John 3:17-18 (ESV)

For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.

Condemnation. Judgment. Hell. These are not easy words to deal with when talking to a non-Christian, nor are they easy words to live with as an ambassador of the Gospel of Peace (2 Cor. 5:20). When you talk to someone about Christianity and their need for Christ, the entire conversation rests on the fact that they are “condemned already” and in need of a savior to rescue them from their eternal fate. It’s like setting the appointment with an oncologist—there is not a pleasant reason for doing so.

This passage is crucial because it sets the table for the gospel. Jesus did not come (the first time) to condemn, but to pardon. Pardon “is a government decision to allow a person to be relieved of some or all of the legal consequences resulting from a criminal conviction. A pardon may be granted before or after conviction for the crime, depending on the laws of the jurisdiction.” How sad it is that unregenerate people so often accuse God of being a Judge, not realizing that His Son’s primary purpose was to pardon! Jesus did not come to lay mankind to waste, but to save it from itself. It was not an act of condemnation…it was an act of love.

As Christians, we must rely upon the Holy Spirit to convict another person of their sin rather than ourselves (Jn. 16:8). After all, it is not condemnation that will draw them to Christ, but rather, the kindness of God (Rom. 2:4). The lost person is already condemned by their sin, and deep down they already know that. Our job is to herald the Good News that Jesus came to seek and save the lost. Whether they choose to seek pardon for their crimes against God is a different matter, and that is between them and their Maker. The Pulpit Commentary handles this hard truth well:

“Such non-belief reveals insensibility to truth, indifference to the reality of things, insusceptibility to the light, and a moral perversity which has been persisted in. The approach to such a one of the Eternal Logos did not move him, the unveiling of the Divine face did not awe him into reverence. The sin of his life had blinded his eyes, closed his ears, hardened his heart, and the consequence was that when the Name of the only begotten Son was made known to him, like all previous Divine self-revelations, it exercised no commanding influence upon him, no convincing power, no saving grace. To refuse Christ, to manifest unbelief under such circumstances, proves that the laws of Divine judgment which are always going on have already enacted themselves.”