John 3:16, the Love of God, the Holiness of God

John 3:16 and the Love of God in Its Biblical Context

Recently, Dr. Jerry Vines spoke at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, and he spoke on the subject of John 3 .16. Now it is interesting that there is going to be a conference on John 3 .16 coming up in a few months.

I'm not sure if there is a direct connection between the topic and that upcoming conference. But he spoke about the love of God, and there was much to agree with in regards to what Dr. Vines said about the love of God and John 3 .16.

But I would like to take issue with, and hopefully expand upon, some of the key issues that separate Reformed believers and their understanding of the love of God, and the presentation that Dr. Vines made.

This is a dangerous subject to address, only in the sense that there is a tremendous amount of emotion involved, and if we say it properly, a lot of tradition involved, with traditional understandings of the love of God.

Very frequently, Reformed believers are accused of being unloving and unkind, and in some way denying the true love of God. What I'd like to try to communicate in making some comments on John 3 .16, is that the true backdrop that makes the love of God absolutely amazing to us, is not man's traditions or man's emotions or what feels very strong to mankind, but instead what makes the love of God so glorious that throughout eternity we will praise him for it, is the backdrop of his sovereign, majestic, kingly holiness, and the reality, often missed I'm afraid, in our day, of the wrath of God against sin.

I've often said that if we can look at the cross, and that's what John 3 .16 is all about, as Dr. Vines rightly pointed out, the giving of the sun that is mentioned in John 3 .16 when it says, for God thus or in this way loved the world that he gave, that is an heiress, and almost always in this particular type of context is referring to the giving of the sun in sacrifice on Calvary's cross.

I've often said that if you look at Calvary's cross and all you see is the love of God, you're only seeing a portion, and even then I would insist you're not actually seeing the love of God in completeness.

The reason being that what makes the love of God shine so brightly in the cross of Calvary is the wrath of God being born in our place, the just wrath of God against the filthy wickedness of mankind, mankind that loves its sin, that has committed high crimes and treason against the Creator.

The wrath justly due to those sins is being poured out upon that cross. The suffering servant is bearing the sins of God's people in himself upon that tree, and that's what makes the love that is seen there so amazing.

The Cross, Wrath, and the Sacrificial Love of Christ

But what concerns me is that when the specific and clearly biblical purpose of God in glorifying himself in the gospel is removed from the discussion of the love of God, you end up with the things that concern me about Dr. Vine's presentation, because he very rightly pointed us to a tremendous text, Paul's words in Galatians chapter 2, when he says that I have been crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ lives in me, and the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God, and here's the operative phrase, who loved me and gave himself for me, who loved me and gave himself for me.

Again, same context, the sacrificial giving of the cross is what is in view. And I just have to ask all my viewers a question, if, as Dr. Vine seemed to want to insist, especially with his citation, but no exegesis of 2 Peter 3 .9 and 1 Timothy 2 .4, two of the big three, at least we didn't hear Matthew 23 .37, if with the citation of those texts his point was that Cosmos in John 3 .16 is absolutely universal in a particularistic sense, that is in an individual sense, every single individual loved equally in the exact same way, and that seems to be what he was saying.

If that is in fact the case, then of course I would have to challenge that use of Cosmos, I would have to point out that there would be some gross inconsistencies there. But leaving all aside and even limiting Cosmos to every individual human, leaving out the rest of creation itself, will it be possible for the hater of God in the flames of hell itself to, in mocking and deriding tones, cry out from hell itself, ha ha ha, I was crucified with Christ, as Paul, in love, said, I have been crucified with Christ.

Will they be able to mock and deride the work of Christ, because if it is Christ's intention in his death to perfect those for whom he makes his sacrifice, as the book of Hebrews tells us, and he has failed in regards to those who were in hell, will they not be able to mock him in eternity to come for that failure?

That's why I've always emphasized the need to hold together the intention that the Father, the Son, and Spirit have in bringing about the atonement with the actual effect of the atonement itself. Will they be able to do that?

Can those who are God-haters and abide in their hatred of God say, I have been crucified with Christ, he loved me and gave himself for me. Will they be able to say that? I suggest to you that the God-hater, standing upon the parapet of hell, will in no way, shape, or form be able to say those words.

Election, Common Grace, and the Holiness of God

And so when we talk about the love of God, almost everything that Dr. Vines said the Reformed person could agree with, it is unmeasurable, but that doesn't mean it's not specific. That's one of the key issues I think that many people struggle with, is that to be specific, for it to be, to have the ability to be redemptive love over against the common grace that is shown to all of mankind that does not bring God's wrath to bear immediately upon them that causes his sun to shine, his rain to fall upon even his most inveterate enemies.

The denial to God of the ability to have differentiation in his love results in a love that I truly suggest is quite fathomable and quite limited and subject to failure. We want God's love to be very much limited like ours is in essence, but we can't have that, not if we allow all of scripture to speak for itself.

There is a redemptive love, and I think there's a perfect harmony between John 3 .16 and Revelation chapter 5, where looking from the completedness of this, the end times, those who have already experienced salvation, you hear them singing praise to the Lamb, and what do they say?

That by his sacrifice, he has made them a kingdom of priests unto God, men from every tribe, tongue, people, and nation. That's what world is here. It is not that he tried and was only able to make a certain number, but that he actually succeeded as a perfect savior.

