Chapter 13 is the beginning of the second major section of this Gospel: Jesus’ return to the Father. This is sometimes called the Book of Glory because it describes the revelation of Christ’s glory, first through his death on the cross and then through his glorious resurrection and return to the Father (13:1 – 20:31). It covers Jesus’ last supper with his disciples and his preparing them for life without his physical presence (13:1 – 16:33), his prayer for himself and his disciples (17:1–26), his betrayal and trial before the Sanhedrin and then before Pilate (18:1 – 19:16a), his crucifixion and burial (19:16b–42) and, alive from the dead, his resurrection appearances to his disciples (20:1–31).
Jesus had come to Bethany (located about 2 miles [3.2 km]) east of Jerusalem) six days before Passover (12:1). There Mary had anointed his feet with perfume and wiped them with her hair (12:2–8). The following day, when he made his way into Jerusalem, he had been greeted by the crowds with palm branches and shouts of ‘Hosanna!’ (12:12–15). Then, on the eve of his betrayal and crucifixion, Jesus presided at a meal, his last supper with the disciples. He washed their feet and predicted his betrayal by Judas Iscariot (13:1–30).
1. At the beginning of the Last Supper Jesus washed his disciples’ feet. Setting the scene for the foot-washing, the evangelist says, It was just before the Passover Festival.1 The foot-washing took place as the meal was being served (13:2). To bring out the significance of this moment, the evangelist adds, Jesus knew that the hour had come for him to leave this world and go to the Father. The theme of Jesus’ hour has been to the fore throughout the Gospel. In the earlier part, we are told that things did not happen because his hour had not yet come (2:4; 7:30; 8:20). In 12:23 and in the latter part (12:27; 13:1; 16:32; 17:1), we learn that the hour had come. The hour is the hour of Jesus’ departure from this world to return to the Father through his death, resurrection and exaltation. In full awareness of these things Jesus carried out the foot-washing.
There was more on Jesus’ mind than this when he washed his disciples’ feet: Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. Jesus’ love was expressed not only in performing the menial service of foot-washing, but also in what that act symbolized: his humiliating death upon the cross by which spiritual cleansing would be made possible (this becomes clear as the story unfolds). Referring to Jesus’ disciples as his own, the evangelist picks up Jesus’ references to his ‘own’ sheep who hear his voice (10:3, 4). The disciples are described as in the world, even though they are not ‘of the world’ (cf. 17:11, 14).
The evangelist’s statement that Jesus loved them to the end can be construed in two ways: (1) adverbially, meaning ‘to the uttermost’ – that is, showing the full extent of his love; (2) temporally, meaning ‘to the end of his life’ – that is, Jesus’ love for his disciples did not fail: it persisted to the last moments of his life. Perhaps there is intended ambiguity here, for Jesus’ action did reflect the full extent of his love, a love that persisted until the end of his life.
2–3. The evangelist further explains the context of Jesus’ gracious act: The evening meal was in progress, and the devil had already prompted Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot, to betray Jesus.2 Jesus knew well beforehand who was to betray him (6:70–71). Shortly afterwards, recognizing that Satan had prompted Judas to do this, Jesus would send him on his way to do what he intended (13:27). Being fully aware of these things, Jesus washed his disciples’ feet, including the feet of the betrayer.
There is something else we need to understand: Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under his power, and that he had come from God and was returning to God. It was knowing these things that Jesus performed the foot-washing. It did not make him think he was above carrying out menial service. Knowing full well who he was, Jesus washed his disciples’ feet.
4–5. So he got up from the meal, took off his outer clothing, and wrapped a towel round his waist. After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples’ feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped round him. Jesus’ action was unprecedented. A wife might wash her husband’s feet, children might wash their father’s feet, and disciples might wash their master’s feet, but in every case it would be an act of extreme devotion. Foot-washing was normally carried out by a servant, not by those participating in the meal, and certainly not by the one presiding at the meal. According to later Jewish tradition, a Jewish slave would not be asked to wash people’s feet. That task was assigned to a Gentile slave.
Presumably, there was no servant at the venue where Jesus shared this meal with his disciples. There must have been a period of embarrassment as the disciples realized that there was no-one available to do the foot-washing, and none of them was prepared to carry out this menial service for the others. The consternation of the disciples would have been palpable as they realized that Jesus was preparing to carry out this lowly service. But still none of them moved. They just sat there, probably in stony silence, as Jesus washed and dried the feet of one disciple after another. The silence was broken when he came to Peter.
6–7. Peter expressed what must have been in the minds of all: He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, ‘Lord, are you going to wash my feet?’ What Peter emphasized was the inappropriateness of Jesus’ action: Are you going to wash my feet? Jesus was not only the one presiding at the meal, he was also their disciple-master. Disciples were expected to serve their masters, not the other way around. Jesus replied, ‘You do not realise now what I am doing, but later you will understand.’ Peter realized only too well what Jesus was doing at one level, but he did not understand what Jesus’ humble action in washing their feet symbolized. Jesus told him that, while at that moment he could not understand, later (lit. ‘after these things’) he would.
8. ‘No,’ said Peter, ‘you shall never wash my feet.’ Peter, like the rest of the disciples, was not prepared to carry out this menial service for the others himself, but he was appalled to think that Jesus would do it. He virtually forbad his master to wash his feet.
But Jesus answered, ‘Unless I wash you, you have no part with me.’ Such a response by Jesus makes no sense if all that was involved was foot-washing. In fact, Peter’s refusal was commendable: at least he recognized the inappropriateness of a disciple allowing his master to wash his feet. The meaning of Jesus’ response, therefore, must be sought at a deeper level. Jesus’ self-humiliation in washing his disciples’ feet symbolized his self-humiliation in accepting death upon the cross to bring about their cleansing from sin. In this respect, Peter and the rest of the disciples needed to accept what Jesus did for them, for if they did not, clearly they could have no part with him. ‘To have a part with Jesus’ means literally ‘to share things with Jesus’ – that is, to share his inheritance (cf. 14:3; 17:24; Luke 15:12)3 or, less literally, to have fellowship with him. Unless Peter was prepared to accept what Jesus would do for him on the cross, there could be no relationship between them.
9. Peter did not understand the symbolic significance of what Jesus was doing, but he did know what Jesus meant when he said, ‘Unless I wash you, you have no part with me’: ‘Then, Lord,’ Simon Peter replied, ‘not just my feet but my hands and my head as well!’ Peter so wanted to have a part with Jesus that he said to him, in effect, ‘If I must be washed so that I can have a part with you, then wash me all over!’ Peter thought that Jesus was making the washing itself the condition of their relationship, but this was not the case. It was what the foot-washing symbolized that was important. Severian of Gabala comments:
Peter . . . had the right feelings, but not understanding the full meaning of the incarnation, he first refused in a spirit of faith and afterward gratefully obeyed. This is how religious people ought to behave. They should not be obdurate in their decisions but should surrender to the will of God.4
10–11. Responding to Peter’s enthusiastic but ignorant response, Jesus answered, ‘Those who have had a bath need only to wash their feet; their whole body is clean.’ There are two ways of explaining this: (1) Jesus was drawing out a lesson from the custom of the day. Foot-washing was offered to people who came together for a meal because, although they had bathed before they set out from home, walking to the appointed place along dusty roads meant that their feet were dirty. There was no need for them to bathe again; all they needed was to have their feet washed to refresh them before the meal. (2) The implied prior washing was the ceremonial bathing in Jerusalem required before the celebration of the Passover (cf. 11:55). In this case, Jesus was saying to Peter that there was no need for him to wash his hands and head as well as his feet. Peter had already undergone the ritual bathing, so he needed only to have his feet washed. In both cases, Jesus’ metaphor implied that Peter, having once been cleansed by accepting the word of Jesus (cf. 15:3), and because of what Jesus was to do for him upon the cross, needed no further cleansing.
Bede interpreted 13:8 (‘Unless I wash you, you have no part with me’) and 13:10 (‘Those who have had a bath need only to wash their feet; their whole body is clean’) in relation to sin after baptism.5 It is understandable how this connection could be made, but this was not Jesus’ intention in saying these things to Peter, and there is little to suggest that the evangelist wanted his readers to see such an allusion here either.
Jesus went on to say: And you are clean. The cleanliness Jesus was speaking about was cleansing from sin which makes people fit to have fellowship with him – fit to enter the presence of God. The disciples were already clean in this sense because they had accepted Jesus’ word and received forgiveness and cleansing. Later, Jesus would say to his disciples: ‘You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you’ (15:3). While Jesus could say this about most of his disciples, it was not true of all of them, so he added, though not every one of you. The evangelist explains the reason: For he knew who was going to betray him, and that was why he said not every one was clean. Judas Iscariot was present. His feet were also washed by Jesus, he too would share this last meal with Jesus, but then he would leave the gathering and betray Jesus to the Jewish authorities who wanted to destroy him.
12–15. Jesus’ action in washing his disciples’ feet contained a symbolic message about the need to receive the cleansing made possible by his self-humiliation on the cross. However, he had more to teach them, and this involved something quite practical.
When he had finished washing their feet, he put on his clothes and returned to his place. Apart from Peter’s attempt to prevent Jesus washing his feet, the foot-washing was carried out, as far as we know, in embarrassed silence. Then Jesus began to teach his disciples another lesson: ‘Do you understand what I have done for you?’ he asked them. This was apparently a rhetorical question, for there was no response to it and Jesus continued: You call me ‘Teacher’ and ‘Lord’, and rightly so, for that is what I am. It was because Peter recognized Jesus as Teacher and Lord that he was at first unwilling to allow him to wash his feet. Jesus said that the disciples were right to regard him as their teacher and Lord, and his humble act had not changed that. His adopting a servant role did not change the fact that he was their teacher; he was just a different sort of teacher. That he humbled himself and washed their feet did not change the fact that he was their Lord; he was just a different sort of Lord from the one they had hitherto understood him to be.
In the Gospel of John, the titles ‘Teacher’ (didaskalos) or ‘Rabbi’ (‘teacher’) are used frequently of Jesus. He was addressed as ‘Rabbi’ by the disciples of John the Baptist (1:38) and by Nicodemus (3:2), and as ‘Teacher’ by the Pharisees and teachers of the law (8:4). Martha referred to him as ‘the Teacher’ (11:28) and Mary Magdalene addressed him as ‘Rabboni’ (20:16).
Jesus is also addressed or spoken of as ‘Lord’ (kyrios) many times in the Gospel of John. Sometimes, kyrios is translated correctly as ‘Sir’, a term of respectful address, when used by people who did not realize, or who had not yet realized, who he was – such as the Samaritan woman (4:11, 15, 19), the royal official (4:49), the invalid at the Pool of Bethesda (5:7), the crowds (6:34), the woman taken in adultery (8:11), the blind man (9:36) and Mary Magdalene (20:15). In other places, kyrios is translated correctly as ‘Lord’, when something more than respectful address was intended by those using it – such as Peter (13:6, 9, 36, 37; 21:15, 16, 17, 21), the man born blind (9:38), Mary and/or Martha (11:3, 21, 27, 32, 34, 39), the disciples as a group (11:12; 20:25), the beloved disciple (13:25; 21:7, 20), Thomas (14:5; 20:28), Philip (14:8), Judas, not Iscariot (14:22), Mary Magdalene (20:2, 13, 18) and the evangelist himself (6:23; 11:2; 20:20; 21:12).
Having told his disciples that they rightly regarded him as their Teacher and Lord, Jesus added: Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet. The lesson was a simple one framed in terms of the greater to the lesser. If, as their Lord and Teacher, it was not beneath his dignity to wash their feet, it was not below their dignity to do the same for one another. The ‘greatest’ of Jesus’ disciples needs to be ready to render humble service to the ‘least’ of the disciples when necessary. In cultures different from the one in which Jesus and his disciples lived, that will probably not take the form of foot-washing, but there will always be ample opportunity for humble service in other ways. To drive home this lesson, Jesus said, I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you.6
16–17. Jesus reinforced this teaching by saying: Very truly I tell you, no servant is greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. The terms master and servant used in this maxim need no explanation, but references to the messenger (apostolos) and the one who sent him call for extra comment. Apostolos is the Greek translation of the Hebrew word šalîaḥ (‘agent’). According to rabbinic teaching, ‘a man’s agent (shaliach) is like to himself’ (m. Ber. 5.5). This means that the treatment accorded messengers is regarded as done to those who sent them. Messengers (apostoloi/šĕluḥîm) have great dignity but are never above those who send them.7
Jesus used the same maxim when he warned the disciples of the opposition they would face: ‘Remember what I told you: “A servant is not greater than his master.” If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also’ (15:20; cf. Matt. 10:24–25). He used it also to assure the disciples that although they, as students, were certainly not greater than their teacher, they could look forward to being like their teacher when their training was complete (Luke 6:40). However, in the present context, the maxim reinforces Jesus’ teaching that his disciples must not hesitate to follow his example. There was no reason for them to think that they were above carrying out menial service for one another, as he had done for them.
Jesus concluded his instruction on this matter with the words Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them. In the matter of rendering service to others, as in all matters related to Christian living, it is one thing to know what we should do, while it is another thing to do it. The blessing comes, not with the knowing, but with the doing. Jesus’ teaching at the end of the ‘Sermon on the Mount’ concludes in similar vein with the parable of the two builders. One built on sand; the other built on rock. The destruction of the house built upon the sand symbolizes the fate of those who hear the teaching of Jesus but do not carry it out, whereas the survival of the house built upon the rock symbolizes the blessing experienced by those who obey Jesus’ word (Matt. 7:24–27; Luke 6:47–49).
18. Jesus had concluded his exhortation with the words, ‘Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them’, indicating that blessing was in store for his obedient disciples. Sadly, however, this was not true of them all. So he added, I am not referring to all of you; I know those I have chosen. He knew that one of them, Judas Iscariot, would betray him (cf. 6:70–71; 12:4; 13:2, 21–27), and saw it as a fulfilment of the Scriptures: But this is to fulfil this passage of Scripture: ‘He who shared my bread has turned against me.’ The quotation is from Psalm 41:9,8 where the psalmist calls upon God to have mercy upon him in his sickness because his enemies are gloating over his misfortune, and even his close friend whom he trusted and with whom he shared bread has turned against him.9 In Middle Eastern culture it is particularly reprehensible for those who accept hospitality and the intimacy of a shared meal to then turn against their hosts, as it is in most other cultures. As Jesus faced imminent death, he felt like the psalmist because a close friend, one of the Twelve, was going to turn against him. But while this was deeply disappointing for Jesus, it came as no surprise. It was to fulfil this passage of Scripture. Cyril of Alexandria comments:
we do not believe that the deeds of any were done simply so that the Scriptures might be fulfilled. But the Holy Spirit has spoken in perfect foreknowledge as to what will happen, so that when the event comes to pass we may find in the prediction a pledge to establish our faith that we may from that point hold our faith without hesitation.10
19. By telling his disciples that he was soon to be betrayed, Jesus’ purpose was not to share his distress with them, understandable though that would be, but to show his concern for them: I am telling you now before it happens, so that when it does happen you will believe that I am who I am. By forewarning them of these events, he hoped that their faith might not fail when they occurred. Being forewarned did not prevent them falling into despair, though ultimately their faith did not fail. The mood of Jesus’ disciples is reflected in Luke 24:19–21, where the two on the Emmaus road said in response to a question from and about Jesus:
He was a prophet, powerful in word and deed before God and all the people. The chief priests and our rulers handed him over to be sentenced to death, and they crucified him; but we had hoped that he was the one who was going to redeem Israel.
Clearly, their belief that Jesus was the Messiah had been shaken. Later, Jesus opened the disciples’ eyes to understand all that was written about him in the Scriptures, and then their faith was restored (Luke 24:45–47).
20. The connection between the words of this verse, Very truly I tell you, whoever accepts anyone I send accepts me; and whoever accepts me accepts the one who sent me, and what precedes is not easy to determine. In the Synoptic Gospels, Jesus used words similar to these on a number of occasions and for different purposes (Matt. 10:40; 18:5; Mark 9:37; Luke 9:48). But what connection does the fourth evangelist intend for us to see between Jesus’ use of them in this verse and what precedes? Perhaps the connection is that the disciples, once their faith that Jesus is the Messiah was restored after the resurrection, and when they realized that all that had happened to him was in fulfilment of Scripture, would then take up their mission as Jesus’ sent ones in the world. If people then accepted them and their witness, they would be accepting Jesus also, and those who accepted Jesus in that way would be accepting the one who had sent him, God the Father.
21. Referring back to Jesus’ statements in the previous section, the evangelist says, After he had said this, Jesus was troubled in spirit. This is the third occasion on which Jesus was troubled, all of them relating to death. The first occasion was when he met Mary following the death of Lazarus and saw her caught up in faithless weeping (11:33, 38). The second was when, being aware that the time of his crucifixion was drawing near, he shrank from the prospect of the cross (12:27). On this third occasion, Jesus was troubled in spirit as he faced the betrayal by one of his disciples that would lead to his own death, as he testified, ‘Very truly I tell you, one of you is going to betray me.’ This declaration, introduced with the solemn formula Very truly I tell you (amēn amēn legō hymin), shows that the prospect of betrayal, though exceedingly disturbing, did not take Jesus by surprise. He announced it beforehand.
22–25. His disciples stared at one another, at a loss to know which of them he meant. They clearly understood his words, but consternation set in as they wondered which of them he meant. The evangelist then tells us that One of them, the disciple whom Jesus loved, was reclining next to him. This verse contains the first of four references to the disciple whom Jesus loved (13:23; 19:26; 21:7; 21:20), and it is his witness that is recorded in this Gospel (21:20–24). While many are reluctant to identify this person as the apostle John, it does nevertheless seem to be the fairest way to read the evidence (see Introduction, pp. 9–16).
Simon Peter motioned to this disciple and said, ‘Ask him which one he means.’ So then, Leaning back against Jesus, he asked him, ‘Lord, who is it?’ When people reclined on cushions around a triclinium (a low U-shaped table), leaning on their left elbows, the head of the person on one’s right would be close to one’s chest. It was easy, therefore, for the beloved disciple to make use of his close proximity to Jesus to ask the question quietly.
26–27. Jesus answered, ‘It is the one to whom I will give this piece of bread when I have dipped it in the dish.’ Then, dipping the piece of bread, he gave it to Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot. That Jesus was able to do this suggests that Judas was reclining next to him, to his left, the beloved disciple being to his right.
The niv translates the Greek word psōmion as a piece of bread. The word itself means only a ‘piece’ or a ‘morsel’, without indicating of what it was a piece or morsel. To this would have to be added artou (‘of bread’) to make it unambiguously mean ‘a piece of bread’. So it is not clear whether Jesus offered Judas a piece of bread or a piece of something else. If, however, a piece of bread is intended, Jesus’ action would certainly have reinforced what he said earlier: ‘He who shared my bread has turned against me’ (13:18, italics added). Either way, Jesus’ action in giving the morsel functioned as a silent answer to the beloved disciple’s question. Reading Jesus’ action in the light of the scriptural citation in 13:18, it would seem that this act was a last token of Jesus’ love to Judas, as well as a silent answer to the beloved disciple’s question. It is difficult to understand why the beloved disciple, receiving this information, took no action to prevent the betrayal. Perhaps it was because Jesus himself did nothing to prevent it, but instead told Judas to do it quickly (13:27).
The evangelist has already mentioned Judas Iscariot three times as the one who was to betray Jesus (6:71; 12:4; 13:2). Now he says: As soon as Judas took the bread [lit. ‘after the morsel’], Satan entered into him. He received the morsel, but not the love with which it was offered, and then Satan entered into him. Earlier in this chapter, the evangelist said that ‘the devil had already prompted Judas . . . to betray Jesus’ (13:2, italics added); now he says that Satan entered him, making clear that Judas was not acting on his own. In 6:70 Jesus referred to the betrayer as a devil (‘Have I not chosen you, the Twelve? Yet one of you is a devil!’). In 8:44 Jesus said to the Jews who wanted to kill him, ‘You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desires.’ In the same way, when Judas betrayed Jesus, he carried out the devil’s desire.
In 1 John 3:8 we read, ‘The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil’s work’; and in Hebrews 2:14–15 we read,
Since the children have flesh and blood, he [Jesus] too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death – that is, the devil – and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.
If the devil had known that his power would be broken by the death of Christ, he might not have been ‘prompting’ Judas to betray him or ‘entering’ him to bring about the betrayal. Recognizing what was happening with Judas, and that he was now determined to betray him, Jesus told him to get on with his wicked work: What you are about to do, do quickly.
28–29. Apparently Jesus’ words to the beloved disciple indicating who the betrayer was were heard only by the beloved disciple, but when Jesus told Judas to do quickly what he was going to do, all the disciples heard. The evangelist adds, But no one at the meal understood why Jesus said this to him. The evangelist explains what they thought: Since Judas had charge of the money, some thought Jesus was telling him to buy what was needed for the festival, or to give something to the poor. The evangelist notes that Judas had charge of the money. Earlier in the Gospel (12:2–8) we are told of Judas’s disgust when Mary anointed Jesus’ feet with expensive perfume. He said that it was a waste of money that could have been given to the poor. But there the evangelist explains, ‘He did not say this because he cared about the poor but because he was a thief; as keeper of the money bag, he used to help himself to what was put into it’ (12:6). Judas was the treasurer of the disciple band, and before he had hardened in his intention to betray Jesus, he was already guilty of embezzlement.
