A Redemptive-Historical Overview of John Chapter 3
Excerpt:
John 3:16
How does John use this term “cosmos”? Cosmos has no personal force. In John’s gospel the word “world” does not refer to individuals as in the paraphrase “God loves each and every person in the world.” No. rather cosmos has an ethical force in John’s gospel. It means the arena of ethical hostility to God and his kingdom. In other words God’s love is directed to the area rebelling in ethical hostility against Him. It is to this arena that He sends his Son and to this arena whoever believes has life from another arena; the arena of eternity. Therefore all the arguments whether “cosmos” is universalistic or particularistic are muted by tracing John’s use of the term throughout his gospel, his epistle and his apocalypse. Cosmos for John is ethically specific. This arena of sin and rebellion was the object of God’s love. Not the angelic arena, not the infernal arena. This cosmic arena was loved so that believers, however they come to believe, may not perish but have the life of the non-cosmic arena. Who are these believers? They are all the ones who receive heavenly things not earthly things (Vs 12 & 31). They receive the one lifted up as the serpent in the wilderness. They do not take their eyes off of Him. (vs. 14. 15). They receive the Son of God as the Son of Man (Vs. 13, 14, 16, 17, 18). They do not receive those who reject Him (Vs. 33). The receive salvation. They do not receive judgment/condemnation (Vs. 17-19). They receive the light (Vs. 19-21), they do not love the darkness (v. 19). They receive the witness of the Son who the Father has sent. They do not receive the witness of those who deny or ignore Him. (Vs. 11 & 32). They receive eternal life. They do not abide in eternal wrath (v. 36). The eschatological birth brings one into Christological union, soteriological union, eschatological union and the sweetness of that union is as the joy of the friend of the bridegroom, John the Baptist. Christ is better than all suitors. Union with Christ is the soteric ecstasy. Identification with Christ in the eternal heavenly places is the presence of eschatological finality.
