John 3:16 is one of the most famously referenced Bible verses. Even if you don’t know what it says by heart, you’ve seen the reference somewhere that wasn’t the Bible in your lifetime. But what often happens with common verses is they start to lose their impact and become something you just know or remember. So let’s take a deeper dive into this common verse and bring back some of the meaning.

Different translations

When looking at what we’re missing, it’s good to look at different translations and how different English speakers translated the Greek. Here’s the spread I usually look at:

ESV

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

NASB

For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.

NLT

For this is how God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.

Berean

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.

Original Greek

Now let’s look at what the actual Greek breakdown is:

Greek

houto | in so doing
gar | for
agape | love
ho | be the
theos | God
ho | be the
Kosmos | world
Hoste | that
Ho | be the
Monogenes | only, unique
didomi | he gave
hina | that
pas | whoever
pisteuo | believes
is | to
autos | he himself
me | shall not
apollymi | perish

Closer Look

Now that we’ve looked at the text, let’s look at some of the keywords and what we need to understand about each word.

Kosmos | World

This is the word translated as world. And while it can mean that it can also mean the whole of the galaxy and also just mankind. It’s a word that can grow and expand. But it especially refers to the order and structure put into creation. This can refer back to creation and the use of the word “raqia” in Hebrew which refers to God creating a place of order for us.

These two words together tell us a story that God loved us so much that he created a safe place of order for us in the midst of chaos and even though we brought chaos back into this perfect creation of order, God chose to remove the chaos again, this time through his son.

What’s more is that John, a Jew is saying the savior wasn’t just for the Jews, but for all the world. The Jews were God’s people and believed the savior was for them, but here John lays out there are no divides anymore, the savior was for the whole world.

Monogenes | Only, Unique

This is the word we translate as begotten. Typically this word was to reference sons and daughters as their parents’ only children. But this is an example of language transformation as Christians started using it and giving it a deeper meaning of the uniqueness Jesus has of being God’s son, but also fully God, making him more than a child born of natural means.

Pisteuo | believes

This is not just a head-based belief. As James 2:19 points out, that kind of belief isn’t enough. So from what we read throughout the Bible and how belief is used, it’s an action belief. It means I believe something so much, that I can’t help but live my life as though it is true. It’s the kind of faith where you wake up daily and choose to act like you believe in Jesus.

Agape | Love

If you want a deeper dive into Agape, you can read it here. But basically Agape is a deep sacrificial love. What’s more is the greeks understood this to be how they loved their gods, but never how the gods loved them. So when John says that God agaped the world, this was a completely crazy way to think of how God would consider us, and one of the many ways Christianity was so counter-cultural.

apollymi | perish

Perish isn’t a word we use often anymore. What the word encapsulates is kill or destroy. This word is often connected to a spiritual understanding of complete destruction once final judgment has happened. So this isn’t simply a part of eternal life but saying when we believe in God we won’t face the ultimate punishment of soul destruction.

Zoe Aionios | Eternal Life

This is what we translate as eternal life, literal translation is life eternal. But the concept isn’t a someday I’ll get it, the original text implies your forever life starts the moment you believe in Jesus. Accepting Jesus and living a life of belief is what crosses you over into eternal life, not the death to this current body and world, but the choice of spiritual death to your old sinful self.

What did we miss?

For me, I think my biggest mindset this time around was that eternal life starts as soon as you say yes to Jesus, not a someday moment after death. Agape is a word I’ve been focused on for a while now, because the more I learn about it the more I understand how big of a word it was in the original text.

What about you, what was something that was lost in translation for you?

Stay Weird,