Does John's Gospel Promise Salvation by Faith Alone?

Jesus Pantocrator, National Museum of Catalunya, Barcelona. A Romanesque mural.

God so loved the world that he gave his only Son,
so that everyone who believes in him might not perish
but might have eternal life.
For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world,
but that the world might be saved through him.
Whoever believes in him will not be condemned,
but whoever does not believe has already been condemned,
because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.

-- John 3: 16-18

Today’s gospel reading seems to be a clear endorsement of the Lutheran doctrine of salvation by faith alone: believe in Jesus, and you are saved. Jesus will never condemn you, no matter what you do. It sounds like the ultimate “Get Out of Jail Free” card.

Fail to believe in him, and you are damned, no matter how sincere you are or what your virtuous works might be. Mahatma Gandhi? Most certainly burning in Hell.

But that is not what it means. God is neither than capricious nor that unjust.

Begin with the context, from which these words have been untimely ripped. These words are spoken by Jesus himself, to Nicodemus. It is therefore striking that he refers to “him,” not “me.” Why would he do that? Why the ungrammatical circumlocution?

In the last sentence, too, there is something else odd. Jesus says not “believed in the Son of God,” but “believed in the name of the Son of God.” What does it even mean to believe in or fail to believe in a name? “Yes, I devoutly believe that your name is Catherine and not Elizabeth”?

And if it is the name that is crucial, we are presumably all in trouble, for we actually do not know Jesus’s name. We are not certain how it would have been pronounced in Hebrew or in Aramaic in Jesus’s day, and we are not altogether certain which form he would recognize. Joshuah? Yeheshuah? Johashuah?

So we’re all going to hell.

The puzzle is perhaps partly produced in translation. The original Greek here, onomia, also means “name” in the sense of “reputation.” So the import is probably something like “has not believed in what the only Son of God stands for and represents.” Or, “what stands for and represents the only Son of God.”

There is perhaps a second implication as well. When asked what his first task would be were he ever given civil power, Confucius famously answered, “the first task is the rectification of terms.” That is, calling everything by its proper name, telling the truth; “calling a spade a spade.”

Belief in the “name” of the Son of God therefore means belief in truth, and our commitment to always seek the truth.

For Jesus himself says, in this same Gospel, that truth is what the Son of God represents. “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Light.”

This explains then why he cannot say simply to Nicodemus “believe in me,” or “believe I am the Son of God.” Nicodemus, who shows himself to be a literalist, would likely misunderstand it: he would be bound to take this in the literal sense, and think he was speaking simply of the historical person standing before him, Yeheshuah von Nazareth.

The passage immediately following this one makes things much clearer; you might say it throws light on the matter:

“And this is the verdict, that the light came into the world, but people preferred darkness to light, because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come toward the light, so that his works might not be exposed. But whoever lives the truth comes to the light, so that his works may be clearly seen as done in God.”

“Son of God,” therefore, = light, = morality, and = truth. In sum, the Logos. The fact that Joshuah also = the Son of God is not critical at this level.

And now we are back to works. To believe in the Son of God means not necessarily to believe in Yeshua ben Yusef, or in anything particular about him, but to believe in the light, the truth, the moral law. Anyone who does ultimately believe in truth, and the good, and submits to them wholeheartedly, will be saved. Anyone who does not, is already damned. They damn themselves.

This does not mean such a one will always tell the truth and do the right thing; for such sins, we will be forgiven, so long as we acknowledge the fault and preserve the intent. The problem arises when we no longer acknowledge sin, no longer acknowledge truth. This is what happens with settled vice. Then we begin to flee the light, to flee the truth, to deny the Son of God.

Only secondarily, we as Christians assert that anyone who is fully exposed to the reputation, the name, of Yeheshuah the Nazarene, will also acknowledge that he personifies Truth and Good. A good man will therefore recognize him as his proper Lord and Savior.

But it equally follows that a truly principled Buddhist or atheist will enter heaven. “I have other sheep that are not of this fold.”

The person who merely proclaims himself a Christian, on the other hand, instead of sincerely seeking the True and the Good, will not.

“Not everyone who says to Me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter.”