9  Responding to the Divine Offer  of Salvation  (John 3:11–21)

“Truly, truly, I say to you, we speak of what we know and testify of what we have seen, and you do not accept our testimony. If I told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things? No one has ascended into heaven, but He who descended from heaven: the Son of Man. As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up; so that whoever believes will in Him have eternal life. For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him. He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. This is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil. For everyone who does evil hates the Light, and does not come to the Light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But he who practices the truth comes to the Light, so that his deeds may be manifested as having been wrought in God.” (3:11–21)

Over the last few centuries, life spans have been extended, living conditions improved, and labor made safer and easier. Dreaded diseases that once were widespread, such as smallpox, polio, and various plagues, have been controlled or eliminated. Mechanization (at least in developed countries) has taken the drudgery and danger out of many jobs, and some of the most labor-intensive tasks are now performed entirely by machines. Of course, unsolved problems still remain, including war, poverty, certain incurable diseases, environmental concerns, and new problems raised by the very technology that helped solve the old ones. Yet humanity’s faith in progress remains largely unshaken. Many ardently believe that, given enough time, science and technology will one day overcome all of mankind’s remaining troubles.

But although man has made great strides in improving his living conditions, his most pressing problem—the one beside which all others pale in comparison—remains forever beyond his ability to solve. It is the same insurmountable issue that confronted Adam and Eve after the fall—namely, that all people, without exception (Rom. 3:10), are guilty sinners (Rom. 5:8) before a holy God, the righteous Judge (Ps. 7:11; 2 Tim. 4:8), who will justly condemn them to eternal punishment in hell (Rev. 20:11–15) for violating His holy law (Gal. 3:10).

Ever since Adam’s disobedience plunged the human race into sin (Rom. 5:12–21), Satan has ceaselessly promoted the lie that people can come to God on their own terms. That lie, embraced by all who follow the broad way that leads to destruction (Matt. 7:13), is at the heart of every false religion. But the Bible is clear that unregenerate people cannot save themselves; their condition is utterly hopeless, humanly speaking (Matt. 19:25–26). They are “dead in [their] trespasses and sins” (Eph. 2:1); unable to accept or understand spiritual truth (1 Cor. 2:14) because “the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ” (2 Cor. 4:4; cf. Eph. 4:18). They are enemies of God (Rom. 5:10; James 4:4); alienated from Him (Eph. 2:19; Col. 1:21; cf. Ps. 58:3); disobedient to Him (Eph. 2:2; Col. 3:6; Titus 3:3; cf. Job 21:15); ignorant of Him (Pss. 10:4; 14:1; 53:1; 2 Thess. 1:8; cf. Job 8:13); hostile to Him (Rom. 8:7; Col. 1:21); unloving toward Him (2 Tim. 3:4); haters of Him (Ps. 81:15; Rom. 1:30); rebellious toward Him (Ps. 5:10; 1 Tim. 1:9); and subject to His wrath (John 3:36; Rom. 1:18; Eph. 5:6). They are on the path to destruction (Matt. 7:13; Phil. 3:19) because they hate the light of spiritual truth (John 3:20) and hence are blind to it (Matt. 15:14). As children of Satan (Matt. 13:38; John 8:44; 1 John 3:10), they live under his control (Eph. 2:2), being members of his kingdom (Matt. 12:26; Col. 1:13) and “by nature children of wrath” (Eph. 2:3). Thus, they are slaves to sin (John 8:34; Rom. 6:17, 20) and corruption (2 Peter 2:19), “vessels of wrath prepared for destruction” (Rom. 9:22).

In light of that, religious rituals, good works, and self-reformation cannot solve the problem of spiritual death (Eph. 2:8–9; 2 Tim. 1:9; Titus 3:5). Only the radical transformation (2 Cor. 5:17) wrought by God in regeneration can impart spiritual life to the spiritually dead. That was the shocking truth with which Jesus confronted the zealous Pharisee Nicodemus (3:1–10). Although the Lord’s teaching on the new birth was solidly grounded in the Old Testament, Nicodemus was incredulous. He struggled to accept that his religious efforts were useless and needed to be abandoned altogether as a means to gain God’s kingdom.

Because Nicodemus responded in unbelief, he apparently walked away from his conversation with Jesus unconverted. (He did become a believer later, however, as noted in chapter 8 of this volume.) His initial response typifies those who reject the gospel. Unrepentant unbelief is the sin that ultimately condemns all lost sinners (cf. Matt. 12:31–32), for unless they confess Christ’s lordship, and repent of all sin, including the sin of trying to earn heaven, they cannot be saved. In this discourse on the meaning of salvation, Jesus addressed the problem of unbelief, provided the answer for unbelief, and warned of the results of unbelief.

