are perishing in the midst of it. The assumption that man is a perishing being without Christ underlies every page of the Scriptures, and is implied in every doctrine of the gospel. The very fact that there is a gospel is the very proof that the gospel is needed. None but he who made us can have an adequate sense of the ruin of our nature through sin. Only he knows all the glory and perfection of which we are capable without sin; only he can estimate the corresponding shame and corruption when sin has gotten the mastery. God only knows all we can enjoy, all we can suffer.

II THE FEELING OF OUR DANGER NEEDS TO BE PRODUCED AND INTENSIFIED IN US. It gets hidden from our eyes by present comforts and enjoyment. And God knows how indifferent we are, how we trifle with the danger, and style those who would impress us with it fanatical and impertinent. And so we need God"s grace opening our eyes to spiritual danger as well as offering to us spiritual salvation. The feeling of danger will never come of itself. The danger is a spiritual one, and hence only as the Spirit of God takes hold of us shall we feel how real and great the danger is. There will be no fear of our failing to see the danger when once the Holy Spirit gets full control in our life. We are ever to remember that part of his work is pressing home upon us our need of salvation and our debt to a Saviour.

III THE DANGER SEEN, THE SAVIOUR WILL BE WELCOMED. We cannot took to one another for salvation. The perishing cannot help the perishing. We need a Saviour who does not need to be saved himself. It is a grand thing to point, not to a feeble, uncertain earthly friend, but to a heavenly one. When we feel ourselves to be perishing, we shall rejoice in being able to look to such a Saviour. Faith grows gradually and. strongly when the peril and the Saviour are continually present to our thoughts. Then, with salvation ever more and more present to us as a reality, the sense of God"s love to the world will be also more and more an inspiring power in our hearts. Y.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Yea, and this was the very design of God's love in sending him into the world. Whosoever believeth on him - With that faith which worketh by love, and hold fast the beginning of his confidence steadfast to the end. God so loved the world - That is, all men under heaven; even those that despise his love, and will for that cause finally perish. Otherwise not to believe would be no sin to them. For what should they believe? Ought they to believe that Christ was given for them? Then he was given for them. He gave his only Son - Truly and seriously. And the Son of God gave himself, Gal. iv, 4, truly and seriously.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

perish

(Greek - ἀπόλλυμι," trans). "marred," Mar 2:22, "lost,"; Mat 10:6; Mat 15:24; Mat 18:11; Luk 15:4; Luk 15:6; Luk 15:32. In no N.T. instance does it signify cessation of existence or of consciousness. It is the condition of every non-believer.

world kosmos = mankind. (See Scofield "Mat 4:8").

The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Here observe, 1. The original source and fountain of man’s salvation; and that is, God’s free and undeserved, his great and wonderful love.God so loved the world; he doth not say how much, but leaves it to our most solemn raised thoughts; it is rather to be conceived than declared; and admired rather than conceived. God so loved the world:

Hence note, That the original spring and first cause of our salvation is the free favour and mere love of God; a love worthy of God from whom it proceeds, even love inexpressible and inconceivable.

Observe, 2. The greatness of the gift by which God evidenced and demonstrated the greatness of his love to a lost world. He gave his only begotten Son: that is, he delivered him out of his own bosom and everlasting embraces. Now this will appear a stupendous expression of God’s love, if we consider that God gave him who was not only the greatest, but the dearest person to him in the world, even his own Son: that he gave him for sinners; that he gave him for a world of sinners; that he gave him up to become a man for sinners; that he gave him up to be a sacrifice for the sin of sinners.

Observe, 3. The gracious end for which God gave this great gift of his love to lost sinners: That whosoever believeth in him, should not perish, but have everlasting life.

Where note, 1. The gentle and merciful condition upon which salvation depends; Whosoever believeth in Christ shall not perish.

2. The infinite goodness of God in proposing such a vast reward unto us, upon our performing of this condition; He shall have everlasting life.

