Dr. John Tamilio III, Pastor
2024, Dr. Tamilio
If you made a list of the most popular and the most memorized Scripture passages, John 3:16 would probably be at the top. Millard J. Erickson agrees, writing, “Of numerous biblical references, John 3:16 is probably the best known.”[1] Even nonbelievers know that it begins, “For God so loved the world” and they’ll probably be able to add “that he sent his only begotten Son.” You see it held high at football games on placards. This is the same verse that Martin Luther said was the Gospel in miniature. In other words, if you boil the entire Gospel — the story of Jesus put forth by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John — if you were to sum it all up in one verse, you’d be hard-pressed to find a better one than John 3:16.
That said, how many people actually read this verse in context? We did so today. Those who read it (or at least cite it) out of context make an argument about the exclusivity of salvation in Christ. In other words, this verse becomes the litmus test to determine who is saved and who isn’t.
- If you accept that God sent Jesus to the earth to save us from our sins, then you are with the “in-crowd.”
- If you don’t, then you better get right with God, and you better do so fast, because you’re on your way to Hell.
This is not an argument that Jesus is or is not the only way to God. It is to say, however, that using this verse as the standard by which to determine our salvation or to measure our faith, is not doing justice to what this verse is really saying.
The first thing we should note is that the very next verse (John 3:17) tells us that, “God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.” Did you catch that? Jesus isn’t the sheriff that God sends to town on a white horse to make sure that the outlaws are sent packing. He’s not the referee who blows the whistle to say who is offsides or who must go to the penalty box. He came for a purpose, and the text itself makes it very clear: he came to save us.
So, we need to reconcile this with all those interpretations that support strict judgment. We need to reconcile this with Lent as we are now at the halfway point of this pertinent, penitential season. One of the better explanations of this verse comes from the work of Gregory A. Boyd and Paul R. Eddy. In their book Across the Spectrum, they write, “as fallen humans we are often selective in our love, God is not. This means that God does not create some people whom he loves and others he plans to send to hell. The God of perfect love creates people out of love for the purpose of sharing his love with them. He expressed this universal love in the person of Jesus Christ.”[2]
Is this passage is about the universal love of God? The answer is yes, especially if you read it with its Hebrew Bible counterpart: the Old Testament reading from Numbers today. This is one of those stories about Israel complaining to Moses during their wilderness wanderings: their forty-year sojourn after being liberated from Egyptian bondage. The people complained. They complained a lot. This is one of those protest passages. They ask Moses, “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we detest this miserable food.” God sent poisonous snakes among the people. The people confess their sin: “We have sinned by speaking against the Lord and against you; pray to the Lord to take away the serpents from us,” which God does.
Footnote: it’s trivia time! Yes, you too can amaze your friends with just a little bit of biblical knowledge. We are told that God orders Moses to make an image of a poisonous snake and to put on a pole to offer healing. Whoever is bitten by one of these vipers can look at this image and be healed. This became the symbol of the medical practice which we still use today.
So, we got the snake part. Now, look at what Jesus says in the passage in which we find John 3:16 couched within. Actually, these are the two verses that come right before John 3:16. They read, “Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him.” The crucifixion (and dare I add any images that remind us of it) is to offer healing to us as well.
This passage is about love and healing? Seems that way, doesn’t it.
God did not come to the world in the flesh to condemn the world. He came to literally embody pure and perfect love. It is a love that saves. It is a love that heals. Those who want to use this passage as a warning need to realize that is more like a Valentine’s Day card than a frightful omen. Through these words, it is as if God is saying, “I love you so much, that I decided to come among you. And what’s more, I took the punishment you deserved so that you did not have to. I did this so that you may begin to see (for you will never full understand) the depth of my love for you.” The contemporary Christian singer-songwriter whose songs we often sing on acoustic Sunday, Rich Mullins, once said it best:
God notices you. The fact is he can’t take his eyes off you. However badly you think of yourself, God is crazy about you. God is in love with you. Some of us even fear that someday we’ll do something so bad that he won’t notice us anymore. Well, let me tell you, God loves you completely. And he knew us at our worst before he began to love us at all. And in the love of God there are no degrees, there is only love.[3]
There it is. It’s all about love: God’s unmatchable love for you, for me, for all of us. God wants our healing, not our destruction. God wants us to love him, because he loves us beyond words. He doesn’t want us to love him, because we will fear the repercussions, the punishment if we don’t. John 3:16 is about love which leads to an abundant life. With God at your side, and his love in your heart, you have nothing to fear. God came for us to experience his love firsthand. He came for us to have life, and to have it abundant. Amen.
[1] Millard J. Erickson, Introducing Christian Theology, 3d ed. (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2015), 102.
[2] Gregory A. Boyd and Paul R. Eddy, Across the Spectrum: Understanding Issues in Evangelical Theology, 2d ed. (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2009), 154.
[3] Concert in Lufkin, Texas, July 19, 1997 (kidbrothers.net).