John 3:16
Unconditional Belief
Unconditional Love, as Stated in John 3:16
John 3:16 “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”
Other translations have "Should not perish."
God is love. 1 John 4:8 tells us that. He has always loved us. God demonstrated his love when He made Adam in his own image and gave him a home in the garden. God showed his love by giving Adam work to do to keep him busy. God showed his love by instructing Adam how to keep from danger by not eating the fruit of one particular tree.
God showed his love to Cain and Abel by telling them how to worship God in the way that pleased him.
God showed his love to Noah by telling him to build an ark to save himself and his family.
God continued to show his love for Abraham, Moses, the children of Israel, and in fact, all people since the time of creation. All have had God's love shown to them, and all have had stipulations or requirements given to them by God. God needed these things done to receive the promises.
This passage shows that God had always wanted to show his love to everyone. These verses show God’s wrath when people refuse His love.
Rom.1:18-21 18 “The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, 19 since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 20 For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.”
21 For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile, and their foolish hearts were darkened.
God shows his love to us by what he requires of us in our lives.
He started by only requiring one thing of Adam. But because Adam failed to obey what God commanded, God stipulated more or different requirements for reasons of his righteousness.
Adam knew God and should have believed God, but he failed to follow him. His failure to obey God prevented him from receiving all that God had intended for him to have. God does not force those who believe to observe or continue to believe.
When we understand John 3:16 and what the Holy Spirit says to us, we will not use the word "unconditional" to describe God's love. God's desire for Adam was eternal life.
That is still God's desire for us. John 3:16 has only one condition or requirement attached to a person (whosoever) to receive eternal life: believing in Jesus.
The word unconditional should be used to describe the word belief. What we should be reading is the phrase whoever unconditionally believes in God or Jesus. When we unconditionally believe in Jesus, faith grows so that it produces obedience to the requirements of God.
Our compliance shows our faith because we believe unconditionally in Jesus.
7/7/2018
Larry E. Whittington
Thank you for your thoughts as you read this piece.
Good balance between John 3:16 and Romans 1. By the way, for some reason I had to re-verify my identity before I could post this. I thought that was strange, because I had no trouble leaving comments on the other substacks I follow. You might want to check it out.