“God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16). “So” means not “so much” but “in the following manner.” “Gave” points to the Son’s obedient self-humbling to become, without loss of deity, a Galilean teenager’s baby, then to accept impoverishment as a peripatetic preacher, and finally to endure immolation on a Roman cross as a sacrifice for human sin. God the Father’s wise love made