John 3:16 – The Simple Truth Most People Miss
January 9th, 2010 by Ron S.
What is the most well known Bible verse in all of Christianity?
People who grew up through the Seventies and Eighties might reply with John 3:16 – especially if you went to or watched any televised football games during that time period. I fondly recall seeing signs and banners like the photo above being displayed by people in the end zone sections of games for years and years. Plus it was always a staple verse of instruction/memorization in Sunday School, Vacation Bible School and summer church camp classes everywhere. I imagine if you took a poll of mainstream Christianity and asked about John 3:16, a great many people could quote it back to you verbatim.
However that same majority who knows exactly what that verse says word for word probably miss the simple truth of what the verse fully teaches.
What am I talking about? Well, let’s lay the verse out in front of us and examine it up close to see the clarity of it.
John 3:16 (KJV) “For God so loved the world, that He gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”
I think most people understand the first part very well – the wonderful truth that God loves us –a LOT. And of course the main final part that believing in his only Son brings everlasting life. But what most people miss is two other critical pieces of information.
First, one should notice that the verse does NOT say this son is the “eternal” son or that God gave a part of his own eternal nature, but that this son was his only BEGOTTEN son. Begotten means “to bring into existence”. Therefore if Jesus was brought into existence then there was a time when he did not exist. Which then ultimately tells us that he can NOT be eternal, or a co-eternal member of the Godhead. Eternal beings can not come into existence because “eternal” by definition means to have no beginning. Duh!
Secondly, and my focus here, is the “should not perish” statement. This critical piece is missed by practically everyone. The word “perish” is very, VERY telling. Why? Because of what perish means. Let’s take a closer look at the definition of the word “perish”.
Perish: – verb (1) to die or be destroyed through violence, privation, etc. (2) to pass away or disappear (3) to suffer destruction or ruin.
And if perish really means to be “destroyed” or suffer “destruction” what does the root word destroy mean?
Destroy: -verb (1) to reduce (an object) to useless fragments, a useless form, or remains, as by rending, burning, or dissolving; injure beyond repair or renewal; demolish; ruin; annihilate. (2) to put an end to; extinguish.
All of these meanings have a definitive sense of permanence to them. Destroy, annihilate, extinguish – all mean to come to an end.
So with this in mind when we look at John 3:16, we see that there are two opposite ends of the spectrum – life that never ends (gaining everlasting life), or having our existence end (to perish).
Yet according to the most popular and most wide-spread belief in Christianity over the last 17-18 centuries, the two choices should be everlasting good life (in heaven) or everlasting BAD life (in hell). It should say – according to what most people believe – “…that whosoever believeth in him should not suffer eternal torment in hell, but have everlasting life in heaven. But no, that isn’t what we have here. The reality is that the verse presents everlasting life (no mention of the where – but elsewhere we learn that it is not off in heaven but here on earth in the future Kingdom of God) or the polar opposite – the antonym of eternal life which is destruction/annihilation. The choices here are simple. Believe in Christ to gain everlasting life or don’t believe in him and perish.
The truth is right there in plain sight for all to see if they are willing to take the blinders of tradition off and have eyes to see what is really being said!
Ron S.
I agree with you that we have two choices eternal (or everlasting) life or we can perish. I too do not believe that God will punish people in the fires of Hades for all eternity. Jesus talks about the wheat being separated from the chaff and the chaff being consumed in a unquenchable fire and being destroyed.
From what I have read in the first few centuries of the Roman Catholic church the church leaders decided that the best way to get the pagans to convert was to scare the bejeezus out of them. That’s when they began to deliberately mistranslate various scriptures changing the word unquenchable with eternal to make it seem like there was an eternal punishment for the pagans that would not convert.
I understand in another part of the bible the same word they translate as eternal is used to describe the fires that consumed Sodom and Gamorah. Everyone knows that if you go to where Sodom and Gamorah was today you will not find an eternal fire burning there.
At least that is what I have read. I’m not sure if it is true since I am not a linguist…
Following are excerpts from “The Two Destinies of Man: Hell or Immortality in the Kingdom” by Anthony Buzzard:
Full article see: http://www.focusonthekingdom.org/99.htm#1
Following are excerpts from “The Two Destinies of Man: Hell or Immortality in the Kingdom” by Anthony Buzzard:
Incorrect… God brought his body about, Jesus existed with the Father always. See Genesis, Let “Us” create.
Jesus is the Angel of the Lord in Old Testament.
Nice try with your stretching of the scriptures… The worm is mentioned many times for a reason!
