Yohanes 14:15-24
Konteks14:15 “If you love me, you will obey 1 my commandments. 2 14:16 Then 3 I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate 4 to be with you forever – 14:17 the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot accept, 5 because it does not see him or know him. But you know him, because he resides 6 with you and will be 7 in you.
14:18 “I will not abandon 8 you as orphans, 9 I will come to you. 10 14:19 In a little while 11 the world will not see me any longer, but you will see me; because I live, you will live too. 14:20 You will know at that time 12 that I am in my Father and you are in me and I am in you. 14:21 The person who has my commandments and obeys 13 them is the one who loves me. 14 The one 15 who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and will reveal 16 myself to him.”
14:22 “Lord,” Judas (not Judas Iscariot) 17 said, 18 “what has happened that you are going to reveal 19 yourself to us and not to the world?” 14:23 Jesus replied, 20 “If anyone loves me, he will obey 21 my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and take up residence with him. 22 14:24 The person who does not love me does not obey 23 my words. And the word 24 you hear is not mine, but the Father’s who sent me.
Yohanes 15:10-17
Konteks15:10 If you obey 25 my commandments, you will remain 26 in my love, just as I have obeyed 27 my Father’s commandments and remain 28 in his love. 15:11 I have told you these things 29 so that my joy may be in you, and your joy may be complete. 15:12 My commandment is this – to love one another just as I have loved you. 30 15:13 No one has greater love than this – that one lays down his life 31 for his friends. 15:14 You are my friends 32 if you do what I command you. 15:15 I no longer call you slaves, 33 because the slave does not understand 34 what his master is doing. But I have called you friends, because I have revealed to you everything 35 I heard 36 from my Father. 15:16 You did not choose me, but I chose you 37 and appointed you to go and bear 38 fruit, fruit that remains, 39 so that whatever you ask the Father in my name he will give you. 15:17 This 40 I command you – to love one another.
[14:15] 2 sn Jesus’ statement If you love me, you will obey my commandments provides the transition between the promises of answered prayer which Jesus makes to his disciples in vv. 13-14 and the promise of the Holy Spirit which is introduced in v. 16. Obedience is the proof of genuine love.
[14:16] 3 tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “Then” to reflect the implied sequence in the discourse.
[14:16] 4 tn Or “Helper” or “Counselor”; Grk “Paraclete,” from the Greek word παράκλητος (paraklhto"). Finding an appropriate English translation for παράκλητος is a very difficult task. No single English word has exactly the same range of meaning as the Greek word. “Comforter,” used by some of the older English versions, appears to be as old as Wycliffe. But today it suggests a quilt or a sympathetic mourner at a funeral. “Counselor” is adequate, but too broad, in contexts like “marriage counselor” or “camp counselor.” “Helper” or “Assistant” could also be used, but could suggest a subordinate rank. “Advocate,” the word chosen for this translation, has more forensic overtones than the Greek word does, although in John 16:5-11 a forensic context is certainly present. Because an “advocate” is someone who “advocates” or supports a position or viewpoint and since this is what the Paraclete will do for the preaching of the disciples, it was selected in spite of the drawbacks.
[14:17] 5 tn Or “cannot receive.”
[14:17] 7 tc Some early and important witnesses (Ì66* B D* W 1 565 it) have ἐστιν (estin, “he is”) instead of ἔσται (estai, “he will be”) here, while other weighty witnesses ({Ì66c,75vid א A D1 L Θ Ψ Ë13 33vid Ï as well as several versions and fathers}), read the future tense. When one considers transcriptional evidence, ἐστιν is the more difficult reading and better explains the rise of the future tense reading, but it must be noted that both Ì66 and D were corrected from the present tense to the future. If ἐστιν were the original reading, one would expect a few manuscripts to be corrected to read the present when they originally read the future, but that is not the case. When one considers what the author would have written, the future is on much stronger ground. The immediate context (both in 14:16 and in the chapter as a whole) points to the future, and the theology of the book regards the advent of the Spirit as a decidedly future event (see, e.g., 7:39 and 16:7). The present tense could have arisen from an error of sight on the part of some scribes or more likely from an error of thought as scribes reflected upon the present role of the Spirit. Although a decision is difficult, the future tense is most likely authentic. For further discussion on this textual problem, see James M. Hamilton, Jr., “He Is with You and He Will Be in You” (Ph.D. diss., The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, 2003), 213-20.
[14:18] 9 tn The entire phrase “abandon you as orphans” could be understood as an idiom meaning, “leave you helpless.”
[14:18] 10 sn I will come to you. Jesus had spoken in 14:3 of going away and coming again to his disciples. There the reference was both to the parousia (the second coming of Christ) and to the postresurrection appearances of Jesus to the disciples. Here the postresurrection appearances are primarily in view, since Jesus speaks of the disciples “seeing” him after the world can “see” him no longer in the following verse. But many commentators have taken v. 18 as a reference to the coming of the Spirit, since this has been the topic of the preceding verses. Still, vv. 19-20 appear to contain references to Jesus’ appearances to the disciples after his resurrection. It may well be that another Johannine double meaning is found here, so that Jesus ‘returns’ to his disciples in one sense in his appearances to them after his resurrection, but in another sense he ‘returns’ in the person of the Holy Spirit to indwell them.
