Christians Who Really Do Love Jesus

Saint John, for the God of Love

Recently, while reading an article by Mark Hackett titled The white evangelical elite are saying the quiet part out loud, I came across a phrase that really struck me. The phrase was in the sentence:

So, they are doubling down on the only real strategy they’ve ever had: enforce idolatry to cultural conformity instead of unity in Christ, even if it means crushing Christians who really do love Jesus.

The phrase that I found striking was “Christians who really do love Jesus”.

I consider myself fairly well-read in the genre of Biblical texts, but I never noticed such a focus on love. Then I realized that John is the source of this tradition. John mentions love 57 times in his Gospel, more than the other three Gospels combined. The First Epistle of John uses the word 46 times.

I don’t read John. Those who have been following along as I explain my understanding of the hidden history of Christianity, which I call Chryptianity, will remember that John the Baptist was the son of Simon Magus as was Jesus.

Jesus betrayed John by convincing his follower, Salome, to ask Herod to have John castrated. Originally, Simon had arranged things with Herodias, Salome’s mother, for Salome to ask Herod to allow her to marry the Baptist. Simon’s plan was to elevate his social standing as well as securing lasting peace between volatile Hebrew factions and the Roman Empire.

Instead, Jesus seduced Salome who convinced her mother that he would be a better messiah than the barbarian Baptist with his cult of the drowned. John lost his manhood. Jesus then felt great pity and remorse for his brother and he helped him to survive the castration with knowledge gained from his time among the followers of the goddess Ashtoreth.

Still, John went from being a messiah king to being made a eunuch for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. John had been on the verge of untold wealth and power. With his wife, princess Salome, the seductress, he would have fathered an imperial dynasty.

But it was all snatched away by the royal surgeon. And so John’s thoughts turned from an earthly kingdom and instead towards a heavenly one. John the Baptist, one of the sons of Thunder, became John the evangelist.

Notice his chalice of poison as marked by the serpent. John's words are poisonous to those who approach the Bible as a collection of puzzles to be solved. The synoptic Gospels contain dozens of interlocking literary puzzles. The books of John contain various literary boobytraps designed to mislead and ensnare those attempting to decrypt the secrets of Jesus.

New Christians are directed to read the Gospel of John first. But that’s not all. They are told to read it over and over again. To study it until the words are engraved on one’s heart. To those of you who think that I might be exaggerating: Read this.

John is where all that whole love of Jesus Christ for humanity, the love of Christians for Christ, and the love of Christians for others business comes from.

“Please, advise me as to which books I should read as I begin to study the Bible.”

Just read this one book. Study it. Immerse yourself in its poetic imagery.

In the beginning, was the Word.

Feel it.

And the Word was with God.

Breathe it.

And the Word was God.

Lose yourself in the symbolism and hypnagogic imagery. Congratulations, you are now vaccinated against the type of thinking required to decrypt the synoptic gospels.

There is only one safe way to approach the Bible and that is through John’s Gospel. But that way is filled with cobwebs. It is bad enough after one walk through the Gospel but after repeated walkthroughs, people come out covered in cobwebs inches deep.

Then as they continue on through the Bible, they are only dimly perceiving the part of the Bible they currently occupy, because they are forced to view everything through the veil of cobwebs they had accumulated while repeatedly walking through John’s Gospel.

Everything is seen through the veil of John. John, who was to marry Salome and become the Judaic messiah king. Until Jesus with all his theories, riddles, and priestesses betrayed him and stole his manhood.

John later formed a community, a school of thought, founded with a single purpose, to guard the lost teachings of Jesus from any aspiring future messiahs.

This school was opposed by the school of Thomas, which was tasked with preserving the secret teachings of Jesus until the time came for their revelation.

And it seemed that John had won. The Gospel of Thomas and various other texts needed for the decryption of the Gospels were gone. Wiped from the face of the earth. John had done his job too well. The school of Thomas had been completely eradicated.

John may have been originally tasked with keeping away any thieves that might have decrypted some secrets too early. Saving these secrets until the proper time when the designated potential messiah shows up and he is ritually challenged with solving a sacred riddle or two.

But John went too far and no one remained who knew the solution to the sacred riddles. In fact, no one remained who knew that there were puzzles in need of solving.

In time, the false theology that John had constructed to distract from the secrets of Jesus became the only theology that exists. Once any threat of the secret becoming known is eliminated, all of those who understand that such a secret exists must be eliminated as well. Until all that is left is someone cleaning up after an apparent suicide.

Once the secret is truly safe, all that remains are the four faces of John. John’s Gospel, John’s Apocalypse, John’s Apocryphon, and John’s Epistles continue to mold minds and influence behavior.

