John 3:16
by Tom Lyon
I want to turn your attention to probably what is the most familiar verse in all of the Bible, and the reason
I am going to do this is that I think it would be helpful for us to review this on the one hand, and there are
others of you who need to hear this for the first time, and another reason is that I seriously entertained
using this text as my text to open up, to expound, the doctrine of particular redemption. Probably it would
be construed by most that to use this verse to expound the doctrine of particular redemption is like trying
to storm the wall of the enemy at the highest part, at its strongest defense. After all, is this not a text which
probably is used by them more to the contrary than any other text? and what I am speaking of, before I go
too far, is John 3 and verse 16. You’re all well aware of this text. If I were to be relatively certain in this
congregation, and, in fact, in almost any, if there was one verse in the entire Bible that everyone knew by
heart, it would be John 3 and verse 16, and, of course, it says that, “For God so loved the world that he
gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth on him should not perish but have everlasting life.” I
believe that I quoted that from the King James, but of course I can do that because I have it on the tip of
my tongue, and probably it’s upon yours also. It’s a verse that we know very well and you might think you’
d have to have your head examined to preach on the doctrine of particular redemption, or limited
atonement, and to take that text, because, as I said, that is the strong point, supposedly, in the objection to
that very teaching.
In fact, this is a text which is used by most of the world today as a proof text for three sacrosanct
doctrines, and they find them all proven here to their satisfaction. The three doctrines are these: Number
one: the universal love of God. Number two: the universal atonement of Christ. Number three: the
universal free will of man. “For God so loved the world,” the universal love of God. “That he gave his
only begotten Son,” the universal atonement of Christ. “That whosoever believeth should not perish but
have everlasting life,” the universal freewill of man.
You’d think the best thing that a Calvinist would want to do is explain that text away, or wish that John
had never written it, or somehow do what he can to dodge its use of ‘whosoever.’ However, my first text
that I thought of to take, if I were to deal with it textually rather than topically in the conference on the
doctrine of particular redemption, or limited atonement, my choice was to choose John 3 and verse 16.
You might ask, “Well, how in the world can that be?” (No pun intended.) “How can that be that you’d
choose this text to preach that doctrine?
You realize that this text has been used as a veritable alternative to Biblical literacy in our day.” You are
basically told, I think, that you don’t really need to know all those things. You don’t need to know all that
theology. You don’t need the confession; in fact, you don’t really need your Bible. All you need is one
verse, and for many people their religion is one verse: John 3 and verse 16. It is a Swiss army knife text.
You know what I mean by that? A Swiss army knife has all the gears and gadgets, and you have this text
and you have the Swiss army knife in your pocket. You can do anything. You can screw screws, you can
cut, you can cut paper with scissors, you can corkscrew, you can do the corkscrew, and you can clean
your fingernails. You can do everything. It’s all there on your Swiss army knife. Well, John 3 and verse
16 has been used in that way, has it not? When you turn on your television and you see a basketball game
or a football game or the golf match you find there’s always some wag in the front row with a big sign that
says what on it? John 3:16, as if just the text somehow is going to have this Gospel effect. You never see
another text. It’s always John 3:16, isn’t it? I can think of some other texts I’d rather put there, but if John
3:16 was understood, and if that did any good, then it might be worthwhile, but I’m certain that it’s not.
There’s a sign I’ve mentioned to you before between here and Portland, (at least it used to be there, I
haven’t been down the road for quite awhile) a big sign that’s advertising the fact that a man has a shop in
which he manufactures biblical signs, supposedly. It’s called The Gospel Sign Shoppe, and of course he
has this giant sign which shows how wonderfully he can make these signs so that you’ll come and take
advantage of his expertise, and of course the sign has this on it, “For God so loved the world that he gave
his only begotten Son, et cetera, et cetera.” So it has been confused or used as an alternative to biblical
literacy. It is the only weapon in the arsenal that you need. It is, as I was told, the Gospel in a nutshell.
Everything you need is here.
It’s also a text, which has been used as a convenient hiding place, or shelter, for folks who are threatened
in their theological perspective. I can still recall, and I may have told you before, of a time when I was
invited to give a couple of hours of exposition to a group of people gathered, interested to hear something
of the doctrines of grace, and so I went, and, I remember, for 2 hours I opened up the logic of the
doctrines of grace, and the Scripture that is found to bear these things out and for 2 hours I did the best that
I could to bring together all of these lines and strands of thought, and apprize a group of supposedly
interested people about the doctrines of grace and I can still remember that I felt like I had pretty good
freedom, and I felt like the whole audience was pretty well there and hanging on the truth as it was opened
up gradually before their eyes, and how greatly encouraged, and, as I finally concluded, thinking that
probably I had worn them down beyond repair, I asked if there were any questions, and there was one
lady in the back, and her response was: “Well, it’s all very well, but, what about John 3:16?” In other
words, as if merely the mentioning of that verse reduced everything that had been said to rubble. And it
was the convenient shelter for listening to anything that might seem to be contrary to the three sacrosanct
untouchable doctrines which supposedly are taught in this text: The universal love of God, the universal
atonement of Christ, and the universal freewill of man. Of course, modern evangelicalism today,
Arminianism if you will, is built upon these three pillars, supposedly all found and proven once and for
all beyond any shadow of doubt in John 3 and verse 16.
A couple of things to observe before we look at this text: The first is that real Christianity is not the
holding of propositions only. Real Christianity is the holding of propositions in biblical context and
tension. It is not merely the believing of something, and having a text to quote, supposedly, that supports it.
That which you believe must be consistent with what the Bible teaches, not just in a text, but everywhere.
It must recognize and take into full account the weight of every other doctrine that bears upon it. No
doctrine, no text, can be used in a vacuum separated somehow from the entire Word of God. Now, let’s
face it, there are many people who call themselves Christians in our day who have a little pocket full, let’
s say, of texts, proof texts, which say “This is why I believe this.” And “Here’s the text why I believe
that.” And “There’s the other text why,” and, of course, John 3:16 is this Swiss army knife text that you
can prove almost everything you care to believe, but that is not real Christianity, and is not biblical
hermeneutics. The propositions that we hold must be held in concert and in context with the Word of God,
and its teachings as a whole.
The second thing we want to observe is that it is prudent to appreciate what is at stake. If John 3:16 were
to be submitted to review, and that’s why there’s such great resistance to any further thought on John 3 and
verse 16, because if it were submitted to review it’s not just that men would have to change their
theology. Men change their theology very readily. They’re very happy to change even the most cardinal
doctrines in a moment. We’ve seen that, I’ve seen that, over and over again. People being solid Reformed
Baptists, and deciding that they’re Presbyterians the next day. People deciding that they hold this view,
and you talk to them the next week, and they’ve completely changed it. People will change their
theological position literally at the drop of a hat. What they will not jettison, they will not let go of, is
their method. Their theology can change as you like, but their methodology they will not allow to be
touched, and that is the problem, and that is why people so tenaciously hang on to their understanding of
John 3:16. They will not submit their thinking to review, not because that would change their theology.
That is an easy thing. It would change their methodology. “What do you mean? Then I wouldn’t be able to
say this, and I wouldn’t be able to say that. Specifically, God loves you, Christ died for you, and now it’s
up to you,” what they suppose they find in John 3 and verse 16. Take anything away from them, but you
can’t take that away. That’s why this verse so stubbornly retains a kind of set meaning in people’s minds.
Now, let us note that, in the heat of controversy, texts are often handled controversially. That is: All right,
we have a controversy. What does this mean? When we handle texts controversially there is a tendency
for them to be diffused by either party in the controversy, and then discarded. That is, we explain them
away. There are a number of books that have done this. They take the text, and they take it by the throat,
and they make it promise not to say what they don’t want it to say, and then they throw it in the corner and
say, “All right, we’ve washed our hands of that. It’s no longer a problem to us.” But we cannot do that
with the Word of God. There is no text that we are allowed to explain away. We must explain it
satisfactorily on a biblical hermeneutic and then believe what it says. We have no right to put texts in a
corner, or to put them away. After a text has been retrieved from the grasp of its usurpers, it remains the
task of returning it to the rightful hands of its rightful owners, and that’s why John 3:16 needs to be
recovered, because it belongs to us, not to the Arminian world.