Seeing Judas leave the room, some of the disciples, who had not heard Jesus’ words to the beloved disciple identifying Judas as the betrayer, thought that he was being sent out as treasurer, either to buy something for the festival or to give something to the poor. The Mishnah allows purchase of food on Passover night as long as no cash changes hands; something could be left in trust instead and payment made after the festival (m. Sabb. 23:1). It was customary to make donations to the poor during Passover. That Jesus and his disciples used to give to the poor is implied in 12:5, when Judas objected to Mary’s extravagant devotion by saying that the perfume she used could have been sold and the proceeds given to the poor.
30. Jesus offered Judas the morsel, and As soon as Judas had taken the bread [lit. ‘morsel’], he went out. If in Jesus’ gesture there had been one last token of love, it was rejected. Judas’s mind was made up. He straightaway rose from the table and went out to betray Jesus. The evangelist adds the poignant words, And it was night. The reference to the night appears to carry both a natural meaning (it was night) and a symbolic meaning (Judas, leaving Jesus, was going out into spiritual darkness to betray him). This is supported by the fact that all the other references to the ‘night’ in the Gospel of John appear to have negative connotations. Two of these relate to Nicodemus’s coming to Jesus ‘by night’ (3:2; 19:39): the night allows Nicodemus to approach Jesus without being seen, and probably symbolizes the spiritual darkness he lived in before his encounter with Jesus. A third reference (9:4) includes Jesus’ words about doing the works of God while it is day, because the night is coming, when no-one can work. Here also the night has negative spiritual connotations. In the fourth reference (11:10), Jesus speaks about those walking ‘at night’, without the ‘light’ he brings, who stumble because they cannot see where they are going. Here also the night symbolizes spiritual darkness. The fifth reference (21:3) may also carry some symbolic meaning: the evangelist describes the disciples’ unsuccessful fishing expedition before Jesus appeared on the shore and gave them directions (‘that night they caught nothing’).
The evangelist highlights two aspects of Jesus’ consciousness at the time of the foot-washing. First, we see his love for ‘his own who were in the world’. This is the one place in the Gospels where Jesus’ love for ‘his own’ (those the Father has ‘given’ him; cf. 6:39; 17:6, 9, 24; 18:9) as a group is mentioned explicitly, as distinct from his love for individuals. It was a love that endured to the very end, when he laid down his life for them. Second, Jesus knew that the Father had ‘put all things under his power’, that he had come from God, and that through his imminent death and resurrection he would return to God. In his account of Jesus washing his disciples’ feet, then, the evangelist highlights both the amazing condescension involved and Jesus’ great love for them expressed in it.
Jesus’ washing of his disciples’ feet also provided them with an example they should follow: being prepared to serve one another as he had served them, with the promise of blessing if they did so. But it also symbolized something much greater: the cleansing from sin that his death on the cross would effect for those who believed, and without which there could be no real participation with him. Jesus’ humbling himself to wash the disciples’ feet was completely overshadowed by the much greater humiliation he endured when he laid down his life for them. Likewise, he showed his love by washing their feet, but the greatest expression of that love occurred when he laid down his life for them (15:13).
Jesus knew that one of the Twelve was a ‘devil’ (6:70), and as they all sat down for the Last Supper the devil had already ‘prompted’ Judas to betray him (13:2). Yet Jesus still washed Judas’s feet and offered him a token of his love as he gave him the morsel dipped in the dish (13:26). But, sadly, Judas’s greed for money meant more to him than Jesus’ love, and as soon as he took the morsel Satan ‘entered’ him, and Jesus dismissed him to carry out the betrayal.11 However, Judas’s betrayal and the devil’s machinations were, under God, made to provide salvation for humanity and bring about the devil’s downfall (see Heb. 2:14).
After the departure of Judas recorded in 13:30, Jesus spoke of his own imminent departure when he would be ‘glorified’ and gave his remaining disciples the ‘new command’ that they love one another, thus preparing them for events shortly to unfold: his betrayal, arrest, trials and crucifixion, to be followed by his resurrection and ascension. Through these events, Jesus would return to the Father. The whole of the long passage 13:31 – 16:33 constitutes Jesus’ farewell discourse in which he prepared his disciples for life without his physical presence.
There are certain formal parallels between Jesus’ farewell discourse and Jewish farewell speeches, most notably in the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, which appear to have been written in the second century bc. These speeches purport to be the final words of the twelve sons of Jacob just prior to their deaths. In each case, the patriarch reflects on his past life, mentioning both his failures and his virtues, and uses these as a basis for exhortations to his children. But there are obvious differences. While Jesus does remind his disciples about his teaching and presents his actions as an example for them to follow, he does not speak of his failures and urge his disciples to avoid these.
The first part of the discourse comprises seven subsections.
With the departure of Judas, the time of Jesus’ departure (when he would be ‘glorified’) was drawing near. Where he was going his disciples could not now follow. In the light of all this, Jesus stressed the importance of their love for one another, something that would be a sign to others that they were his disciples.
31. When he [Judas] was gone, Jesus said, ‘Now the Son of Man is glorified and God is glorified in him.’ Jesus’ use of the Son of Man as a self-designation picks up the concept of the glorious Son of Man from Daniel 7:13–14. To this one is given ‘authority, glory and sovereign power’, and his ‘dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away’. In the Gospel of John, the glorifying of the Son of Man involves suffering and death as well as sovereign power – Jesus enters his glory via the cross (see ‘Additional note: “the Son of Man”’, pp. 92–94) – and this is why Judas’s departure to betray him elicited the statement Now the Son of Man is glorified. However, the death of Jesus was not just his passage to glory: in death itself Jesus was glorified. In giving his life for sinful humans the glory of his gracious character was most clearly seen. And it did not stop there, for Jesus said that when the Son of Man was glorified, God also would be glorified in him. In Jesus’ self-sacrificing love for human beings the glory of God was revealed, for the Father loves the world, and this led him to give his one and only Son so that those who believe might have eternal life (3:16). In the giving of his Son, the glory of God’s own self-giving love was revealed.
32. Because Jesus was to glorify God in his death, he added, If God is glorified in him, God will glorify the Son in himself, and will glorify him at once. Because Jesus glorified his Father through his death, he knew that God would in turn glorify him without delay. He was referring to his resurrection and ascension. The apostle Paul expressed the same truth in Philippians 2:8–11:
And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
by becoming obedient to death –
even death on a cross!
Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
and gave him the name that is above every name,
that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.
33. Referring again to his imminent departure, Jesus said to his disciples, My children, I will be with you only a little longer. It was common for teachers to refer to their disciples as ‘children’. Jesus told his disciples that his time with them was now short. Judas had gone out to betray him and events were moving quickly: they would soon culminate in his arrest, crucifixion, resurrection and ascension. Then Jesus added, You will look for me, and just as I told the Jews, so I tell you now: where I am going, you cannot come. Earlier, Jesus had told the Jews, ‘I am with you for only a short time, and then I am going to the one who sent me. You will look for me, but you will not find me; and where I am, you cannot come’ (7:33–34; cf. 8:21). They could not follow Jesus into the Father’s presence because they did not believe in him. Jesus’ message for his disciples was similar, but with one significant difference. While the disciples could not follow Jesus now, they would do so later (13:36), but the Jews who rejected Jesus could not do so at all, and they would die in their sins (8:21).
34. A new command I give you: love one another. This is the first of three instances (13:34; 15:12, 17) when Jesus commanded his disciples to love one another, but only on this occasion did he refer to it as a new command. In the Old Testament, the Israelites were commanded to love their neighbour as they loved themselves (Lev. 19:18), but Jesus said to his disciples: As I have loved you, so you must love one another. This raised the bar considerably. The measure of love for their neighbour was no longer their love for themselves, but Jesus’ love for them. The Gospel of John speaks in three places (13:1; 15:9, 13) of Jesus’ love for the disciples, a love that led him to lay down his life for them. Now he said that they should love one another in the same way (cf. 1 John 3:16). Jesus’ love command was new because it demanded a new kind of love, a love that included the willingness to die for others.
35. Jesus highlighted the importance of the disciples’ love for one another by adding, By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another. This was not the reason why they should love one another, but rather its outcome. People would be able to recognize them as Jesus’ disciples by their mutual love. Knowing the truth about Jesus is vital, but so also is believers’ love for one another. This love is not sentimental, but self-sacrificing love by which they place other believers’ needs above their own. Lovelessness among believers nullifies their witness to the world and reveals them as hypocrites.
Sombre notes have already been sounded in chapter 13: Judas’s departure to betray Jesus (13:21–30) and Jesus’ enigmatic words about the Son of Man being ‘glorified’ (13:31–33). The evangelist adds to these by recounting Jesus’ prediction that Peter would deny his master (13:36–38).
36. Jesus’ warning about Peter’s denial was prompted by a question from Peter relating to something Jesus had said earlier (13:33b): Simon Peter asked him, ‘Lord, where are you going?’ Jesus replied, ‘Where I am going, you cannot follow now, but you will follow later.’ Jesus did not answer Peter’s question about where he was going, but told him that he could not follow him there now, but would do so later. It was not yet time for Peter to follow Jesus into the Father’s presence. Also, the rigours of suffering and death through which Jesus would make his way to the Father were not something Peter was yet able to bear, but later he would do so (see 21:18–19).
37. Peter asked, ‘Lord, why can’t I follow you now? I will lay down my life for you.’ Peter thought that Jesus was saying to him that he did not have the commitment necessary to follow him as he faced what lay ahead. Peter, however, said that he was ready to lay down his life for Jesus (cf. Matt. 26:35; Mark 14:31; Luke 22:33), but clearly he did not understand what that would mean. He was certainly ready to take up arms to defend his master, as he would do in the olive grove, wielding his sword against the servant of the high priest (18:10–11). But to follow Jesus in the way of suffering without resistance proved to be more than he could then bear.
38. Knowing that Peter would not be able to live up to his profession at this stage, Jesus answered, ‘Will you really lay down your life for me?’ These must have been hard words for Peter to hear, but worse was to follow: Very truly I tell you, before the cock crows, you will disown me three times! It was already night when Judas went out to betray Jesus, and now Peter was told that before that night had run its course (before the cock crows), he would disown Jesus three times (these denials are recorded in 18:17, 25, 26–27).12
After Jesus had washed his disciples’ feet, he had spoken of deeply troubling matters: one of them would betray him, he was going to leave them and Peter would disown him. Shortly the disciples would see their master led away for trial, then condemned to death and crucified. Their faith would be sorely tested. It was to fortify them in these circumstances that Jesus’ teaching, beginning in 14:1–11, was given.
1. Though deeply troubled by the prospect of his own betrayal and crucifixion, Jesus concerned himself with his disciples’ distress. He said to them: Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me.13 Their faith in God, and in particular their faith in Jesus, would enable them to calm their hearts as they faced what lay ahead.
2. Having urged his disciples to maintain their belief in him even though he was soon to leave them, Jesus gave them further grounds for doing so: My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you?14 God’s eternal dwelling place is portrayed as his house (oikia) with many rooms (monai), sufficient to provide a place (topos) for all Jesus’ disciples.15 Jesus’ going was to prepare a place for them in God’s house, and he assured them that if this were not the case, he would not have told them he was going there to do so. The word translated rooms (monai) is rare. It is not found in the lxx, and occurs only twice in the New Testament, both in the Gospel of John (14:2, 23). In 14:23 Jesus says, ‘Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home [monēn] with them.’ The text speaks of the Father and the Son making their ‘home’ with believers – that is, making themselves present with them. When we unpack the metaphor of 14:2, then, we should think not so much of ‘rooms’ in God’s house (much less ‘mansions’, as the kjv has it), but of the privilege of abiding in God’s presence.
When Jesus said, I am going there to prepare a place for you, we should not think of him returning to heaven and, having arrived there, setting about to construct ‘rooms’ for his disciples to occupy. Rather, it was by his very going – by his betrayal, crucifixion and exaltation – that he made it possible for them to dwell in the immediate presence of God. The imminent departure of Jesus, which so troubled the hearts of his disciples, was in fact for their benefit.
3. Jesus added, And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. Jesus’ coming back has been variously interpreted: (1) his coming to the disciples following his resurrection (see 20:19–29); (2) his coming in the person of the Holy Spirit (see 14:15–21); (3) his second coming at the end of this age (see 14:28; 21:22–23); or (4) his ‘coming’ to take his disciples to be with him when they die. The third alternative is the correct one: Jesus’ going in this context is his return to the Father’s presence in heaven (via his crucifixion, resurrection and ascension), and it is to heaven that he will take his disciples when he returns for them. This did not occur when he came to them following the resurrection, nor with the coming of the Holy Spirit, but will occur at his second coming. (The fourth suggestion, comforting though it is to think of Christ ‘coming’ for us when we die, does not receive any support in this passage.) Jesus’ return at the end of the age is not a major theme in the Gospel of John; nevertheless, it is implied in a couple of other places (14:28; 21:22–23). These are sufficient to show that, while the Gospel of John emphasizes the present experience of eternal life and the presence of Jesus with his disciples through the Holy Spirit, the hope of his return and of their being with him in the Father’s presence still remains the ultimate goal.
Jesus’ promise to come back and take his disciples to be with me is expressed by the words pros hemauton, which is idiomatic for ‘to my home’ (cf. Luke 24:12 nrsv). Thus Jesus sought to fortify his disciples by telling them that by his departure he would prepare places for them in his Father’s ‘house’, and that he would return to take them to his ‘home’ there.
4–5. Having told his disciples the purpose of his departure, Jesus said: You know the way to the place where I am going. He had spoken about the place where he was going – to the Father – and the way by which he was to get there – through the cross and resurrection – and he expected his disciples to understand this. But they did not, and, speaking for them all, Thomas said to him, ‘Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?’ They wanted to follow Jesus, but said that they did not know where he was going and therefore they could not know the way he was taking.
6. Jesus answered, ‘I am the way and the truth and the life.’ This statement is the sixth of seven ‘I am’ sayings with predicates in the Gospel of John (6:35, 48, 51; 8:12; 10:7, 9; 10:11, 14; 11:25; 14:6; 15:1, 5). Fundamental to Jesus’ response to Thomas’s question was that Jesus himself is the way. That he is the truth and the life are supporting statements.16 He is the way to the Father primarily because his death made access to the Father’s presence possible for sinful human beings.
He is also the way to God because he is the truth: he brought the truth of God into the world (1:14, 17; 8:32, 40, 45–46; 14:6; 18:37), proclaiming it and embodying it. Therefore, when people come to Jesus, they come to the one in whom the truth about the Father is found.
He is also the way to the Father because he is the life. The Gospel of John speaks of Jesus as ‘the life’ in various ways. In 1:4 we are told, ‘In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind.’ In 5:26 Jesus says, ‘as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself.’ In 6:33, 35, 48, 51 Jesus speaks of himself as the ‘bread of life’, and in 11:25 he says, ‘I am the resurrection and the life.’ All these texts reflect the fact that Jesus shared the divine life. Therefore, when people come to Jesus, they come to the one in whom the life of the Father is found, and in this sense also Jesus is the way to the Father.
In this text, Jesus not only said that he was the way and the truth and the life, but he also added: No one comes to the Father except through me. No-one else can bring people to God, for no-one else has seen God or made him known (1:18; 3:13), no-one else speaks and embodies the truth about God as he does, no-one else shares the very life of God and no-one else has dealt with the problem of human sin so as to bring people back to a holy God. This means that Jesus is the way to God provided for all people,17 and also that no-one can claim to know God while rejecting Jesus his Son (5:23; 8:42; cf. Acts 4:12). Köstenberger comments:
Jesus’ claim of himself being the way (with the corollary that no one can come to the Father but through him) is as timely today as it was when our Lord first uttered this statement. For in an age of religious pluralism, Christianity’s exclusive claims are considered inappropriately narrow, even intolerant, and pluralism itself has, ironically, become the criterion by which all truth claims are judged.18
7–8. Because Jesus was one with the Father, he could say to his disciples, If you really know me, you will know my Father as well. The word really has no counterpart in the original language but has been added by the niv translators to bring out the sense of Jesus’ statement. It implies that Jesus’ disciples did not yet really understand who he was. If they had, they would have realized that they knew the Father as well. Jesus explained: From now on, you do know him and have seen him. They did know the Father and had seen him because they knew and had seen Jesus, who was one with the Father and embodied the true revelation of the Father. Responding on behalf of all the disciples, Philip said, ‘Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us.’ His response indicated that they still did not realize who Jesus really was.
9–10. Jesus answered: ‘Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you [plural] such a long time?’ Despite the fact that Jesus had lived among his disciples for so long, they still did not know who he really was. So he explained further: Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. Because Jesus and the Father are one, anyone who sees Jesus sees the Father also. Jesus asked: How can you [sing.] say, ‘Show us the Father’? Don’t you [sing.] believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? Even though the disciples had come to acknowledge Jesus as the Holy One of God who had the words of eternal life (6:66–69) and as their Teacher and Lord (13:13–14), still they did not comprehend his unique union with the Father. So Jesus explained: The words I say to you [plural] I do not speak on my own authority. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work. Even the words which he spoke were not just his own words, for as he spoke the Father living in him was doing his work.
11. Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me. He wanted them to understand that he was not just a prophet, not just a teacher, not just their disciple-master and not only the Messiah: he was the Word made flesh; he was God incarnate. To be in his presence was to be in the presence of the Father. Recognizing that it was stretching their faith to accept this teaching, Jesus added, or at least believe on the evidence of the works themselves. On several occasions, Jesus urged the Jews to view his works as evidence that the Father had sent him (5:36), that he was the Messiah (10:25) and that the Father was in him and he in the Father (10:37–38). Now he urged his disciples also to believe on the basis of his works if they could not believe his word.
Having urged his disciples to believe in him on the basis of his works, Jesus went on to speak of the ‘greater’ works that they would do when he returned to his Father, adding that he would answer their prayers so that his Father would be glorified.
12. Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. To know what this means, we need first to understand what is meant by the works of Jesus. This expression is used repeatedly in connection with Jesus’ ministry and denotes: (1) evangelizing the Samaritan woman (4:34); (2) healing the lame man at the Pool of Bethesda (5:20; 7:21); (3) healing the man born blind (9:3, 4); (4) Jesus’ miracles generally (7:3; 10:25, 32, 33, 37, 38; 14:11, 12; 15:24); (5) Jesus’ teaching (14:10); and (6) Jesus’ entire ministry generally (5:36; 17:4). Second, we need to recognize that the disciples would do greater works than Jesus did because he was going to the Father (cf. 13:1). He promised that when he returned to the Father he would send the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, to them (16:7). In the power of the Spirit whom Jesus himself would send, they would do ‘greater things/works’.
If the works of Jesus included his miracles, his teaching, even his entire ministry, how can it be said that the works of his disciples would be greater than his? One suggestion is that, after Jesus’ return to the Father and the coming of the Spirit, the works the disciples would perform in the expanding mission of the church would be quantitatively greater than his – more works performed by many disciples in many different places. But the word translated greater (meizona) does not mean greater in number, but greater in quality – more important or more impressive – and it is used in this way throughout the Gospel of John (cf. 1:50; 4:12; 5:20, 36; 8:53; 10:29; 13:16; 14:12, 28; 15:13, 20; 19:11). Did Jesus mean, then, that the disciples’ works would be qualitatively greater than those he performed? This is highly unlikely. The disciples did later heal and exorcise in Jesus’ name, Peter did pray and Dorcas was restored to life (Acts 9:36–42), and through Paul’s ministry Eutychus may have been restored to life (Acts 20:7–12). But they did not miraculously feed multitudes, calm storms, restore sight to those who had been born blind or call people out of their graves when they had been already dead for four days. The disciples’ works did not reveal the Father in the same way as Jesus did in his ministry and teaching. From apostolic times until now, as far as we know, Jesus’ followers have never performed works that were qualitatively the same, let alone qualitatively greater, than those of Jesus.
If the greater works of the disciples cannot be understood as quantitatively or qualitatively greater, what did Jesus mean by saying that their works would be greater than his? One suggestion is that the greater works of the disciples are the results of their missionary endeavours, bringing many converts into the church. It has also been suggested that what Jesus said about John the Baptist provides a clue: ‘Truly I tell you, among those born of women there has not risen anyone greater than John the Baptist; yet whoever is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he’ (Matt. 11:11). John was the herald of the kingdom that Jesus brought in, but John himself lived, worked and died before people entered it. In terms of privileges, then, the least in the kingdom are greater than John. If we apply this to the difference between Jesus’ works and those of his disciples, we might say that the disciples’ works were greater than his because they had the privilege of testifying by word and deed to the finished work of Christ, and to the fuller coming of the kingdom that it ushered in, whereas Jesus’ ministry prior to his death and resurrection only foreshadowed these things.19 As they testified to these things, they witnessed God’s promises to Abraham being fulfilled, as Gentiles were converted and included in the people of God.
