John 3:1-21 (11)

Verse 17 closely follows verse 16, and continues to describe Jesus’ mission. To accurately understand it, we must include the context from verses 15-16. There we read that Jesus would be “lifted up,” referring to “the kind of death He was going to die” (12:33). And that God sends His Son out of love to perform the work of atonement on the cross. Keeping this in mind into verse 17, it makes perfect sense to say that “God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through Him.” The present focus is the atonement, and of course the atonement is not mainly to condemn the world, but to save those for whom Christ dies, for whom He makes this atonement. Because of this context, there is a particular sense in which God did not send His Son to condemn the world. The next verse says, “Whoever believes in Him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.” We are able to understand all of this in precisely the sense in which it is intended as long as we keep in mind Christ’s redemptive work as the background. He came to heal the sick, raise the dead, and save the sinners. He did not need to do the opposite – people were already sick, dying, and condemned.

Now consider John 9:39, where Jesus says, “For judgment I have come into this world, so that the blind will see and those who see will become blind.” “Judgment” and “Condemn” are from the same Greek word. Some people might find a verse like this puzzling in light of what we have just read in John 3:17, but the difficulty is easily resolved, because we have noted the precise sense in which 3:17 asserts what it does. When we then take similar care to read John 9:39, we immediately notice that the two verses are in fact talking about different things, or “judgment” in different senses. The word “judgment” here means distinction or separation, that “the blind will see and those who see will become blind.” Matthew 10:34 and Luke 12:49 explain that as well.

Remember the context of this verse, Jesus’ healing of a man born blind. The Pharisees were jealous and hostile, but when questioned by them, the man was grateful and loyal to the One who healed him. The Pharisees threw him out, but Jesus found him and asked, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” The man asked, “Who is He, sir? Tell me so that I may believe in Him.” Jesus said, “You have now seen Him; in fact, He is the One speaking with you.” Then the man said, “Lord, I believe,” and he worshiped Him. Paul writes that “No man can say that Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit” (1 Corinthians 12:3). On the other hand, the Pharisees were hardened, and Jesus said to them, “Your guilt remains.”

Wherever Jesus went and whatever He did, He caused a distinction to be made among men, and a separation between the believing and the unbelieving, the insiders and the outsiders, the elect and the non-elect. Jesus declared, “I did not come to bring peace, but a sword” (Matthew 10:34). But this is different from the emphasis in John 3:17. There the judgment is not a distinction made between people as they exhibit sharply different reactions to the words and works of Christ – that does not come up until verse 19. Rather, “to judge,” rendered “condemn” in John 3:17, is contrasted against “to save,” and that is why some versions translate that “God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through Him.”

Many people read, “God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world” and infer that God has no intention to condemn anyone. But verse 18 refutes that idea: “Whoever believes in Him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.” In other words, the condemnation of sinners and unbelievers is already settled and taken care of. The verse refers to those who hold to a stubborn and persistent unbelief. They are non-Christians, and they will never become Christians. These people, the verse says, are “condemned already.” There is no need for God to send His Son to condemn them. It is already a certainty. If anything, the coming of the Son of God has made the condemnation of the wicked even more clear and certain. The verse says that the unbeliever is condemned “because he has not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.” Verse 36 says, “God’s wrath remains on him.” Christ never propitiated God’s wrath toward the un-believer who remains such.