THE PROBLEM OF UNBELIEF

“Truly, truly, I say to you, we speak of what we know and testify of what we have seen, and you do not accept our testimony. If I told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things?” (3:11–12)

Chapter 3 began by recounting Nicodemus’s nighttime interview with Jesus. But after his question in verse 9, the renowned Pharisee added nothing more to the conversation (at least nothing that is recorded), as the dialogue between the two men moved into a discourse by Jesus. Although Nicodemus twice professed ignorance of Jesus’ teaching (3:4, 9), his real problem, as noted above, was not a lack of divine revelation. He was highly educated in the Old Testament (3:10) and had just dialogued with the Teacher who was the source of truth. Nicodemus did not accept the truth to which Jesus testified, because he refused to believe it. Paul wrote, “a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised” (1 Cor. 2:14). Even those who have never heard the gospel are still culpable for their ignorance, because they reject the truth that they do have (Rom. 1:18–21).

In a statement introduced by the solemn declaration truly, truly, I say to you (cf. the discussion of 3:3 in chapter 8 of this volume), Jesus affirmed, “We speak of what we know and testify of what we have seen, and you do not accept our testimony.” The plurals we and our encompassed Jesus’ disciples and even John the Baptist, who understood and testified to the truth of salvation. They provided a contrast with the “we” in verse 2 (which referred to Nicodemus and his colleagues). The Pharisees and their fellow Jews were ignorant of the new birth, but Jesus and His disciples were certain about regeneration—the truth to which they testified. Moreover, Nicodemus spoke with human authority, but Jesus with heavenly authority (cf. Matt. 7:28–29).

The Lord’s use of the plural pronoun you indicates that His rebuke went beyond Nicodemus to include the nation of Israel, of which Nicodemus was a representative. The Jewish people did not accept the testimony of Jesus and His true followers (cf. 1:11); their unbelief was what perpetuated their spiritual ignorance.

Jesus’ pointed rebuke, “If I told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things?” shattered Nicodemus’s self-righteousness. His shallow profession of faith in Jesus as a teacher sent from God (v. 2) was meaningless, as was his misconstrued understanding of salvation (cf. v. 10). Because of his refusal to believe, he could not even fathom the earthly truth of the new birth, not to mention profound heavenly realities such as the relationship of the Father to the Son (John 1:1; 17:5), God’s kingdom (Matt. 25:34), or His eternal plan of redemption (Eph. 1:4; 2 Thess. 2:13; 2 Tim. 1:9).

There were two sides to Nicodemus’s unbelief. Intellectually, while he acknowledged Jesus to be a teacher sent from God (3:2), he was unwilling to accept Him as God. Spiritually, he was very reluctant to admit that he himself was a helpless sinner, since that was unthinkable for proud members of the Pharisees, the self-righteous, self-confessed religious elite of Israel. Further, he was a privileged member of the San-hedrin and thus viewed as a prominent spiritual leader by the people (3:10). To humble himself to admit that he was in spiritual darkness and needed to come to the light of true salvation and righteousness (cf. 3:19–21) would have been to confess his sinfulness and lack of righteousness. Like many who were impressed by Jesus’ miracles (2:23–25), Nicodemus refused to commit himself to Christ as Lord and Savior.

THE ANSWER FOR UNBELIEF

“No one has ascended into heaven, but He who descended from heaven: the Son of Man. As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up; so that whoever believes will in Him have eternal life. For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him.” (3:13–17)

Only someone who has been to heaven can truly know what it is like. Yet human beings, short of death, do not have the ability to visit heaven since they are confined to time and space. Thus Jesus said that no one has ascended into heaven (cf. Prov. 30:4) because it is humanly impossible to do so. John declared in the prologue to his gospel, “No one has seen God at any time; the only begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him” (1:18). “Not that anyone has seen the Father,” Jesus agreed, “except the One who is from God; He has seen the Father” (6:46). It may be noted that Lazarus was to return from the dead (11:23–24), and after the crucifixion of our Lord, the graves were opened and some saints returned (Matt. 27:52–53). These rare exceptions prove the rule. The other unique event was the visit of the apostle Paul to “the third heaven” (2 Cor. 12:2).

