John 3:16 and the Feminization of the Church! – Part #1

“What’s Wrong with Only Believing John 3:16 and Ignoring John 3:36?”

 By Richard Allen – October 13, 2025

In all honesty, I actually taught a Sunday School class 25 years ago entitled: “Putting the Halves Together,” which was a class on the many “corollary truths” in the Bible. This might sound strange to some of you, but Scripture confronts us with many “corollary truths,” that is “truths which contain more than one part.  As an example, it’s quite easy and pleasant, for most Christians to believe that “God is Love.” Our entire Christian experience of the Grace of God in Jesus Christ is predicated upon God’s love for us as poor sinners. In fact, most modern Christians would tell you that “God’s Love is His central characteristic.” The New Testament says unapologetically: “For God is Love” (1 John 4:8). And while that verse is very important and should be believed, it’s not the whole story about God’s characteristics. Scripture also says in numerous places that “God is Holy” (Isaiah 43:15). Furthermore, we learn from both the Old and New Testament writers that: “We are to be Holy as He is Holy” (1 Peter 1:16). The writer to the Hebrews is even more emphatic when he says: “Try to live in peace with everyone. And try to keep your lives free from sin. Anyone whose life is not holy will never see the Lord” (Hebrews 12:14).

Let me say at the start of this new blog series, something you’ll hear often during this series:  “It’s not either or, but both and!”  As with the example above, there is no choice presented in Scripture whether God is Love or Holy, He is Both: A Holy God and a God who is Love! That’s why I call it corollary truths; they are both a piece of God’s essential nature! And no mere man should ever choose between one or the other! Having said that, it’s obvious that down through Church History, men have been inclined toward one view or the other – sometimes championing one truth, while downplaying or ignoring the other. But God’s Word doesn’t play ‘either or games,’ God is both Holy and Loving. That’s why a Gospel that teaches only John 3:16 is an aberration. It’s not that God is not a God of Love – who assures us that “whosoever believes” has eternal life – He is!  But John 3:16 also says “and will not perish.” The problem is for those who don’t like John 3:36, a verse which illustrates God’s wrath for disobedience to His Son – and only like the Love God of John 3:16!  God is also the God who requires “non-optional holy obedience to the Son,” and those who think it unimportant to be “subject to the Son,” will have a rude awakening on that coming Day of Judgment: “His wrath will remain upon those who will not bow or bend the knee in obedience to Jesus Christ.”  2 Thessalonians says exactly this:

“Since indeed God considers it just to repay with affliction those who afflict you, and to grant relief to you who are afflicted as well as to us, when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels  in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus” (2 Thessalonians 1:6-8).

Mind you, I’m not teaching any “works righteousness” here.  Neither am I teaching perfect obedience – something that no believer will attain in this life.  But I am talking about an “obedient direction of the heart” – that is an earmark of “saving faith” for genuine Christians. My picture for this blog shows two doors: 1.) The John 3:16 Door – which virtually everyone hopes to be true, even the wicked – has many people flocking to the God of Love. 2.) But the John 3:36 Door has very few who are willing to obey the Holy Son, who calls upon men to “die to themselves, take up their cross and follow Him.” Again, the pictorial meme above is not completely accurate, but hopefully my readers will understand the difference. It’s not that John 3:16 is wrong. It’s a wrong understanding of this verse that’s the problem. John 3:16 makes it clear that “only those who believe won’t perish, but have everlasting life.” John 3:16 is describing “saving faith,” a faith that John 3:36 further explains as an “obedient faith.” To believe that God loves everyone so much or merely assenting to Christ gives a man salvation – while rejecting how Scripture describes that saving faith as obedience, is holding only part of the truth. I’m hopeful we understand that “when a partial truth masquerades as the whole truth, it is an untruth!”

You may be asking: “What does John 3:16 have to do with the Feminization of the Church?”  I hope I’m able to answer that question and demonstrate how “Feminization of the Church” and the distortion of the Gospel message – is a major cause for the “powerlessness” that permeates most of our present-day teaching. As Biblical Christians, it’s clear that God has a role for both men and women in the created order. For most of human history, that created order has prevailed over most cultures – especially Western Christian Societies over the past two centuries of Christendom. Often, those opposed to God’s design refer to God’s created order as a Patriarchy, that is, a world in which men ruled over their wives and children. I’m not saying that this Patriarchal Order has always been administered fairly and in righteousness.  As with all other parts of creation, once sin entered into the world, people acted “selfishly” as Adam, Eve and Cain did. Fallen men have never had much regard for their fellow man – much less their own wives and children. One sad result of the Fall of Adam and Eve is the “strained relationships” that sin caused between men and women. Here’s the judgment that God decreed over the relationship between husband and wife as recorded in the New English Translation:

“To the woman he said, ‘I will greatly increase your labor pains; with pain you will give birth to children. You will want to control your husband, but he will dominate you’ ” (Genesis 3:16).

