Bob Wilkin recently posted an article on the Grace Evangelical Society (GES) website pertaining to this issue.1 In the article, Wilkin describes why he thinks the original wording of John 6:47 in the Greek NT manuscripts included the words “in Me”. But what he conveniently fails to mention is that the oldest Greek manuscripts omit those words in John 6:47! This is a key piece of evidence, and the fact that Wilkin completely fails to even mention it makes it appear that he is being less than forthright with the facts. The closest that Wilkin comes to admitting that the oldest Greek manuscripts don’t include the words “in Me” in John 6:47 is when he writes the following:
“There are hundreds of manuscripts from what is known as the Byzantine text type that agree that in Me (eis eme) was in the original manuscript in John 6:47. This is called the undivided majority text.
Eight manuscripts omit in Me (p66, Aleph, B, L, T, W, Theta, and 892).
Several hundred manuscripts include in Me. Eight omit the words. Which do you think is more likely the original?”2 (Answer: The oldest ones! I.e., not the Byzantine text type manuscripts.)
In response to Wilkin, the “hundreds of manuscripts” containing the words “in Me” in John 6:47 are all from the Byzantine text type. For those who may be unaware, this text type is of a relatively late date, generally dated from the 9th – 15th centuries.
By way of contrast, the oldest Greek manuscripts do NOT contain the words “in Me” in John 6:47. Wilkin mentioned some of them, but conveniently he failed to mention Papyrus 75 (P75), which is one of the very oldest Greek texts of John 6:47, and it does not include the words “in Me”. To illustrate the significance of this, let’s apply the same logic to another piece of literature, such as Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. For example, imagine that I had 200 different copies of Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address (all from the 20th century) in which the first sentence reads: “Four score and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth on this American continent...” (notice that the word “American” has been inserted into the text). In addition to these 200 copies from the 20th century (let’s say from the 1940s), suppose I had another 8 copies of Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address from the 19th century (say, the 1870s) in which the first sentence reads, “Four score and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth on this continent...” Which set of copies most likely contains the original wording of that sentence? Obviously it’s not so important how many copies there are that have a particular reading, what matters more is the date of composition. The oldest copies obviously carry the most weight and are most likely to have the original wording. And so, from this simple illustration we can see how Bob Wilkin’s logic is flawed when it comes to his view of John 6:47: Wilkin is merely looking at the number of copies rather than factoring in the date of the manuscripts. But when the date of the manuscripts is taken into account, it becomes apparent that this is a very important consideration which likely points to the correct wording!
Here’s a summary statement that I wrote for the Free Grace Study Bible, pertaining to whether or not the original wording of John 6:47 in the Greek NT manuscripts included the words “in Me,” or if they were inserted at a later date. Notice that I focus not so much on the correct answer to this question, but rather on the fact of the question itself: that John 6:47 is (to quote Fred Lybrand) a “disputed text”! Here are my summary thoughts from the FG Study Bible on John 6:47 as it pertains to Bob Wilkin and the GES:
“The oldest Greek manuscripts of this text (e.g. Papyrus 66, Papyrus 75, Codex Sinaiticus, Codex Vaticanus, Codex Alexandrinus, etc.) do not contain the words ‘in Me’. In these Greek texts, John 6:47 reads as follows: ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, the one who believes has eternal life.’ So the question is: ‘believes’ what? Related to the teachings of Zane Hodges and Bob Wilkin in particular (and by extension the Grace Evangelical Society), John 6:47 is the key text around which their ministry is built. It’s their favorite proof-text. But herein lies the problem: Hodges and Wilkin have built their entire ministry and theology of salvation not only on one proof-text, but more specifically on a variant reading of that proof-text! Thus their hermeneutic (their method of Bible interpretation) is doubly flawed, and is therefore rightly rejected. For more information, see page 21 in the article by Fred Lybrand titled GES Gospel: Lybrand Open Letter.”
Addendum:
Wilkin poses the following question in his blog post: “Can a reading be so ‘natural and inevitable’ that it’s wrong?” But if we follow Wilkin’s logic of inserting words simply because they are theologically correct, we might as well insert the words of Jesus from John 3:16 as a probable (or likely) reading of John 6:47 merely because it reads naturally! But this of course is absurd, as even Wilkin would no doubt admit (unless he is willing to re-write the entire Gospel of John, or the entire Bible, for that matter).
References:
1 Bob Wilkin, “Did Jesus Say, ‘He Who Believes in Me Has Everlasting Life,’ or ‘He Who Believes Has Everlasting Life’?” (June 23, 2025), GES Blog.
2 Ibid.
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