In the first phrase of John 3:17, Jesus taught that He did not come to judge the world while He was on earth. But in the second phrase of this verse, He provided the reason why He would not judge the world. He could not judge the world because He came for the express purpose of saving the world. The word "world" here means mankind. Christ will judge the world, but only at a future time. John 12:47-48. God can never fail to do whatever He purposes to do. Numbers 23:19; Ecclesiastes 3:14. Therefore, the correct interpretation of John 3:17 and John 12:47 must be that Jesus came to save mankind and that He has accomplished this task.
God will divide this salvation of all of mankind which He has provided into two levels. The highest level will comprise those saved by God's grace. I Peter 1:3-5. The lowest level will comprise those whose good works God will recover to recreate into new humans to live on His new, righteous earth. Revelation 21:1-5. God will divide the lowest level also into two levels. God will put faithful Jews into the highest of the lowest level. They will live in the recreated nation of Israel that will rule the earth. Recreated Gentiles will occupy the lowest level, not as nations, but in ethnic groups. Jeremiah 3:17; Isaiah 56:7.
The first phrase of John 3:18 applies to all those saved by grace while still in their flesh. The second phrase of this verse means that unbelievers remain in a state of self-judgment; that is, they separate themselves from salvation by grace because of their unbelief.
In John 3:19, Jesus expressly describes this judgment as being the fact that unbelievers refuse to come out of the darkness of evil into the light of His salvation by grace. Jesus did not mention that the judgment of unbelievers would be an eternal separation from God in hell although this had to be the perfect time to state this result had it been a fact. The facts of this condemnation will be that at a future date following the second coming of Christ, He will effect a general resurrection of the dead from their graves. God will recover their good works recorded in His books in heaven and pool them to recreate a new, righteous humanity to live on His recreated earth. God will separate from the dead all that is totally evil in them and condemn this total evil to the lake of fire forever. John 5:28-29; Revelation 20:11-15; Revelation 21:1-8; Revelation 22:11-15.
In John 3:20, Jesus taught that the evil part of man is very prideful and prevents the good part of man from coming to the light of God's salvation by grace. But this verse does not mean that God will fail to save all of mankind originally created in His image.
In John 3:21, Jesus taught that only those who "doeth truth" comes to the light of God's salvation in its complete sense. Since evil can never do truth, then Jesus must have meant that all those who do truth must be the same as those whom God originally created in His image. Jesus further taught that God will manifest; that is, He will separate all of the good deeds of the truth doers from all of their evil deeds. Jesus taught that God will absolutely separate and save all of His goodness that He has put into man from all of his total evil which will be forever condemned to darkness which is the lake of fire.
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