Yohanes 8:31-32

Abraham’s Children and the Devil’s Children

8:31 Then Jesus said to those Judeans ¹  who had believed him, “If you continue to follow my teaching, ²  you are really ³  my disciples 8:32 and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” ⁴ 

Yohanes 15:4-6

15:4 Remain ⁵  in me, and I will remain in you. ⁶  Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, ⁷  unless it remains ⁸  in ⁹  the vine, so neither can you unless you remain ¹⁰  in me.

15:5 “I am the vine; you are the branches. The one who remains ¹¹  in me – and I in him – bears ¹²  much fruit, ¹³  because apart from me you can accomplish ¹⁴  nothing. 15:6 If anyone does not remain ¹⁵  in me, he is thrown out like a branch, and dries up; and such branches are gathered up and thrown into the fire, ¹⁶  and are burned up. ¹⁷ 

Yohanes 15:9-10

15:9 “Just as the Father has loved me, I have also loved you; remain ¹⁸  in my love. 15:10 If you obey ¹⁹  my commandments, you will remain ²⁰  in my love, just as I have obeyed ²¹  my Father’s commandments and remain ²²  in his love.

[8:31]  ¹ tn Grk “to the Jews.” In NT usage the term ᾿Ιουδαῖοι (Ioudaioi) may refer to the entire Jewish people, the residents of Jerusalem and surrounding territory (i.e., “Judeans”), the authorities in Jerusalem, or merely those who were hostile to Jesus. (For further information see R. G. Bratcher, “‘The Jews’ in the Gospel of John,” BT 26 [1975]: 401-9; also BDAG 479 s.v. ᾿Ιουδαῖος 2.e.) Here the phrase refers to the Jewish people in Jerusalem who had been listening to Jesus’ teaching in the temple and had believed his claim to be the Messiah, hence, “those Judeans who had believed him.” The term “Judeans” is preferred here to the more general “people” because the debate concerns descent from Abraham (v. 33).

[8:31]  ² tn Grk “If you continue in my word.”

[8:31]  ³ tn Or “truly.”

[8:32]  ⁴ tn Or “the truth will release you.” The translation “set you free” or “release you” (unlike the more traditional “make you free”) conveys more the idea that the hearers were currently in a state of slavery from which they needed to be freed. The following context supports precisely this idea.

[8:32]  sn The statement the truth will set you free is often taken as referring to truth in the philosophical (or absolute) sense, or in the intellectual sense, or even (as the Jews apparently took it) in the political sense. In the context of John’s Gospel (particularly in light of the prologue) this must refer to truth about the person and work of Jesus. It is saving truth. As L. Morris says, “it is the truth which saves men from the darkness of sin, not that which saves them from the darkness of error (though there is a sense in which men in Christ are delivered from gross error)” (John [NICNT], 457).

[15:4]  ⁵ tn Or “Reside.”

[15:4]  ⁶ tn Grk “and I in you.” The verb has been repeated for clarity and to conform to contemporary English style, which typically allows fewer ellipses (omitted or understood words) than Greek.

[15:4]  ⁷ sn The branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it remains connected to the vine, from which its life and sustenance flows. As far as the disciples were concerned, they would produce no fruit from themselves if they did not remain in their relationship to Jesus, because the eternal life which a disciple must possess in order to bear fruit originates with Jesus; he is the source of all life and productivity for the disciple.

[15:4]  ⁸ tn Or “resides.”

[15:4]  ⁹ tn While it would be more natural to say “on the vine” (so NAB), the English preposition “in” has been retained here to emphasize the parallelism with the following clause “unless you remain in me.” To speak of remaining “in” a person is not natural English either, but is nevertheless a biblical concept (cf. “in Christ” in Eph 1:3, 4, 6, 7, 11).

[15:4]  ¹⁰ tn Or “you reside.”

[15:5]  ¹¹ tn Or “resides.”

[15:5]  ¹² tn Or “yields.”

[15:5]  ¹³ tn Grk “in him, this one bears much fruit.” The pronoun “this one” has been omitted from the translation because it is redundant according to contemporary English style.

[15:5]  sn Many interpret the imagery of fruit here and in 15:2, 4 in terms of good deeds or character qualities, relating it to passages elsewhere in the NT like Matt 3:8 and 7:20, Rom 6:22, Gal 5:22, etc. This is not necessarily inaccurate, but one must remember that for John, to have life at all is to bear fruit, while one who does not bear fruit shows that he does not have the life (once again, conduct is the clue to paternity, as in John 8:41; compare also 1 John 4:20).

[15:5]  ¹⁴ tn Or “do.”

[15:6]  ¹⁵ tn Or “reside.”

[15:6]  ¹⁶ sn Such branches are gathered up and thrown into the fire. The author does not tell who it is who does the gathering and throwing into the fire. Although some claim that realized eschatology is so prevalent in the Fourth Gospel that no references to final eschatology appear at all, the fate of these branches seems to point to the opposite. The imagery is almost certainly that of eschatological judgment, and recalls some of the OT vine imagery which involves divine rejection and judgment of disobedient Israel (Ezek 15:4-6, 19:12).

[15:6]  ¹⁷ tn Grk “they gather them up and throw them into the fire, and they are burned.”

[15:9]  ¹⁸ tn Or “reside.”

[15:10]  ¹⁹ tn Or “keep.”

[15:10]  ²⁰ tn Or “reside.”

[15:10]  ²¹ tn Or “kept.”

[15:10]  ²² tn Or “reside.”