Gospel: SALT's Commentary for Lent 2
Lent 2 (Year A): John 3:1-17 and Gen 12:1-4
[Alternative Text (Matthew’s Transfiguration story): Matthew 17:1-9 — see SALT’s commentary here.]
Check out SALT’s “Strange New World” podcast episode on this Gospel passage, “Jesus, Wendell, and Henri - Part Two: Light.”
Big Picture:
1) This is the second of the six Sundays in Lent. The Revised Common Lectionary is divided into three year-long cycles of readings focusing on the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke respectively (it’s Matthew this year), with the Gospel of John sprinkled in here and there. This week, we begin a four-week stretch of readings from John.
2) This week’s passage contains arguably the most famous verse in the New Testament, John 3:16, a citation frequently seen on placards at sporting events and other public gatherings, in graffiti along roadsides, and so on. For all its familiarity, it’s frequently misunderstood, partly because of a holdover from seventeenth-century English (see below), and partly because so much is packed into the verse and the surrounding passage.
3) Martin Luther called John 3:16 “the Gospel in miniature” — and like any summary of the Gospel, this famous sentence pushes us to clarify how we understand God’s love and God’s justice to be related. If we distort this key relationship, we can render the verse not the Gospel but rather the anti-Gospel, a proclamation not of love and invitation but of contempt and exclusion. Put more positively, this verse presents us with an excellent opportunity to clarify how we conceive God’s love and justice, and what Christian good news is really all about.
4) As the Israelites wander in the wilderness, there are nearly a dozen stories in Exodus and Numbers describing the people complaining or rebelling along the way — and in this week’s passage from John, Jesus alludes to the very last of these stories. It’s arguably the most serious of them all, since the people speak “against God and against Moses,” a formulation unique to this story (Num 21:5). Hungry and impatient, the Israelites ungratefully describe the exodus from Egypt as “bringing us out into the wilderness to die,” and so God sends poisonous, deadly serpents to slither among them, wreaking havoc (Num 21:5-6). The people confess (“we have sinned”) and plead for help, and God directs Moses to fashion a serpent of bronze and put it on a pole, such that any bitten Israelite can “look at the serpent of bronze and live” (Num 21:7-9).
5) Both in Numbers and in John, there are indications that the negative consequences described in these stories are less divine punishments and more aspects of the self-destructive nature of sin itself. In Numbers, the Israelites’ complaints are themselves conspicuously “serpentine”: poisonous, bitter, and self-contradictory (given manna to eat daily, the people say both “there is no food” and “we detest this miserable food” (Num 21:5)). And in John, Jesus casts those who do not believe in him as condemned “already” as a result of their desire to stay in the shadows; in this sense, they condemn themselves by choosing to avoid the light (John 3:18,21). In any case, the center of gravity in both stories — and the key link between them — is the saving action of God, as well as God’s intention to save not just a select few but rather “everyone” who looks upon the bronze serpent (Numbers), and indeed the entire “world” (John).
6) Jesus’ other allusion in this passage from John — by way of the phrase, “gave his only Son” — is to the harrowing story of Abraham and Isaac, in which God calls on Abraham to give his “only son” as a burnt offering (John 3:16; Gen 22:2,12,16). As it turns out, the instruction is a divine “test” to see whether Abraham’s fidelity and devotion to God are genuine or driven by self-interest (Gen 22:1). Abraham loves Isaac, of course, and in addition, since Isaac is Abraham’s only heir, his death would invalidate God’s promise that Abraham’s descendents will be “a great nation” (Gen 12:2; 15:3-6). God is asking, in effect, Are you truly devoted to me — or merely to the promise of a great legacy? Thus the instruction to sacrifice Isaac “tests” whether Abraham’s devotion is a disguised transaction with “strings attached” — and indeed, in the end, the ordeal reveals that his devotion is extravagant and true. By alluding to this story, Jesus is signaling that God’s devotion to humankind is likewise extravagant and true (no strings!), and that Jesus’ mission — his life, death, and resurrection — should be understood accordingly.
