Perish the Thought: How John 6 and 11 Challenge the Traditionalist Reading of John 3:16

For God so loved the world,
that he gave his only Son,
that whoever believes in him
should not perish
but have eternal life.

–John 3:16

John 3:16 is one of the clearest texts supporting the conditional immortality view. This is because Jesus contrasts the eternal life received by believers with the death they would otherwise receive if they reject him. After all, to die is just what “perish” normally means whenever we use that word of humans. As John Stott noted, when the Greek verb apollymi is used in the middle voice and without a direct object it means to be destroyed in a way that causes someone to perish or die (Stott points to Luke 15:17; 1 Cor 10:9 for physical perishing, and John 10:28; 17:12; Rom 2:12; 1 Cor 15:18; 2 Pet 3:9 for perishing in hell).¹John Stott, “Hell and Judgement,” in Rethinking Hell: Readings in Evangelical Conditionalism, eds. Christopher M. Date, Gregory G. Stump, & Joshua W. Anderson, Kindle ed. (Cascade Books, 2014), Kindle locations, 1319-1322.

Traditionalists often respond by arguing that this term in John 3:16 need not refer to the death or annihilation of unbelievers.²William Hendriksen, New Testament Commentary, Olivetree ebook ed., (Baker Book House, no publishing date given), no page given. But beyond a generalized word study of apollymi, most traditionalists do not give a rationale for their interpretation of the phrase “shall not perish.” A few have offered reasons to read it as referring to an unending “perishing” in hell.

Henriksen views “eternal life” and “perish” in verse 16 as antonyms, and he regards eternal life as having a quantitative aspect (living forever) and a qualitative aspect (the quality of life is better than normal life). Yet when he discusses the meaning of appolymi (“perish”) he avoids the logically opposite concept to living forever, which is not living forever, or ending up dead forever. Instead, he relates apollymi only to the qualitative sense of eternal life, concluding that perishing indicates “divine condemnation, complete and everlasting, so that one is banished from the presence of a God of love and dwells forever in the presence of a God of wrath.”³Ibid.

Murray Harris follows the same line of argument, arguing that eternal life and perishing are opposites, yet changing perish into “suffer eternal death” even though the Greek word for “eternal” (αἰώνιος, aiōnios) is only applied to “life” in that verse.⁴Murray J. Harris, John 3:16: What’s It All About?, Kindle ed. (Cascade Books, 2015), Kindle locations, 366-382. He understands eternal death to refer to unending alienation and separation from God without the unbeliever actually dying, and this affects his interpretation to the extent that he goes on to read never-ending existence into everything Jesus has to say about unbelievers in John 3.

Woodcock argues that “eternal life” and “perish” are contrasted in such a way that perishing is the opposite of having eternal life. However, rather than following this to the natural conclusion that perishing means dying, Woodcock opines:⁵Eldon Woodcock, Hell: An Exhaustive Look at a Burning Issue, Kindle ed. (WestBow Press, 2012), Kindle locations, 4063-4080.

Eternal life involves far more than mere existence. It involves a rich blessed quality of life that will never end. The opposite of this life is not extinction. Rather, it involves the absence of the positive qualities that are the essence of eternal life and the presence of horrifying negative qualities.

Woodcock defines eternal life in both qualitative and quantitative terms. It is qualitative in the sense that this life is “a rich blessed quality of life” and it is quantitative in the sense that it “will never end.” But if eternal life is to be contrasted with perishing, as Woodcock rightly argues, why does he only relate perishing to the qualitative aspect of eschatological life? If eternal life never ends, then why not admit that in the opposite case, the life of unbelievers does end when they perish?

A final example of traditionalist exegesis is Robert Yarbrough, who notes that Jesus juxtaposes “eternal life” with “perish” in John 3:16 (c.f John 10:28), and also with “condemned” (John 3:18; 5:24, 28), “judgment” (John 5:22, 30), “death” (John 5:24), and “die” (John 6:50).⁶Robert W. Yarbrough, “Jesus on Hell,” in Hell Under Fire: Modern Scholarship Reinvents Eternal Punishment, eds. Christopher W. Morgan & Robert A. Peterson, Kindle ed. (Zondervan, 2007), Kindle location, 1650-1670. Despite the fact that John tells his audience that perishing, death, and dying is the alternative fate to eternal life, Yarbrough still insists:⁷Ibid.

The blessed state of eternal life is logically opposite to the condemned state of eternal destruction. If salvation and conscious bliss are everlasting, so are perdition and conscious torment.

