John 3:19-21 (C)

Some commentators suggest that there is a sense in which the person who hides from the light is self-condemned. The illustration is used that the way a person reacts to an established work of art tells us something about the person rather than the work of art. The masterpiece serves as a standard and a reference point by which the person is judged, and rather than damaging its worth, the person who belittles the masterpiece is "self-condemned," at least when it comes to art appreciation. In a similar fashion, the person who does not come to the light betrays his true nature and motives, and according to the beginning of verse 19, this is how the process of judging occurs.

There is no problem with this – and indeed, if this is what the passage teaches there cannot be any problem with this – as long as we remember that the description is relative, so that we do not abuse the text by deriving from it some idea of human freedom, as if man is self-condemned apart from God. No, this would contradict the consistent teaching of Scripture, that God exercises complete control over all men, whether for good or for evil.

The text is relative because, although it indeed tells us how humanity is split by Christ as the standard and the reference point, it does not tell us why some are evildoers and why they remain such. Nothing in the text says that evil is self-caused or that men make themselves evil. In addition, in a context when Paul is talking about the elect and the non-elect, those whom God loves and those whom God hates (Romans 9:13), he mentions that it is up to God to make "some pottery for noble purposes and some for common use" (v. 21).

The Gospel of John itself refers to those who "belong" to God and those who "belong" to the devil, and nothing indicates that the people themselves are the ones who decide to whom they will belong. And we must not forget the passage, also in the Gospel of John, which says that some people cannot believe because God actively blinds their minds and deadens their hearts. So both the elect and the non-elect are made that way by God, and actively kept that way by God, and it is this that explains why they behave differently in John 3:19-21.

Moreover, although the idea of self-condemnation has some meaning in a very narrow context – it tells us how some people behave relative to a reference point – it cannot be pressed very far. It is not as if a person can create a hell and then send himself there. No, God decided to create it and send people there. A man would not even know how to go to hell after he dies unless God takes him there. Why, do you think that God would just hand him a map and expects him to find his way to hell by himself? No, John writes that the unbeliever is thrown into the lake of fire (Revelation 20:15).

(to be continued)

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