John 3:17

For God sent not his Son into the world to judge the world; but that the world should be saved through him.

Here again, these words have a pertinent application to the prejudices of Nicodemus and the class to which he belonged, to such a degree that it is mandatory to believe they were spoken to Nicodemus by the Saviour, and that they were not anything projected into this context from the thoughts of the apostle John. The Sanhedrinists and all of the leaders of Israel were anxiously expecting a Messiah who would put the Romans out of their country, blast the whole Gentile world with the judgment they hoped God would execute upon them, and restore the political economy of the chosen people. Here, Christ flatly rejected any notion that he had come to execute any such judgment upon the Gentiles, hence, he said, "God sent not the Son into the world to judge the world ..." (that is, in the sense they expected). There was, to be sure, a function of judgment pertaining to the Son, revealed later in this Gospel (John 5:22ff); and that was not here denied. What was denied was Christ's conformity to the Jewish expectation of judgment upon the Gentiles.

Christ's first advent was not to pronounce and execute judgment upon the nations abiding in God's wrath; but rather, his was a saving mission, commensurate with God's love of the whole human creation. It was that saving mission which formed the burden of the Lord's mission in the first advent.