Traditionalists continue to insist that an eternal process of perishing is in view in John 3:16, even though John does not qualify “perish” with “eternal” as he does with “life.” Clearly, conditionalists have more work to do in demonstrating exegetically that the evidence supports our reading.

One of the ways in which we can strengthen the conditionalist reading of John 3:16 is to examine how the Old Testament is utilized in this verse and in a similar context in chapter 6.

In John 3:14-15 Jesus alludes to Numbers 21:4-9 where the Israelites are told to gaze on an elevated bronze snake so that they may be saved from a plague of snakes sent by God to kill them. John uses this episode in a typological way to express the point that Christ’s elevation on the cross brings true and everlasting life. Whereas in the wilderness episode the elevation of the bronze snake brings earthly life for the Israelites, in John 3:14-16 Jesus’ elevation on the cross brings eternal life for those who believe in him. In Numbers the focus is clearly on the death of the Israelites, not on a lost blessed quality of life and relationship with God. When Jesus speaks of eternal life in John 3:16, he is teaching that just as the Israelite lives were preserved in the face of death, so will the lives of believers in him also be preserved. The difference is that for believers in him, this will last forever. Jesus indicates this difference by explicitly calling it “eternal” life. But he does not modify what happens to those who don’t believe, as if to introduce an alternative way for them to live forever. Rather, just as the Israelites would have died, so also unbelievers will die (perish).

John 6:22-59

John 3:14-15 is not the only place in John’s Gospel where Jesus draws on the Israelite experience to explain his importance as one who brings life to believers. In John 6:26-35, Jesus confronts the crowd that had been fed by his miraculous provision of bread and fish the previous day (see John 6:1-14) to teach them the significance of his ministry. He begins by exhorting them to “not labor for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life” (John 6:27) and then tells them that God’s work is to ensure they believe in him (John 6:29). The terms “perish,” “eternal life,” and “believe” are also found in John 3:16, so Jesus is here outlining more of the same teaching.

Now, despite his miracle of providing bread and fish for them the previous day, the crowd challenges Jesus to do more by providing manna from heaven (John 6:30-31). Most commentators think that the language in John 6:31 is drawn from Psalm 78:24 and Exodus 16:4.⁸See for instance, D. A. Carson, The Gospel According to John, Kindle ed. (Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1991), Kindle locations, 5753-5773; J. Ramsey Michaels, The Gospel of John, Kindle ed. (Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2010), Kindle locations, 7112-7125; Andreas J. Kostenberger, “John” in Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament, eds. G.K. Beale & D. A. Carson, Kindle ed., (Baker Academic, 2007), Kindle locations, 18292-18309. Psalm 78 clearly is a retelling of God’s rescue of Israel from Egypt and their sinful attitude as they journeyed in the wilderness. In John 6:14, after Jesus had performed the miracle of providing bread and fish for the crowd, they stated, “This is indeed the Prophet who is to come into the world!” This is most likely a reference to Deuteronomy 18:15-19 where it is promised that a prophet like Moses would be raised up by God.⁹Leon Morris, The Gospel According to John, rev. ed. (Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1995), 119, 306; Carson, The Gospel According to John, Kindle locations, 5433-5448; George R. Beasley-Murray, John, Kindle ed. (Thomas Nelson, 1999), Kindle locations, 6202-6210. John the Baptist had already been asked whether he was the one, which he denied (John 1:21). So this new challenge for Jesus to provide manna was intended to ascertain if he was the expected figure like Moses, who, reminiscent of the exodus, would lead the Jewish people to escape their servitude to Rome (John 6:15).¹⁰On this point see Carson, The Gospel According to John, Kindle locations, 5446-5456.

