John 3:16 KJV
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

As most people know, this English is hundreds of years old and because most new translations are too afraid to mess with the Bible’s most popular verse (although I read that “judge not” has now surpassed it which is for another post). The first part of the verse to our modern ears sounds like it’s saying, “God loved the world so much”. But in that time it read like, “this is how God loved the world”.

Most of the readers of this blog already know this, but I thought I’d point out a quote by Jonathan Edwards (1703–1758) which explains it in those words:

“And all this will be aggravated by the remembrance, that God once loved us so as to give his Son to bring us to the happiness of his love, and tried all manner of means to persuade us to accept of his favor, which was obstinately refused.” [emphasis added]

Which to me is some confirmation that this is really how it reads in English much less the original Greek which I can’t comment on.

So now we have some brave new translations like these:

John 3:16 HCSB
“For God loved the world in this way: He gave His only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life.

John 3:16 NET
For this is the way God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.

John 3:16 ISV
“For this is how God loved the world: He gave his unique Son so that everyone who believes in him might not be lost but have eternal life.

I suppose God does love the world so much, but God wants to emphasize what He did because of it. The whole gospel message would fall apart if we just emphasized “God loves the world so much” wouldn’t it?