JESUS’ LIES IN THE GOSPEL OF JOHN

Jesus, if he existed and supposing the gospels aren’t lying, said that he was the way, the truth and the life (John 14:6). He asked us to trust in him (John 7:18; 14:1). He called his teaching the gospel which it would not be if we could not trust him and be sure if it was good news. If he was a liar this claim was sheer self- aggrandizement and a sickening boast. A liar could not be the only way to God or the truth.

Jesus condemned wilful doubt and the lack of faith as sinful and stated that they would prevent salvation (John 8:23). He was being bigoted for being human he knew that there could be no sin in doubt or in changing belief. Doubt is only thinking with reason that your belief may be wrong. If you won’t doubt then you are refusing to see what the truth may be. Jesus was opposed to truth. If you are confident in your belief and if you really believe you will not be afraid to doubt. To condemn the changing of belief is itself bigoted and a slur against the human race. It is these simply because what is sincere cannot be sinful even if it can be evil. For example, to sincerely believe that fire will not burn you is evil and harmful but is not deliberate evil. The ban on doubt makes Christianity's whole religious and theological edifice suspect.

Jesus keeps saying “Truly I say to you” and things along that line in the gospel of John despite having said that anything that goes beyond yes or no is evil in the Gospel of Matthew. He kept saying this for stuff he had already said and said it for trivial stuff. He said it unnecessarily. His words were certainly a kind of oath. And a vain oath at that! He gave his teaching against oaths right in the Sermon on the Mount. The Church replies that we are taking Jesus too literally. His point in the Sermon was that we should be so truthful that we should never need to say more than yes or no or swear for we and others know we can be relied on totally. But this would still mean that Jesus did wrong with his truly truly stuff. They will say then he had to emphasise that he was being truthful for he was speaking to people who may have thought him to be a liar. As if that would help! Jesus did swear in the Gospel of John for he said that God could bear witness that what he was saying was true. That is all an oath is in essence. More interestingly, what is the point of swearing before people who think you are a liar anyway – is it not a sign that you definitely are lying? Anyway, the Sermon on the Mount Jesus rejects John’s Jesus as a fraud and a heretic and a fiction.

The Gospel of John which is used by Catholics to "prove" various important doctrines like the bread and wine becoming Jesus in the Mass and his equality with God has a Jesus who tells lies which are often so serious that they show that those who followed him and formed his religion were capable of believing and accepting any absurdity.

Jesus said that God was good. God is not good if he exists for we have no free will. Thus he is to blame for the evil we do.

Jesus said that if you are for God you will believe what Jesus teaches (John 8:47). Millions have turned to God and have not recognised him. Jesus was a false prophet. Jesus plainly asserted that if a man really wishes to do the will of God that man will see if Jesus is speaking under the influence of God or for himself (John 7:17). That is nonsense and accuses those who know his words and not believing in them or him of being a cheat.

In John 7, Jesus stressed that he tells the truth all the time. But at the very start of the chapter Jesus tells his brothers that he is not going to the feast in Jerusalem and then goes to the feast secretly. Some Bibles add the word yet to make it seem that Jesus wasn’t telling them a lie. This makes him say that he was not going to the feast yet. The Authorised Revised Version Catholic Edition Bible agrees that the word yet is an addition and leaves it out. The context is that the brothers want Jesus to go to the feast and do miracles there to make everybody believe and he says he will not go to the feast for the time for the miracles that verify who he is has not come yet. This makes it obvious that the word yet is an interpolation. Jesus did lie to his brothers. He had no need to lie to them at all. He could just have walked away and not answered.

Jesus said God did miracles when they were needed to back up the truth (John 15:24). Yet he accepted the many pointless miracles of the Old Testament though it fails to give any evidence for them. Little miracles are senseless for one well-authenticated big one would do. And if they are done for some purpose you cannot even guess at why say they are evidence for anything at all?

Jesus told the Jews that they could not convict him of sin and yet they would not believe him so he expected them to believe just because of that (John 8:45-47). But that would only prove that Jesus was sincere and there is a world of difference between being sincere and right.

Jesus said that we must believe in him because we believe in God (John 12:44) so belief in God logically implies belief in Jesus’ claims. This is yet another lie because God can’t make himself known except through people and things and events so we should be believing in God because of Jesus and people like him. At least he is denying that he did miracles for signs mean that God is believed in because of the miracle-worker.

Jesus told the Jews that he wanted no glory for himself (John 8:50) while we read elsewhere he accepted worship and became glorious on the mount of the Transfiguration.
 