You may remember the story I told about Janie. We were driving along the road, and we were bored with
the long trip, and we turned on the radio, and a fellow came on. He was to preach. It was announced that
he was upcoming, and when he finally arrived his voice came there over the radio, and he merely said as
his beginning remark, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever
would believe in him should not perish but have everlasting life.” And Janie reached over and turned it
off, and I said, “Why did you do that?” And she said, “He’s an Arminian.” I said, “How do you know
that? All he did was quote John 3:16.” And she said “Yes, but I know what he meant.” “I know what he
meant.” You see, there is something attached to this. Now, when we read that text, do we know what we
mean? It’s important, because we’re not willing just to discard the text. We want it for ourselves and we
want it for ourselves honestly. What is the teaching of John 3 and verse 16 and why would I possibly have
entertained the notion of using it in a conference where I’m supposed to preach on particular redemption?
When, apparently, in the eyes and minds of most evangelical Christianity today, it proves exactly the
diametrically opposed opposite? I submit to you that it’s easy to do. That is because the teaching of John
3:16, and some of you will remember this line of reasoning that I want to remind you of it, the teaching of
John 3:16 hinges upon an understanding of the meaning and connection of three words. They may not be
the three that you would think are the three that are most important. Of course, there is a great deal of
emphasis on the love of God in John 3 and verse 16, but I am not going to deal with that word. I have no
complaints or problems about the love of God. And I do not believe that that is the significant focus even
of this text in terms of understanding what is being taught in this place. Also, I might mention that there is a
difficulty in John 3 and verse 16 at the very beginning and that is: where did Jesus, in his speaking to
Nicodemus, finish, and where did John begin to editorialize in the writing of his Gospel? It’s very
difficult to say. The paragraph division might lead you to suppose that it is at the end of verse 15 that
Jesus stops speaking, and now we hear John. It’s possible to argue that, no, it’s still continuing to be Jesus
speaking.
Ultimately, whether it’s Jesus or John, it makes little difference in the sense that it is the inspired Word of
God, and the Spirit of God has been pleased to grant us this monumental statement, and we want it back,
but the meaning of this text and the understanding of it determines, hinges upon, three important and
pivotal words, and we are going to consider each one of them this morning. In each case, the problem in
modern understanding of John 3 and verse 16 is that we jump to a meaning of each of these three words
which is quantitative rather than qualitative in our understanding. Quantitative, of course, looks at
everything as a measurement, as a quantity. However, a qualitative understanding of the word doesn’t
look at it as a quantity; it looks at it as a quality. Not how much it is, but what kind of whatever it is, it is.
Now, we have a tendency in America, in fact, I think this is a peculiarity of American culture, to look at
everything in terms of quantity. How much, how many, how big, how long, how fast, how fat, of whatever
it is. That’s our interest. That’s not the interest of Gospel matters. Very seldom a matter of quantity, but it
is always a matter of quality. It’s no surprise to us then in America, which is particularly addicted to the
quantitative line of things, that John 3 and verse 16 should not be understood, because there are these
three pivotal words, all of them, we immediately jump to the conclusion that they are talking about
quantities instead of qualities.
Well, what are the three words? The first one is really the crux of the matter. The first one, if understood,
we don’t even need to talk about the second and the third. The first one is absolute proof that we need to
change our thinking about this verse. And the problem is not even the translation really, but our
understanding of the little word, and the meaning of that word in the original language. And it is the word
‘so,’ the smallest word that one might think, other than an article, or a first person personal pronoun. It’s
just two little letters, and yet notice that in the standard understanding of John 3: 16 in the world today the
word ‘so’ is the word which receives the most emphasis. I submit to you that it ought to receive the most
emphasis. The problem is, we do not understand the word correctly. “For God so loved the world.” From
the day that you first heard this verse, and perhaps even until today, when you heard that word ‘so,’ in
your mind, it meant ‘so much’. God loved the world so much that he was moved to do something, that is,
give his Son. Everyone, probably, everyone with very few exceptions, has grown up with the default
understanding of this little word ‘so’: that that’s what it means. God loved the world so much that he was
moved to do something.
The problem is that it’s absolutely, categorically not the case. The word ‘so’ here is not an intensive
particle. The word ‘so’ here is, in grammatical terms, an adverb of manner. Now, this word is used 208
times in the New Testament. So it’s not one of those words that’s used once or twice or maybe only once
or such a small handful of times that we may be somewhat in doubt as to exactly what it might mean. It’s
used 208 times in the New Testament. I’m talking, in the original language. It’s the Greek word outws.
Therefore, if we look at all 208 times, we probably will have a good idea of what it means. We can look
it up in all the lexicons, and we will find that it is never an intensive particle. It is always described as an
adverb of manner. Now, what does that mean? It means that it does not mean ‘so’ in the sense of ‘so
much.’ It means ‘so’ in the sense of ‘how.’ You go to someone and you say, “How in the world did you do
that?” And they might say, “I did it so.” “This is how I did it.” Now, I’ve looked up all 208 times in the
New Testament that the word outws is used. You can tell I was interested in it. I’ve looked them all up. I’
ve read every lexicon that speaks of the word. I know the etymology of the word. That is, how it came to
be this word. It’s an adverb which comes from a near demonstrative pronoun and an adverb which means
‘as.’ ‘As this’ is the basic meaning, when you glue it together, and it has an adverbial ending. It’s not an
intensive particle, ‘so much;’ it’s an adverb of manner ‘how so,’ and, all 208 times it’s used in the New
Testament, it always means ‘how so,’ not ‘so much.’ Now, for instance, we’re given a clue to this,
because, of those 208 times, the nearest one is in the verse just preceding. In fact, verse 14, the one just
before the one preceding. Notice verse 14, “and as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so
(even so) must the Son of Man be lifted up.” What does the ‘so’ mean there? Can it be an intensive
particle? No. It must be an adverb of manner. “Even in this way must also the Son of Man be lifted up.”
There’s no way possible for you to understand that as ‘so much.’ It makes no sense. And, in fact, it makes
no sense anywhere else. And it’s exactly the same word that we find in John 3 and verse 16. Having said
that, what then ought we to say? How ought it to have been better translated? It ought to say: “God loved
the world, God’s love for the world is like this. God loved the world in this manner.” It’s an adverb of
manner. “Here is how God has declared and showed his love to the world. He gave his only begotten
Son.” Not that God loved the world so much, but here is how God has shown his love to the world. How?
In giving his son. Now it changes our thinking on how we look at this text immensely, doesn’t it? The
emphasis is not on the amount of love. All of a sudden the emphasis is upon what God has done in the
giving of his son. Here is how he has loved the world. God has loved the world in this specific way: in
the giving of his Son. Now there are a couple of things then we have learned from this. Number one, in the
words of John Owen, “By love here is not meant an inclination or propensity of God’s nature, but an act
of his will.” The love of God, which is not one of the words we are going to key on this morning, is not an
attribute of God. I do not believe that love is an attribute of God. Love is always an act of the will. God
has set his love. How has he done it? He has done it ‘so,’ by the giving of his Son. It is not an inclination,
or propensity, merely in God’s nature. It’s an act of his will. B.B. Warfield has said, “We will not make
the slightest step forward in understanding our text so long as we permit ourselves to treat the term ‘God’
merely as the subject of the sentence. Here is how this God has demonstrated his love to the world: in the
giving of his Son. ”
The second thing that we want to note is that the measure of God’s love is not in the number of those
loved, or in the value of the soul. That is what we have generally been taught, isn’t it? God loved the
world. Now, how big is the love of God? How do you measure the size of the love of God? Answer: You
measure the size of the world. If the world is big, then God’s love is big. If the world is small, then I
expect that his love would be small. The bigger the world, the bigger the love. In other words, the two are
made correlative. But that’s only if you take ‘so’ as an intensive particle. God’s love for this world,
whatever size it is, is irrelevant, because the point is: here is how he has demonstrated his love, by the
giving of his son, and the problem is we attempt to measure the love of God by the size of the world,
which is not the indication at all, or others have said “by the value of the soul” which is not an indicator
of the dimension of God’s love. The measure of God’s love is four things in our text.
