Misquoting Jesus
The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why
By: Bart D. Ehrman
Who is Bart D. Ehrman? He chairs the Department of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is an authority on the history of the New Testament, the early church, and the life of Jesus. He has taped several highly popular lecture series for the Teaching Company and is the author of Lost Christians: The Battles for Scripture and the Faith We Never Knew and Lost Scriptures: Books that Did not make it into the New Testament. He lives in Durham, North Carolina.
Chapter 2
Complications in Knowing the “Original Text”
And so, all kinds of changes were made in manuscripts by the scribes who copied them. We will be looking at types of changes in greater depth in a later chapter. For the moment, it is enough to know that the changes were made, and that they were made widely, especially in the first two hundred years in which the texts were being copied, when most of the copyists were amateurs. One of the leading questions that textual critics must deal with is how to get back to the original text --- the text as the author first wrote it --- given the circumstance that our manuscripts are so full of mistakes. The problem is exacerbated by the fact once a mistake was made, it could become firmly embedded in the textual tradition, more firmly embedded, in fact, than the original.
That is to say, once a scribe changes a text --- whether accidentally or intentionally --- then those changes are permanent in his manuscript (unless, of course, another scribe comes along to correct the mistake). The next scribe who copies that manuscript copies those mistakes (thinking they are what the text said), and he adds mistakes of his own. The next scribe who then copies that manuscript copies the mistakes of both his predecessors and adds mistakes of his own, and so on. The only way mistakes get corrected is when a scribe recognizes that a predecessor has made an error and tries to resolve it. There is no guarantee, however that ascribe who tries to correct a mistake corrects it correctly. That is, by changing what he thinks is an error, he may in fact change it incorrectly, so now there are three forms of the text: the original, the error, and the incorrect attempt to resolve the error. Mistakes multiply and get repeated; sometimes they get corrected and sometimes they get compounded. And so it goes. For centuries.
Sometimes, of course, a scribe may have more than one manuscript at hand, and can correct the mistakes in one manuscript by the correct readings of the other manuscript. This does, in fact, improve the situation significantly. On the other hand, it is also possible that a scribe will sometimes correct the correct manuscript in light of the wording of the incorrect one. The possibilities seem endless.
Given these problems, how can we hope to get back to anything like the original text, the text that an author actually wrote? It is an enormous problem. In fact, it is such an enormous problem that a number textual critics have started to claim that we may as well suspend any discussion of the “original” text, because it is inaccessible to us. This may be going too far, but a concrete example or two taken from the New Testament writings can show the problems.
Examples of the Problems
For the first example, let’s take Paul’s letter to the Galatians. Even at the point of the original penning of the letter, we have numerous difficulties to consider, which may well make us sympathetic with those who want to give up on the notion of knowing what the “original” text was. Galatia was not a single town with a single church; it was a region in Asia Minor (modern Turkey) in which Paul had established churches. When he writes to the Galatians, is he writing to one of the churches or to all of them? Presumably, since he doesn’t single out any particular town, he means for the letter to go to all of them. Does that mean that he made multiple copies of the same letter, or that he wanted the one letter to circulate to all the churches of the region? We don’t know.
Suppose he made multiple copies. How did he do it? To begin with, it appears that this letter, like others by Paul, was not written by his hand but was dictated to a secretarial scribe. Evidence for this comes at the end of the letter, where Paul; added a postscript in his own handwriting, so what the recipients would know what it was he who was responsible for the letter (a common technique for dictated letters in antiquity): See with what large letters I am writing you with my own hand” (Gal. 6:11). His handwriting, in other words, was large and probably less professional in appearance than that of the scribe to whom he had dictated the letter. 15
Now, if Paul dictated the letter, did he dictate it word for word? Or did he spell out the basic points and allow the scribe to fill in the rest? Both methods were commonly used by letter writers in antiquity. If the scribe filled in the rest, can we be assured that he filled it in exactly as Paul wanted? If not, do we actually have Paul’s words, or are they the words of some unknown scribe? But let’s suppose that Paul dictated the letter word for word, Is it possible that in some places the scribe wrote down the wrong words? Stranger things have happened. If so, then the autograph of the letter (i.e., the original) would already have a “mistake” in it, so that all subsequent copies would not be of Paul’s words (in places where his scribe got them wrong).
