The Seriousness of Disbelief

In the last blog, we looked at what the Gospel of John said about the disbelief of the people, what they didn’t believe in, why they didn’t believe and what would happen because of their disbelief. Why is this important to understanding our subject passage? First, theologians generally accept that in spite of translators’ quotation marks or red lettering (ancient Greek didn’t use quotation marks), John 3:16-21 was not said to Nicodemus by Jesus. (For an easy check on this, see the newest NIV, 2011.) Linguistically 16-21 doesn’t fit with the rest of Jesus’ statement. In vv. 10-15, Jesus was speaking of the present or the future (“you people do not accept our testimony” v. 11; “I have spoken ... and you do not believe” v. 12; “the Son of Man must be lifted up” v. 14.) In verse 16, the tense becomes past: “For God ... gave his ... Son”; “whoever does not believe stands condemned already” v. 18; “Light has come into the world” v. 19. (A deeper study will reveal even more evidence. See for yourself how it doesn’t fit. In fact, remember how much it's like the prologue? I recommend a good commentary to understand this fully.) This passage is the gospel writer’s comment on what has already happened – Jesus has already died and brought eternal life to believers. When the gospel writer says “they have not believed” (3:18), all the things I mentioned before, the author has already seen happen. He is stating a foundational truth about faith that he will prove in the course of the gospel. We love to quote John 3:16, but we generally ignore John 3:18 even though it has a very powerful message too. It tells us that if you do not believe in Jesus, if you ignore his life, his works, his teaching; if you cling to the religion you know instead of seeking the truth – you will be condemned! You will not receive eternal life. That’s pretty serious stuff! But it doesn’t have to happen that way. Next time we’ll explore some of the evidence for belief.