Number 1: It’s measured by the fact that it is God’s. It’s God’s love. Secondly, it’s measured by the fact
that it gives Christ. Thirdly, it’s measured by the fact that it embraces sinners. And fourthly, the love of
God is measured by the fact that it secures the life of each one believing. It secures the life of each one
believing. Warfield again says, “Beginning with the obvious misstep of directing our attention, at once,
rather to the greatness of the world than to the greatness of God’s love, and only inferring the latter from
the former, ends by positively belittling the love of God. The love of God cannot be measured by the size
of the world, however you understand that word. Measured by the fact that it’s God’s love, it gives
Christ, it embraces sinners, of all people, and it secures the life of each one believing.
Now then, there is the important thought, and what a change it would make if we understood it this way, or
if it had been translated this way: God’s love for the world is like this, he gave his son so that each one
believing would not perish. We would never have had to deal with it in such a controversial fashion at
all. But that is what the word means. Take my word for it. I could prove it to you if you wish, 208 times in
the New Testament, and it never, never, never, never is used in the sense of ‘so much.’ Only here has it
been displaced to be given that meaning.
So then, having said that, there is a second word that we need to understand, and not quantitatively but
qualitatively, and that is the word ‘world.’ “For God so loved the world.” What is meant there by
‘world’? And the fact, of course, that the texts that are in the Word of God that speak of the ‘world,’ and
others that speak of ‘all,’ in one way or another to describe the purpose, or intent, or effect, of the death of
Christ, are argued vehemently against the doctrine of particular redemption. Here is one of their favorite
ones, “For God so loved the world.” You can say all that you want about the particularity of Christ’s
work, and the purpose of his Father, and how he says, “This is the will of him who sent me, that of all that
he has given me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up on the last day.” You can believe all those
things, and there’s always going to be someone in the back of the room saying, “But what about John 3:
16?” “For God so loved the world.” Of course, what does the word ‘world’ mean?
There are three ways that we can look at it. The first is, to take it intensively. By intensively, I mean, that
when we use the word ‘world,’ we are using it in the sense that refers to every man, woman and child on
the face of the earth. Of course, we have to say more than that, don’t we? It has to be every man, woman
and child that ever was, is, or shall be, on the face of the earth. In order to have universal atonement, we
have to do that. It’s not just the people then living, or now living. It has to be everyone who has ever lived
on the face of the earth, if we want to take the word ‘world’ intensively. I want to submit to you, that it is
highly questionable whether this sense is found anywhere in the New Testament. It is never used with that
sense, and yet that, of course, is the default understanding. You say the word ‘world’; well, you mean the
race of Adam, everyone that has ever inhabited the face of the earth. But we don’t even use it that way
today. The word ‘world,’ or cosmos, in the original language of the New Testament, is not an illative
term, that is, one which is illative, is a word which draws our attention to the size of the thing. The word
‘world’ always in the New Testament is not a word of quantity, but a word of quality. It’s not how many
people that word ‘world’ may embrace, it is the kind of people, especially in the Gospel according to
John and his letters.
“Strange as it may sound,” as Warfield has said, “many, perhaps the majority of those who feed their
souls on this great declaration, seem to have trained themselves to think, not so much, how great God’s
love is, but rather, how great the world is. Having begun with this false step, it is not surprising if the
wandering mind finds itself shortly lost in admiration, not even of the greatness of the world, but rather, in
the greatness of the individual soul. Moreover, the debate as to whether the love here celebrated
distributes itself to each and every man that enters into the composition of the world, lies outside the
immediate scope of the passage, for the sinful world that’s conceived here quantitatively, not
quantitatively, but qualitatively, is not the number of people that might be embraced by that term; it’s the
kind of people. The world. However, it is not an intensive word. It is not an illative term. There are other
ways in which the word ‘world’ can be, and is understood, and ought to be, in this text.
The second is to be understood extensively, not intensively. What do I mean by intensively? Each man,
woman and child who ever lived, each one intensively. That’s one way to look at it. It’s not clear that
there is anyplace in the New Testament where that is ever its meaning. There is another way to look at the
word ‘world,’ and that is, extensively, not intensively, but extensively. This divides itself further into two
categories.
First of all, the world is looked upon as an ethical world. An ethical world, that is, a world, and its
ethical bearing, and, as I said, in John, the world always has this sinister and antichrist connotation. Think
for a moment. John 3:16 says, “For God so loved the world.” God loved the world. He loved it in this
way. For remember the same author in 1 John chapter 2 and verse 15 says, “Love not the world, either the
things that are in the world. If any man loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.” How can you
make those two things compatible? Don’t love it. But God did. You can only understand that there’s no
contradiction there, if you understand the word ‘so’ correctly. God loved it in this way, that he gave his
Son that believers should not perish. Again, Warfield says, “The world that he, the apostle to whom we
owe this great declaration tells us, is just the synonym of all that is evil, and noisome, and disgusting.” Its
primary connotation is ethical, and the point of its employment is not to suggest that the world is so big
that it takes a great deal of love to embrace it all, but that the world is so bad that it takes a great kind of
love to love it at all, you see, qualitatively, rather than quantitatively. Now that’s the ethical sense. It is
that sinister, antichrist body of men that are always out there, the world, and the system of it.
The other way to understand the word ‘world’ extensively is not ethically, but, I hope this is the word,
ethnically, that is, in terms of race, the world in the minds of the Jews. Especially remember, the context
of the New Testament was written here, and these who are addressed initially were Jews and, in fact,
whom is Jesus speaking to in this chapter? To Nicodemus, the ruler of the Jews, the teacher of Israel.
What did they think the ‘world’ was? How did the Jews use the word ‘world”? They used it like this:
there’s us, the sons of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the Jewish race, the chosen people of God, to whom
belong the oracles of God, and the sacrifices, and the priesthood, and the promises, and all those things.
They are ours. We are the special people of God, all right, and what is out there? You are not the only
people in the world. Who are they that are out there? Their answer would have come back without any
doubt: they are the world. There’s the Jew, and there’s the world, the Goyim, the nations, the world. To
John and to men like John, the disciples even, the Gospel’s universalism in this sense, it is universal in
this sense, it is no longer confined, nor was it ever confined, ultimately, to just one race. But the most
amazing thing to the New Testament writer seems to be, that the Gospel was no longer limited to Jews.
This was, no doubt, the well nigh the most astonishing fact about Christianity to those who first heard it.
Now I can prove that to you. Look in John chapter 4. We don’t need to go very far to see any of these
things well illustrated. John chapter 4 and verse 42. You remember that Jesus came to Samaria. Now the
Samaritans were not Jews; they were half-breeds; they were imported people. Now Jesus goes through
Samaria, which was very strange, because Jews didn’t want anything to do with Samaritans. Do you know
why? They were the world, and they knew, the Samaritans knew, what the Jews thought of them. They
were dogs; they were the world. And the Jews were the only persons exempted from that designation.
Remember that Jesus speaks to the woman at the well, and then he speaks to everyone in the city, and they
believe. Look at verse 42, “And they said to the woman, “Now we believe, not because of thy speaking,
for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is indeed the savior of the world.”’ What did they
mean by that? “We know now that this is the savior of the world.” What did they mean? They mean, “This
is not just some Jewish fellow coming down the road with the ordinary Jewish prejudice, where he cares
nothing for anyone, and will not speak to anyone, except he be one of his own Jewish race. Here’s a man
who comes and speaks to us about salvation, and it is a salvation which transcends the border of Israel,
and so they are able to say, “He’s the savior of the world.”
The world there obviously has an ethnic sense. It has an ethical sense, and an ethnic sense. And in these
two senses we understand the extensive use of this word, not intensive, but extensive. This ethnical
understanding of the word is merely to say that Christ Jesus is a worldwide savior. Aren’t you glad he is
a worldwide savior? “For God so loved the world.” Not just Israel, but beyond Israel. He’s the only
savior the world has. He is a worldwide savior. It has nothing to do with the extent of the atonement there.
