Scripture: John 3:16
Date: October 16, 2011
Speaker: Sean Higgins
We’ve been studying John 3:16 for a few weeks now. We’ve considered that the apostle John wrote it rather than that Jesus spoke it to Nicodemus. John uses vocabulary (such as “only-begotten”) that we don’t ever read that Jesus used. Verse 16 also speaks about the cross in the past tense, whereas verse 14 spoke about it as a future event. We’ve considered that the word “world” could refer to any number of more specific parts of the world. Here it seems to refer generically to all types of sinful men.
We’ve considered, most of all, that the world runs on God’s love. The world doesn’t run primarily on God’s power or His righteousness. Our God is love and what He does and how He relates to His creation cannot be separated from His love. If it were possible for us to stop the sunrise then we could wonder about the steadfastness of His love.
As exciting as this is, as good as the news in John 3:16 sounds, not everyone receives it. There are too many specifics to let love be sentimental and mushy, let alone atheistic of pluralistic. Though I don’t believe Jesus spoke it, it is a red letter verse, a verse covered in His blood because our sin required a sacrifice. The Father sent His Son to make our payment. No greater cost could be paid.
Likewise, no greater blessing could be secured. Those who believe are part of an eternal society. We usually define society as a group of people living together in a somewhat ordered community, or society is a formal association of people with similar interests, and that’s part of it. All believers will be together with each other, they all will not perish but have eternal life. We are the society of the non-perishing, we hold that in common.
But society means more than the group, it can also refer to the fellowship shared. We might say, “He avoided the society of others” or “He enjoyed the society of his friends.” Society is voluntary interrelations between individuals. Society is the state of being with people, having company with them. This is the key to the verse and the point for this morning: all believers share fellowship with God. That fellowship, that society with God is life. Without that fellowship we are perishing.
God loved the world with the result that He gave His Son; He gave His Son for the purpose of sharing eternal life. God establishes this society, this relationship.
Why is the goal of the good news inextricably related to fellowship? Because our God is one way, not another. He is an eternal society, in other words, the three Persons of the Trinity have enjoyed eternal fellowship.
Here is why life without fellowship isn’t a lower quality life, it isn’t life: because “in Him was life” (John 1:4), and life in Him involves relationship. God created men in His image and, of course, that’s why God said it wasn’t good for man to be alone. Two are better than one because of Who we worship.
This fellowship stands on love. Our relationship with God isn’t based on power only or righteousness only. He doesn’t flex His muscles and push us to the dirt in a slavish surrender. He doesn’t trumpet His rules in such a way that He creates standard bearers (little lawyers running around). He loves. He invites us into fellowship with Him. We are image bearers.
God did not created the world because He lacked something. He wasn’t missing something that would complete Him, not even worship. As C.S. Lewis said somewhere, God is not like an old woman desperate for attention and praise. He created out of an overflow. His fellowship spilled over eternal edges into men.
What did Adam and Eve lose when they disobeyed? Life. They died. Stated another way, they lost fellowship with God and with each other. They kept breathing. They lost no mental consciousness. In fact, they didn’t forget any theology; they still knew who created them. When they sinned, the relationship was broken, disrupted, separated.
They needed reconciliation. They needed fellowship restored. In order to restore the relationship, a sacrifice was required. That’s why God gave His Son.
Sermon side note #1: our corporate worship is corporate (horizontal closeness) fellowship with God (vertical intimacy). That’s why we can be confident that God is pleased when we worship because He loves the fellowship. That’s why external ritualism, even when performed in obedience to His instructions, is worthless to Him. The instructions explain how to have life, how to be with Him in light of who He is.
Sermon side note #2: this is what makes distant husbands and fathers, distant authorities, distant disciple-makers, and distant pastors so deplorable. It’s ungodly. Our society, our fellowship, is distinguished by relationship, and the relationship runs on love.
The founder of this eternal society is God, the Triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
According to verse 16, not everyone has eternal life. Some are perishing. So who can have fellowship with God?
”Whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” “Whoever believes” is an acceptable translation, but certainly not the most accurate. There is a perfectly good Greek word for “whoever” (τὶς) that makes an indefinite, indiscriminate point, “anyone,” “whosoever” (KJV). That word is not used in verse 16.
