What Does John 3:16 Mean To You?

Consider a cornerstone scripture for fundamentalist Christian dogma, John 3:16. “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”  You can interpret this verse either literally or metaphysically. 

A literal viewpoint could suggest that God is a human-like entity able to impregnate a woman and he did this once in history (Mary) and that union produced Jesus (the Christ), his only earthly son. According to the Apostle Paul, those who believe this about Jesus will not perish when the material world comes to an end, but they will have eternal life in heaven with spiritually revitalized bodies that will neither die nor become ill.  As rosy as this viewpoint is, it gives you no insight into how to apply this scripture to living your life, now, other than to accept these concepts as truth, without questioning anything.


        However, please note that even a "literal" reading of this verse requires fundamentalist assumptions about the meanings of its words that are not actually stated in the passage itself.  

Also, Christian church organizations tend to interpret Bible passages such as this, for their membership as an attempt to keep Bible texts consistent with church dogma. Of course, this places greater emphasis and value on you learning what the church teaches than on learning what you, yourself feel is true.

I have no problems with John 3:16, but I do have great difficulties with any attempts to interpret it in a strictly literal way.  When I pair up words found in John 3:16 with underlying spiritual meanings I find the following:

  

God -- The prime cause of all that is and can be; unconditional love expressed.

Christ -- Living spiritually in the consciousness of God while experiencing a human life. Our historical guide and teacher was Jesus.

 Heaven -- Living with complete harmony of mind, body, and soul, as a result of accepting spiritual oneness with God.

Hell -- Living a self-centered life of personal survival by belief in the domination of others through force or fear and rejecting the available spiritual connection and guiding influence of God.

Now, when applying these metaphysical perspectives to John 3:16 it sounds like this:     

 The prime cause of all that is and can be, so loves its own that spiritual union is possible with its highest creations and complete love and harmony can be experienced by those who seek and believe the spiritual guidance from within,  freeing them from fear of domination by anything else.

To me, this is a remarkably beautiful, accurate, and inspiring metaphysical interpretation. Every phrase can be related to something you sense is true or that you experience in life. Whereas a literal interpretation of John 3:16 is  distinctive, because it does not relate to experiences you have in life.

            In our heart of hearts we understand from our knowledge of biology and psychology that virgin births do not occur, and worshiping an individual as the literal son of God, is pagan-like idol worship.  Most of us have had enough experiences and education that we can do better than approach the Bible from a literal viewpoint.

       
        Literalism is an attempt by fundamentalists to capture truth within specific sets of words carefully  selected from throughout the Bible while basically ignoring the historical contexts and the reasons these passages were written in the first place. 

             The truth that sets you free, is discerned when you read Bible passages metaphysically, because spirituality is found in your mind, your attitudes and experiences, not in words by themselves. Let's not forget, that words alone do not contain meanings. If there is not a mind, intelligence, memory, and imagination available to interpret oral or written words, then those words will have no meaning, at all.