Against this backdrop, Jesus’ teaching on the “bread of life” in John 6:26-35 should be seen as his way of establishing the superiority of his ministry over that provided by Moses in Exodus 16:1-36. Throughout John 6:22-59 Jesus employs a distinct typological usage of the Old Testament, as he did in John 3:14-16.¹¹Grant R. Osborne, John: Verse by Verse, Kindle ed., (Lexham Press, 2018), Kindle location, 2649. In John 6:31 the crowd asks Jesus for manna, the bread from heaven, as they believe it to be superior to the earthly bread provided by Jesus the day before. If you read Exodus 16, you will find that the provision of manna was a test for the rebellious Israelites (Ex 16:4). As such, the manna itself was not meant to last beyond one day (Ex 16:16-21), though on the sixth day of the week the Israelites were permitted to collect enough manna to last for two days. Even though the manna came from heaven it had no capacity to sustain the Israelites indefinitely because it would itself quickly decay (Ex 16:20-21). Jesus addresses the crowd’s challenge to provide heavenly bread as Moses had done in the wilderness (John 6:31), by stating that there is a superior heavenly bread to be had (John 6:32, “my Father gives you the true bread from heaven”). This heavenly bread is Jesus himself, and he underscores his superiority over manna by indicating that only he could “give life to the world” (John 6:33) and ensure that they would never hunger or thirst again (John 6:35).¹²The Greek behind “shall not hunger” and “shall never thirst” is emphatic with the use of a double negative (οὐ μὴ, meaning “never”) and the word πώποτε (meaning “ever”,”at any time”). Thirst and hunger would not be characteristic of the life believers would receive from him.

Since believers do in fact hunger, thirst, and die in this age, the tendency from traditionalists is to view this in purely spiritual terms.¹³For instance, see Morris, The Gospel According to John, 324; Murray J. Harris, Exegetical Guide to the Greek New Testament: John, Kindle ed., (B&H Academic, 2015), Kindle locations, 4805-4806; Douglas J. Moo, “Paul on Hell,” in Hell Under Fire: Modern Scholarship Reinvents Eternal Punishment, eds. Christopher W. Morgan & Robert A. Peterson, Kindle ed. (Zondervan, 2007), Kindle locations, 2229-2237; Robert H. Mounce, John, eds. Tremper Longman III & David E. Garland, Kindle ed. (Zondervan, 2007), Kindle locations, 5749-5755. But several details from the text make this untenable. For one thing, Jesus promises to resurrect believers from the dead in John 6:39-40,

And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day. For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.

And also in John 6:54,

Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.

To raise up believers is to resurrect them from the dead. When Jesus speaks of when he will resurrect “everyone who looks on the Son and believes” (John 6:40) he is alluding to his teaching in John 3:14-16, and thus expanding on his teaching about eternal life. He had already spoken of the future resurrection as if it were happening already as he spoke (John 5:24-29). But John 6:39-40, 54 balances this emphasis on nowness with an emphasis on the resurrection taking place on the future “last day.”¹⁴It has been virtually undisputed in recent times that John is referring to a future resurrection in this passage. This now-but-not-yet doctrine of the last things (eschatology) is common in the New Testament and should be kept in mind as we examine John’s Gospel.

A central tenet of this understanding is that the future blessings of God’s kingdom are available to believers now precisely because Christ, the Word who is life (John 1:4), entered human history and walked among us (John 1:14). In order to ascertain what the life of the future kingdom will be like, we must note the ways in which John describes that life in his Gospel. In this case Jesus directly connects the possession of eternal life with the physical resurrection of believers from the dead. Even though that resurrection is accessible to believers now once they believe in Christ, this does not mean that their resurrection should be viewed merely as a spiritual reality. It just means that our resurrection from the dead is guaranteed because we believe in Christ now.

A similar point can be made about the way Jesus goes on to emphasize that as the superior bread from heaven, he brings believers immortality. This is explicit in John 6:49-51 and also verse 58, which read as follows:

Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. . . . This is the bread that came down from heaven, not as the fathers ate and died. Whoever feeds on this bread will live forever.

Leon Morris reads “so that one may eat of it and not die” in verse 50 as a reference to spiritual death, but does not provide any reason for making this distinction.¹⁵Ibid., 330-331. But if only spiritual death is in view, then why is Jesus framing his point by using the illustration of the physical demise of the Israelites? In verse 49 the Greek word for die is ἀποθνήσκω (apothnēskō) and Jesus uses it again in verse 50. If Jesus had intended to communicate that the death avoidable in verse 50 is a different kind of death to what the Israelites faced in the wilderness, then why does he use the language for physical death to describe the effect of eating this superior, heavenly bread? There is simply nothing in Jesus’ language to indicate that anything other than normal death, the loss of life, is in view.

