For God so loved the world...

I don't like to talk too much about the original languages of the Bible when I teach. I'll bring it up when I think it's helpful, but it's usually not all that helpful, really. It sounds impressive, it feels like we're learning something, it's interesting to a number of people, but let's be honest: sometimes an aorist is just an aorist - you know what I mean? (If not, then I've made my point.)

I do, however, try to study aspects of the original languages when I prepare a teaching. I try to do good homework, and make sure that what I teach is as accurate as possible. I need to do the work (and I should do more of it than I do!), but that doesn't mean that the details need to fill time in a sermon. More often than not, it improves preaching without becoming the content of preaching.

Then there are those times when it is necessary to spend a little, or a lot, of time describing the original languages. It's a tough call to know when it's helpful, and when it just strokes my own ego. ("Hey, look, I can't remember Hebrew grammar very well, but I can still pronounce it! Impressed?")

One of those cases where it is actually helpful is in perhaps the most recognizable verse in all the Bible - John 3:16. Most translations read something like, "For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son..." This is an accurate English translation of the original language. But there's a distinction that Greek makes that English can mask.

"God so loved the world." If you're like me, for a long time I took this to mean that God loved the world so much that look! He gave us something! His only Son! Wow! He sure loves us a lot.

The translation is accurate. The word translated "so" can mean "so much," but it can also mean "thusly." One is magnitude, the other is manner. It's the difference between "she is so smart" and "she carefully arranged the flowers just so."

If it's the second definition that applies, then the verse says, "For God thusly loved the world that He gave His only Son..." (the NET has "For this is the way God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son...").

That's different. Not monumentally. Nothing in our theology is shaken because of this. But it's different.

Does this say that God loved us that much (so D.A. Carson), or does it say God loved us in that manner (so R.H. Gundry)? The second choice is the most common use of that word, but there are cases when it means the first choice. Some even argue for both meanings, since John is no stranger to intentionally picking a word to mean two things. Certainly, both statements are true. But what is this verse saying?

The Gospel of John uses that same Greek word 13 other times, and in every one of those cases, it means thusly. Therefore, I believe that it means thusly in 3:16. In what manner did God love us? By sacrificially sending His one and only Son to die on a cross so that we can have eternal life by faith. That's the manner in which He loved us.

Yes, He loved us that much, but He loved us in that manner - which is what I believe John 3:16 is telling us.

(By the way, the word "loved" is in the aorist tense - just in case you were wondering.)