The lynchpin of John 3:16 and, for that matter, of the entire Christian concept of redemption by faith, is the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ. John 3:16 tells us: "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life." On the other hand, a huge number of Religious Scholars tell us this isn’t true. So who should we believe – the Bible, or Them? To begin with, we know who The Scholars are, whereas we have no idea who authored any of the gospels (as discussed in Part 1 of this series). Secondly, the Bible translators illegitimately capitalized ‘him’ in John 3:16 to make Jesus look like God (as discussed in Part 2 of this series). If you’re paying attention, you noticed I did the same thing above, capitalizing ‘Religious Scholars,’ ‘Them,’ and ‘The Scholars.’ It makes these scholars look special, doesn’t it? But that’s just one way in which Bible translators deceive their audience. I admit, I did it as a ploy; they don’t.
Lastly, what I have presented so far conforms both to reason and to common sense, unlike the Bible, which is internally inconsistent and factually unreliable (Parts 2 & 3 of this series).
In this episode I address the concepts of sacrifice and atonement, and the effortless salvation people seek through the Christian concept of redemption by faith.
The foundation of this concept rests upon the validity of Original Sin—the church’s doctrine that children are born with the guilt of Adam’s first sin, which we know is false, because Jesus taught the exact opposite: "Let the little children come to me, and do not forbid them, for of such is the kingdom of heaven" (Matthew 19:14). Now, how can "of such" be "the kingdom of heaven" if the un-baptized are hell‑bound? Children are either born with original sin or are bound for the kingdom of heaven. The church can’t have it both ways. Ezekiel 18:20 records, "The son shall not bear the guilt of the father, nor the father bear the guilt of the son. The righteousness of the righteous shall be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself," and Deuteronomy 24:16 repeats the point. This is Old Testament, but it’s not older than Adam! If original sin dated from the beginning with Adam and Eve, we wouldn’t find the concept disavowed in any scripture of any later age!
Moving on to the concept of belief in Jesus’ self-sacrifice as being sufficient for salvation, Jesus reportedly refutes this claim as follows: "Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father in heaven" (Matthew 7:21) and "But if you want to enter into life (eternal life, that is—i.e., salvation) keep the commandments" (Matthew 19:17). ‘James’ was at odds with Paul over this doctrine, and reportedly taught the importance of righteous works: "For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also" (James 2:26).
But where in the New Testament did Jesus counsel his followers that they could relax, for in a few days he would pay the price and they could all go to heaven on nothing more than belief? Nowhere. For that matter, when Jesus was allegedly resurrected why didn’t he declare the atonement? Why didn’t he announce that he had paid for the sins of the world, past, present and future? But he didn’t, and we should wonder why. Could it be the atonement isn’t true? Could it be that someone scribbled wishful thoughts into the margins of scripture?
It wouldn’t be the first time.
So where did the ‘Atonement’ come from in the first place? And would anyone be surprised to hear the name, "Paul"? Another questionable doctrine coming from the same questionable source? So it would seem. Acts 17:18 reads, "Then certain Epicurean and Stoic philosophers encountered him [Paul]. And some said, ‘What does this babbler want to say?’ Others said, ‘He seems to be a proclaimer of foreign gods,’ because he preached to them Jesus and the resurrection."
Paul directly claims to have conceived the doctrine of resurrection as follows: "Remember that Jesus Christ, of the seed of David, was raised from the dead according to my gospel" (2 Timothy 2:8). Sure enough, the concept of Jesus Christ dying for the sins of humankind is found in the epistles of Paul (e.g., Romans 5:8–11 and 6:8–9), and nowhere else. Nowhere else? Not from Jesus? Not from the disciples? Is it possible that they neglected the critical details upon which Christian faith rests? Not likely.
So in one corner we have the true prophets, Jesus Christ included, teaching salvation through adhering to God’s laws as conveyed through revelation—that is, salvation through faith and works. In the other corner we have the challenger, Paul, promising an effortless salvation following a life unrestricted by commandments—in other words, salvation through faith alone.
What can we imagine Jesus will say, upon his return, when he finds a group of his "followers" preferring Pauline theology to his own teachings? Perhaps Jesus will quote Jeremiah 23:32—"‘Behold, I am against those who prophesy false dreams,’ says the Lord, ‘and tell them, and cause My people to err by their lies and by their recklessness. Yet I did not send them or command them; therefore they shall not profit this people at all,’ says the Lord."
When Jesus does return, one thing we can be sure he is not going to do is congratulate his "followers" for throwing away everything he taught and doing the exact opposite, on the authority of Paul.
In the next episode, we will question why Christians believe John 3:16 in the face of so much evidence against it.
To recap, in the last four episodes of this series we discussed the following regarding John 3:16, "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life":
1) The Gospel book of Christian scripture known as ‘John’ almost certainly was not written by Jesus’ disciple John;
2) In John 3:16, as with elsewhere in the Bible, translators illegitimately capitalized ‘him’ to make Jesus look like God;
3) Because the Bible is internally inconsistent and factually unreliable, it does not fulfill the basic requirements expected of sacred scripture;
4) The foundational ideology (the alleged Crucifixion, Resurrection and Atoning sacrifice) is so flawed we cannot reasonably rely upon John 3:16 (or, for that matter, upon the Bible as a whole) for salvation.