The only one possessing true knowledge of heavenly reality is He who descended from heaven: the Son of Man. God “in these last days has spoken to us in His Son” (Heb. 1:2). He is “the bread of God … which comes down out of heaven, and gives life to the world” (John 6:33; cf. 6:51).”I have come down from heaven,” He declared in John 6:38, “not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me.” In John 6:62 He asked, “What then if you see the Son of Man ascending to where He was before?” In John 8:42 Jesus said to His accusers, “If God were your Father, you would love Me, for I proceeded forth and have come from God, for I have not even come on My own initiative, but He sent Me.” John prefaced his account of Jesus’ washing the disciples’ feet with the statement that Jesus “had come forth from God and was going back to God” (John 13:3). Later that same evening in the Upper Room Jesus told the disciples, “I came forth from the Father and have come into the world; I am leaving the world again and going to the Father” (John 16:28). In His High Priestly Prayer Jesus prayed, “Now, Father, glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world was” (John 17:5). To the Corinthians Paul wrote, “The first man [Adam] is from the earth, earthy; [but] the second man [Jesus] is from heaven” (1 Cor. 15:47).

Beginning in verse 14, Jesus appealed to an Old Testament illustration to make His point, further emphasizing that there was no excuse for Nicodemus, an expert in the Scriptures, to be ignorant of the way of salvation. As a type of His sacrificial death on the cross, the Lord referred to an incident recorded in Numbers 21:5–9:

The event took place during Israel’s forty years of wilderness wandering before entering the Promised Land. As a judgment upon the people’s incessant complaining, the Lord sent venomous snakes to infest their camp. In desperation, the Israelites begged Moses to intercede on their behalf. And Moses’ prayerful petition was answered with a display of divine grace, as God showed mercy to His rebellious people. He instructed Moses to make a bronze replica of a snake and raise it above the camp on a pole. Those who were bitten would be healed if they but looked at it, thereby acknowledging their guilt and expressing faith in God’s forgiveness and healing power.

The point of Jesus’ analogy was that just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up (crucified; cf. 8:28; 12:32, 34). The term must emphasizes that Christ’s death was a necessary part of God’s plan of salvation (cf. Matt. 16:21; Mark 8:31; Luke 9:22; 17:25; 24:7, 26; Acts 2:23; 4:27–28; 17:3). He had to die as a substitute for sinners, because “the wages of sin is death” (Rom. 6:23), and “without shedding of blood there is no forgiveness” (Heb. 9:22). Therefore God, “being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us” (Eph. 2:4), “sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins” (1 John 4:9–10). The stricken Israelites were cured by obediently looking apart from any works or righteousness of their own in hope and dependence on God’s word at the elevated bronze serpent. In the same way whoever looks in faith alone to the crucified Christ will be cured from sin’s deadly bite and will in Him have eternal life.

This is the first of fifteen references in John’s gospel to the important term eternal life. In its essence, eternal life is the believer’s participation in the blessed, everlasting life of Christ (cf. 1:4) through his or her union with Him (Rom. 5:21; 6:4, 11, 23; 1 Cor. 15:22; 2 Cor. 5:17; Gal. 2:20; Col. 3:3–4; 2 Tim. 1:1, 10; Jude 21). Jesus defined eternal life in His High Priestly Prayer to the Father: “This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent” (John 17:3). It is the life of the age to come (Eph. 2:6–7), and believers will most fully experience it in the perfect, unending glory and joy of heaven (Rom. 8:19–23, 29; 1 Cor. 15:49; Phil. 3:20–21; 1 John 3:2).

Verse 16 is undoubtedly the most familiar and beloved verse in all of Scripture. Yet its very familiarity can cause the profound truth it contains to be overlooked. God’s motive for giving “His indescribable gift” of Jesus Christ (2 Cor. 9:15) was that He loved the evil, sinful world of fallen humanity. As noted earlier in this chapter, all humanity is utterly sinful, completely lost, and unable to save itself by any ceremony or effort. Thus, there was nothing in man that attracted God’s love. Rather He loved because He sovereignly determined to do so. The plan of salvation flowed from “the kindness of God our Savior and His love for mankind” (Titus 3:4).”God demonstrates His own love toward us,” wrote Paul to the Christians in Rome, “in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom. 5:8). John wrote in his first epistle, “In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins…. We love, because He first loved us” (1 John 4:10, 19). Such love is so vast, wonderful, and incomprehensible that John, shunning all adjectives, could only write that God so loved the world that He gave His own Beloved Son (cf. 1 John 3:1). World is a nonspecific term for humanity in a general sense. The statement in verse 17, “that the world might be saved through Him,” proves that it does not mean everyone who has ever lived, since all will not be saved. Verse 16 clearly cannot be teaching universal salvation, since the context promises that unbelievers will perish in eternal judgment (vv. 16–18). Our Lord is saying that for all in the world there is only one Savior (1 John 2:2), but only those who are regenerated by the Spirit and who believe in His gospel will receive salvation and eternal life through Him. (For a more extensive discussion of this point, see my book The God Who Loves [Nashville: Word, 2001], especially pp. 99ff.)

