By Angus Harley

It is fairly typical to read in explanation of John 3:16 that the phrase “whosever believes” entails that no person is excluded from believing in Christ; all are encouraged to believe, as God prevents none from coming. Upon this it is added that the Gospel is freely offered to all people. In further explanation, the verse is paraphrased to say, “whosoever in the world believes….” Whether Jew or Gentile, rich or poor, high or low, etc.. No person in the world is forbidden from believing.

Vanilla meaning

Yet, there is reason to think this is not John’s meaning. For there is evidence to show that the phrase pas ho pisteuon, commonly rendered “whosever”, is merely a vanilla way of referring to everyone doing an action, in this case, “everyone who believes”. The emphasis is not upon the openness of God for any person to believe, but on the mere fact that “everyone who believes will receive eternal life”: each and every person who does believe receives eternal life.

Other uses of pas ho pisteuon

Consider the following uses of exactly the same Greek phrase pas ho pisteuon. All verses are from the NASB95 unless otherwise stated.

John 12:46, “I have come as Light into the world, so that everyone who believes in Me will not remain in darkness.” The meaning does not refer to the door being open for anyone to believe, whatever his status or condition, but merely that each and every one that does believe will not remain in darkness.

Acts 13:39, “and through Him everyone who believes is freed from all things, from which you could not be freed through the Law of Moses.” Once again, the emphasis is upon merely the fact that those who do believe are “freed from all things”.

Romans 10:11, “For the scripture says, “Everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame.”.” (NET) Similarly, those who believe in God will not be put to shame.  

John 3:15, “so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.” [NET] Once more, it is every person who believes, they alone will have eternal life.

Properly an adjectival, participial phrase

The phrase pas ho pisteuon consists of the adjective pas (“everyone”) that qualifies the participial phrase ho pisteuon (“the believing one”/”who believes”). We have, therefore, a nice and tidy, yet supremely simple, way of focusing upon those who believe- all of them! There is no underlying message of the types of believers, or types who will believe.

Pas ho with the present participle in John’s Gospel

To illustrate the same vanilla reading, let’s take, from John’s Gospel, each use of pas ho (“everyone who”) that has an accompanying present participal (nom., masc., sing.).

John 4:13, “Jesus answered and said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again; “” To render this verse, “whosever- whatever their status, regardless of who they are- who drinks” just hams the interpretation, dramatizing it. All the phrase is conveying is that each and every person who does, actually, in reality, drink of the water from that particular well will thirst again.

John 6:40, “For this is the will of My Father, that everyone who beholds the Son and believes in Him will have eternal life, and I Myself will raise him up on the last day.” Here there is a twofer: “everyone who beholds…and believes”. Anyone and everyone who believes in the Son, who beholds him, will have eternal life. A simple, de facto, statement.

John 8:34, “Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is the slave of sin.”” Ditto.

John 11:26, ““and everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die. Do you believe this?”” Ditto.

John 18:37, “Therefore Pilate said to Him, “So You are a king?” Jesus answered, “You say correctly that I am a king. For this I have been born, and for this I have come into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears My voice.”” Ditto.

The above comments revealed that there was no need to read into pas ho pisteuon in John, or elsewhere, the idea of various people of different statuses and conditions. The phrase conveys the simple thought that everyone who does actually believe in Jesus will receive eternal life.

This phraseology is accompanied by another phrase that, in John’s Gospel, underscores an exclusivity factor, theologically speaking. That phrase is ho pisteuon, “He who believes”.

Ho pisteuon

John 3:18, “He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.” See how the one who believes is contrasted to the one who does not believe. He who believes is a concept not tied to some universal, ‘every man is welcome’, background. For there is a radical contrast, contextually, between believers and non-believers.  

John 3:36, “He who believes in the Son has eternal life; but he who does not obey the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him.” Notice, again, the same form of contrast. Any universal, indiscriminate, ‘the door is open’, attitude is alien to the text.

And, I would argue that, further uses of ho pisteuon in John’s Gospel imply the same division, even though it is not always cited directly:

John 6:35, “Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; he who comes to Me will not hunger, and he who believes in Me will never thirst.”

John 6:47, “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes has eternal life.”

John 7:38, “He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, ‘From his innermost being will flow rivers of living water.’”

John 11:25, “Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me will live even if he dies,””

John 12:44, “And Jesus cried out and said, “He who believes in Me, does not believe in Me but in Him who sent Me.””

Implication for John 3:16

I ask the reader to go back and read John 3 as a whole. Throughout it, there is a clear division made between those who believe in Jesus and those who do not. The ideas of universal, indiscriminate openness are not found. Take John 3:14, for example, “ “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up” ”. In the original context of Numbers 21, two groups are differentiated: those who died before the lifting up of the serpent on the pole; and those who saw the serpent on the pole and lived. There are those who “behold” the Son and have eternal life (John 6:40), and those who do not behold and do not have eternal life. It is apparent, contextually, that “everyone who believes”, although grammatically just another vanilla phrase of no great importance, is a loaded theological one that points to the group that does behold and receives eternal life, and this group implies the existence of another: those who do not believe.[1]

[1] Angus Harley, “John 3:16 and Perspective”, All Things New Covenant, March 30, 2024, https://allthingsnewcovenant.com/2024/03/30/john-316-and-perspective/.