Born Again (37)

John 3:16 (C)

Let us take several examples from the Bible. The first one will just illustrate the need for context, and I have deliberately chosen something that has no immediate relevance to our verse. The example is Exodus 20:13, and there God declares, "You shall not kill." But what shall we not kill? Yes, humans. But what about vegetables? What about bacteria? These are not ridiculous questions, for once the context is ignored, these are indeed possibilities.

As with John 3:16, this verse has been subject to much abuse, and what usually happens is that a context, which defines and restricts the meaning, is imposed upon the text in the reader's mind without regard to the actual context in which the verse appears. This is why some people think that they can use this verse to oppose capital punishment, whereas other parts of the Bible explicitly command it. Others assert that this commandment would forbid us to eat meat, whereas the Bible explicitly permits it elsewhere. But if we cannot eat meat because we cannot "kill," and the killing here somehow includes animals, then how come vegetables and bacteria do not come under the same protection?

Of course, the commandment is more properly translated, "You shall not murder" (Exodus 20:13, NIV), but we still need the broader context of Scripture to define murder, since some advocates suggest that it is murder to execute a criminal, and it is murder to kill a chicken. But somehow it is permissible to murder vegetables and bacteria.

Now let us come to a more relevant example, at least in terms of the expression used. We read in John 12:18-19, "Many people, because they had heard that he had given this miraculous sign, went out to meet him. So the Pharisees said to one another, 'See, this is getting us nowhere. Look how the whole world has gone after him!'"

The Pharisees lament that "the whole world" has gone after Jesus. If we were to interpret Scripture as our opponents do, we must conclude that all human beings in all of history have become Christians. The work of evangelization is finished, and hell is completely empty except for the devil and his angels. And now that we think of it, why are the devil and his angels excluded from "the whole world," unless Scripture provides a context to justify this exclusion? Moreover, if we will forget about demons for now, if "the whole world" must mean every human person, then the Pharisees who uttered this statement must themselves have "gone after" Jesus. This would make their exclamation not a complaint, but a glad observation!

If our opponents do not adopt this absurd interpretation, it is because they are assuming a context that is different from the one that they use when reading John 3:16. Just by reading the surrounding verses, it becomes clear that "the whole world" in verse 19 refers to the "many people" in verse 18, and perhaps also "the crowd" in verse 17. If "the whole world" does not automatically and necessarily mean every human person in history, then neither can we simply assume when it comes to the "world" in John 3:16.

(to be continued)