Yohanes 8:24

8:24 Thus I told you ¹  that you will die in your sins. For unless you believe that I am he, ²  you will die in your sins.”

Yohanes 5:40

5:40 but you are not willing to come to me so that you may have life.

Yohanes 14:18

14:18 “I will not abandon ³  you as orphans, ⁴  I will come to you. ⁵ 

[8:24]  ¹ tn Grk “thus I said to you.”

[8:24]  ² tn Grk “unless you believe that I am.” In this context there is an implied predicate nominative (“he”) following the “I am” phrase. What Jesus’ hearers had to acknowledge is that he was who he claimed to be, i.e., the Messiah (cf. 20:31). This view is also reflected in English translations like NIV (“if you do not believe that I am the one I claim to be”), NLT (“unless you believe that I am who I say I am”), and CEV (“if you don’t have faith in me for who I am”). For a different view that takes this “I am” and the one in 8:28 as nonpredicated (i.e., absolute), see R. E. Brown, John (AB), 1:533-38. Such a view refers sees the nonpredicated “I am” as a reference to the divine Name revealed in Exod 3:14, and is reflected in English translations like NAB (“if you do not believe that I AM, you will die in your sins”) and TEV (“you will die in your sins if you do not believe that ‘I Am Who I Am’”).

[8:24]  sn See the note on Christ in 1:20.

[14:18]  ³ tn Or “leave.”

[14:18]  ⁴ tn The entire phrase “abandon you as orphans” could be understood as an idiom meaning, “leave you helpless.”

[14:18]  ⁵ 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.