13 And no one has ascended to heaven except He who came down from heaven, that is, the Son of Man who is in heaven. 14 And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, 15 so that everyone who believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. 16 For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved.

Explanation of my parish bulletin:

This Gospel chapter is part of the Lord’s dialogue with Nicodemus, and it emphasizes the necessity of the new birth, which is by the Holy Spirit. It is the birth from above, from the divine Spirit’s breath within us, which transfers us from the level of the flesh to our dwelling in the New Testament, so that we ascend to heaven, according to what today’s Gospel chapter speaks of.

“No one has ascended to heaven except He who came down from heaven, even the Son of Man who is in heaven.” Heaven refers to the abode of God where there is none other, and everything else, including angels and spirits, is from creation. Therefore, there is no connection between the created and the uncreated except the Son of Man, and this means that the Son of Man is the only one who carries the true word about the Father and no one else, “For no one has seen God at any time; the only Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he has declared him” (John 1:18). This also means that there is no actual knowledge of the Father except through the Lord Jesus, for “no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and he to whom the Son chooses to reveal him” (Matthew 11:27). Many are the beliefs that said that there are intermediaries between the Creator and creation, but this statement makes it clear without a doubt that the mediator is one and there is no one else, for “there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself a ransom for all” (1 Timothy 2:5-6).

“As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up.” The Jewish people complained against God after their exodus from Egypt in the Old Testament, and were struck by poisonous serpents. The people ran to Moses, confessing their sin, and when Moses prayed to God, God commanded him to put a bronze serpent and raise it up on a pole, so that whoever looked at the bronze serpent would be healed of the serpent’s bite (see Numbers 21:4-9). The matter was settled by lifting up the serpent, and now death is being decided by lifting up the Son of Man on the cross. Thus, the secret of salvation lies in the cross and its truth is revealed on it, so the Lord Jesus said in the temple, “When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am he” (John 8:28). This lifting up on the cross is precisely the distinctive character of the Lord Jesus Christ the Savior.

“That whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life,” that is, everyone who believes in him is lifted up. The decisive belief is the belief that Jesus crucified is the Savior. The Lord Jesus repeated this verse twice in a row in this text, indicating that it summarizes the purpose that God has set and that redemption is used to achieve this purpose.

“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that it should not perish…” That is, God loved the world to such an exceeding degree that it was necessary for the Son of Man to be lifted up. Lifting up on the cross is the result of God’s love for this world, which never ceases to grumble against God about its sin, just as the Jewish people had previously grumbled in the wilderness. There is no reason for redemption except that God loved, God moved of Himself, and therefore redemption came as a purely divine initiative. Love, God’s language toward the world, was made clear on the cross, as it showed that the Creator is the victim of His creation.

God loved to the point of giving His only Son, that is, giving the One who is irreplaceable. This giving is the highest level of love, for “greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13). So God is truly known by His love, and this led the Apostle John to say, “God is love” (1 John 4:8, 11).

“God did not send His Son to condemn but to save.” The goal is eternal life, and obtaining it is linked to faith in the crucified One, because unbelief brings judgment. Unbelief is a negative attitude toward God and a rejection of His love. So salvation comes from God’s will, while judgment comes from people’s will. Your attitude toward God’s initiative toward you determines your fate, so the Lord Jesus said, “He who believes in Him (the Son) is not condemned, but he who does not believe has been condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God” (John 3:81), meaning that whoever refuses to be redeemed by God loses the effectiveness of this redemption and remains in his nature of unfaithfulness instead of being enveloped in eternal life.

“For God so loved the world…” Here, for the first time in his Gospel, John mentions the Father’s personal initiative in the salvation of the world. Here too, John summarizes the theology of his Gospel in a profound statement: God’s love, expressed in the surrender of his only Son to death for the life of the world, is the reason behind everything contained in Nicodemus’ question and everything new in the New Testament. In short, we can say that the “work” of the Father is to show his love for the world by “giving” his Son, the “work” of the Son is to show his love for the Father and the world by surrendering himself to death (see John 4:34; 13:1-2; 17:1-4), and the “work” of the world is to believe in the only Son whom the Father sent to bear witness to him and to reveal his love to the world (see John 3:16; 6:29; 17:20-25).

