John 3:16

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”

John Calvin (1509-1564)

For God so loved the world. Christ opens up the first cause, and, as it were, the source of our salvation, and he does so, that no doubt may remain; for our minds cannot find calm repose, until we arrive at the unmerited love of God. As the whole matter of our salvation must not be sought any where else than in Christ, so we must see whence Christ came to us, and why he was offered to be our Saviour. Both points are distinctly stated to us: namely, that faith in Christ brings life to all, and that Christ brought life, because the Heavenly Father loves the human race, and wishes that they should not perish. And this order ought to be carefully observed; for such is the wicked ambition which belongs to our nature, that when the question relates to the origin of our salvation, we quickly from diabolical imaginations about our own merits. Accordingly, we imagine that God is reconciled to us, because he has reckoned us worthy that he should look upon us. But Scripture everywhere extols his pure and unmingled mercy, which sets aside all merits.

And the words of Christ mean nothing else, when he declares the cause to be in the love of God. For if we wish to ascend higher, the Spirit shuts the door by the mouth of Paul, when he informs us that this love was founded on the purpose of his will, (Eph. i. 5.) And, indeed, it is very evident that Christ spoke in this manner, in order to draw away men from the contemplation of themselves to look at the mercy of God alone. Nor does he say that God was moved to deliver us, because he perceived in us something that was worthy of so excellent a blessing, but ascribes the glory of our deliverance entirely to his love. And this is still more clear from what follows; for he adds, that God gave his Son to men, that they may not perish. Hence it follows that, until Christ bestow his aid in rescuing the lost, all are destined to eternal destruction. This is also demonstrated by Paul from a consideration of the time; for he loved us, while we were still enemies by sin, (Rom. v. 8, 10.) And, indeed, where sin reigns, we shall find nothing but the wrath of God, which draws death along with it. It is mercy, therefore, that reconciles us to God, that he may likewise restore us to life.

This mode of expression, however, may appear to be at variance with many passages of Scripture, which lay in Christ the first foundation of the love of God to us, and show that out of him we are hated by God. But we ought to remember–what I have already stated–that the secret love with which the Heavenly Father loved us in himself is higher than all other causes; but that the grace which he wishes to be made known to us, and by which we are excited to the hope of salvation, commences with the reconciliation which was procured through Christ. For since he necessarily hates sin, how shall we believe that we are loved by him, until atonement has been made for those sins on account of which he is justly offended at us? Thus, the love of Christ must intervene for the purpose of reconciling God to us, before we have any experience of his fatherly kindness. But as we are first informed that God, because he loved us, gave his Son to die for us, so it is immediately added, that it is Christ alone on whom, strictly speaking, faith ought to look.

He gave his only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on him may not perish. This, he says, is the proper look of faith, to be fixed on Christ, in whom it beholds the breast of God filled with love: this is a firm and enduring support, to rely on the death of Christ as the only pledge of that love. The word only-begotten is emphatic, (emphatikon,) to magnify the fervour of the love of God towards us. For as men are not easily convinced that God loves them, in order to remove all doubt, he has expressly stated that we are so very dear to God that, on our account, he did not even spare his only-begotten Son. Since, therefore, God has most abundantly testified his love towards us, whoever is not satisfied with this testimony, and still remains in doubt, offers a high insult to Christ, as if he had been an ordinary men given up at random to death. But we ought rather to consider that, in proportion to the estimation in which God holds his only-begotten Son, so much the more precious did our salvation appear to him, for the ransom of which he chose that his only-begotten Son should die. To this name Christ has a right, because he is by nature the only Son of God; and he communicates this honour to us by adoption, when we are ingrafted into his body.

That whosoever believeth on him may not perish. It is a remarkable commendation of faith, that it frees us from everlasting destruction. For he intended expressly to state that, though we appear to have been born to death, undoubted deliverance is offered to us by the faith of Christ; and, therefore, that we ought not to fear death, which otherwise hangs over us. And he has employed the universal term whosoever, both to invite all indiscriminately to partake of life, and to cut off every excuse from unbelievers. Such is also the import of the term World, which he formerly used; for though nothing will be found in the world that is worthy of the favour of God, yet he shows himself to be reconciled to the whole world, when he invites all men without exception to the faith of Christ, which is nothing else than an entrance into life.

