Everybody knows it, but nobody really thinks about it as they read their English Bible. It’s a translation, but it’s also a well written and consistent piece of literature. There are design decisions, and grammatical conventions and trends. (For example there is at the moment a reactionary response to today’s particular gender sensitivity that demands we translate ‘adelphoi’ – often translated simply as ‘brothers’ – to explicitly include both male and female, as the meaning of the original word does. Grammatically that’s allowable, for readability it’s a pain. The term ‘brothers’, as with ‘mankind’ is often used with no exclusivity intended, and can so be used in English.)
We know that the paragraph markers, the commas and question marks, the chapter and verse markers are not inspired and can be less than helpful on occasion. On the whole our current English translations are excellent, but it is good to be aware of what they are, what is inspired, and what is not. It is also good to not place too much weight on that which is not inspired, however necessary it is for easy reading.
To the point. John chapter three contains perhaps the most quoted verse in the Bible. For many of us, we learn it as children, and can repeat it verbatim in English. Even in English, we think little of the first word: for. But that word is important. It’s a connecting word. It connects what is to come with a previous train of thought. That train of thought doesn’t start with John 3:16 It starts with Jesus’ response to Nicodemus’ questions.
Nicodemus was a Pharisee. He was steeped in his religion, and yet he couldn’t understand Jesus’ statement: you must be born again. After some toing and froing, Jesus rebukes Nicodemus for his lack of understanding (John 3:10-12), and then changes tack and uses a simple example that even a Jewish child would have known: the incident of the serpent in the wilderness.
In John 3:14 Jesus identifies himself with the lifted serpent. The story of the serpent is one of Israel’s disobedience, God’s curse on them, and God’s subsequent provision of salvation through the bronze serpent on a pole, lifted up for all to see. All who looked at the serpent were saved. As the serpent was lifted up by Moses, so the Son of Man must be lifted up.
The English word ‘so’ in verse 14 (and in verse 16) has a range of meaning. Very often it is just taken as a connecting word indicating that one action followed another, but it can also mean ‘thus’, ‘in this manner’, and that is the meaning of the word translated as ‘so’ here. Literally: in this manner must the Son of Man be lifted up – i.e. physically lifted up on a pole for all to see. And there’s a superlative purpose given in verse 15. If the Israelites would look at the serpent and be saved, they would also eventually die. Those who look to the lifted Christ will gain eternal life.
And now to the paragraph decisions. When reading this chapter without paragraph markings there is no gap between verses 15 and 16. If you look at the language and the structure of the narrative that also makes sense. (Incidentally, most of our English translations continue the quotation of Jesus’ words into verse 16. It’s not a comment on the previous, it’s a continuation.)
The word ‘for’ joins this thought to the previous verses. Curiously, Greek never puts these little words (conjunctions) as the first word of a sentence. ‘For’ is not the first word in the Greek of John 3:16, neither is ‘God’. The first word is ‘so’, or more accurately, ‘in this manner’. Word order in Greek helps the reader to understand the passage, and primary position gives emphasis.
‘In this manner must the Son of Man be lifted up … that believers would have eternal life … In this manner God loved the world …’
The ‘so’ in verse 16 directly references the ‘so’ in verse 14. They are connected, reinforcing the manner in which God loved us. The manner of his saving work is by being lifted up; the manner of his loving us is by his sending his Son to be the Son of Man, given for us, that we might not perish, but might have eternal life.
As Jesus simplified things for Nicodemus, he still makes a profound statement of who he is, and how he would love and save the world. We can teach the same to our children and our children’s children, to those unschooled in theology and the most expert theologian. As Karl Bart famously replied when asked if he could summarise his life’s work in theology: Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so. God gave us someone to look to: the Son of Man, the Son of God, who loved us.
That’s good enough for me.
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