Suppose, though, that the scribe got all the words 100 percent correct. If multiple copies of the letter went out, can we be sure that all the copies were also 100 percent, correct? It is possible, at least, that even if they were all copied in Paul’s presence, a word or two here or there got changed in one of the other of the copies. If so, what if only one of the copies served as the copy from which all subsequent copies were made --- then in the first century, into the second century and the third century, and so on? In that case, the oldest copy that provided the basis for all subsequent copies of the letter was not exactly what Paul wrote, or wanted to write.
Once the copy is in circulation --- that is, once at it destination in one of the towns of Galatia --- it, of course, gets copied, and mistakes get made. Sometimes scribes might intentionally change the text; sometimes accidents happen. These mistake-ridden copies get copied; and the mistake-ridden copies of the copies get copied; and so on down the line. Somewhere in the midst of all this, the original copy (or each of the original copies) ends up getting lost, or worn out, or destroyed. At some point, it is no longer possible to compare a copy with the original to make sure it is “correct,” even if someone has the bright idea of doing so.
What survives today, then, is not the original copy of the letter, nor one of the first copies that Paul himself had made, nor any of the copies that were produced in any of the towns of Galatia to which the letter was sent, nor any of the copies of those copies. The first reasonable complete copy we have of Galatians (this manuscript is fragmented; i.e., it has a number of missing parts) is a papyrus called P46 (since it was the forty-sixth New Testament papyrus to be catalogued), which dates to about 200 C.E. 17
That’s approximately 150 years after Paul wrote the letter. It had been in circulation, being copied sometimes correctly and sometimes incorrectly, for fifteen decades before any copy was made that has survived down to the present day. We cannot reconstruct the copy from which P46 was made. Was it an accurate copy? If so, how accurate? It surely had mistakes of some kind, as did the copy from which it was copied, and the copy from which that copy was copied, and so on.
In short, it is a very complicated business talking about the “original” text of Galatians. We don’t have it. The best we can do is get back to an early stage of its transmission, and simply hope that what we reconstructed about the copies made at that stage --- based on the copies that happen to survive (in increasing number as we move into the Middle Ages) --- reasonably reflects what Paul himself actually wrote, or at least what he intended to write when he dictated the letter.
As a second example of the problems, let’s take the Gospel of John. This Gospel is quite different from the other three Gospels of the New Testament, telling a range of stories that differ from theirs and employing a very different style of writing. Here, in John, the sayings of Jesus are long discourses rather than pithy, direct sayings; Jesus never tells a parable, for example, in John, unlike in the other three Gospels. Moreover, the events narrated in John are often found only in this Gospel: for example, Jesus’s conversations with Nicodemus (in chapter 3) and with the Samaritan woman (chapter 4) or his miracles of turning water into wine (chapter 2) and raising Lazarus from the dead (chapter 11). The author’s portrayal of Jesus is quite different too; unlike in the other three Gospels, Jesus spends much of his time explaining who he is (the one sent from heaven) and doing “signs” in order to prove that what he says about himself is true.
John no doubt had sources for his account --- possibly a source that narrated Jesus’s signs, for example, and sources that described his discourses. 18
He puts these sources together into his own flowing narrative of Jesus’s life, ministry, death, and resurrection. It is possible, though, that John actually produced several different versions of his Gospel. Readers have long noted, for example, that chapter 21 appears to be a later add-on. The Gospel certainly seems to come to an end in 20:30-31; and the events of chapter 21 seem to be a kind of afterthought, possible added to fill out the stories of Jesus’s resurrection appearances and to explain that when the “beloved disciple” responsible for narrating the traditions in the Gospel had died, this was not unforeseen (cf, 21:22-23).
Other passages of the Gospel also do not cohere completely with the rest. Even the opening verses 1:1-18, which form a kind of prologue to the Gospel, appear to be different from the rest. This highly celebrated poem speaks of the “Word” of God, who “became flesh” in Jesus Christ. The passage is written in a highly poetic style not found in the rest of the Gospel; moreover, while its central themes are repeated in the rest of the narrative, some of its most important vocabulary is not. Thus Jesus is portrayed throughout the narrative as the one who came from above, but never is he called the Word elsewhere in the Gospel. Is it possible that this opening passage came from a different source than the rest of the account, and that it was added as an appropriate beginning by the author after an earlier edition of the book had already been published?