Let us remember, on the other hand, that while life is promised universally to all who believe in Christ, still faith is not common to all. For Christ is made known and held out to the view of all, but the elect alone are they whose eyes God opens, that they may seek him by faith. Here, too, is displayed a wonderful effect of faith; for by it we receive Christ such as he is given to us by the Father–that is, as having freed us from the condemnation of eternal death, and made us heirs of eternal life, because, by the sacrifice of his death, he has atoned for our sins, that nothing may prevent God from acknowledging us as his sons. Since, therefore, faith embraces Christ, with the efficacy of his death and the fruit of his resurrection, we need not wonder if by it we obtain likewise the life of Christ.

Still it is not yet very evident why and how faith bestows life upon us. Is it because Christ renews us by his Spirit, that the righteousness of God may live and be vigorous in us; or is it because, having been cleansed by his blood, we are accounted righteous before God be a free pardon? It is indeed certain, that these two things are always joined together; but as the certainty of salvation is the subject now in hand, we ought chiefly to hold by this reason, that we live, because God loves us freely by not imputing to us our sins. For this reason sacrifice is expressly mentioned, by which, together with sins, the curse and death are destroyed. I have already explained the object of these two clauses, which is, to inform us that in Christ we regain the possession of life, of which we are destitute in ourselves; for in this wretched condition of mankind, redemption, in the order of time, goes before salvation.

(From: “Commentary”)

John Flavel (1628-1691)

You have heard of the gracious purpose and design of God, to recover poor sinners to himself by Jesus Christ, and how this design of love was laid and contrived in the covenant of redemption, whereof we last spake.

Now, according to the terms of that covenant, you shall hear from this scripture, how that design was by one degree advanced towards its accomplishment, in God’s actual giving or parting with his own Son for us: “God so loved the world, that he gave,” &c.

The whole precedent context is spent in discovering the nature and necessity of regeneration, and the necessity thereof is in this text urged and inferred from the peculiar respect and eye God had upon believers, in giving Christ for them; they only reaping all the special and saving benefits and advantages of that gift: “God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish.”

In the words are to be considered,

1. The original spring or fountain of our best mercies, the love of God. The love of God is, either benevolent, beneficent, or complacential. His benevolent love, is nothing else but his desire and purpose of saving, and doing us good; so his purpose and grace to Jacob is called love, Rom. ix. 13. “Jacob have I loved;” but this being before Jacob was, could consist in nothing else but the gracious purpose of God towards him. His beneficent love, is his actual doing good to the persons beloved, or his bestowing the effects of his love upon us, according to that purpose. His complacential love, is nothing else but that delight and satisfaction he finds in beholding the fruits and workings of that grace in us, which he first intended for us, and then actually collated or bestowed on us. This love of benevolence, is that which I have opened to you, under the former head, God’s compact with Christ about us, or his design to save us on the articles and terms therein specified.

The love of beneficence, is that which this scripture speaks of; out of this fountain Christ flowed to us, and both ran into that of complacency; for therefore he both purposed and actually bestowed Christ on us, that he might everlastingly delight in beholding the glory and praise of all this reflected on himself, by his redeemed ones. This then is the fountain of our mercies.

2. The mercy flowing out of this fountain, and that is Christ; The mercy, as he is emphatically called, Luke i. 72. The marrow, kernel, and substance of all other mercies. He gave his[1] only begotten Son: This was the birth of that love, the like whereunto it never brought forth before, therefore it is expressed with a double emphasis in the text, the one is the particle outw so; “he so loved the world;” here is a sic without a sicut: How did he love it? Why, he so loved it; but how much, the tongues, of angels cannot declare. And moreover, to enhance the mercy, he is stiled his only begotten Son: to have given a Son had been wonderful; but to give his only begotten Son, that is love inexpressible, unintelligible.

3. The objects of this love, or the persons to whom the eternal Lord delivered Christ, and that is the [World.] This must respect the elect of God in the world, such as do, or shall actually believe, as it is exigetically expressed in the next words, “That whosoever believes in him should not perish:” Those whom he calls the world in that, he stiles believers in this expression; and the word [World] is put to signify the elect, because they are scattered through all parts, and are among all ranks of men in the world; these are the objects of this love; it is not angels, but men, that were so loved; he is called philanthropos, a Lover, a Friend of Men, but never philangelos, or philoktisos, the Lover or Friend of Angels, or creature of another species.

