Yohanes 5:19

5:19 So Jesus answered them, ¹  “I tell you the solemn truth, ²  the Son can do nothing on his own initiative, ³  but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father ⁴  does, the Son does likewise. ⁵ 

Yohanes 5:24

5:24 “I tell you the solemn truth, ⁶  the one who hears ⁷  my message ⁸  and believes the one who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned, ⁹  but has crossed over from death to life.

Yohanes 8:52

8:52 Then ¹⁰  the Judeans ¹¹  responded, ¹²  “Now we know you’re possessed by a demon! ¹³  Both Abraham and the prophets died, and yet ¹⁴  you say, ‘If anyone obeys ¹⁵  my teaching, ¹⁶  he will never experience ¹⁷  death.’ ¹⁸ 

Yohanes 10:38

10:38 But if I do them, even if you do not believe me, believe the deeds, ¹⁹  so that you may come to know ²⁰  and understand that I am in the Father and the Father is in me.”

Yohanes 14:12

14:12 I tell you the solemn truth, ²¹  the person who believes in me will perform ²²  the miraculous deeds ²³  that I am doing, ²⁴  and will perform ²⁵  greater deeds ²⁶  than these, because I am going to the Father.

Yohanes 17:8

17:8 because I have given them the words you have given me. They ²⁷  accepted ²⁸  them ²⁹  and really ³⁰  understand ³¹  that I came from you, and they believed that you sent me.

[5:19]  ¹ tn Grk “answered and said to them.”

[5:19]  ² tn Grk “Truly, truly, I say to you.”

[5:19]  ³ tn Grk “nothing from himself.”

[5:19]  ⁴ tn Grk “that one”; the referent (the Father) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[5:19]  ⁵ sn What works does the Son do likewise? The same that the Father does – and the same that the rabbis recognized as legitimate works of God on the Sabbath (see note on working in v. 17). (1) Jesus grants life (just as the Father grants life) on the Sabbath. But as the Father gives physical life on the Sabbath, so the Son grants spiritual life (John 5:21; note the “greater things” mentioned in v. 20). (2) Jesus judges (determines the destiny of people) on the Sabbath, just as the Father judges those who die on the Sabbath, because the Father has granted authority to the Son to judge (John 5:22-23). But this is not all. Not only has this power been granted to Jesus in the present; it will be his in the future as well. In v. 28 there is a reference not to spiritually dead (only) but also physically dead. At their resurrection they respond to the Son as well.

[5:24]  ⁶ tn Grk “Truly, truly, I say to you.”

[5:24]  ⁷ tn Or “obeys.”

[5:24]  ⁸ tn Or “word.”

[5:24]  ⁹ tn Grk “and does not come into judgment.”

[8:52]  ¹⁰ tc ‡ Important and early witnesses (Ì⁶⁶ א B C W Θ 579 it) lack the conjunction here, while other witnesses read οὖν (oun, “therefore”; Ì⁷⁵ D L Ψ 070 Ë^1,13 33 Ï lat). This conjunction occurs in John some 200 times, far more than in any other NT book. Even though the most important Johannine papyrus (Ì⁷⁵) has the conjunction, the combination of Ì⁶⁶ א B for the omission is even stronger. Further, the reading seems to be a predictable scribal emendation. In particular, οὖν is frequently used with the plural of εἶπον (eipon, “they said”) in John (in this chapter alone, note vv. 13, 39, 48, 57, and possibly 41). On balance, it is probably best to consider the shorter reading as authentic, even though “Then” is virtually required in translation for English stylistic reasons. NA²⁷ has the conjunction in brackets, indicating some doubt as to its authenticity.

[8:52]  ¹¹ tn Grk “the Jews.” See the note on this term in v. 31. Here, as in vv. 31 and 48, the phrase refers to the Jewish people in Jerusalem (“Judeans”; cf. BDAG 479 s.v. ᾿Ιουδαῖος 2.e) who had been listening to Jesus’ teaching in the temple courts (8:20) and had initially believed his claim to be the Messiah (cf. 8:31).

[8:52]  ¹² tn Grk “said to him.”

[8:52]  ¹³ tn Grk “you have a demon.”

[8:52]  ¹⁴ tn “Yet” has been supplied to show the contrastive element present in the context.

[8:52]  ¹⁵ tn Grk “If anyone keeps.”

[8:52]  ¹⁶ tn Grk “my word.”

[8:52]  ¹⁷ tn Grk “will never taste.” Here the Greek verb does not mean “sample a small amount” (as a typical English reader might infer from the word “taste”), but “experience something cognitively or emotionally; come to know something” (cf. BDAG 195 s.v. γεύομαι 2).

[8:52]  ¹⁸ tn Grk “he will never taste of death forever.” The Greek negative here is emphatic.

[10:38]  ¹⁹ tn Or “works.”

[10:38]  sn Jesus says that in the final analysis, the deeds he did should indicate whether he was truly from the Father. If the authorities could not believe in him, it would be better to believe in the deeds he did than not to believe at all.

[10:38]  ²⁰ tn Or “so that you may learn.”

[14:12]  ²¹ tn Grk “Truly, truly, I say to you.”

[14:12]  ²² tn Or “will do.”

[14:12]  ²³ tn Grk “the works.”

[14:12]  ²⁴ tn Or “that I do.”

[14:12]  sn See the note on miraculous deeds in v. 11.

[14:12]  ²⁵ tn Or “will do.”

[14:12]  ²⁶ tn Grk “greater works.”

[14:12]  sn What are the greater deeds that Jesus speaks of, and how is this related to his going to the Father? It is clear from both John 7:39 and 16:7 that the Holy Spirit will not come until Jesus has departed. After Pentecost and the coming of the Spirit to indwell believers in a permanent relationship, believers would be empowered to perform even greater deeds than those Jesus did during his earthly ministry. When the early chapters of Acts are examined, it is clear that, from a numerical standpoint, the deeds of Peter and the other Apostles surpassed those of Jesus in a single day (the day of Pentecost). On that day more were added to the church than had become followers of Jesus during the entire three years of his earthly ministry. And the message went forth not just in Judea, Samaria, and Galilee, but to the farthest parts of the known world. This understanding of what Jesus meant by “greater deeds” is more probable than a reference to “more spectacular miracles.” Certainly miraculous deeds were performed by the apostles as recounted in Acts, but these do not appear to have surpassed the works of Jesus himself in either degree or number.

[17:8]  ²⁷ tn Grk And they.” The conjunction καί (kai, “and”) has not been translated here in keeping with the tendency of contemporary English style to use shorter sentences.

[17:8]  ²⁸ tn Or “received.”

[17:8]  ²⁹ tn The word “them” is not in the Greek text, but is implied. Direct objects were often omitted in Greek when clear from the context.

[17:8]  ³⁰ tn Or “truly.”

[17:8]  ³¹ tn Or have come to know.”