Yohanes 12:23-28

12:23 Jesus replied, ¹  “The time ²  has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. ³  12:24 I tell you the solemn truth, ⁴  unless a kernel of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains by itself alone. ⁵  But if it dies, it produces ⁶  much grain. ⁷  12:25 The one who loves his life ⁸  destroys ⁹  it, and the one who hates his life in this world guards ¹⁰  it for eternal life. 12:26 If anyone wants to serve me, he must follow ¹¹  me, and where I am, my servant will be too. ¹²  If anyone serves me, the Father will honor him.

12:27 “Now my soul is greatly distressed. And what should I say? ‘Father, deliver me ¹³  from this hour’? ¹⁴  No, but for this very reason I have come to this hour. ¹⁵  12:28 Father, glorify your name.” Then a voice came from heaven, ¹⁶  “I have glorified it, ¹⁷  and I will glorify it ¹⁸  again.”

Yohanes 13:31-32

The Prediction of Peter’s Denial

13:31 When ¹⁹  Judas ²⁰  had gone out, Jesus said, “Now the Son of Man is glorified, and God is glorified in him. 13:32 If God is glorified in him, ²¹  God will also glorify him in himself, and he will glorify him right away. ²² 

Yohanes 15:8

15:8 My Father is honored ²³  by this, that ²⁴  you bear ²⁵  much fruit and show that you are ²⁶  my disciples.

Yohanes 17:1

Jesus Prays for the Father to Glorify Him

17:1 When Jesus had finished saying these things, he looked upward ²⁷  to heaven ²⁸  and said, “Father, the time ²⁹  has come. Glorify your Son, so that your ³⁰  Son may glorify you –

[12:23]  ¹ tn Grk “Jesus answered them, saying.” The participle λέγων (legwn) is redundant in contemporary English and has not been translated here.

[12:23]  ² tn Grk “the hour.”

[12:23]  ³ sn Jesus’ reply, the time has come for the Son of Man to be glorified, is a bit puzzling. As far as the author’s account is concerned, Jesus totally ignores these Greeks and makes no further reference to them whatsoever. It appears that his words are addressed to Andrew and Philip, but in fact they must have had a wider audience, including possibly the Greeks who had wished to see him in the first place. The words the time has come recall all the previous references to “the hour” throughout the Fourth Gospel (see the note on time in 2:4). There is no doubt, in light of the following verse, that Jesus refers to his death here. On his pathway to glorification lies the cross, and it is just ahead.

[12:24]  ⁴ tn Grk “Truly, truly, I say to you.”

[12:24]  ⁵ tn Or “it remains only a single kernel.”

[12:24]  ⁶ tn Or “bears.”

[12:24]  ⁷ tn Grk “much fruit.”

[12:25]  ⁸ tn Or “soul.”

[12:25]  ⁹ tn Or “loses.” Although the traditional English translation of ἀπολλύει (apolluei) in John 12:25 is “loses,” the contrast with φυλάξει (fulaxei, “keeps” or “guards”) in the second half of the verse favors the meaning “destroy” here.

[12:25]  ¹⁰ tn Or “keeps.”

[12:26]  ¹¹ tn As a third person imperative in Greek, ἀκολουθείτω (akolouqeitw) is usually translated “let him follow me.” This could be understood by the modern English reader as merely permissive, however (“he may follow me if he wishes”). In this context there is no permissive sense, but rather a command, so the translation “he must follow me” is preferred.

[12:26]  ¹² tn Grk “where I am, there my servant will be too.”

[12:27]  ¹³ tn Or “save me.”

[12:27]  ¹⁴ tn Or “this occasion.”

[12:27]  sn Father, deliver me from this hour. It is now clear that Jesus’ hour has come – the hour of his return to the Father through crucifixion, death, resurrection, and ascension (see 12:23). This will be reiterated in 13:1 and 17:1. Jesus states (employing words similar to those of Ps 6:4) that his soul is troubled. What shall his response to his imminent death be? A prayer to the Father to deliver him from that hour? No, because it is on account of this very hour that Jesus has come. His sacrificial death has always remained the primary purpose of his mission into the world. Now, faced with the completion of that mission, shall he ask the Father to spare him from it? The expected answer is no.

[12:27]  ¹⁵ tn Or “this occasion.”

[12:28]  ¹⁶ tn Or “from the sky” (see note on 1:32).

[12:28]  ¹⁷ tn “It” is not in the Greek text. Direct objects were often omitted in Greek when clear from the context.

[12:28]  ¹⁸ tn “It” is not in the Greek text. Direct objects were often omitted in Greek when clear from the context.

[13:31]  ¹⁹ tn Grk “Then when.”

