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Joh_3:18. More exact explanation of the negative part of Joh_3:17. Mankind are either believing, and are thus delivered from condemnation (comp. Joh_5:24), because if the Messiah had come to judge the world, He would only have had to condemn sin; but sin is forgiven to the believer, and he already has everlasting ζωή ;—or they are unbelieving, so that condemnation has already been passed upon them in idea (as an internal fact),[165] because they reject the Only-begotten of God, and there is no need of a special act of judgment to be passed on them on the part of the Messiah; their own unbelief has already passed upon them the sentence of condemnation. “He who does not believe, already has hell on his neck,” Luther; he is αὐτοκατάκριτος , Tit_3:11. Joh_3:18 does not speak of the last judgment which shall be the solemn and ultimate completion of this temporal judgment,[166] but it does not call it in question, in opposition to the Jewish Messianic belief (Hilgenfeld). See on Joh_5:28-30, Joh_12:31. Well says Euthymius Zigabenus: ἡ ἀπιστία κατέκρινε πρὸ τῆς κατακρίσεως . Comp. Joh_3:36.
πεπίστευκεν ] has become a believer (and remains so); the subjective negation in the causal clause (contrary to the older classical usage), as often in Lucian, etc., denoting the relation as one presupposed in the view of the speaker. See Herm. ad Viger. p. 806; Winer, p. 442 [E. T. p. 602]. Otherwise in 1Jn_5:10.
τοῦ μονογ . υἱοῦ τ . θεοῦ ] very impressively throwing light upon the ἤδη κέκριται , because bringing clearly into view the greatness of the guilt.
[165] Hence it is clear that the signification of κρίνειν as meaning condemnatory judgment is correct, and not the explanation of Weiss, Lehrbegriff, p. 184, according to whom the “judgment” here means in general only a decision either for life or death. In that case, not οὐ κρίνεται , but ἤδη κέκριται , must apply also to the believer. But this very distinction, the οὐ κρίνεται used of the believer and the ἤδη κέκριται of the unbeliever, places the explanation of a condemnatory κρίνειν beyond doubt. This is also against Godet, who with reference to the believer hits upon the expedient of supposing that the Lord here anticipates the judgment (viz. the “constater l’état moral”). But according to the words of Jesus, this suggestion would apply rather to the case of the unbeliever.
[166] This temporal judgment of the world is the world’s history, the conclusion of which is the last judgment (Joh_5:27), which, however, must not (as Schleier-macher, L. J. 355) be dissipated by means of this text into a merely natural issue of the mission of Jesus. See on Joh_5:28. See also Groos in the Stud. u. Krit. 1868, p. 251.