QUICK FACTS: 1 JOHN 3:16 — DID THE KING JAMES BIBLE ADD “OF GOD”?
Does 1 John 3:16 Really Say That God Laid Down His Life for Us?
Research by Simon Brown
wwwrealdiscoveriesorg-simon.blogspot.com
AN IMPORTANT DIFFERENCE IN 1 JOHN 3:16
There is a striking difference between the King James Version of 1 John 3:16 and most modern translations.
The King James Bible reads:
“Hereby perceive we the love of God, because he laid down his life for us: and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.”
1 John 3:16 — KJV
Read naturally, this wording can give the impression that:
GOD LAID DOWN HIS LIFE FOR US.
This is especially significant in the debate over whether Jesus is God, because the person who laid down his life for us was unquestionably:
JESUS CHRIST.
But does the Greek text of 1 John 3:16 actually say:
“THE LOVE OF GOD”?
That is where this investigation becomes very interesting.
WHAT DOES THE GREEK TEXT SAY?
Many important Greek textual traditions read:
Ἐν τούτῳ ἐγνώκαμεν τὴν ἀγάπην...
The important words are:
τὴν ἀγάπην
tēn agapēn
Meaning:
“THE LOVE.”
There is no tou theou — “of God” — in this reading.
The Byzantine/Majority Text omits the words.
Stephanus' 1550 Textus Receptus omits them.
Elzevir's 1624 Textus Receptus omits them.
And the modern critical Greek text likewise does not contain them. (Textus Receptus Bibles)
That is extremely important.
BUT THERE IS AN IMPORTANT TEXTUAL VARIANT
In researching this more carefully, we should acknowledge something my original article did not explain.
The words:
τοῦ Θεοῦ
tou theou
“OF GOD”
do appear in Theodore Beza's 1598 Greek New Testament.
Scrivener's later reconstruction of the Greek text underlying the KJV also contains them. (textus-receptus.com)
Therefore, we should not accuse the King James translators of simply inventing the words “of God” and inserting them into the English Bible without any Greek textual basis.
They had a Greek textual tradition available to them that contained those words.
But this leads us to the much more important question:
DO THOSE WORDS BELONG TO THE ORIGINAL TEXT OF 1 JOHN?
That is the real issue.
COMPARE THE GREEK TEXTS
STEPHANUS 1550
Reads essentially:
“BY THIS WE KNOW THE LOVE, BECAUSE HE LAID DOWN HIS LIFE FOR US...”
There is no:
“OF GOD.”
BEZA 1598
Reads:
“BY THIS WE KNOW THE LOVE OF GOD, BECAUSE HE LAID DOWN HIS LIFE FOR US...”
Beza contains:
τοῦ Θεοῦ — “OF GOD.”
ELZEVIR 1624
Again omits:
“OF GOD.”
BYZANTINE / MAJORITY TEXT
Also omits:
“OF GOD.”
So even within editions belonging to the broad Textus Receptus tradition, there was disagreement over these two Greek words. (Textus Receptus Bibles)
This is not merely a difference between the King James Bible and modern translations.
There was a textual difference among the printed Greek editions themselves.
WHAT DOES THE MANUSCRIPT EVIDENCE SHOW?
The reading “of God” has comparatively weak Greek manuscript support.
Even a source defending the KJV reading acknowledges that the surviving witnesses supporting it are “few and late.” That source nevertheless argues for retaining the words on contextual grounds. (kjvtoday.net)
This distinction is important.
There are really two separate questions:
1. Did the KJV translators have a Greek source containing “of God”?
YES.
Beza's Greek text contained it.
2. Does that prove “of God” was part of John's original text?
NO.
That question has to be decided from the textual evidence.
And the widespread omission of tou theou is precisely why most modern translations do not put “of God” into 1 John 3:16.
COMPARE THE TRANSLATIONS
KING JAMES VERSION
“Hereby perceive we the love of God, because he laid down his life for us...”
NEW KING JAMES VERSION
“By this we know love, because He laid down His life for us.”
WORLD ENGLISH BIBLE
“By this we know love, because he laid down his life for us.”
ENGLISH STANDARD VERSION
“By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us...”
BEREAN STANDARD BIBLE
“By this we know what love is: Jesus laid down His life for us...”
The difference is obvious. (Bible Hub)
Most of these translations do not say:
“THE LOVE OF GOD.”
They say:
“LOVE.”
WHO IS THE “HE” WHO LAID DOWN HIS LIFE?
This is one of the easiest questions in the investigation.
Jesus said:
“I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.”
John 10:11
Jesus continues:
“Therefore the Father loves me, because I lay down my life, that I may take it again.”
John 10:17
The person who laid down his life was:
JESUS CHRIST.
So 1 John 3:16 is describing the sacrificial love demonstrated when:
JESUS LAID DOWN HIS LIFE FOR US.
GOD SENT HIS SON
John explains this relationship beautifully in the following chapter:
“By this God's love was revealed in us, that God has sent his only born Son into the world that we might live through him.”
1 John 4:9 — WEB
Notice carefully:
GOD SENT.
and:
HIS SON WAS SENT.
John continues:
“In this is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son as the atoning sacrifice for our sins.”
1 John 4:10 — WEB
God demonstrated His love by sending His Son.
His Son Jesus Christ laid down his life for us.
PAUL MAKES THE SAME DISTINCTION
Paul writes:
“But God commends his own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”
Romans 5:8 — WEB
Notice Paul's language:
GOD SHOWED HIS LOVE.
How?
CHRIST DIED FOR US.
Interestingly, Beza himself apparently connected 1 John 3:16 with Romans 5:8. (kjvtoday.net)
But Romans 5:8 actually preserves a very clear distinction:
GOD
and:
CHRIST WHO DIED.