13–14. Linked to the statement that his disciples would do greater works than he did is Jesus’ promise, And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. The success of the disciples’ mission was to be intimately connected with prayer in Jesus’ name. This is the first of four places in the farewell discourse where Jesus makes promises about prayer (14:13–14; 15:7, 16; 16:23–26). In all cases except one, prayer was to be ‘in his name’. The only exception is 15:7, where the condition attached to answered prayer is that the disciples ‘remain’ in him and his words ‘remain’ in them.
You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it. Here to ask ‘in Jesus’ name’ cannot mean simply to use Jesus’ name to gain access to the Father, because prayer is addressed not to the Father but to Jesus himself. To ask something of Jesus in his name is best understood to mean to ask something for Jesus’ sake. What is for Jesus’ sake in this context is made clear in the reason he gave for making this promise: so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. Asking for Jesus’ sake is asking for things that will enable him to bring glory to his Father (see ‘Additional note: “in my name”/“in his name”’, below).
In a number of places in the Gospel of John, the ‘name’ clearly stands for the person. So to believe ‘in his name’ means to believe in him/Jesus (1:12; 2:23; 3:18), and to ‘glorify someone’s name’ or ‘make someone’s name known’ means to glorify that person or make that person known (12:28; 17:6, 26 nrsv). ‘Because of someone’s name’ means because of an association with that person (15:21), and ‘to come in someone’s name’ means to represent that person (5:43; 12:13; 14:26). ‘In the name of someone’ can also mean using that person’s power or authority (10:25; 17:11–12).
When it comes to ‘asking in someone’s name’, an expression found six times in the Gospel of John (14:13, 14; 15:16; 16:23, 24, 26), the meaning is a little more difficult to ascertain. However we interpret it, it must make sense of 14:13, 14, where Jesus says that he will do what we ask in his name, and that ‘You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it’. Clearly, then, to ask in his name is not to use his name to gain favourable access to someone else. To ask in his name might mean to ask in a way that is in accordance with his character (in biblical times, people’s names reflected their characters). However, a more straightforward interpretation is that ‘in Jesus’ name’ means for Jesus’ sake – that is, in line with his desire and purpose to bring glory to his Father. Thus 14:13–14 would read, ‘And I will do whatever you ask for my sake, so that the Son may bring glory to the Father. You may ask me for anything for my sake, and I will do it.’
In the light of his imminent departure, Jesus promised not to leave his disciples desolate, but to come to them again in the person of the Advocate, the Holy Spirit. The first promise of the Advocate appears in this passage and is bracketed by two statements by Jesus that those who keep his commands are those who love him (14:15, 21).
15. Jesus prefaced his promise of the Advocate with the words, If you love me, keep my commands. Love for Jesus is not sentimental but expressed by keeping his commands – that is, by responding to all he taught with faith and obedience. In other passages, Jesus’ teaching is described as his word (logos), referring to his teaching as a whole, which people need to accept and obey (see 8:31, 51–52; 12:48; 14:23–24; 15:20; 17:6).
16–17a. To those who love and obey him, Jesus said: And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you for ever – the Spirit of truth. The word translated advocate (paraklētos) occurs here for the first time in the Gospel of John. It is not a common New Testament term and needs some clarification before we proceed.
Paraklētos is found four times in the Gospel of John (14:16, 26; 15:26; 16:7) and once in the First Letter of John (1 John 2:1), but nowhere else in the New Testament and not at all in the lxx. In the Gospel of John, paraklētos consistently denotes the Holy Spirit sent to be with the disciples after Jesus’ return to the Father. In 1 John paraklētos denotes Jesus himself as an advocate for believers (not surprising, since Jesus described the Holy Spirit as ‘another’ paraklētos, implying that he is also a paraklētos).
Paraklētos in ancient Hellenistic texts consistently denotes an ‘advocate’, one who speaks on behalf of the accused (not in the professional sense in which we use ‘advocate’ today, but meaning a friend or an important patron who speaks up in favour of the accused).20 In the Gospel of John, one of the functions of the paraklētos is to testify in favour of Jesus over against a hostile world (16:7–11).
However, the meaning of paraklētos cannot be determined by Hellenistic usage alone. This needs to be supplemented by information gleaned from its use in the Gospel of John itself, and the functions ascribed to the paraklētos in the various contexts where the word is found. These functions include comforting the disciples after Jesus’ departure (14:16–17), teaching them (14:26), testifying on behalf of Jesus (15:26), convincing the world of sin, righteousness and judgment (16:7–11), guiding the disciples into all truth and telling them about things to come (16:13). It is understandable, then, that paraklētos has been variously translated as ‘comforter’, ‘teacher’, ‘advocate’, ‘counsellor’, ‘helper’ and ‘guide’. None of these terms on its own satisfactorily represents all the functions of the paraklētos, and for that reason some people prefer to leave it untranslated and use an anglicized transliterated form, ‘Paraclete’.
Returning now to the commentary on 14:16–17a, we need to note several things about Jesus’ promise of the Advocate/paraklētos. First, the gift of the Advocate is made by the Father to those who love and obey his Son. This must not be taken to mean that our love and obedience somehow merit this gift; rather, it is to those who are so related to his Son that the Father sends the Advocate. It is also important to note that, while obedience to Jesus is the key on the human side to the receiving of the gift of the Advocate, we must not turn it into some sort of super-spiritual obedience that only extraordinary Christians can achieve. What is meant by obedience is belief in Jesus and a commitment to follow him. Jesus’ first disciples were not super-Christians deserving the gift of the Spirit because of their extraordinary faith and obedience. They didn’t understand things, and their thoughts were often the thoughts of mere humans, not the thoughts of God. At the time of Jesus’ greatest need, they forsook him and fled, and Peter even denied that he knew Jesus at all. But in contrast to those of the world, who did not love and obey Jesus, they did love him and in their own imperfect way they did obey him. It was to disciples such as these that Jesus promised the Advocate.
Second, the gift of the Advocate is made by the Father to the disciples at Jesus’ request. In 7:37–39 the evangelist says that the bestowal of the Spirit was dependent upon the ‘glorification’ of Jesus (through his death, resurrection and exaltation). Having been ‘glorified’, Jesus would ask the Father to send the Spirit to his disciples.
Third, it was in the context of his departure that Jesus promised to send another21 Advocate so that his disciples would not be left as orphans (see 14:18). This suggests that the coming of the Advocate was in replacement of Jesus’ physical presence, and that the Advocate would do for the disciples after Jesus’ departure what Jesus did for them before it. This is confirmed by the fact that the ministry of the Advocate parallels the ministry of Jesus. Like him, the Advocate comforts and teaches the disciples, proves the world wrong in regard to sin, righteousness and judgment, guides the disciples into truth and tells them about things to come.
Fourth, Jesus promised his disciples that the Advocate would be with them ‘for ever’. The gift of the Holy Spirit, once given, is never taken away. This is so because the gift was given, not because of the piety of the disciples, but in answer to Jesus’ prayer, and was made possible by his death, resurrection and exaltation. The gift of the Spirit to Jesus’ disciples differs from the working of the Spirit in Old Testament times in two ways: (1) once given, the Spirit stays for ever; (2) the Spirit is given to all believers without exception, not just to people specially chosen.
Fifth, the Advocate is described as the Spirit of truth here and in two other places in this Gospel (15:26; 16:13). In this respect also the Advocate is like Jesus, who revealed the truth (8:31–36, 40, 45–46; 16:7; 18:37) and embodied the truth of God (1:14, 17; 14:6).22
17b. Jesus promised that the Advocate would be given to his disciples, but explained: The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. The world here refers to people who reject Jesus and the revelation he brings. They cannot receive the gift of the Advocate because they neither see him nor know him. We might wonder how anyone could see and know the Advocate before Jesus’ departure, since he was only to come after his departure. What Jesus meant became clear when he added: But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you.23 We can understand this if we recognize that, when the Advocate came to the disciples, Jesus himself came to them as well (cf. 14:18). It was because the disciples knew Jesus that he could say that they already knew the Advocate and that he now lived with them (in a similar fashion, in 14:9 Jesus says: ‘Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father’). It is clear why the world did not know the Advocate. It was because they, unlike the disciples, did not know Jesus.
What did Jesus mean when he said that the Advocate will be in you? The words the niv translates as ‘in you’ (en hymin) may also be rendered ‘among you’, seeing that the pronoun ‘you’ here is plural. However, just a few verses later Jesus individualized this promise when he said that (when the Spirit comes) the Father and the Son would make their home with the individual believer (14:21–23). In the light of this later statement, it is best to interpret the promise that the Advocate will be in you to include an indwelling of individual believers as well as his presence among them as a group.
18. Jesus promised his disciples: I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. The word orphan is a rare one in the New Testament. It is found only here and in James 1:27 (‘Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress’), where the distress of orphans and widows is highlighted. There are two ways in which Jesus’ coming to his disciples has been interpreted. First, he came to them following his resurrection, turning their sorrow into joy, and thus overcame their distress. However, these appearances were spasmodic and afterwards the resurrected Jesus did leave them. Second, he came to them in the person of the Advocate. At a time when Jesus was preparing his disciples for his return to the Father and promised that the Advocate would replace his physical presence, Jesus’ coming to them is best interpreted as his coming in the person of the Advocate (cf. 14:23, 28).
With the coming of the Advocate, the exalted Jesus would make himself present to his disciples in the here and now. This is a reminder that the function of the Holy Spirit is not restricted to the bestowal of spiritual gifts or the production of Christian character, but includes making Jesus present with believers as well.
19. Jesus promised his disciples that he would come to them again in the person of the Advocate. However, this would not be the case with the ‘world’, those who did not believe in him: Before long, the world will not see me any more. The resurrected Jesus would not reveal himself to the world. Things would be different in the case of the disciples: but you will see me. They would see the resurrected Jesus. He then added, Because I live, you also will live. On first reading, this appears to mean that because Jesus was to be raised from death, so too would his disciples. This is certainly true. But in a context where the present role of the Advocate is being stressed, it is better interpreted to mean that because Jesus was to be raised from death, and would ask his Father to give the Spirit to his disciples, they would experience life through the Spirit in the here and now. This is confirmed in the following verses (14:20–24).
20. On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you. The day when the Spirit came, the disciples would realize two things. First, they would understand what they had not hitherto been able to comprehend (cf. 14:7–11): that Jesus and the Father are one, and that to see Jesus is to see the Father. Second, they would understand that, with the coming of the Spirit, they would be in Jesus and Jesus in them. This concept of (mutual) indwelling is found in several places in the Gospel of John (6:56; 14:17, 20; 15:4–6, 7). What it means for Christ to dwell in believers is clear enough: with the coming of the Spirit to dwell in believers, Jesus also may be said to dwell in them because of the unity of the Spirit and the Son. However, what it means for believers to dwell in Christ is more difficult to explain. At one level, it appears to be a metaphor for loyalty and obedience to Christ – at least, this is what Jesus stressed about believers abiding in him. The key text is 15:4–10, where, describing the disciples’ relationship to him in terms of branches in the vine, Jesus says that they ‘remain’ in him by allowing his words to ‘remain’ in them (15:7), and implies that this is the same as abiding in his love by obeying his commands (15:10). However, more than loyalty and obedience is involved in their being ‘in’ Jesus, as his prayer in 17:21 indicates: ‘Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us.’ It is perhaps best understood in terms of a union brought about by the coming of the Holy Spirit.
21. The final verse in this passage (14:15–21), where the first promise of the Advocate is found, returns to the theme of love and obedience with which it begins: Whoever has my commands and keeps them is the one who loves me. Love for Christ does involve heartfelt appreciation of him (cf. 21:15–17; Luke 7:36–50) and should express itself in concern for his pleasure (cf. 14:28), but what Jesus himself stressed was that those who love him are those who obey his commands. This means responding to his teaching with obedience and faith.
Jesus promised: The one who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love them and show myself to them. Our love for Jesus, imperfect though it is, is rewarded in two related ways. First, we become the objects of the Father’s own love; and second, we become the objects of Jesus’ love and self-revelation. Love for Jesus does not end in Stoic obedience to his will. Obedience is involved, but it leads to an experience of the love of the Father and the Son, and the revelation of the Son to the believer – surely the greatest incentive to express our love for Christ by obedience to his will.
Many first-century Jews were waiting for the Messiah to come and reveal himself in power to the world. The disciples recognized Jesus as the Messiah, and it is not surprising that, when he spoke of showing himself to them (14:21), they would wonder when he would show himself to the world.
22. Judas (not Judas Iscariot) said, ‘But, Lord, why do you intend to show yourself to us and not to the world?’ This Judas was one of the Twelve chosen by Jesus (see Luke 6:13–16). Like many of their fellow Jews, the disciples longed for the manifestation of the Messiah to the world. Jesus’ promise to show himself to his disciples was not enough for Judas, so he asked why Jesus was not going to show himself to the world as well.
23–24. Responding to this question, Jesus began, Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them. Revelation would be made initially only to those who loved Jesus and obeyed his teaching. It was these whom the Father would love and with these that Jesus and the Father would make their home. According to Jewish expectation, God will dwell among his people in the age to come (Ezek. 37:26–27; cf. Rev. 21:3). Jesus promised that what was expected at the end time would be experienced (in part) in the present time. It would occur through the coming of the Spirit, whereby the Father and the Son would make their home with believers. It is worth noting that this promise applies to individual believers: it is to Anyone (tis) who loves and obeys Jesus that this promise is made. When he spoke of the Father and the Son making their home with the believer, he used the same word (monē) used in 14:2, where he said that in his Father’s house there are many rooms (monai). As the disciples looked forward to a place in these ‘rooms’ – that is, in God’s presence, in the future – the Father and the Son would make their home (monē) with them in the here and now by the coming of the Spirit.
Continuing his response to Judas’s question, Jesus said: Anyone who does not love me will not obey my teaching. This is the reason why he would not show himself to the world when he showed himself to his disciples. At the end of the age, of course, he will reveal himself to all as the judge of the living and the dead (cf. 5:28–29). Jesus concluded his response to Judas’s question by saying: These words you hear are not my own; they belong to the Father who sent me. On a number of occasions, Jesus emphasized that he spoke the Father’s words – what the Father commanded him to say (7:16–17; 12:49–50; 17:14). He highlighted this fact again so that the disciples would know with certainty that the promise of the coming of the Father and the Son to make their home with the believer was entirely trustworthy.
This passage brings to a close the first part of the farewell discourse (13:31 – 14:31) in which Jesus prepared his disciples for his departure and for their ongoing life in the world without his physical presence.
25–26. All this I have spoken while still with you. But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you. This is the second of four references to the Advocate (paraklētos) in the farewell discourse (14:16, 26; 15:26; 16:7), but the only one in which the Advocate is explicitly identified as the Holy Spirit.
On this occasion, Jesus said that the Father would send the Advocate (also implied in 14:16). On other occasions, he said that he himself would send the Advocate (15:26; 16:7). We should not make too much of these variations because Jesus stressed repeatedly that he only did what the Father commanded him to do, and that the Father carried out his work through him. We can safely assume the same unity of action and purpose between Father and Son in the sending of the Advocate after the return of the Son to the Father.
Jesus said that the Father would send the Advocate in my name. In this context, in my name means ‘representing me’ (see ‘Additional note: “in my name”/“in his name”’, p. 350). In 14:16–19 Jesus had said that the Advocate’s role would be to represent him to his disciples so they would not feel destitute after his departure. In fact, Jesus said that he himself would come to them in the person of the Advocate. The Advocate would also teach the disciples all things. All things does not mean everything that it is possible to know, but all that Jesus himself taught them: he will remind you of everything I have said to you.
Calvin comments:
Again, when Christ declares that it is the peculiar office of the Holy Spirit to teach the apostles what they had already learned from His own mouth, it follows that outward preaching will be useless and vain unless the teaching of the Spirit is added to it. So God has two ways of teaching. He sounds in our ears by the mouth of men; and He addresses us inwardly by His Spirit. These He does simultaneously or at different times, as He thinks fit.24
27. Jesus promised, in addition to the coming of the Advocate, the gift of his peace: Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. In the Old Testament, false prophets proclaimed peace when there was no peace (Jer. 6:13–14). In New Testament times, the Pax Romana, the Roman peace, was won and maintained by brutal force. When people of the world say, ‘Peace be with you’, it is an expression of hope and goodwill. When Jesus said that he would give his peace to his disciples, much more was involved. He bequeathed to them a peace of mind in the midst of trials and persecutions, a peace they would experience with the coming of the Advocate (cf. Gal. 5:22). On these grounds, Jesus could say: Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid. He was repeating what he had said earlier (14:1). Then his exhortation was connected with faith in God, but now with his gift of peace.
28. After promising his peace, Jesus reminded his disciples of his imminent departure, but also the promise of his return: You heard me say, ‘I am going away and I am coming back to you.’ There are two ways in which Jesus returned to his disciples: he came to them as the resurrected one, and he came to them in the person of the Spirit. Here in 14:28 he refers to the second of these comings. We know this because his departure meant his return to the Father. Once Jesus returned to the Father there were no more post-resurrection appearances, but he did come to his disciples in the person of the Spirit.
The words If you loved me, you would be glad that I am going to the Father enable us to see how much the return to the Father meant to Jesus himself, and, sadly, how little the disciples recognized this. They were so preoccupied with their own problems that they were unable to rejoice with him in this matter.
Jesus looked forward to his return to the Father, he said, for the Father is greater than I. This text has been the subject of much controversy in debates concerning the divinity of Christ and the relationships within the Trinity. However, it is unlikely that, in the context of the Last Supper, as Jesus prepared his disciples for life without his physical presence, he was making statements about trinitarian or Christological matters. It is better to interpret this text in the light of the general statement that a messenger is not greater than the one who sends him (see 13:16). It was the Father who sent the Son into the world, and the Son who willingly obeyed. It was the Son who, as the incarnate Jesus, died on the cross, and it was the Father who raised him from the dead. As the sent one, Jesus could say that the Father who sent him was greater than he was, but later he would ask to be restored to the full glory he had with the Father before the world began (17:5). For this he was returning to the Father, and in this he hoped his disciples might rejoice with him.25
Michaels comments on this text:
Certain statements about the Father and the Son are not reversible. That is, the Father sent the Son, not the other way around. The Son does what he sees the Father doing, does the works of the Father, says what the Father gives him to say . . . None of these pronouncements makes sense when turned around: the Father does not imitate the Son; the Father does not do the works of the Son, nor speaks the Son’s words. In that sense the Father’s priority is undeniable. If Jesus is ‘the Way’, he is the way ‘to the Father’ (v. 6), who sent him in the first place, not an end in himself.26
29. Jesus spoke only briefly about what his departure would mean for him, but then gave his attention again to what it would mean for his disciples: I have told you now before it happens, so that when it does happen you will believe. He knew that events soon to unfold would come as a shock to them. By telling them beforehand what was to happen, he was ensuring that these events would not take them completely by surprise, and therefore their faith would not be destroyed. In this way, Jesus attended to the emotional distress his disciples were to experience and made sure that they would not be overwhelmed by it.
30a. The time for preparation of the disciples for Jesus’ departure was now growing short. He said, I will not say much more to you, for the prince of this world is coming. This is the second of three references to the prince of this world (12:31; 14:30; 16:11), referred to elsewhere as ‘the devil’ (8:44; 13:2), ‘Satan’ (13:27) and ‘the evil one’ (17:15). This coming of the prince of this world was to occur through the actions of Judas Iscariot (13:2, 27) and the Jewish leaders to whom he betrayed Jesus.
30b–31. While Jesus acknowledged that the machinations of the prince of this world meant that he would not speak with his disciples for much longer, he made it clear that He has no hold over me. Humanity, apart from Christ, is under the control of the prince of the world (see 1 John 5:19) because of their sin, but Jesus was without sin (8:46) and therefore the prince of this world had no hold over him. The niv translation of verses 30b–31a – the prince of this world is coming. He has no hold over me, but he comes so that the world may learn that I love the Father and do exactly what my Father has commanded me – is not one supported by the majority of modern versions. It implies that it was the coming of the prince of this world (the devil) that enables the world to learn that Jesus loves the Father. The text is better rendered as it is, for example, in the nrsv: ‘the ruler of this world is coming. He has no power over me; but I do as the Father has commanded me, so that the world may know that I love the Father.’ In this case, what enables the world to learn of Jesus’ love for the Father is his obedience. Jesus’ impending passion and death was not a defeat suffered at the hands of the prince of this world, but an act of obedience to the Father. The peoples of the world may learn this, and if they do, they will cease to belong to this world but will be numbered among Jesus’ disciples.
We often and rightly see Jesus’ death on the cross as the demonstration of God’s love for the world (3:16; Rom. 5:8) and of his special love for believers (15:13; cf. Gal. 2:20), but this verse reminds us that his death was first and foremost a demonstration to the world of his love and obedience to the Father. It is a timely reminder that everything does not revolve around us, but around God.
