There really is more to the Bible than John 3:16

As a teenager I was a member of a mega-church, before they were even called by that name. We had on a few occasions the Chaplain of Bourbon Street come preach at our church. He was a famous evangelist in his time, with the flare and charisma to match anyone in his day. His comic routines were probably just as well-known as any of his sermons. One of his famous lines was that before he was saved, that he was so lost and so unschooled in the Bible, he thought that John 3:16 was the men's room on the third floor. That brought a good chuckle from the crowd, but now almost forty years later, I often wonder if a good bulk of professing Christians know much more beyond John 3:16. If that is so, then that is no laughing matter.

On numerous times on Sunday evenings or Wednesday evenings at church in previous pastorates, I would ask for volunteers in the congregation to quote one of their favorite verses in the Bible. Maybe it was something they had read the past week. Without fail, John 3:16 would be quoted right off the bat. Sometimes Romans 8:28 would be cited. On a few occasions, someone would quote or read something directly from the Bible. More times than that, there were long periods of silence. Embarrassingly, I was inwardly hoping somebody would say something to break the silence, even it were just, "Jesus wept," or the verse out of Hezekiah, "God helps those who help themselves."

John 3:16 is a beautiful verse. Who can deny that? But contrary to what I have witnessed through the years in the lives of too many professing Christians, there really is more to the Bible than John 3:16. For example, there is a John 3:17. There is a John 3:1-15, where Jesus engages a religious leader on the need to be born again, a divine prerequisite before a man is able or willing to believe in Jesus, as is stated in John 3:16. Romans 8:28 is a special verse, too, but there really is Romans 8:29-30. God identifies for us who are the only ones are who can claim Romans 8:28 as a promise--they are the ones who are called, foreknown, predestined, justified and glorified by God. If we continue on through the end of Romans 8 and all the way through Romans 9, then we get a full-blown picture of what it means to be chosen and called by God.

Jesus did not start talking at John 3:16, nor did He stop there. Paul's first words were not Romans 8:28, and his last words were not Romans 8:28. While it is true that we shouldn't put a question mark where God puts a period, it is also equally true that we shouldn't put a period where God puts a comma; we shouldn't interrupt God while He is talking. That is simply not good manners, and more than that, it can lead to terrible theology if we are not careful.

By using John 3:16 in the title of this upcoming conference in Georgia (see last week's article), I know what the conference planners had in mind when they did that. They think that John 3:16 by itself is a death blow to the doctrines of grace. However, the opposite is true. The word "whosoever", so famously included in the KJV and most subsequent versions, is really not in the Greek. The literal translation from the Greek reads, "God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that all the believing ones (participle in Greek) shall not perish, but have eternal life." It is a verse that sounds forth the perseverance of the saints--that all the believing ones shall not lose what they have but will have what they have from God forever. This is a constant note throughout the gospel of John.

Secondly, the word "world" has a variety of meanings. If we conclude beforehand that there is only one possible meaning for the word "world", then we will face enormous interpretation difficulties and glaring contradictions along the way. The apostle John has a special attachment to this biblical word, when we consider that "world" is used 105 times by John in his writings. The rest of the New Testament altogether uses that word 80 times. Of those 105 times by John in his five books, 78 are found in John's gospel.

Many times the "world" is used to denote the human race that is in opposition to God. Jesus would make a distinction between those who are His and those who are of this world. (13:1, 17:9). Sometimes it is used as a hyperbole, like in John 12:19. Whereas in John 3:16 we read that God loves the world, we read in 1 John 2:15-17 that we are not to love the world. Only when one understands how many meanings there are to the word "world" can we properly understand what is being said. 1 John 5:19 says that the whole world lies under the power of Satan, but "world" there does not include every single person in the world, because believers are super-naturally exempted. They live under the power of God, and not of Satan. In fact, believers in Christ overcome the world. (1 John 5:4-5)

John the Baptist announces that Jesus is the Lamb of God, which takes away the sin of the world. (John 1:29) Can that possibly mean that Jesus takes away the sin of everyone, which would leave us with universalism, i.e. all people are saved and all will go to heaven? Certainly not. Then what does it mean? This eventually brings us to John 3:16.