It merely has to do with the fact that it transcends the traditional barriers that Israel had been set up, and it
was a great shock for them to hear this.
Now there’s even more to say. We do not believe that the word ‘world’ is to be used intensively, but
rather extensively, and there are two thoughts there, ethically and ethnically, but there’s also another way,
not intensive, not extensive, but also protensive. Now I know that that word is not a word, but you
understand what I mean? There’s intensive; there’s extensive, but then there’s protensive. That is, looking
to the future. Warfield again says, “He, that is, John, sees the world not only lying on every side of him in
space, but very especially as stretching out before him in time. Jesus came to save the world, and the
world will through him be saved. At the end of the day, he will have a saved world to present to the
Father.” Does that sound right, or do you think I’m some sort of Unitarian universalist? Well, God is going
to empty out hell, and toss it into heaven at the last day, and ultimately every last man, woman, and child
that has ever lived, will be in heaven with God. I don’t believe that, nor do you, but I do believe what
Warfield says, “Jesus came to save the world, and the world will be saved. At the end of the day, he will
have a saved world to present to his Father.” This is merely to say, and understanding the word ‘world’
in this way, it is to say that Jesus Christ shall indeed save the world. Now, this is in the same sense that
Noah saved the world. Now you say, how many ever millions of people there were upon the earth at the
time of the flood, only eight souls went into the ark, right? Noah’s three sons and their three wives, and
his wife. Eight people went into the ark, and only eight people came out of the ark, and the whole
remainder of the population of the world, the whole race of Adam, except for those eight, were drowned
in the flood. True, but Noah saved the world. He saved the race of Adam. It was not an extinction of the
race, because the world was saved, because even though part of it only was in the ark, there is the same
sense in which Christ will save the world. The world will not be a total loss. On the other hand, Warfield
warns us, the elect, they are not the residuum of a great conflagration, the ashes, so to speak, of a burnt up
world gathered sadly together by the Creator after the catastrophe is over. No, no. Nay, they are
themselves the world. Thus then it is that God is saving the world. The world, mind you, not merely some
individuals out of it, and so you can see then this idea of the ‘world,’ understood protensively.
There’s a third word that we want to understand, quickly, as we come to the end of this. The first word
we need to understand, in order to understand John 3:16, is the word ‘so.’ That changes the whole
complexion of the matter. The second, of course, is the word ‘world,’ which never is used in that
intensive sense. It’s used ethically, and ethnically, and protensively. The third word we want to note is the
word ‘whosoever.’ Now, this again is most unfortunate. It’s unfortunate, first of all, for what’s been done
with this word, and it’s also unfortunate the word was even translated this way in the first place. The
word ‘whosoever’ would correspond to a Greek indefinite relative pronoun. Greek does have an
indefinite relative pronoun. In this case it would be oitines, and, if we had that word here, I would be
perfectly happy with the translators for having it translated, “that whosoever believeth on him should not
perish but have everlasting life,” but, alas, that’s not the word we have here. As a matter of fact,
remember Revelation 22 and verse 17? “The Spirit and the Bride say, ‘Come’. Let everyone say, ‘Come.’
And let him who will,” “whosoever will.” Remember the King James? “Whosoever will let him, ‘Come,’
and take the water of life freely.” Alas, the word oitines was not there either. The Greek language has an
indefinite relative pronoun, but it’s not used in Revelation 22:17, “Whosoever will let him come.”
Remember singing the song, “Whosoever will, whosoever will”? I remember singing that one. We sang it
right after “The roll is called up yonder.” Revelation 22 and verse 17. What is the most blessed word in
John 3:16? “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever.” Ultimately,
that becomes the key, doesn’t it? Whosoever. There is the universal invitation, the universal love of God,
the universal atonement of Christ, the universal freewill of man. It’s all there. They just relish it, the
Gospel in a nutshell. But I’m going to take away the word ‘whosoever’ from them also, because we do
not have the indefinite relative pronoun here. We have merely the word ‘all,’ or ‘each’ or ‘every’ with a
participle, o pisteuwn, and it merely says this: think of the whole verse now: “God loved the world in this
way that he gave his only begotten Son in order that each one believing, pas o pisteuwn, ‘each one
believing’ should not perish, but have everlasting life.” The word ‘whosoever’ is not there. It shouldn’t
have been translated that way. It should have been translated “each or every one believing.” Spurgeon
says, “God’s love giving Christ does not open a door, but in fact closes one.” Here is the compass of the
love of God: while every unbeliever is excluded, every believer is included. It’s only the one believing
that shall not perish, but no one believing shall ever perish. That’s the promise of John 3 and verse 16:
God loved the world in this way: he gave his Son, so that not one believer should ever perish. It doesn’t
open a door to whosoever. It closes a door and it says: only believers do not perish. In this way, that God
has loved the world, not that any who believe may. The text says, each one who believes shall not perish,
not some sort of permission. It’s not some sort of open invitation at all. It’s a declaration that those who
believe will not perish. It doesn’t open a door. It closes one. The unbelievers are excluded, but the
believers cannot be excluded. They will not perish.
Now then, we have looked at these three words: ‘so,’ ‘world,’ and ‘whosoever.’ Very quickly, there are
four observations that I want to make in conclusion: First of all, we conclude that the love of God is
remarkable, not for the number of those embraced, but for the nature of them. It embraces sinners.
Secondly, the love of God is not a default faculty, or a dispositional clemency on the part of God, but is
his eternal determination to save sinners by the giving of his Son. God loved the world in this way. How?
He gave. The third thing we observe, is that the love of God is measured, not by its scope, but by its
efficiency. No believer will perish. There is the efficiency of the love of God. Again, B B Warfield says,
“Does the love of God expend itself in inoperative manifestation? Surely not so can be measured the love
of God.” The very point of the passage lies on the one side, in the mightiness of the love of God, and on
the other, of the unwillingness of, not of some, but of all, its object. And the fourth and last thing we
observe, is that the love of God assures that saving faith and eternal life are correlative, inseparably and
indelibly connected with one another. The one believing shall not perish. It assures, however, unbelievers
of nothing. Think about it, what does John 3:16 say about unbelievers? It says believers do not perish.
What does it say about unbelievers? It says in fact, they will perish.
In conclusion, listen to the words of A A Hodge: “It is surely an abuse of Scripture to say that the elect
and the reprobate, those appointed to honor and those appointed to dishonor, those who before of old
were ordained to this condemnation, and those who were ordained to eternal life, those whom God
hardens, and those upon whom he has mercy, the world and those chosen out of the world are all
indiscriminately the objects of this amazing, this heaven-moving, this soul-redeeming love of God.
Impossible for them both to be the objects in a saving way, of this love. Simply this, “God loved the
world in this way, that he gave his only begotten Son that each one who believes can not possibly perish,
but shall have eternal life,” that the promise to believers is not an offer to those who are dead in their sins
and recalcitrant against the Gospel. In fact, the verse that belongs to us, and we would rejoice in it, does
not belong to those who would use it as a sacrosanct text to prove the universal love of God, the universal
atonement of Christ, and the universal freewill of man, none of which we find to be biblical doctrine. Let
us then take this verse back. Let us rejoice in it. It tells us that believers cannot run even the risk of
perishing, that God has loved the world in such a way, that this should be our eternal hope.