Jesus concluded the first part of his farewell discourse by saying, Come now; let us leave. This statement is puzzling because it is not followed by a departure from the room where the Last Supper was eaten, but by the second part of the farewell discourse (15:1 – 16:33) and Jesus’ prayer (17:1–26). It is only after these things that the evangelist says that Jesus ‘left with his disciples and crossed the Kidron Valley’ (18:1). Various explanations have been offered to explain this: (1) Having urged his disciples to leave the room with him, Jesus gave further instructions and prayed before doing so – just as today people will signal their intention to leave, but then engage in further conversation before actually doing so. (2) This rough transition in the middle of the farewell discourse indicates the evangelist’s use of two sources of tradition. (3) The second part of the farewell discourse and Jesus’ prayer (15:1 – 17:26) were in fact spoken after their departure from the room and on the way to the olive grove where the betrayal took place, but before they left the city of Jerusalem itself.27 If we adopt this last approach, we could interpret 18:1 as a reference to Jesus and his disciples leaving, not the room where the Last Supper was held, but the city of Jerusalem en route to the olive grove on the other side of the Kidron Valley.
When Judas left to betray Jesus, and in the light of his own imminent departure to return to the Father, Jesus gave his disciples instructions and also prepared them to cope with what lay ahead. First, and very importantly, he said: ‘A new command I give you: love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another’ (13:34). In the Old Testament, Israelites were commanded to love their neighbour as themselves (Lev. 19:18), so in a sense Jesus’ command was not altogether new. But it was new in the sense that the standard was no longer that of loving others as they loved themselves, but rather as Jesus himself loved them. He would lay down his life for them (10:11, 15; 15:13–14), so they must be prepared to do the same for one another (cf. 1 John 3:16). The crucial importance of this command is evident in the fact that the Lord reiterated it again and again (see 15:12, 17), and by its repetition in the Letters of John (1 John 3:11, 23; 4:21; 2 John 5, 6). Mutual love among believers is the one thing by which Jesus himself said that people would know they were his disciples.
Second, as the disciples grieved over his imminent departure, Jesus comforted them by saying: ‘I am going there to prepare a place for you . . . And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am’ (14:2–3). By his very going, by means of betrayal, crucifixion and resurrection, he would make it possible for them to join him in the presence of God. What they were grieving over was in fact for their benefit. In that sense, he was indeed the way, and the one and only way, to the Father (14:6).
Third, while the disciples were shortly to lose their Lord’s physical presence, this was to be compensated by ‘another advocate’, ‘the Spirit of truth’. When Jesus made this promise the Spirit was already living with them, being present in Jesus himself, and would live in them when the Father sent him in answer to Jesus’ request. Jesus would be with them spiritually when the Spirit came, and as a result they would not be left as orphans (14:16–18). When the Holy Spirit came, Jesus said, he ‘will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you’ (14:26). This promise was important, not only for the early Christians, but also for present-day believers. It is an assurance from the Lord himself that the Spirit would teach the first witnesses and remind them of the truths he had taught them and which are now recorded in the New Testament, even though at the time they often did not understand.
The second part of Jesus’ farewell discourse runs from 15:1 – 16:33, and comprises the following three sections: the true vine and its branches (15:1–17), the world’s hatred and the coming of the Advocate (15:18 – 16:15) and the disciples’ grief will give way to joy (16:16–33).
In this passage Jesus continues to prepare his disciples for what lay ahead. He stresses the importance of abiding in him so that ‘fruit’ that glorifies God will be borne in their lives. He also stresses again (cf. 13:34–35) how important it is that they love one another, something they will need to do because they will experience hatred from the unbelieving world, as the following section (15:18–25) shows.
In the time of Jesus, a great golden vine hung over the entrance to the Jerusalem temple. Josephus describes it thus: ‘The gate opening into the building was, as I said, completely overlaid with gold, as was the whole wall around it. It had, moreover, above it those golden vines, from which depended grape-clusters as tall as a man’ (Wars 5.210–212). If the second part of Jesus’ farewell discourse was given en route from the Last Supper venue to the garden where he was betrayed, his teaching on the true vine may have been given in the temple courtyard, with the great golden vine glinting in the light of the Passover moon.
The most commonly cultivated fruit trees in Jesus’ day were the olive tree, the fig-tree and the grape vine, all of which survive and bear fruit even in drought conditions. The Old Testament depiction of Israel as a vine (Ps. 80:8–19; Isa. 5:1–7; Jer. 2:21; 6:8–9; Ezek. 17:6–8; 19:10–14; Hos. 10:1–2) provides important background information for understanding Jesus’ teaching about the true vine. Most significant of the Old Testament passages is Isaiah 5:1–7, where Israel is represented as a vineyard planted by the Lord from which he expected good grapes, but which produced only bad grapes and therefore had to be destroyed. The key verse is Isaiah 5:7:
The vineyard of the Lord Almighty
is the nation of Israel,
and the people of Judah
are the vines he delighted in.
And he looked for justice, but saw bloodshed;
for righteousness, but heard cries of distress.
Ancient viticultural practices also provide important background information. Two processes were involved: the training of the vines and the pruning of the branches. Vines were trained in one of two ways: (1) they were allowed to trail along the ground and then the fruit-bearing branches were lifted up by placing rocks or poles under them to allow aeration in order to ensure better grapes; or (2) they were trained from the outset onto poles or trellises, the branches being lifted onto these to improve their fruit-bearing potential.
Pruning was also an essential part of first-century viticultural practice, as it is today. The first pruning occurred in spring, when vines were at the flowering stage. This involved four operations: (1) the removal of the growing tips of vigorous shoots so that they would not grow too rapidly; (2) cutting off one or two feet from the ends of growing shoots to prevent entire shoots being snapped off by the wind; (3) the removal of some flower or grape clusters so that those left could produce more and better-quality fruit; and (4) the removal of suckers that arose from below the ground or from the trunk and main branches, so that the strength of the vine was not tapped by the suckers. Spring pruning did not involve the removal of wooden branches or their subsequent burning.
The second pruning occurred in autumn after the grapes were harvested and when the vines were dormant. This involved the removal of unwanted branches, those that had produced fruit in the previous season but would not produce fruit in the ensuing season. It also involved cutting back the desired branches (the shoots from the year-old branches that would produce fruit in the coming year) to ensure maximum fruit production. After the autumn pruning, the cuttings, including many wooden branches, were gathered up and burned.28
1. Against the Old Testament background of Israel as the vine that failed to produce good fruit (see esp. Isa. 5:1–7), Jesus said: I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. This is the last of seven different ‘I am’ sayings with predicates in the Gospel of John (6:35, 48, 51; 8:12; 10:7, 9; 10:11, 14; 11:25; 14:6; 15:1, 5). Jesus used the word true (alēthinos) several times to denote what is true or genuine (4:23: ‘true worshippers’; 6:32: ‘true bread’; 15:1: ‘true vine’; 17:3: ‘the . . . true God’). He used it on this occasion to indicate that he was the true vine that produced the fruit that the nation Israel failed to produce, fruit for which the gardener (the Father) was looking. What Jesus meant by ‘fruit’ is discussed below in the commentary on 15:4. By depicting the Father as the gardener/vinedresser, Jesus indicated that the Father was in control of both his ministry (as the vine) and that of his disciples (as the branches).
2–3. Jesus’ use of the metaphor of the vine enabled him not only to depict himself as the true vine and his Father as the gardener, but also to depict his disciples as branches of that vine and his Father’s work as the pruning of the branches to increase their ‘fruit-bearing’. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit. The Father, as the gardener, Jesus said, cuts off those branches in me which fail to produce fruit.29 In the context of the Last Supper, just after Judas Iscariot had gone out to betray his master, the branch that is cut off would have as its primary reference the betrayer. Jesus referred to the removal of Judas later when he said, ‘None has been lost except the one doomed to destruction so that Scripture would be fulfilled’ (17:12).
Jesus added, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. This is an allusion to the spring pruning during the flowering stage so that fruit-bearing is maximized. The word translated ‘to prune’ (kathairō) can also mean ‘to clean’ or ‘to purify’. It is found only here in the New Testament, but the cognate word katharos (‘clean’/‘pure’) is found twenty-seven times in the New Testament, four of which are in the Gospel of John (13:10 [2x], 11; 15:3). In 13:10–11 the word is used to describe the disciples (excluding Judas Iscariot) as ‘clean’, and here in 15:3 Jesus says of the Eleven: You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. In 15:2–3, then, there is a play on the words kathairō and katharos (‘to clean’ and ‘clean’). The disciples have already been rendered clean because of the word Jesus spoke to them. Now the Father also cleanses/prunes the disciples/branches so that they will bear more fruit. He ‘prunes/cleanses’ them through the word Jesus spoke to them. It is as we hear and respond to the teaching of Jesus that we become more fruitful.30
4. Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. In 15:3 Jesus says that the disciples bear fruit as they respond to his teaching. In 15:4 he emphasizes that, just as a branch cannot bear grapes unless it remains in the vine, so too the disciples cannot bear fruit unless they remain in him. A number of things need explanation.
First, what does it mean for disciples to remain in Jesus? They probably thought of it in terms of loyalty and fellowship, which would continue as they obeyed his word. There are two other places in the Gospel of John where Jesus speaks of his disciples ‘remaining’ in him or in his love, and in each case it involves keeping his word (15:7, 10). If ‘remaining’ in Jesus is a metaphor for continuing in fellowship with and loyalty to him, obedience to his commands is clearly important.
Second, what does it mean for Jesus to remain in the disciples? Again, we should think in terms of continuing fellowship, this time of Jesus with his disciples. The means by which Jesus remains in fellowship with his disciples cannot be the same as the means by which the disciples remain in fellowship with him. Jesus does not keep his disciples’ commands! While physically present, Jesus remained in fellowship with them by committing himself to being with them and for them. When he returned to the Father, he did not leave them alone (14:15–18), but came to them in the person of the Holy Spirit; then his remaining in them took on a deeper meaning. Today it is the combination of believers remaining in fellowship with Jesus by obeying his word and Jesus remaining in his disciples through the presence of the Spirit which produces fruit which pleases the Father.31
Third, what is the nature of the fruit produced when the disciples remain in Jesus? There are two common interpretations: (1) righteous living (as was required of Israel in Isa. 5:1–7); or (2) the results of preaching the gospel – that is, new converts. However, to choose one, or even both, of these is to narrow the meaning too much. The context, which stresses that fruit is produced as the disciples maintain their fellowship with Jesus by keeping his word and when Jesus continues to fellowship with them by the Spirit, suggests that fruit refers to the entire life and ministry of those who follow Jesus’ teaching and experience his presence in their lives through the Spirit.
5. Until this point, Jesus had only implied that his disciples were branches in the true vine; now he states this quite explicitly: I am the vine; you are the branches. He then reiterates the teaching of 15:4: If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit. If the disciples remain in fellowship with Jesus by observing his teaching, and he remains in fellowship with them through the coming of the Spirit, the disciples will produce much fruit in their lives – fruit that will please the Father. However, if they do not remain in fellowship with Jesus, there will be no fruit, as Jesus said, apart from me you can do nothing.
6. If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. The allusion is to the autumn pruning, when branches which cannot bear fruit any longer are cut off, thrown into the fire and burned. The implication is that those who do not obey Jesus will experience judgment (cf. 3:18; 8:21, 24; 12:25, 48; 17:12). The primary reference was probably to Judas Iscariot. The use of the passive voice in this verse (thrown away, picked up, thrown into the fire, burned) indicates that God is the one who implements the judgment. Köstenberger comments: ‘Some who appear to be members in good standing in the Christian community may eventually turn out never truly to have been part of it in the first place, Judas being the paradigmatic example (see esp. 1 John 2:19).’32
7. If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. To those who remain in fellowship with Jesus by observing his teaching, he made this promise. The passive voice (it will be done for you) indicates that God is the one who responds to the disciples’ request. In 14:13–14 Jesus gave a similar promise concerning prayer, saying that he would do whatever his disciples asked him in his name. Such promises are conditional upon prayer being in his name (i.e. for his sake – see ‘Additional note: “in my name”/“in his name”’, p. 350) and in line with his teaching (i.e. as his words remain in the petitioners).
8. This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit. Disciples bring glory to God by bearing much fruit. The fruit is most likely the outcome of their entire life and ministry as they remain in fellowship with Jesus by keeping his commands and experience his presence with them through the Spirit (see commentary on 15:4). Then they reflect the character of God, and he is glorified as people catch glimpses of what he is truly like. As they bear this fruit, Jesus said to them, you are showing yourselves to be my disciples.
9–10. It looks, at first, as though 15:9 begins a new subsection (15:9–17) dealing primarily with Jesus’ love for his disciples and his command that they love one another. However, in 15:16 the notion of fruit-bearing reappears, suggesting that this subsection dealing with love is also related to fruit-bearing. It begins with the amazing statement, As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Just as Jesus is the recipient of the Father’s love, so the disciples are the recipients of his love. Jesus’ statement that he loved his disciples employs the aorist tense, depicting his love as a complete action, denoting perhaps the entire demonstration of Jesus’ love for his disciples throughout his time with them and culminating in his death.
We need to recognize that there are some significant differences between the Father’s love for the Son and the Son’s love for his disciples. The Father’s love for the Son predates creation and is the reason why he gave glory to the Son (17:24). The Father’s love for the Son expressed itself in placing everything in the Son’s hands (3:35) and was drawn out further by the Son’s willingness to lay down his life, only to take it up again (10:17). In none of these ways can it be said that Jesus’ love for his disciples is just the same as the Father’s love for him.
While there are some differences, it still remains an immense privilege for disciples of Jesus to be brought into the community of love that exists between the Father and the Son. Jesus’ purpose in telling his disciples this was to provide a basis for the exhortation which follows: Now remain in my love – that is, remain in fellowship with me so that you may continue to experience my love for you. How they are to do this is then spelled out: If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love. Remaining in the Father’s love was not for Jesus a passive thing: it involved obedience to his commands. The same is true for Jesus’ disciples. They remain in Jesus’ love by keeping his commands.
11–13. While obedience is demanding, it is the pathway of true joy: I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. Earlier, Jesus had told his puzzled disciples, ‘I have food to eat that you know nothing about . . . My food . . . is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work’ (4:32–34). Jesus’ joy came from doing the Father’s will, and the joy of the disciples would come from doing what Jesus commanded them; and he said: My command is this: love each other as I have loved you. The model for the disciples’ love for one another was Jesus’ love for them.
Speaking of his love for them, he said, Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. In the ancient world, friendship was very important and operated at a number of levels: political friendship, in which certain people were known as friends of the king (friends of Caesar); benefactor–client friendship, in which a wealthy person would become the patron of someone less well-off; and mutual friendship among equals. Especially in this last category, friendship involved sharing of confidences, possessions and, in extreme cases, laying down one’s life for one’s friend. Jesus’ love for his disciples was of this extreme form: he would lay down his life for his friends.
The evangelist alluded to the extreme form of Jesus’ love when he introduced the foot-washing in 13:1: ‘Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.’ The foot-washing symbolized Jesus’ humiliation in laying down his life on the cross for his disciples. It is noteworthy that, earlier in the Gospel, laying down his life was described as part of Jesus’ obedience to his Father (10:18), while here it is described as an expression of his love for his disciples. Jesus expected his disciples to express the same sort of self-sacrificing love for one another.33
14. Jesus explicitly identified his disciples as his friends: You are my friends. The word translated as friends is philoi, which denotes people who are ‘on intimate terms or in close relationship’.34 Abraham and Moses were described as ‘friends of God’ (Isa. 41:8; 2 Chr. 20:7; Jas 2:23; Exod. 33:11), and Jesus spoke of his disciples in the same way, although he also pointed out that the ongoing experience of this friendship was conditional: if you do what I command. Jesus’ giving of his life for his disciples showed that his friendship was like that between intimate mutual friends, but the fact that he expected obedience to what he commanded reminds us that there were significant differences as well. Accordingly, while the disciples are called Jesus’ friends (11:11; 15:13–15), Jesus is never called their friend.35 This is because the nature of their friendship is not mutual as human friendships usually are. On Jesus’ side, it involved giving commands; on the disciples’ side, it involved obedience, and, as becomes apparent in 15:16, the disciples were his friends, not because they had chosen him, but because he had chosen them.
15. I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. The word translated servants is doulous, literally ‘slaves’. While trusted household slaves might know a lot about their master’s business, they were rarely regarded as their intimates. One important aspect of mutual friendship was the sharing of information and confidences. Jesus called his disciples his friends because he treated them as his intimates and revealed to them everything he had learned from the Father – by which he probably meant all that the Father commanded him to say (12:49–50). This included the teaching he gave to his disciples concerning God’s plan of salvation, and, in particular, the instructions he gave them in the farewell discourse.
16. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you. Jesus’ initiative was the basis of this friendship, and his choice of the disciples as his friends involved an appointment or a commission: so that you might go and bear fruit. With these words, Jesus returned to the theme of the earlier part of the chapter – the vine and the branches, and the function of the branches to bear fruit for the gardener. The nature of the fruit expected was discussed in the commentary on 15:4, where it was concluded that fruit is the entire outcome of the disciples’ life and ministry carried out in obedience to Christ and enjoying his presence through the Spirit. When Jesus said that the disciples were to go and bear fruit, the ‘going’ most likely referred to their missionary endeavours.36 The fruit they were to bear in their going would include new believers.
This fruit is described as fruit that will last. The word last translates menē. The same word is used to speak of three other things that last: the ‘food’ that the Son of Man will give and which endures (menousan) to eternal life (6:27); the son, not the slave, who has a permanent place (menei) in the family (8:35); and the Messiah who remains (menei) for ever and does not die (12:34). Noting these parallels, we may say that fruit that will last denotes the eternal significance of life and ministry carried out in obedience to Jesus, including making new believers.
Jesus made this promise to those who would go and bear fruit: whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you. This is the third of four remarkable promises Jesus made concerning prayer (14:13–14; 15:7–8, 16–17; 16:23–24). In each case, the promise is conditional. Here it is conditional upon two things: the disciples carrying out their commission to go and bear fruit, and prayer being made in Jesus’ name (see ‘Additional note: “in my name”/“in his name”’, p. 350).
17. The section 15:1–17 concludes with the words This is my command: love each other. The means by which disciples (branches) remain in Jesus (the vine) – that is, remain in fellowship with him – is obedience, something emphasized again and again throughout this section (15:7, 10, 12, 14, 17). The aspect of obedience which Jesus stressed is that his disciples must love one another. It is stated explicitly in 15:12 and again here in 15:17. In 13:35 Jesus made it clear that their love for one another was related to their mission in the world: ‘By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.’ It is a reminder to all believers of the need to love one another, for unless they do, their mission activities will be largely negated. The apostle Paul told his Corinthian converts that, no matter what ministry they exercised, if it was not carried out with love it counted for nothing in God’s sight (1 Cor. 13:1–3).
Jesus spoke of himself as the ‘true vine’, in contrast to the nation Israel, which frequently proved to be ‘unfruitful’. He depicted his Father as the ‘gardener’ – that is, the vinedresser – who removes unfruitful branches (15:2a). This is best understood to refer to people who are apparently followers of Christ but are not truly committed to him, the prime example being Judas Iscariot, who actually betrayed Jesus. Jesus also depicted his Father as the vinedresser who prunes fruitful branches so that they become more fruitful (15:2b). The word translated ‘prune’ in 15:2 is the same as that translated ‘clean’ in 15:3, suggesting that Jesus was saying that the way the Father works in the lives of believers to make them more fruitful is by the application of Jesus’ word to their hearts and minds.
If the Father works in the lives of believers to make them more fruitful, for their part it is necessary to ‘remain’ in Jesus because they cannot bear fruit by themselves (15:4). To ‘remain’ in Jesus involves allowing his word to remain in them, and heeding and obeying it (15:7). What is meant by the fruit to be produced in believers’ lives has been variously interpreted as godly living and the results of evangelistic preaching, but perhaps it is best understood as the entire life and ministry of those who follow Jesus’ teaching and experience his presence in their lives through the Spirit. Bearing fruit has two important outcomes: it is to the Father’s glory and it is evidence that people are truly Jesus’ disciples (15:8).
Crucial for our ‘remaining’ in Christ is obedience to his word, and in this context he says: ‘My command is this: love each other as I have loved you’ (15:12).37 In the following verse Jesus explains the nature of his love for us, the model of the love we must show to one another: ‘Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends’ (15:13). The apostle, writing in 1 John 3:16, spelt out the significance of this statement for his readers: ‘Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters.’ In times of persecution, this may well become an actuality for believers. However, it is interesting to note that the apostle, in the immediately following verse, applies it at another level also: ‘If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person?’ (1 John 3:17). Our love, like that of Christ, must be practical, not merely sentimental.
Having stressed the importance of loving one another, the evangelist proceeds to record Jesus’ warning that his followers would experience hatred from the world, initially and in particular from the Jewish leadership. They should not be surprised at this because Jesus himself experienced persecution at their hands. When they experienced the world’s hatred, it would be all the more important that they were supported by their mutual love. In this context, Jesus promised to send the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, who would bear witness to Jesus alongside his disciples’ testimony to him. The Advocate would convict the world of its sin, and also guide Jesus’ disciples into all truth, even telling them of things to come.
