What John 3:16 Really Means

In this episode I look at the most famous verse in the Bible. I interpret John 3:16 as a description of unitive awareness or nondual Reality. The verse is not a call to evangelical Christian conversion but a call to spiritual awakening.

Transcript

What John 3:16 Really Means

I am looking at the Gospel of John as an expression of Jesus’ gospel of Nonduality. In chapter 3 Jesus has his famous conversation with Nicodemus about being born again. Jesus says to this religious leader, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.” Jesus was referring to his spiritual awakening that happened at his baptism, which was a rebirth by water and spirit. That was his awakening or enlightenment. Spiritual awakening is what it means to be born again. It is not an evangelical conversion experience.  

I have already explored what it means to be “born again” in previous episodes, so I am not going to go back over it. If you are interested in that conversation between Nicodemus and Jesus can go to my episode entitled “Born Again, Unborn Always.” I talk about Jesus’ baptism as spiritual awakening in the episode entitled “The Enlightenment of Jesus Christ.” Today I am going move on to what it says immediately afterward, which is part of the same narrative. I am going to deal with an even more famous verse. John 3:16.

If there is one verse that Christians – especially evangelical Christians – know by heart it is this verse. “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.” This verse is interpreted by Christians to mean that God loved us enough to offer Jesus on the cross as a sacrifice for sins. And if we receive Jesus as Lord and Savior then we are saved from judgment and hell and guaranteed a place in heaven after we die.

But when we look at it in the context of the verse, we see that is not what it means. There is no mention of the cross or sacrifice for sin. There is no mention of accepting Jesus into our hearts. There is no mention of Jesus as Lord and Savior. There is no mention of going to heaven after we die. All that is read into the passage by Christians. This verse is found in the context of spiritual awakening, and that is what it is talking about! So let’s look at the verse. 

First of all it is about God’s love for the world. “God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son.” This verse extolls unconditional love, not God choosing a few elect souls while condemning the rest fry in hell. The very next verse says, “For God did not send the Son into the world to judge (or condemn) the world, but so that the world might be saved through Him.” It is explicitly speaking against judgement. 

The passage goes on to say that judgment is of our own making. It says, “And this is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the Light.” This is talking about is about ignorance and spiritual blindness. It is talking about people who are ignorant of the Kingdom of God which is right before their eyes now. 

This is a message of unconditional love to all the world. “God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son.” Giving his Son means sending Christ into the world. As the First Letter of John says, “In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him.” God giving his Son is not God about killing his Son using a barbaric act of torture. How can anyone call torturing and killing anyone, especially one’s beloved Son, as love? The execution of Jesus was an act of religious violence and human hatefulness. 

The phrase “only begotten Son” is used by most Christians as proof that Christians alone have the true religion. They say that Jesus is the only begotten Son of God, whereas the founders of the other religions are merely human religious teachers. That makes Christians number one in their eyes! Exclusivist interpretations like this use other verses to bolster the claim, such as Jesus’ famous words: “I am the Way the Truth and the Life. No one comes to the Father but through me.”  That verse is interpreted to mean that only Jesus is the Truth and only Christians have Jesus. 

Nothing could be further from the Truth. When Christ says in the Gospel of John that no one comes to the Father but through him, he is speaking as the Eternal Christ, the Logos introduced in the Prologue of John. All Christ’s words in the Gospel of John are Christ speaking as the Logos, the Preexistent Eternal Cosmic Universal Christ. Christ is saying that the only way is through his Eternal Nature as the Logos, the Word, which enlightens every person who comes into the world. 

The phrase “only begotten” is best translated as “one and only.” That is how most English translations render it. “One and only” refers to the Original Oneness from which the universe came, which others refer to as nonduality. The Prologue says that everything was made through this one Son. 

Many Christians assume this phrase “only begotten Son” is a reference to the physical birth of Jesus and especially the virgin birth. They say that Jesus was sired by God the Father, and that is the only time this ever happened, which makes Jesus God’s only begotten son. 

That is not what “only begotten son” means. Any Christian theologian familiar with church history and the early church councils and creeds knows this. This phrase does not refer to the virgin birth of Jesus. Christian theologians say that Christ was “begotten before all ages.”  The Nicene Creed says: “We believe in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds. (or “before all ages,”) Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten, not made.” 

This begottenness of the Eternal Christ is from eternity. It is not talking about the physical birth of Jesus of Nazareth.  This is the Universal Christ who is the One from which all else comes, including all other sons and daughters of God. This One and Only Son gives us power to become children of God, born of God, as the Prologue says.  

Now let’s get to what it means to believe in Christ. “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.” Everlasting life – better translated Eternal Life - is Unitive awareness. Believing in Christ is trusting this awareness. 

When Christians – especially the conservative and evangelical variety - talk about believing in Christ, they mean receiving Jesus into their hearts, thereby beginning a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. This always involves at least an elementary understanding of who Jesus is and what he did. Notice that none of that is mentioned in this chapter. These ideas are imported into the text by Christians, who then read it out of the text, without being aware of their circular reasoning. 

The word “believe” is not about believing things about Jesus. To “believe in” means to have faith in, to trust in, or entrust oneself to. It means to give oneself to completely, so there is no self left to give. The Greek text actually says “believing into him.” Believing into the Eternal Christ means going into, giving oneself to, the One and Only. It means surrendering to Primordial Oneness that is the Eternal Logos we know as I AM. 

This is not a one time event sometime in the past, the way Christians interpret it. Not to get too Greeky here (which is always a temptation to us preacherly types who studied Greek in seminary) but the Greek word for believe used here is a present active participle, indicating an action ongoing in the present. It is best translated “believing.” It is now. “Whoever believing in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” 

I do this every day in meditation and throughout the day. In meditation I let my thoughts settle enough to see clearly. Then I notice Presence, unitive awareness, the Ground of Being that is the constant background of life. When this appears, I relax into it. I lean into this. Leaning back into Him. I entrust my small human self, my psychological self, unto this Presence that is Christ. When I fall back into Christ, I cease to be my self and I see the world as the True Self, who is Christ.

I liken this to being on a boat in one of the clear freshwater lakes here in NH. When I am on the boat I am aware of the water beneath me and all around me upholding me, although it is easy to get distracted and forget about it. But I can stop and jump into the fresh clean cool water. That is what meditation is. I take the time to be consciously aware of Nondual Reality that is always in the background all the time. I sit down to meditate and dive into it – like entrust myself to the water. That dive is faith. That is believing into the Eternal Christ. That is believing in the Name of I AM. That is Nondual Awareness.  

This action is not an action that the little human self does. It is ceasing to act as a self. Wu wei, non-action or wei wu wei, action without action, is what Taoism calls it. This non-action relaxing back into Reality or Christ is faith. Life is seen as Eternal Life, Divine Life, Everlasting Life. When one leans into one’s True Nature, the distinction between oneself and Christ disappears. One is just a drop of water in the lake. There is only Christ, who is all and in all. 

To know this is Eternal Life. As the final words of this chapter says, “The one who believes in – believes into - the Son has eternal life.” “God so loves the world, that he gives his one and only Son, that whoever believing in him does not perish – does not die when the human self or human body dies - but has everlasting life now.” This is what John 3:16 means.