We can make the same observation about the restatement of the point in terms of living forever (verses 51 and 58). The word for “live” in these verses is ζάω (zaō), which simply means “to be alive.”¹⁶William D. Mounce, Mounce’s Complete Expository Dictionary of Old & New Testament Words, (Zondervan, 2006), 414-415. It is used frequently by Jesus with the plain sense of being physically alive (e.g. John 4:50-51, 53; 5:25; 14:19). In John 6:57 he uses ζάω with reference to the living Father. This does not refer to knowing God in relationship, which might be termed “spiritual life.” That reading would be nonsensical since it would be saying the Father is in relationship with himself. Instead, as Leon Morris notes, “the participle stresses the active quality of life that inheres in the Father.”¹⁷Morris, The Gospel According to John, 336. The very nature of the Father is life, so he is not reliant on another to sustain him but “has life in himself” (John 5:26). In verse 57 this livingness of the Father is made available to believers through Jesus. So when Jesus speaks of the result of eating the heavenly bread in terms of living forever (John 6:51, 58), he is not communicating a notion of a spiritual life that is disconnected from the idea of being alive for eternity. Rather, Jesus is saying that since believers in him are given access to the source of life (the qualitative aspect of eternal life), they will live forever (the quantitative aspect of eternal life).

John 11

John 3:16 is further unpacked in John 11:1-57, where the episode of the death and resurrection of Lazarus gives a tangible picture of what the resurrection of life (John 5:28-29) on the last day (John 6:39-40, 50) looks like. The core point of John’s theology in this chapter is expressed through themes of dying, resurrection, and Jesus as the source of life. At the beginning of the chapter when Jesus is informed about the illness of Lazarus, he responds with “This illness does not lead to death. It is for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it” (John 11:4). This is not a declaration that Lazarus would not die from his illness, but as Carson observes, “that it will not end – ultimately – in death. Far from it: it will end in resurrection from the dead.”¹⁸Carson, The Gospel According to John, Kindle locations, 8454-8546. Carson’s observation is reinforced by Christ’s teaching that this was for God’s glory so that Jesus would be glorified. In John’s gospel Jesus’ death is presented as a revelatory event where Jesus and God are glorified (John 7:39; 12:16, 23, 28; 17:1; cf. Jn 13:31-32). According to John A. Dennis, John “combines imagery from ‘glorified’ (doxazō) and ‘lifted up’ (hypsoō) in the event of the cross (Jn 12:23, 32; cf. Jn 3:14; 8:28), recalling the Isaianic Servant, who likewise is ‘lifted up’ and ‘glorified’ (LXX Is 52:13).”¹⁹John A. Dennis, “Glory,” in Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels, eds. Joel B. Green, Jeannine K. Brown & Nicholas Perrin, second ed., Olivetree electronic ed. (InterVarsity Press, 2013), no pages given. So for John, Christ’s glorification is akin to his being lifted up on the cross, and therefore we have another reason to think that what we see in chapter 11 is meant to be part of John’s continued unpacking of John 3:14-16. It is telling that even a traditionalist like Carson recognizes from the outset that what’s in view in this passage is not spiritual death, but ordinary death and resurrection.

As the episode unfolds, much of the discussion is concerned with the death of Lazarus and how Jesus could have prevented that outcome. From verse 20 to verse 27 a conversation takes place between Jesus and Martha where she struggles to understand the significance of Christ’s role in rescuing Lazarus from his death. She believes that Jesus could have prevented Lazarus’ death (John 11:21) and that there will be a future resurrection from the dead (John 11:24). What she misunderstands is the exact role Jesus plays in ensuring the future resurrection of her brother. This brings us to the key statement by Jesus in John 11:25-26 where he corrects Martha’s misunderstanding:

Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?”

Much of the language here is reminiscent of that used by Jesus in John 6. In both cases Jesus is life, while those believing in him will not die but will live forever. However, in John 11 the theme of the future resurrection from the dead is developed more fully with an emphasis on how it is available to believers in the present age.

Jesus’ claim to be “the resurrection and the life” appears at first glance to be a kind of pleonasm; a way of emphasizing the same point through synonymous terminology. Most commentators agree that the significance of “I am the resurrection” is outlined by Jesus with his “though he die, yet shall he live,” and that Jesus is simply affirming that deceased believers are guaranteed to be resurrected again just as Lazarus was.²⁰For instance, see C. K. Barrett, The Gospel According to St John: An Introduction with Commentary and Notes on the Greek Text, second ed. (SPCK, 1978), 396; Carson, The Gospel According to John, Kindle locations, 8600-8611; Harris, Exegetical Guide, Kindle locations, 6983-6990. This poses no particular problem for conditionalists since the bodily resurrection of believers is a core component of conditionalism.

The second declaration from Jesus, “I am … the life,” which is outlined by “and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die,” is used by traditionalists to argue that eternal life is of a more spiritual nature. The general line of argument is that since believers do die in this age, when Jesus spoke of believers living and never dying in verse 26 he must have been referring to spiritual death and life.²¹For instance, see Andrew T. Lincoln, The Gospel According to John, (Continuum, 2005), 324.