Assume, for a second, just for the sake of the argument, that chapter 21 and 1:1-18 were not original components of the Gospel. What does that do for the textual critic who wants to reconstruct the “original” text? Which original is being constructed? All our Greek manuscripts contain the passages in question. So does the textual critic reconstruct as the original text the form of the Gospel that originally contained the? But shouldn’t we consider the “original” form to be the earlier version, which lacked them? And if one wants to reconstruct that earlier form, is it fair to stop there, with reconstructing, say, the first edition of John’s Gospel? Why not go even further and try to reconstruct the sources that lie behind the Gospel, such as the signs sources and the discourse sources, or even the oral tradition that lie behind them?
These are questions that plague textual critics, and that have led some to argue that we should abandon any quest for the original text --- since we can’t even agree on what it might mean to talk about the “original” of, say, Galatians or John. For my part, however, I continue to think that even if we cannot be 100 percent certain about what we can attain to, we can at least be certain that all the surviving manuscripts were copied from other manuscripts, which were themselves copied from other manuscripts, and that it is at least possible to get back to the oldest and earliest stage of the manuscript tradition for each of the books of the New Testament. All our manuscripts of Galatians, for example, evidently go back to some text that was copied; all our manuscripts of John evidently go back to a version of John that including the prologue and chapter 21. And so, we must rest content knowing that getting back to the earliest attainable version is the best we can do, whether or not we have reached back to the “original” text. This oldest form of the text is no doubt closely (very closely) related to what the author originally wrote, and so it is the basis for out interpretation of his teaching.
Reconstructing the Texts of
The New Testament
Similar problems, of course, apply to all our early Christian writings, both those in the New Testament and those outside it, whether gospels, acts, epistles, apocalypse, or any of the other kinds of early Christian writing. The task of the textual critic is to determine what the earliest form of the text is for all these writings. As we will see, there are established principle for making this determination, ways of deciding which differences in our manuscripts are mistakes, which are intentional changes, and which appear to go back to the original author. But it’s not an easy task.
The results, on the other hand, can be extremely enlightening, interesting, and even exciting. Textual critics have been able to determine with relative certainty a number of places in which manuscripts that survive do not represent the original text of the New Testament. For those who are not at all familiar with the field, but who know the New Testament well (say, in English translation), some of the results can be surprising. To conclude this chapter, I will discuss two such passages --- passages from the Gospels, in this case, that we are now fairly certain did not originally belong in the New Testament, even though they became popular parts of the Bible for Christians down through the centuries and remain so today.
The Woman Taken in Adultery
The story of Jesus and the woman taken in adultery is arguably the best-known story about Jesus in the Bible; it certainly has always been a favorite in Hollywood versions of his life. It even makes it into Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ, although that movie focuses only on Jesus’s last hours (the story is treated in one of the rare flashbacks). Despite its popularity, the account is found in only one passage of the New Testament, in John 7:53 - 8:1, and it appears not to have been original even there.
The story line is familiar. Jesus is teaching in the temple, and a group of scribes and Pharisees, his sworn enemies, approach him, bringing with them a woman “who had been caught in the very act of adultery.” They bring her before Jesus because they want to put him to the test. The Law of Moses, as they tell him, demands that such a one be stoned to death. Should they stone her or show her mercy? It is a trap, of course. If Jesus tells them to let the woman go, he will be accused of violating the Law of God; if he tells them to stone her, he will be accused of dismissing his own teachings of love, mercy, and forgiveness.
Jesus does not immediately reply; instead, he stoops to write on the ground. When they continue to question him, he says to them, “Let the one who is without sin among you be the first to cast a stone at her.” He then returns to his writing on the ground, while those who have brought the woman start to leave the scene --- evidently feeling convicted of their own wrongdoing --- until no one is left but the woman. Looking up, Jesus says, “Woman, where are they? Is there no one who condemns you?” To which she replies, “No one, Lord.” He then responds, “Neither do I condemn you. Go and sin no more.”
