Yohanes 5:45-47

5:45 “Do not suppose that I will accuse you before the Father. The one who accuses you is Moses, in whom you have placed your hope. ¹  5:46 If ²  you believed Moses, you would believe me, because he wrote about me. 5:47 But if you do not believe what Moses ³  wrote, how will you believe my words?”

Yohanes 15:22

15:22 If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not be guilty of sin. ⁴  But they no longer have any excuse for their sin.

[5:45]  ¹ sn The final condemnation will come from Moses himself – again ironic, since Moses is the very one the Jewish authorities have trusted in (placed your hope). This is again ironic if it is occurring at Pentecost, which at this time was being celebrated as the occasion of the giving of the Torah to Moses on Mt. Sinai. There is evidence that some Jews of the 1st century looked on Moses as their intercessor at the final judgment (see W. A. Meeks, The Prophet King [NovTSup], 161). This would mean the statement Moses, in whom you have placed your hope should be taken literally and relates directly to Jesus’ statements about the final judgment in John 5:28-29.

[5:46]  ² tn Grk “For if.”

[5:47]  ³ tn Grk “that one” (“he”); the referent (Moses) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[15:22]  ⁴ tn Grk “they would not have sin” (an idiom).

[15:22]  sn Jesus now describes the guilt of the world. He came to these people with both words (15:22) and sign-miracles (15:24), yet they remained obstinate in their unbelief, and this sin of unbelief was without excuse. Jesus was not saying that if he had not come and spoken to these people they would be sinless; rather he was saying that if he had not come and spoken to them, they would not be guilty of the sin of rejecting him and the Father he came to reveal. Rejecting Jesus is the one ultimate sin for which there can be no forgiveness, because the one who has committed this sin has at the same time rejected the only cure that exists. Jesus spoke similarly to the Pharisees in 9:41: “If you were blind, you would have no sin (same phrase as here), but now you say ‘We see’ your sin remains.”