Therefore, even the expression “love of God” does not necessarily mean that the following pronoun must identify God as the person who died.
That grammatical point should be acknowledged.
Nevertheless, the textual question remains:
DID JOHN ACTUALLY WRITE “OF GOD” IN 1 JOHN 3:16?
The evidence gives us good reason to question that reading.
GOD RAISED JESUS FROM THE DEAD
Peter preached:
“This Jesus God raised up, to which we all are witnesses.”
Acts 2:32 — WEB
And again:
“The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom you killed, hanging him on a tree.”
Acts 5:30 — WEB
The apostolic distinction is straightforward:
JESUS DIED.
GOD RAISED JESUS.
This is why I believe translations should be particularly careful not to introduce wording that can obscure that distinction.
DOES THIS PROVE THE KJV TRANSLATORS WERE DELIBERATELY PROMOTING THE TRINITY?
NO — AND I WANT TO BE PRECISE ABOUT THIS.
My objection is to the reading, not an accusation that I can prove the motives of the King James translators.
Because Beza's 1598 Greek text contains tou theou, there was a textual basis available to the translators for “of God.”
Therefore I cannot legitimately claim:
“The KJV translators knowingly invented these words to deceive Christians into believing Jesus is God.”
The historical evidence presented here does not prove that.
What I can say is:
I BELIEVE “OF GOD” IS NOT THE ORIGINAL READING OF 1 JOHN 3:16.
And because the KJV includes those words, I believe its rendering at this point gives readers a misleading wording compared with the better-attested shorter reading.
That is a textual argument we can actually investigate.
AN IMPORTANT CLARIFICATION ABOUT MY ORIGINAL ARTICLE
My original article also included a section criticizing KJV Onlyism and discussing Erasmus, the Apocrypha, Pope Leo X and other historical matters.
I want to make something very clear:
THOSE CLAIMS DID NOT ORIGINATE WITH ME.
I was quoting material published by Evangelical Outreach in an article titled:
“KJV ONLYISM IS NOT GOOD.”
The article states, among other things, that the 1611 KJV included the Apocrypha; that Erasmus was a Roman Catholic priest; that he dedicated his Greek New Testament to Pope Leo X; and it makes additional claims concerning Erasmus, his manuscripts and his statements concerning Mary. (Evangelical Outreach)
These were:
CLAIMS MADE BY THE AUTHOR OF THAT ARTICLE,
not historical claims that originated from my own research.
This distinction matters.
AND THERE IS ANOTHER IMPORTANT POINT
The source I quoted is itself written from an evangelical Christian perspective that accepts Trinitarian Christianity.
Therefore, I was not quoting an anti-Trinitarian source attacking the KJV because of the Trinity.
I was showing that criticism of KJV Onlyism also comes from Christians who themselves accept traditional Trinitarian theology.
That makes the quotation relevant historically to my old article.
However:
THIS PRESENT ARTICLE IS NOT AN INVESTIGATION OF ERASMUS.
Nor is it an investigation of every criticism that Evangelical Outreach makes concerning the King James Bible.
Those claims deserve to be examined separately.
A FUTURE INVESTIGATION
Rather than simply repeating those claims, I intend to investigate them individually in a separate article.
We can ask:
Did the original 1611 KJV contain the Apocrypha?
What exactly was Erasmus' relationship with the Roman Catholic Church?
Why did he dedicate his Greek New Testament to Pope Leo X?
Which Greek manuscripts did Erasmus actually use?
What happened with the final verses of Revelation?
What did Erasmus really write about Mary, and what was the context?
How much did Erasmus, Stephanus and Beza actually influence the Greek textual tradition behind the KJV?
Those are historical questions.
They deserve documentation from primary and scholarly sources rather than being assumed true merely because another Christian writer says so.
That will make an excellent separate investigation.
BUT THIS ARTICLE IS ABOUT 1 JOHN 3:16
And here the evidence is much more focused.
The KJV reads:
“THE LOVE OF GOD.”
Beza 1598 contains:
τοῦ Θεοῦ — “OF GOD.”
But Stephanus 1550 omits it.
Elzevir 1624 omits it.
The Byzantine/Majority Text omits it.
And the modern critical Greek text omits it. (Textus Receptus Bibles)
Therefore the issue cannot simply be dismissed as:
“Modern Bibles removed the words.”
The disagreement existed within the Greek textual tradition itself.
SO WHAT DID JOHN MOST LIKELY WRITE?
The shorter reading gives us:
“By this we know love, because he laid down his life for us...”
The identity of the one who laid down his life is:
JESUS CHRIST.
God:
SENT HIS SON.
Jesus:
LAID DOWN HIS LIFE.
And God:
RAISED JESUS FROM THE DEAD.
That distinction appears repeatedly throughout the New Testament.
CONCLUSION
I believe the King James Version contains a textually questionable reading in 1 John 3:16 when it says:
“THE LOVE OF GOD.”
I would therefore not use the KJV wording as evidence that:
GOD HIMSELF LAID DOWN HIS LIFE.
At the same time, careful research requires me to acknowledge that the KJV translators did not simply invent “of God.”
The words occur in Beza's 1598 Greek text.
The deeper question is whether they were actually written by John.
And when we compare the wider Greek textual evidence, there are strong reasons for accepting the shorter reading:
“BY THIS WE KNOW LOVE, BECAUSE HE LAID DOWN HIS LIFE FOR US.”
Who laid down his life?
JESUS CHRIST.
Who sent him?
GOD HIS FATHER.
Who raised him from the dead?
GOD.
And what did John say he wanted us to believe?
“Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God.”
John 20:31
That is why this investigation should ultimately be about what John actually wrote, rather than defending one English translation at all costs.
Research by Simon Brown
wwwrealdiscoveriesorg-simon.blogspot.com
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