It is a brilliant story, filled with pathos and a clever twist in which Jesus uses his wits to get himself --- not to mention the poor woman --- off the hook. Of course, to a careful reader, the story raises numerous questions. If this woman was caught in adultery, for example, where is the man she was caught with? Both of them are to be stoned, according to the Law of Moses (see Lev. 20:10). Moreover, when Jesus wrote on the ground, what exactly was he writing? (According to one ancient tradition, he was writing the sins of the accusers, who seeing that their own transgressions were known, left in embarrassment!) And even if Jesus did teach a message of love, did he really think that the Law of God given by Moses was no longer in force and should not be obeyed? Did he think sins should not be punished at all?
Despite the brilliance of the story, its captivating quality, and its inherent intrigue, there is one other enormous problem that it poses. As it turns out, it was not originally in the Gospel of John. In fact, it was not originally part of any of the Gospels. It was added by later scribes.
How do we know this? In fact, scholars who work on the manuscript tradition have no doubts about this particular case. Later in this book we will be examining in great depths the kinds of evidence that scholars adduce for making judgements of this sort. Here I can simply point out a few basic facts that have proved convincing to nearly all scholars of every persuasion: the story is not found in our oldest and best manuscripts of the Gospel of John;18 its writing style is very different from what we find in the rest of John (including the stories immediately before and after); and it includes a large number of words and phrases that are otherwise alien to the Gospel. The conclusion is unavoidable: this passage was not originally part of the Gospel.
How then did it come to be added? There are numerous theories about that. Most scholars think that it was probably a well-known story circulating in the oral tradition about Jesus, which at some point was added in the margin of a manuscript. From there some scribe or other thought that the marginal note was meant to be part of the text and so inserted it immediately after the account that ends in John 7:52. It is noteworthy that other scribes inserted the account in different locations in the New Testament --- some of them after John 21:25, for example, and others, interestingly enough, after Luke 21:38. In any event, whosoever wrote the account, it was not John.
That naturally leaves readers with a dilemma: if this story was not originally part of John, should it be considered part of the Bible? Not everyone will respond to this question in the same way, but for most textual critics, the answer is no.
The Last Twelve Verses of Mark
The second example that we will consider may not be as familiar to the casual reader of the Bible, but it has been highly influential in the history of the biblical interpretation and poses comparable problems for the scholars of the textual tradition of the New Testament. This example comes from the Gospel of Mark and concerns its ending.
In Mark’s account, we are told that Jesus is crucified and then buried by Joseph of Arimathea on the day before the Sabbath (15:42-47). On the day after Sabbath, Mary Magdalene and two other women come back to the tomb in order properly to anoint the body (16:1-2). When they arrive, they find that the stone has been rolled away. Entering the tomb, they see a young man in a white robe, who tells them. “Do not be startled! You are seeking Jesus the Nazarene, who has been crucified. He has been raised and is not here --- see the place where they laid him?” He then instructs the women to tell the disciples that Jesus is preceding them into Galilee and that they will see him there, “just as he told you.” But the women flee the tomb and say nothing to anyone, “for they were afraid” (16:4-8).
Then come the last twelve verses of Mark in many modern English translations, verses that continue the story. Jesus himself is said to appear to Mary Magdalene, who goes and tells the disciples; but they do not believe her (vv. 9-11). He then appears to two others (vv. 12-14), and finally to the eleven disciples (the Twelve, not including Judas Iscariot) who are gathered together at table. Jesus upbraids them for failing to believe, and then commissions them to go forth and proclaim his gospel “to the whole creation.” Those who believe and are baptized “will be saved,” but those who do not “will be condemned.” And then come two of the most intriguing verses of the passage:
And these are the signs that will accompany those who believe: they will cast out demons in my name; they will speak in new tongues; and they will take up snakes in their hands; and if they drink any poison, it will not harm them; they will place their hands upon the sick and heal them (vv. 17-18)
Jesus is then taken up into heaven, and seated at the right hand of God. And the disciples go forth into the world proclaiming the gospel, their being confirmed by the signs that accompany them (vv. 19-20).
It is a terrific passage, mysterious, moving and powerful. It is one of the passages used by Pentecostal Christians to show that Jesus’s followers will be able to speak in unknown “tongues,” as happened in their own services of worship; and it is the principal passage used by “Appalachian snake handlers,” who till this day take poisonous snakes in their hands in order to demonstrate their faith in the words of Jesus, that when doing so they will come to no harm.
