I ended my last post with this invitation/challenge:  “I invite you to experiment with thinking about God in terms of desire and character instead of first applying a paradigm of intentions, designs and plans.  Give it a try.”

Here’s a little example of this from my mental wanderings during a morning walk with our dog:

Let’s begin with one of the best known verses in the Bible, John 3:16: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only son that whoever believes in him might not perish but have eternal life.”

At first sight, it is easy to think about this verse in terms of God’s desire and character. God’s love for the world, and God’s desire to love the world flows freely from a character grounded in love.  All of that is readily apparent.

But this verse also speaks, indirectly, about another trait of God’s character: eternal life.  God desires to give eternal life to people in our world.  God goes to great lengths that we might have it.  Eternal life is obviously very important to God.  What might “eternal life” mean as a character trait of God?

• God is the “Living God.”  God did not create all things, set them in motion and then retreat back into heaven and keep God’s hands off.  God is alive and at work within the world which God loves.
• God is eternal.  Somehow, in ways which are difficult for the human mind to imagine, God is not bound by time, God has no beginning and no end.  God is eternally present at all points in what we call time.  (More about this later.)

A focus on God’s character of love and eternal life can can allow us to put on hold a mode of thinking about this verse which is dependent on God’s plan of salvation.   (As part of this plan God sacrifices God’s son as a means to the end of giving me a life after death.  And I participate in this plan in order to arrive at that end by believing that Jesus is God’s son.)

Okay.  It is possible to view this verse in terms of God’s desires and God’s character.  But where might this thinking lead?  And is there anything within the grammar and wording of this verse that lends itself toward thinking in terms of character?

Wow!  I had never noticed it before.  The first word in the Greek is ουτως.  This is the small word “so” of many English translations.  But it is not the “so” of “I love you so much!”  It is actually the “so” which appears first in my Dictionary app, “in the way or manner indicated: Do it so.”  In Greek it is usually used to mean “in this manner” or “in this way.” ουτως lives in the thought world of character much more easily than that of design.  So we begin, “This is the way God loved the world …”  Grammatically, the “this” can refer either backwards or forwards.  Looking back to the previous verse, “God loves the world in the manner of providing a way for the people to be healed during the time of Moses.”  Looking forward, “God loves the world in the manner of giving a son.”  I think it refers both backward and forward.  “Yes, indeed, this is the way God loved the world …”

So God’s loving character plays itself out in our world by God giving God’s only son to the world.

Now we’ll take a little detour out of the verse and then back into it:   The use of “only son” connects back to the story of Abraham offering up his only son, Isaac, as a sacrifice (Genesis 22).  In that story Abraham exemplifies faith.  Abraham has previously had faith in God’s plan to make him a great nation through his son Isaac.  But at the mountain of Moriah Abraham is called upon to sacrifice his son.  Up to that point Abraham’s faith had been grounded in the promise of God.  Now he is called to let go of the promise and put his faith simply in God and in God’s character.  Like Abraham, we have faith in God, not because of what God can achieve for us but because of who God is.  We believe in Jesus, God’s son, not because that belief will achieve the end of life after death, but because of who Jesus is.  Not only this.  Our faith becomes an integral part of our character.  Faith as a means of achieving an end, no matter how good that end, is a very poor imitation.

“Yes, indeed, this is the way God loved the world, that God gave his only son, in order that all who have faith in him might not perish but have eternal life.”

Back to eternal life as an expression of God’s character.  Try to imagine eternity, a place without time, and without the constant changes that are the hallmark of time.  In that place it is difficult them to imagine plans and designs.  If God is eternally present at any and at all times, then the idea of God planning at one time what God will then achieve at another time doesn’t make much sense.  Means and ends begin to merge into one and the same thing within the character of God.

And so the eternal life we have, we have now.  If it is eternal as God’s life is eternal, then no one need to wait until after they die to receive it.  And in our eternal life, our ends and our means begin to merge and what really matters is simply the integrity and the goodness of our character.