For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16, NIV)
The Apostle John can write generically and specifically within the same sentence (as he often does throughout his gospel and his letters). Here, he writes that God gave his one and only Son. In the context, God is clearly the Father; however, even though we know in the specific sense that God is the Father we shouldn’t ignore the general fact that God has given something. If we solely focus on the Father giving his Son, we can forget that God has given of himself.
When we read that God so loved the world, we can quickly move toward thinking this means that he loved the world so much. This probably isn’t a wrong way of thinking about what John wrote but if it’s the only way we think then we’ll be missing something. After just quick look at other translations, one will see the difference that sometimes appears. Instead of reading so loved we read loved the world in this way. Why the difference in translations? Because there are layers in the meaning. Most likely John is saying that God both loved the world so much and he loved the world in this way.
The phrase one and only in the NIV comes with some baggage—some of it good and helpful, some of it distracting and unnecessary. Most who read popular modern translations containing John 3:16 are used to reading some version of one and only or unique one. Most who read the historic KJV or even the NASB will wonder why the NIV doesn’t read only begotten. Doesn’t one and only and only begotten basically mean the same thing? No, they don’t. And it’s not necessarily a bad thing that we’re still working through what is the most accurate rendering of the Greek beneath the English. It seems as though the text is either saying that Jesus is the only one of his kind or that Jesus is eternally coming from the Father.
One of the great things about John 3:16 is that it tells us what will happen to the believing ones—whoever believes. Even though it’s often assumed that John 3:16 is telling us that anyone can believe; it’s actually telling us what will be the fate of those who believe. The emphasis is not on an unknown group of people that may or may not come to belief; it’s on a group of believers—whoever they may be. The wonderful truth is that the fate of those believers is not eternal death, but eternal life.