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Joh_3:16. Continuation of the address of Jesus to Nicodemus, onwards to Joh_3:21,[162] not, as Erasmus, Rosenmüller, Kuinoel, Paulus, Neander, Tholuck, Olshausen, Maier think (see also Bäumlein), an explanatory meditation of the evangelist’s own; an assumption justified neither by anything in the text nor by the word ΜΟΝΟΓΕΝΉς , a word which must have been transferred from the language of John to the mouth of Jesus (not vice versa, as Hengstenberg thinks), for it is never elsewhere used by Christ, often as He speaks of His divine sonship. See on Joh_1:14. The reflective character of the following discourse is so fully compatible with the design of Christ to instruct, and the preterites ἠγάπησαν and ἮΝ so little require to be explained from the standing-point of a later time, that there does not seem any sufficient basis for the intermediate view (of Lücke, De Wette, Brückner), that in this continued account of the discourse of Jesus, Joh_3:16 ff., John inserts more explanations and reflections of his own than in the preceding part, how little soever such a supposition would (as Kling and Hengstenberg think) militate against the trustworthiness of John, who, in recording the longer discourses, has exactly in his own living recollection the abundant guarantee of substantial certainty.
οὕτω ] so much; see on Gal_3:3.
γάρ ] reason of the purpose stated in Joh_3:15.
ἨΓΆΠΗΣΕΝ ] loved, with reference to the time of the ἔδωκεν .
τὸν κόσμον ] i.e. mankind at large,[163] comp. πᾶς , Joh_3:15; Joh_17:2; 1Jn_2:2.
ΤῸΝ ΜΟΝΟΓ .] to make the proof of His love the stronger, 1Jn_4:9; Heb_11:17; Rom_8:32.
ἔδωκεν ] He did not reserve Him for Himself, but gave Him, i.e. to the world. The word means more than ἀπέστειλεν (Joh_3:17), which expresses[164] the manner of the ἔδωκεν , though it does not specially denote the giving up to death, but the state of humiliation as a whole, upon which God caused His Son to enter when He left His pre-existent glory (Joh_17:5), and the final act of which was to be His death (1Jn_4:10). The Indicative following, ὥστε , describes the act objectively as something actually done. See on Gal_2:13; and Klotz ad Devar. 772.
μὴ ἀπόληται , κ . τ . λ .] Concerning the subjunctive, representing an object as present, see Winer, 271 [E. T. p. 377]. The change from the Aorist to the Present is to be noted, whereby the being utterly ruined (by banishment to hell in the Messianic judgment) is spoken of as an act in process of accomplishment; while the possession of the Messianic ζωή is described as now already existing (commencing with regeneration), and as abiding for ever. Comp. on Joh_3:15.
[162] Luther rightly praised “the majesty, simplicity, clearness, expressiveness, truth, charm” of this discourse. He “exceedingly and beyond measure loved” this text.
[163] This declaration is the rock upon which the absolute predestination doctrine goes to pieces, and the supposed (by Baur and Hilgenfeld) metaphysical dualism of the anthropology of St. John. Calovius well unfolds our text thus: (1) salutis principium ( ἠγάπ .); (2) dilectionis objectum (the κόσμος , not the electi); (3) donum amplissimum (His only-begotten Son); (4) pactum gratiosissimum (faith, not works); (5) finem missionis Christi saluberrimum.
[164] Weizsäcker in the Zeitschr. f. Deutsche Theol. 1857, p. 176, erroneously finds wanting in John an intimation on the part of Christ that He is the Logos who came voluntarily to the world. He is, however, the Logos sent of God, who undertook this mission in the feeling of obedience. Thus the matter is presented throughout the N. T., and the thought that Christ came αὐτοθελής is quite foreign thereto.