Who has not seen, during a sporting event broadcast on TV, a crowd shot that shows someone holding up a sign with "John 3:16" written on it? Even if people don't know that it means, it has become a part of the American cultural landscape. Of course the verse referred to is a seminal one for many Christians. "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life."
It is a beautiful verse in the middle of a critical section of John's gospel. But I confess that I have always struggled a bit with this passage. "For God so loved the world" is wonderful sounding, but it is followed by words of condemnation and judgment. Those who don't embrace God's love are "condemned already," and God's love coming into the world produces judgment because "people loved darkness rather than light." But what sort of love is it that shows up and condemns any who aren't immediately drawn to that love? What sort of loving parent would offer love with a sales pitch that says, "Call now! Offer expires soon?"
I suppose it helps a little to know that John writes to a Jewish-Christian community in crisis, encouraging them to hold onto their faith despite being ostracized at the local synagogue that has long been their religious home. Perhaps they need to hear that their rejection by friends and neighbors is the reverse of how things are with God. But if God truly loves the world (in John "world" is not so much a place as it is the arena that does not know God and resists God's ways), a world that God surely knows is inclined to flee the light, wouldn't God do something to get around the world's resistance to that love?
If nothing else, my questions are a warning about developing a theology from a few verses of Scripture. We simply cannot fit a meaningful faith on a bumper sticker or in a Tweet. And neither can a bumper sticker or 140 characters quote enough of the Bible event to begin speaking of God and God's work in the world. Indeed, one can't fully speak of God's work in Jesus drawing only on a single gospel. The picture of Jesus John gives us is incomplete without the other gospels and vice versa.
But still there is this issue of the light of God's love coming to the world, but people preferring darkness. Certainly love implies relationship, and relationship requires love to be both accepted and returned. To step away from love's advance has its consequences. But Jesus says something else in John's gospel just prior to his arrest and death. "And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself." That sounds to me like Jesus is sure that God's love will eventually triumph.
It is a beautiful verse in the middle of a critical section of John's gospel. But I confess that I have always struggled a bit with this passage. "For God so loved the world" is wonderful sounding, but it is followed by words of condemnation and judgment. Those who don't embrace God's love are "condemned already," and God's love coming into the world produces judgment because "people loved darkness rather than light." But what sort of love is it that shows up and condemns any who aren't immediately drawn to that love? What sort of loving parent would offer love with a sales pitch that says, "Call now! Offer expires soon?"
I suppose it helps a little to know that John writes to a Jewish-Christian community in crisis, encouraging them to hold onto their faith despite being ostracized at the local synagogue that has long been their religious home. Perhaps they need to hear that their rejection by friends and neighbors is the reverse of how things are with God. But if God truly loves the world (in John "world" is not so much a place as it is the arena that does not know God and resists God's ways), a world that God surely knows is inclined to flee the light, wouldn't God do something to get around the world's resistance to that love?
If nothing else, my questions are a warning about developing a theology from a few verses of Scripture. We simply cannot fit a meaningful faith on a bumper sticker or in a Tweet. And neither can a bumper sticker or 140 characters quote enough of the Bible event to begin speaking of God and God's work in the world. Indeed, one can't fully speak of God's work in Jesus drawing only on a single gospel. The picture of Jesus John gives us is incomplete without the other gospels and vice versa.
But still there is this issue of the light of God's love coming to the world, but people preferring darkness. Certainly love implies relationship, and relationship requires love to be both accepted and returned. To step away from love's advance has its consequences. But Jesus says something else in John's gospel just prior to his arrest and death. "And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself." That sounds to me like Jesus is sure that God's love will eventually triumph.
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