What About John 3:18?

Frequently Asked Questions # 21

"Condemned Already"? John 3:18

[Note: All the page references below are to the book What's Good About The Good News?]

A reader writes: “Isn't John 3:18 an awkward fit into your premise B with its claim that ‘All persons are elect in Christ except those who the Bible expressly declares will be finally lost.'?” (P. 2). This question implies that John 3:18 directly contradicts premise B and therefore refutes the fundamental teaching of Biblical Universalism (P. 129).

John 3:18 says, “Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God's one and only Son.”

This text says that all who do not believe in Jesus are “condemned already” because they have “not believed in the name of God's one and only Son.” The thought is that if all who do “not believe” stand “condemned already” we ought not to view them as (consider them to be) “elect in Christ” until and unless we have specific knowledge to the contrary, as I have been advocating.

Although I make three references to John 3:18 in my book What's Good About The Good News? (PP. 24, 43, 62) I do not directly address the question posed by the reader (above). This is a penetrating question that deserves a very direct response.

To “stand condemned” can mean either: “to be worthy of condemnation,” which is true of all persons except Jesus Christ; or, it can mean “to be consigned to Hell.” It is one thing to say that all persons, due to their inherited sin (original sin), are children of wrath and “worthy of” eternal death. It is something quite different to say all persons are actually consigned to Hell and will be numbered among those described in 2 Thess. 1:9: “They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the majesty of his power on the day he comes.” (See PP. 19 & 20.)

We can all agree that when Jesus speaks of those who “stand condemned” in John 3:18 he is not merely speaking of those who are “worthy of eternal death.” If he was referring to all who are “worthy of condemnation” he would be speaking of all mankind, himself alone excluded. The text would then be self-contradictory because those who “stand condemned” are only a portion of mankind, that is, those who do “not believe.”

John 3:18 speaks of a divided mankind, some who “believe” and some who do “not believe.” Those who “stand condemned” refers only to those who do “not believe” and consequently will be actually sent to Hell. There can be no question about this meaning of “stand condemned” in John 3:18. (In this discussion we are not speaking about the nature of Hell, we are referring only to the reality of Hell.)

Must we (or even may we) conclude that what John 3:18 says is that all who have not at some time during their earthly existence “believed in the name of God's one and only Son” will be sent to Hell? That, among others, would include all those who have never heard the gospel and have never heard of Jesus. This has often been urged as one of the strongest motivations for missionary endeavor.

That such a view is a mis-understanding of John 3:18 is seen if we try to consistently apply this standard:

1) Then no one who dies in infancy can be saved. They have never, during their earthly existence, “believed” as described in John 3:18. But of course, it can be said, Jesus was not talking about those who die in infancy.

2) Then every Christian in their earliest years, before they knew of Jesus, was at that time “consigned to Hell.”

3) Then the apostle Paul before his conversion was at that time “consigned to Hell” because at that time he did “not believe in the name of God's one and only Son.” Paul himself came to know much better than that.

These difficulties, necessarily inferred from the reader's question (See above.), derive from the phrase: “stands condemned already.” Our first thought is that this phrase must be a reference to the sinner's condemnation due to the fall of Adam. Immediately we begin to think of sinners being conceived and born in sin and therefore they are “already” under condemnation unless or until they believe “in the name of God's one and only Son.” As we already noted, if the phrase “stands condemned already” refers to our condemnation in Adam it refers to all mankind not to only a portion of mankind designated as “whoever does not believe.”

Another way of understanding the phrase “stands condemned already” is the one set forth, for example, by Dr. Wm. Hendriksen in his Commentary on John 3:18:

“The one who rejects Christ by not believing in him as God's only-begotten Son does not need to wait for the final judgment, as if the verdict would be postponed until then. Already, by the very fact of his obstinate unbelief, he has been (and therefore stands) condemned.”

This understanding of the phrase “stands condemned already” reflects the fact that Jesus is speaking about those who have been confronted by the truth about Jesus. Those about whom Jesus is speaking in John 3 have been confronted by Jesus himself. John 3:11 says, “I tell you the truth . . . but still you people do not accept our testimony.” Those who willfully and finally reject this kind of testimony (special revelation) are “condemned already” because they have “not believed in the name of God's one and only Son.”

This understanding of John 3:18 is totally compatible with the premise of Biblical Universalism that all persons are elect in Christ except those who the Bible expressly declares will be finally lost. “Those who will be finally lost (the reprobate) are described in Scripture in no other way than those, and only those, who, in addition to their sin in Adam, persist in unbelief and sin, exhibit unbelief, are the agents of unbelief, and perform evil actions throughout their lifetime on earth. They are lost by their own deliberate and inexcusable choice. They will receive that which they have willfully and personally chosen, namely, to depart from God. They are those, and only those who willfully, decisively and finally reject God's will as it has been made known to them in general revelation ( Rom. 1:20; 2:15) or as it was declared in special revelation (Mark 16:16; John 3:18)." (P. 43).

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Contact the Author, Neal Punt at: whenindoubt3@charter.net