Instead we see: “every believing one.” It is a substantival participle. Here’s how it works. In Greek, if you want to characterize a person by a certain behavior, you take a verb, turn it into a participle, and add an article to make the whole thing into a noun. For example, in verse 16, “believe” is the action. The present tense participle emphasizes that it keeps on happening (not necessarily the when of the action but the type of action, so nonstop believing). John adds the article to make it “the one who keeps on believing” then attaches the adjective “all” or “every” to give it an axiom feel: “every believing one.”
Those who have fellowship with God are believers. Those who have eternal life are characterized by ongoing believing in Christ.
As far as I can tell, the “whosoever/whoever” goes back to the KJV (perhaps even to the Geneva Study Bible) translation team. But the emphasis in John 3:16 is not on whosoever, but on believing.
Madness is understandable here, but our madness chips often get played on the wrong number. Most people seem to be maddened if we place any sort of limitation on the whosoever. The democratic spirit in us wants each man to have his own blame (not God) for his failure to believe. So we say “whoever believes” must mean that everyone is able to believe.
But who believes? Who is able to believe? Those who have been born again.
Remember the context. John 3:16 commences John’s comments on the conversation between Nicodemus and Jesus in 3:1-15. Jesus repeatedly tells Nicodemus that he needed something to happen to him that he couldn’t control. He needed to be born again, born of the Spirit, the Spirit who blows wherever He wills.
The challenge of “whosoever” in 3:16 is the “everyone” in 3:8. In fact, it is the same substantival participle construction.
every having been born of the Spirit one (v.8) every believing one (v.16)
So “whoever believes in him” is the whoever is born by Him. The Spirit births men to life, that life breathes with belief in the Son. Men are to blame for their perishing, but culpability doesn’t equal capability.
That said, we should have no problem whatsoever in telling people that whoever believes in Him will have eternal life, will be part of the eternal society. There are no external limitations. God loves the world, not just one nation (such as Israel) or one type of extra religious person (such as the Pharisees) or one gender or one age or any other restriction. Not only do those externals not merit God’s love, they are no guarantee of life, as Nicodemus illustrates.
The believing ones, whatever their background, have eternal life. And shouldn’t that make us more mad that all it takes to have fellowship with God is belief?
Speaking of which, that’s why seeing the miracles (2:23-25) and believing isn’t enough. Seeing, appreciating miracles, as well as knowledge of Scripture or religious heritage doesn’t deliver anyone from perishing, because there is no fellowship.
Those believing won’t perish but have eternal life. We can go back to ask, what did Adam and Eve lose when they sinned? What was their greatest need?
The benefit of the society is society, the privileges of the association is association, fellowship with God. That’s life.
We have too small an understanding of why others need the gospel.
Consider Jesus’ prayer in John 17.
”Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you, since you have given him authority over all flesh, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. And this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.” (John 17:1–3, ESV)
Eternal life is not endless accumulation and affirmation of certain propositions, it is sharing God’s life. Eternal life has something to do with time; it is never-ending, yes, ever-enduring. The part that makes life eternal is that it is God’s own life. We know Him and share who He is.
Perishing is the opposite, the alternative, of having eternal life. The perishing isn’t temporary. Both perishing and living are everlasting. But eternal life is sharing life in God. These are the only two options, just as receiving the Son or rejecting Him.
Christ keeps some men from perishing by perishing for them. Death couldn’t be avoided, but there could be a substitute.
God loved the world that shared His own life, by sending His Son to die. The Son was lifted up by the power of love.
Our fellowship is in life in love. The cause of our hope, the driving force behind our salvation is God’s love.
The Gospel of John is an evangelism resource. Why put forward the promise of eternal life for all those who believe when they can’t believe? Because the Spirit loves to use the good news of God’s love to cause men to be born again! Making disciples is God’s goal to share Himself, eternal life, the relational joy of the Trinity with men and women from every nation. How we disciple must be personal if we’re to reflect the Trinity that commissioned discipleship. God is building a community of disciples that reflect the Trinity that will one day enjoy the full glory of the Trinity.
Our deepening fellowship, our growing unity along the way, makes a point to the world.
I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me. (John 17:20–23)
As we finish, I thought I would suggest how we can view John 3:16 in light of the worldview wheel we considered last week. John 3:16 affects our: