Herman Veldman (1908-1997) on John 3:16

 

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life (John 3:16).

  

[Source: The Standard Bearer, vol. 25, no. 14 (April 15, 1949), pp. 323-324]

 

In the first place, to maintain that John 3:16 speaks of a general, universal love of God because of the word “world” in that passage is surely unwarranted and reveals a sad lack of knowledge of the Holy Scriptures.

Anyone who has any knowledge of the Word of God must surely know that the word “world” does not always have the same significance in Holy Writ. When we read that Abraham became heir of the world (Rom. 4:13) or when the apostle, John, admonishes us not to love the world, it is quite obvious that the word cannot have the same significance in both instances. Or, when we are told in John 3:16 that God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, and in John 17 that Christ prays not for the world, we all realize that the “world” of John 3:16 cannot be the same as that in John 17:9. To maintain, therefore, that John 3:16 speaks of a general, universal love of God because of the word “world” in that passage is wholly unwarranted.  Secondly, Holy Writ ascribes a power, an efficacy to the cross which no Arminian dares to attribute to that accursed tree. We are told, e.g., that God purchased us with His own precious blood—hence, on the cross of Calvary we were purchased, bought with the precious blood of Christ. Or, the Word of God tells us that we were redeemed by the blood of the Lamb of God—and to be redeemed implies that we were bought with a price. Again, the Scriptures inform us that the cross is the power of God unto salvation, and that the Lamb of God took away the sins of the world.  That the Lamb of God has taken away the sins of the world certainly means that these sins are gone. If, then, these sins of the world refer to the sins of all mankind in the universal sense of the word, none can possibly perish; surely, a man cannot perish whose sins have been taken away. Such an one appears before the tribunal of God without sins, without guilt, without condemnation. Hence, the cross itself is the power of God unto salvation. It does not derive its power from us, but we from it; it does not owe its saving efficacy to our free will, but we owe our salvation to that cross.  The cross does not save us because we believe, but we believe because the cross has redeemed us out of all sin and merited for us everlasting life. Hence, the “world” of John 3:16 is the world of God’s love, of God’s everlasting and unchangeable love (there is no other love of God), the world for which He gave His only begotten Son, which was redeemed by the blood of that Son, and which shall appear in everlasting perfection when that Son shall return upon the clouds of heaven to make all things new. This also enables us to understand the second part of John 3:16, namely: “that whosoever believeth on Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” Presupposing that Christ, as the Arminian would have us believe, died for all men and, therefore, also for those who perish, why or how can anyone be assured of everlasting life just because he believes on Him? Did He not die for all men, also for those who are lost? How, then, can it be comforting to know and believe that He died for me? However, if the death of Christ be atoning, the blotting out of my sin and guilt and the meriting for me of everlasting life, then, to believe on that Christ, to know that He died and shed His blood for me, assures me of everlasting life. Faith, then, is that gift of God whereby He, having convicted me of sin and guilt and hopelessness and having united me unto the living Christ, enables me to cling unto that Christ, to embrace Him as the Lamb of God Who shed His blood for me that I might live and for that reason I also shall live even forevermore.