Let’s bow together in prayer. Father, once again, we thank you for the Lord Jesus Christ. We thank you
that out of this world you have in such a way seen fit to deliver us by the giving of your Son. We thank you
for the promise that not any one believing could possibly perish. We would rejoice in these things. We
would take every verse for ourselves, and rejoice in it. We believe the Word of God. We pray now that
you would dismiss us with your blessing. We thank you for the meeting of the people of God. We pray for
the number of those who are not with us today. They are here, and they are there. We know that you know
where they are. Bless them we pray, and that you would give us a day of rest, and we would rejoice in the
truth of God. Dismiss us then with your blessing, for we ask it in Christ’s name. Amen.
by Tom Lyon
I want to turn your attention to probably what is the most familiar verse in all of the Bible, and the reason
I am going to do this is that I think it would be helpful for us to review this on the one hand, and there are
others of you who need to hear this for the first time, and another reason is that I seriously entertained
using this text as my text to open up, to expound, the doctrine of particular redemption. Probably it would
be construed by most that to use this verse to expound the doctrine of particular redemption is like trying
to storm the wall of the enemy at the highest part, at its strongest defense. After all, is this not a text which
probably is used by them more to the contrary than any other text? and what I am speaking of, before I go
too far, is John 3 and verse 16. You’re all well aware of this text. If I were to be relatively certain in this
congregation, and, in fact, in almost any, if there was one verse in the entire Bible that everyone knew by
heart, it would be John 3 and verse 16, and, of course, it says that, “For God so loved the world that he
gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth on him should not perish but have everlasting life.” I
believe that I quoted that from the King James, but of course I can do that because I have it on the tip of
my tongue, and probably it’s upon yours also. It’s a verse that we know very well and you might think you’
d have to have your head examined to preach on the doctrine of particular redemption, or limited
atonement, and to take that text, because, as I said, that is the strong point, supposedly, in the objection to
that very teaching.
In fact, this is a text which is used by most of the world today as a proof text for three sacrosanct
doctrines, and they find them all proven here to their satisfaction. The three doctrines are these: Number
one: the universal love of God. Number two: the universal atonement of Christ. Number three: the
universal free will of man. “For God so loved the world,” the universal love of God. “That he gave his
only begotten Son,” the universal atonement of Christ. “That whosoever believeth should not perish but
have everlasting life,” the universal freewill of man.
You’d think the best thing that a Calvinist would want to do is explain that text away, or wish that John
had never written it, or somehow do what he can to dodge its use of ‘whosoever.’ However, my first text
that I thought of to take, if I were to deal with it textually rather than topically in the conference on the
doctrine of particular redemption, or limited atonement, my choice was to choose John 3 and verse 16.
You might ask, “Well, how in the world can that be?” (No pun intended.) “How can that be that you’d
choose this text to preach that doctrine?
You realize that this text has been used as a veritable alternative to Biblical literacy in our day.” You are
basically told, I think, that you don’t really need to know all those things. You don’t need to know all that
theology. You don’t need the confession; in fact, you don’t really need your Bible. All you need is one
verse, and for many people their religion is one verse: John 3 and verse 16. It is a Swiss army knife text.
You know what I mean by that? A Swiss army knife has all the gears and gadgets, and you have this text
and you have the Swiss army knife in your pocket. You can do anything. You can screw screws, you can
cut, you can cut paper with scissors, you can corkscrew, you can do the corkscrew, and you can clean
your fingernails. You can do everything. It’s all there on your Swiss army knife. Well, John 3 and verse
16 has been used in that way, has it not? When you turn on your television and you see a basketball game
or a football game or the golf match you find there’s always some wag in the front row with a big sign that
says what on it? John 3:16, as if just the text somehow is going to have this Gospel effect. You never see
another text. It’s always John 3:16, isn’t it? I can think of some other texts I’d rather put there, but if John
3:16 was understood, and if that did any good, then it might be worthwhile, but I’m certain that it’s not.
There’s a sign I’ve mentioned to you before between here and Portland, (at least it used to be there, I
haven’t been down the road for quite awhile) a big sign that’s advertising the fact that a man has a shop in
which he manufactures biblical signs, supposedly. It’s called The Gospel Sign Shoppe, and of course he
has this giant sign which shows how wonderfully he can make these signs so that you’ll come and take
advantage of his expertise, and of course the sign has this on it, “For God so loved the world that he gave
his only begotten Son, et cetera, et cetera.” So it has been confused or used as an alternative to biblical
literacy. It is the only weapon in the arsenal that you need. It is, as I was told, the Gospel in a nutshell.
Everything you need is here.
It’s also a text, which has been used as a convenient hiding place, or shelter, for folks who are threatened
in their theological perspective. I can still recall, and I may have told you before, of a time when I was
invited to give a couple of hours of exposition to a group of people gathered, interested to hear something
of the doctrines of grace, and so I went, and, I remember, for 2 hours I opened up the logic of the
doctrines of grace, and the Scripture that is found to bear these things out and for 2 hours I did the best that
I could to bring together all of these lines and strands of thought, and apprize a group of supposedly
interested people about the doctrines of grace and I can still remember that I felt like I had pretty good
freedom, and I felt like the whole audience was pretty well there and hanging on the truth as it was opened
up gradually before their eyes, and how greatly encouraged, and, as I finally concluded, thinking that
probably I had worn them down beyond repair, I asked if there were any questions, and there was one
lady in the back, and her response was: “Well, it’s all very well, but, what about John 3:16?” In other
words, as if merely the mentioning of that verse reduced everything that had been said to rubble. And it
was the convenient shelter for listening to anything that might seem to be contrary to the three sacrosanct
untouchable doctrines which supposedly are taught in this text: The universal love of God, the universal
atonement of Christ, and the universal freewill of man. Of course, modern evangelicalism today,
Arminianism if you will, is built upon these three pillars, supposedly all found and proven once and for
all beyond any shadow of doubt in John 3 and verse 16.
A couple of things to observe before we look at this text: The first is that real Christianity is not the
holding of propositions only. Real Christianity is the holding of propositions in biblical context and
tension. It is not merely the believing of something, and having a text to quote, supposedly, that supports it.
That which you believe must be consistent with what the Bible teaches, not just in a text, but everywhere.
It must recognize and take into full account the weight of every other doctrine that bears upon it. No
doctrine, no text, can be used in a vacuum separated somehow from the entire Word of God. Now, let’s
face it, there are many people who call themselves Christians in our day who have a little pocket full, let’
s say, of texts, proof texts, which say “This is why I believe this.” And “Here’s the text why I believe
that.” And “There’s the other text why,” and, of course, John 3:16 is this Swiss army knife text that you
can prove almost everything you care to believe, but that is not real Christianity, and is not biblical
hermeneutics. The propositions that we hold must be held in concert and in context with the Word of God,
and its teachings as a whole.
The second thing we want to observe is that it is prudent to appreciate what is at stake. If John 3:16 were
to be submitted to review, and that’s why there’s such great resistance to any further thought on John 3 and
verse 16, because if it were submitted to review it’s not just that men would have to change their
theology. Men change their theology very readily. They’re very happy to change even the most cardinal
doctrines in a moment. We’ve seen that, I’ve seen that, over and over again. People being solid Reformed
Baptists, and deciding that they’re Presbyterians the next day. People deciding that they hold this view,
and you talk to them the next week, and they’ve completely changed it. People will change their
theological position literally at the drop of a hat. What they will not jettison, they will not let go of, is
their method. Their theology can change as you like, but their methodology they will not allow to be
touched, and that is the problem, and that is why people so tenaciously hang on to their understanding of
John 3:16. They will not submit their thinking to review, not because that would change their theology.
That is an easy thing. It would change their methodology. “What do you mean? Then I wouldn’t be able to
say this, and I wouldn’t be able to say that. Specifically, God loves you, Christ died for you, and now it’s
up to you,” what they suppose they find in John 3 and verse 16. Take anything away from them, but you
can’t take that away. That’s why this verse so stubbornly retains a kind of set meaning in people’s minds.
Now, let us note that, in the heat of controversy, texts are often handled controversially. That is: All right,
we have a controversy. What does this mean? When we handle texts controversially there is a tendency
for them to be diffused by either party in the controversy, and then discarded. That is, we explain them
away. There are a number of books that have done this. They take the text, and they take it by the throat,
and they make it promise not to say what they don’t want it to say, and then they throw it in the corner and
say, “All right, we’ve washed our hands of that. It’s no longer a problem to us.” But we cannot do that
with the Word of God. There is no text that we are allowed to explain away. We must explain it
satisfactorily on a biblical hermeneutic and then believe what it says. We have no right to put texts in a
corner, or to put them away. After a text has been retrieved from the grasp of its usurpers, it remains the
task of returning it to the rightful hands of its rightful owners, and that’s why John 3:16 needs to be
recovered, because it belongs to us, not to the Arminian world.