This pretty much sums up human history between men and women. Women, often striving to control their husbands, always end up with men subjugating their wives with their size and strength. Again, because of our Fallen Nature, cruelty and abuse abounded. At the same time, many men and women – even with fallen natures, have discovered God’s beautiful design between men and women – especially where Love, Respect and Understanding are present. But with the Enlightenment came a re-definition of learning.  God’s Truth was no longer the measure of knowledge, but man’s meager understanding became the measuring stick. The result has been disastrous for Western Cultures!

As we move through this multi-part series, I hope to show both: 1.) Our culture has Feminized manhood, driven men from the family, replaced their role as providers with government subsidies, and miseducated a whole generation of boys with marxist-feminist ideology. This results in their never growing into manhood.  And, 2.) How the Church of Jesus Christ has also been compromised by this corrupted culture in the West, distorting the nature of God, Christ and the Gospel itself to something other than what is taught in Scripture.  This should alarm every Christian, just as my meme picture at the top of this Blog should make us stop and question. There are several questions we need to ask ourselves: “Does our Gospel only have a message of God’s Love? Do we present the Gospel without ever mentioning ‘Repentance?’  When did the Church become more interested in the ’feelings’ of its members, and not provide them with sound doctrinal truth? How has Christ’s Lordship become a controversial subject in the Church, with many so-called Christians denouncing John MacArthur and other faithful preachers. Why do they claim that by teaching ‘an obedient faith’ that produces fruit is a ‘Gospel of Works?’  We’ll examine these and many other questions along the way.  Personally, I believe that it was the Gospel which was first corrupted – then the Christian culture around us followed suit.

We should all understand that the Church is “in the world, but not of it” (John 17:14-15). We are to be ‘salt and light,’ with our presence and influence keeping the culture from final corruption and judgment. So, how has the Church in our day become ‘so worldly?’ Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that the Church can live in a ‘bubble,’ completely unphased by the culture and technology around us. But there is a difference between moving through time and culture (including styles of clothing, music and art), and modifying the Gospel to the sinful desires of the fallen men and women in that culture. Neither are we called to be ‘cloistered away’ in a monastery or convent. The Church’s music has always reflected the instruments and style of the times through which we pass. But as believers in Jesus Christ, who have obeyed Him as Lord – we are called to ‘bear fruit’ unto righteousness!  The Apostle Paul tells us that receiving a ‘Love of the Truth’ is an earmark of those who will ultimately be saved and “not deceived by the evil one” (2 Thessalonians 2:10). 

Let me close with a lengthy quote from an unknown second century Roman, to a man only known as Diognetus. We know nothing for sure about either man, but what’s amazing are the observations this ‘chronicler of Roman History’ has made about Christians living in Rome in approximately 130 A.D. Here is an excerpt from a much longer letter:

"Christians are indistinguishable from other men either by nationality, language or customs. They do not inhabit separate cities of their own, or speak a strange dialect, or follow some outlandish way of life. Their teaching is not based upon reveries inspired by the curiosity of men. Unlike some other people, they champion no purely human doctrine. With regard to dress, food and manner of life in general, they follow the customs of whatever city they happen to be living in, whether it is Greek or foreign.  And yet there is something extraordinary about their lives. They live in their own countries as though they were only passing through. They play their full role as citizens, but labor under all the disabilities of aliens. Any country can be their homeland, but for them their homeland, wherever it may be, is a foreign country. Like others, they marry and have children, but they do not expose them. They share their meals, but not their wives.  They live in the flesh, but they are not governed by the desires of the flesh. They pass their days upon earth, but they are citizens of heaven. [ https://www.vatican.va/spirit/documents/spirit_20010522_diogneto_en.html]

Please follow the link above and read the whole letter, it’s lengthy but worth your time. Hopefully you notice the pairing of ‘corollary truths’ that are listed in this quote – but also in the entire letter.  My prayer for all of us who name the name of Jesus Christ, is, that we too would learn to “pass our days upon the earth, but live as citizens of heaven!”

Soli Deo Gloria