[14:19] 11 tn Grk “Yet a little while, and.”
[14:20] 12 tn Grk “will know in that day.”
[14:20] sn At that time could be a reference to the parousia (second coming of Christ). But the statement in 14:19, that the world will not see Jesus, does not fit. It is better to take this as the postresurrection appearances of Jesus to his disciples (which has the advantage of taking in a little while in v. 19 literally).
[14:21] 14 tn Grk “obeys them, that one is the one who loves me.”
[14:21] 15 tn Grk “And the one.” Here the conjunction καί (kai) has not been translated to improve the English style.
[14:21] 16 tn Or “will disclose.”
[14:22] 17 tn Grk “(not Iscariot).” The proper noun (Judas) has been repeated for clarity and smoothness in English style.
[14:22] sn This is a parenthetical comment by the author.
[14:22] 18 tn Grk “said to him.”
[14:22] sn The disciples still expected at this point that Jesus, as Messiah, was going to reveal his identity as such to the world (cf. 7:4).
[14:23] 20 tn Grk “answered and said to him.”
[14:23] 22 tn Grk “we will come to him and will make our dwelling place with him.” The context here is individual rather than corporate indwelling, so the masculine singular pronoun has been retained throughout v. 23. It is important to note, however, that the pronoun is used generically here and refers equally to men, women, and children.
[14:24] 23 tn Or “does not keep.”
[14:24] 24 tn Or “the message.”
[15:11] 29 tn Grk “These things I have spoken to you.”
[15:12] 30 sn Now the reference to the commandments (plural) in 15:10 have been reduced to a singular commandment: The disciples are to love one another, just as Jesus has loved them. This is the ‘new commandment’ of John 13:34, and it is repeated in 15:17. The disciples’ love for one another is compared to Jesus’ love for them. How has Jesus shown his love for the disciples? This was illustrated in 13:1-20 in the washing of the disciples’ feet, introduced by the statement in 13:1 that Jesus loved them “to the end.” In context this constitutes a reference to Jesus’ self-sacrificial death on the cross on their behalf; the love they are to have for one another is so great that it must include a self-sacrificial willingness to die for one another if necessary. This is exactly what Jesus is discussing here, because he introduces the theme of his sacrificial death in the following verse. In John 10:18 and 14:31 Jesus spoke of his death on the cross as a commandment he had received from his Father, which also links the idea of commandment and love as they are linked here. One final note: It is not just the degree or intensity of the disciples’ love for one another that Jesus is referring to when he introduces by comparison his own death on the cross (that they must love one another enough to die for one another) but the very means of expressing that love: It is to express itself in self-sacrifice for one another, sacrifice up to the point of death, which is what Jesus himself did on the cross (cf. 1 John 3:16).
[15:13] 31 tn Or “one dies willingly.”
[15:14] 32 sn This verse really explains John 15:10 in another way. Those who keep Jesus’ commandments are called his friends, those friends for whom he lays down his life (v. 13). It is possible to understand this verse as referring to a smaller group within Christianity as a whole, perhaps only the apostles who were present when Jesus spoke these words. Some have supported this by comparing it to the small group of associates and advisers to the Roman Emperor who were called “Friends of the Emperor.” Others would see these words as addressed only to those Christians who as disciples were obedient to Jesus. In either case the result would be to create a sort of “inner circle” of Christians who are more privileged than mere “believers” or average Christians. In context, it seems clear that Jesus’ words must be addressed to all true Christians, not just some narrower category of believers, because Jesus’ sacrificial death, which is his act of love toward his friends (v. 13) applies to all Christians equally (cf. John 13:1).
[15:15] 33 tn See the note on the word “slaves” in 4:51.
[15:15] 34 tn Or “does not know.”
[15:15] 35 tn Grk “all things.”
[15:16] 37 sn You did not choose me, but I chose you. If the disciples are now elevated in status from slaves to friends, they are friends who have been chosen by Jesus, rather than the opposite way round. Again this is true of all Christians, not just the twelve, and the theme that Christians are “chosen” by God appears frequently in other NT texts (e.g., Rom 8:33; Eph 1:4ff.; Col 3:12; and 1 Pet 2:4). Putting this together with the comments on 15:14 one may ask whether the author sees any special significance at all for the twelve. Jesus said in John 6:70 and 13:18 that he chose them, and 15:27 makes clear that Jesus in the immediate context is addressing those who have been with him from the beginning. In the Fourth Gospel the twelve, as the most intimate and most committed followers of Jesus, are presented as the models for all Christians, both in terms of their election and in terms of their mission.
[15:16] 39 sn The purpose for which the disciples were appointed (“commissioned”) is to go and bear fruit, fruit that remains. The introduction of the idea of “going” at this point suggests that the fruit is something more than just character qualities in the disciples’ own lives, but rather involves fruit in the lives of others, i.e., Christian converts. There is a mission involved (cf. John 4:36). The idea that their fruit is permanent, however, relates back to vv. 7-8, as does the reference to asking the Father in Jesus’ name. It appears that as the imagery of the vine and the branches develops, the “fruit” which the branches produce shifts in emphasis from qualities in the disciples’ own lives in John 15:2, 4, 5 to the idea of a mission which affects the lives of others in John 15:16. The point of transition would be the reference to fruit in 15:8.