You may remember the story I told about Janie. We were driving along the road, and we were bored with
the long trip, and we turned on the radio, and a fellow came on. He was to preach. It was announced that
he was upcoming, and when he finally arrived his voice came there over the radio, and he merely said as
his beginning remark, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever
would believe in him should not perish but have everlasting life.” And Janie reached over and turned it
off, and I said, “Why did you do that?” And she said, “He’s an Arminian.” I said, “How do you know
that? All he did was quote John 3:16.” And she said “Yes, but I know what he meant.” “I know what he
meant.” You see, there is something attached to this. Now, when we read that text, do we know what we
mean? It’s important, because we’re not willing just to discard the text. We want it for ourselves and we
want it for ourselves honestly. What is the teaching of John 3 and verse 16 and why would I possibly have
entertained the notion of using it in a conference where I’m supposed to preach on particular redemption?
When, apparently, in the eyes and minds of most evangelical Christianity today, it proves exactly the
diametrically opposed opposite? I submit to you that it’s easy to do. That is because the teaching of John
3:16, and some of you will remember this line of reasoning that I want to remind you of it, the teaching of
John 3:16 hinges upon an understanding of the meaning and connection of three words. They may not be
the three that you would think are the three that are most important. Of course, there is a great deal of
emphasis on the love of God in John 3 and verse 16, but I am not going to deal with that word. I have no
complaints or problems about the love of God. And I do not believe that that is the significant focus even
of this text in terms of understanding what is being taught in this place. Also, I might mention that there is a
difficulty in John 3 and verse 16 at the very beginning and that is: where did Jesus, in his speaking to
Nicodemus, finish, and where did John begin to editorialize in the writing of his Gospel? It’s very
difficult to say. The paragraph division might lead you to suppose that it is at the end of verse 15 that
Jesus stops speaking, and now we hear John. It’s possible to argue that, no, it’s still continuing to be Jesus
speaking.
Ultimately, whether it’s Jesus or John, it makes little difference in the sense that it is the inspired Word of
God, and the Spirit of God has been pleased to grant us this monumental statement, and we want it back,
but the meaning of this text and the understanding of it determines, hinges upon, three important and
pivotal words, and we are going to consider each one of them this morning. In each case, the problem in
modern understanding of John 3 and verse 16 is that we jump to a meaning of each of these three words
which is quantitative rather than qualitative in our understanding. Quantitative, of course, looks at
everything as a measurement, as a quantity. However, a qualitative understanding of the word doesn’t
look at it as a quantity; it looks at it as a quality. Not how much it is, but what kind of whatever it is, it is.
Now, we have a tendency in America, in fact, I think this is a peculiarity of American culture, to look at
everything in terms of quantity. How much, how many, how big, how long, how fast, how fat, of whatever
it is. That’s our interest. That’s not the interest of Gospel matters. Very seldom a matter of quantity, but it
is always a matter of quality. It’s no surprise to us then in America, which is particularly addicted to the
quantitative line of things, that John 3 and verse 16 should not be understood, because there are these
three pivotal words, all of them, we immediately jump to the conclusion that they are talking about
quantities instead of qualities.
Well, what are the three words? The first one is really the crux of the matter. The first one, if understood,
we don’t even need to talk about the second and the third. The first one is absolute proof that we need to
change our thinking about this verse. And the problem is not even the translation really, but our
understanding of the little word, and the meaning of that word in the original language. And it is the word
‘so,’ the smallest word that one might think, other than an article, or a first person personal pronoun. It’s
just two little letters, and yet notice that in the standard understanding of John 3: 16 in the world today the
word ‘so’ is the word which receives the most emphasis. I submit to you that it ought to receive the most
emphasis. The problem is, we do not understand the word correctly. “For God so loved the world.” From
the day that you first heard this verse, and perhaps even until today, when you heard that word ‘so,’ in
your mind, it meant ‘so much’. God loved the world so much that he was moved to do something, that is,
give his Son. Everyone, probably, everyone with very few exceptions, has grown up with the default
understanding of this little word ‘so’: that that’s what it means. God loved the world so much that he was
moved to do something.
The problem is that it’s absolutely, categorically not the case. The word ‘so’ here is not an intensive
particle. The word ‘so’ here is, in grammatical terms, an adverb of manner. Now, this word is used 208
times in the New Testament. So it’s not one of those words that’s used once or twice or maybe only once
or such a small handful of times that we may be somewhat in doubt as to exactly what it might mean. It’s
used 208 times in the New Testament. I’m talking, in the original language. It’s the Greek word outws.
Therefore, if we look at all 208 times, we probably will have a good idea of what it means. We can look
it up in all the lexicons, and we will find that it is never an intensive particle. It is always described as an
adverb of manner. Now, what does that mean? It means that it does not mean ‘so’ in the sense of ‘so
much.’ It means ‘so’ in the sense of ‘how.’ You go to someone and you say, “How in the world did you do
that?” And they might say, “I did it so.” “This is how I did it.” Now, I’ve looked up all 208 times in the
New Testament that the word outws is used. You can tell I was interested in it. I’ve looked them all up. I’
ve read every lexicon that speaks of the word. I know the etymology of the word. That is, how it came to
be this word. It’s an adverb which comes from a near demonstrative pronoun and an adverb which means
‘as.’ ‘As this’ is the basic meaning, when you glue it together, and it has an adverbial ending. It’s not an
intensive particle, ‘so much;’ it’s an adverb of manner ‘how so,’ and, all 208 times it’s used in the New
Testament, it always means ‘how so,’ not ‘so much.’ Now, for instance, we’re given a clue to this,
because, of those 208 times, the nearest one is in the verse just preceding. In fact, verse 14, the one just
before the one preceding. Notice verse 14, “and as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so
(even so) must the Son of Man be lifted up.” What does the ‘so’ mean there? Can it be an intensive
particle? No. It must be an adverb of manner. “Even in this way must also the Son of Man be lifted up.”
There’s no way possible for you to understand that as ‘so much.’ It makes no sense. And, in fact, it makes
no sense anywhere else. And it’s exactly the same word that we find in John 3 and verse 16. Having said
that, what then ought we to say? How ought it to have been better translated? It ought to say: “God loved
the world, God’s love for the world is like this. God loved the world in this manner.” It’s an adverb of
manner. “Here is how God has declared and showed his love to the world. He gave his only begotten
Son.” Not that God loved the world so much, but here is how God has shown his love to the world. How?
In giving his son. Now it changes our thinking on how we look at this text immensely, doesn’t it? The
emphasis is not on the amount of love. All of a sudden the emphasis is upon what God has done in the
giving of his son. Here is how he has loved the world. God has loved the world in this specific way: in
the giving of his Son. Now there are a couple of things then we have learned from this. Number one, in the
words of John Owen, “By love here is not meant an inclination or propensity of God’s nature, but an act
of his will.” The love of God, which is not one of the words we are going to key on this morning, is not an
attribute of God. I do not believe that love is an attribute of God. Love is always an act of the will. God
has set his love. How has he done it? He has done it ‘so,’ by the giving of his Son. It is not an inclination,
or propensity, merely in God’s nature. It’s an act of his will. B.B. Warfield has said, “We will not make
the slightest step forward in understanding our text so long as we permit ourselves to treat the term ‘God’
merely as the subject of the sentence. Here is how this God has demonstrated his love to the world: in the
giving of his Son. ”
The second thing that we want to note is that the measure of God’s love is not in the number of those
loved, or in the value of the soul. That is what we have generally been taught, isn’t it? God loved the
world. Now, how big is the love of God? How do you measure the size of the love of God? Answer: You
measure the size of the world. If the world is big, then God’s love is big. If the world is small, then I
expect that his love would be small. The bigger the world, the bigger the love. In other words, the two are
made correlative. But that’s only if you take ‘so’ as an intensive particle. God’s love for this world,
whatever size it is, is irrelevant, because the point is: here is how he has demonstrated his love, by the
giving of his son, and the problem is we attempt to measure the love of God by the size of the world,
which is not the indication at all, or others have said “by the value of the soul” which is not an indicator
of the dimension of God’s love. The measure of God’s love is four things in our text.
