“For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth on him shall not perish but have everlasting life.” (John 3:16)
This verse is probably the Bible verse most central and well-known to Christianity. It sums up pretty much the main Christian message of salvation, which is a type of salvation that no other religion can promise. In other words: “our religion is the only religion in the world that can actually provide you with salvation — no others can. That proves that our religion is the only right one and all the others are false”.
But there are parts of this verse that can not be reconciled with other parts of the Gospels. Accepting the general interpretation of church leaders was about the only way one can get around that. So let’s break it down and analyze it to try to understand what it is really saying.
“For God so loved the world…”
That seems to be alright, so far, since love is the one thing the world most needs. But who is “God” or what kind of god is he that he has an “only” son that he has begotten? Unless this is metaphoric, that kind of god would have a wife that bares sons and daughters.
“…that he gave his only begotten son…”
The word “only” is mistranslated and is supposed to be “first” as it was in the earliest transcripts. This change is a forgery. This might be inferring that God had other sons by a wife (Asherah?), or something similar, who gave birth to several sons of whom Jesus was the first. It could be meant in the sense that he was not originally from Earth, but incarnated here. A god that literally begets sons could not be a “spirit”, by definition.
For God to beget a son or sons, he would necessarily have to be a physical being and he would have to have a wife. Doesn’t that make logical sense? Maybe it’s for this reason the Catholics call Mary the “Mother of God” and maybe for God to have a son Mary had to be like God’s wife — so-to-speak.
However, for Jesus to be the Messiah according to prophecy, he had to be a biological descendant of King David, and Joseph had to be his biological father. If Mary was a virgin, impregnated by the Holy Spirit, then Jesus didn’t fulfill the requirements of the prophecy — because he wouldn’t be a biological descendant. The whole story is a bit complicated.
Since all believers are considered sons of God (Jn 1:12), in that sense, there would be a second son, a third son, etc. And if all are sons, then all believers are adopted sons, the same as Jesus, since he became a son at his baptism.
Begotten is a word that is used with a literal physical birth — as in a man and woman begetting a son. Here it it seems very likely that the churchmen were trying to equate Jesus with God in some way; make him look like “God the Son”, the second person in the godhead to fit together perfectly with their Trinity idea. However, this whole concept becomes contradictory when God supposedly says at Jesus’ baptism, “This day have I begotten thee” or “Today you have became my son” — in all four Gospels — any way you look at it!
It’s hard to know what meaning they were trying to convey when they used the word “begotten”. It’s not a wonder that Christians have a hard time understanding their own Book!
“…that whosoever believeth ON him…”
I’m assuming that believeth ON infers, supposedly, that Jesus has the powers to save one from Hell and gift him or her the free entrance to the Kingdom of Heaven. If it were worded believeth IN, it seems that it would mean a person believes what Jesus teaches is true. At any rate, most likely what the writer was trying to say is that “one must believe that Jesus is the Messiah king of the Jews and that God brought Jesus back to life, after he had died in order to be saved from eternal fires of Hell, no matter how unrighteous one has been all his or her life”. No one needs to make amends for anything — it’s a free pass just for believing this lie.
I’ve never seen the expression “believe ON” outside the Bible, so I have to assume that’s the meaning from the context it’s in. It’s incredible the difference in meaning a little two-letter word can have. Of course, this little difference may be the errors of translators…
Whatever the meaning of “believeth on” here is, from a starting point on one’s journey, the requirement is belief anyway. But as far as the teaching is concerned, the critical thing is whose teaching one believes. Jesus and Paul held diametrically opposite teachings on the subject of “salvation”. For Paul it meant merely believing with no works or righteous living. Jesus taught it was all about works and righteous living, plus as many chances as it takes to get it right.
“…shall not perish…”
Now here is a critical phrase. The word “perish” ordinarily means to die physically, but the New Testament uses this word with a connotation that is not physical. “Perish” in this case infers, I assume, going to an eternal torment in hellfire. The phrase “shall never perish” in the Gospels does not mean one will never die physically, but what it’s really trying to get the reader to assume is that one will not go to Hell for eternity. According to Christianity one only gets one chance to get it right — if not, it’s Hell for all eternity with no second chance!
“…but have everlasting life.”
What they want it to mean is that one gets free passage into Heaven without having to do any good works or live righteously — all for just believing that God raised Jesus from the dead.
Of course, anyone would fear the idea of going to Hell and be in constant torment for eternity with no chance of redemption or a “second chance” — that is if a place like that actually existed. So here in one of the principal verses is the use of fear and a promise of escape from the horrible destiny of the unbeliever and a free entry ticket to the Kingdom of Heaven — forever! All this compacted into one little verse. How nice.
However, here the phrase “whosoever believeth on him” tells the reader that all he or she needs is belief in order to escape the damnation of Hell and receive free entrance to the Kingdom of Heaven without ever having to make amends for anything, having a change or ways or even doing the will of God. This is in direct contradiction to what Jesus taught.
It’s interesting, however, that though the gospel writers and Paul spoke of living forever, that in reality, no one ever dies. When this physical body that came from the Earth returns to the Earth, the Soul goes on living. But as Jesus said, “Except a man be born again, he can not enter the Kingdom of Heaven”. Being born again is the soul being “born again”, literally, into another physical body, to continue on this journey learning and experiencing and yes making amends for what one has done in the body.
Like Paul correctly put it:
“for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting. (Gal 6:7,8)
According to Christianity, Belief is the one and only requirement to obtain salvation along with the assumption that one who believes will confess his or her belief that God raised Jesus from the dead. However, Jesus himself never made any such requirement for salvation, in fact his requirement is just the opposite! He said:
“except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall IN NO CASE enter into the kingdom of heaven.” (Mat 5:20)
According to Jesus, to be able to gain entrance into the kingdom of heaven is required righteousness and doing the will of God — not just belief.
Next: The Kingdom of God | The Kingdom of God Part 1