4th SUNDAY OF LENT (B)

For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life. 

Jn 3:14-21

v. 15. So that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.”

Eternal life is a peculiarly Johannine phrase, though it is used by the Synoptists. It is interesting to recall that the rich young ruler asked Jesus the question “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” On the lips of such a typical Jew (and so therefore to the ears of Nicodemus) the phrase was really equivalent to “the life of the age to come”, i.e. life in that divine order that would supervene upon this when history was brought to its close by God. 

But for the fourth evangelist the outstanding and characteristic thing is that eternal life need not be waited for until this age ceases, but can be, and indeed is, the gift of God within the present temporal order. Hence the present tense is used in the next verse, and often afterwards in the gospel, in speaking about begetting eternal life. This is part of John's “realized eschatology”.

The Synoptics sometimes speak of  “life” absolutely: “The gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life” (Mt 7:14). It need not be accompanied by the adjective eternal. But what does eternal mean? Not “everlasting” in the sense that it always goes on, but eternal in the sense that its quality is unassailable by corruption or decay. The emphasis is on the quality, not the duration, of the life. And the quality is that which the divine life itself has, which God himself is. John will have much more to say about it as his gospel continues.

v. 16. For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life.

God so loved the world:

“The world” is intentionally ambiguous in usage here, meaning that God has a universal love for his whole creation; but that property to reciprocate that love is the gift of God to man.

v. 17. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him.

For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world:

The verb translated sent is associated in Greek with the noun “apostle”. In John it is a basic idea that Jesus has been sent (he is the great apostle) and that he sends his disciples as he himself was sent (20:21).

Not to condemn:

The thought is often reflected in Paul: “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 8:1).

v. 19. And this is the verdict, that the light came into the world, but people preferred darkness to light, because their works were evil.

And this is the verdict:

Or “the condemnation”. Here the evangelist makes it plain that it is a reflex of the act of God's love that men may condemn themselves, and not a separate and posterior act of God's judicial condemnation. Even this judgment speaks his love.

v. 21. But whoever lives the truth comes to the light, so that his works may be clearly seen as done in God.

But whoever lives the truth :

Or “he who does what is true”. Truth = reality; the reality is the act of God. To do the truth is thus to do God's will. Such actions are "done in God". We are not their sole authors. 

"And every virtue we possess,

And every victory won

And every thought of holiness

Are his alone."