Dave emailed me a great question:

I have a question about this blog today related to the content of “only begotten Son of God” in John 3:16. Since John 3:16 says that Jesus is requiring the hearer to believe the promise He is making, does Jesus also require the hearer to believe that He is the “only begotten Son of God,” which means deity?

It is true, of course, that the Lord Jesus wants us to believe everything He said. But we are not required to believe everything He said in order to have everlasting life. That is true even in terms of what He said in evangelistic contexts.

The Lord Jesus spoke of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in John 3:1-18. That does not mean that we must understand and believe in the Trinity in order to be born again because He didn’t always speak of the Trinity when He evangelized.

While He was alluding to His deity in John 3:16, the Lord Jesus did not require belief in His deity to be born again. We know that because the disciples were born again for three years before they believed that Jesus was God (see John 2:11; 6:69; 13:10; 15:3). Remember when Jesus stilled the storm? The disciples said, “Who can this be, that even the winds and the sea obey Him?” (Matt 8:27). It wasn’t until after Jesus rose from the dead that the disciples believed that He was God (John 20:28).

In His conversation with the Samaritan woman, the Lord Jesus said that we must believe in Him, the Giver, for the gift of God, everlasting life (John 4:10, 14). Believing in Jesus for everlasting life is found in every evangelistic message in the Fourth Gospel (e.g., John 3:16, 36; 4:10-26; 5:24; 6:35, 37, 39-40, 47; 11:25-27; 20:31).

The bullseye, that which we must believe in order to be born again, is Jesus’ promise of everlasting life to all who believe in Him. We can believe more than that and be born again if we also believe in Him for the gift of God. But we can’t believe less than that and be born again.

A pastor once told me that he tells everyone he evangelizes that they cannot be saved unless they believe that Jesus is currently seated at the right hand of God the Father. I don’t know how he came up with that. It is true that most of the time He is seated at the Father’s right hand. (He did stand when Stephen died and went to heaven, as Acts 7:55-56 indicates.) But we do not need to believe that to be born again.

We must take care not to require more to be saved than the Lord Jesus does. If we follow His example in evangelism (and in all things), we do well.

Keep grace in focus.