Yohanes 5:39

5:39 You study the scriptures thoroughly ¹  because you think in them you possess eternal life, ²  and it is these same scriptures ³  that testify about me,

Yohanes 6:53

6:53 Jesus said to them, “I tell you the solemn truth, ⁴  unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, ⁵  you have no life ⁶  in yourselves.

[5:39]  ¹ tn Or “Study the scriptures thoroughly” (an imperative). For the meaning of the verb see G. Delling, TDNT 2:655-57.

[5:39]  ² sn In them you possess eternal life. Note the following examples from the rabbinic tractate Pirqe Avot (“The Sayings of the Fathers”): Pirqe Avot 2:8, “He who has acquired the words of the law has acquired for himself the life of the world to come”; Pirqe Avot 6:7, “Great is the law for it gives to those who practice it life in this world and in the world to come.”

[5:39]  ³ tn The words “same scriptures” are not in the Greek text, but are supplied to clarify the referent (“these”).

[6:53]  ⁴ tn Grk “Truly, truly, I say to you.”

[6:53]  ⁵ sn Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood. These words are at the heart of the discourse on the Bread of Life, and have created great misunderstanding among interpreters. Anyone who is inclined toward a sacramental viewpoint will almost certainly want to take these words as a reference to the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, or the Eucharist, because of the reference to eating and drinking. But this does not automatically follow: By anyone’s definition there must be a symbolic element to the eating which Jesus speaks of in the discourse, and once this is admitted, it is better to understand it here, as in the previous references in the passage, to a personal receiving of (or appropriation of) Christ and his work.

[6:53]  ⁶ tn That is, “no eternal life” (as opposed to physical life).