This in no way diminishes the love of God, I say it exalts it. It exalts the love of God because it does not result in a view of love where not only does God try and fail, but one that does not take seriously his wrath and his holiness.

I truly believe that there are some, and I'm not accusing Dr. Vines of this in this sermon in any way, but I do believe there are some who lose balance. They don't take the biblical perspective. Yes, God's love is revealed to us from Genesis to Revelation, but God's holiness is likewise revealed to us, and the emphasis is first on that, is it not?

In the biblical revelation, if we believe in what's called progressive revelation, isn't the emphasis first upon God's holiness and then his provision of salvation, which illustrates fully his love in Jesus Christ?

Is not that the order of scripture? Should that not be our order of understanding then? For many, the love of God trumps and in fact banishes the holiness of God and hence the wrath of God. And quickly, this also leads to another issue that concerns me.

Progressive Revelation and the Consistency of Scripture

I have spoken to many people who were raised with an imbalanced view of the doctrine of election and the doctrine of salvation, and they were raised with the view of God's love that it truly is without differentiation.

There cannot be a redemptive love and then that love that is expressed to the non-redeemed. And God doesn't have that, you can't allow that kind of distinction to be expressed. Those are the very individuals who are extremely susceptible to the argumentation that basically the God of the Old Testament is different than the God of the New.

These are the ones who have so often spoken to me about, well, you know, I just couldn't keep together the viewpoint of the God of the Old Testament that had all this wrath and he pours out wrath upon nations and you have the conquest of Canaan and things.

I just couldn't hold that together with the God of love of the New Testament. Well, that's a misreading of both the Old and New Testaments, there's no question about that. But the misreading of the Old and New Testaments primarily comes from this tradition of a view of God's love that is dangerously creaturely and does not allow for the fact that God's love is truly divine and as such is perfectly consistent with his justice, his holiness, and therefore his wrath against sin.

And if we do not see that, then our teaching will produce disciples who are subject to serious questions about the consistency of biblical revelation at a very fundamental level. And so again, as I said, I appreciated many of the things that Dr. Vines had to say, but it was what he didn't say and what he was alluding to with his universalism, not in the sense of everyone's going to be saved, but a denial of election, a denial of the particularity of election that he has preached on in the past, that was muted because of where he was at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

But it is what wasn't said that provides the balance that truly allows us to not only rejoice in the love of God, because we know we didn't deserve it, election must be unconditional without any conditions or fulfillments on my part, or now God's love becomes something that I've deserved.

But because that wasn't there, there was an imbalance that is troubling, and I hope I've addressed some aspects of it. One last thing since I have time to do it, I guess. The specificity and particularity of John 3 .16 was also somewhat glossed over, and it's hard to do, because the text itself says, here's how God has demonstrated his love toward the world of mankind, in that he's given his son, but then there's the Hinnah Clause, and Dr. Vines was using a lot of Greek.

It's funny how Calvinists are frequently criticized for that, but Dr. Vines is using a lot of Greek in this presentation, and there's a Hinnah Clause, and right after the Hinnah is the term pas, meaning all, but for some reason Dr. Vines didn't seem to recognize that pas is a part of a phrase here, pas ha pisteum, and he jumped to other places, that's where he jumped to 1 Timothy 2 .4 and 2 Peter 3 .9, completely different context, and still didn't show that he's really familiar with the counter exegesis that I think is much more consistent of those texts, but the point being it's pas ha pisteum, all the ones believing.

He once again emphasized the whosoever. I would emphasize it's everyone believing, the promise of eternal life, of not perishing and having eternal life is to everyone who believes, and so the emphasis is there, that there will never be anyone, anyone who clings to Christ, who comes to Christ, who will not receive salvation in his hand.

You can preach that to everyone, but that isn't changing the reality that there isn't a whosoever here. There's nothing here that denies the doctrine of election. It's everyone believing. Who's going to believe?

What's the nature of saving faith? What does the Bible say about man who's dead in his sin? These all have to be answered. The text isn't even trying to address those things. It does elsewhere in the Gospel of John, John 6, John 8, other places like that, but it's not even addressing that here, and you have to eisegetically read into this text something that's not there to try to find some way of denying the doctrine of election on the basis of John 3 .16.

All it says is that there is a particularity in the giving of the Son. Only, all but only, only those who believe will not perish. Only those who believe will have eternal life. Everyone who believes will not perish.

Everyone who believes will have eternal life, but it is limited to a particular group, and so if you're going to emphasize cosmos and try to make it universal, may I suggest that that doesn't fit with the Hinnah Clause, the Purpose Clause.

The Purpose Clause of the giving is so that a specific, delimited group, those who believe, will have eternal life and will not perish. You have to go elsewhere to find out, is saving faith just simply the capacity of every single individual?

It is not. That's why faith is described as the gift of God. That's why Paul will tell us that those who are according to the flesh cannot do what is pleasing to God. They cannot subject themselves to the law of God.

Jesus himself will explain that in John chapter 6. That didn't come out either, and I think it would have helped to provide some balance in that particular context. So, once again, the love of God is a tremendous thing.

It's an awesome thing, but it must be seen in the context of the full revelation of Scripture for its true glory to really be seen. I hope these comments have been of some assistance to you as you think about these subjects in this tremendous text in John chapter 3.

Thanks for watching.