What does John 3:17 add to the meaning of John 3:16 (the most famous verse in the Bible)?
The entire Bible is like a perfect embroidery with no loose ends, all the books interconnected, making sense and giving life as a whole to all who believe and onlythrough God’s Wisdom for all who believe - Grace Himself: Jesus Christ. Just a quick background before we address these verses from John 3:
Remember those two disciples (Cleopas and his companion) on the road to Emmaus in Luke 24? They were sad because they felt all hope was lost since Jesus had been crucified. They did not recognize the Lord Jesus as the one who walked with them on the way. Here's what Christ did as they went:
"27 Then beginning with Moses and with all the prophets, He explained to them the things concerning Himself in all the Scriptures."
That same evening, the two disciples went to Jerusalem to share their experience of Christ with the other disciples. Jesus appeared to them there; check out what He did in verse 45 (MSG)-
“He went on to open their understanding of the Word of God, showing them how to read their Bibles this way.”
There was no New Testament at this time. Christ taught His disciples about Himself from the Old Testament. The Old Testament is filled with faith pictures of our Saviour Jesus Christ and our salvation in Him. Christ teaches us to read the Old Testament by bringing Him out of ALL the Scriptures. In one of the most popular passages of the New Testament, Christ Himself made one reference to Himself in the Old Testament: the bronze serpent that Moses lifted up in the wilderness is a picture of Christ lifted up to save the world from sin and death. See John 3-
14 “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, 15 that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. 16 For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. 17 For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved."
Christ draws a parallel between how the Israelites that were bitten by snakes and infected with the snake sting got to escape death and how we who look to Jesus for salvation from sin and death get to “not perish but have eternal life.”
The Israelites that were bitten by snakes only had to focus expectantly on the bronze serpent that Moses lifted up - for us, Christ lifted up to free us from the power, pleasure and penalty of sin, grant us everlasting righteousness apart from our puny attempts at keeping the Law and give us eternal life - every blessing in John 3:16. All of these have got nothing to do with our puny attempts at keeping the law or doing our best to be godly as Eve was deceived into doing- just as the Israelites only had to look at the bronze serpent in order to be rid of the snake sting, its symptoms and the death that should follow. Believing this way is seeing Christ lifted up.
Imagine the Israelites trying to rid themselves the snake sting, rushing off to offer burnt offerings, promising God stuff, giving gifts to God or doing their best to keep the Ten Commandments and the rest of the laws in order to be free from the snake sting and its symptoms as well as escape certain death instead of looking at the bronze serpent on the pole. They would have been distracted from looking with all of their futile efforts at doing what the law commands in order to be made whole and thus cut off from the bronze serpent and its saving power. The effects of the snake sting within isn't stalled by these futile and useless activities aka law-keeping in order to be whole/godly. Rather, their symptoms would have gotten worse. Death is the result. The letter kills. But this is exactly what many in the church today are doing with that false doctrine that says-
“Yes we are saved by GRACE but we still have to obey the LAW in order to be godly, made whole, escape God's wrath and make it to heaven.”
Recall Christ Himself gave this typology for how we get to “not perish but have everlasting life.”
1 Corinthians 15:56–57 says: “The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law. 57 But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”
The snake sting is the sin nature that all of mankind inherited from Adam-
“By one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so also by one Man's obedience many will be made righteous.” Romans 5:19
The wages of sin is death. Adam passed on this sting of death that is sin to all of his descendants. Committing acts of sin is not what makes man a sinner. Adam's disobedience took care of that. Picture having the sin/old nature as being a carrier of the SS or sickle cell gene. Depending on the vagaries of Time and Chance as well as Satan sifting one like wheat, sinners will have crises of sins; but like some of the Israelites whose snakebite symptoms (acts of sin) weren't so obvious or come so far along for whatever reason, many churchgoers feel smug in their perceived lack of sins and feel that they are in better standing than “core sinners" whose lives are awash with symptoms of the sin nature. All sinners will die but many churchgoers are more concerned with the gravity of other people's snakebite symptoms (acts of sin) than the certain death that comes with being infected with the snake sting that is the sin nature - a death that Christ died for all.
As it was with the bronze serpent and the Israelites in the wilderness, only in Christ do we have utter victory from the sin nature and its consequences of acts of sin that lead to death.
The more one tries to do things by human effort (aka obey the Law) in order to be godly and saved, the more sins will multiply (see Romans 7:5) — same way the Israelites would have produced more symptoms and ultimately died if they had opted to do the seemingly good thing of running around looking for how to be free from the snake sting (sin nature) and its symptoms (acts of sin) that lead to death, giving the sting time to spread and wreak more havoc. Anyone who is keeping the law in order to get right with God rejects God's gift of righteousness and everlasting life that Christ died that we might have. Here's more on Christ's analogy of the bronze serpent that Moses lifted up as Himself:
This brings us to John 3:17-
14 “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, 15 that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. 16 For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. 17 For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.18 He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.
19 And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. 20 For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. 21 But he who does the truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be clearly seen, that they have been done in God.”
See here for the truth about those who loved the darkness and hate the light- What are some of the most misunderstood passages of the Bible?
God did not send His Son to tell us how terrible our snakebite symptoms (acts of sin) are or how we will perish and not have everlasting life if we don't do something about them by ourselves- as if we or the affected Israelites that Christ used in His typology could do anything. We were all born with the sin nature (serpent's sting) that was inherited from Adam and were condemned to die from the its deathly symptoms (acts of sin that lead to death,) no matter who we are or how good we try to be. Even non-Christians try to be good.
Because He loved us so, God sent His own Son to save us from the condemnation and death that was our destiny as sinners. All who look utterly to Christ for salvation from sin and death (putting no confidence in our ability to obey the law or what we think we can do to save ourselves from our sins) get to have life and have it more abundantly, as did the Israelites that looked utterly to the bronze serpent that Moses lifted up in the wilderness who put no confidence in human effort at ridding themselves of their symptoms. Only this way do we have victory over the sting of death (sin nature) as well as its deathly symptoms of aka of sin that lead to death. This is right believing in Jesus Christ. Right believing always produces right living.
None of self, all of Christ. This is the Good News.
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