Reformed Voices on John 3:16

 

Hugh Latimer (1487-1555): “God is not only a private Father, but a common Father unto the whole world, **unto all the faithful**, be they never so poor and miserable … Now it would both impeach the wisdom and affront the dignity of Christ, as well as infinitely depreciate the value of His sacrifice to suppose that he could possibly shed his blood on the cross, for those very souls which were, at that very time, suffering for their own sins in hell.” (Latimer’s Sermons,” vol. 1, 332, as quoted in Works of Augustus Toplady [Harrison, VA: Sprinkle Publications, 1987], 142)

 

George Gillespie (1613-1648): “In answer to the two arguments, one from the John 3:16. The brother [a Mr. John Goodwin] takes for granted that by the world is meant the whole world. It is a point much controverted. Our divines do deny that the word world must in some places be taken in another sense … For that of philanthropy it makes much against it … I cannot understand how there can be such a universal love of God to mankind as is maintained. Those that will say it must needs deny the absolute reprobation.” (The Minutes of the Sessions of the Assembly of Divines [Edmonton: SWRB, n.d., 19**], 155)

 

John Flavel (1627-1691): [1] “The objects of this love, or the persons to whom the eternal Lord delivered Christ, and that is the [World]. This must respect the elect of God in the world, such as do, or shall actually believe, as it is exegetically expressed in the next words, ‘That whosoever believes in him should not perish.’” (Sermon 4, “The Fountain of Life,” in John Flavel’s Works, vol. 1 [Carlisle, PA: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1968], 63-64)

 

[2] “You have heard of the gracious purpose and design of God, to recover poor sinners to himself by Jesus Christ, and how this design of love was laid and contrived in the covenant of redemption, whereof we last spake. Now, according to the terms of that covenant, you shall hear from this scripture, how that design was by one degree advanced towards its accomplishment, in God’s actual giving or parting with his own Son for us: ‘God so loved the world, that he gave,’ etc. The whole precedent context is spent in discovering the nature and necessity of regeneration, and the necessity thereof is in this text urged and inferred from the peculiar respect and eye God had upon believers, in giving Christ for them; they only reaping all the special and saving benefits and advantages of that gift: ‘God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish.” (Sermon: “Opens the Admirable Love of God in Giving His Own Son for Us,” in John Flavel’s Works, vol. 1 [Carlisle, PA: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1968])

 

Samuel Rutherford (1600-1661): “For the two scriptures alleged yesterday desire when I give a reason of the denial of a proposition … For that of John 3:16, three grounds of an argument taken from this place: 1. From the word ‘loved’; a general love to elect and reprobate. 2. From the word ‘world’, generally taken, because distributive afterwards. 3. Grounded upon God’s intention upon condition of faith … For the first, Christ speaks of a particular special love … This all one with those places … This love is parallel with that expressed in those three places … The love of one giving his life for his friends … the love that moved Him to send His only-begotten Son … If the love in John 3 be the same with those, as in those places is meant the special particular love of God commensurable with election … not one scripture in all the New Testament where it can be expounded for the general … 2. The love in the John 3 is restricted to the Church; Eph. 5:25, restricted to a Church … so Gal. 2:20, loved me; the apostle who lives the life of God by faith … Rom. 5:8, the sinners and ungodly are set down to be the justified by faith … Such a love as moved the husband Christ to give His life for His spouse, such as moved … such as God commends, for the highest love is a restricted special love … 3. It is an actual saving love, and therefore not a general love.” (The Minutes of the Sessions of the Assembly of Divines [Edmonton: SWRB, n.d., 19**], 155)

 

John Owen (1616-1683): “First … Now, this love we say to be that, greater than which there is none. Secondly, by the ‘world’,  we understand the elect of God only, though not considered in this place as such, but under such a notion as, being true of them, serves for the farther exaltation of God’s love towards them, which is the end here designed; and this is, as they are poor, miserable, lost creatures in the world, of the world, scattered abroad in all places of the world, not tied to Jews or Greeks, but dispersed in any nation, kindred and language under heaven. Thirdly, ‘ἵνα πᾶς ὁ πιστεύων’, ‘in order that every believer,’ is to us, and is declarative of the intention of God in sending or giving his Son, containing no distribution of the world beloved but a direction to the person whose good was intended, that love being an unchangeable intention of the chiefest good. Fourthly, ‘Should not perish, but have life everlasting,’ contains an expression of the particular aim and intention of God in this business; which is, the certain salvation of believers by Christ. And this, in general, is the interpretation of the words which we adhere unto, which will yield us sundry arguments, efficient each of them to ever the general ransom; which, that they may be the better bottomed, and the more clearly convincing, we will lay down and compare the several words and expression of this place, about whose interpretation we digress, with the reason of our rejecting the one sense and embracing the other: The first difference in the interpretation of this place is about the cause of sending Christ; called here love. The second, about the object of this love; called here the world. Thirdly, concerning the intention of God in sending his Son; said to be that believers might be saved.” (Works of John Owen, vol. 10 [Carlisle, PA: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1993], 319ff [see whole discourse]. Quote cited from page 321)

