John 3:14–16 (ESV)
And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
Main Teaching Points
1. In the first clause of John 3:16, the word translated “so” is the Greek word houtōs. As in the other 13 instance of houtōs in John’s Gospel, it does not mean “For God loved the world so much, that …” Rather, it means “For God in this way loved the world so that he gave his only Son.” Or, as Morris has it, “The Greek construction puts some emphasis on the actuality of the gift: it is not ‘God loved enough to give,’ but ‘God loved so that he gave.’”1
2. The term “only son” (v. 16) “means ‘one-of-a-kind’ and is reserved for Jesus in the Johannine literature of the NT.”2
3. “The phrase eternal life [Grk. zōē aiōnia] comes from a Hebrew phrase, literally ‘life in the (coming) age.’”3
BDAG4 Greek Lexicon on καθὼς, οὕτως and ὥστε
BDAG: οὕτως
① referring to what precedes, in this manner, thus, so
ⓐ with a correlative word …. καθὼς … οὕτως (just) as … so John 3:14
② pertaining to what follows in discourse material, in this way, as follows … Correlatively: οὕτως … ὥστε; SIG 1169, 57f ἔμπυος ἦς οὕτω σφόδρως, ὥστε … ἐνέπλησε πύους = he was suffering to such an extent from a suppurating wound, that … he was filled with matter; John 3:16
NET Bible on the Term “Only Son”
The NET Bible’s translation note 37 in verse 16 regarding the phrase “one and only Son” reads:
Although this word is often translated “only begotten,” such a translation is misleading, since in English it appears to express a metaphysical relationship. The word in Greek was used of an only child (a son [Luke 7:12, 9:38] or a daughter [Luke 8:42]). It was also used of something unique (only one of its kind) such as the mythological Phoenix (1 Clement 25:2). From here it passes easily to a description of Isaac (Heb 11:17 and Josephus, Ant. 1.13.1 [1.222]) who was not Abraham’s only son, but was one-of-a-kind because he was the child of the promise. Thus the word means “one-of-a-kind” and is reserved for Jesus in the Johannine literature of the NT. While all Christians are children of God (τέκνα θεοῦ, tekna theou), Jesus is God’s Son in a unique, one-of-a-kind sense. The word is used in this way in all its uses in the Gospel of John (1:14, 1:18, 3:16, and 3:18).5
UBS Handbook on the Term “eternal life”
The point has been made (see the comments on 1:4) that eternal life is primarily qualitative; it describes the quality of life a man has when God rules in his life. The phrase eternal life comes from a Hebrew phrase, literally “life in the (coming) age.” For the Hebrews “the coming age” was the age in which God would destroy the power of sin and evil in the world and set up his own rule of love and peace. In the earliest notions of this coming age, it was probably not looked upon as something that would never end; it was not “eternal” in our sense of the word. However, there is no doubt that by New Testament times “life in the age” was looked upon by many Jews as an everlasting experience. In the New Testament it definitely has this meaning, even though the main emphasis is always on the quality of life one experiences when God rules his life. That is, in the Gospel of John eternal life is basically qualitative, but it is also conceived of as life that never ends, because it comes from God.6
Conclusion
Through analogy with the Bronze Serpent event in the OT (Nb 21:4–9), John is saying Jesus is the Present Age provision God has made to spare those he loves (those with genuine faith in him) from the collective capital punishment of the Law of Moses that he is going to level on this final “twisted and wicked” generation (Dt 32:5, Mk 9:19; Mt 17:17; Lk 9:41; Pp 2:15) of Israel.
Leon Morris, The Gospel According to John, NICNT (Eerdmans, 1995), 203.
From the translation note 37 at John 3:16 of The NET Bible (Biblical Studies Press, 2005).
Barclay Moon Newman and Eugene Albert Nida, A Handbook on the Gospel of John, UBS Handbook Series (New York, NY: UBS, 1993), 88.
William Arndt et al., A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, 3rd ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000).
TN 37 of The NET Bible, First Edition (Biblical Studies Press, 2005), John 3.
Newman and Nida, A Handbook on the Gospel of John, 88.