John 3:16 - God so loved the world

3:16

We now come to the most famous verse in the Bible, and the one loved by all evangelists. At this point we are leaving the words of Jesus, and instead we have John’s commentary on what Jesus has said. Now there is some debate about where the words of Jesus end, and where the commentary of John begin, but 3:16 is the most commonly agreed on point. In one sense it doesn’t really matter. Some Bibles are “red letter” Bibles, this means that the words of Jesus are printed in red, with black being used for the rest of the text. This can be helpful, but we must not fall in to the trap of thinking that the parts which were not spoken by Jesus are somehow less inspired. All Scripture is God-breathed. 

With this verse, as with all verses, we must read it in context. In context of what has gone before, and especially what comes next. Jesus has just told Nicodemus that he doesn’t know what he's talking about and needs to be born again. Then He has said that the Son of Man must be lifted up so that all who believe in Him may have eternal life. John now explains what this means. First of all there is God's love for the world. Now in most cases in John’s writings the “world” is used in a very negative way, referring to the world as the embodiment of evil. Some then find it odd that this verse speaks of God’s love for the world. We can think of judgement, or we can think of forgiveness, but we find it very difficult to think of both at the same time, and this is a great problem for us. God has no such problem, and throughout the Bible we often find the love and judgement of God being deeply intertwined. God loved the world so He sent His one and only Son. The world was ensnared by its sin, and so is deserving of judgement. God would far rather the world repented and could be forgiven, therefore He sent Christ so that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life. 

Sometimes people think of the cross as a loving Jesus persuading an angry God to forgive us instead of sending us to hell. This is a completely unbiblical picture. A loving God sent His Son to save us. The Father and the Son (and the Holy Spirit, for that matter) are in this together. Note also that there are only two options. Either we perish or we have eternal life through faith in Christ.