Paul in 2 Corinthians 5:19 used the term world in a similar way: “God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and He has committed to us the word of reconciliation.” God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not in the sense of universal salvation, but in the sense that the world has no other reconciler. That not all will believe and be reconciled is clear from the pleading in verse 20: “Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were making an appeal through us; we beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.” (For a further discussion of those verses, see 2 Co-rinthians, The MacArthur New Testament Commentary [Chicago: Moody, 2003]).

There are no words in human language that can adequately express the magnitude of God’s saving gift to the world. Even the apostle Paul refused to try, declaring that gift to be “indescribable” (2 Cor. 9:15). The Father gave His only begotten (unique; one of a kind; cf. the discussion of 1:14 in chapter 3 of this volume) Son—the One of whom He declared, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well-pleased” (Matt. 3:17; cf. 12:18; 17:5;2 Peter 1:17); the One whom He “loves … and has given all things into His hand” (John 3:35; cf. 5:20; 15:9; 17:23, 26); the One whom He “highly exalted … and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name” (Phil. 2:9); the One with whom He had enjoyed intimate fellowship from all eternity (John 1:1)—to die as a sacrifice on behalf of sinful men. “He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf,” wrote Paul, “so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him” (2 Cor. 5:21). In his majestic prophecy of the Suffering Servant Isaiah declared,

By “sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, [God] condemned sin in the flesh” (Rom. 8:3). To the Galatians Paul wrote, “when the fullness of the time came, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the Law, so that He might redeem those who were under the Law, that we might receive the adoption as sons” (Gal. 4:4–5). Just as the supreme proof of Abraham’s love for God was his willingness to sacrifice his son (cf. Gen. 22:12, 16–18), so also, but on a far grander scale, the Father’s offering of His only begotten Son was the supreme manifestation of His saving love for sinners.

God’s gracious gift of salvation is freely and only available (Rom. 5:15–16; 6:23; 1 John 5:11; cf. Isa. 55:1) to whoever believes in Christ (Luke 8:12; John 1:12; 3:36; 5:24; 6:40, 47; 8:24; 11:25–26; 12:46; 20:31; Acts 2:44; 4:4; 5:14; 9:42; 10:43; 13:39, 48; 16:31; 18:8; Rom. 3:21–22; 4:3–5; 10:4, 9–10; Gal. 2:16; 3:22; Phil. 1:29; 1 John 3:23; 5:1, 13). The free offer of the gospel is broad enough to encompass the vilest sinner (1 Tim. 1:15), yet narrow enough to exclude all who reject Christ (John 3:18). But to those who come to Him on His terms Jesus gave the marvelous promise, “The one who comes to Me I will certainly not cast out” (John 6:37).

The guarantee given to those who possess eternal life is that they will never perish. Genuine salvation can never be lost; true believers will be divinely preserved and will faithfully persevere (Matt. 10:22; 24:13; Luke 8:15; 1 Cor. 1:8; Heb. 3:6, 14; 10:39) because they are kept by God’s power (John 5:24; 6:37–40; 10:27–29; Rom. 5:9; 8:29–39; 1 Cor. 1:4–9; Eph. 4:30; Heb. 7:25; 1 Peter 1:4–5; Jude 24).

To perish is to receive God’s final and eternal judgment. It is true that God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world; Jesus Himself declared in John 12:47, “I did not come to judge the world, but to save the world.” In Luke 19:10 He said, “The Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost,” and Jesus made a similar statement in Luke 5:31–32: “It is not those who are well who need a physician, but those who are sick. I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.” God will judge those who reject His Son (cf. the discussion of v. 18 below); that judgment, however, was not the mission of the Son in His first coming, but the consequence of sinners rejecting Him (John 1:10–12; 5:24, 40).