The description of Jesus as God’s “only son” may have something to do with the account of Abraham and his son Isaac in Genesis (chapter 22). This is reinforced by the use of the verb “gave” instead of “sent” in the statement, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only son…,” referring to Abraham’s intention to “give” his only son Isaac as a sacrifice to God (Genesis 22:2-6). This description may also be a response to what Nicodemus had previously said about Jesus as “a teacher who came from God” (John 3:2). What John wants to make clear here is that Jesus is not just a teacher among many, but the only Son of God!

Then John the Evangelist returns to the subject of eternal life to confirm that the work of the Father and the Son is the salvation of the world, and the work of the world is to believe in the only Son of God in order to have eternal life: “For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him. He who believes in him is not condemned, but he who does not believe in him is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God” (John 3:17-18).

Explanation of the Lattakia Archbishopric Bulletin:

Questions about the Gospel passage:

1- How does the Son of Man ascend to heaven and descend from it while he is still in it?

The Son of Man in the Bible refers to Jesus Christ. The phrase “He descended from heaven” means that He became incarnate, and the phrase “He ascended into heaven” means that He ascended to the heavens after His resurrection from the dead. Even though Christ descended to earth, He was never separated from the bosom of the Father, but was always united with Him in heaven and in every place. He is present everywhere and fills all things. By ascending, descending, and remaining in heaven at the same time, He made it clear that He is God, and the phrase “Son of Man” made it clear that He is also human.

2- What is the story of Moses raising the beard in the wilderness?

When the Jews left Egypt, they came to the wilderness and were bitten by snakes, causing them to die. Then Moses asked God to free the people from this punishment, and God answered his request and said to him: Make a bronze snake and put it on a pole, and whoever is bitten by the snake must look at the bronze snake and he will recover. So Moses did so (Numbers 21:6-9).

3- What does this story symbolize?

The serpent that bit the people signifies the mental serpent, that is, the devil who wounded Adam and Eve in Paradise and continues to wound their descendants to this day. As for the bronze that took the form of a serpent, it signifies the Son of God and His Word who took the form of a servant and existed in the form of a human being. The bronze serpent was raised on a banner, and Christ the God was lifted up on the cross. Just as everyone who looked at the bronze serpent raised on a banner was healed of the wounds of the serpent, so everyone who believes in God and man who was hung on a tree is cleansed of the wounds of the mentality. Everyone who looked at the bronze serpent did not die, but lived a temporary life. But whoever believes in Jesus, God and man, will not perish, that is, will not be tormented, but will have eternal life. By the command of God the serpent was lifted up on a banner, and by the pleasure of God the Father Jesus was lifted up on the cross. Therefore Jesus said, “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up.”

On the meanings of the Gospel:

“Thus must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.” Yes, God chose to crucify His only Son, not out of love of suffering or to satisfy His divine dignity, which was wounded by Adam’s disobedience and fall – as some say – but because there is no other way to heal the fall of man and its consequences, except the way of the cross and redemption. Just as every physical disease has a specific medicine that suits it and nullifies its deadly effect on man, so death, which has poisoned human life, cannot be overcome unless man drinks the divine blood that contains life and was poured out on the cross, and if he himself lives an internal cross, crucifying his passions, selfishness, and negatives on it. Without this way, we have no escape from destruction, torment, turmoil, and the tearing apart of the soul.

The important and strange question is, who among us cares or talks these days about the cross and eternal life?! Everyone talks about the concerns of life (money, business, investments, technology, problems, profits…) As for the real life here on this earth that continues with man – if he finds it – until after death, who asks about it or cares about it?! But “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son.” How intense and limitless is this love! No father has shown such an initiative as God the Father has shown toward us. God did not spend money as people do, God did not spend compliments as people do. People’s love for people costs them words, but God’s love for man cost him his blood. Let us not neglect, my beloved, such a love, but let us reciprocate God’s love for love, let us thank Him for every weakness, sickness, suffering and pain, and let us crucify everything that is cheap and trivial in us. Thus the cross that we celebrate this week is raised not on the hill of Jerusalem but in our hearts, Amen.