18. If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. In this context, the world stands for those among the Jewish leadership who were antagonistic towards Jesus. However, it is important to remember that not all Jews were antagonistic towards him, any more than all Jews since have been antagonistic towards his followers. In the following verses, Jesus spells out the reasons for the world’s hatred. Köstenberger comments:
The Qumran community stressed love within the brotherhood but ‘everlasting hatred for the men to the pit’ (1QS 9:21–22). Jesus, by contrast, preached love for one’s enemies, though this did not necessarily alter the world’s negative stance toward him or his followers.38
19. If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. If the disciples were in league with those who opposed Jesus, they would be embraced by them; but because Jesus chose them out of the world, they could no longer identify with it, and, Jesus explained, That is why the world hates you. This placed the disciples in a situation of tension. They were called upon to love the world and to seek its salvation, but the world rejected them and persecuted them. Their temptation might have been to withdraw from contact with the world into a Christian ghetto, but this they could not do, because Jesus sent them into the world to share the good news with its people (4:38; 17:18; 20:21).
20. Jesus did not want this hatred to take his disciples by surprise, so he said: Remember what I told you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ He reminded them of something he had said after washing their feet: ‘Very truly I tell you, no servant is greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him’ (13:16). Jesus uses the same truth here to explain why his disciples would experience the hatred of the world: If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also. But this was not the whole story, for not all their fellow Jews would hate and persecute them; some would receive their message just as they had received Jesus’ message, so he added, If they obeyed my teaching, they will obey yours also. The story of the early preaching of the apostles in Jerusalem in the Acts of the Apostles illustrates this: many received their teaching but many also, especially among the Jewish leaders, rejected it and persecuted them.
21. They will treat you this way because of my name. Here the name stands for the person, so in effect Jesus was saying, ‘They will treat you in this way because of me’. It was because they identified themselves with Jesus instead of with the Jewish leaders that the disciples would become objects of persecution. However, the ultimate reason for this persecution, Jesus said, is that they do not know the one who sent me. Even though the persecutors would think that they were doing God a service by persecuting believers (16:2), Jesus insisted that they did not really know God at all.
22–23. If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not be guilty of sin; but now they have no excuse for their sin. Jesus had spoken God’s words to them (3:34; 7:17; 8:28, 38, 40; 12:49–50; 14:10) and yet the majority of the Jewish leaders rejected his testimony, so they had no excuse for their sin.
Jesus rejected their claim to be true worshippers of God who opposed him because of their faithfulness to God: Whoever hates me hates my Father as well. They could not claim to love God while hating Jesus. Those who hate Jesus hate the Father as well, because he and the Father are one (10:30; cf. 14:7–11).
24. If I had not done among them the works no one else did, they would not be guilty of sin. This does not mean that they were not guilty of sin prior to witnessing what Jesus did; rather, it highlights the greater guilt involved in rejecting that revelation. The works no one else did is reminiscent of the statement of the man born blind: ‘Nobody has ever heard of opening the eyes of a man born blind. If this man were not from God, he could do nothing’ (9:32–33).
It was not only what he said but also the works that he performed which constituted the revelation from God which his opponents rejected. These works were the works the Father had given him to do (5:36; 10:25, 32, 37–38; 17:4). His opponents saw these works but, because their own privileged position was threatened, they rejected the revelation offered them through his works and plotted to kill him (11:45–53). Jesus said, As it is, they have seen, and yet they have hated both me and my Father. Because Jesus and the Father are one, their hatred of Jesus was hatred of God also.
25. Their hatred came as no surprise to Jesus. He told his disciples: But this is to fulfil what is written in their Law: ‘They hated me without reason.’ It is ironic that the Jewish leadership that rejoiced in the possession of their Law, by their hatred of Jesus actually fulfilled what their Law said. The Law here means the whole Old Testament, including Psalms 35:19; 69:4, to which Jesus alluded. The psalmist lamented the unfair persecution he experienced. Jesus saw Scriptures such as these as finding fulfilment in the opposition he experienced. Such a reading of Scripture rests upon the conviction that God’s dealings with his people and many of their experiences in Old Testament times foreshadowed his dealings with his people and their experiences in New Testament times (cf. 1 Cor. 10:1–11). It is a sad fact, not limited to the followers of Jesus, that good people who struggle for truth and righteousness often attract the anger of those who feel threatened by their goodness.
26. During his lifetime, Jesus bore testimony to the world. After his return to the Father, the Holy Spirit would take up this task: When the Advocate comes, whom I will send to you from the Father – the Spirit of truth who goes out from the Father – he will testify about me. This is the third of four references (14:16, 26; 15:26; 16:7) to the Advocate (paraklētos) in the Gospel of John (see ‘Additional note: the paraklētos’, pp. 351–352). Each succeeding reference adds a little more to our understanding of the role of the Advocate. In this context, his role is to give testimony in favour of Jesus in a hostile world. He would do this when he was sent to the disciples, and, as the next verse indicates, he would do it through their witness.
There are a number of things that call for comment. First, Jesus said that he would send the Advocate to his disciples, and this is repeated in 16:7. However, in 14:16, 26 the Advocate is sent by the Father. As mentioned in the commentary on 14:26, these variations are not significant because the Father and the Son are united in their actions, and this is reinforced by the fact that the Advocate sent by Jesus goes out from the Father.
Second, the Western Text makes an addition to this verse so that the Advocate is described as one who goes out from the Father ‘and the Son’ (Lat. filioque). This textual variant gave rise to the fourth-century trinitarian debates. Does the Spirit proceed from the Father only, or does he proceed also from the Son? What is the ontological significance of these options, and what are the implications for the doctrine of the Trinity? The whole debate was probably misguided, as in context the proceeding of the Spirit relates to the sending of the Spirit to the disciples after Jesus’ return to the Father. It does not relate to the inner workings of the Trinity or to some eternal procession of the Spirit from the Father (and the Son).
Third, in this verse the Advocate is described as the Spirit of truth, as he is in two other places in this Gospel (14:16–17; 16:13). In this respect, the Advocate is like Jesus, who is himself frequently said to speak the truth (8:31–36, 40, 45–46; 16:7; 18:37) and embody the truth (1:14, 17; 14:6).
Fourth, when the Advocate came, he (ekeinos, a masculine pronoun, implying the personhood of the Advocate/Holy Spirit) would testify to the truth about Jesus. Such testimony was largely a defence of Jesus in a hostile world: a world that hated him because he told it the truth it did not want to hear. In this action, the Advocate would function in the standard way a paraklētos operated in the ancient world, providing testimony in favour of a friend who has been accused.
27. And you also must testify, for you have been with me from the beginning. Because of the juxtaposition of the statement about the Advocate’s testimony (15:26) and the disciples’ testimony to Jesus (15:27), it is probable that the Advocate’s testimony is to be understood as effected through the witness of the disciples. While the niv translates the first clause of this sentence as an imperative – and you also must testify – it is in fact a simple indicative statement: ‘and you also bear witness’ (cf. rsv: ‘and you also are witnesses’). The basis of the disciples’ witness was their own experience of Jesus from the beginning – that is, from the time he first called them to follow him.
16:1. Referring to all that he had said about the world’s hatred of himself and the hatred his disciples would likewise experience, Jesus said, All this I have told you so that you will not fall away. If the disciples, after Jesus’ return to the Father, were taken by surprise by the animosity of the world, they might fall away. The verb translated fall away (skandalisthēte) means ‘caused to stumble, or fall (into sin)’. Jesus was concerned that the intensity of the opposition his disciples were to experience might, if they were not prepared for it, cause them to stumble and fall away from their faith in him. So he warned them in advance. To be forewarned is to be forearmed.
2. In this verse, the nature of the opposition the disciples would experience is described in detail. Jesus said, They will put you out of the synagogue. This includes the third and final use of the word meaning ‘put out of the synagogue’ (aposynagōgos) in the Gospel of John (see commentary on 9:22). The Jewish leaders had already decided to put out of the synagogue anyone who acknowledged that Jesus was the Messiah (9:22), and many Jewish leaders who believed in Jesus were afraid to confess him openly, lest they too be put out of the synagogue (12:42). Now Jesus warned his disciples that they would soon be excluded from the synagogue because they were his followers. Lincoln explains:
To be driven out from what had been their religious community and cut off from links with those among whom they had previously lived and worshipped would have been extremely traumatic. Indeed such a ban was the social equivalent of a death sentence.39
This warning would have resonated with Jewish readers of the Gospel if they feared, or had suffered, a similar fate.
But even worse was to happen. Jesus added, in fact, a time is coming when anyone who kills you will think they are offering a service to God. The Acts of the Apostles reports such things occurring: Stephen was stoned to death (Acts 7:57–60), Saul of Tarsus sought to destroy the church, making murderous threats against the disciples (Acts 8:3; 9:1–2), and Herod had James put to death with the sword (Acts 12:1–2). Before his conversion, Saul/Paul saw his persecution of the church as evidence of his zeal for God (see Phil. 3:4–6).
3. While the Jewish leaders would persecute and kill both Jesus and some of his followers because they thought they were doing God a service, Jesus said, They will do such things because they have not known the Father or me. Far from rendering service to God, Jesus said, they did not even know God. The evidence that they did not know God was that they did not recognize Jesus, whom God sent and in whom God was made known (cf. 5:23).
4. I have told you this, so that when their time comes you will remember that I warned you about them. When these persecutions befell the disciples, they would remember that Jesus had warned them about them beforehand, and they would not think that everything had gone awry. It was what Jesus had said would happen. Knowing this, they would not be caused to stumble and fall by the persecutions. Jesus added, I did not tell you this from the beginning because I was with you. It had not been necessary for them to know these things previously. It may have been too much for them to bear in the early days of their discipleship. But the real reason, Jesus said, was because I was with you. While he remained with them, he was the ‘lightning rod’ that attracted the flashes of persecution. But after he returned to the Father, his disciples would experience it themselves. That was why Jesus did not tell them at first and why, as he prepared them for his departure, he told them now.
5. Referring again to his imminent departure, Jesus said, but now I am going to him who sent me. None of you asks me, ‘Where are you going?’ Earlier, Peter had asked this very question (13:36: ‘Lord, where are you going?’), and the same question was implied in Thomas’s complaint (14:5: ‘Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?’). Some see this as evidence for two versions of Jesus’ farewell discourse (13:31 – 14:31 and 15:1 – 16:33) which the evangelist combined without bothering about contradictions. Others suggest that Jesus was not saying that the question had not been asked before, but that now no-one was asking it. However, the now in this text does not qualify the asking but the time of Jesus’ going. Another suggestion is that, although his disciples had formally asked this question before, in reality they were less interested in where Jesus was going than in the effect of his departure upon them. So Jesus could say that none of them had (really) asked this question before. Michaels comments:
The disciples have been silent for a long time (all the way back to 14:22), and it would not be at all odd for Jesus to comment on their silence, and the reason for it. He could have said, ‘I am going to the One who sent me, and none of you says anything,’ but instead he builds on what they had been saying earlier: thus, ‘none of you asks me – as you repeatedly did before – “where are you going?”’40
6–7. Jesus, recognizing how his disciples were feeling, continued: Rather, you are filled with grief because I have said these things. It must have been disappointing for Jesus that his disciples showed little interest in his imminent sufferings and future vindication (cf. 14:28) because they were filled with grief at the prospect of their own loss; nevertheless, he responded to their sense of loss by saying: But very truly I tell you, it is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you. In 7:39 the evangelist told his readers that the Spirit would not come until Jesus was glorified (through death, resurrection and exaltation). Thus Jesus’ going away would be for their good, because he would then be able to send the Advocate/Spirit to them. The coming of the Advocate would overcome the disciples’ feeling of desolation. But he would do more: he would have a role vis-à-vis the world as well, as 16:8–11 makes clear.
8. A general description of the Advocate’s role vis-à-vis the world is given here: When he comes, he will prove the world to be in the wrong about sin and righteousness and judgment. He would come to the disciples and through their preaching prove the world wrong. The word the niv translates as prove . . . wrong (elenchō) was used by Greek moralists in relation to the conscience, and in the lxx with forensic overtones, as it has here.41 It is not just a matter of proving people factually wrong about what they think or believe, but rather convicting them because they are morally responsible for their attitudes and actions. When the Advocate proved the world to be in the wrong about sin and righteousness and judgment, it could lead either to repentance and salvation or to hardening of heart and condemnation, depending upon the response of those proved wrong. The Advocate would carry out his work of proving the world to be in the wrong through the ministry of the disciples (see Acts 2:36–37; 1 Cor. 14:24–25).
9. The Advocate, Jesus said, would prove the world to be in the wrong about sin, because people do not believe in me. The ‘world’ in the Gospel of John, when in opposition to Jesus, refers to unbelieving Jews, often unbelieving Jewish leaders. On several occasions, Jesus gave them dire warnings about their sins (8:21, 24; 9:41; 15:22, 24; 19:11). Particularly ominous were warnings like that in 8:24: ‘I told you that you would die in your sins; if you do not believe that I am he, you will indeed die in your sins.’ The Advocate, when he came, would likewise convict them of their sin of unbelief, just as Jesus himself had done. The sin of unbelief – refusing to accept Jesus and his revelation – is extremely serious because it is a rejection of the one whom God sent, his one and only Son (3:18). It is tantamount to a rejection of God himself. The Advocate would convict people of their sin through the preaching of the disciples (see Acts 2:36–37).
10. Jesus said that the Advocate would also prove the world to be in the wrong about righteousness, because I am going to the Father, where you can see me no longer. The word righteousness (dikaiosynē) is found only in 16:8, 10 in the Gospel of John, so its meaning for the evangelist is not easy to determine. One way forward is to ask in what way the world would be proved wrong about righteousness by Jesus’ return to the Father. The Jewish leaders had concluded that Jesus was a sinful man (9:24), but they were wrong because their standards were wrong. The one they declared sinful was vindicated by God when he raised him from the dead and exalted him to his right hand. The Advocate would convict the world in respect of righteousness because the world convicted as sinful one whom God declared righteous.
11. The Advocate would also prove the world to be in the wrong about judgment. This is best understood along the same lines as the Advocate’s convicting role in relation to righteousness. Just as the Jews were mistaken in respect of Jesus’ righteousness, accordingly their judgments about Jesus were also mistaken. During his ministry, Jesus said to them, ‘Stop judging by mere appearances, but instead judge correctly’ (7:24). After Jesus’ return to the Father, the Advocate would continue to prove them wrong about judgment, because the prince of this world now stands condemned. Earlier in the Gospel, Jesus had described the devil (= prince of this world) as ‘a liar and the father of lies’ (8:44). He is the source of false judgment. As the time for Jesus’ death and exaltation drew near, Jesus said, ‘Now is the time for judgment on this world; now the prince of this world will be driven out’ (12:31). The prince of this world, the distorter of true judgment, stands condemned, and the role of the Advocate would be to prove wrong those of the world who likewise distorted true judgment, particularly in relation to Jesus.
12. Focusing his attention back upon his disciples, Jesus said, I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. He understood their emotional state and recognized that they were not ready to hear more, probably meaning more about the terrible events soon to befall him and them. He had given some warnings beforehand about what was to happen (13:19; 14:29–30; 16:4), but more than this, he judged, they could not bear.
13. What they could not bear then, they would need to understand afterwards. Therefore, Jesus promised, But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth. The Spirit is here referred to with the masculine pronoun he (ekeinos), underlining again (cf. 15:26) the personhood of the Spirit – he is not just a force. He has already been twice described as the Spirit of truth (14:17; 15:26). The Spirit would guide Jesus’ disciples into all the truth. This is not to be interpreted absolutely, as if the Advocate would teach them all that could be known, but rather that he would interpret to them afterwards the truth about the death, resurrection and exaltation of Jesus. His role was to testify to Jesus: He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. Just as Jesus did not speak independently of the Father, so the Advocate would not speak independently of Jesus. What he heard from the Son he would tell the disciples: the things yet to come – that is, events to occur after the Spirit came (i.e. after Pentecost), perhaps guidance about issues they would face in the future (see Acts 15:28–29), the sufferings they would endure for the sake of Jesus’ name (see e.g. Rev. 2:9–10, 13; 12:17) or Jesus’ return at the end of the age (see 1 Thess. 4:14–18).
14–15. Underlining that the Advocate did not act independently, Jesus said, He will glorify me because it is from me that he will receive what he will make known to you. Just as Jesus’ purpose was to bring glory to the Father, so the Advocate’s role was to bring glory to Jesus. This he would do by taking what belongs to Jesus and making it known to his disciples. Jesus then explained, All that belongs to the Father is mine. In several other places it is made clear that all that belongs to the Father belongs to Jesus (3:35; 13:3; 17:7, 10). However, here the emphasis is upon the knowledge the Father has, for Jesus went on to say: That is why I said the Spirit will receive from me what he will make known to you. The knowledge the Father has also belongs to Jesus (see 15:15), and the Advocate would take that knowledge and make it known to the disciples. Once again, this is not an absolute statement meaning that everything God knows will be revealed to the disciples. It relates to the significance of the great saving events that were about to unfold in the death and resurrection of Jesus.
This section is dominated by Jesus’ warnings about the world’s hatred and persecution of believers, and the promise of the coming of the Advocate, the Holy Spirit. When they suffer persecution, believers should remember that their master experienced it before them (15:18). The world loves its own, but it will persecute Jesus’ disciples because they now belong to him and no longer to the world (15:19–21). Some will be put out of the synagogue and suffer all the social deprivation such excommunication involves. Even when those of the world put believers to death, they will think that they are doing God a service (16:2). But Jesus said that their actions show that they do not know God at all; in fact, they hate God, as they hate Jesus (16:3; 15:24).
As believers face persecution, they will not be on their own. Jesus will send the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, and he will be with them and bear witness to Jesus alongside the witness of his disciples (15:26–27; cf. Acts 4:7–12). These are salutary words when in many parts of the world Christians are increasingly experiencing opposition, persecution and death.
The Advocate also convicts the world of sin: its refusal to believe in Jesus; its failure in the matter of righteousness, condemning as guilty the one God declares righteous; and its wrongheaded judgments (see Acts 2:37). The Advocate not only convicts the world of sin, but also guides believers into the truth about Jesus, even telling them of things to come – perhaps what they will encounter as they remain true to Jesus in a hostile world, and how to deal with new challenges as they occur.
In 16:1–15 Jesus explained that his departure would be to his disciples’ advantage, because then he would send the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, who would convict the world of its sin while guiding his disciples into all truth. In 16:16–33 Jesus explains that, although his departure will cause them grief for ‘a little while’, their grief will turn to joy after ‘a little while’ longer, when they see him again. Then they will enjoy direct access to the Father who loves them because they love Jesus and believe that he has come from God.
16–19. In these verses, Jesus begins to deal directly with the effect of his departure upon his disciples: In a little while you will see me no more, and then after a little while you will see me. This puzzled them, so some of his disciples said to one another, ‘What does he mean by saying, “In a little while you will see me no more, and then after a little while you will see me,” and “Because I am going to the Father?”’ Earlier, Jesus had made repeated references to his departure to return to the Father (13:1; 14:12, 28; 16:10), something that was to take place in a little while. Here he tells them that a little while after that, they would see him again. Clearly, this whole matter was a great puzzle to them, for in 16:18 the evangelist says: They kept asking, ‘What does he mean by “a little while”? We don’t understand what he is saying.’ As the disciples persisted in asking themselves what this meant, Jesus saw that they wanted to ask him about this, so he said to them, ‘Are you asking one another what I meant when I said, “In a little while you will see me no more, and then after a little while you will see me”?’ He knew that they were reticent to ask him what he meant (he knew what was in people, 2:25), perhaps because they did not want to reveal their lack of comprehension. In the next verses, Jesus answers the question they were not prepared to ask.
20. Very truly I tell you, you will weep and mourn while the world rejoices. You will grieve, but your grief will turn to joy. The disciples would weep and mourn as they saw events unfold: Jesus’ betrayal at the hands of Judas Iscariot, his being handed over by the Jewish Sanhedrin to the Roman prefect and it all culminating in his crucifixion. But their grief would last but a few days, for Jesus would be raised from death and appear to his disciples again, and then their grief would be turned to joy. The ‘little while’ after which the disciples would see Jesus no more was the brief period between the time of speaking and his crucifixion; and the ‘little while’ after which they would see him again was the three days between his crucifixion and resurrection.
21–22. Jesus reinforced his statement with an analogy: A woman giving birth to a child has pain because her time has come; but when her baby is born she forgets the anguish because of her joy that a child is born into the world. The pain of childbirth can be excruciating, but afterwards the joy of a child born into the world completely overshadows the pain. Jesus said to his disciples: So with you: now is your time of grief, but I will see you again and you will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy. Grief would engulf the disciples as they saw Jesus betrayed, handed over to the Roman governor and crucified, just as the pains of childbirth engulf a woman in labour. But when Jesus met his disciples again as the resurrected one, their grief would turn to exultant joy, just as joy floods a new mother at the birth of her child.