4. The manner in which this never-enough celebrated mercy flows to us, from the fountain of divine love, and that is most freely and spontaneously. He gave, not he sold, or barely parted from, but gave. Nor yet doth the Father’s giving imply Christ to be merely passive; for as the Father is here said to give him, so the apostle tells us, Gal. ii. 20. That he gave himself, “who loved me, and gave himself for me:” The Father gave him out of good will to men, and he as willingly bestowed himself on that service. Hence the note is,

DOCT. That the gift of Christ is the highest and fullest manifestation of the love of God to sinners, that ever was made from eternity to them.

How is this gift of God to sinners signalized in that place of the apostle, 1 John iv. 10. “Herein is love; not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins?” Why doth the apostle so magnify this gift in saying, “Herein is love,” as if there were love in nothing else![2] May we not say, that to have a being, a being among the rational creatures, therein is love? To have our life carried so many years like a taper in the hand of Providence, through so many dangers, and not yet put out in obscurity, therein is love? To have food and raiment, convenient for us, beds to lie on, relations to comfort us, in all these is love? Yea, but if you speak comparatively, in all these there is no love, to the love expressed in sending or giving Christ for us: These are great mercies in themselves; but compared to this mercy, they are all swallowed up, as the light of candles when brought into the sun-shine. No, no, herein is love, that God gave Christ for us. And it is remarkable, that when the apostle would shew us, in Rom. v. 8. what is the noblest fruit that most commends to men the root of divine love that bears it, he shews us this very fruit of it that I am now opening; “But God,” saith he, “commendeth his love towards us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us:” this is the very flower of that love.

1 Hic igitur unigeniti nomen emfatikon est ad probandam in nos amaris divini vehementiam. i.e. This strong epithet, of only begotten, is given in order to heighten the exceeding greatness of the love of God towards us. Bulling. on this place.

2 God loves all his creatures: and among these he especially loves those he hath endowed with reason, and of those he loves more especially those who are members of the Only-begotten. How much more the Only-begotten himself! Aug. T. 9. on John.

(From: “Works”)

George Gillespie (1613-1649)

In answer to the two arguments, - one from the iii. John 16. A.1. The brother takes for granted that by the world is meant the whole world. It is a point much controverted. Our divines do deny that the word world must in some places be taken in another sense....For that of the philanthropy it makes much against it....I cannot understand how there can be such a universal love of God to mankind as is maintained. Those that will say it must needs deny the absolute reprobation; then alone [perhaps ‘a love’] to those whom God hath absolutely reprobated both from salvation and the means of salvation....For the next argument from xvi. Mark....He conceives the ground of this universal offer is the institution [perhaps ‘intention’] of Christ in dying....For that of the truth....There is a truth in it: the connection of those two extremes must ever hold true faith and salvation. But what is that to a reprobate? Here is the mistake. The voluntas decreti and mandati are not distinguished....A man is bound to believe that he ought to believe, and that by faith he shall be saved. It is his duty. The command doth not hold out God’s intentions; otherwise God’s command to Abraham concerning sacrificing of his son....Said I cannot say so to a devil...True; but reason is, that it is the revealed will of God that devils are absolutely excluded, but not so any man known to me.

It is acknowledged the word world may suffer another sense - the elect, but said it must be a larger thing than believers....A. This is still taken for granted, which is to be proved, for I say it is very good sense. God so loved the elect, that whosoever believes in Him....The reconciling of a general love with absolute reprobation is not answered....The general offers of the gospel are not grounded upon the secret decree.

(From: “Minutes of the Sessions of the Westminster Assembly of Divines”)

Christopher Ness (1621-1705)

So John 3:16: “God so loved the world”, cannot be understood of the world containing, in a strict sense, for so birds, beasts, fishes, and all inanimate things are comprehended, which cannot have everlasting life; not can it be the world of men, but as God is the Preserver of both man and beast (Psalm 36:6). There is God’s love to creatures, His love to men, and His love to good men. God’s love was the cause of His sending Christ, and the word whosoever (in this verse) restrains this love of God to some and not others. It must therefore be properly God’s love to good men, the third love; not such as He found good, but such as He made so.