1 Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. 2 This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, 3 but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world. (1Jo 4:1–3 NIV)

What does John tell us here? He tells us that some have Jesus Christ claimed that Jesus Christ is not a real flesh and blood person. Perhaps they claimed that he is a literary creation. He is the main character in the synoptic and Infancy Gospels and among other works from the school of Thomas.

Who is Jesus?

Is he the son of God or is he the son and grandson of a fallen angel? The same verses can be understood differently due to the maturity of the listener.

The innocent accept that the angel who informs Mary of her pregnancy is just a messenger of God and has nothing to do with her getting pregnant. Adults understand the reality behind the story’s innocent facade.

This is a fallen angel who has decided to complicate matters by spawning a group of Nephilim. Mary, the broodmare. John the Baptist. James the Just. Jesus Christ. Judas Thomas Iscariot.

In the synoptic texts, the parables are actually riddles with solutions that can be unlocked. The entire story is designed to be slowly uncovered as the synoptic Gospels are reread and studied sequentially from beginning to end, think of a horizontal line with the past to the left and the future to the right.

The synoptic Gospels should also be studied vertically. This horizontal line has three layers with Mark on the bottom, Matthew in the middle, and Luke along the top. This is for examining the parallels, where the good stuff is hidden.

But then John came and said, “No. There is only one version of the story and that’s the one where Jesus Christ is the son of God. This story is literally the God’s honest truth and if you see anything that tells you differently, it was put there by the devil.”

The synoptic Gospels are designed to be unlocked as one becomes older and wiser in the way of the world. Each puzzle once solved helps reveal more of the larger story’s hidden complexity.

John locks all of that away, throws away the key, and makes it taboo to even ask about the key. What key? Who told you about this supposed key? Pray that we find them so that they can be made to confess all that they know. And then, when they have told all that they know and their claims have been confirmed, they will be made to disappear. Forever. And then you will be made to disappear. Forever.

Until finally only the torturer knows what it is his clients confessed to knowing. And then he swallows the key and closes his eyes forever.

4 You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world. 5 They are from the world and therefore speak from the viewpoint of the world, and the world listens to them. 6 We are from God, and whoever knows God listens to us; but whoever is not from God does not listen to us. This is how we recognize the Spirit of truth and the spirit of falsehood. (1Jo 4:4–6 NIV)

How do we decide what is true and what is false? It’s really pretty simple. Those who listen to us, know God, and those that don’t listen to us, don’t know God. So basically, things are whatever we say they are, and if you say different, then you are wrong.

7 Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. (1Jo 4:7–8 NIV)

God is love. But guess who does not know God’s love. That’s right, those who would suggest that Jesus Christ is a fictional character whose story can be unlocked if we’d just ignore John and his constant jabbering about love.

9 This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11 Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us. (1Jo 4:9–12 NIV)

So anyway, back to “Christians who really do love Jesus.” When I read that, I’m like, Christians love Jesus? What does that even mean?

Lee Child, the creator of the character Jack Reacher, says that he loves the Gray Man.

Is that what we are talking about here? Both Jack Reach and Cort Gentry are fictional characters willing to sacrifice their lives if it means saving some good people in need.

No. According to John, it is deeper than that.

13 We know that we live in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. 14 And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. 15 If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in him and he in God. 16 And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him. (1Jo 4:13–16 NIV)

So much love everywhere. It’s like being on the surface of the Sun if the Sun was a massive burning sphere of blinding love.

17 In this way, love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment, because in this world we are like him. 18 There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love. 19 We love because he first loved us. 20 If anyone says, “I love God,” yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. 21 And he has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother. (1Jo 4:17–21 NIV)

This John guy seems ok. … Until we remember that a brother is either someone from your family or community. Not someone from the outside world who might cast doubt on Jesus Christ being the son of God. Such people never knew love because they never knew God. Jesus died so that everyone could enter Heaven using his passcode. But it only works if you acknowledge that he is the son of God.

If you testify that Jesus is the son of God, well then, good sir or madam, I am pleased to inform you that his sacrifice was sufficient to provide you with a place in heaven, which is really more than you deserve. Your ancestors were trash. Still, thanks to God’s perfect love, you have all been allowed to enter under the condition that you testify that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.

If you are ready to claim with a straight face that Jesus Christ is the Son of God then you know that God’s love is not for this world. If your brother refuses to state, for the record, that Jesus Christ is the Son of God then, he is no longer your brother.

That’s how much some Christians love Jesus.

Scriptures taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com The “NIV” and “New International Version” are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™