John 3:16: Key to the Bible; Key to the Heresy
For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever should believe in Him would not perish but would have eternal life
Should be:
For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whoever believed Him would not perish but would have eternal life.
Who put the "in" in there? And why? What does the insertion of "in" into the scripture do to us? It stops us from understanding the clear truth which is that Jesus told us the truth so that we could pass the test of death into eternal life and teaches us, instead, that good conduct is not the key to salvation, but the belief IN Jesus which includes the belief that Jesus came to serve eternity as the ultimate human sacrifice.
In other words, putting the "in" in the scripture deprives us of our reason and inflicts on us the impossible burden of believing that God is a cruel monster when in our hearts we all know that God is Love.
What does it mean to "believe in" something? A common meaning is that you believe the thing exists. For example, "She doesn't believe in the Easter Bunny" or "She believe ins Santa Claus" means she does not believe there is such a thing as an Easter Bunny but she believes Santa Claus actually has a toy shop at the North Pole. And this is generally the meaning given to "believe in" in discussions of whether God exists.
But Christians stretch the meaning of John 3:16 far past the acceptance that Jesus was a real historical character. Most Christians take the phrase "believe in Him" to mean that they believe He was intended by God to be a sacrificial offering which, if you don't joyfully praise God for torturing Jesus to death on the cross instead of you. Where do they come up with this fractured interpretation of a clear, simple scripture which says we should listen to Jesus and embrace his teachings if we want to continue our journey into eternity.
Is there even a word in ancient Greek that means "believe in?" How did that "in" get in there?
One thing I can say is that the "in" showed up early, as soon as the original Greek writings were translated to Latin. I suspect St. Paul, who was a Roman citizen and knew Latin very well. In the Greek translations, both ancient and modern, there is no "in" in there. The word is "πιστεύων" which is translated most often in the Bible as "believe" and rarely, but enough to pervert Jesus' message, is the word "πιστεύων" translated as the nonsensical phrase "believe in."
The word is πιστεύων which is spelled in English pisteuvw and sounds like pist-yoo-o. It is an ancient word which is a verb and means "believe" or "trust." There is no such word in modern Greek, but there is the noun, "truster."
In Matthew the word "believe" shows up in the King James Version 17 times, usually meaning "to believe" without the nonsensical "in" word.
I am convinced that God would not want his thinking creatures to impute a command to cease thinking without good reason and I see none in the use of this word πιστεύων.
Therefore, Christian humanists can continue to believe what Jesus tells us without accept the vile Atonement Doctrine.