John 3:15 BSB — MannaFest

John 3:15

that everyone who believes in Him may have eternal life.

BSB

Parallel translations (2) ▾

ASV

that whosoever believeth may in him have eternal life.

KJV

That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life.

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Commentary

5 voices

Thomas Aquinas

Commentary on John (1274)

Now the fruit of Christ's passion is eternal life; hence he says, so that everyone who believes in him, performing good works, may not be lost, but have eternal life. And this fruit corresponds to the fruit of the symbolic serpent. For whoever looked upon …

The record, by era

The Puritans and the Awakening2 voices

John Wesley

1703–1791

Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament (1755)

That whosoever - He must be lifted up, that hereby he may purchase salvation for all believers: all those who look to him by faith recover spiritual health, even as all that looked at that serpent recovered bodily health.

Matthew Henry

1662–1714

Commentary on the Whole Bible (1710)

(2.) As one that is justly condemned to die for an unpardonable crime is a dead man, he is dead in law; and, in reference to this part of our danger, Christ came to save as a prince or judge, publishing an act of indemnity, or general pardon, under certain provisos; this saving here is opposed to condemning,

The Nineteenth Century3 voices

Albert Barnes

1798–1870

Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869)

That whosoever - This shows the fulness and freeness of the gospel. All may come and be saved. Believeth in him - Whosoever puts confidence in him as able and willing to save. All who feel that they are sinners, that they have no righteousness of their own, and are willing to look to him as their only Saviour.

J.C. Ryle

1816–1900

Expository Thoughts on the Gospels: John (lightly modernized text, Grace Gems edition) (1869)

We have in these verses the second part of the conversation between our Lord Jesus Christ and Nicodemus. A lesson about regeneration is closely followed by a lesson about justification! The whole passage ought always to be read with affectionate reverence. It contains words which have brought eternal life to myriads of souls. These verses show us, firstly, what gross spiritual ignorance there may be in the mind of a great and learned man. We see a "master of Israel" unacquainted with the first elements of saving religion.

Voices on this verse

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Hebraic traditional view

Nicodemus, and why “born again” baffled a teacher of Israel

Nicodemus is “a man of the Pharisees... a ruler of the Jews”: a member of the Sanhedrin, the seventy-one-member high council that governed Jewish religious life from Jerusalem. His night visit is respectful and searching, and he is the standing proof that the Pharisaic movement contained honest seekers; John follows his arc from this conversation to his protest on Jesus' behalf (John 7:50-52) and finally to the seventy-five pounds of burial spices (John 19:39).

Why does “ye must be born again” baffle “the teacher of Israel”? The tradition had rebirth language of its own, but for GENTILES: a convert to Judaism “has the legal status of a newborn child,” as the Talmud words the principle (Yevamot 22a). Rebirth was intelligible for an outsider entering Israel. Jesus applies it to a son of Abraham, a Pharisee, a member of the council: even Israel's teacher must be born of water and the Spirit, words that stand on Ezekiel 36:25-27's promise of clean water and a new spirit. The tradition's convert-rebirth is reception history; what Jesus claims from it is the verse's own Christian confession, new birth from above for everyone.

Sources: Yevamot 22a (Babylonian Talmud: the convert as a newborn)

Original language & word study

9 tagged words

Original	Transliteration	Meaning	Word study
ἵνα	ina	so that	G2443 →
πᾶς	pas	everyone	G3956 →
ὁ	ho	who	G3588 →
πιστεύων	pisteuōn	is believing	G4100 →
ἐν	en	in	G1722 →
αὐτῷ	autō	Him	G846 →
ἔχῃ	echē	may have	G2192 →
ζωὴν	zōēn	life	G2222 →
αἰώνιον.	aiōnion	eternal.	G166 →

Rare words are the text's own signal of a deliberate thread: the fewer the occurrences, the more the places it appears belong together.

The walk

The walk8

Where the connections lead

Follow this verse’s cross-references two steps out. Each card is a verse this one points to, and beneath it the verses that one points to in turn. Where several different paths arrive at the same place, that place is listed first: the text keeps returning to it. Every stop shows its own words, and every stop is a page.

Through
John 3:16
For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that everyone who believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.
leads to
- Romans 5:8
  But God proves His love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
- 1 John 4:9–10
  This is how God’s love was revealed among us: God sent His one and only Son into the world, so that we might live through Him.
- Romans 8:32
  He who did not spare His own Son but gave Him up for us all, how will He not also, along with Him, freely give us all things?
- John 11:25–26
  Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in Me will live, even though he dies.
- John 6:40
  For it is My Father’s will that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in Him shall have eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.”
Through
John 3:36
Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life. Whoever rejects the Son will not see life. Instead, the wrath of God remains on him.”
leads to
- John 5:24
  Truly, truly, I tell you, whoever hears My word and believes Him who sent Me has eternal life and will not come under judgment. Indeed, he has crossed over from death to life.
  Reached by 2 independent paths from here.
- John 1:12
  But to all who did receive Him, to those who believed in His name, He gave the right to become children of God—
- 1 Thessalonians 5:9
  For God has not appointed us to suffer wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Featured studies on this passage

On John 3:15

The Bronze Serpent

Christ's own chosen picture of his death. A four-moment story across 1,400 years: sin and plague, command and cure, idolatry and smashing, crucifixion and fulfillment.

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