Jewish people believed that the age of the Messiah would be brought in only after a time of distress, the so-called ‘birth pangs of the Messiah’, the tribulations that preceded the end of this age and ushered in the new age. Perhaps the words of 16:21–22 allude to this belief; if so, they indicate that the death and resurrection of Jesus would inaugurate, though not consummate, the new age. Other New Testament writings also speak of tribulation before the end of the age (e.g. Mark 13:19; Matt. 24:21; Acts 14:22; Rev. 7:14). But Jesus’ use of the birth pains analogy may simply have been an illustration of the point he wished to make.
23. Jesus continued: In that day you will no longer ask me anything. Very truly I tell you, my Father will give you whatever you ask in my name. Different words are used for not asking Jesus anything (erōtaō) and asking the Father for something (aiteō). Erōtaō usually means to ask about something, but can also mean to ask for something. Aiteō means to ask for something. Here in 16:23, the two verbs are used synonymously, meaning to ask for something. The disciples’ relationship with Jesus after his resurrection, exaltation and the coming of the Spirit would be different from their relationship with him before these events. Then, instead of asking him for things, they would be able to ask the Father, and he would give them whatever they asked. This was a solemn promise, introduced with the words Very truly I tell you (amēn amēn legō hymin).
This is the last of four places in the farewell discourse (14:13–14; 15:7, 16; 16:23–26) where Jesus makes promises to his disciples concerning prayer. In every case but one, the answer to the prayer is conditional upon asking ‘in his name’. The exception is 15:7, where the condition is that the disciples ‘remain’ in him and his words ‘remain’ in them. Here in 16:23, it is again prayer in Jesus’ name that is guaranteed a positive answer. As suggested above (see ‘Additional note: “in my name”/“in his name”’, p. 350), to pray in Jesus’ name means to pray for things ‘for his sake’ or in line with his purposes. So, in this verse, Jesus is saying that after his resurrection, the disciples will begin approaching the Father directly in their prayers, and whatever they ask the Father that is in line with Jesus’ purposes for humankind and the glory of God will be given to them.
24. To further encourage his disciples to begin praying in this way, Jesus said, Until now you have not asked for anything in my name. Ask and you will receive, and your joy will be complete. They had not yet learned to ask in Jesus’ name. Jesus now told them to ask in his name, promising that if they did so, they would receive what they asked for, and then they would know complete joy.
25. Jesus introduced what he was to say next with the words Though I have been speaking figuratively. Earlier, in 10:6, the evangelist says the same sort of thing about Jesus’ teaching concerning the good shepherd: ‘Jesus used this figure of speech, but the Pharisees did not understand what he was telling them.’ Throughout the farewell discourse, Jesus used figurative speech – for example, in regard to the foot-washing, when speaking of the ‘way’ to the Father; in the metaphor of the vine and the branches; and finally, in his cryptic comments about ‘a little while’. Jesus continued, a time is coming when I will no longer use this kind of language but will tell you plainly about my Father. The time for plain speech was now close at hand.
26–27. In that day you will ask in my name. To ask in Jesus’ name is to ask ‘for his sake’ or in line with his purpose to bring glory to God (see ‘Additional note: “in my name”/“in his name”’, p. 350). In 16:23 Jesus spoke about ‘that day’ as a time when his disciples would make their requests to the Father and he would give them what they asked. He added, I am not saying that I will ask the Father on your behalf. Following Jesus’ resurrection, ascension and the coming of the Spirit, the disciples would no longer have access to Jesus’ physical presence, but this would not prove to be a loss because they would have direct access to the Father. They would not need Jesus to ask the Father on their behalf. To encourage them to make use of their access to the Father, Jesus said, No, the Father himself loves you because you have loved me and have believed that I came from God. The disciples knew something of Jesus’ love for them and had grown in their love for him and in their belief that he had come from God. Jesus told them that, because they loved him and believed in him, the Father also loved them. This repeated earlier teaching (14:21, 23) about the Father’s love for them and provided the basis upon which they could come to the Father and make their requests in Jesus’ name.
28. Speaking now without figures of speech or enigmatic phrases, Jesus said, I came from the Father and entered the world; now I am leaving the world and going back to the Father. That Jesus came from God (3:2; 13:3; 16:27, 30; 17:8) into the world (1:9; 3:17, 19; 6:14, 33; 9:39; 10:36; 11:27; 12:46; 17:18) and was returning to God (13:1, 3; 14:12, 28; 16:10, 17, 28; 17:13; 20:17) are recurring themes in the Gospel of John. Here in 16:28, all three are brought together. It was as the Word made flesh (1:14) that Jesus entered the world, and it would be through betrayal, death, resurrection and exaltation that he would leave the world and go back to the Father.
29–30. Hearing him speak in this way, Jesus’ disciples said, ‘Now you are speaking clearly and without figures of speech.’ They believed that his promise to speak plainly to them ‘in that day’ had already been fulfilled. They felt emboldened to say: Now we can see that you know all things and that you do not even need to have anyone ask you questions. The disciples were now convinced that there need be no more interrogation of Jesus to test his knowledge or determine who he was. It was plain that he knew all things, so they said: This makes us believe that you came from God. In confessing this, they were picking up on what Jesus told them in 16:28: ‘I came from the Father.’
31–32. Jesus’ response to the disciples’ confession was far from enthusiastic: ‘Do you now believe?’ Jesus replied. What follows indicates that the disciples’ belief was shallow at best and needed to be questioned. Jesus warned them: A time is coming and in fact has come when you will be scattered, each to your own home. Whatever the nature of their belief, it was not enough to sustain them in the time of crisis that was about to overtake them. When Jesus was betrayed and handed over to the Roman prefect, they would be scattered and would flee to their homes (see Matt. 26:56; Mark 14:50). Jesus added: You will leave me all alone. Yet I am not alone, for my Father is with me. Though he was to be deserted by his disciples, the Father would stand by him through all his trials.
Some have asked if there is not a contradiction in this Gospel. It says here that all the disciples would be scattered and Jesus left alone, yet 18:15 says that Peter and John followed him to the high priest’s courtyard. Perhaps we should recognize that their first reaction was to flee, and they did so; later, they pulled themselves together and followed Jesus to the high priest’s house, though Peter was not with John at the foot of the cross. Another thing that has puzzled readers is that here Jesus says that, though his disciples would leave him alone, the Father would be with him. How does this square with his cry of dereliction, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ recorded in the Synoptic Gospels (Matt. 27:46; Mark 15:34)? However, there is no contradiction here. We recognize that God was with Jesus through all his sufferings: the betrayal, the Jewish and Roman trials, and the crucifixion. It was only as he bore the sins of the world in the darkness that covered the land that he was abandoned by the Father.
33. Jesus’ words to his disciples informing them of their desertion would have troubled them deeply. But it would have been even more troubling for them to be overtaken by these events and think that Jesus himself was also taken by surprise. So Jesus said, I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. When afterwards the disciples felt ashamed and remorseful because they had deserted Jesus in his time of need, they would be able to recall that he had known about these things beforehand and was still committed to them and still loved them. In this knowledge, they could have peace in their relationship with him.
Jesus knew that, after his return to the Father, the disciples also would be persecuted. He had warned them that the Jewish leaders would hate them, as they had hated him; that they would put them out of the synagogue and would even think that they did God a service by putting them to death (15:18 – 16:4). They had already felt something of the world’s hatred (see 17:14). Jesus now warned them of further persecution: In this world you will have trouble.42 It was another reminder that their lives would not be easy. In this world – that is, in their relationships with a hostile world (in particular, with unbelieving Jews) – they would have trouble. To balance this, Jesus promised that in their relationship with him, even in the midst of their troubles, they would know peace.
Even though they would have trouble in the world, Jesus said: But take heart! I have overcome the world. This is ironic, for it would later appear as if the world overcame Jesus; after all, the Jewish leaders did succeed in having him crucified by the Romans. Yet Jesus insisted that he had overcome the world. In what sense? In the sense that all its opposition did not succeed in turning him aside from what he had come to do: to reveal the truth about God and the human condition, and to give his life that the world might be saved.
In 1 John believers also are said to overcome the world, and this they did by resisting all pressures to turn aside from the message about Jesus that they heard from the eyewitnesses in the beginning (1 John 5:4–5). They were enabled to do so because the word of God remained in them (1 John 2:13–14) and because the one who was in them (the Spirit of truth) is stronger than the one who is in the world (the spirit of antichrist) (1 John 4:4).
Jesus’ words But take heart! I have overcome the world would strengthen the disciples when they faced the full onslaught from the world after he returned to the Father.
Jesus said to his disciples that in ‘a little while’ (when he was crucified) they would see him no more, but then ‘a little while’ later (when he was raised from the dead) they would see him again. In the first instance, his disciples would mourn while the world rejoiced, but both responses would be short-lived. In the second instance, what the world rejoiced over (Jesus’ death) would be reversed when he rose from the dead, and then the disciples’ mourning would be turned to joy, a joy that would endure because no-one could take it away from them.
On the last night Jesus spent with his disciples prior to his death, he encouraged them to ask the Father for ‘anything’ in his name and he would give it to them. They might approach the Father directly, knowing that he loved them because they loved Jesus and believed that he came from God. To ask in Jesus’ name implies, on the one hand, that our access in prayer to the Father is only through Jesus, and, on the other hand, that what we ask for is for Jesus’ sake and in line with his purposes. An example of one such prayer is found in Acts 4:29–31:
‘Now, Lord, consider their threats and enable your servants to speak your word with great boldness. Stretch out your hand to heal and perform signs and wonders through the name of your holy servant Jesus.’
After they prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly.
After the farewell discourse, in which Jesus prepared his disciples for life without his physical presence (13:31 – 16:33), Jesus turned to his Father in prayer (17:1–26). This is the third prayer of Jesus recorded by the evangelist, and it is the longest of all his recorded prayers. In John’s Gospel, earlier prayers were uttered by Jesus at the tomb of Lazarus (11:41–42) and when he was approached by the Greeks (12:27–28). The prayer of 17:1–26 has four parts.
1–2. After Jesus said this, he looked towards heaven and prayed. After Jesus said this refers to the farewell discourse in 13:1 – 16:33 in which he prepared his disciples for their time without his physical presence. He looked towards heaven could indicate that he made his prayer as he moved with his disciples through Jerusalem on his way to cross the Kidron Valley (cf. 18:1).
The actual prayer begins, Father, the hour has come. The expression the hour has come includes the last of seven references to Jesus’ ‘hour’ (2:4; 7:30; 8:20; 12:23, 27; 13:1; 17:1). The first three say that Jesus’ hour had not yet come, while the last four indicate that his hour had come. The hour to which Jesus had now come was the hour of his glorification, to take place through his death, resurrection, and subsequent exaltation. Coming to this hour, Jesus asked the Father to Glorify your Son. This could mean two things: either that the glory of his love and compassion for others might be revealed through his death (12:23–24, 28), or that following his death he would be reinstated to the glory he had enjoyed with the Father before the world began (17:5), or both.
Jesus’ purpose in praying that the Father might glorify his Son was that your Son may glorify you. How the Son would glorify the Father is then spelled out in words which should follow on without a sentence break: For [lit. ‘just as’] you granted him authority over all people that he might give eternal life to all those you have given him. The Father has given the Son authority over all people, and one day every knee will bow to him (Phil. 2:9–11); but here it is stressed that the Father has granted him authority to bestow eternal life upon those the Father has given him, those who in turn believe in his name (cf. 5:19–30). This brings glory to the Father because it reveals the love and compassion the Father has for human beings. In Exodus 34:5–7, when Moses asked to see God’s glory, God revealed his compassion, grace, love and faithfulness. All these things were revealed again, and supremely so, in the death of Jesus, as the Father gave his one and only Son so that those who believe in him might have eternal life (3:16).
The recipients of eternal life are described as those the Father has given him, something repeated again and again in Jesus’ prayer (17:6, 9, 24). This shows that, viewed from the divine perspective, it is God’s choice that is determinative. However, this must be held together with Jesus’ teaching that people’s response of belief or unbelief determines whether or not they receive eternal life.
3. Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.43 Eternal life is knowing God, but, as in the Old Testament, this knowledge is not just information about God; it is a relationship with him, the only true God. Under the terms of the new covenant, all God’s children are to know him personally (Jer. 31:34). This verse makes clear that knowing God and therefore experiencing eternal life is inseparable from knowing Jesus as Israel’s Messiah whom God sent (cf. 3:36; 5:39–40; 14:6; 20:31). How this is brought about is clearly stated in 1 John 5:20:
We know also that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know him who is true. And we are in him who is true by being in his Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life.
4. Jesus mentioned another way in which he glorified the Father: I have brought you glory on earth by finishing the work you gave me to do. He came into the world to carry out the work God gave him to do (cf. 4:34; 5:36; 9:3–4) and the Father was glorified when this work was completed. This work involved revealing the Father through his life and ministry, all of which would culminate in giving himself on the cross (see 19:30). These things glorified the Father by revealing his gracious and loving character to the world.
5. Coming now to the end of this work, Jesus prayed, And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began. The work of revealing the Father through his life and ministry had come to an end. The final act of revelation would take place through his death, resurrection and exaltation, and this would also be the means of his return to the Father and to the glory he had with the Father before the world began. In the prologue, Jesus is introduced as the Word who ‘was with God in the beginning’ (1:2), and now he asked to be restored to that place and to the glory attaching to it, a prayer that would most certainly be answered.
6–8. I have revealed you [lit. ‘your name’] to those [lit. ‘the people’] whom you gave me out of the world. Jesus, the only one who has ever seen God (1:18), made him known to his disciples through his words, actions and person (2:11; 8:38; 14:7–11; 15:15). Jesus describes his disciples as those whom you gave me out of the world. Once they, like everyone else, were part of the world, but they were chosen out of the world by God. Of these chosen ones, Jesus said, They were yours; you gave them to me and they have obeyed your word. They belonged to the Father because he chose them, but he entrusted them to the Son so that he might convey his word to them. They showed that they belonged to God by responding positively to that word, albeit not perfectly. As a result, Jesus said: Now they know that everything you have given me comes from you. For I gave them the words you gave me and they accepted them. The words Jesus spoke were the words his Father gave him to speak (cf. 7:16–17; 8:28, 38, 40; 12:49–50). His disciples accepted these words and so distinguished themselves from those of the world who disputed Jesus’ claim to speak the words of God, saying instead that he was demon-possessed (7:20; 8:48–49, 52; 10:20). Jesus then said of his disciples, They knew with certainty that I came from you, and they believed that you sent me. Their faith was certainly not exemplary, as subsequent events reveal, but they did believe in Jesus and accepted the revelation he brought (see 16:30). This was enough to show that they belonged to God.
9–10. I pray for them. I am not praying for the world, but for those you have given me, for they are yours. Jesus did not pray for those of the world because they are not included among those the Father gave him. Those the Father gave him, those chosen and called by God, distinguish themselves by their acceptance of Jesus’ word (17:6), whereas those of the world distinguish themselves by rejecting his word (see 10:26). All people are invited to believe in him by accepting his word, and those who do so show that they are not part of the world but belong to God.
Before articulating his actual petition for the disciples, Jesus said to the Father, All I have is yours, and all you have is mine. The words translated all here are neuter plurals, indicating that all here refers not just to the disciples but to all things. It is a general statement to the effect that everything the Son has belongs to the Father and everything that belongs to the Father has been given to the Son. Included in the all that belongs to the Father and which he has given to the Son are the people whom the Father gave to the Son. Of these, Jesus said, And glory has come to me through them. On no other occasion did Jesus speak of his disciples as bringing glory to him. He did speak of the disciples as bringing glory to God by bearing ‘much fruit’ (15:8) and, in Peter’s case, by the kind of death he would die (21:19). It was primarily by believing in him, accepting and obeying his words, and carrying out his commission that the disciples brought glory to Jesus, perhaps because in so doing they reflected something of his love and grace.
11. Jesus’ prayer for his disciples was prompted by his imminent departure: I will remain in the world no longer, but they are still in the world. His departure would occur through his death, resurrection and exaltation. When he left this world, his disciples would remain in it, and therefore Jesus’ first actual petition was: I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them by the power of your name, the name you gave me. Jesus’ form of address to God, Holy Father, is unique in the New Testament. It combines notions of God’s transcendence (Holy) and Jesus’ intimacy with God (Father). By the power of your name is the niv translation of en tō onamati sou, construing it as the means by which God protects them. His name then stands for his person – that is, they are to be protected ‘by your name’; hence the niv paraphrase, ‘protect them by the power of your name’ or ‘by your power’.
However, en tō onamati sou may also be translated, as in the nrsv, as ‘in your name’, construing it as the place where they are to be protected – that is, in fidelity to the Father. This seems to cohere better with what Jesus says in the next verse: ‘While I was with them, I protected them in your name that you have given me’ (nrsv) – that is, ‘kept them in fidelity to you, so that none was lost’.44
The purpose of Jesus’ prayer for protection was so that they may be one as we are one. The oneness Jesus wanted for his disciples was the oneness he and the Father shared. Describing this oneness, the evangelist did not use the masculine form of the adjective one (heis), which would suggest that Father and Son are one person. Instead, he used the neuter form (hen), suggesting that the oneness of Father and Son here was oneness in mission and purpose. And in fact, Jesus’ prayers for the oneness of his disciples here (vv. 11, 21–23) all include references to the world and express the desire that, because of his disciples’ oneness, the world might believe that God had sent him. Unity among disciples is unity for the sake of mission. However, when Jesus later speaks about this oneness, more than unity of purpose is involved (see commentary on 17:22–23).
12. While I was with them, I protected them and kept them safe by that name you gave me. By that name translates en tō onomati sou (lit. ‘by your name’ or ‘in your name’). As suggested in the commentary on the previous verse, the translation ‘in your name’ is probably better, in which case Jesus is saying, ‘I protected them in your name’ – that is, I kept them faithful to you, and, as a result, ‘not one of them was lost’.
He added: None has been lost except the one doomed to destruction [lit. ‘the son of destruction’] so that Scripture would be fulfilled. ‘Son of destruction’ can denote a person’s character or a person’s destiny, or both. The reference is to Judas Iscariot, one of the Twelve, who did not remain loyal and who had already gone out to betray Jesus (13:27–30). The evangelist does not say which Scripture was fulfilled by Judas’s act of betrayal, but in 13:18 Jesus cited Psalm 41:9 in reference to Judas: ‘But this is to fulfil this passage of Scripture: “He who shared my bread has turned against me.”’
The word destruction (apōleia), when used in the New Testament of human beings, or the ‘beast’ in Revelation, always denotes eternal destruction (Matt. 7:13; John 17:12; Rom. 9:22; Phil. 1:28; 3:19; 2 Thess. 2:3; 1 Tim. 6:9; Heb. 10:39; 2 Pet. 2:1, 3; 3:7, 16; Rev. 17:8, 11). That Jesus said that Judas was doomed to destruction so that Scripture would be fulfilled is another reminder of the sovereignty of God in all things. However, once again it must be stressed that teaching about God’s sovereignty is always to be held together with the equally clear teaching about human responsibility. In the case of Judas, it was the devil who put it into his mind to betray Jesus (13:2, 27; cf. Luke 22:3), but it was Judas himself who willingly carried it through (13:30; 18:2–3, 5; cf. Matt. 26:14, 25, 47; Mark 14:10, 43; Luke 22:48).45
13–14. I am coming to you now, but I say these things while I am still in the world, so that they may have the full measure of my joy within them. There is only one other place where Jesus speaks of his disciples sharing in his joy (15:9–11). There he speaks of the need for his disciples to continue in his love just as he continued in the Father’s love by obedience to his commands, and concludes, ‘I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete’ (15:11). In another place, without using the word ‘joy’, Jesus says something similar about himself: ‘I have food to eat that you know nothing about . . . My food . . . is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work’ (4:32–34). Jesus’ joy came from doing the Father’s will, and the joy of the disciples would come from doing what Jesus commanded (cf. Acts 5:41).
I have given them your word and the world has hated them, for they are not of the world any more than I am of the world. By receiving the word of God which Jesus gave them, they, like Jesus himself, were now not of the world. The world did not accept Jesus’ word and hated those who did, just as it hated him (7:7; 15:18–19, 24–25). In the Gospel of John, very often the world, when it stands in opposition to Jesus as it does here, refers to those elements of the Jewish leadership who were antagonistic towards him, who sought to arrest him (7:30, 32, 44; 8:20; 10:39; 11:57) and who wished to put him to death (5:18; 7:1, 19, 25; 8:37, 40; 11:53).
15–16. We come now to the second actual petition made by Jesus for his disciples: My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one. Despite the world’s hatred for his disciples, Jesus did not pray that they be taken out of the world. They were to remain in the world as his witnesses (cf. 15:26–27). He prayed that the Father would protect them from the evil one. In each place up to this point in the Gospel of John where the activity of the evil one (or the devil or Satan) is mentioned, it was directed against Jesus to bring about his death (6:70; 8:44; 13:2, 27). Once Jesus was removed from the scene, this activity would be directed against his disciples. Jesus prayed, therefore, that the Father would protect them from the evil one. After praying for their protection, he added, They are not of the world, even as I am not of it, repeating what he had said earlier (17:14). Because they were not of the world, yet must remain in the world and bear witness to Jesus, they would need the Father’s protection.
