For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life (John 3:16).Can it be any clearer than that? I mean, look at it! On what is the verse premised? "God loved the world so much." What did that much love bring about? "He gave His only Son." To whom is this gift limited? "Whosoever." (No one.) Can it get any clearer?
Well, yes, actually. First, the verse does not say (despite all the claims to the contrary) that "God loved the world so much." That word is not a quantitative term, but a qualitative term. You know what I mean. We see it in the Sermon on the Mount. "Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven" (Matt 5:16). That's not "Let your light shine so much that ...", but "Let your light shine in such a way that ...". The same is true here in John 3:16. It's not a quantitative statement about how much God loved the world, but a qualitative statement about in what way God loved the world.
One thing to consider in this part of the thinking. We all like to claim that God loves the whole world and we will often point to John 3:16 to say so. There are problems with that line of thinking. First, James says, "Whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God" (James 4:4). Now, wait a minute! How can it make me an enemy of God to love what God loves? There is an answer, of course, but it ought to set off alarm bells that something else is going on here. There are ways in which God does not love the whole world. Second, the text in question qualifies, not quantifies the love God has for the world. That is, He loves that "whoever believes in Him" group. That's what the text says. Now, I'm not suggesting that God doesn't have a general love for mankind. We know that "He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust" (Matt 5:45). He tells us to make the Gospel offer to everyone. He tells us to love our enemies, so it should be clear that in some sense He does, too. But don't think that God has this unlimited, all-encompassing warm feeling toward the whole world. Or consider it from this direction. We are the Bride of Christ. Would it be right for the husband of the Church to love everyone equally? Or is He supposed to have a particular love for His Bride and a more general love for everyone else? That's all I'm saying here.
Now the "whosoever". This obviously implies to whomever seems to be reading it that "anyone can". Why? I don't know. Here, let's give a fictitious news item that might help illustrate. "Headline Paris, France: Famous financier, Jean-Louis Bardot, has announced today an unprecedented offer. He is going to give €1 million to swimmers. Mr. Bardot said this in a phone interview: 'I love swimmers. I love swimmers in this way: I am going to give €1 million to whosoever can swim the English Channel in the next month.'"
What would we conclude from such a piece? Well, first, it's apparent that our artificial Mr. Bardot loves swimmers, but not in a universal sense. He specified in what way he loves swimmers -- it's those swimmers that can swim the English Channel. Second, although he clearly stated "whoever" in his offer, do we conclude "anyone can"? Not at all. We would easily first eliminate those who cannot get to the English Channel in the next month. Probably something over half the Earth's population. We just eliminated 3 billion people. "Hey, wait!" you object. "He said 'whoever'! You can't eliminate people." And, of course, my representation of your objection isn't reasonable, is it? You can see quite obviously that "whoever" in no way requires "anyone can". It doesn't even require that the offer be made to everyone. It is simply a generalization. We would eliminate those who can't make it. We would eliminate those who can't swim. We would eliminate those who can't swim 26 miles. In fact, we'd likely end up with a very small number of people (I don't think more than 50 people have made that swim) in that "whoever".
The verse in question is a marvelous verse. It speaks of the quality of God's love for people. It tells of the extraordinary gift of His only Son. It tells of the excellent offer of eternal life for those who believe in His Son. It is really, really good stuff. But let's not make it say what it doesn't. It doesn't say that God loves everyone equally. It doesn't say that everyone has the same capacity to respond to that offer. It doesn't even speak of capacity to respond. Let's lay that one aside, okay? It doesn't work here.
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