John 3:36 - Exposition

He that believeth on the Son hath eternal life (cf. here, John 3:16 , John 3:17 ; John 17:3 ; 1 John 5:10 ). These words, which above every other clause in this "swanlike song," are suffused with a glow that it is difficult to believe issued from the heart of the forerunner, unless we may make the supposition already referred to, that some of John's former disciples had carried to his earlier master the grand refrain of the discourse to Nicodemus. The entrusting of the soul in utter moral surrender to the Son of God, is life—eternal life. All cruel suspicions of God vanish when the veil is lifted which sin and the corruption of the human heart have hung over the holiest of all. John had passed into a new world when he discovered the true nature of the kingdom—the tempted, humbled, sacrificial, triumphant character of the Son of God. To believe on the Son is to have the life. But he that is disobedient to the Son. The words ὁ ἀπειθῶν are, in the English version, translated "believeth not," and again so in Romans 11:30 , where ἀπιστεῖν and ἀπειθεῖν are used interchangeably. The word means one who is ( ἀπειθής distrustful, who refuses to be persuaded, is contumacious and expresses the opposite to faith in active exercise, who repudiates faith on its fiducial and practical side. Nothing is said of those who have had no opportunity of coming to a knowledge of the Son of God. Shall not see life; shall not even see so as to be able to conceive of, much less enjoy, life (Westcott; see Romans 11:3 ). There is a blinding power in disobedience, which prevents those who are actively hostile to the essential excellences and glories of Christ from even knowing what life is. Life is obviously here and elsewhere more than physical existence, or than its continuance, or than its resuscitation after death; it is the activity of the new spirit, the supernatural and eternal blessedness wrought by "birth of the Spirit." Nor is the calamity referred to a mere negation. John may be said here to have gone beyond the words of the Master in the previous discourse, and, moreover, it is in fiery earnestness that he speaks. The wrath of God, which has already been called down upon him by his disobedience, abideth on him. God's ὀργή had been spoken of by the Baptist ( Matthew 3:7 ; Luke 3:7 ); and the term, wherever used, is far more than "the consuming fire of infinite love," into which many strive to resolve it. It represents active and terrible displeasure revealed from heaven ( Romans 1:18 ; Romans 3:5 ; 1 Thessalonians 1:10 ; 1 Thessalonians 2:16 ). Much of the wrath of the Lord is said to be temporary in its character (Wis. 16:5; 18:20); but this is abiding, and, so far as is here revealed, permanent. The most terrible expression in the New Testament is the "wrath of the Lamb" ( Revelation 6:16 ). The last word of the Baptist, even in the Fourth Gospel, is a word of thunder, and he disappears from view when he has delivered this terrible condemnation on those who are wilfully, actively resisting that Son whom "the Father loves," and to whose hands he has "entrusted all things." The ministry of John is, after all, that of the Elijah, not that of the Christ. To the last word, even if the phraseology has been moulded in the Greek of the fourth evangelist into a closer resemblance to his own vocabulary, £ and if by his attempt to epitomize what may have taken hours to say in varied phrase, the apostle has unconsciously adopted some of his own favourite terms, yet the message flashes with the fire of the prophet of the wilderness; and men are threatened with the peril of abiding under the wrath of Almighty God.