Scripture:
1) Shortly after Jesus’ provocative disturbance-of-the-peace at the Jerusalem temple, Nicodemus, a Jewish religious leader, visits Jesus by night. Nicodemus has begun to suspect that Jesus has indeed “come from God” — though he’s not yet convinced. He has questions about what Jesus means by being “born anew” or “born from above” (the Greek phrase here can mean either), a phenomenon Jesus then calls being “born of the Spirit” (John 3:3,8). This is a late-night, clandestine conversation between two people, and Jesus’ words are part of an attempt to persuasively explain his identity and mission to an interested, well-educated Jewish leader who has asked to hear more.
2) As he lays out his case, Jesus alludes to the Israelites in the wilderness (Numbers 21) and to Abraham and Isaac (“gave his only Son”; John 3:16; Genesis 22). Both references are well-tailored to Nicodemus, a Pharisee who would have known scripture exceedingly well — and they also serve as a compact, anticipatory portrait of Jesus’ coming crucifixion. Jesus puns on the phrase, “lifted up”: Moses literally lifted up the bronze serpent and Jesus will be lifted up on the cross, and at the same time the phrase also alludes to Jesus' resurrection and ascension (John 3:14). Above all, however, the reference to the story from Numbers highlights God’s character as the One who saves even and especially in the face of rebellion. The Israelites had self-destructively turned against God, but when they ask for deliverance from the consequences of their sin (and please note, their plea isn't out of any high-minded piety, but rather is driven by self-preservation!), God gracefully delivers them.
3) There’s a fascinating theology of the cross evoked here, distinct from both “penal substitution” theory (the idea that Jesus absorbs punishment on our behalf) and “Christus Victor” theory (the idea that Jesus conquers the powers of death). While God could have saved the Israelites by having them look upon any object at all (or in some other way entirely), the chosen remedy is a bronze serpent, a vivid reminder — even in the midst of healing and restoration — of (a) the deadly, self-destructive nature of sin, and (b) God's gracious transformation of even our worst into our redemption. Likewise, the Christian cross can play this dual role, reminding us of (a) the many ways we turn against each other in violence and betrayal, and (b) God’s graceful, transformative forgiveness and deliverance.
4) Think of it this way: the bronze serpent takes what was for the wandering Israelites one of the very worst things in the world (a lethal snake) and remakes it into one of the very best (a life-saving instrument of healing). Accordingly, the Christian cross can be understood as an imperial weapon of torture and death divinely remade into a sign of hope and new life, a sword transformed into a ploughshare. Viewed from this angle, the cross is a poetic proclamation: God is turning (and will turn) the world around, redeeming even the worst of the worst, swords into ploughshares, serpents into salves, crosses into trees of life — making all things new!
5) In seventeenth-century English, “so” frequently meant “in this way” — as in, “like so,” or “so help me God.” Accordingly, in the King James Version of the Bible, it made perfect sense to translate the Greek houtos (“in this way”) with the English word “so” — and that's exactly what the KJV translators did in the famous sentence, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son...” (John 3:16). But today, we more often use “so” to mean “very” or “to a large extent” — as in, “I’m so sad,” or “She’s so smart!” Thus John 3:16 is often misunderstood today as a statement about the extent or degree of God’s love — whereas actually it’s a statement about the way or pattern of God’s love, as in, “For God loved the world in this way: he gave his only Son…”
6) Remember, Jesus is talking to Nicodemus, a student of scripture, and in order to describe the character of God’s love, he makes two allusions to ancient scriptural archetypes: one underscoring God's desire to save sinners, as in the story of the bronze serpent in the wilderness; and the other underscoring God’s extravagant fidelity and devotion to humankind (“gave his only Son” — in this sense, in Abraham’s extravagant devotion to God we can catch a glimpse of God’s extravagant devotion to us). In what way does God love the world? In this way (houtos): God graciously delivers us from the self-destruction of sin, and God faithfully, astonishingly gives God’s only Child for the sake of our deliverance, such that we can “look at” Jesus life, death, and resurrection in ways that help us heal and live. The cross, Jesus suggests, poetically proclaims both of these astounding ideas.
