Jesus, Israel and the Kingdom

In the previous post "Churches Diminish Jesus' Work on the Cross", I criticised the view of people who failed to read verse 17 when quoting the famous John 3:16 passage.
Those same people might now criticise me for not addressing verse 18, thinking that verse may contradict my argument that everyone is to be eventually reconciled to God.
Verse 18 says:

Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God's one and only Son. [NIV]

We must always remember that Jesus came to Israel who were looking for the Messiah who would establish the kingdom in which the Jews were to be the head of the nations. Jesus is never talking to Israel about anything other than this kingdom Age (which Christians often call the millennium).

So whatever Jesus was promising or forbidding His Jewish audience was associated with that coming kingdom.
And the promise of life in the Age was for those of His Jewish audience who believed in His Name - believed that it was this Jesus who was their Messiah.
And those who did not so believe, would be condemned to missing out on life in that Age.

Most of our popular English translations have caused us to miss out on knowing God's ultimate plan to reconcile everyone to Himself.

For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.
[Colossians 1 : 19 - 20  NIV]

"Eternal life" in the gospels is actually "life of the Age" in the underlying Greek. Jesus is not addressing eternity, but the kingdom Age that Israel's prophets predicted and the Jews were hoping for.

We only need to consult literal translations of the Greek New Testament to see this. For example consider John 17 : 3, which in our popular translations talks about eternal life.

and this is the life age-during, that they may know Thee, the only true God, and him whom Thou didst send—Jesus Christ;
[YLT]
And in this consists the Life of the Ages--in knowing Thee the only true God and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent.
[WNT]
And, this, is the age-abiding life, That they get to know thee, the only real God, and him whom thou didst send, Jesus Christ.
[REB]
Now it is eonian life that they may know Thee, the only true God, and Him Whom Thou dost commission, Jesus Christ.
[CLV]
And this is life in the Age: that they might know you, the sole true God, and him whom you sent, Jesus the Anointed.
[DBH]

This pre-occupation with the kingdom is illustrated just before Jesus' ascension.

Then they gathered around him and asked him, "Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?"
[Acts 1 : 6  NIV]

So, "whoever does not believe stands condemned already" in verse 18 is not speaking about people missing out on eventually being reconciled to God, but about Jews missing out on the kingdom Age that was promised to believing Israel.

God's ultimate plan looks well beyond Israel's kingdom age, and promises reconciliation of all creation, Jews and Gentiles alike.

Blessings, Barry

PS. For readers who are wondering how the teaching they have received on "hell" and "the lake of fire" could possibly be consistent with God's plan to reconcile all creation, might like to put these topics into the search box on the right of this page.
Fairly comprehensive previous single posts on these can be found at:
https://barrysgracespace.blogspot.com/2010/08/what-is-hell.html, and
https://barrysgracespace.blogspot.com/2011/03/lake-of-fire-again.html.