Number 1: It’s measured by the fact that it is God’s. It’s God’s love. Secondly, it’s measured by the fact
that it gives Christ. Thirdly, it’s measured by the fact that it embraces sinners. And fourthly, the love of
God is measured by the fact that it secures the life of each one believing. It secures the life of each one
believing. Warfield again says, “Beginning with the obvious misstep of directing our attention, at once,
rather to the greatness of the world than to the greatness of God’s love, and only inferring the latter from
the former, ends by positively belittling the love of God. The love of God cannot be measured by the size
of the world, however you understand that word. Measured by the fact that it’s God’s love, it gives
Christ, it embraces sinners, of all people, and it secures the life of each one believing.
Now then, there is the important thought, and what a change it would make if we understood it this way, or
if it had been translated this way: God’s love for the world is like this, he gave his son so that each one
believing would not perish. We would never have had to deal with it in such a controversial fashion at
all. But that is what the word means. Take my word for it. I could prove it to you if you wish, 208 times in
the New Testament, and it never, never, never, never is used in the sense of ‘so much.’ Only here has it
been displaced to be given that meaning.
So then, having said that, there is a second word that we need to understand, and not quantitatively but
qualitatively, and that is the word ‘world.’ “For God so loved the world.” What is meant there by
‘world’? And the fact, of course, that the texts that are in the Word of God that speak of the ‘world,’ and
others that speak of ‘all,’ in one way or another to describe the purpose, or intent, or effect, of the death of
Christ, are argued vehemently against the doctrine of particular redemption. Here is one of their favorite
ones, “For God so loved the world.” You can say all that you want about the particularity of Christ’s
work, and the purpose of his Father, and how he says, “This is the will of him who sent me, that of all that
he has given me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up on the last day.” You can believe all those
things, and there’s always going to be someone in the back of the room saying, “But what about John 3:
16?” “For God so loved the world.” Of course, what does the word ‘world’ mean?
There are three ways that we can look at it. The first is, to take it intensively. By intensively, I mean, that
when we use the word ‘world,’ we are using it in the sense that refers to every man, woman and child on
the face of the earth. Of course, we have to say more than that, don’t we? It has to be every man, woman
and child that ever was, is, or shall be, on the face of the earth. In order to have universal atonement, we
have to do that. It’s not just the people then living, or now living. It has to be everyone who has ever lived
on the face of the earth, if we want to take the word ‘world’ intensively. I want to submit to you, that it is
highly questionable whether this sense is found anywhere in the New Testament. It is never used with that
sense, and yet that, of course, is the default understanding. You say the word ‘world’; well, you mean the
race of Adam, everyone that has ever inhabited the face of the earth. But we don’t even use it that way
today. The word ‘world,’ or cosmos, in the original language of the New Testament, is not an illative
term, that is, one which is illative, is a word which draws our attention to the size of the thing. The word
‘world’ always in the New Testament is not a word of quantity, but a word of quality. It’s not how many
people that word ‘world’ may embrace, it is the kind of people, especially in the Gospel according to
John and his letters.
“Strange as it may sound,” as Warfield has said, “many, perhaps the majority of those who feed their
souls on this great declaration, seem to have trained themselves to think, not so much, how great God’s
love is, but rather, how great the world is. Having begun with this false step, it is not surprising if the
wandering mind finds itself shortly lost in admiration, not even of the greatness of the world, but rather, in
the greatness of the individual soul. Moreover, the debate as to whether the love here celebrated
distributes itself to each and every man that enters into the composition of the world, lies outside the
immediate scope of the passage, for the sinful world that’s conceived here quantitatively, not
quantitatively, but qualitatively, is not the number of people that might be embraced by that term; it’s the
kind of people. The world. However, it is not an intensive word. It is not an illative term. There are other
ways in which the word ‘world’ can be, and is understood, and ought to be, in this text.
The second is to be understood extensively, not intensively. What do I mean by intensively? Each man,
woman and child who ever lived, each one intensively. That’s one way to look at it. It’s not clear that
there is anyplace in the New Testament where that is ever its meaning. There is another way to look at the
word ‘world,’ and that is, extensively, not intensively, but extensively. This divides itself further into two
categories.
First of all, the world is looked upon as an ethical world. An ethical world, that is, a world, and its
ethical bearing, and, as I said, in John, the world always has this sinister and antichrist connotation. Think
for a moment. John 3:16 says, “For God so loved the world.” God loved the world. He loved it in this
way. For remember the same author in 1 John chapter 2 and verse 15 says, “Love not the world, either the
things that are in the world. If any man loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.” How can you
make those two things compatible? Don’t love it. But God did. You can only understand that there’s no
contradiction there, if you understand the word ‘so’ correctly. God loved it in this way, that he gave his
Son that believers should not perish. Again, Warfield says, “The world that he, the apostle to whom we
owe this great declaration tells us, is just the synonym of all that is evil, and noisome, and disgusting.” Its
primary connotation is ethical, and the point of its employment is not to suggest that the world is so big
that it takes a great deal of love to embrace it all, but that the world is so bad that it takes a great kind of
love to love it at all, you see, qualitatively, rather than quantitatively. Now that’s the ethical sense. It is
that sinister, antichrist body of men that are always out there, the world, and the system of it.
The other way to understand the word ‘world’ extensively is not ethically, but, I hope this is the word,
ethnically, that is, in terms of race, the world in the minds of the Jews. Especially remember, the context
of the New Testament was written here, and these who are addressed initially were Jews and, in fact,
whom is Jesus speaking to in this chapter? To Nicodemus, the ruler of the Jews, the teacher of Israel.
What did they think the ‘world’ was? How did the Jews use the word ‘world”? They used it like this:
there’s us, the sons of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the Jewish race, the chosen people of God, to whom
belong the oracles of God, and the sacrifices, and the priesthood, and the promises, and all those things.
They are ours. We are the special people of God, all right, and what is out there? You are not the only
people in the world. Who are they that are out there? Their answer would have come back without any
doubt: they are the world. There’s the Jew, and there’s the world, the Goyim, the nations, the world. To
John and to men like John, the disciples even, the Gospel’s universalism in this sense, it is universal in
this sense, it is no longer confined, nor was it ever confined, ultimately, to just one race. But the most
amazing thing to the New Testament writer seems to be, that the Gospel was no longer limited to Jews.
This was, no doubt, the well nigh the most astonishing fact about Christianity to those who first heard it.
Now I can prove that to you. Look in John chapter 4. We don’t need to go very far to see any of these
things well illustrated. John chapter 4 and verse 42. You remember that Jesus came to Samaria. Now the
Samaritans were not Jews; they were half-breeds; they were imported people. Now Jesus goes through
Samaria, which was very strange, because Jews didn’t want anything to do with Samaritans. Do you know
why? They were the world, and they knew, the Samaritans knew, what the Jews thought of them. They
were dogs; they were the world. And the Jews were the only persons exempted from that designation.
Remember that Jesus speaks to the woman at the well, and then he speaks to everyone in the city, and they
believe. Look at verse 42, “And they said to the woman, “Now we believe, not because of thy speaking,
for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is indeed the savior of the world.”’ What did they
mean by that? “We know now that this is the savior of the world.” What did they mean? They mean, “This
is not just some Jewish fellow coming down the road with the ordinary Jewish prejudice, where he cares
nothing for anyone, and will not speak to anyone, except he be one of his own Jewish race. Here’s a man
who comes and speaks to us about salvation, and it is a salvation which transcends the border of Israel,
and so they are able to say, “He’s the savior of the world.”
The world there obviously has an ethnic sense. It has an ethical sense, and an ethnic sense. And in these
two senses we understand the extensive use of this word, not intensive, but extensive. This ethnical
understanding of the word is merely to say that Christ Jesus is a worldwide savior. Aren’t you glad he is
a worldwide savior? “For God so loved the world.” Not just Israel, but beyond Israel. He’s the only
savior the world has. He is a worldwide savior. It has nothing to do with the extent of the atonement there.