Learn hence, That faith is the way which God hath appointed, and the conditon which God hath required, in order to our obtaining salvation by Jesus Christ. This faith consists in the assent of the understanding, that Jesus is the Saviour of the world; in the consent of the will, to accept of Jesus freely and voluntarily, deliberately, advisedly, and resolvedly, for our Saviour; in accepting the merit of his blood, and submitting to the authority of his laws; it being in vain to expect salvation by Christ, if we do not yield subjection to him; he that thus believes in Christ, that submits himself to his ruling power, as well as commits himself to his saving mercy, shall not perish, but have everlasting life.

William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

16, 17. For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, etc. There is no sweeter verse in the Bible. It declares: (1) That God is love. (2) That he loved the world instead of hating it. (3) That he so loved that he gave his Son. The Son did not come to appease the Father's wrath, but the Father sent him because he loved so well. (4) That he came to keep men from perishing.

B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.

God so loved the world

Here "world" is a metonym that refers to everyone in the world. (See: Metonymy)

loved

This is the kind of love that comes from God and is focused on the good of others, even when it does not benefit oneself. God himself is love and is the source of true love.

For God did not send the Son into the world in order to condemn the world, but in order to save the world through him

These two clauses mean nearly the same thing, said twice for emphasis, first in the negative and then in the positive. Some languages may indicate emphasis in a different way. AT: God's real reason for sending his Son into the world was to save it" (See: Parallelism and Double Negatives)

to condemn

"to punish." Usually "punish" implies that the person who has been punished is then accepted by God. When a person is condemned, he is punished but never accepted by God.

Son of God

This is an important title for Jesus. (See: Translating Son and Father)

translationWords

God

love

world

Son of God

believe

perish

eternity

unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.

16–21. It is much disputed whether what follows is a continuation of Christ’s discourse, or S. John’s comment upon it. That expressions characteristic of S. John’s diction appear (μονογενής, πιστεύειν εἰς τὸ ὄνομα, ποιεῖν τὴν ἀλήθειαν, τὸ φῶς), cannot settle the question; the substance may still be Christ’s though the wording is S. John’s. And have we sufficient knowledge of our Lord’s phraseology to distinguish S. John’s wording from His? In any case we have what was probably a conversation of long duration condensed into one of five minutes. Nor does the cessation of the conversational form prove anything. The more Nicodemus became impressed the less he would be likely to interrupt, like the disciples in the last discourses. It seems unlikely that S. John would give us no indication of the change from the Lord’s words to his own, if the discourse with Nicodemus really ended at Joh 3:15. See on Joh 3:31-36.

The subject of these six verses is as follows; God’s purpose in sending His Son (16, 17); the opposite results (18, 19); the moral cause of these opposite results (20, 21).

16. γάρ. Explaining how God wills life to every believer. Τὸν κόσμον = the whole human race (see on Joh 1:10). This would be a revelation to the exclusive Pharisee, brought up to believe that God loved only the Chosen People. Ἀγαπᾶν very frequent in the Gospel and First Epistle, and may be considered characteristic of S. John: see on Joh 5:20. Μονογενῆ; see on Joh 1:14. This shews the greatness of God’s love: it would remind Nicodemus of the offering of Isaac. Comp. 1Jn 4:9; Heb 11:17; Rom 8:32. Ἔδωκεν is stronger than ‘sent:’ it was a free gift to the world. Winer, p. 377.

πᾶς ὁ πιστεύων. The only limitation: eternal life is open to all. Ἀπόληται. Subj. after a past tense; see on Joh 1:7. The translation of ζωὴ αἰώνιος should be uniform; A.V. wavers between ‘eternal life’ (Joh 3:15, Joh 5:39, Joh 6:54; Joh 6:68, &c.), ‘life eternal’ (Joh 4:36, Joh 12:25), ‘everlasting life’ (here, Joh 3:36, Joh 4:14, Joh 5:24, &c.), and ‘life everlasting’ (Joh 12:50): ‘eternal life’ is best.

Cambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge University Press, 1896; 21 vols, various authors incl. Carr, Maclear, Plummer, Farrar, Lumby, Moule, M. R. James, Simcox) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

16.] Many Commentators—since the time of Erasmus, who first suggested the notion—have maintained that the discourse of our Lord breaks off here, and the rest, to ver. 21, consists of the remarks of the Evangelist. (So Tholuck, Olshausen, Lücke, De Wette; which last attributes vv. 13, 14 also to John.) But to those who view these discourses of our Lord as intimately connected wholes, this will be as inconceivable, as the idea of St. Matthew having combined into one the insulated sayings of his Master. This discourse would be altogether fragmentary, and would have left Nicodemus almost where he was before, had not this most weighty concluding part been also spoken to him. This it is, which expands and explains the assertions of vv. 14, 15, and applies them to the present life and conduct of mankind.

The principal grounds alleged for supposing the discourse to break off here seem to be (α) that all allusion to Nicodemus is henceforth dropped.

But this is not conclusive, for it is obvious that the natural progress of such an interview on his part would be from questioning to listening: and that even had he joined in the dialogue, the Evangelist would not have been bound to relate all his remarks, but only those which, as vv. 2, 4 and 9, were important to bring out his mind and standing-point. (β) That henceforth past tenses are used; making it more probable that the passage was added after the great events alluded to had taken place. But does not our Lord speak here, as in so many other cases, proleptically, of the fulness of the accomplishment of those designs, which in the divine counsels were accomplished? Is not this way of speaking natural to a discourse which is treating of the development of the new birth, itself not yet brought in till the Spirit was given? See a parallel instance, with the Evangelist’s explanation, ch. 7:37-39. (γ) On account of this use of μονογενής, vv. 16, 18, which is peculiar to John. But, as Stier well enquires (iv. 84, edn. 2), whence did John get this word, but from the lips of his Divine Master? Would he have ventured on such an expression, except by an authorization from Him? (δ) It is asserted that John often continues our Lord’s discourses with additions of his own;—and ver. 31, and ch. 1:16, are alleged as instances. Of these, ch. 1:16 is beside the question;—for the whole prologue is spoken in the person of the Evangelist, and the Baptist’s testimony in ver. 15 is merely confirmatory of ver. 14, and then the connexion goes on with ver. 16. On the untenableness of the view with regard to vv. 31 ff., see notes there.

It would besides give us a very mean idea of the honesty or reverence of one who sets forth so sublime a view of the Divinity and Authority of our Lord, to suppose him capable, in any place, of attributing to his Master words and sentiments of his own invention. And that the charge amounts to this, every simple reader can bear testimony. The obvious intention of the Evangelist here is, that the Lord shall have said these words. If our Lord did not say them, but the Evangelist, we cannot stop with the view that he has added his own remarks to our Lord’s discourse, but must at once pronounce him guilty of an imposture and a forgery. (See Stier, iv. 81 ff., edn. 2.) I conclude therefore on all these grounds that the words following, to ver. 21, cannot be otherwise regarded than as uttered by our Lord in continuation of His discourse.

ἠγάπησεν] The indefinite signifying the universal and eternal existence of that love which God Himself is (1Jn 4:8).

τὸν κόσμον, the world, in the most general sense, as represented by, and included in, man,—Gen 3:17, Gen 3:18, and 1:28;—not, the elect, which would utterly destroy the force of the passage: see on ver. 18.

The Lord here reveals Love as the one ground of the divine counsel in redemption,—salvation of men, as its one purpose with regard to them.

τὸν υἱὸν … ἔδωκεν] These words, whether spoken in Hebrew or in Greek, seem to carry a reference to the offering of Isaac; and Nicodemus in that case would at once be reminded by them of the love there required, the substitution there made, and the prophecy there uttered to Abraham, to which ἵνα πᾶς ὁ πιστ. so nearly corresponds.