(From: “An Antidote against Arminianism”)

John Owen (1616-1683)

“God the Father so loved, had such a peculiar, transcendent love, being an unchangeable purpose and act of his will concerning their salvation, towards the world, miserable, sinful, lost men of all sorts, not only Jews but Gentiles also, which he peculiarly loved, that, intending their salvation, as in the last words, for the praise of his glorious grace, he gave, he prepared a way to prevent their everlasting destruction, by appointing and sending his only-begotten Son to be an all-sufficient Saviour to all that look up to him, that whosoever believeth in him, all believers whatsoever, and only they, should not perish, but have everlasting life, and so effectually be brought to the obtaining of those glorious things through him which the Lord in his free love had designed for them.”

(From: “The Death of Death in the Death of Christ”)

Arthur W. Pink (1886-1952)

Turning now to John 3:16, it should be evident from the passages just quoted, that this verse will not bear the construction usually put upon it. “God so loved the world”. Many suppose that this means, The entire human race. But “the entire human race,” includes all mankind from Adam till the close of the earth’s history: it reaches backward as well as forward! Consider, then, the history of mankind before Christ was born. Unnumbered millions lived and died before the Saviour came to the earth, lived here “having no hope and without God in the world”, and therefore passed out into an eternity of woe. If God “loved” them, where is the slightest proof thereof? Scripture declares, “Who (God) in times past (from the tower of Babel till after Pentecost) suffered all nations to walk in their own ways” (Acts 14:16). Scripture declares that, “And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient” (Rom. 1:28). To Israel God said, “You only have I known of all the families of the earth” (Amos 3:2). In view of these plain passages, who will be so foolish as to insist that God in the past loved all mankind! The same applies with equal force to the future. Read through the book of Revelation, noting especially chapters 8 to 19, where we have described the judgments which will yet be poured out from heaven on this earth. Read of the fearful woes, the frightful plagues, the vials of God’s wrath, which shall be emptied on the wicked. Finally, read the 20th chapter of the Revelation, the great white throne judgment, and see if you can discover there the slightest trace of love.

But the objector comes back to John 3:16 and says, “World means world”. True, but we have shown that “the world” does not mean the whole human family. The fact is that “the world” is used in a general way. When the brethren of Christ said, “Shew Thyself to the world” (John 7:4), did they mean “shew Thyself to all mankind”? When the Pharisees said, “Behold, the world is gone after Him” (John 12:19), did they mean that “all the human family” were flocking after Him? When the apostle wrote, “Your faith is spoken of throughout the whole world” (Rom. 1:8), did he mean that the faith of the saints at Rome was the subject of conversation by every man, woman, and child on the earth? When Rev. 13:3 informs us that “all the world wondered after the beast”, are we to understand that there will be no exceptions” What of the godly Jewish Remnant, who will be slain (Rev. 20:4) rather than submit? These, and other passages which might be quoted, show that the term “the world” often has a relative rather than an absolute force.

Now the first thing to note in connection with John 3:16 is that our Lord was there speaking to Nicodemus–a man who believed that God’s mercies were confined to his own nation. Christ there announced that God’s love in giving His Son had a larger object in view, that it flowed beyond the boundary of Palestine, reaching out to “regions beyond”. In other words, this was Christ’s announcement that God had a purpose of grace toward Gentiles as well as Jews. “God so loved the world”, then, signifies, God’s love is international in its scope. But does this mean that God loves every individual among the Gentiles? Not necessarily, for as we have seen, the term “world” is general rather than specific, relative rather than absolute. The term “world” in itself is not conclusive. To ascertain who are the objects of God’s love other passages where His love is mentioned must be consulted.

In 2 Peter 2:5 we read of “the world of the ungodly”. If then, there is a world of the ungodly there must also be a world of the godly. It is the latter who are in view in the passages we shall now briefly consider. “For the bread of God is He which cometh down from heaven, and given life unto the world” (John 6:33). Now mark it well, Christ did not say, “offereth life unto the world”, but “giveth”. What is the difference between the two terms? This: a thing which is “offered” may be refused, but a thing “given” necessarily implies its acceptance. If it is not accepted, it is not “given”, it is simply proffered. Here, then, is a scripture that positively states Christ giveth life (spiritual, eternal life) “unto the world.” Now He does not give eternal life to the “world of the ungodly” for they will not have it, they do not want it. Hence, we are obliged to understand the reference in John 6:33 as being to “the world of the godly”, i.e., God’s own people.