I am surprised that Gen. 1:26 is trotted out as if everyone should know that God and two others are meant. Why do detailed, expert commentaries tell us that this verse has been abandoned by Trinitarians themselves as any indication that God was addressing His Son?
It is sad that there is such a gap between “the academy” and the Bible-reading public. The wise thing is at least to read widely and canvass different opinions, a multitude of counsel This is the only responsible way to proceed.
Since God describes himself by singular personal pronouns thousands of times, are we to suppose that He says that He is one single Person multitudes of times, and a plural Person (what does that mean?!) four times only?
Much better ask the broad question about how Jesus defined God when he affirmed the unitarian creed of Israel in Mark 12:2ff.
That is the right place to start– with Jesus. We are to believe what he believed about God.
“We are to believe what he [and his fellow Jews] believed about God.”
Mr Buzzard,
I share your sentiments on this. I’m afraid a major contributing cause of this is ill-informed, desperate and amateurish scholarship by those who’d better not called themselves teachers in the first place.
Ill-informed, self-proclaimed physicians have wrecked havoc among thousands of well-intentioned poor believers. Fellows like Ron Rhodes, Gene Cook and Robert Morey are of no less moral stature in this regard…
Watch out for them charlatans!
Jaco
“It is sad that there is such a gap between “the academy” and the Bible-reading public. The wise thing is at least to read widely and canvass different opinions, a multitude of counsel This is the only responsible way to proceed.”
Jaco
i dont think Anthony’s statement above is knocking scholars, the way i read it is he is claiming only scholars have a chance at understanding the bible. the plain bible reading public are too ignorant to be able to understand. this is a very arrogant statement to me.
I myself believe there is only One supreme God,the Creator but can not dismiss Gen. 1:26 as God speaking to a Being or Beings greater then an angels because Humankind was not made in the image of angels.There is no way any of the Beings was Jesus but I am sure one was the same Wisdom that indwelled many as a spiritual possession and indwelled Jesus in such complete fullness that Jesus could speak as this Spirit not just for.
there are many verses that provide details of a heavenly assembly that was created by GOD Yahweh.
Hey, Robert
I agree with you and also with Anthony. The fact of the matter is, however, that many who come onto these blogs – sincere and undoubtedly pleasant Christians – have been coached to believe the way they do with old, out-dated “proofs” of orthodox Christianity. Gen. 1:26 is one of those proofs. Many of them have only heard one side of the story, and quite a distorted version of it. And, as we have seen time and again – not from being well-informed, or from making a well-researched comparitive study of various positions, no – but from loud “apologists” presenting only “proofs” favorable to their position. As I’ve said so many times: there’s something worse than knowing nothing, and that is knowing a little. Selective proofs, amateurish linguistic scholarship, out-dated references – all these are unfortunately the support given to the naive and ill-informed.
I recall a trinity debate between two very capable Christadelphians and two Trinitarians on a radio show. During the course of the debate, the death of Jesus became the issue of whether Jesus was God. Guess which scholarly reference the Trinitarian used to define death? BDB? BDAG? No, Thayer’s. So selective was this defender of the Trinity, that he disregarded the better lexicons and provided as evidence out-dated material from a lexicon he wouldn’t use to prove his own theology (Thayer was Unitarian).
The unweary and ill-informed fall for this. They then go back to their fellowships and further train the sincere seekers of truth to believe and defend that which is out-dated and simply inaccurate.
In the cultural setting typical of the Ancient Near Eastern world, the King of the Universe would express his intentions to His angelic court in the plural first person. No literal plurality. No literal inclusion of those who are not, in fact, able to create. A simple cultural norm, authentic to the world and the imagery utilised by the writer of the Genesis account.
Jaco
Jaco,
RE: post #9
Well said. Very well said.
Though it often seems that the “loud apologists presenting only ‘proofs’ favorable to their position” and are typically INsincere and UNpleasant are the ones that come here and troll the internet the most – just looking for a fight or to “squash” any & all possible heretics. It is very rare to run across that “sincere” and “pleasant” truth-seeker who was brain-washed, I mean “trained”, into the party-line of the trinity and is truly checking to see if they’re right or wrong in their beliefs. They certainly are welcome and very refreshing to run across. But unfortunately the latter is more par for the course.
One can only find Jesus roaming the Old Testament if you forcibly insert him there in your mind. It is not like Genesis 1:26 says: “And God the Son – a.k.a. Jesus said to God the Father and God the Holy Spirit”, ‘Let US make….” It is just not there folks. No matter how hard you would like it to be there.