ἔδωκεν—absolute, not merely τῷ κόσμῳ—gave up,—παρέδωκεν,—Rom 8:32; where as Stier remarks, we have again, in the οὐκ ἐφείσατο, an unmistakeable allusion to the οὐκ ἐφείσω, said to Abraham, Gen 22:16.

ἵνα …] By the repetition of this final clause verbatim from ver. 15, we have the identity of the former clauses established: i.e. the uplifting of the Son of Man like the serpent in the wilderness is the manifestation of the Divine Love in the gift of the Son of God:—ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου of ver. 14, = in the strictest sense, ὁ υἱὸς αὐτ. ὁ μονογ. of ver. 16.

Henry Alford, The Greek Testament (1849–1861) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

16. This “comfortable word” is described in the Anglican Liturgy as one of those which “our Saviour Christ saith.” But it would seem that Jn. does not mean to place vv. 16-21 in the mouth of Jesus; these verses are rather reflexions and comments by the evangelist on the words which he has already ascribed to Jesus in His discourse with Nicodemus. The dialogue framework is dropped; past tenses, ἔδωκεν, ἀπέστειλεν, ἐλήλυθεν, are used, as would be natural if the writer is meditating on the great events of the past; the word μονογενής, which occurs twice, vv. 16, 18, is not elsewhere placed on the lips of Jesus, while it is thoroughly Johannine (see 1:14, 1:18 and 1Jn 4:9). Indeed v. 16 is repeated almost verbatim 1Jn 4:9: ἐν τούτῳ ἐφανερώθη ἡ ἀγάπη τοῦ θεοῦ ἐν ἡμῖν, ὅτι τὸν υἱὸν αὐτοῦ τὸν μονογενῆ ἀπέσταλκεν ὁ θεὸς εἰς τὸν κόσμον ἵνα ζήσωμεν διʼ αὐτοῦ.

The passage vv. 16-21 is introduced by οὕτως γάρ …, which is quite in Jn.’s style when he is making a comment: cf. αὐτὸς γάρ … (2:25), οἱ γὰρ μαθηταί (4:8), ὁ γὰρ Ἰησοῦς. (5:13), ὁ γὰρ πατήρ (5:20), αὐτὸς γὰρ ᾔδει … (6:6), ᾔδει γάρ … (6:64, 13:11), οὔπω γὰρ ἦν … (7:39), οὐδέπω γὰρ ᾔδεισαν … (20:9). Further, it is to be observed that ὥστε does not occur again in Jn., and that the constr. οὕτως … ὥστε with indicative, although classical, does not appear elsewhere in the N.T. (see Abbott, Diat. 2203, 2697). No new theme is introduced at v. 16, but the teaching of the discourse with Nicodemus is recapitulated, the opening sentence being a summary of the “Gospel according to St. John.”

It is the constant teaching of Jn. that in the order of redemption God’s Love precedes the movement of man’s soul to him. “We love because He first loved us” (1Jn 4:19; cf. 1Jn 4:10). Cf. “Ye did not choose me, but I chose you” (15:16) and also 13:18. See Rom 5:8. In this verse the Love of God is represented as prior to the faith of man. Indeed, God is Love (1Jn 4:8).

The verb ἀγαπάω is generally used by the Synoptists for the love which man has for man or for God (Mar 12:30); and Jn. in like manner uses it of the love of man for his fellows (13:34, 15:12, 17), or for Jesus (8:42, 14:15, 21, 23, 21:15) or for God (1Jn 4:10). It is used once in the Synoptists for the love of Jesus for man (Mar 10:21), and this is frequent in Jn. (11:5, 13:1, 23, 34, 14:21, 15:9, 12, 21:7, 20). ἀγαπάω is never used in the Synoptists of the Love of God for man, although this central fact is behind many of the parables; but Jn. employs it thus, not only here but at 14:23, 17:23, 1Jn 3:1, 1Jn 4:10 (cf. Rom 5:8, Eph 2:4, 2Th 2:16). The mutual love of God and Christ is implicit in the Synoptists (cf. ὁ υἱός μου ὁ ἀγαπητός, Mar 1:11, Mar 9:7, Mat 3:17, Mat 17:5, Luk 3:22), but Jn. is explicit in using ἀγαπάω to describe it, e.g. 3:35, 10:17, 15:9, 17:23, 24, 26, and 14:31. See, further, Additional Note on 21:15 on ἀγαπᾶν and φιλεῖν.

