I saw this posted on my Google+ feed.
"For God loved the world so much that he gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life." John 3:16. This verse is popular because it contains a lot of Christian theology all in one compact statement that sounds very nice and palatable. However, there are a lot of implicit doctrinal teachings packed into that one verse. I want to take a few minutes to unpack it and then tie it back together with the implied content inserted back into the verse.
Let's start with the phrase "will not perish". "Perish" in this context, refers to hell. Hell, according to the Bible, is a place of eternal torture (Matt 25:41). Hell was created by God (Col 1:16). It was created to punish all of us for sin (Rom 3:24) regardless of the quantity or severity of sin (Rom 3:10-12).
What about the phrase "everyone who believes in [his son/Jesus]"? What does it mean to "believe in him"? This entails believing 1. that Jesus was sent to be beaten up and killed as a replacement sacrifice and 2. that he rose from the dead. In the Old Testament, Jews sacrificed animals to absolve their sins. For example, if a person stole something, it made God want to torture that person in hell forever. God's wrath was appeased by watching people kill an animal (Lev 6:1-7). Jesus was a superior sacrifice that made God feel better about all sin, unless you don't believe it. If you don't believe that God sending Jesus to be beaten and killed as a sacrifice for the immoral things you have done, then God still wants to torture you forever (Mark 16:16). There's another odd twist to the theology. Jesus is supposedly God's son, but he's also God (John 10:30). In other words, God so loved the world that He got a teenage girl pregnant with himself.
There's one last piece; "everlasting life". If you believe, you get to live forever... doing what? There are so many ambiguous accounts of heaven in the Bible, it's difficult to nail down exactly what it is supposed to be like, but there are a few things that can be derived. Heaven will be a place with no sadness
(Rev 21:4). Anyone who makes it to heaven will apparently become indifferent to the fact that many of their loved ones and relatives, as well as the majority of humans who ever lived, will not be in heaven, but instead, they will be in a lake of fire suffering eternal torture. Rev 6:10 seems to suggest those people who have made it to heaven will relish the thought of their non-believing loved ones and relations being tortured. So it might be a sort of entertainment to stand by while people are suffering because they didn't believe.
So let's look back at the verse inserting the missing theological pieces that are implied, but not expressly stated:
God loved the world so much that [He impregnated a teenage girl with himself] so that whoever believes [that He sent himself for the purpose of being beaten and killed as a replacement the punishment for the eternal torture He created and wants to subject us to] will not [be subjected to the eternal torture that God made and wants to subject us all to] but have [the opportunity to be with Him forever pleased with the fact that He is torturing most of the rest of humanity].
Even though the Bible states in some passages like Revalation 6 that it will be the wicked people who will be sent to hell of eternal anguish, it's really not immoral acts that condemn us to eternal suffering. Our eternal fate rests in whether we are able to accept the preposterous and horrible path God is supposed to have provided for us through someone else's death and suffering.
Peter Boghossian sums this mixed up theology nicely. "God sent himself to himself to save us from himself. Barking mad!" (2013)
I agree.
"For God loved the world so much that he gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life." John 3:16. This verse is popular because it contains a lot of Christian theology all in one compact statement that sounds very nice and palatable. However, there are a lot of implicit doctrinal teachings packed into that one verse. I want to take a few minutes to unpack it and then tie it back together with the implied content inserted back into the verse.
Let's start with the phrase "will not perish". "Perish" in this context, refers to hell. Hell, according to the Bible, is a place of eternal torture (Matt 25:41). Hell was created by God (Col 1:16). It was created to punish all of us for sin (Rom 3:24) regardless of the quantity or severity of sin (Rom 3:10-12).
What about the phrase "everyone who believes in [his son/Jesus]"? What does it mean to "believe in him"? This entails believing 1. that Jesus was sent to be beaten up and killed as a replacement sacrifice and 2. that he rose from the dead. In the Old Testament, Jews sacrificed animals to absolve their sins. For example, if a person stole something, it made God want to torture that person in hell forever. God's wrath was appeased by watching people kill an animal (Lev 6:1-7). Jesus was a superior sacrifice that made God feel better about all sin, unless you don't believe it. If you don't believe that God sending Jesus to be beaten and killed as a sacrifice for the immoral things you have done, then God still wants to torture you forever (Mark 16:16). There's another odd twist to the theology. Jesus is supposedly God's son, but he's also God (John 10:30). In other words, God so loved the world that He got a teenage girl pregnant with himself.
There's one last piece; "everlasting life". If you believe, you get to live forever... doing what? There are so many ambiguous accounts of heaven in the Bible, it's difficult to nail down exactly what it is supposed to be like, but there are a few things that can be derived. Heaven will be a place with no sadness
(Rev 21:4). Anyone who makes it to heaven will apparently become indifferent to the fact that many of their loved ones and relatives, as well as the majority of humans who ever lived, will not be in heaven, but instead, they will be in a lake of fire suffering eternal torture. Rev 6:10 seems to suggest those people who have made it to heaven will relish the thought of their non-believing loved ones and relations being tortured. So it might be a sort of entertainment to stand by while people are suffering because they didn't believe.
So let's look back at the verse inserting the missing theological pieces that are implied, but not expressly stated:
God loved the world so much that [He impregnated a teenage girl with himself] so that whoever believes [that He sent himself for the purpose of being beaten and killed as a replacement the punishment for the eternal torture He created and wants to subject us to] will not [be subjected to the eternal torture that God made and wants to subject us all to] but have [the opportunity to be with Him forever pleased with the fact that He is torturing most of the rest of humanity].
Even though the Bible states in some passages like Revalation 6 that it will be the wicked people who will be sent to hell of eternal anguish, it's really not immoral acts that condemn us to eternal suffering. Our eternal fate rests in whether we are able to accept the preposterous and horrible path God is supposed to have provided for us through someone else's death and suffering.
Peter Boghossian sums this mixed up theology nicely. "God sent himself to himself to save us from himself. Barking mad!" (2013)
I agree.
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