Which brings us to a discussion of why anybody believes John 3:16 to be true, when so much evidence is stacked against it. The simple fact of the matter is that John 3:16 appeals to Christians, whether true or not. In the previous episode in this series, I discussed just a few of the fallacies of the concept of Jesus’ atoning sacrifice. I saved the best for last, and it is this: According to the Bible, God doesn’t even want a sacrifice. Now, let’s leave aside the common-sense arguments (that forgiveness doesn’t have a price; that one person cannot atone for another; that if God had wanted, He would have forgiven mankind on that basis alone; etc.) and dwell solely upon the fact that the Bible tells us God doesn’t want sacrifice in the first place: Hosea 6:6 reads, "I desire mercy, and not sacrifice." Sure, this is Old Testament, but Matthew 9:13 and 12:7 both reference this verse, so it applies to the New Testament as well. So, what is the argument again? That God needed a sacrifice that He doesn’t even want? This concept is problematic, at best.
There are plenty of other reasons why we shouldn’t believe John 3:16, and one of the best is not that we can’t believe John 3:16, but that we can’t be sure about anything in the ‘Gospel according to John.’ Despite the fact that nobody even knows who authored ‘John,’ the Jesus Seminar analyzed the words attributed to Jesus in the Gospel of John and "were unable to find a single saying they could with certainty trace back to the historical Jesus. . . . The words attributed to Jesus in the Fourth Gospel are the creation of the evangelist for the most part."[1] Now, why would ‘the evangelist’ do such a thing? We are told the reason is as follows: "Jesus’ followers were inclined to adopt and adapt his words to their own needs. This led them to invent narrative contexts based on their own experience, into which they imported Jesus as the authority figure."[2] The Jesus Seminar documents hundreds of examples in the Gospel books, including cases where "the followers of Jesus borrowed freely from common wisdom and coined their own sayings and parables, which they then attributed to Jesus."[3]
This does not discredit just John 3:16, but in fact it discredits all of ‘John’. By extension, if the Bible is filled with contradictions, how can we know what is true and what isn’t – anywhere in the Bible?
As the old saying goes, the whistle does not pull the train. Christians might like how John 3:16 sounds, but that does not make it true. In fact, the more we examine the verse, the more reasons we find to discredit it.
Another old saying is that the bait hides the hook. John 3:16 is the bait, through which evangelists hope to hook and reel people into their smug, and entirely illegitimate, conclusions. They tell us God gave His "only begotten Son," without critically analyzing this concept. If Jesus is the "only begotten Son of God," why does Psalms 2:7 say this about David: "The LORD has said to me, ‘You are My Son, Today I have begotten you." Jesus the "only begotten son of God," with David a "son," "begotten" by God a scant forty generations earlier? The Bible can have one "only" of something, but not two "only"s of the same thing!
The Bible describes many people, Israel and Adam included, as "sons of God." Both 2 Samuel 7:13–14 and 1 Chronicles 22:10 read, "He (Solomon) shall build a house for My name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. I will be his Father, and he shall be My son."
In the Bible, "only begotten" is translated from the ancient Greek monogenes.[4] And yet, "Isaac is monogenes in Heb. 11:17."[5] Ishmael was born fourteen years before Isaac, and both were alive when their father, Abraham, passed on. At no time was Isaac ever Abraham’s "only begotten" son. So is "only begotten" a mistranslation of monogenes, or is Heb. 11:17 a mistake? If it’s a mistranslation, then John 3:16 must be mistranslated as well. If it’s a mistake, we can’t trust the Bible as a whole (a repeating refrain in these discussions).
George Pettie once amended the old proverb, "To err is human, to forgive is divine . . ." by adding, "and to persist in error, beastly." The self-righteous, "I’ve got the Holy Spirit inside me and can do no wrong" attitude of the John 3:16′ers is offensive for as many reasons as it is wrong. For one thing, it sounds too much like the lawyer’s maxim to argue facts and law when they serve the purpose, and holler when they don’t.
If I am permitted to echo Voltaire’s conclusion: Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty in the face of contrary evidence is an absolutely absurd one.
Despite the strength of the evidence against John 3:16, most Christians refuse to acknowledge the illegitimacy of the verse. And maybe non-Christians should accept that.
Matthew 5:9 reports Jesus as having said, "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God." So perhaps we should forget about trying to win this argument, and make peace over it. If we can’t unite on creeds, let’s at least unite on kind and charitable deeds. Let’s become "blessed peacemakers" who are called "sons of God." Then, let’s point out that this is just one more biblical verse that contradicts John 3:16′s exclusive "Son of God" concept. Nothing says we can’t make peace, and continue to politely press our point at the same time. But that, to me, is an important element to any religious dialogue: Keep it light and polite, but maintain focus.
About the author:
Laurence B. Brown, MD, has authored several articles and books and his official website is www.leveltruth.com where he can also be contacted through the ‘Contact’ page.