But there’s one problem. Once again, this passage was not original in the Gospel of Mark. It was added by a later scribe.
In some ways this textual problem is more disputed than the passages about the woman taken in adultery, because without these final verses Mark has a very different, and hard to understand, ending. That doesn’t mean that scholars are inclined to accept the verses, as we’ll see momentarily. The reasons for taking them to be an addition are solid, almost indisputable. But scholars’ debate what the genuine ending of Mark actually was, given the circumstance that this ending found in many English translations (though usually marked as inauthentic) and in later Greek manuscripts is not the original.
The evidence that these verses were not original to Mark is similar in kind to that for the passage about the woman taken in adultery, and again I don’t need to go into all the details here. The verses are absent from our two oldest and best manuscripts of Mark’s Gospel, along with other important witnesses; the writing style varies from what we find elsewhere in Mark; the transition between this passage and the one preceding it is hard to understand (e.g., Mary Magdalene is introduced in verse 9 as if she hadn’t been mentioned yet, even though she is discussed in the preceding verses; there is another problem with the Greek that makes the translation even more awkward; and there are a large number of words and phrases in the passages that are not found elsewhere in Mark. In short, the evidence is sufficient to convince nearly all textual scholars that these verses are in addition to Mark.
Without them, though, the story ends rather abruptly. Notice what happens when these verses are taken away. The women are told to inform the disciples that Jesus will precede them to Galilee and meet them there; but they, the women, flee the tomb and say nothing to anyone, “for they were afraid.” And that’s where the Gospel ends.
Obviously, scribes thought the ending was too abrupt. The women told no one? Then, did the disciple never learn of the resurrection? And didn’t Jesus himself ever appear to them? How could that be the ending! To resolve the problem, scribes added an ending. 19
Some scholars agree with the scribes in thinking that 16:8 is too abrupt an ending for a Gospel. As I have indicated, it is not that these scholars believe the final twelve verses in our later manuscripts were the original ending --- they know that’s not the case --- but they think that, possibly, the last page of Mark’s Gospel, one in which Jesus actually did meet the disciples in Galilee, was somewhere lost, and that all our copies of the Gospel go back to this one truncated manuscript, without the past page.
The explanation is entirely possible. It is also possible, in the opinion of yet other scholars, that Mark did indeed mean to end his Gospel with 16:8. 20
It certainly is a shocker of an ending. The disciples never learn the truth of Jesus’s resurrection because the women never tell them. One reason for thinking that this could be how Mark ended his Gospel is that some such ending coincides so well with other motifs throughout his Gospel. As students of Mark have long noticed, the disciples never do seem to “get it” in this Gospel (unlike in some of the other Gospels). They are repeatedly said not to understand Jesus(6:51-52; 8:21), and when Jesus tells them on several occasions that he must suffer and die, they manifestly fail to comprehend his words (8:31-33; 9:30-32; 10:33-40). Maybe, in fact, they never did come to understand (unlike Mark’s readers, who can understand who Jesus really is from the very beginning). Also, it is interesting to note that throughout Mark, when someone comes to understand something about Jesus, Jesus orders that person to silence --- and yet often the person ignores the order and spreads the news (e.g., 1:43-45). How ironic that when the women at the tomb are told not to be silent but to speak, they also ignore the order --- and are silent!
In short, Mark may well have intended to bring his reader up short with this abrupt ending --- a clever way to make the reader stop, take a faltering breath, and ask: What?
Conclusion
The passages discussed above represent just two out of thousands of places in which the manuscripts of the New Testament came to be changed by scribes. In both of the examples, we are dealing with additions that scribes made to the text, additions of sizable length. Although most of the changes are not of this magnitude, there are lots of significant changes (and lots more significant ones) in our surviving manuscripts of the New Testament. In the chapters that follow we will want to see how scholars began to discover these changes and how they developed methods of figuring out what the oldest form of the text (or the “original” text) is; we will especially like to see more examples of where this text has been changed --- and how these changes affected our English translations of the Bible.
I would like to end this chapter simply with an observation about a particularly acute irony that we seem to have discovered. As we saw in chapter 1, Christianity from the outset was a bookish religion that stressed certain texts as authoritive scripture. As we have seen in this chapter, however, we don’t actually have these authoritive texts. This is a textually oriented religion whose texts have been changed, surviving only in copies that vary from one another, sometimes in highly significant ways. The task of the textual critic is to try to recover the oldest form of these texts.