[13:31]  ²⁰ tn Grk “he”; the referent (Judas) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[13:32]  ²¹ tc A number of early mss (Ì⁶⁶ א* B C* D L W al as well as several versional witnesses) do not have the words “If God is glorified in him,” while the majority of mss have the clause (so א² A C² Θ Ψ Ë¹³ 33 Ï lat). Although the mss that omit the words are significantly better witnesses, the omission may have occurred because of an error of sight due to homoioteleuton (v. 31 ends in ἐν αὐτῷ [en autw, “in him”], as does this clause). Further, the typical step-parallelism found in John is retained if the clause is kept intact (TCGNT 205-6). At the same time, it is difficult to explain how such a wide variety of witnesses would have accidentally deleted this clause, and arguments for intentional deletion are not particularly convincing. NA²⁷ rightly places the words in brackets, indicating doubt as to their authenticity.

[13:32]  ²² tn Or “immediately.”

[15:8]  ²³ tn Grk “glorified.”

[15:8]  ²⁴ tn The ἵνα (Jina) clause is best taken as substantival in apposition to ἐν τούτῳ (en toutw) at the beginning of the verse. The Father is glorified when the disciples bring forth abundant fruit. Just as Jesus has done the works which he has seen his Father doing (5:19-29) so also will his disciples.

[15:8]  ²⁵ tn Or “yield.”

[15:8]  ²⁶ tc Most mss (א A Ψ Ë¹³ 33 Ï) read the future indicative γενήσεσθε (genhsesqe; perhaps best rendered as “[and show that] you will become”), while some early and good witnesses (Ì^66vid B D L Θ 0250 1 565 al) have the aorist subjunctive γένησθε (genhsqe; “[and show that] you are”). The original reading is difficult to determine because the external evidence is fairly evenly divided. On the basis of the external evidence alone the first reading has some credibility because of א and 33, but it is not enough to overthrow the Alexandrian and Western witnesses for the aorist. Some who accept the future indicative see a consecutive (or resultative) sequence between φέρητε (ferhte) in the ἵνα (Jina) clause and γενήσεσθε, so that the disciples’ bearing much fruit results in their becoming disciples. This alleviates the problem of reading a future indicative within a ἵνα clause (a grammatical solecism that is virtually unattested in Attic Greek), although such infrequently occurs in the NT, particularly in the Apocalypse (cf. Gal 2:4; Rev 3:9; 6:4, 11; 8:3; 9:4, 5, 20; 13:12; 14:13; 22:14; even here, however, the Byzantine mss, with א occasionally by their side, almost always change the future indicative to an aorist subjunctive). It seems more likely, however, that the second verb (regardless of whether it is read as aorist or future) is to be understood as coordinate in meaning with the previous verb φέρητε (So M. Zerwick, Biblical Greek §342). Thus the two actions are really one and the same: Bearing fruit and being Jesus’ disciple are not two different actions, but a single action. The first is the outward sign or proof of the second – in bearing fruit the disciples show themselves to be disciples indeed (cf. 15:5). Thus the translation followed here is, “that you bear much fruit and show that you are my disciples.” As far as the textual reading is concerned, it appears somewhat preferable to accept the aorist subjunctive reading (γένησθε) on the basis of better external testimony.

[17:1]  ²⁷ tn Grk “he raised his eyes” (an idiom).

[17:1]  sn Jesus also looked upward before his prayer in John 11:41. This was probably a common posture in prayer. According to the parable in Luke 18:13 the tax collector did not feel himself worthy to do this.

[17:1]  ²⁸ tn Or “to the sky.” The Greek word οὐρανός (ouranos) may be translated “sky” or “heaven” depending on the context.

[17:1]  ²⁹ tn Grk “the hour.”

[17:1]  sn The time has come. Jesus has said before that his “hour” had come, both in 12:23 when some Greeks sought to speak with him, and in 13:1 where just before he washed the disciples’ feet. It appears best to understand the “hour” as a period of time starting at the end of Jesus’ public ministry and extending through the passion week, ending with Jesus’ return to the Father through death, resurrection, and exaltation. The “hour” begins as soon as the first events occur which begin the process that leads to Jesus’ death.

[17:1]  ³⁰ tc The better witnesses (א B C* W 0109 0301) have “the Son” (ὁ υἱός, Jo Juios) here, while the majority (C³ L Ψ Ë¹³ 33 Ï) read “your Son also” (καὶ ὁ υἱὸς σου, kai Jo Juio" sou), or “your Son” (ὁ υἱὸς σου; A D Θ 0250 1 579 pc lat sy); the second corrector of C has καὶ ὁ υἱός (“the Son also”). The longer readings appear to be predictable scribal expansions and as such should be considered secondary.

[17:1]  tn Grk “the Son”; “your” has been added here for English stylistic reasons.