Since I suspect that this topic may have been created at my request from the following short exchange in another topic ...
... let me attempt to actually address your question and OP with more than a “one liner” response. For simplicity, I will stick with just the two verses posted in the older topic as a starting point. We can always move on to additional verses if you want to talk about them later.
[John 3:16-21 NASB]
16 "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. 17 "For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him. 18 "He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. 19 "This is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil. 20 "For everyone who does evil hates the Light, and does not come to the Light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. 21 "But he who practices the truth comes to the Light, so that his deeds may be manifested as having been wrought in God."
Let’s start with John 3:16 quoted within its surrounding paragraph for context. So what is the “Ordo Salutis” (order of salvation) presented within John 3:16. First one must assume that the order of the phrases reflect their chronological order. I have no problem accepting that as a working assumption until and unless some other scripture more clearly makes a statement that renders such an assumption impossible. So what are the events of John 3:16 in chronological order.
- God loved the world.
- God gave His Son.
- “whosoever” believes (whosoever must be a person, so event #3 is a person believes)
- “Shall not perish” happens to “whoever believes” ... so it happens after they believe.
- “Have eternal life” comes after “not perishing”.
So I have no problem with any of that. As far as “believing” coming “first”, John 3:16 places the work of God (loving the world and sending His Son) before the “believing” of men, and then places “not perish” and “eternal life” after the “believing” of men. I have no difficulty accepting that chronological order for those specific events.