believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” (NIV)

John 3:16 is possibly the most well known, and most memorized verse of the Bible. However, it is unlikely thoroughly understood by many of those who have it memorized. Who wrote it, when was it written, and to whom? Why was it written, and what does it really mean?

John was undoubtedly written by “the disciple whom Jesus loved.” Despite arguments that “the beloved disciple” was someone other than John the apostle, son of Zebedee, brother of James, there has been no evidence in support of it. The early church tradition stands in support of John the apostle as the author; the Ryland Fragments support this belief (Gundry, 256-258). It is believed that the gospel John was written around A.D. 85-90, after the temple in Jerusalem was destroyed (A.D. 70) but before John’s exile to Patmos. John’s primary purpose is to “prove conclusively that Jesus is the Son of God” to new Christians and non-Christians seeking Jesus (NIV Life Application Study Bible: Intro to John, 1866). Specific

The third part of the verse explains what will come about if you place your trust in the Son of God, “shall not perish but have eternal life.” Again the tense changes, this time from present tense to future tense. “You shall not perish” is saying that, by believing now that Jesus is the Savior, when the time comes to decide your eternal life you shall not be completely destroyed. Instead of being obliterated and sent into the fiery lakes of Hell, Jesus offers the gift of eternal life as an option. The connecting word “but” joins together the benefits of believing in him, which are two-fold. One, you will not perish, and two, you will be granted eternal life.

Looking more closely at the meaning of each word helps understand the passage more completely. The first word encountered in the passage that could carry different meanings is the word love. In the Greek text, the word for love is ἀγαπάω, agapao, meaning to love in a social or moral sense (Strong, G25). This word is used in other parts of John and throughout the Bible to express the kind of love God has for his Son, but in this passage, it is showing the love God has for the world—unique in the sense that God’s love toward the world is not seen anywhere else in the book of John. World, κόσμος, kosmos, means the inhabitants of the earth, the people as a community, and the souls of those in the bodily form (Strong, G2865). The world is seen throughout John as the peoples of the earth that do not love God, yet are still loved by God, as seen in 3:17, “For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.” Putting the two together, God loves, with his uttermost being, all the peoples of the world.

NIV- “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.”

KJV- “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”

NASB- “For God so loved the world, that He gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.”

These three different versions of John 3:16 have both differences and similarities. The first difference encountered is the capitalization of ‘he’. The capitalization, found in the NASB, is trying to emphasize that ‘he’ is really God (He). “Only begotten” is different in the NIV, changing to “one and only,” but the meaning is still the same: μονογενής, monogenes- only birth, sole (Strong, G3439). One of the last term disagreements is the word “everlasting” compared to “eternal.” However, these two terms carry the same meaning. The rest of the differences are simply because of the style of English, (the King James Version uses old English).

Some topics in this essay:
Jesus Christ, Son God, Analysis- KJV-, Nicodemus Jesus’, Specifically John, Kohlenberger III, Son Son, Jesus Savior, Strong G3439, Hell Jesus, son god, eternal life, jesus christ, john 316, god loved, bronze snake, “one only”, eternal life”, verse 16, “for god, “for god loved, perish eternal life”, god loved world, believes perish eternal, christ son god,