Here the Love of God for man is an all-embracing love: ἠγάπησεν ὁ θεὸς τὸν κόσμον (for κόσμος see on 1:9). It was manifested by His giving “His only begotten Son” (for μονογενής see on 1:14), “His Beloved Son,” ὁ υἱὸς ὁ ἀγαπτός (Mat 3:17). The language is perhaps reminiscent of Gen 22:16, where it was said to Abraham οὐκ ἐφείσω τοῦ υἱοῦ σου τοῦ ἀγαπητοῦ, the simple ἔδωκεν conveying the sense of a complete “giving up”; cf. Rom 8:32.

τὸν υἱὸν μονογενῆ. So א*BW, but א*CALTbΘ add αὐτοῦ after υἱόν.

ἵνα πᾶς ὁ πιστ. κτλ. This was the motive of the Gift, that all men might have eternal life (see on v. 15) through faith in Christ. For the phrase πιστεύων εἰς αὐτόν, as see on 1:12.

“To perish” (ἀπολλύναι) is contrasted again with “to have eternal life” at 10:28 (cf. 17:12). It is the word used for “losing” one’s soul; and it refers here to a man’s final destiny (cf. Mat 10:28 σῶμα ἀπολέσαι ἐν γεέννῃ). Hence ζωὴ αἰώνιος in this verse must be interpreted of the future (see on 3:15) rather than of the present, although it includes this.

The repetition of the phrase ἵνα πᾶς ὁ πιστεύων εἰς αὐτὸν ἔχῃ ζωὴν αἰώνιον from v. 15, with a slight change (viz. the addition after αὐτόν of μὴ ἀπόληται ἀλλά), is a feature of Johannine style.1 Jn. frequently repeats phrases or themes of special import, often with slight verbal changes, as if they were a refrain. Cf., e.g., 3:3, 5, 4:23, 24, 6:35, 41, 48, 51, 6:39, 40, 8:24, 10:8, 9, 11, 15, 15:1, 5, 16:14, 15.

International Critical Commentary — older volumes (1896–1929), various authors — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

The world [κοσμον] . See on 1 9.

Gave. Rather than sent; emphasizing the idea of sacrifice.

Only - begotten Son. See on 1 14.

Have. See on ver. 15.

This attitude of God toward the world is in suggestive contrast with that in which the gods of paganism are represented.

Thus Juno says to Vulcan :

"Dear son, refrain : it is not well that thus A God should suffer for the sake of men." " Iliad, " 21, 379, 380.

And Apollo to Neptune :

"Thou would'st not deem me wise, should I contend With thee, O Neptune, for the sake of men, Who flourish like the forest - leaves awhile, And feed upon the fruits of earth, and then Decay and perish. Let us quit the field, And leave the combat to the warring hosts." " Iliad, " 21, 461, 467.

Man has no assurance of forgiveness even when he offers the sacrifices in which the gods especially delight. "Man's sin and the divine punishment therefore are certain; forgiveness is uncertain, dependent upon the arbitrary caprice of the gods. Human life is a life without the certainty of grace" (Nagelsbach, " Homerische Theologie "). Mr. Gladstone observes :

"No Homeric deity ever will be found to make a personal sacrifice on behalf of a human client" (" Homer and the Homeric Age, " 2 372).

Marvin R. Vincent, Word Studies in the New Testament (1887–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.