NOTES for Joh 3:16-21

Jesus' words about Judgment, it would seem, should by no means have sounded new or unexpected to Nicodemus. After all, Nicodemus, as a learned rabbi, should have known well the holy Scripture of his time, which included not only the Torah but also the prophetic books. And what Jesus says about Judgment had already been said by them more than once. Amos was the first to speak about Judgment as a meeting with God face to face. He was also the first to warn his fellow tribesmen and fellow believers that Judgment might turn out for them not at all to be the triumph of victors, as many expected, but a moment of truth - and for many, a very unpleasant truth. And there will be no other Judgment: for God wants to save the human being and open to him the fullness of life intended for him, not to sentence him.

Jesus says the same thing when He speaks of Himself as Judge, not in the sense in which the believing majority understood this at the time, but in the prophetic sense: He brought the Kingdom into the world, whose light shines on everyone, and people judge themselves by choosing darkness.

That is why the outcome of Judgment for each person depends on his attitude toward Jesus, or more precisely, on his relationship with Jesus. If a person trusts the One who brought the Kingdom into the world, then he has made his choice, and in principle the outcome of Judgment over him is determined: the Kingdom will be given to him, even if this does not happen immediately. If there is no trust, then the person thereby judges himself, depriving himself of the possibility of entering the Kingdom. Thus, fully in the spirit of the prophetic tradition, Jesus resolves the question of Judgment, while at the same time pointing to Himself as the One to whom it has been given to bring into the world both the Kingdom and Judgment.