The verse is an alphabet of grace, a table of contents to the Christian hope, each word a safe-deposit box of jewels. Read it again, slowly and aloud, and note the word that snatches your attention. God so loved this world? Heartbreakers, hope-snatchers, dream-dousers prowl this orb. Dictators rage. Abusers inflict. Reverends think they deserve the title. But God loves. And he loves the world so much he gave his; Declarations? Rules? Dicta? Edicts? No. The heart-stilling, mind-bending, deal-making-or-breaking claim of John 3:16 is this: God gave his son .... his only son. Not abstract ideas but a flesh-wrapped divinty. Why? So the "whoever believes in him shall not perish."
