BD: “But anyone who does not believe in him has already been judged for not believing in God’s one and only Son.” / How do you interpret this verse? Were they judged before Jesus said “For God so loved the world....?”
We are all deserving condemnation. None of us has any merit that requires God to accept us. But God came and paid the price, and chooses to offer life to any who believe in Him.
As John wrote, “Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already...” So the one who believes and accepts his offer of salvation is given life, while the one who refuses remains alienated, with condemnation waiting for him.
Some comments by Barnes:
Verse 16. For God so loved. This does not mean that God approved the conduct of men, but that he had benevolent feelings toward them, or was earnestly desirous of their happiness. God hates wickedness, but he still desires the happiness of those who are sinful. He hates the sin, but loves the sinner. A parent may love his child and desire his welfare, and yet be strongly opposed to the conduct of that child. When we approve the conduct of another, this is the love of complacency; when we desire simply their happiness, this is the love of benevolence.
The world. All mankind. It does not mean any particular part of the world, but man as man—the race that had rebelled and that deserved to die. See John 6:33; 17:21. His love for the world, or for all mankind, in giving his Son, was shown by these circumstances:
1st. All the world was in ruin, and exposed to the wrath of God.
2nd. All men were in a hopeless condition.
3rd. God gave his Son. Man had no claim on him; it was a gift—an undeserved gift.
4th. He gave him up to extreme sufferings, even the bitter pains of death on the cross.
5th. It was for all the world. He tasted “death for every man,” Hebrews 2:9. He “died for all,” 2 Corinthians 5:15. “He is the propitiation for the sins of the whole world,” 1 John 2:2.
That he gave. It was a free and unmerited gift. Man had no claim; and when there was no eye to pity or arm to save, it pleased God to give his Son into the hands of men to die in their stead, Galatians 1:4; Romans 8:32; Luke 22:19. It was the mere movement of love; the expression of eternal compassion, and of a desire that sinners should not perish forever.
His only-begotten Son. See Barnes “John 1:14”. This is the highest expression of love of which we can conceive. A parent who should give up his only son to die for others who are guilty—if this could or might be done—would show higher love than could be manifested in any other way. So it shows the depth of the love of God, that he was willing to give his only Son into the hands of sinful men that he might be slain, and thus redeem them from eternal sorrow.
Verse 17. To condemn the world. Not to judge, or pronounce sentence on mankind. God might justly have sent him for this. Man deserved condemnation, and it would have been right to have pronounced it; but God was willing that there should be an offer of pardon, and the sentence of condemnation was delayed. But, although Jesus did not come then to condemn mankind, yet the time is coming when he will return to judge the living and the dead, Acts 17:31; 2 Corinthians 5:10; Matthew 25:31-46.
Verse 18. He that believeth. He that has confidence in him; that relies on him; that trusts to his merits and promises for salvation. To believe on him is to feel and act according to truth—that is, to go as lost sinners, and act toward him as a Saviour from sins; relying on him, and looking to him only for salvation. See Barnes “Mark 16:16”.
Is not condemned. God pardons sin, and delivers us from deserved punishment, because we believe on him. Jesus died in our stead; he suffered for us, and by his sufferings our sins are expiated, and it is consistent for God to forgive. When a sinner, therefore, believes on Jesus, he trusts in him as having died in his place, and God having accepted the offering which Christ made in our stead, as being an equivalent for our sufferings in hell, there is now no farther condemnation, Romans 8:1.
He that believeth not. All who do not believe, whether the gospel has come to them or not. All men by nature.
Is condemned already. By conscience, by law, and in the judgment of God. God disapproves of their character, and this feeling of disapprobation, and the expression of it, is the condemnation. There is no condemnation so terrible as this—that God disapproves our conduct, and that he will express his disapprobation. He will judge according to truth, and woe to that man whose conduct God cannot approve.
Because. This word does not imply that the ground or reason of their condemnation is that they have not believed, or that they are condemned because they do not believe on him, for there are millions of sinners who have never heard of him; but the meaning is this: There is but one way by which men can be freed from condemnation. All men without the gospel are condemned. They who do not believe are still under this condemnation, not having embraced the only way by which they can be delivered from it. The verse may be thus paraphrased:
“All men are by nature condemned. There is but one way of being delivered from this state—by believing on the Son of God. They who do not believe or remain in that state are still condemned, FOR they have not embraced the only way in which they can be freed from it.”
Nevertheless, those to whom the gospel comes greatly heighten their guilt and condemnation by rejecting the offers of mercy, and trampling under foot the blood of the Son of God, Luke 12:47; Matthew 11:23; Hebrews 10:29 Proverbs 1:24-30. And there are thousands going to eternity under this double condemnation—
1st. For positive, open sin; and,
2nd. For rejecting God’s mercy, and despising the gospel of his Son. This it is which will make the doom of sinners in Christian lands so terrible.
http://www.studylight.org/com/bnn/view.cgi?book=joh&chapter=003
Again. For the umpteenth time, NO ONE disagrees with that Scriptural truth.
We are all deserving condemnation. None of us has any merit that requires God to accept us. But God came and paid the price, and chooses to offer life to any who believe in Him.
So if "none of us has any merit" then where does our ability to trust God and believe in Him come from?
Arminianism is semi-Pelagianism, short and not-so-sweet. And as we see from your words, it's self-contradictory.
I appreciate your answer but you didn’t answer the questions.
“How do you interpret this verse?
“Were they judged before Jesus said “For God so loved the world....?”
John 3:18 He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.
Do you agree with Barnes that condemnation is God’s “disapproval” and man’s “feeling of disapprobation”?
Barnes says the unbeliever “Is condemned already. By conscience, by law, and in the judgment of God.” He defines condemnation as God’s disapproval, “of their character, and this feeling of disapprobation, and the expression of it, is the condemnation. There is no condemnation as terrible as this—that God disapproves our conduct, and that he will express his disapprobation.”
Barnes chooses to see God’s condemnation as “disapproval” rather than forensically, as God’s judgment; His wrath. He does not want to give the impression that the sacrifice of Jesus on the Cross appeased or placated an angry, settled, intolerance of evil that is contrary to the character of God; the settled hatred by one who could never be good and loving unless He totally hated evil. Thus he translates the word for “atonement” as expiation rather than propitiation.
Barnes was a minor theologian who wrote popular commentaries for Sunday School teachers. His stress was on the sentimental “love of God” over the rational, unselfish, intentional wrath of God. Yet all men are born into the world under the wrath of God. Sentence has already been passed; the whole human race is damned to hell. We are all children of wrath under the judgment of God. Man is born condemned and the effects of God’s wrath are experienced in this world and the next.
God’s wrath is dynamically operative in the world of men. When Adam and Eve sinned, immediately the sentence of death was passed, the earth was cursed and they were expelled from paradise. The whole creation still groans and travails in pain under that judgment of God. This was the world’s first lesson that that God hates sin. His hatred was revealed in the flood when God drowned the whole human race except for Noah and his family. It was revealed in the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. It was revealed in the plagues on Egypt and the drowning of Pharaoh’s army. It was revealed in the curse of the law on every transgressor. It was revealed in the institution of the sacrificial system and all of the rituals of the Mosaic Law. It is constantly being revealed, all the time. People live and die. Nations rise and fall. God judges sin.
The greatest manifestation of the wrath of God was given at Calvary. God hates sin so deeply that He allowed His own Son to be put to death. That’s how He hated sin.
God’s condemnation is not His “disapproval” but His judgment; His wrath and those who disbelieve are already, before they disbelieve, under the wrath of God. They were born that way and God knew that.
John 3:36 He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him.