What preacher does not delight to quote John 3:16? To what Christian are not its wonderful words familiar? Is it not the best known gospel text? Who can estimate the number that have been led to the Saviour by its message of love? But who stops to think that there is another John 3:16 in the Bible, a text not so familiar, nor so often quoted, but put on record for us by the Holy Spirit? The sixteenth verse of the third chapter of the Epistle of John is as much a part of the inspired Word as the sixteenth verse of the third chapter of John’s Gospel. Let us quote it: “Hereby perceive we the love of God, because He laid down His life for us: and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren” (1 Jn. 3:16).
The first thought presented in each text is the love of God. In the Gospel it is God’s love proved; in the Epistle it is His love perceived. The proof of love was the gift of His Son; we perceive that love in the length to which it went, even to laying down the life of the One who was sent.
The result of God’s gift, in the Gospel text, is that everlasting life is bestowed on all who believe. In the Epistle text the result is that he who believes is expected to become Christlike. He laid down His life for us; we ought to lay down our lives for those whom He loves. It cannot be too strongly emphasized that we are saved, not merely that we may be happy and have a sure hope of going to heaven, but that we may be Christ-like men and women.
We are destined in the future to be conformed to His image (Rom. 8:29). It is an axiom of Scripture interpretation that what we are to be or do in the eternal future, we may go in for being or doing that very thing now. When, therefore, we are told that we are to be conformed to the likeness of Christ in a day to come, it is that we may aim in larger measure at such conformity now, even to the length of utter self-sacrifice.
While we glory in the full-orbed gospel message of the best-known John 3:16, let us not forget the teaching of the other John 3:16.