Whoever Believes in Him Should not Perish

John 3:16a “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish.”  

Continuing in my study of the gospel message found within the truths of John 3:16, Professor Guy Richard points out how sobering are the words of our Lord Jesus Christ in Matthew 24:36-39 “But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, but My Father only. But as the days of Noah were, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be. For as in the days before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and did not know until the flood came and took them all away, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be.” But, a reality that ought to give us a great appreciation for the glorious truth of the gospel, that God will be merciful to all who believe, putting their hope and trust in Jesus Christ. Believers need not fear the coming flood of God’s judgment because we know that God gave His Son for the express purpose that all who believe in him should not perish.

John 3:35-36 “The Father loves the Son, and has given all things into His hand. He who believes in the Son has everlasting life; and he who does not believe the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him.”

Dr. Richard explains that although it is true that the word “perish” is used frequently in the Gospels to refer to physical death or destruction, it means far more than that here in John 3:16, because it is placed in antithesis to “eternal life”, being “saved” and “not condemned”. The 1828 Webster’s dictionary defines the word “perish” in John 3:16 as: To be lost eternally; to be sentenced to endless misery. The destruction from which believers are spared is, therefore,  not physical death or even some kind of annihilation but the eternal destruction that results from being “condemned” because of sin and rebellion against God. All who reject Christ and persist in their unbelief will receive not eternal life but eternal destruction as the wrath of God abides on him. This understanding of the word perish is in keeping with Jesus’ teaching about hell.

Matthew 25:31-34, 41, 46 “When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him, then He will sit on the throne of His glory. All the nations will be gathered before Him, and He will separate them one from another, as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats. And He will set the sheep on His right hand, but the goats on the left. Then the King will say to those on His right hand, ‘Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world’. Then He will also say to those on the left hand, ‘Depart from Me, you cursed, into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels. And these will go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”

Those who do not receive eternal life do not simply cease to exist. They experience an eternity of destruction or punishment that manifests itself in unquenchable fire or in the “fiery furnace” in which there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. This is what it means to perish. It is an eternity of getting what our sins and our rejection of Jesus Christ deserve. And this is precisely why the gospel is so encouraging for the Christian. It holds out to us the promise that “whoever believes” in Jesus Christ will not perish. Although our sins and our rebellion clearly deserve an eternity of destruction, that is not what believers will receive from God. God will be merciful and spare believers from destruction. He will not give us what we deserve. Jesus has endured that.

Romans 10:8-10 But what does it say? “The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart” (that is, the word of faith which we preach): that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.”

Those who respond to Him in faith and obedience will not perish but will have eternal life. The good news of John 3:16 is that, though we were all at one time numbered among the perishing, now, through faith in Christ alone, that is no longer the case. We have been shown mercy and for that reason, we will not perish.

Blessings, in Christ