 

John Gill (1697-1771): “‘For God so loved the world …’ The Persic versions reads ‘men’: but not every man in the world is here meant, or all the individuals of human nature; for all are not the objects of God’s special love, which is here designed, as appears from the instance and evidence of it, ‘the gift of his Son’: nor is Christ God’s gift to every one; for to whomsoever he gives His Son, he gives all things freely with him; which is not the case of every man. Nor is human nature here intended, in opposition to, and distinction from, the angelic nature; for although God has showed a regard to fallen men, and not to fallen angels, and has provided a Savior for the one, and not for the other; and Christ has assumed the nature of men, and not angels; yet not for the sake of all men, but the spiritual seed of Abraham; and besides, it will not be easily proved, that human nature is ever called the world: nor is the whole body of the chosen ones, as consisting of Jews and Gentiles, here designed; for though these are called the world (John 6:33, 51); and are the objects of God’s special love, and to them Christ is given, and they are brought to believe in him, and shall never perish, but shall be saved with an everlasting salvation; yet rather the Gentiles particularly, and God’s elect among them, are meant; who are often called ‘the world’, and ‘the whole world’, and ‘the nations of the world’, as distinct from the Jews; see Romans 11:12, 15; I John 2:2; Luke 12:30, compared with Matthew 6:32” (Exposition of the Old and New Testaments, vol. 7 [Paris: Baptist Standard Bearer, 1989], 772-773)

 

John Gerstner (1914-1996): “John 3:16 says more clearly than probably any verse in Scripture that the atonement was made for believers only. God so loved the world that He gave His Son that believers should have eternal life.” (Wrongly Dividing the Word of Truth: A Critique of Dispensationalism [Brentwood, TN: Wolgemuth & Hyatt, Publishers, Inc., 1991], 139-140)

 

C. Matthew McMahon: “God’s love in John 3:16 is the highest form of love, as the Greek shows us, and that love cannot be towards the whole world indiscriminately with a lesser love to the elect. Nor can this love be both for the whole world and the elect, for then we would wonder why the whole world is not saved. Neither its context, nor its use of the Greek, allows its use to aid in propagating a general love for all men; that is not the point of the passage. I do not believe this love to be extended to all without distinction, but to all kinds (both Jew and Gentile) from all ages with the distinct and particular love of God in Christ to His elect in those masses. Thus, Jesus is teaching Nicodemus, a Jewish ruler, that his narrow interpretation of God’s love is incorrect. The saving love of God in Christ does not simply fall upon the Jew, but all kinds of men, the Gentiles included. Jesus is not saying that God’s love is a general saving love for all men indiscriminately, but it reaches to all nations indiscriminately under the new covenant.” (The Two Wills of God: Does God Really Have Two Wills? [Coconut Creek, FL: Puritan Publications, 2005], 222-223)

 

R.K. McGregor Wright: “The passage states that as a result of his loving the world, God gave his Son, which is usually understood to be a reference to the incarnation and atonement. Then the Greek says, ‘in order that every one believing in him may not perish.’ There is no word for ‘whosoever’ in the original. On the contrary, far from God’s giving his Son to provide a generalized atonement for everyone who exists, the verse states that he gave his Son for the express purpose of saving a special group. Since this group excludes all unbelievers and is less than all existing human beings, John 3:16 states explicitly that the purpose of God in sending his Son to die was limited to atoning for believers only, that they ‘should not perish, but have everlasting life.’ This is what Calvinists call a limited atonement, in answer to the general or universal atonement taught by the Arminian, Catholic and Lutheran systems.” (No Place for Sovereignty [Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1996], 159)