17. We come now to Jesus’ third petition for his disciples: Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth. In 15:3 Jesus had said: ‘You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you.’ But if his disciples were ‘already clean’ because they had accepted Jesus’ word, why did he now pray that they be sanctified by God’s word? Perhaps he was praying not so much for their purification, but that they be set apart for God’s use. The disciples were distinguished from the world by their acceptance of God’s word (17:14). Stated negatively, God’s word separated them from the world. Stated positively, it set them apart for God. What this entailed is explained in the next verse.
18. As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world. There are many references in the Gospel of John to Jesus having been sent by the Father (3:17, 34; 5:36, 38; 6:38, 57; 7:29; 8:42; 10:36; 11:42; 17:3, 8, 18, 21, 23, 25; 20:21). There are others which speak of what he was sent to do: to save the world (3:17), to speak the words of God (3:34; 14:10) and to carry out the works of God (9:3–4; 10:25, 32, 37–38; 14:11). Putting it in general terms, Jesus was sent to carry out the Father’s commission (5:36; 17:4). Apart from the unique work of saving the world through his atoning death, all that Jesus was sent to do, he in turn sent his disciples to do. In brief, they were to carry on Jesus’ ministry after his departure. What the Father had sent him into the world to do, he sent them into the world to do (cf. 20:21; Acts 1:1).
19. For them I sanctify myself, that they too may be truly sanctified. Jesus sanctified himself by setting himself apart to do the Father’s will, which included bringing the knowledge of God and eternal life to all who believe, and laying down his life for them (see 10:15, 18). By laying down his life, he also sanctified them – that is, he cleansed them from sin, separated them from the world and set them apart as his witnesses in the world.
20–21. This third section of Jesus’ prayer embraces all who are to believe: My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one. This recalls Jesus’ words in 10:16: ‘I have other sheep that are not of this sheepfold. I must bring them also. They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd.’ Jesus prayed for all those who would believe, both Jews and Gentiles, through the disciples’ message (lit. ‘word’) – that is, by hearing the gospel they preached. As Paul says, ‘faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word about Christ’ (Rom. 10:17).
Jesus’ request was that all disciples, present and future, might be one, a oneness modelled upon his own oneness with the Father. Thus he prayed: . . . Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us. Jesus spoke much of his unity with the Father, especially as it related to what he said and did in the world (5:19; 8:28; 10:25, 32, 37; 12:50). But here it is a unity of being, not only of purpose and action. The unity of Father and Son exists because, as Jesus said, you [Father] are in me and I am in you (cf. 10:38; 14:9–11). This unity of being is extended to the disciples: that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us. This relationship between believers and the Father and Jesus would be brought about through the ministry of the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, sent to the disciples after Jesus’ return to the Father (15:26; 16:7). Because the Holy Spirit came to dwell within them, the Father and the Son would dwell within them also, and they would dwell in the Father and the Son (14:15–20).
The reason why Jesus prayed that the disciples might be in the Father and the Son was so that the world may believe that you have sent me. Their living relationship with the Father and the Son through the Spirit would give credibility to their message about Jesus, and lead many in the world to believe in him. When those of the world believe, they cease to be the world and join the number of Jesus’ disciples.
22–23. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one – I in them and you in me. In this context, the glory that the Father gave Jesus was the revelation of himself that Jesus was to communicate to his disciples. By receiving that revelation, they came to share in the glory of oneness like that existing between Father and Son. The disciples would share this oneness because the Father is in Jesus, and Jesus would be in his disciples by his Spirit. The glory the Father gave the Son found expression in the love between them (15:10; 17:23, 26), the signs which Jesus performed (2:11; 11:4), the honour the Father bestowed upon Jesus (8:50, 54) and the exaltation of Jesus after he laid down his life (17:5, 24). The glory Jesus would give to his disciples is similar. It was the glory of oneness with the Father and the Son mediated by the Spirit. It likewise would find expression in the love between them and the Father (14:21, 23; 17:23, 26), the signs they were to perform (14:12), the honour the Father bestowed upon them (12:26) and their share in future glory (17:24).
Jesus stated his purpose in making this request: so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. Literally translated, this text would read: ‘in order that they may be perfected in one, in order that the world may know that you sent me and that you loved them as you loved me’ (italics added). It was the unity of the disciples one with another (based on their common oneness with the Father and the Son) that would function as a powerful witness to the world.
The unity of the disciples would testify to the fact that Jesus was sent into the world by the Father, and also to the fact that the Father loved the disciples as he loved his Son. And they would be recognized as God’s people by their unity and love for one another. As Jesus said: ‘By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another’ (13:35).
It is amazing that Jesus should say that the Father had loved them even as you have loved me. This is perhaps best understood in terms of the disciples’ privilege of being drawn into the circle of love in which the Father and the Son exist.
24. This verse contains another of Jesus’ petitions on behalf of all his disciples: Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world. The petition itself is in two parts. First, he prayed that his disciples might be with him where he was. In 14:2–3 he had told his disciples that by his departure he would prepare places for them in the Father’s house/presence and that he would return to take them to be with him there. In this first part of the petition, he told the Father that he wanted this to happen.
Second, Jesus asked that his disciples might see his glory, the glory the Father had given him as the pre-existent Logos. Earlier, he had said that the Father loved him because of his obedience in laying down his life (10:17), but that is only part of the story. The Father loved the Son even before the creation of the world, before time as we know it began. Even then, the Father had bestowed glory upon his Son. It is this glory Jesus prayed that his disciples might see. The ultimate goal for the disciples was not participation in the mission to which Jesus called them, vital though that is, but to see the glory of their exalted Redeemer in the presence of the Father. As the apostle wrote in 1 John 3:2: ‘But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.’
25–26. Righteous Father, though the world does not know you, I know you. He addressed God as Righteous Father. This is the only place in the New Testament where God is addressed or spoken of in this way, although on three occasions Jesus himself is referred to as ‘the Righteous One’ (Acts 7:52; 22:14; 1 John 2:1). Nevertheless, God is frequently described as righteous/just in his person (1 John 2:29; 3:7), his ways (Rev. 15:3), his judgments (2 Thess. 1:5–6; Rev. 16:5, 7; 19:2) and when he forgives (1 John 1:9).
In saying the world does not know you, Jesus was reflecting the fact that, despite protestations to the contrary, the world (in this context, unbelieving Jews) did not know God. The evidence for this was that they would not accept the one sent by God (8:42). Jesus, however, does know God, and, referring to his disciples, he added, and they know that you have sent me. The disciples distinguished themselves from the world by recognizing that Jesus was sent by God. Of them, Jesus said, I have made you known to them, and will continue to make you known. Literally rendered, the first clause would read, ‘I have made your name known to them.’ To make known a person’s name is to make known the person, so the niv’s translation, ‘I have made you known’, is appropriate. Earlier in his prayer, Jesus said, ‘I have revealed you to those whom you gave me out of the world’ (17:6). This he did through his person (14:9), his teaching and his works (14:10–11). Jesus said that he would continue to make the Father known to his disciples. Given that he spoke on the eve of his betrayal and crucifixion, this future revelation of the Father would take place either through the events of the passion and resurrection, or with the coming of the Spirit after his exaltation, or both.
Jesus said that the purpose of the revelation of the Father to his disciples was in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them. When Jesus reveals the Father to those who accept him as Messiah, he introduces them at the same time to the love of the Father. One of the things Jesus taught his disciples in the Last Supper discourse was that the Father himself loved them, and therefore they could bring their prayers directly to him (16:26–27). Also, he taught them that he himself would dwell with/in those who accepted his teaching and obeyed him (14:23). The ongoing presence of Jesus among his people (I myself may be in [among] them) is the unique feature of the Christian community (cf. Matt. 18:20; 1 Cor. 14:24–25).
Jesus prayed: ‘Father, the hour has come. Glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify you’ (17:1). Through his death and exaltation, Jesus would glorify his Father, and Jesus himself would be glorified when through his death he would secure salvation for all who believe. Therein his glorious nature would be seen – his love, compassion and self-sacrifice for others (cf. 12:23–28). His death would be followed by resurrection and exaltation, through which the Father would glorify him in his presence with the glory he had with him before the world began (17:5, 24; cf. Phil. 2:8–11). Through all this, the Father also would be glorified as his nature was revealed – his love and the sacrifice he made in sending his Son as the atoning sacrifice for the sins of the world (3:16; Rom. 5:8; 8:32; 1 John 2:2; 4:9–10).
Unity is a key concept in chapter 17, and it has two important elements. First, it is a unity among Jesus’ disciples, a unity of purpose and mission, similar to the unity of purpose shared by Jesus and his Father (17:11, 21, 23; see also commentary on 10:30). Second, it is a unity based on a share in the unity of being existing between the Father and the Son. It was this for which Jesus prayed when he said: ‘My prayer is . . . that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me’ (17:20–21). This unity of being, we understand, is brought about through the presence of the Holy Spirit.
Jesus prayed for his disciples’ sanctification: that having been cleansed from sin, they would be set apart for God’s purpose. They were cleansed when they accepted Jesus’ word (15:3), and they were to be set apart as his witnesses in the world (17:17–21). Stated negatively, they were separated from the world. Stated positively, they were set apart for God and his mission in the world. Jesus did not pray that his disciples be taken out of the world, but that they be protected from the evil one (17:15).
Jesus’ prayer was not only for his immediate disciples, but also for all who would believe through their message (17:20), and in particular that they all be united. This would function as a powerful witness to the world. And although Jesus did not say so, the converse is sadly true. The lack of unity among his disciples devalues their witness.
Following his account of the Last Supper discourse (13:31 – 16:33) and Jesus’ prayer for himself and his disciples (17:1–26), the evangelist records that Jesus left the place where they were and crossed the Kidron Valley to the garden (of Gethsemane), where he often met with his disciples. He then provides an account of Jesus’ betrayal at the hand of Judas Iscariot, his arrest and his subsequent arraignment before the high priests, Annas and Caiaphas.
1–2. When he had finished praying, Jesus left with his disciples and crossed the Kidron Valley. The niv’s when he had finished praying translates tauta eipōn, which literally rendered is ‘when he had said these things’. The reference, then, could be to the entirety of the Last Supper discourse and Jesus’ prayer.
In 14:31, following the first part of the farewell discourse, Jesus had said to his disciples, ‘Come now; let us leave.’ The second part of the farewell discourse then followed, and it is not until 18:1 that we are told that Jesus and his disciples actually left and crossed the Kidron Valley. There are various ways of explaining this (see commentary on 14:31). One suggestion is that, when Jesus said, ‘Come now; let us leave’, he and his disciples did leave the room where the Last Supper was held, and that the second part of his farewell discourse was delivered as they walked through the streets of Jerusalem. If this were case, the prayer of 17:1–26 could have been uttered while they were still in Jerusalem, and then 18:1 would mark the time they left Jerusalem and crossed the Kidron Valley, which separates the city of Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives.
The setting of the arrest is described: On the other side there was a garden, and he and his disciples went into it. In the Synoptic Gospels, this garden is identified as ‘a place called Gethsemane’ (Matt. 26:36; Mark 14:32). The evangelist says, Now Judas, who betrayed him, knew the place, because Jesus had often met there with his disciples. It is only in the Gospel of John that we learn that Jesus and his disciples frequented this place, and that therefore Judas knew where to find him.
3. So Judas came to the garden, guiding a detachment of soldiers [speiran] and some officials [hypēretas] from the chief priests and the Pharisees. The New Testament, including the Gospel of John, always uses speira for Roman soldiers, while hypēretas is used mostly for Jewish temple officials. So the chief priests and Pharisees, to whom Judas had betrayed Jesus, not only sent temple officials to arrest him, but asked Pilate for a ‘detachment of soldiers’ (speira)46 to accompany them as well. They were carrying torches, lanterns and weapons. The torches and lanterns were needed because it was night (cf. 13:30), though it being Passover time, the full moon might have been visible. Weapons were normally carried by Roman soldiers and were regarded as necessary in this case to deal with possible resistance on the part of Jesus or his followers.
4–5. Jesus, knowing all that was going to happen to him, went out and asked them, ‘Who is it you want?’ Here we see Jesus taking the initiative. He was no victim of circumstance. His arrest and subsequent death did not take him by surprise. In fact, he had insisted that he would lay down his life of his own accord and that no-one would take it from him (10:17–18).
To be arrested was a matter of shame, but by taking the initiative himself, Jesus showed that he was not accepting the shame. He stepped forward and asked, ‘Who is it you want?’ ‘Jesus of Nazareth,’ they replied. ‘I am he,’ Jesus said. The words translated Jesus of Nazareth, literally rendered, would be ‘Jesus the Nazarene’, which is the way he is also described in 18:7; 19:19. A Nazarene is someone from Nazareth (Matt. 2:23), so either rendering is acceptable.47
When the soldiers and temple officials said who they were looking for, Jesus replied, I am he (egō eimi). This is one of the many uses of egō eimi in the Gospel of John, construed here by the niv as having an implied predicate: ‘I am he’, by which Jesus simply identifies himself. In parenthesis, the evangelist notes that, as this took place, Judas the traitor was standing there with them. The evangelist does not include the details of Judas’s betrayal of Jesus, neither the arrangements made with the chief priests and Pharisees beforehand (see Matt. 26:14–16; Mark 14:10–11; Luke 22:3–6) nor the kiss with which he identified Jesus for the arresting party (see Matt. 26:48–49; Mark 14:44–45; Luke 22:47–48).
6. The response to Jesus’ self-identification was dramatic: When Jesus said, ‘I am he,’ they drew back and fell to the ground. In the light of this remarkable reaction, it is possible that Jesus’ use of egō eimi, as well as being a means of self-identification (‘I am he’), also involved the application of the divine name to himself – a claim to be one with God (see ‘Additional note: egō eimi’, pp. 153–154). Whether or not the Roman soldiers or temple officials understood Jesus’ words in this way, it is clear that some revelation of his power and authority must have occurred to make them draw back and fall to the ground. Lincoln comments:
This is the typical human reaction to a theophany (cf. Ezek. 1.28; Dan. 10.9). For a moment the true status of the characters in the narrative is graphically depicted. The ultimate powerlessness of the massed representatives of this world’s powers – the Roman forces, the Jewish guards and the disciple turned betrayer – is revealed, as they have to retreat and prostrate themselves in the presence of the unique divine agent who is one with God.48
7–9. When the arresting party drew back and fell to the ground, Jesus and his disciples could presumably have just walked away. But Jesus knew that this was not the path he had to take, so Again he asked them, ‘Who is it you want?’ ‘Jesus of Nazareth,’ they said. Once more, Jesus identified himself: I told you that I am he (egō eimi). Being in charge of the situation, Jesus gave orders to the arresting party: If you are looking for me, then let these men go. He did not accept the shame of arrest – having his personal liberty curtailed by others. On the contrary, he remained in control. His command to the Roman soldiers and the temple officials with their torches and weapons was, let these men go. He was referring to the disciples. The evangelist adds: This happened so that the words he had spoken would be fulfilled: ‘I have not lost one of those you gave me.’ In his prayer to the Father for his disciples, Jesus had said, ‘While I was with them, I protected them and kept them safe by that name you gave me. None has been lost except the one doomed to destruction so that Scripture would be fulfilled’ (17:12; cf. 6:39). The evangelist sees a partial fulfilment of these words in Jesus’ action to prevent the arrest of his disciples.
10–11. Seeing Jesus about to be arrested, Simon Peter, who had a sword, drew it and struck the high priest’s servant, cutting off his right ear. (The servant’s name was Malchus.) In Luke 22:35–38 we learn that at the Last Supper the disciples had two swords among them, and now the evangelist tells us that Peter stepped forward with one of them and used it to defend his master. Jesus had already shown that he was in control of the situation, so he asked Peter, Shall I not drink the cup the Father has given me? This was an allusion to Jesus’ prayer in Gethsemane, in which he prayed that, if it were possible, the cup of suffering might pass from him, but above all that the Father’s will might be done (see Matt. 26:39; Mark 14:36; Luke 22:42). He did not need his disciples to defend him (cf. 18:36), for he was determined now to drink the cup of suffering.
The Synoptic Gospels also record the fact that one of the disciples cut off the ear of the high priest’s servant with a sword (Matt. 26:51; Mark 14:47; Luke 22:49–50), but only the Gospel of John names Simon Peter as the disciple who did so and Malchus as the servant whose right ear was severed.49 Luke alone records the fact that Jesus healed the man (Luke 22:51). Michaels comments on Peter’s action: ‘In all this, there is (again) a comic touch. Jesus has floored the whole company with a word (v. 6), and poor Peter thinks his sword is necessary to save the day!’50
12–14. Then the detachment of soldiers with its commander and the Jewish officials arrested Jesus. They bound him and brought him first to Annas, who was the father-in-law of Caiaphas, the high priest that year. Commander translates chiliarchos, meaning ‘tribune’ or ‘commander of a thousand’, underlining the fact that Roman soldiers were involved, but probably not indicating their number. After delivering Jesus to Annas, they would have returned to their barracks in the Antonia Fortress.
Although Caiaphas was high priest that year, they took Jesus first to his father-in-law, Annas. He had been high priest from ad 5 to 15. He was succeeded over time by five sons and by his son-in-law, Caiaphas. While the Romans appointed and replaced the high priests, the Jewish people regarded high priesthood as a life office. While Caiaphas was high priest from ad 18 to 36, Luke, when describing John the Baptist’s ministry, which took place during Caiaphas’s term of office, says that it began ‘during the high-priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas’ (Luke 3:2). Annas continued to be regarded as high priest well after his official term of office, and continued to function de facto as high priest and was regarded as such by many Jews.51 The evangelist reminds his readers: Caiaphas was the one who had advised the Jewish leaders that it would be good if one man died for the people. This is a reference back to 11:47–53, where Caiaphas said to members of the Sanhedrin who were at a loss to know what to do about Jesus: ‘You do not realise that it is better for you that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish’ (11:50).
15–16a. Simon Peter and another disciple were following Jesus as he was led away to Annas the high priest. The other disciple is not identified, but in the only other passage where the evangelist refers to ‘the other disciple’, he is identified as ‘the one Jesus loved’ (20:1–8). The fact that the beloved disciple and Peter are frequently associated with one another supports this identification (13:23–24; 20:3–8; 21:20–22). Because this disciple was known to the high priest, he went with Jesus into the high priest’s courtyard, but Peter had to wait outside at the door. The word known (gnōstos) denotes not just acquaintance but personal knowledge (cf. Luke 2:44; 23:49). The ‘other disciple’ must have known the high priest well to gain immediate unchallenged access to the courtyard. It was to Annas’s house (and not the temple) that Jesus was taken; the courtyard would have been the atrium of his house. This is confirmed by the description of the doorkeeper as ‘the servant-girl on duty’ (18:16) rather than a temple official.
If the other disciple was the beloved disciple, and if the beloved disciple is identified as John the son of Zebedee, how do we account for him, as a Galilean fisherman, being known to the high priest? In Jewish society there was not the same division between manual labourers and others as there was in the Hellenistic world (rabbis were expected to have a trade – the apostle Paul was a leather-worker). Someone in the fishing industry could have friends among the chief priests. Also, it should be remembered that Zebedee was prosperous enough to employ hired hands alongside his sons in his fishing business (see Mark 1:20), indicating that the family was reasonably well-off.
16b–17. When the other disciple went into the courtyard, Peter was left standing outside, but then The other disciple, who was known to the high priest, came back, spoke to the servant-girl on duty there and brought Peter in. This confirms that the other disciple was well known in the household of the high priest. As he led Peter in, the servant-girl at the door asked Peter, You aren’t one of this man’s disciples too, are you? This implies that she knew that the other disciple was one of Jesus’ disciples, so she now asked whether Peter was also one of his disciples. It was not necessarily a hostile question. Nevertheless, Peter was thrown off balance. He replied, ‘I am not.’ Why Peter should have denied any association with Jesus at this point is hard to explain. After all, it seems that the other disciple was known to be a disciple and was admitted without any problem, and he was the one bringing Peter into the courtyard. Perhaps Peter felt guilty and vulnerable because he had taken to the high priest’s servant with a sword (cf. 18:10). Peter’s response was the first of his three denials (18:17, 25, 27) predicted by Jesus (13:38).
18. After his first denial, Peter was admitted to the courtyard. It was cold, and the servants and officials stood round a fire they had made to keep warm. Peter also was standing with them, warming himself. While daytime temperatures in Jerusalem during Passover (springtime – March/April) were warm, the nights could be quite cold (Jerusalem was 2,557 ft above sea level), hence Peter joined the servants and the officials warming themselves around the fire.
19. Meanwhile, the high priest questioned Jesus about his disciples and his teaching. When he was arrested, Jesus had told his captors to let his disciples go, so they were not arrested along with Jesus. The high priest now questioned Jesus about his disciples and also his teaching, an inappropriate action on his part because only witnesses, not the accused, should have been interrogated, at least in a formal Jewish trial.
