Born Again (36)

John 3:16 (B)

The verse says that God loves "the world," and this refers to the object and the scope of his love. As it is, this expression adds to the beautiful picture that John is painting for us about God's plan of redemption. However, at this point many people begin to twist the text to serve their own theological prejudice and humanistic bias. The distortion has been so emphasized and promoted that it has become the majority view. Therefore, we will devote part of this chapter to deal with it.

There are those who insist that "the world" here must refer to every human person in the entire history of mankind, that is, every individual in all of time. Those who, like me, disagree with this interpretation, but who point out that there is a context to John's usage of the term that narrows its scope, are sometimes accused of refusing to accept the plain teaching of the verse.

Now, if "the world" indeed refers to every human person in history, then the verse would be saying that God loves everyone, and that he loves everyone with a saving love that sends Jesus Christ to die for each human person. Therefore, from God's perspective, he has done all that he could do to secure potential salvation for every person. Salvation now depends on the person, on his own freedom of choice, and no longer on God. If this is what the text states and implies, then we ought to submit to it. But as I will explain, this interpretation is not only false, but it is also irreverent.

When we object to the above understanding of the word "world," we are told that if the text says "world," then we must accept that it means "world." I have no problem with this, but my question is what "world" means. Our opponents make a similar point in places where the Bible uses words such as, "anyone," "everyone," "all," and so on. They ignore the fact that these words appear in specific contexts that define their meaning and restrict their scope. I will first illustrate this point from general language usage, and then from several biblical passages.

First, it is true that we must accept what is written just as it is written. But what is written is always written within a context. When we accept "what is written," we must accept all that is written, that is, along with the context of the specific words and phrases that we are focusing on.

If I were to write, "I deny that I am a woman," then for you to take only "I am a woman" and say that we must accept just "what is written" is in fact to reject what is written. In this case, your representation of "what is written" would be the exact opposite of what is actually written.

This is so simple that it appears I am insulting my readers, but it is precisely this very simple principle that our opponents refuse to implement when they read the Bible. Of course we should accept the plain statements of Scripture, but what are these plain statements? Our opponents would say that I plainly wrote, "I am a woman," and of course I did. But it is something that "I deny."

As for these seemingly universal terms like "anyone," "everyone," "all," and so on, they are indeed universal in the contexts in which they are used, but they are not always absolutely universal. If you were to tell me, apart from any stated or assumed context, that anyone can learn to cha-cha, I would reply, "Yes, and I would like you to teach a panda how to do it." You would come back and tell me that you mean any human person can do it. But then I would ask, "What about someone who is in a coma? How about a crippled person? And can a newborn baby learn to cha-cha?"

The point is that the context defines and restricts a seemingly universal term. Surely our opponents realize that the words "God so loved the world" are surrounded by other words, and that the entire passage appears in the much larger text of the Gospel of John? What then is this context? And why does this context support their interpretation? What is the theology of John? And how does it imply their understanding of the word "world" as it is used in John 3:16?

(to be continued)