Purposes of Christ's Death: John 3:16-17

Last week’s post examining the purpose statements for the death of Christ given in scripture was supposed to be the last, the one with the purpose statement that summed up all the other purpose statements. But I discovered that in my reposting of the old posts, I’d skipped three that I wanted to include. Here is one of them, late and out of order.

What might be the most familiar verse in the Bible contains a purpose statement for the death of Christ. So does the verse that follows it.

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. [17] For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. (John 3:16-17 ESV)

The purpose statement in the verse 16 is obvious: “that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” God sent his son into the world so that all who believe on him will have eternal life instead of the condemnation due them because of of their sin. This is the way God loved the world: He provided a way, through the death of His own son, for anyone who believes to be given eternal life instead of the eternal judgment to which they are already sentenced. (see verse 18).

Verse 17 gives us two statements about the purpose of Christ’s death. First it tells us something that was not God’s purpose in sending his son. Christ didn’t come to condemn the world, at least not in this first advent, when he came to die. 

He came, rather, for the purpose of saving the world. He accomplished this by providing the means for all believers—not only Jews, but Gentiles, too—to have eternal life rather than condemnation. 

God intended for Christ’s death to provide a way for everyone who believes in Him to have eternal life instead of eternal judgment, and this way, for him to save the world.

Comments

[Carl Cunningham]

Thoughtful post, thank you. I'm studying through John, and was stunned by the purpose clause in 3:17. It seemed so contradictory to the one in John 9:39, “For judgment I have come into this world, so that those who do not see may gain their sight, and the ones who see may become blind". So did he come to judge or not?

You hit on it, he had one MAIN purpose in his first advent - redemption, and another in his second - judgment. One final purpose text, in John 12:44-50, ties these two together nicely, and more fully opens up the meaning of 3:17. It was helpful for me, hopefully for someone else as well.

[Rebecca]

Thanks, Carl.