Pentecost 26
John 3:22-36 
In the first half of this chapter we had the story of Nicodemus visiting Jesus at night. That account comes to its highpoint with the famous words in verse 16, ‘For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.’ This verse has been adopted by the American evangelical movement as their theme verse and it is hard to go to a view a sporting event in the US in the past several decades without seeing a few placards saying ‘John 3:16’, not to mention the bumper stickers. I am not sure how many people who see these placards go to their phones and look up John 3:16, but I did read some years ago that this verse in now the most famous and best known in the Bible.
But what does it mean? We often take it is isolation from its context. After this verse John gives us a small commentary on the meaning of this passage in verses 17-21 in which he talks about the Son coming into the world not to bring condemnation but salvation, and to be the light of the world. Most people looking to understand this key passage stop reading there. But the remainder of the chapter belongs with the first and they are meant to be read together. It provides a parallel story to that of Nicodemus, but this time the character who appears alongside of Jesus is John the Baptist.
Many might argue that verses 22-36 are an entirely different theme to the first half of the chapter. Indeed, in the Gospels a change of geographical location generally indicates a change of theme. But not in this case. There are too many deliberate links to the themes of verse 1-16 to believe anything other than that John saw the account of John the Baptist as a continuation of several key themes from the first half of the chapter. We do not have time to go into these verses in depth, but some of the ‘echoes’ from verses 1-16 should be noted.
The themes of baptism, water (v. 23) and Spirit (v. 34) continue. The concept of ‘from above’ is found in the ‘from heaven’ of verse 27 and the ‘from above’ of verse 31. (same word, άνωθεν, as in v. 3). In verse 32 he testifies to what he has seen personally but no one hears his testimony. This parallels v. 11 – as well as the earthly and heavenly things. Verses 28-30 pickup strongly the Messianic theme of the first half of the chapter. V. 36 concludes the section with a contrast again between the two ways or destinies of eternal life versus wrath. The second half of the chapter, therefore, ends on the very same note as the first.
The contrast with John the Baptist further clarifies who Jesus is. Verse 35, which also speaks of agape-love, provides an interesting parallel with 3:16. The ‘all things’ parallels the ‘world’ of v. 16. John uses the two terms as synonyms in much the same way that the Psalms do this. And the ‘whoever believes’ of verse 36 clearly parallels the second part of verse 16. The intriguing difference is now that Father loves the Son and gives him all things (the world). But this can only occur in light of verse 16 where learn that the world is the object of God’s love, and the Son is given for the world.
So the two stories, laid out side by side, would look something like this (see bulletin insert):
1-10 Nicodemus speaks with Jesus ↔ 22-30 John Bapt speaks about
Jesus
5,6 Water and Spirit ↔ 22-33 Water and Spirit
11 Testifies of what he has seen in ↔ 32 testifies of what he has seen
heaven but no one believes him in heaven but not one
believes him
12 earthly/heavenly things contrasted ↔ 31 earthly and heavenly things
contrasted
13 Son comes from above ↔ 31 Son comes from above
John 3:16 ↔ John 3:35,36
God loves world → gives Son The Father loves Son → gives him all
Whoever believes has eternal life ↔ Whoever believes has eternal life
In the ancient Semitic world repetition, including concentric and chiastic structures, were frequently used to emphasise or stress certain key points. Occasionally several key phrases or ideas recur in a parallel passage (similar to the kind of parallelisms found in Hebrew poetry like the Psalms). These draw the reader’s attention. Then there often occurs a key verse which parallels a previous key passage but turns around some key concept to particularly emphasise a point. The modern reader often misses these literary and interpretative cues. John, a Jew writing in Greek, would have been quite familiar with this style. If one views John 17-21 as a commentary or interlude by the Evangelist that highlights the importance and meaning of verse 16, then there are some important parallels between verse 1-16 and verse 22-36 that cannot simply be dismissed as coincidence.
The parallel ending to each of these two stories cannot be missed. John 3:35,36 is a deliberate parallel to 3:16. These two passages explain one another. Only the God who loves his Son can give him for the world, and only the God who loves the world can give all things (the world) to his Son. Both the Son and the world are loved by God the Father, and both are given to/for the other. Belief, or faith, on this foundation, is the way to eternal life.
Not only does the Father give the Son to the world, but he gives the world to the Son. God’s love for the world is his motivation for giving his Son, and his love for the Son is his motivation for giving him the world. These verses taken together form a literary device called a chiasm, in which the two main points are inverted to explain and interpret one another.
It is called a chaism because of the Greek letter Chi, which looks like an ‘X’. If you wrote out the first half of John 3:16, the underneath it wrote out John 3:35 and then drew a line connecting Son in each verse, and world (or all things) in each verse, the two intersecting lines would form an ‘X’ or a Greek letter Chi.
God loves world → gives it his Son (John 3:16)
God loves Son → gives him the world (John 3:35)
So we have here a literary device (a chiasm) inside a literary device, the telling of parallel stories. And all this serves to highlight the key point. It is a point that culminated in verse 35 and 36, not verse 16.
But we tend to stop with John 3:16, getting only half of the point. The full story is only seen when we take John 3:35 and 36 into account. God loves both the Son and the world. And God gives them to one another.
Imagine a Jewish wedding ceremony in the which the Rabbi takes the bride and groom’s hands and joins them together. That is what is happening here. And it is not hard to imagine such a scene when just such an image has been brought up a few lines earlier in verse 29. So the image of a wedding ceremony has already been planted in the reader’s mind. Now we have this mutual giving in love of the Son to the world and the world to the Son. It would be a strange and incomplete ceremony in which only the bride was given to the groom, or only the groom to the bride.
So that most famous of all Bible verses, John 3:16, has a sequel: John 35 and 36. And this second occurrence of the teaching, in the complex literary structure that John employs here, is meant to be the culmination of these two stories. Yet it continues to be overlooked by readers who stop at John 3:16 thinking we have heard all we need to hear. And John 3:16 is indeed a very powerful passage. It is hard not to stop when we have read it an meditate on its meaning. God loved the world (that is to say, us) so much that he gave his Son that we might have life everlasting.
But this isn’t the end of the story. It not the end of the message of this text. For the next, parallel story, as we have seen, ends with almost the exact same words. Only this time, God so loved his Son that he gives him the world. The Son is ours. He is God’s gift to us. We learn that from John 3:16. But we are also his. We belong to Jesus because the Father has given us to him in love. That is what we learn in John 3:35.
The end result of being given to and for one another, that is, Son to the world and world to the Son, is the same. Both verses conclude with eh promise of eternal life for all who believe.
It is unlikely that signs saying ‘John 3:35’ will begin popping up at US sporting events. But next time you see someone pointing to John 3:16, remember that it conveys only one half of this wonderful message. For the second half we must keep reading. God so loved the world that he gave his Son that all who believe will have eternal life. This is most certainly true.
But there is more.
It is equally true that ‘God so loved the Son that he gave him everything (that is, the world), that all who believe in him may have eternal life.’
We have Jesus and Jesus has us. Both are held together by the bonds of God’s love. And that, indeed, is good news.
Amen.
Pastor Mark Worthing.
Port Macquarie.