He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him.
He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life - already hath it. See the note at John 3:18; and at John 5:24.
And [or rather, 'but' de (G1161 )] he that believeth not the Son shall not see life. The contrast here is striking. The one has already a life that will endure forever: the other not only has it not now, but shall never have it-never see it.
But the wrath of God abideth on him. It was on Him before, and not being removed in the only possible way, by "believing on the Son," it necessarily remaineth on him.
Remarks:
(1) Here again we have the marriage-relation of Yahweh to the Church-one of the leading Evangelical ideas of the Old Testament-which in Psalms 45:1-17 is transferred to Messiah, and is here, as in the First Gospel, appropriated by Christ to Himself, who thereby serves Himself Heir to all that the Old Testament holds forth of Yahweh's gracious affections, purposes, and relations toward the Church. See the note at Matthew 22:2, and Remark 1 at the close of that section.
(2) What a beautiful and comprehensive idea of the office of the ministry is this, of "Friends of the Bridegroom" - instrumentally bringing the parties together; equally interested in both of them and in their blessed union; rejoicing as they listen to the Bridegroom's voice, with whom the whole originates, by whom all is effected, and from whom flows all the bliss of those united to Him!
(3) No test of fidelity in the service of Christ can be more decisive than the spirit here displayed by the Baptist-absorption in his Master's interests, joy at the ingathering of souls to Him, and a willingness to decrease that He may increase, as stars before the rising sun.
(4) The difference between Christ and all other, even inspired, teachers is carefully to be observed, and never lost sight of. By this the honour in which the early Church held the Gospels above every other portion of the inspired Scripture is fully justified; nor are the other portions of canonical Scripture thereby disparaged, but rather the contrary, being thus seen in their right place, as all either preparatory to or expository of THE GOSPEL, as the Four Evangelical Records were called-Christ Himself being the chief Corner-stone.
(5) When Christ "speaketh the words of God," it is not simply as "The Word made flesh," but (according to the teaching of the Baptist in John 3:34) as plenarily gifted with the Holy Spirit-that "oil of gladness with which God, even His God, anointed Him above His fellows." As this was prophetically announced in Isaiah 61:1-3, so it was recognized by Christ Himself (Luke 4:18). But to guard against the abuse of this truth, as if Christ differed from other teachers only in having the Spirit given Him in larger measure, we shall do well to observe how jealous the fathers of the Church found it necessary to be on this point, when, having to combat such abuses, they decreed in one of their councils, that if anyone said that Christ 'spake or performed miracles by the Spirit of God, as by a power foreign to Himself,' he was to be condemned.
Thus then-as at His baptism and elsewhere, so here-we have the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, all present, and each in His respective office in the work of redemption.
(6) The Son of God is the great Administrator of the kingdom of grace. As this is part of the closing testimony of the Baptist to Him, so does the last book of the New Testament canon conclude with it - "Behold, I come quickly, and My reward is with Me, to give to every man according as his work is" (Revelation 22:12). But this is not held forth here merely as a great fact. It is to give meaning and weight to what follows (John 3:36) - that the destinies of all that hear the Gospel, their blissful or blighted eternity, hang upon their reception or rejection of the Son of God.
(7) God's attitude toward the unbelieving is that of "wrath" х orgee (G3709)], that is, righteous displeasure, whose judicial expression is called "vengeance" х ekdikeesis (G1557)]. While it repays х apodidoosi (G591)] the unbelieving by excluding them from "seeing life," it does so still more awfully by leaving them under the weight of God's settled, abiding displeasure. And yet, with such teaching sounding in their ears, there are those who confidently teach that there never was, is not, nor can be anything in God against sinners, needing to be removed by Christ, but solely in men against God. Having formed to themselves certain notions of the love and unchangeableness of God, which they think incompatible with there being anything in Him against the sinner needing to be removed in order to his salvation, they make the Scripture to bend to these notions, instead of adjusting their own views to its indisputable teaching.
This may be consistent enough in those who believe in no authoritative divine Revelation, and regard the Scripture, and Christianity itself, as only designed to quicken and develop the natural religiousness of the human heart. But none who profess to bow to the teaching of Scripture as authoritative and conclusive can, consistently with the concluding words of this chapter, deny that God's view and treatment of the sinner will be that of reconciliation, complacency, and admission to life everlasting, or of abiding wrath or judicial displeasure, and permanent exclusion from life, according as he believes or believes not on the Son; in other words, that we must be not only internally but relatively right with God, or that He must be gained to us as well as we to Him. That He is willing and waiting to be so is indeed most true, as His whole procedure in the matter of salvation shows; and that neither Christ's death nor our faith in it make Him so-as we be slanderously reported and as some affirm that we say-is equally true. But until the sinner meets Him at the Cross, and sets to his own seal to the reconciliation effected by it-until both the Offended and the offending parties embrace each other over the same Sacrifice that taketh away the sin of the world, that love of God which yearns toward the sinner cannot, and will not, reach him. See the notes at Matthew 5:23-26, Remark 7 at the close of that section.
(8) The language of the last six verses of this chapter, regarding Christ, has been thought by not a few critics to go so far beyond the Baptist's point of view, that they cannot persuade themselves that he uttered it as it stands reported here; and they think that the Evangelist himself has, in the exercise of his apostolic illumination and authority, blended the Baptist's fainter and his own clearer views into one full-orbed testimony, as that of the Baptist himself-being his in sense if not in form. We have put this view of Bengel, Wetstein Lucke, Olshausen, DeWette, da Costa, and Tholuck, as favourably as we could. But first, if this principle is to be admitted, we can have no confidence that even Christ's own discourses are correctly reported, except that they are too lofty to have been expressed as they are by any human pen; and though this may do very well to authenticate them in the general, there are some statements of our Lord of so special a nature that we should not feel bound to abide by them as the stand, if we could persuade ourselves that they were, in the form of them at least, due to the Evangelist himself.
Thus is a principle of uncertainty in the testimony of the Gospels introduced, of which no one can see the end, or rather, the end of which has been too sadly seen in the criticism of Schleiermacher (on the Gospel of Luke, for example), and after him of Strauss. But again, this whole testimony of the Baptist-from John 3:27 - is so homogeneous, as Meyer well remarks, so uniform, consistent, and continuous, that one cannot see why the former portion of it should be thought to be strictly his, and the rest betray the Evangelist's own pen. But once more, we have seen already how glorious are the rays of Gospel truth-regarding the Person and the Work of Christ alike-which darted from the lips of His honoured herald (see the note at John 1:29; and at 1:49): and as from Luke 11:1 it is clear that John's teaching to his disciples took a wider range than anything expressly reported in the Gospels, we have no reason for doubting that this testimony-explicitly related as his, and so entirely in harmony with all his recorded testimonies-was really his, merely because it widens out into something singularly clear and lofty; more especially when we consider that it must have been among the very last testimonies, if not altogether the last, which he was permitted to bear to his blessed Master before his imprisonment.