Amid being considered “the Gospel of Love”, John has also been called a “Gospel of Violence” because of what scholars perceived to be narratives of conflict in this Gospel. For some social-science critics, John’s binary language (e.g., above-below, light-darkness, etc.) reflects a conflict which was experienced by a putative Johannine community. This paper will conduct a synchronic analysis of Jn 3:16-21 using insights from the sociology of conflict to investigate the so-called presence of conflict in John. It is proposed that John’s complex binary language is inseparable from the Gospel’s Christological and soteriological proclamation.