Whoever believes in him
shall not perish but have eternal life.
—John 3:16
John 3:16 may be the best-known verse in the Bible: “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.”
Those words are part of a conversation between Jesus and Nicodemus, a devout Jew. Then, in the next chapter (John 4), it comes to life in a conversation between Jesus and a sinful Samaritan woman.
The differences between the two were enormous: Nicodemus was educated, influential, respected, and religiously proper; the woman was uneducated, insignificant, immoral, and religiously outcast.
Jesus’ meeting with Nicodemus makes it clear that we can never do enough good to save ourselves. His meeting with the Samaritan woman makes it clear that no one can ever do enough bad to be beyond his reach.
“Whoever” includes every “Who.”