There are, however, very good reasons to think that this spiritual life reading of John 11:26 is unsound. We have already seen from John 6 that John held to the idea of a future resurrection of believers to life, and that they will be sustained to live forever by Jesus, the living bread from heaven.

In John 11:24, Martha indicates that she recognizes this truth, but she has misunderstood that since Jesus himself is enduring life, and was present with her at that moment, then the life of the future age was available to her and her brother. We take this as proleptic where the future age is breaking into our present age, since the way that John sets this discussion against the backdrop of the death and resurrection of Lazarus informs us that we are not to understand this simply as spiritual life. Words like death (θάνατος, in verses 4, 13) and to die (ἀποθνήσκω in verses 14, 16, 32, 37; θνῄσκω in verses 21, 39, 44) are used with reference to the physical death of Lazarus. One of these words, ἀποθνήσκω, is used in John 11:25-26; though he die (ἀποθνήσκω) … shall never die (ἀποθνήσκω). And as we have seen above, the word for to live (ζάω) is typically used by Jesus throughout the Gospel of John when he refers to people being physically alive (John 4:50-51, 53; 6:51, 57-58; 14:19). The same word is used twice in John 11:25-26. It is used with the future tense at the end of verse 25 (“he shall live”) with reference to the resurrection of believers, and again at the beginning of verse 26 with “everyone who lives.” If Jesus had intended to signal a change in meaning from normal death/life to a kind of spiritual death/life then surely he would have utilized different terminology to do so. But Lazarus’ physical death and resurrection is being used as a tangible example of the eschatological life that Jesus guarantees for believers, so we must conclude that it has the hallmarks of normal physical life.

All doubt is removed when one considers the flow of thought in John 11:25-26. As noted above, most commentators read “he shall live” in John 11:25 as a clear reference to the resurrection of believers. This is followed by the phrasing “and everyone who lives and believes.” It makes sense to say that those who have been resurrected (John 11:25) are those who live. The Greek behind “believer in” is πιστεύων εἰς (lit. the one believing into) and is very frequent in John (2:11, 23; 3:15-16, 18, 36; 4:39; 6:29, 35; 40; 7:31, 38-39; 8:30; 9:35-36; 10:42; 11:45, 48; 12:11, 36-37, 42, 44, 46; 14:1, 12). It denotes a disposition where one both trusts that what Christ says of himself is true and entrusts one’s future into his hands. In John 11:26, it connotes how those who have been resurrected will live in a close relationship of trust with Jesus. The permanency of this post-resurrection life is communicated through Jesus’ “shall never die,” which renders οὐ μὴ ἀποθάνῃ. The double negative οὐ μὴ (not, not) is an emphatic never, so would be more than sufficient to convey the point that immortality is assured for believers. Why then did Jesus include the phrase, εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα (into the age)? Although most translations leave it untranslated, it is an idiom that consistently means forever when used in the New Testament (e.g. John 6:51, 58; 8:35) because the future age will not come to an end. It is included by Jesus precisely because he wished to emphasize that once believers are resurrected to physical life, they will never die again in the following age. In other words, believers will be resurrected as people who are by their very nature living and believing, and this will guarantee their eternal immortality.

Summary

There is no exegetical warrant for the traditionalist argument that eternal life in John 3:16 refers only to the qualitative or spiritual life of being in relationship with Jesus. At every turn we find that Jesus grounds his discussion of the significance of eternal life with tangible examples of physical life. In John 3:16 it is God saving the Israelites from perishing from the plague of snakes (Numbers 21:4-9), in John 6 it is the miraculous provision of manna to the Israelites so that they would not die from starvation (Ex 16:16-21), and in John 11 it is the physical death and resurrection of Lazarus as the backdrop for understanding Jesus’ explanation of the kind of life available to believers. In every instance, Jesus uses the same language for normal death and life in this world to describe the eschatological life of the next age. The passages tell us what Jesus had in mind when he used the term eternal life. To be sure, there is a profound emphasis on the availability of that future life for believers now, but that is never described in terms where only a spiritual life is in view. On the contrary, every aspect of the language used by Jesus communicates that those believing in him have access to the source of life itself, so that they are guaranteed immortality. For believers, this is the ultimate source of comfort too, because even though we do die in this age, we know that once we are resurrected we will indeed be immortal. Amen!

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