Jesus’ statement in verse 17 also repudiated the popular belief that when Messiah came, he would judge the heathen and the Gentiles—but not the Jews. The prophet Amos had already warned against that foolish misinterpretation of the Day of the Lord:

The point of Jesus’ coming was not to redeem Israel and condemn the Gentiles, but that the world might be saved through Him. God’s gracious offer of salvation extended beyond Israel to all mankind. Once again, Nicodemus (and by extension the Jewish nation he represented) should have known that, for in the Abrahamic covenant God declared, “I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse. And in you all the families of the earth will be blessed” (Gen. 12:3; cf. 18:18; 22:18; Acts 3:25). Gentile salvation was always God’s purpose (Isa. 42:6–8; 55:1).

THE RESULTS OF UNBELIEF

“He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. This is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil. For everyone who does evil hates the Light, and does not come to the Light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But he who practices the truth comes to the Light, so that his deeds may be manifested as having been wrought in God.” (3:18–21)

Although God graciously has offered the world salvation through the work of Christ, that salvation is not appropriated except by penitent faith. For all who respond to the gospel with unbelief, their final doom is set by divine judgment. Jesus stated that sobering truth to Nicodemus both positively and negatively.

On the other hand, he who believes in Christ is not judged. Later in John’s gospel Jesus declared, “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life” (5:24). To the Romans Paul wrote triumphantly, “Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. … Who will bring a charge against God’s elect? God is the one who justifies; who is the one who condemns? Christ Jesus is He who died, yes, rather who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us” (Rom. 8:1, 33–34). David exulted, “How blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered! How blessed is the man to whom the Lord does not impute iniquity” (Ps. 32:1–2).

But the one who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. While the final sentencing of those who reject Christ is still future (cf. 5:28–29), their judgment will merely consummate what has already begun. The lost are condemned because they have not believed in (lit., “believed into”) the name of the only begotten Son of God. Saving faith goes beyond mere intellectual assent to the facts of the gospel and includes self-denying trust in and submission to the Lord Jesus Christ (Rom. 10:9; cf. Luke 9:23–25). Only such genuine faith produces the new birth (John 3:7) and its resulting transformed heart and obedient life.

The object of saving faith is the only begotten (unique) Son of God. He is “the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through [Him]” (John 14:6), because “there is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12), and there is only “one mediator … between God and men, the man Christ Jesus” (1 Tim. 2:5).

Jesus described judgment using the contrast between light and darkness already introduced in the prologue (1:4–5; cf. 11:9–10; 12:35–36, 46; 1 John 1:5; 2:9–10). The Light (Christ; cf. 1:4–9; 8:12; 9:5; 12:35) has come into the world and by doing so “enlightens every man” (1:9). But people refused to come to the Light because they loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil. As noted earlier in this chapter, unbelievers are not ignorant, but willfully reject the truth. Therefore everyone who does evil hates the Light, and does not come to the Light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. Unbelievers hate (cf. 7:7; Prov. 1:29) the Light, knowing it will reveal their sin (cf. Eph. 5:13; 1 Thess. 5:7). As a result, they seal their own condemnation because they reject the only One who can save them from their spiritual darkness.

The one who practices the truth, however, willingly comes to the Light, so that his deeds may be manifested as having been wrought in God. Believers hate their sin and love righteousness (1 John 2:3–6, 9; 3:6–10). They have nothing to hide, and thus no reason to fear what the light will reveal. Jesus defined the genuine believer as one who practices the truth, because true saving faith invariably manifests itself in deeds … wrought in God. “For we are His workmanship,” Paul reminded the Ephesians, “created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them” (Eph. 2:10; cf. Mark 4:20). The redeemed will always “bear fruit in keeping with repentance” (Matt. 3:8); indeed, it is by bearing the fruit of good works that they prove themselves to be Jesus’ disciples (John 15:8). On the other hand, “Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire” (Matt. 7:19).

Though no saving response is indicated here, Nicodemus evidently took Jesus’ sobering warning to heart, since John’s later references to him imply that he became a true follower of Christ (7:50–51; 19:39). But those who prove “unwilling to come to [Jesus] so that [they] may have life” (5:40) face the certainty of divine judgment, as the writer of Hebrews solemnly warns: “How will we escape if we neglect so great a salvation? … See to it that you do not refuse Him who is speaking. For if those did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth, much less will we escape who turn away from Him who warns from heaven….For our God is a consuming fire” (Heb. 2:3; 12:25, 29).