Do you ever watch a movie that has a narrator over the top of it? I think of the Shawshank Redemption. You get a narrator, Morgan Freeman's character. He's talking over the whole movie to keep the audience oriented and to offer a little bit of interpretation, but he's also a character in the story. So clearly, the narrator's voice is a retrospective voice looking back on these pivotal events. That's a little bit confusing, right? But when you watch The Shawshank Redemption, you see why it's an all-time classic and you see that it's very well written, and you follow along with, you know, now Tim Robbins' character is speaking. Okay, now Morgan Freeman's character is speaking. And okay, now Morgan Freeman's character is speaking as a narrative. You can just you can tell how all of this works because of the inflection and the acting and all of that. And I would assume if you get a copy of the screenplay of the Shawshank Redemption, because of the wonders of punctuation, it would be very easy to always know who you're hearing from and when and when we're into narrator voice who's stepping in to guide us as an audience. But what if you took away all the punctuation? It would be possible that two people could read the script stripped of its punctuation. And one might look at it and say, Oh, well, this is Morgan Freeman's character, Red, who is talking in the timeline of the movie. And now, right here, it becomes old man Morgan Freeman's character commenting on what was going on in the actual timeline of the show. But somebody else might look at it and say, no, no, no, I don't think there's a break there. Without punctuation, it seems to me that it's all just this one character talking all in one big clump. Why am I talking about something so obscure and a situation, a hypothetical that is just so unbelievably specific? Okay, here's why. Because we run into something like that in John chapter three. There is a pretty healthy Bible debate that happens right here in the middle of the verses we're looking at. We've been in John 3, kind of looking at verses 14, 15, 16, and 17. This, of course, is part of the back and forth between Nicodemus, the teacher of the law, the Pharisee, and Jesus himself. And the way most Bibles historically have treated the conversation between the two is as follows. Jesus gives a longer response. Then Nicodemus asks a third question. How can this be? Then Jesus gives a very long response from verse 10 all the way to verse 21. However, there's no punctuation in the original language in which the New Testament was written. So every now and then it's hard to tell. And people might disagree about where exactly the closed quote might happen in the original language of the Greek New Testament. Usually context clues make it all work. Like the hypothetical we're talking about with the Shawshank Redemption. Even if you've never seen the movie, if you got a punctuation-free script, it might take a minute for you to figure it out. But most of it you're going to be able to be like, okay, that's this character. All right, that's the judge talking now. Okay, this is a warden talking here, and you'll be able to figure out who's saying what. But there's probably a couple of places, like I was mentioning earlier, where there could be a really healthy debate about what is the voice of narration and what is the voice of a character in the action. It is possible that everything, all the way down to verse 21 of John chapter 3, is all Jesus talking, but it is also possible that Jesus is finished saying what he needs to say to Nicodemus right after verses 14 and 15. You're like, what are these numbers? I dude, I don't have a Bible in front of me. I don't remember what verse you're talking like. You got to read it to us. My bad. Let me read it to you. It's possible that this is the last thing Jesus says in this passage. Just as Moses has lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life. Period. Close quote. Done with Jesus talking. It's possible he's done right there. And then that John 3.16 and forward is narrator's commentary from John the Evangelist. What is John 3.16? Well, it's the very next verse. It says, For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God's one and only son. This is the verdict. Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God. Probably if you do have a Bible out in front of you right now, what you're seeing is a giant block of red letters from John 3 10. You are Israel's teacher, said Jesus. And do you not understand these things? I tell you the truth. We speak okay, and so he goes on, and that wraps up with the snake in the desert thing that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life. Everybody agrees that's red letters, but increasingly scholars are saying, I think 16 through the end, that for God so loved the world stuff and everything forward, I think that's narrator voice. And I am persuaded and tend to agree. So why do I think that it is more likely than not that Jesus quote ends at verse 15 and that everything from for God so loved the world forward is narrator commentary? Well, a handful of reasons. Number one, John has already established that he is eager to jump in and take us by the hand and help us to see this thing. Remember, we talked about what just yesterday, this threefold formulation of what he wants you, the reader, to do gets repeated again and again and again, explicitly, implicitly throughout the whole book of John. It is behold the one who is raised up, believe and have life in his name. It's everywhere. He's not just trying to write an ordered, neutral account. Now you know the facts, do what you will with it. He thinks this is the only way. Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. Nobody comes to the Father except through him. There is an urgency and a precision to this writing that is meant to unapologetically persuade. Remember, Jesus did many other miraculous signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book, but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name. That's the last verse of John chapter 20. John is jumping in everywhere with narrator commentary to be like, Did you see it? Did you get it? Did you catch that one? He sets the whole thing up in the prologue, John 1, 1 through 18, and is like, this is exactly what we're doing here. And then John jumps in, uh, for example, in chapter 2. I mean, we see the water turn to wine on screen. We get the account. And then John jumps in and gives us theological commentary in John 2, 11. This, the first of his miraculous signs, Jesus performed at Cana in Galilee. He thus revealed his glory and his disciples put their faith in him. See what he's doing? He doesn't want you to miss it. He wants you to behold, believe, and have life. A little later on in John chapter 2, after the table flipping incident, he jumps in again. And John's like, hey, you know, remember the stuff about the temple and destroy this and I'll raise it again in three days? He jumps in and he gives us more theological commentary. John the evangelist tells us, the reader, that after Jesus was raised from the dead, his disciples recalled what he had said. Then they believed the scripture and the words that Jesus had spoken. He's taken us by the hand, he's given commentary on all of these things. So, one, I think that this is probably a narrator commentary from For God So Love the World Forward, because John has established that he will do that. Two, there are lots of little word choice hints. I'm not going to get into all of them. The word behind God is one that Jesus seems to prefer to use father when talking about God. It's not that he never says the word God, he does just a page later in chapter four. I'm not saying he doesn't say God, but in the kind of conversations like he's having with Nicodemus, he talks about his father much more. Well, in verse 16, where I think uh the narrator commentary begins, he starts saying God all the time, as opposed to my father. If you look closely at it, as we will tomorrow, the language seems less personal. It seems a little more detached and observant from the 10,000 foot view, the narrator level. Okay, next, I think this is probably the end of the quote there in 15, and that we're into narrator commentary from For God so Love the World Forward, because it feels a little redundant if you go from Jesus' quote that wraps up with that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life. We know that's Jesus talking. If you go from there and you say, Well, this is still a quote, for God so loved the world, the he gave his one and only son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. Both sentences end the exact same way. So it could be like a poetic repetition on Jesus' part from like a totally different angle or perspective, but it seems a little redundant. If you go back and you read the exact same thing, but imagine the quote stops at verse 15 and for God so love the world is narrator commentary, it doesn't feel redundant. It feels like John jumping in again to be like, let me just make sure you caught what happened there. And what happened there is well, all the stuff you and I talked about yesterday with the snake being lifted up and what that means and all of those implications. Finally, another reason that I think the quote might end at verse 15 and for God so love the world forward is maybe narrative commentary, is that if you look at the context of how Jesus is talking with Nicodemus, and the part of his disappointment is like, hey man, I already completely spelled it out for you. You're Israel's teacher. How do you not understand these things? It kind of seems in light of how the conversation is going that Jesus would think it would be sufficient to say, just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life. Boom, mic drop. It seems like John might be jumping in here for you and me, the reader, for our benefit, to take us by the hand once again to spell it out and reinforce that thesis. See? Did you hear what Jesus said to Nicodemus? Behold, believe, and have life in his name. There it is again, guys, but we got so much more. Let's keep going. Ultimately, if it's a quote all the way through, as most red letter Bibles make it look like it is, all the way from John 3, 10, all the way to 21, yeah, fine. Jesus sounds smart, everything works, like it all works, great. If the quote ends at the mic drop moment at verse 15, and then for God so loved the world is narrator commentary, great, that works as well. If it was vital to understanding which one is the exact way to read the flow of the conversation and the narrator commentary here, I'm quite sure God in his providence could have found a way to preserve that once again with a little hint in the text. But as it is, I don't think the ambiguity is a problem in any way. However, I do think everything from verse 16 for God so love the world forward to the end really neatly lines up with what John is doing in John chapter one in the prologue. And tomorrow we're gonna go look at all of those payoffs and comparisons. It's pretty rich. All right, that's plenty for now. I'm Matt. This is the 10-minute Bible hour podcast. Let's do this again soon, but I'm gonna go to the body.