A Short Commentary on John 3:16-21

 "Because God loved the world in this way, as He also gave His one of a kind Son, so that every single person who puts their trust into Him would not destroy themselves but hold the Eternal Life. Because God didn't send His Son out into the world so that He would judge the world, but so that the world would be rescued through Him. The person who puts their trust into Him isn't judged; yet the person who doesn't trust has already judged themselves, because they haven't put their trust into the name of the one of a kind Son of God. And this is the judgment that the Light had come into the world and the human beings loved the dark more than the Light; because their behaviors were deranged. Because every single person practicing foul things hates the Light and doesn't come to the Light, so that their behaviors won't be lit up for everyone to see; yet the person doing the Truth comes to the Light, so that their behaviors would shine forth that they are having been performed by God." - John 3:16-21, my translation this morning

     We see John 3:16 posted everywhere, but somehow we never see the rest of what Jesus said to Nicodemus. We never see the context unless we crack a Bible and read it. Why is this? What's interesting here is that, in what is considered "The" most basic gospel verse by the majority of people (theologians excluded, they prefer 1 Corinthians 15:3-4), Jesus says nothing about sins being forgiven by blood sacrifice. It's just not about that. Instead, it's about a person's behavior, and whether or not they are willing to come to the Light, that is, Himself, and whether or not their behavior, their actions, is theirs or has been performed by God through them.

     One might argue, as many do, that 14-15 refers to the crucifixion, and thus to a blood sacrifice for forgiveness of sins. But you would really need to already assume penal substitutionary atonement in order to get that out of these verses, as the immediate previous context again talks about being born from above, and being born of the Spirit as opposed to the flesh, the same teaching we see in Paul's writings in Romans 6-8, Galatians 5, and elsewhere. Therefore, the context does not lend itself to forgiveness of sins by blood sacrifice unless you shoehorn it in because of a previously held theological assumption or belief.

     God loved the world so much that He sent His One of a Kind Son to rescue it from its deranged behaviors through a person being born from the Spirit, and God performing His behaviors through that person, so that the person wouldn't judge himself, or bring judgment on himself, and thus be destroyed through his own deranged behaviors, but so that every single person who puts their trust into Him, and not their own flesh, would hold His Eternal Life within themselves.