Deeper understanding of “the world” in a familiar verse.
John 3:16
"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.”
This verse is usually quoted to others to assure them that they are not beyond God’s love and “the world” does in fact include them. And that is true. However, there is some historical background that will shed new light on that verse and will highlight the particular issue Jesus was speaking to when he spoke it.
In Isaiah (which is the most quoted book in the Gospel of John) God pronounces judgments throughout the first 30 chapters against various nations and then is summed up in Chapter 34:2
The LORD is angry with all nations;
his wrath is upon all their armies.
He will totally destroy them,
he will give them over to slaughter.
Deliverance is promised only for Israel.
The situation is further expanded by the historical split of Israel. After King Solomon died, his son Rehoboam became king and promptly lost part of the kingdom to a guy named Jeroboam:
1 Kings 12:20
“When all the Israelites heard that Jeroboam had returned, they sent and called him to the assembly and made him king over all Israel. Only the tribe of Judah remained loyal to the house of David.”
So Israel was split into the southern kingdom and the northern kingdom (Judah was in the southern kingdom) and it remained split even until Jesus.
This presents a problem for the Northern Kingdom because according to Old Testament Law, if you are cut off from the Temple then you are cut off from God. The Temple was in Jerusalem and Jerusalem was in the Southern Kingdom. So the Jews had lumped the Northern Kingdom in with the rest of “the world”.
But Jesus comes along and says, "For God so loved the world (meaning all the nations of the world and the Northern Kingdom) that he gave his one and only Son,that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”
John stresses this point throughout the Gospel:
John 1:46 "Nazareth! Can anything good come from there?" Nathanael asked. (Nazareth was in the Northern Kingdom).
The Samaritan Woman and Temple worship in John 4.(Samaria was in the Northern Kingdom)
John points out where most of the 12 disciples were from (the Northern Kingdom).
1 comments:
Another interesting thing about this word "world" is that the Greek word is kosmos - which of course comes into English as "cosmos" and so there is the sense of world refering to the "whole shebang" - the whole created order from dirt to philosophers to galaxies - as in Romans 8 and elsewhere - we see a glimpse of God's ultimate plan to bring a renewal to the whole creation.
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