Life Before Death: A Study of Judgment and Eternal Life in John's Gospel

Many Christians believe the primary reason for following Jesus is to escape eternal punishment in Hell and thus, the gospel message presented takes the form of the threat, "believe this or you will be punished." This thesis focuses on the Gospel of John, in order to establish whether Jesus presented the gospel this way and to ascertain how much judgment is part of his evangelistic message. By paying careful attention to the etymology of the key words and their context, the methodology was to examine: 1) John 3:16 as a distillation of the message, particularly the use of αἰώνιος ζωή, πίστις and ἀπόλλυμι; and 2) the use of κρίσις in three passages in the Fourth Gospel - John 3:17-19, 5:24-30 and 12:44-50. In each of these judgment discourses, the person to whom Jesus was speaking was a member of the Jewish ruling council and his message was one of rebuke. The implications of these findings are that the good news invitation of Jesus in the Gospel of John does not contain the threat of judgmen and thus, raises the question whether that message has changed today.