The Jews thought that God loved them only. The Jews wanted a Savior for Jerusalem. The Samaritans wanted a Savior for themselves. The Jews thought the Gentiles and Samaritans were so hopeless that they were beyond salvation from God. The Gentile nations in the Old Testament had their own local deities. Along comes Jesus who says He is the Savior of the world, and not just for the Jews. God loves more than just the Jews; His love knows no ethnic, racial, or geographical boundaries. All we have to do to see that this is the right understanding of the word "world" in John 3:16 is to keep reading until we get to John 4, where the first people group to proclaim Jesus to be the "Savior of the world" was a city full of non-Jews. (John 4:42)

God loved the world of Jews, Samaritans, Gentiles, the poor, the rich, the slave, the free, the male, the female, the religious, the irreligious, the moral, the immoral, etc., so much that He proved it by giving His only begotten Son that all the believing ones out of this world of people are promised to have eternal life from God and that none of those who believe will ever perish or be lost again. To get the magnitude of the breadth of God's redeeming love and saving power, we read in John's last writing that His people come not from just one group of people, but from all over the world. (Revelation 5:9) Such was what was meant by Caiaphas' off-handed prophetical remark in John 11:50, as is explained in verses 51 and 52.

If John 3:16 is a death blow to anything, it is a death blow to Jewish provincialism, a narrow-mindedness that claims to have a monopoly on God. The gospel in John is a worldwide gospel. Matthew has long been recognized as the most Jewish of the four gospel books, and that is the reason why it is listed first in the New Testament. It serves as a natural bridge from the Old Testament to the New. Matthew begins with a Jewish family tree, but it ends with "He who is born King of the Jews" commanding His disciples to make more disciples out of all nations. This ever-expanding spiritual family tree has large Gentile branches all over the place. (Romans 11) Jesus is Lord and King over a world of believers.


Jesus Christ is the only Savior this world has. No other religious figure, past or present or future, will do. (John 14:6) Jesus makes this exclusive claim about Himself, and so should we. We have an exclusive Savior with an inclusive grace that saves all sorts of believing, repentant folks all over the world.

Like everyone else, I love John 3:16, but there really is more to the Bible than John 3:16. There is much more to the gospel of John than just the sixteenth verse in the third chapter. Why not have a John 1:12-13 Conference, where we are told that a person can only receive and believe Jesus unless he is first born of God (see John 3 for elaboration), and that new birth no way involves the will of man? Why not have a John 5:1-9 Conference that ponders the question why Jesus only chose to heal one out of a multitude at this pool at Bethesda? Why not have a John 6:37,39,44,65 Conference that teaches that the only ones who can come to Jesus are those the Father has given and has drawn, and all those like that will come and none will be lost forever?

Why not have a John 10 Conference that lays out in systematic fashion that Jesus lays down His life specifically for His sheep? Why not have a John 17 Conference that demonstrates that Jesus' prayer life is limited in its scope, i.e. He prays only for His own; He does not pray for the world. (Hey, I thought He loved the world! Why then does He not pray for the world?) He only prays for those whom the Father had given to Him, the same group for whom He would die.

The planners of this conference did not have this as their intention, but the very name of this conference may be a subtle indictment of where too many of our church members are. They are stuck primarily on John 3:16, and they have not progressed much farther than that. They tend to be milk drinkers without the appetite for solid food.

All of the above is preliminary point number two. Now we are ready to look at the five major points regarding the redemption of sinners from a sovereign, gracious Savior of the world. Let's leave our straws behind, and let's grab a fork and knife to dig into the meaty dishes God has placed for us at His banqueting table.

Yours in Christ,
Chris