John 3:15

The purpose of Jesus’ uplifting, as was the purpose of the uplifting of the bronze serpent in the wilderness, was the salvation (deliverance) of those who believed. By comparing Himself to that serpent Jesus was teaching that whoever trusted in Him and His death would receive eternal life.

This is the first reference to eternal life in this Gospel. Eternal life refers to the life of the age to come, namely, the kingdom age and forever after. It is life that one experiences normally after resurrection that fits him or her for the kingdom. However, John presented that life as something that people can experience in measure before the kingdom begins. The eternal life that people receive at new birth is the life of the eternal Word (John 1:4). It comes to them by believing in the person and saving work of Jesus.

"The life Christians possess is not in any sense independent of Christ. It is a life that is ’hidden with Christ in God’ (Colossians 3:3). . . . The Jews divided time into the present age and the age to come, but the adjective [eternal] was used of life in the coming age, not that of the present age. ’Eternal life’ thus means ’the life proper to the age to come.’ It is an eschatological concept (cf. John 6:40; John 6:54). But as the age to come is thought of as never coming to an end the adjective came to mean ’everlasting,’ ’eternal.’ The notion of time is there. Eternal life will never cease. But there is something else there, too, and something more significant. The important thing about eternal life is not its quantity but its quality. . . . Eternal life is life in Christ, that life which removes a person from the merely earthly." [Note: Morris, p. 201.]

Some authorities believe that John 3:16-21 are the Apostle John’s comments, his aside, rather than a continuation of Jesus’ words to Nicodemus. [Note: E.g., Tenney, "John," pp. 49-50; Carson, p. 203; Everett F. Harrison, "The Gospel According to John," in The Wycliffe Bible Commentary, p. 1079; Morris, p. 202; Westcott, p. 54; and Beasley-Murray, p. 51.] Others believe Jesus’ words continue through John 3:21. [Note: E.g., Barrett, p. 169; Tasker, p. 66; J. P. Lange, ed., A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures, 12 vols., vol. 9: The Gospel According to John, by J. P. Lange, p. 134; Richard C. H. Lenski, The Interpretation of St. John’s Gospel, p. 258; Arthur W. Pink, Exposition of the Gospel of John , 1:120; G. Campbell Morgan, The Gospel According to John, pp. 59-60; William Barclay, The Gospel of John , 1:128; Wiersbe, 1:298; and John G. Mitchell, An Everlasting Love: A Devotional Study of the Gospel of John, p. 57.] I prefer the second opinion on this issue. Unfortunately the Greek text does not contain quotation marks, or any punctuation for that matter, so it does not identify quotations for the reader. This section of the text is the heart of John’s record of Jesus’ early ministry (chs. 2-4).