=18.= The connection is this: Though God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, yet he is even now judging it and condemning its unbelief, though not in the way Nicodemus had anticipated; his mere presence is a judgment. His fan _is_ in his hand (Matt. 3:12); for he that trusts in Christ is thereby taken out from judgment, while he that rejects Christ condemns himself. The next verse states the ground and the nature of this condemnation. The Light has come into the world, and men by refusing the Light attest their love of darkness; and it is for this, not for the darkness but for their _love_ of it, that they are condemned.--=Is not condemned.= But “is passed from death unto life” (ch. 5:24).--=Is condemned already.= The sinner is condemned, not by Christ but by his own act; he is _self-condemned_ (Tit. 3:11). Observe, that throughout the N. T. both condemnation and salvation are represented as _present_ realities, not as future possibilities. The last judgment _decides_ nothing; it simply announces publicly the results of the judgment now forming. _Life is the true judgment-day._--=Because he hath not believed.= Men are not condemned for their deeds but for their desires. The way of escape from the evil is provided and declined; and for this the soul is condemned. Thus it is true that the Lamb of God taketh away the sin of the world (ch. 1:29) and yet condemns the sinner (ch. 15:22), because the condemnation is not for the past sin, but for the present rejection of the Saviour from sin.--=In the name of the only begotten Son of God.= The name is Jesus, _i. e._, Saviour, and was given to him because “he shall save his people from their sins” (Matt. 1:21). To disbelieve in that name is to reject that salvation. “The ‘only begotten’ also here sets before us the hopelessness of such a man’s state; he has no other Saviour.”--(_Alford._) 19 And this is the condemnation, that light[100] is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. [100] ch. 1:4; 9:11.