7) For the sake of whose deliverance, exactly? The scope of salvation has long been a topic of debate among Christians, and this passage in John is a case study. On one hand, some emphasize the idea that “eternal life” is only granted to those who “believe,” as if the situation boils down to a transaction: if you believe, you’ll have eternal life. But there are many reasons to think otherwise.
8) First, throughout John’s Gospel, “the world” (Greek: kosmos) is a term typically used as shorthand for sin or estrangement from God — and this makes it all the more striking that Jesus says, “God loved the world” (kosmos) and not “God hates the world, but loves the remnant of those who believe.” Second, in Numbers, when God provides the remedy of the bronze serpent, the strategy isn't to save a few well-deserving Israelites with the proper set of opinions or dispositions, but rather to save “everyone” who had turned against God and then (for arguably less-than-noble reasons) sought deliverance (Num 21:8). Likewise, third, the story of Abraham and Isaac is precisely a rejection of transactional forms of devotion: Abraham passes the “test” by showing that his devotion to God is not transactional, and so the analogy suggests that God’s love isn’t transactional, either (no strings attached!). Fourth, in the very next verse Jesus underlines that God sends the Son not “to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him” (John 3:17). And finally, while “believing in Jesus” is important in this passage, who’s to say what does and doesn’t qualify — from God’s perspective — as “believing”; whether such belief can emerge after death; whether God also has other ways to redeem human communities; whether divine forgiveness might be extended to everyone in any case; and so on? Who’s to say, in other words, that God won’t find a way after all to save “the world” God loves?
8) This week’s passage from Genesis adds a similar note: in the call of Abram, the very headwaters of ancient Israel’s story, God’s promise to bless Abram isn’t for his sake alone, or even for his descendents alone — it’s ultimately for everyone: “in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed” (Gen 12:3).
Takeaways:
1) As we move through Lent toward Holy Week, this passage provides another angle on how to think about Good Friday and Easter Sunday. The reference to the story in Numbers points to the cross and resurrection as acts of God’s love and mercy, for the sake of all — even and especially those who are caught up in sin’s self-destruction. And the reference to the story of Abraham and Isaac ("gave his only Son") points to the cross and resurrection as signs of God’s extravagant, non-transactional (that is, graceful) faithfulness and love for humanity. In short, God loves “in this way” (houtos): graciously, mercifully, faithfully, devotedly — and universally, for the sake of “the world” (kosmos).
2) For many people, this passage raises questions about the nature and scope of salvation. Does God love the world, but intends to save only a remnant, only those who “believe in him”? Though some Christians try to read this passage in those terms, at least five key factors point in the other direction: (1) the reference to God’s love for “the world” [kosmos], not just a few; (2) the emphasis on unearned deliverance for “everyone” in the Numbers story of the bronze serpent; (3) the emphasis on extravagant, non-transactional devotion in the Genesis story of Abraham and Isaac; (4) the emphasis on love (and not condemnation) in John 3:16-17; and (5) the foundational ideas in Christian theology that love and humility should govern our reading of scripture, and that we have no right to impose limits on God’s graceful, saving work.
3) Finally, while offering assurance and encouraging fellow disciples and interested seekers to “believe in Jesus” is well and good, we dare not put boundaries around what counts — from God’s perspective — as “believing,” or indeed whether such belief can emerge after death, and so on. After all, salvation is God’s business, not ours. What we are charged to do is to proclaim again and again the good news of God’s extravagant love and mercy for “the world” without exception, indeed for “all the families of the earth” (John 3:16; Gen 12:3).
Check out SALT’s “Strange New World” podcast episode on this Gospel passage, “Jesus, Wendell, and Henri - Part Two: Light.”