One more: in 2 Cor. 5:19 we read, “To wit that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself”. What is meant by this is clearly defined in the words immediately following, “not imputing their trespasses unto them”. Here again, “the world” cannot mean “the world of the ungodly”, for their trespasses” are “imputed” to them, as the judgment of the Great White Throne will yet show. But 2 Cor. 5:19 plainly teaches there is a “world” which are “reconciled”, reconciled unto God, because their trespasses are not reckoned to their account, having been borne by their Substitute. Who then are they? Only one answer is fairly possible–the world of God’s people!

In like manner, the “world” in John 3:16 must, in the final analysis, refer to the world of God’s people. Must we say, for there is no other alternative solution. It cannot mean the whole human race, for one half of the race was already in hell when Christ came to earth. It is unfair to insist that it means every human being now living, for every other passage in the New Testament where God’s love is mentioned limits it to His own people–search and see! The objects of God’s love in John 3:16 are precisely the same as the objects of Christ’s love in John 13:11: “Now before the Feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that His time was come, that He should depart out of this world unto the Father, having loved His own which were in the world, He loved them unto the end”. We may admit that our interpretation of John 3:16 is no novel one invented by us, but one almost uniformly given by the Reformers and Puritans, and many others since them.

(From: “The Sovereignty of God”)

Matthew Poole (1624-1679)

For God the Father, who is the Lord of all, debtor to none, sufficient to himself, so loved the world, that is, Gentiles as well as Jews. There is a great contest about the signification of the term, betwixt those who contend for or against the point of universal redemption; but certain it is, that from this term no more can be solidly concluded, than from the terms all and every, which in multitudes of places are taken in a restrained sense for many, or all of such a nation or kind. As this term sometimes signifies all persons, so, in 1 John ii.2, the Gentiles in opposition to the Jews. Nor, admitting that the world should signify here every living soul in the place called the world, will any thing follow from it. It is proper enough to say, A man loved such a family to such a degree that he gave his estate to it, though he never intended such a thing to every child or branch of it. So as what is truth in that so vexed a question cannot be determined from any of these universal terms; which must, when all is said that can be said, be expounded by what follows them, and by their reconcilableness to other doctrines of faith. God so loved the world that he gave his Son to die for a sacrifice for their sins, to die in their stead, and give a satisfaction for them to his justice. And this Son was not any of his sons by adoption, but his only begotten Son; not so called (as Socinians would have it) because of his singular generation of the virgin without help of man, but from his eternal generation, in whom the Gentiles should trust, Psal.ii.12, which none ought to do, but in God alone, Deut. vi.13; Jer. xvii.5. That whosoever, &c: the term all is spoken to above; these words restrain the universal term world, and all, to let us know that Christ died only for some in the world, viz. such as should believe in him. Some judge, not improbably, that Christ useth the term world in this verse in the same sense as in 1 John ii.2. Our evangelist useth to take down the pride of the Jews, who dreamed that the Messiah came only for the benefit of the seed of Abraham, not for the nations of the world, he only came to destroy them; which notion also very well fitteth what we have in the next verse.

(From: “A Commentary on the Holy Bible”)

Samuel Rutherford (1600-1661)

For the two scriptures alleged yesterday desire when I give a reason of the denial of a proposition....For that of iii. John 16, three grounds of an argument taken from this place: 1. From the word loved; a general love to elect and reprobate. 2. From the word world, generally taken, because distributive afterwards. 3. Grounded upon God’s intention upon condition of faith....For the first Christ speaks of a particular special love....This all one with those places....This love is parallel with that expressed in those three places....The love of one giving his life for his friends....the love that moved Him to send His only-begotten Son...If the love in the iii. of John be the same with those, as in those places is meant the special particular love of God commensurable with election....not one scripture in all the New Testament where it can be expounded for the general....2. The love in the iii. of John 16 is restricted to the Church; v. Eph. 21, restricted to a Church....so ii. Gal. 20: loved me; the apostle who lives the life of God by faith,....v. Rom. 8, the sinners and ungodly are set down to be the justified by faith....Such a love as moved the husband Christ to give His life for His spouse, such as moved....such as God commends, for the highest love is a restricted special love....3. It is an actual saving love, and therefore not a general love.

(From: “Minutes of the Sessions of the Westminster Assembly of Divines”)