This is obviously a crucial task, since we can’t interpret the words of the New Testament if we don’t know what the words were. Moreover, as I hope should be clear by now, knowing the words is important not just for those who consider the words divinely inspired. It is important for anyone who thinks of the New Testament as a significant book. And surely everyone interested in the history, society, and culture of Western civilization thinks so, because the New Testament, if nothing else, is an enormous cultural artifact, a book that is revered by millions and that lies at the foundation of the largest religion of the world today.
In Other Words
As we can see the Holy Bible has passed through the hands of many, and not maintained its original manuscript purity. The hands of those scribes and other have made so many changes to it it is difficult to understand what is and what is not truth. The wisdom of God has been mishandled for centuries. Used as a tool to conquer many other civilizations. It is easy for man to stand behind the Bible and pass judgement upon other cultures, for the benefit of overturning their society for material possessions.
Is this not what happened to the Native American culture, who still live on reservations? Also, the African nations hunted like animals for slavery, when and were does these actions come from the teachings of Jesus Christ our Lord Savior, example and teacher.
Man has tossed away the wisdom of God and developed his own dogma which he now worships, we must return to Jesus Christ’s and our Father's teachings, we must find the truth in the wisdom of the Bible instead of distorting it for our own commercialization of God. It is up to us not to follow dogma but seek the truth, left to us in many manuscripts, seek and you will find, knock and the door will open.
If we just follow the examples and teachings of Jesus Christ, we have a better chance of becoming what God expects us to become, in his image!
Read Chapter John 17 know to many as the high priest prayer, learn that God our Father and Jesus Christ both reside in us and together we become perfect in one.
John Chapter 17
1 These words spake Jesus, and lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, Father, the hour is come; glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee:
2 As thou hast given him power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him.
3 And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.
4 I have glorified thee on the earth: I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do.
5 And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was.
6 I have manifested thy name unto the men which thou gavest me out of the world: thine they were, and thou gavest them me; and they have kept thy word.
7 Now they have known that all things whatsoever thou hast given me are of thee.
8 For I have given unto them the words which thou gavest me; and they have received them, and have known surely that I came out from thee, and they have believed that thou didst send me.
9 I pray for them: I pray not for the world, but for them which thou hast given me; for they are thine.
Note Jesus understand the pull of the world against mankind fully realizing the potential God intended for us.
10 And all mine are thine, and thine are mine; and I am glorified in them.
11 And now I am no more in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to thee. Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one, as we are.
Wanting us to become one with our Father and Jesus, becoming perfect in one. "Amen"
12 While I was with them in the world, I kept them in thy name: those that thou gavest me I have kept, and none of them is lost, but the son of perdition; that the scripture might be fulfilled.
13 And now come I to thee; and these things I speak in the world, that they might have my joy fulfilled in themselves.
14 I have given them thy word; and the world hath hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.
15 I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil.
16 They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.
17 Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth.
Is the words we read actually truth or has it been so mishandled by man, manipulated for man’s needs.
18 As thou hast sent me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world.
19 And for their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth.
We are saved through sanctification by Jesus Christ Truths spoken of how we must live in peace and harmony. We all have a piece of God in us, not just the life force, soul mind. We should not be at war with our own kind no matte what culture, race they maybe. All are God's children and we should not judge anyone. "Amen"
20 Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word;
We should believe in the word for it should be truth, but is it pure truth or misguided truth? It is not wrong to ask questions in order to find the true wisdom of God.
21 That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.
Our Lord’s promises of being one with God and His Son, becoming whole.
22 And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one:
Further proof of our glory we will receive form and through Jesus.
23 I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me.
Becoming perfect as God would have us be, only if we live as Jesus and His Father has taught us.
24 Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am; that they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me: for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world.
25 O righteous Father, the world hath not known thee: but I have known thee, and these have known that thou hast sent me.
Truly knowing our Lord even if just by the words of the Apostles handed down to us, but they must be truth.
26 And I have declared unto them thy name, and will declare it: that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them.
We becoming perfect in one, as promised. “Amen”
Sincerely,
Rev. Joseph Esquivel ULC
God’s Faith in Man Church