John 3:16 is like one of the first verse we memorized out of Sunday School and I do understand the immense popularity of that verse and I think the message of that verse is indeed wonderful.
But if you adopt a dispensational view of the Bible, John 3:16 is actually part of the Old Covenant. When John 3:16 tells us that we need to believe in Jesus to have eternal life, the next question is believe what about Jesus? You have to understand that verse in the context of John 20:31
But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name.
But according to Paul, in the current Gospel of Grace, you need to believe in the following thing about Jesus, 1 Cor 15:4
For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4that He was buried, that He was raised on the thirdday according to the Scriptures
Thus when Jesus said those words in John, that DBR have not happened. What were the Jews supposed to believe in Jesus then? That he is the promised Messiah, the Son of God. That is the Gospel of the Kingdom.
But now, under the Gospel of Grace, we don't tell unbelievers to believe in that, we now follow Paul's instructions to teach them that the good news is to believe in the DBR of Jesus.
TLDR version: As wonderful as John 3:16 is, strictly speaking, it is as OT as the rest of the OT. When we read it now, we are reading in the context of what we learn from Paul. But the Jewish listeners during the 4 Gospels viewed it very differently from us.
But if you adopt a dispensational view of the Bible, John 3:16 is actually part of the Old Covenant. When John 3:16 tells us that we need to believe in Jesus to have eternal life, the next question is believe what about Jesus? You have to understand that verse in the context of John 20:31
But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name.
But according to Paul, in the current Gospel of Grace, you need to believe in the following thing about Jesus, 1 Cor 15:4
For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4that He was buried, that He was raised on the thirdday according to the Scriptures
Thus when Jesus said those words in John, that DBR have not happened. What were the Jews supposed to believe in Jesus then? That he is the promised Messiah, the Son of God. That is the Gospel of the Kingdom.
But now, under the Gospel of Grace, we don't tell unbelievers to believe in that, we now follow Paul's instructions to teach them that the good news is to believe in the DBR of Jesus.
TLDR version: As wonderful as John 3:16 is, strictly speaking, it is as OT as the rest of the OT. When we read it now, we are reading in the context of what we learn from Paul. But the Jewish listeners during the 4 Gospels viewed it very differently from us.
Your softshoe dance is clever.
Clever is not from heaven sir