John 3:16 and the Gospel

What exactly is the gospel that we must present to non-believers?

By way of a preface to this piece, I just saw on the social media a post about ‘What is the gospel?’ It had a link to the popular American preacher Voddie Baucham and it said he answered that question in 41 seconds. I did not go to that link then, but I did go through in my own mind what I would say in less than a minute if I had to answer that question.

Well, I just now had a look at that video, and I am pleased to say that the answer that ran through my head was very close indeed to what he had shared. For those who are interested, here is the link to his reply: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EzJtR1TKlvc  

We both spoke of the good news of the gospel, but ONLY in light of the bad news of the gospel which must first be heard. Without presenting the entire gospel message, we will only leave people today dazed and confused. In this regard I recall hearing one non-Christian saying the following:

He was recounting how someone had come up to him on the street and asked, “Are you saved?” To which he replied, “Saved from what?” Christians use the word “saved” in a technical theological sense – a sense that would elude most pagans today. They might think of something like being saved from a burning building, but NOT of being saved from their sins and the consequences of their sins.

So if we want to properly communicate to the lost today, to the unsaved, we need to do a lot more explanation first. We need to give them the bad news in other words before we can give them the good news. Unless people understand how lost and separated they are from a holy and just God, they will never see the need to get “saved” – whatever that might mean.

Back to my title then: Ask any Christian – and perhaps a few non-Christians – to share a biblical passage that best seems to summarise and represent the gospel, and you will more often than not get John 3:16. It does seem to encapsulate some key Christian truths about what the gospel message is all about.

However, if taken alone, it could in fact become unrepresentative, and perhaps even misleading, as to what the heart of the gospel message really is. At the very least, we must take this verse in context if we are to give others a very good overview and assertion of the core Christian message. Here it is in context (verses 16-21):

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God.

If this entire paragraph was presented every time when someone – including an enquiring non-believer – asks what the gospel is all about, this would be a very good answer indeed. It would cover most of the key bases. We are sinners who love darkness and hate God. Unless we turn from sin, repent, and put our faith and trust in Christ and the work that he did for us on the cross, we are lost – eternally.

With all this in mind let me refer you to a very good book that David Pawson released some years ago: Is John 3:16 the Gospel? (Terra Nova Publications, 2007). Those not familiar with Pawson might want to have a read of my piece that I produced when he passed away: https://billmuehlenberg.com/2020/05/22/vale-david-pawson/

The British Bible teacher (1930-2020) was the author of numerous books and was one of the UK’s finest evangelical Bible teachers. He had helped millions of believers to better understand the Scriptures, and this book is a good example of this. Although quite brief (just 96 pages) it makes an important case.

His thesis is simple: John 3:16 as such is not the core gospel message. The righteousness of God and our unrighteousness, and how to bridge that gap in Christ is. It is not some indiscriminate love of God, or some sentimental notion that God loves everyone unconditionally sort of message.

While God’s love is a wonderful reality, Pawson notes how relatively rare it is mentioned in Scripture. And most of the references to God’s love refer to those who are his. For example, we find no examples of Jesus or the disciples proclaiming the love of God to non-believers.

The one verse that seems to do so, John 3:16, is carefully discussed in this book. And what might be surprising to some believers, Pawson makes a convincing case that this passage does not actually record the words of Jesus, but the words of John addressed to believers.

But even leaving that matter aside, it is quite clear that the gospel message preached by the apostles was one of the righteousness of God and the need for repentance. It was NOT primarily of how much God loves the lost. Let me offer the words of Pawson on this:

When it is said that God’s love is unconditional, it is implied that he loves everybody just as they are. That is how that phrase comes across to unbelievers. God’s love is ‘unconditional’, which means therefore that he does not judge people. He loves them just as they are — so come to him just as you are. Whatever happened to the word ‘repent’ —a word which actually means ‘change’?

 

The first step in coming to God, the very first step, is to change, to repent. But the phrase ‘the unconditional love of God’ says, ‘Come as you are.’ A real burden in my spirit began to develop, and I began to ask radical questions about preaching the love of God – especially ‘unconditionally’ – to unbelievers. If we do so, are we really doing what the Lord wants us to do?

 

So I did my homework, and I discovered a number of surprising things about the Bible in relation to the love of God. The first thing I discovered was how very few references to the love of God are to be found in scripture. You can give an impression that the whole Bible is talking about his love but, when you actually get down to studying the matter, you only find thirty-five verses which directly and explicitly refer to the love of God. And do you know how many verses there are in your Bible? Thirty-five thousand! So only one verse in a thousand refers to the love of God. Now that was a big surprise to me. I had thought the Bible was full of it.

 

The second, even bigger, surprise was that every mention in scripture of the love of God is addressed to those who have already been redeemed by him from slavery —either slavery in Egypt under Pharaoh or slavery to sin under Satan. Only those who have been rescued by God from slavery talk about the love of God to each other. In the Old Testament, Jews only talked about the love of God to Jews. In the New Testament, Christians only talked about the love of God to Christians. It was an ‘in’ subject. I believe that the reason for this is that only those who have been redeemed by God can understand his love. Others really do not have enough understanding to grasp what God’s love really is until they have been rescued themselves, and redeemed. To take that a little further, note also that neither Jesus nor any of the apostles ever preached about the love of God in public.

 

Now I always make this appeal to people whom I teach: Do not accept what I say as truth until you have checked me out in your own Bible; see whether I am right or wrong. So in all these things, please check me out, but I could not find a single example of Jesus or the apostles ever preaching about the love of God to unbelievers. The most striking absence is in the Book of Acts, which is surely a description of the early church evangelising, spreading the gospel, planting churches. Yet in the whole of Acts there is not a single mention of the love of God. That is not what they preached. It was not how they spread the gospel. It was not how they planted churches. We have just simply assumed that they did without checking up for ourselves.

 

So, beginning to add all these data together from scripture, I came to the conclusion that talking about the love of God to unbelievers is a classic example of something Jesus told us not to do. He said, “Don’t throw pearls to pigs”. Far from appreciating the value of what you are giving to them, “they will trample them underfoot and turn and rend you to pieces… (pp. 11-14)

Well, that lengthy quote might get a few of you thinking! I would encourage you to get a hold of this book and read it for yourself. But at the end of this volume, he has a brief Postscript which I think is well worth closing with here:

In this study, we have looked very carefully at John 3:16. I now ask you to think about it for yourself. Do not ‘play me off’ against other teachers: ‘Well, I agree with this teacher’, or ‘I disagree with . . . ’, or, ’He doesn’t agree with him’. That is a game we should not play. Search the scriptures for yourself. Look into them, be convinced by them, and speak the truth in love.

 

Let me make it quite clear that I believe we are to show people the love of God. We are to show people the agape of God, but we are not to preach it to them.

 

We are to bring them to the point where they realise that God is righteous, that everything he does is good and right, and that he will judge all of us without any favouritism or partiality —and that we therefore need to go and look at the one hanging on the stake on the hill as God’s loving action, to set us free from the certain death that will be ours otherwise.

 

I suppose in the end it would be better for a person never to have been born than to miss the opportunity that God’s loving gift of Jesus made possible.

 

God commends his love to all of us, in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us (Romans 5:8). (p. 95)

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