It merely has to do with the fact that it transcends the traditional barriers that Israel had been set up, and it
was a great shock for them to hear this.
Now there’s even more to say. We do not believe that the word ‘world’ is to be used intensively, but
rather extensively, and there are two thoughts there, ethically and ethnically, but there’s also another way,
not intensive, not extensive, but also protensive. Now I know that that word is not a word, but you
understand what I mean? There’s intensive; there’s extensive, but then there’s protensive. That is, looking
to the future. Warfield again says, “He, that is, John, sees the world not only lying on every side of him in
space, but very especially as stretching out before him in time. Jesus came to save the world, and the
world will through him be saved. At the end of the day, he will have a saved world to present to the
Father.” Does that sound right, or do you think I’m some sort of Unitarian universalist? Well, God is going
to empty out hell, and toss it into heaven at the last day, and ultimately every last man, woman, and child
that has ever lived, will be in heaven with God. I don’t believe that, nor do you, but I do believe what
Warfield says, “Jesus came to save the world, and the world will be saved. At the end of the day, he will
have a saved world to present to his Father.” This is merely to say, and understanding the word ‘world’
in this way, it is to say that Jesus Christ shall indeed save the world. Now, this is in the same sense that
Noah saved the world. Now you say, how many ever millions of people there were upon the earth at the
time of the flood, only eight souls went into the ark, right? Noah’s three sons and their three wives, and
his wife. Eight people went into the ark, and only eight people came out of the ark, and the whole
remainder of the population of the world, the whole race of Adam, except for those eight, were drowned
in the flood. True, but Noah saved the world. He saved the race of Adam. It was not an extinction of the
race, because the world was saved, because even though part of it only was in the ark, there is the same
sense in which Christ will save the world. The world will not be a total loss. On the other hand, Warfield
warns us, the elect, they are not the residuum of a great conflagration, the ashes, so to speak, of a burnt up
world gathered sadly together by the Creator after the catastrophe is over. No, no. Nay, they are
themselves the world. Thus then it is that God is saving the world. The world, mind you, not merely some
individuals out of it, and so you can see then this idea of the ‘world,’ understood protensively.
There’s a third word that we want to understand, quickly, as we come to the end of this. The first word
we need to understand, in order to understand John 3:16, is the word ‘so.’ That changes the whole
complexion of the matter. The second, of course, is the word ‘world,’ which never is used in that
intensive sense. It’s used ethically, and ethnically, and protensively. The third word we want to note is the
word ‘whosoever.’ Now, this again is most unfortunate. It’s unfortunate, first of all, for what’s been done
with this word, and it’s also unfortunate the word was even translated this way in the first place. The
word ‘whosoever’ would correspond to a Greek indefinite relative pronoun. Greek does have an
indefinite relative pronoun. In this case it would be oitines, and, if we had that word here, I would be
perfectly happy with the translators for having it translated, “that whosoever believeth on him should not
perish but have everlasting life,” but, alas, that’s not the word we have here. As a matter of fact,
remember Revelation 22 and verse 17? “The Spirit and the Bride say, ‘Come’. Let everyone say, ‘Come.’
And let him who will,” “whosoever will.” Remember the King James? “Whosoever will let him, ‘Come,’
and take the water of life freely.” Alas, the word oitines was not there either. The Greek language has an
indefinite relative pronoun, but it’s not used in Revelation 22:17, “Whosoever will let him come.”
Remember singing the song, “Whosoever will, whosoever will”? I remember singing that one. We sang it
right after “The roll is called up yonder.” Revelation 22 and verse 17. What is the most blessed word in
John 3:16? “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever.” Ultimately,
that becomes the key, doesn’t it? Whosoever. There is the universal invitation, the universal love of God,
the universal atonement of Christ, the universal freewill of man. It’s all there. They just relish it, the
Gospel in a nutshell. But I’m going to take away the word ‘whosoever’ from them also, because we do
not have the indefinite relative pronoun here. We have merely the word ‘all,’ or ‘each’ or ‘every’ with a
participle, o pisteuwn, and it merely says this: think of the whole verse now: “God loved the world in this
way that he gave his only begotten Son in order that each one believing, pas o pisteuwn, ‘each one
believing’ should not perish, but have everlasting life.” The word ‘whosoever’ is not there. It shouldn’t
have been translated that way. It should have been translated “each or every one believing.” Spurgeon
says, “God’s love giving Christ does not open a door, but in fact closes one.” Here is the compass of the
love of God: while every unbeliever is excluded, every believer is included. It’s only the one believing
that shall not perish, but no one believing shall ever perish. That’s the promise of John 3 and verse 16:
God loved the world in this way: he gave his Son, so that not one believer should ever perish. It doesn’t
open a door to whosoever. It closes a door and it says: only believers do not perish. In this way, that God
has loved the world, not that any who believe may. The text says, each one who believes shall not perish,
not some sort of permission. It’s not some sort of open invitation at all. It’s a declaration that those who
believe will not perish. It doesn’t open a door. It closes one. The unbelievers are excluded, but the
believers cannot be excluded. They will not perish.
Now then, we have looked at these three words: ‘so,’ ‘world,’ and ‘whosoever.’ Very quickly, there are
four observations that I want to make in conclusion: First of all, we conclude that the love of God is
remarkable, not for the number of those embraced, but for the nature of them. It embraces sinners.
Secondly, the love of God is not a default faculty, or a dispositional clemency on the part of God, but is
his eternal determination to save sinners by the giving of his Son. God loved the world in this way. How?
He gave. The third thing we observe, is that the love of God is measured, not by its scope, but by its
efficiency. No believer will perish. There is the efficiency of the love of God. Again, B B Warfield says,
“Does the love of God expend itself in inoperative manifestation? Surely not so can be measured the love
of God.” The very point of the passage lies on the one side, in the mightiness of the love of God, and on
the other, of the unwillingness of, not of some, but of all, its object. And the fourth and last thing we
observe, is that the love of God assures that saving faith and eternal life are correlative, inseparably and
indelibly connected with one another. The one believing shall not perish. It assures, however, unbelievers
of nothing. Think about it, what does John 3:16 say about unbelievers? It says believers do not perish.
What does it say about unbelievers? It says in fact, they will perish.
In conclusion, listen to the words of A A Hodge: “It is surely an abuse of Scripture to say that the elect
and the reprobate, those appointed to honor and those appointed to dishonor, those who before of old
were ordained to this condemnation, and those who were ordained to eternal life, those whom God
hardens, and those upon whom he has mercy, the world and those chosen out of the world are all
indiscriminately the objects of this amazing, this heaven-moving, this soul-redeeming love of God.
Impossible for them both to be the objects in a saving way, of this love. Simply this, “God loved the
world in this way, that he gave his only begotten Son that each one who believes can not possibly perish,
but shall have eternal life,” that the promise to believers is not an offer to those who are dead in their sins
and recalcitrant against the Gospel. In fact, the verse that belongs to us, and we would rejoice in it, does
not belong to those who would use it as a sacrosanct text to prove the universal love of God, the universal
atonement of Christ, and the universal freewill of man, none of which we find to be biblical doctrine. Let
us then take this verse back. Let us rejoice in it. It tells us that believers cannot run even the risk of
perishing, that God has loved the world in such a way, that this should be our eternal hope.
Let’s bow together in prayer. Father, once again, we thank you for the Lord Jesus Christ. We thank you
that out of this world you have in such a way seen fit to deliver us by the giving of your Son. We thank you
for the promise that not any one believing could possibly perish. We would rejoice in these things. We
would take every verse for ourselves, and rejoice in it. We believe the Word of God. We pray now that
you would dismiss us with your blessing. We thank you for the meeting of the people of God. We pray for
the number of those who are not with us today. They are here, and they are there. We know that you know
where they are. Bless them we pray, and that you would give us a day of rest, and we would rejoice in the
truth of God. Dismiss us then with your blessing, for we ask it in Christ’s name. Amen.