He told them he said nothing in secret not long after saying that he said plenty cloaked in veiled and confusing language nearly all the time (John 16).
 
Jesus told the Jews to believe that his works came from God even if they could put no belief in him (John 10:38). But to believe that while denying that Jesus was from God would be to call God a liar. At least he was showing that it was sensible to believe that miracles have nothing to do with showing somebody is from God.

Jesus said the Holy Spirit would not come if he refused to go away (John 16:7). This contradicts the many places that said that this didn’t stop him from coming. Luke says Elizabeth was full of the Spirit. And then there is Samson in the Old Testament book of Judges. The world hasn’t got any more peaceful since the coming of this Comforter as he called the Holy Spirit. Some Comforter! The Christian religion has led to more evil than any other force ever known.

Jesus told a man he healed that he ought to repent in case something worse will happen to him (John 5:14). This is telling the man to serve God out of self-interest which is really just trying to use God.

Jesus told the Samaritan woman that there was no salvation or experience of God outside Judaism meaning that sincerity could not save (John 4:22). John later told the Jews that they knew the Father as little as they knew him (John 8:19). He had purely intellectual knowledge in mind. He does not mean spiritual knowledge, the knowledge that God is in you and approves of you for he says the Jews knew him a little and he says they were evil in God’s eyes meaning that they were closed to God’s spiritual working in their hearts and were closing him out. The Jews are not being accused of atheism. You can know a person you don’t believe in. You can know what God would be and reject his existence. He is saying that they know hardly anything about God – a complete denial that the Old Testament revealed God. Like a lot of false prophets, Jesus was not quite sure what he wanted to teach at times.

He told the Jews that when he is lifted up BY THEM that is on the cross they will understand that he is the Messiah and is infallible like God (John 8:28). That is total rubbish. A crucifixion would not cause such a discovery. And the Jews did not lift Jesus up on the cross. Nor did they recognise him as the Messiah when he was lifted up. Nobody did then. The early Church was predominately Gentile or non-Jew.

Jesus also said that the Devil is incapable of being truthful (8:44-46). But even Satan would tell the truth for the sake of a greater evil. The Church will say that he means that the Devil cannot be heeded when he makes promises not that the Devil never tells the truth. But saying, “The Devil always lies”, is not the same as saying, “The Devil’s promises are always lies”. The context is all about lies not just insincere promises. Naïve believers often have made the same mistake as Jesus. It is improbable that it was a mistake in his case for he had to study theology and morality to be a more convincing fraud. Jesus attracted people amenable to rubbish by talking rubbish. The lie Jesus told here is definitely the same game as dictators get up to. They accuse everybody else of telling lies while they claim they alone are honest in order to turn the people against everybody else so that the people will belong to them.

Jesus wanted to help the apostles to make his joy full (John 17:13). This was selfish. The gospel admits that he did not care for sacrifice though it was the essence of his message.

Jesus said that his glory must come from his Father for self-praise is no praise (John 8:54). But when he claimed to reveal the Father he was praising himself! Also, how can we know if it is the Father who is making Jesus glorious? He said we can’t see him. Self-praise is praise when it fits the facts.

The lies attributed to Jesus make it easy to understand why the political powers were so affirming and supportive towards the religion founded on his story.  Birds of a flock...
  
BOOKS CONSULTED
 
Catechism of the Catholic Church, Veritas. Dublin, 1995
Christ and Violence, Ronald J Sider, Herald Press, Scottdale, Ontario, 1979
Miracles in Dispute, Ernst and Marie-Luise Keller, SCM Press Ltd, London, 1969
Moral Philosophy, Joseph Rickaby SJ, Stoneyhurst Philosophy Series, Longmans, Green and Co, London, 1912
Objections to Christian Belief, DM Mackinnon, HA Williams, AR Vidler and JS Bezzant, Constable, London, 1963
Putting Away Childish Things, Uta Ranke-Heinemann, HarperCollins, San Francisco, 1994
Reason and Belief, Bland Blanschard, George Allen & Unwin Ltd, London, 1974
Robert Schuller, Satellite Saint or High Flying Heretic, Cecil Andrews, Take Heed Publications, Belfast
The Hard Sayings of Jesus, FF Bruce Hodder & Stoughton, London, 1983
The Resurrection Factor, Josh McDowell, Alpha Scripture Press Foundation, Bucks, 1993
The Truth of Christianity, WH Turton, Wells Gardner, Darton & Co Ltd, London, 1905
Why I am Not a Christian, Bertrand Russell, Touchstone Books, Simon and Schuster, New York, undated