The Story Behind John 3:16

The Story Behind John 3:16

Introduction: There’s no greater love anyone can express beyond what our Lord Jesus Christ did for us. “John 3:16” has been used as a graphic (remember seeing football and other fans wearing vests with that reference on them?) and a quote. But there’s more to the story, to paraphrase the late Paul Harvey, as to how we have this verse, John 3:16.

(Full disclosure, there’s a sermon already accepted by Sermon Central based on this text called “The Fourth Sunday in Advent: Love” from 2022. This is a different message; based on and edited from a sermon I preached at New Hope Baptist Church near Fulton, MO on February 1, 2026 but is not an exact transcription.)

This is the first Sunday in February and many of us see this month as the month of love. That makes sense, what with Valentine’s Day in just a couple of weeks! But the greatest love of all comes from God, and what He did when He sent Jesus into the world to live among us, die like us, and then rise from the dead to make salvation possible.

Some, if not most, of us are more or less familiar with John 3, especially verse 16. What I found interesting is that unless a certain man had approached Jesus, we might never have had this verse! This visit by Nicodemus paved the way for us to have John 3:16 and so much more!

Let’s take a look at the text:

1 Nicodemus was concerned

Text, John 3:1-16, KJV: 1 There was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews: 2 The same came to Jesus by night, and said unto him, Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from God: for no man can do these miracles that thou doest, except God be with him. 3 Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.

By this time in our Lord’s ministry, He had already met two of John’s disciples, and had even been baptized by John the Baptist himself. He had endured the 40 days of testing in the wilderness, begun His own ministry, and had turned water into wine at Cana of Galilee. The first couple chapters of each Gospel have more info. Oddly enough, we don’t know for certain where Jesus was staying at this time but He had been in Jerusalem recently. According to the last part of John 2, He had cleansed the Temple for the first time.

No doubt word got to the religious leaders—I mean, this was something that had never happened before. Sure, there had been any number of basically disasters at the Temple, all the way from Solomon’s temple destroyed 600 years before to the mess Antiochus Epiphanes created when his armies conquered Jerusalem (Josephus, “Wars of the Jews”, Book 1, chapter 1, paragraph 2; and John Calvin’s notes, available online at the Christian Classics Ethereal Library at https://ccel.org/ccel/calvin/calcom25/calcom25.viii.xvi.html?queryID=61552842&resultID=118321 ). It’s anybody’s guess how long it took the cleaners to remove the traces of pig’s flesh and the broth after the image (idol) of Jupiter was taken down. What a mess that had to have been!

But I think, and it’s only a hunch on my part, that there was something more than a relatively unknown carpenter-turned-preacher coming to the very Temple and doing what Jesus did! Something had to have landed on the mind of Nicodemus for so long that he had to find out more. To his credit, he went to find Jesus, even if he waited till nightfall to make it happen.

Now, suppose you or I would try to find someone with as much whatever you want to call it, such as what Jesus had done at the Temple. Some might call it notoriety (wow, did you see what that preacher did at the Temple the other day?) or righteous indignation (man, was that Jesus guy upset over all that stuff going on); maybe something else. Whatever it was, word and to have gotten to the religious leaders and, being one of them, Nicodemus probably heard many and various accounts. So, he decided (or was asked?) to find out more about Jesus, and off he went.

But when he heard what Jesus said, namely, “except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God”, it seems Nicodemus wasn’t just concerned anymore. He was confused.

2 Nicodemus was confused

Text, John 3:4-6, KJV: 4 Nicodemus saith unto him, How can a man be born when he is old? can he enter the second time into his mother's womb, and be born? 5 Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. 6 That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.