For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved

 

 "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.  For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.  He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.  And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.  For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed.  But he who does the truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be clearly seen, that they have been done in God."

 

- John 3:16–21 

 

Yesterday we read that when Jesus was in Jerusalem at the Passover, during the feast, many believed in His name when they saw the signs which he did.  But Jesus did not commit Himself to them, because He knew all men, and had no need that anyone should testify of man, for He knew what was in man.  There was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews.  This man came to Jesus by night and said to Him, "Rabbi, we know that You are a teacher come from God, for no one can do these signs that You do unless God is with him."  Jesus answered and said to him, "Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God."  Nicodemus said to Him, "How can a man be born when he is old  Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born?"  Jesus answered, "Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.  That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.  Do not marvel that I said to you, 'You must be born again.'  The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes.  So is everyone who is born of the Spirit."  Nicodemus answered and said to Him, "How can these things be?"  Jesus answered and said to him, "Are you the teacher of Israel, and do not know these things?  Most assuredly, I say to you, We speak what We know and testify what We have seen, and you do not receive Our witness.  If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things?  No one has ascended to heaven but He who came down from heaven, that is, the Son of Man who is in heaven.  And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life."

 

 "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life."  My study bible comments that to show the reason the Son must be crucified ("lifted up" in verse 14, in yesterday's reading, above), Jesus declares God's great love not only for Israel, but for the world.   This single verse expresses the whole of the message of John's Gospel, and even of all of salvation history.  

"For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.  He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.  And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.  For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed.  But he who does the truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be clearly seen, that they have been done in God."   While Christ came to save and not to condemn, my study bible says, human beings have free will.  Therefore human beings may reject this gift.  Thereby, condemnation comes through a person's own rejection.

What is condemnation, and how are we to understand it?  At the center of this understanding of condemnation is the love of God.  That is, the love of the good, the true, and the beautiful.  One might argue that it all depends on what the individual finds good or true or beautiful.  But at the level of the pure being of God, we are no longer talking about theoretical arguments about goodness or truth or beauty.  We are talking about absolutes, the pure reality of these things in their true existence.  And where and how do human beings practice free will?  Is everything simply all about a calculated rational choice?  I personally do not believe that faith works on a purely intellectual or rational level, and it seems to me that this is not the only place where God touches us, and where our true communion with God dwells within ourselves.  In yesterday's reading (above), we are first given the final verses in the second chapter of John, as follows:  "Now when He was in Jerusalem at the Passover, during the feast, many believed in His name when they saw the signs which he did.  But Jesus did not commit Himself to them, because He knew all men, and had no need that anyone should testify of man, for He knew what was in man."  What this tells us is about a depth of "knowing" (in "He knew what was in man"), which we might not understand if we do not have experience with the depths of our own hearts.  In the long road of monastic discipline, or over a lifetime of deep prayer practice, we will uncover many, many things about ourselves that are even mysterious and unknown to us.  There are buried depths of experiences of pain or trauma, for example, that we may never be consciously aware of.  Our own emotional responses to things will sometimes surprise us.  If there are such things within ourselves of which we aren't even cognizant, we can simply imagine what it is that Christ knows about us as the "Heart-knower" -- the One who knows the hearts of all.  Let us understand that in Scriptural language, the heart is the true center of a person, encompassing all that we are.  Therefore, when John's Gospel speaks of condemnation of those who hate the light or who hate truth, of those who cannot come to Christ as the One who is Truth (John 14:6), we are talking about a place of choice so deep within the heart of a human being that only Christ is capable of judging it.  Moreover, we need to see that the point about these verses is really not the judgment of Christ per se, but it is rather about what it is in human beings that effectively excludes them from the light of Christ and the kingdom of God.  Even at a very conscious level, we can make choices to be honest with ourselves or not.  We can make choices to "come to the light" and seek a relationship to Christ which is going to give us the truth about ourselves, rather than our own self-righteous (that is, self-centered) judgment or justifications.  We can seek a better way than we know, but which takes love and trust in God.  Ultimately, these verses ask us to open our hearts and minds to Christ, to a depth in the heart that seeks only truth, and not something that is going to justify our own limited perspective.  It is an attitude not simply of humility, but one of willingness to change, which is the whole foundation to the understanding of repentance, which simply means we are willing to change our minds.  (The literal meaning of the Greek word for repentance is "change of mind.")  If all of this seems too far beyond a simple or easy understanding, consider only what it takes to assume that we don't know everything, and that we are capable of being stretched beyond what we already think we know and understand.  Consider what a difference even one simple fact can make in one's outlook when it wasn't understood before, and how it changes perspective on a whole story, and unlocks an entire truth that simply could not be seen with limited information.  This is where we stand without opening up our hears to grace, to the power of Christ's truth to teach us who we are and reach beyond what we already think we know.  This is what it means to come to the light and find our limitations and errors, so that we might be healed and thus saved.  Christ is the door that opens up to this Kingdom where we might become more like Him, and less like an arrogant world that wants to shut the door on anything but self-centeredness.  Let us choose truth and the light; we have nothing to lose but the darkness of half-truths and falsehood.