"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son,..."
arah
Jesus being the literal divine son of God is of course
John 3:16 in which it is written…
"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."(John 3:16) KJV.
Now this is a straight forward verse that is clear in its meaning and
what in what it is trying to convey. The first thing that should be
noted, however, is that this verse is not attributed to Jesus nor is
it a quote from
Jesus. This is a verse written by someone else. The verse is
attributed to a man named John.
John was the last of the Gospels to be written and no one is sure of
exactly which John this is
supposed to be. The Gospel of John was written around 100 C.E. at
Ephesus. That is
approximately seventy years after the time of Jesus.
As Adolf Harnack points out in his book, What is Christianity?:
"the fourth Gospel does not emanate or profess to emanate from the
apostle John, who cannot be taken as an historical authority…the
author of the fourth Gospel acted with sovereign freedom, trans-posed
events and put them in a strange light.
"
The Gospel of John is considered to be the most beautifully written of
the Gospels.
According to Acts 4:13, however, Peter and John were both ignorant and
unlearned men.
The Gospel of John is written as a drama of sorts, unfolding layers of
measured resolution and emotion. Not something unlearned men are known
to produce. 'He was divinely inspired by God…' can be heard as an
argument. 'Look at your Qur'an
and its masterly prose. Muslims claim Muhammad was unlearned yet look
at the Qur'an…'.
The problem with that argument is that Muhammad (p.b.u.h.) is a fully
realized and documented historical figure. History recognizes Muhammad
(p.b.u.h.)
as a man who definitely lived, taught, and revolutionized his society.
His sayings have been
documented to the letter. The Qur'an was memorized by not only by the
Prophet himself
but also by his followers. Even the most secular historians must admit
this.
The personality and person of John, however, cannot be substantiated
with historical documented evidence. Bible historians debate over
whether or not John the Apostle was the
same John who is credited with writing this Gospel.
According to Blacks Bible Dictionary, John was beheaded before 70
C.E., and a connection to the first manuscript of 'the Gospel of John'
at Ephesus around 100 C.E. would be
difficult to establish. So let us revisit the passage.
"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."(John 3:16) KJV.
The real test of the verse is in its consistency with the rest of the
Bible whom the Christians claim to accept as a whole. As you can see,
it reads "…only begotten son…" but when we look at Psalms 2:7 David
says, "…the Lord
said unto me, Thou art my son; this day have I begotten thee." This is
a serious
discrepancy for the sincere Bible reader. Who is telling the truth,
David or the mystery John? Can we
rely on the Psalms for the truth or 'The Gospel of John'? Is the
Gospel the literal and the
Psalms the figurative or vice versa? Jesus is given many 'fathers' in
the N.T.
The first line in the New Testament reads, " The book of the
generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham
(Matt. 1:1). Are we to accept the literal meaning of this or the
figurative? And if we are to assume that the verse only means that he
was a spiritual son of David, then
why can't we assume the same thing is meant when Jesus refers to God
the "Father"? For
according to the N.T. statements attributed to Jesus he says, "…Be ye
therefore perfect, even as your
Father which is in heaven is perfect (Matt. 5:48). As well as, "After
this manner
therefore pray ye: Our Father…"(Matt 6:9).And to confirm the spiritual
connection of the righteous, "For
whosoever shall do the will of my Father which is in heaven, the same
is my brother, and
sister, and mother (Matt 12:50).
This verse uses the word 'Father' but Mark 3:35 reads, " For whosoever
does the will of God, the same is
my brother, and my sister, and mother."
How many times in the N.T. is the word 'Father' used to describe God?
If 'Father' has substituted the word 'God' in this verse, how many
other verses have been tweaked?
That this is not a literal relationship is plain to see and
comprehend. Another verse is describing David as being Jesus' father,
"…And the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David
(Luke 1:32). Now if God was Jesus' literal physical father, wouldn't
it have made sense to distinguish the difference in this verse which
presents Jesus along with David as his father? Let's assume that Jesus
is understood to be God's son in this verse and rewrite the verse
stating that idea. It would read, "…And
his father, the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father
David…". This makes
absolutely no sense at all and the uthors knew this. The author of
this verse knew that in order for it
to make any sense, only one could be connected to Jesus as a 'Father'.
And since the
legitimacy of Jesus' mission must come through David, according to the
Bible, it was more
prudent to connect Jesus as an heir to David than to infuse the verse
with 'son of God'
dogma.
The curious thing is that in Matthew and Luke, the genealogy of Jesus
is traced through Joseph as if Joseph had some blood relation to
Jesus. Jesus is supposed to have been divinely conceived within Mary
without the husbandly help of Joseph. How then can Jesus' genealogy be
logically traced back to David through Joseph? In Luke 2:41 it reads,
"Now his parents went to Jerusalem every year at the feast of the
Passover." His
parents being Mary and Joseph?
The only person that anyone can be sure of about Jesus' parentage is
Mary yet no where is Jesus explicitly called son of Mary in the Bible.
The Qur'an is consistent and clear on this matter. Jesus is referred
to as Al-Maseeh 'Isa ibn Maryam or The
Messiah (Christ) Jesus, son of Mary. (Remember) when the angels said:
"O Maryam (Mary)! Verily, Allah gives you the glad tidings of a Word
["Be!" - and he was! i.e. 'Isa (Jesus) the son of Maryam (Mary)] from
Him, his name will be the Messiah 'Isa (Jesus), the son of Maryam
(Mary), held in honor in this world and in
the Hereafter, and will be one of those who are near to Allah." (3:45)
According to the Bible God had even more sons. The Book of Job 2:1
reads, "Again there was a day when sons of God came to present
themselves before the Lord…". This is yet another contradiction of the
"…only begotten son…"
notion of John 3:16. But wait, there is more. In Luke, after tracing
the so-called genealogy of
Jesus all the way back to Adam it reads,
"…Which was the son of Enos, Which was the son of Seth, Which was the
son of Adam, Which was the
son of God"(Luke 3:38).
So will real the real father of Jesus and the real sons of God please
stand up!
This is confusing as well it should be for the average Bible reader.
The problem lies in the interpretation of lost manuscripts that have
been roughly translated or mistranslated through the ages. There is an
allegorical message in
these books that has been interpreted and taught as literal. There
have also been concessions
made by the Early Pauline Church to make the simple teachings of Jesus
palatable to the pagans
of Europe and western Asia. Throughout ancient forms of worship there
have been
religions of divine offspring of a great god. These areas of Syria,
Greece, and Rome were practicing
pagans who worshipped human beings whom they thought were god
incarnates. The ancient rites
of Mithraism, Attis, Adonis, Diana, Dionysus and many more all were
practiced in the
so called gentile lands that the Pauline church longed to bring into
their fold.
These pagan religions all contained elements of what now compose
Christianity.
May Almighty God the Creator show us the truth.
AMEN