20–21. Jesus did not answer the question about his disciples, but responded to Annas’s question about his teaching with a bold riposte: ‘I have spoken openly to the world,’ Jesus replied. ‘I always taught in synagogues or at the temple, where all the Jews come together. I said nothing in secret. Why question me? Ask those who heard me. Surely they know what I said.’ Jesus claimed to have acted in an honourable way, giving his teaching in the public arena openly and boldly. Jesus refused to be cowed by Annas’s interrogation. He had nothing to hide. Annas could ask those who had heard his public teaching if he wanted to know about it. In fact, this is what Annas should have done, because, in official proceedings at least, it was not the accused who was interrogated, but the witnesses for and against the accused. Jesus’ response, then, appears to have been a rebuke to Annas, for which he had no answer.
22–23. When Jesus said this, one of the officials near by slapped him in the face. ‘Is this the way you answer the high priest?’ he demanded. The slap in the face was intended to humiliate Jesus. But once again, Jesus refused to be cowed: ‘If I said something wrong,’ Jesus replied, ‘testify as to what is wrong. But if I spoke the truth, why did you strike me?’ Jesus challenged the legality of the action of Annas’s official in striking him. The apostle Paul was later struck on the mouth by order of the high priest Ananias, and he responded in much stronger terms: ‘God will strike you, you whitewashed wall! You sit there to judge me according to the law, yet you yourself violate the law by commanding that I be struck!’ However, when challenged for insulting the high priest, Paul acknowledged that he had been wrong to speak evil of the ruler of the people (Acts 23:1–5). Jesus had no need to apologize.
24. Annas had no answer to Jesus’ challenge to the legality of the treatment meted out to him, and therefore Jesus emerged as the winner in this episode of challenge and riposte – he had not been shamed by Annas or his officials. Then Annas sent him bound to Caiaphas the high priest. This appears to have been a tacit recognition that they had no case against him.
25–27. Simon Peter was still standing there warming himself. So they asked him, ‘You aren’t one of his disciples too, are you?’ He denied it, saying, ‘I am not.’ Peter, feeling threatened, denied for a second time that he was one of Jesus’ disciples. The third and final challenge to Peter was the most threatening: One of the high priest’s servants, a relative of the man whose ear Peter had cut off, challenged him, ‘Didn’t I see you with him in the garden?’ The one who now challenged Peter was not only a member of the arresting party, but he was also a relative of the man Peter had attacked. Again Peter denied it, and at that moment a cock began to crow. In the Gospels of Matthew and Mark we are told that, when Peter uttered this third denial, he swore that he did not know Jesus, invoking curses upon himself if this was not true (Matt. 26:74; Mark 14:71).
Despite Peter’s protestations earlier in the evening that he was prepared to lay down his life for Jesus’ sake (13:37), his fear led him to deny him three times, thereby fulfilling Jesus’ prediction that before the cock crowed he would deny him three times (13:38). This was not the end of Peter’s discipleship, for following the resurrection he was restored to fellowship with Jesus and commissioned for service (21:15–17) – an encouragement to all later disciples that their Lord is willing to forgive, restore and employ them in his service, even after the most serious lapses.
The evangelist’s record of Jesus’ betrayal and arrest highlights three things. First, Jesus was no mere victim of circumstance, but very much in charge of events. Knowing what was about to happen, he could easily have slipped away and avoided arrest. Instead, he waited for the arresting party to arrive, asked who they were looking for and then clearly acknowledged who he was.
Second, when Jesus identified himself saying, ‘I am he’ (egō eimi – which could have involved enunciation of the divine name), the arresting party drew back and fell to the ground, the usual human response to a theophany (a divine appearance). This shows that when people are in the presence of Jesus, they are in the presence of God (cf. 14:8–9).
Third, having identified himself, Jesus ordered the soldiers and Jewish officials to let his disciples go, showing again that the one being arrested, not those arresting him, was in charge. As Jesus had said earlier: ‘No one takes it [my life] from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again’ (10:18).
That Jesus was very much in charge is clear also from the record of his arraignment before the high priest, Annas, who interrogated him concerning his disciples and his teaching. Jesus was not intimidated in the presence of the high priest or by this interrogation. He insisted that he had taught quite openly in the temple and synagogues, and he challenged Annas to find witnesses from among those who had heard him. When one of the officials slapped him in the face, Jesus did not take it lying down.52 He demanded an explanation from the high priest for allowing this illegal act. Annas had no answer, and sent him bound to Caiaphas.
Peter’s performance during Jesus’ betrayal, arrest and arraignment before the high priest reveals a disjuncture between his foolhardy defence of Jesus with his sword in the garden and his inability even to acknowledge that he was Jesus’ disciple when asked about it by a servant-girl and one of the high priest’s servants. Peter, who had boasted that he would lay down his life for Jesus (13:37), failed these simple tests of his allegiance. This is a salutary warning for all believers to resist boasting about what they might or might not do under pressure, and a reminder that in such circumstances we all need to rely upon Jesus’ promised assistance (see Mark 13:11; Luke 12:12).
Following his arraignment before Annas and Caiaphas, Jesus was taken to the palace of the Roman governor, Pilate. The long passage 18:28 – 19:16a first provides the setting for Jesus’ trial before Pilate (18:28), and then presents the actual trial in eight episodes in which Pilate repeatedly goes out to talk with the Jewish leaders and comes back in to the praetorium to speak with Jesus (18:29–32, 33–38a, 38b–40; 19:1–3, 4–7, 8–11, 12, 13–16a).53
28. In 18:24 we are told that Jesus was sent bound by Annas to Caiaphas. The evangelist provides no account of Jesus’ trial before the high priest Caiaphas in the Sanhedrin, recorded in the other Gospels (Matt. 26:57–68; Mark 14:53–65; Luke 22:54–55, 63–71). From the very earliest times, this was seen as problematic. In a few later manuscripts, verses 18:13–27 have been rearranged to overcome this problem.54 However, such rearrangements are not found in the Greek manuscripts and are not supported by the best or the majority of manuscripts.
Omitting any description of the trial before Caiaphas, the evangelist says, Then the Jewish leaders took Jesus from Caiaphas to the palace of the Roman governor. The word translated palace (praitōrion) is a Greek transliteration of the Latin praetorium, which was the term used for a military headquarters, or, in Pilate’s case, the residence of the prefect. Pilate normally resided in Caesarea Maritima, but during major Jewish festivals he would take up residence in Jerusalem. The actual location of the praetorium in Jerusalem is debated. It could have been either the Antonia Fortress abutting the north-west corner of the temple complex, or what was previously Herod’s palace on the western wall of Jerusalem (ruins can still be seen near the present-day Jaffa Gate).
By now it was early morning. Early morning translates prōï, which denoted the fourth watch (3–6 am) according to the Roman division of the night. If we interpret prōï strictly according to the Roman division, it would mean that Jesus was brought to Pilate before 6 am. It was not unusual for Roman governors to begin their duties very early in the morning.
Bringing Jesus to Pilate’s palace/praetorium involved problems for the Jewish leaders: to avoid ceremonial uncleanness they did not enter the palace, because they wanted to be able to eat the Passover. To enter a Gentile house was believed to cause ritual uncleanness which would prevent them eating Passover.55 The Mishnah says, ‘the dwelling places of gentiles are unclean’, a footnote adding, ‘because they throw abortions down their drains’ (m. Ohol. 18:7). To enter a Gentile house could mean contamination because of a dead body. Contamination of this sort rendered one unclean for seven days and would have prevented the Jewish leaders participating in Passover that evening, so for this reason they did not enter the palace/praetorium. There is a terrible irony here. The Jewish leaders were being scrupulously careful not to contract ritual uncleanness, while making themselves guilty of a far worse crime: seeking the death of an innocent man, their Messiah.
29–32. The first episode: Because they would not enter the palace, Pilate came out to them and asked, ‘What charges are you bringing against this man?’ The whole exchange which followed between Pilate and the Jewish leaders took the form of challenge and riposte. Pilate’s demand to know what charges they brought was met with a riposte from the Jewish leaders: ‘If he were not a criminal,’ they replied, ‘we would not have handed him over to you.’ Apparently, they expected Pilate to confirm their decision about Jesus (that he was a criminal) without their advancing any specific charges, and so they answered Pilate in this insolent way. Not accepting their insolent response and challenging them instead, Pilate said, ‘Take him yourselves and judge him by your own law.’ In effect, he was saying, you have decided in the light of your own law, without any need of my judgment, that he is a criminal, so judge him yourselves; execute him yourselves. Pilate knew that the Jewish leaders did not have the authority to do this, so in this first exchange he prevailed, as they were forced to acknowledge, we have no right to execute anyone. The only exception to this rule was the authority given to them to execute Gentiles who ignored the prohibition excluding Gentiles from the Court of Women and the Court of Israel in the temple (see commentary on 2:14–16). Other instances of people being put to death by the Jewish leaders are what appear to have been a lynching in the case of Stephen (Acts 7:54–60) or an execution between the rules of the prefects Festus and Albinus in the case of James (Acts 12:1–4).
Commenting on the inability of the Jewish leaders to carry out the death penalty, the evangelist says: This took place to fulfil what Jesus had said about the kind of death he was going to die. If they had been allowed to carry out the execution, it would have been by stoning, but Jesus had already said that he was to be ‘lifted up’, a reference to crucifixion (3:14; 8:28; 12:32–33). This would only occur if the death penalty was carried out by the Romans. It may be that the Jewish leaders wanted Jesus crucified to show that he was under the curse of God (Deut. 21:23).
33–38a. The second episode: Pilate then went back inside the palace, summoned Jesus and asked him, ‘Are you the king of the Jews?’ Up until this point in the narrative, no formal charge has been mentioned. Pilate’s question Are you the king of the Jews? presumes that the Jewish leaders had brought the charge of treason against Jesus – that is, that they represented him as a rival to Caesar. Jesus’ response was to ask: Is that your own idea . . . or did others talk to you about me? Jesus was not intimidated by Pilate and questioned him about the source of his information. Pilate’s first reaction showed his exasperation or perhaps his disdain for the Jewish people: ‘Am I a Jew?’ Pilate replied. Next, he pointed out the shameful situation in which Jesus found himself: Your own people and your chief priests handed you over to me. Finally, reflecting a judicial system which presumed guilt rather than innocence, he asked: What is it you have done?
Jesus rejected the shame Pilate heaped upon him assuming he had done wrong, and replied: My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jewish leaders. In fact, he had already rejected the attempt by Peter to prevent his arrest (18:10–11). Jesus added: But now my kingdom is from another place. The niv’s from another place translates ouk estin enteuthen positively, whereas in fact it has a negative sense: ‘not from here’ (thus nrsv). Accordingly, 18:36b is better rendered: ‘But now my kingdom is not from here.’ By so saying, Jesus was indicating that he was not a present threat to Pilate.
Augustine comments:
He did not say, ‘My kingdom is not’ in this world but ‘is not of this world’ . . . Indeed, his kingdom is here until the end of time, and until the harvest it will contain weeds . . . and this could not happen if this kingdom were not here . . . This is that kingdom of which he said, ‘My kingdom is not of this world; my kingly power does not come from here.’56
Augustine is affirming two things: that God’s kingly rule is present and active in this world in the here and now, and that its kingly power derives not from human sources but from God.
Seizing upon Jesus’ reference to My kingdom, Pilate said: You are a king, then! If Jesus acknowledged that he was a king, Pilate would have something substantial to deal with. Jesus responded: You say that I am a king. In fact, the reason I was born and came into the world is to testify to the truth. Pilate wanted an acknowledgment from Jesus that he was a claimant to political kingship. Jesus refused to be pinned down in this way. Instead, he said that he had come as a witness to God’s truth, and he informed Pilate that Everyone on the side of truth listens to me. Thus he challenged Pilate to stop listening to the manufactured charges of his accusers and to start listening to him. In this exchange of challenge and riposte, Jesus emerged as victor and Pilate was reduced to confusion: ‘What is truth?’ retorted Pilate.
Most interpreters recognize that Jesus’ statement ‘My kingdom is not of this world’ implies that his sovereignty, his kingly authority, is not of a worldly political nature but rather derives from God. Often, this is taken to mean that he was not referring to a realm, but only to his kingly rule. However, these things are not mutually exclusive and need to be held together. Mitchell offers several reasons why this is so: (1) a king cannot rule nothing; (2) where the expression ‘my kingdom’ is found in the lxx it often includes a realm or a people (e.g. Gen. 20:7–9; Esth. 5:3); (3) when Jesus says that believers will ‘enter’ and ‘sit at table’ in the kingdom (Matt. 7:21; 8:11; cf. 22:29–30), a place and time are implied; (4) the account of Jesus’ trial before Pilate focuses upon whether he claimed to be king of the Jews, implying that the issue was over whom or what Jesus claimed sovereignty, and whether it constituted a threat to Caesar; (5) Jesus’ statement that his kingdom is ‘not [part] of this world’ implies that it is [part] of another world, the ‘heavenly’ world/the new heaven and the new earth; (6) in 18:36, when Jesus said that his kingdom is not ‘now’ (nyn) ‘from here’ (enteuthen), he implied not only that he was no present threat to Pilate, but also that he will rule over his people at a later time in another place, in a new heaven and a new earth.57
38b–40. The third episode: Leaving Jesus in the praetorium, Pilate went out again to the Jews gathered there and said, ‘I find no basis for a charge against him.’ This should have been the end of the matter, but Pilate wanted to both release Jesus and placate the Jewish leaders. He reminded them, But it is your custom for me to release to you one prisoner at the time of the Passover.58 Having come off second best in his preliminary interrogation of Jesus, Pilate was in no frame of mind to be bested by the Jewish leaders. He planned to use the custom of freeing one prisoner at Passover to release Jesus, and chose to needle them by asking: Do you want me to release ‘the king of the Jews’? The reference to Jesus as the king of the Jews would make them angry. Pilate’s plan to use the custom to release Jesus backfired, for They shouted back, ‘No, not him! Give us Barabbas!’ The evangelist explains: Now Barabbas had taken part in an uprising. In Matthew 27:16 Barabbas is described as a ‘well-known prisoner’ and in Mark 15:7 as one who ‘was in prison with the rebels who had committed murder in the uprising’. Pilate probably thought that the crowd would choose Jesus over Barabbas; in this way he could release Jesus and be finished with the matter. But, as Matthew 27:20/Mark 15:11 points out, the chief priests and the elders incited the crowd to ask for Barabbas, not Jesus. This is ironic, for the chief priests and elders had no sympathy for insurrectionists, because they jeopardized the status quo existing between them and the Romans; yet they still asked for Barabbas instead of Jesus. Having come off second best in this episode of challenge and riposte with the Jewish leaders, Pilate was left with the problem of Jesus.
19:1–3. The fourth episode: Then Pilate took Jesus and had him flogged. Flogging was a way of extracting information from, and heaping shame upon, a person. Flogging, a means of torture employed by the Romans,59 took one of three forms: fustes (a light beating administered as a warning), flagella and verbera (severe beatings which were associated with other punishments, e.g. crucifixion). It is difficult to know to which sort of beating the evangelist refers here. It is possible that Pilate ordered a lighter beating (fustes) as a warning, hoping that it would be enough to satisfy the Jewish leaders and then he would release him. Luke indicates that it was Pilate’s intention to release him, at least at one stage, when he has him say to the Jewish leaders that he will punish Jesus and then release him (Luke 23:16, 22). However, references in Matthew 27:26/Mark 15:15, which say that Pilate had Jesus flogged and handed over to be crucified, suggest that Jesus may (also) have been subjected to the severe beating (verbera) associated with crucifixion.
Pilate had taunted the Jewish leaders by referring to Jesus as ‘the king of the Jews’ (18:39), and perhaps taking their cue from this, The soldiers twisted together a crown of thorns and put it on his head. They clothed him in a purple robe and went up to him again and again, saying, ‘Hail, king of the Jews!’ And they slapped him in the face. As Köstenberger notes, the acclamation Hail, king of the Jews! ‘mimics the “Ave Caesar” extended to the Roman emperor’.60 In these ways, they sought to ridicule Jesus’ claims to have a kingdom, and to humiliate him. Striking people in the face was another way of shaming them.
4–7. The fifth episode: Once more Pilate came out and said to the Jews gathered there, ‘Look, I am bringing him out to you to let you know that I find no basis for a charge against him.’ Pilate publicly declared Jesus’ innocence. Jesus came out wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe. He was still wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe the soldiers had put on him to mock him after they had flogged him. He would have been a sorry sight.
As Jesus stood there before the crowd, Pilate said to them, ‘Here is the man!’ (Latin: Ecce homo!). It may be that Pilate thought that the crowd, having seen that Jesus had been flogged and humiliated, would be satisfied and even feel some sympathy for him, and then he could release him. However, this was not to be. As soon as the chief priests and their officials saw him, they shouted, ‘Crucify! Crucify!’ It appears that Pilate was frustrated, but he was not ready to be dictated to by the chief priests and their officials. But Pilate answered, ‘You take him and crucify him. As for me, I find no basis for a charge against him.’ Once again, Pilate publicly declared Jesus’ innocence and taunted the Jewish leaders, telling them to crucify him – knowing, of course, that they could not do so (cf. 18:31).
For the moment, they had failed in their attempt to have Jesus condemned according to the laws by which the governor worked, so The Jewish leaders insisted, ‘We have a law, and according to that law he must die, because he claimed to be the Son of God.’ This appears to be an echo of the trial before Caiaphas (assumed but not described in this Gospel), in which Jesus was accused of blasphemy (see Mark 14:61–64). From the Jewish point of view, Jesus’ claim to be the Son of God was tantamount to claiming equality with God, which they regarded as blasphemy and which therefore rendered him liable to death by stoning (cf. commentary on 10:33). Pilate was under no obligation to implement Jewish law, but the fact that Jesus claimed to be the Son of God caused him to reconsider his position.
8–11. The sixth episode: When Pilate heard this, he was even more afraid, and he went back inside the palace. The evangelist implies that Pilate was fearful in his dealings with Jesus, and, hearing that he claimed to be the Son of God, he became even more afraid, wondering, perhaps, whether the gods had come down to earth in this man whom he had just had flogged (cf. Acts 14:11). Pilate took Jesus with him back into the praetorium. ‘Where do you come from?’ he asked Jesus. In the first century, a person’s identity and honour were closely related to his or her place of origin (as well as family ties). For example, the apostle Paul said of himself, ‘I am a Jew, from Tarsus in Cilicia, a citizen of no ordinary city’ (Acts 21:39). In seeking to understand Jesus, then, Pilate asked Where do you come from? wondering, perhaps, whether he was from heaven, seeing that he claimed to be the Son of God. Readers of the Gospel of John know that Jesus had come down from heaven (3:13, 31; 6:33, 38, 41–42, 50–51). To Pilate’s consternation, Jesus gave him no answer. Normally, to fail to answer a challenge about one’s origins was to accept shame, but this does not seem to have been the case with Jesus, for throughout his exchanges with Pilate he called the tune. Perhaps Jesus, having borne his witness to Pilate only to have it set aside (18:33–38) and himself handed over to be flogged (19:1), refused to accommodate him further.
Pilate interpreted Jesus’ silence as a challenge to his authority. ‘Do you refuse to speak to me?’ Pilate said. ‘Don’t you realise I have power either to free you or to crucify you?’ Pilate reminded Jesus of the powers invested in him by his appointment as prefect of Judea, powers of life and death over provincials like him. Jesus answered, ‘You would have no power over me if it were not given to you from above.’ Pilate believed that his power originated from the Roman emperor. Humanly speaking, this was true, but Jesus told Pilate that all power comes from above, from God. He raises up kings and emperors and deposes them as he wills (see Dan. 2:20–21; 4:25, 32). Therefore, Pilate had no power over Jesus except that given him by God. Jesus recognized that Pilate was carrying out a God-given responsibility (even though he was not doing so with justice and courage), and said to him, Therefore the one who handed me over to you is guilty of a greater sin. It was Caiaphas who had handed Jesus over to Pilate (18:28–30), and Jesus said that his culpability was greater than Pilate’s. It is true that Pilate did not administer justice without fear or favour when Jesus was handed over, but Caiaphas was chief among those responsible for vigorously seeking the death of an innocent man.
12. The seventh episode: Having heard Jesus place the greater blame upon the Jewish leaders and not on him, From then on [lit. ‘from this’ or ‘because of this’, referring to what Jesus had said about the ‘greater sin’], Pilate tried to set Jesus free, but the Jewish leaders kept shouting, ‘If you let this man go, you are no friend of Caesar.’ This was the second time Pilate sought to release Jesus (cf. 18:38b–40), but once again he was vehemently opposed by the Jewish leaders. They shouted that, if he released Jesus, he would be no friend of Caesar. The title friend of Caesar (amicus Caesaris) reflects a political client–patron relationship between Pilate and Tiberius Caesar. As such, he would have been required always to act with the honour of Caesar in mind and to deal with any threats to his position.
It has been argued that Pilate’s appointment as prefect of Judea was made by Sejanus, who was left in charge of the empire when Tiberius Caesar retired to Capri in ad 26/27. When Sejanus was suspected of trying to overthrow Tiberius, Tiberius ordered the senate to have Sejanus executed. When the Jewish leaders brought Jesus before Pilate, they claimed that Jesus was presenting himself as a king, and they reminded Pilate that Anyone who claims to be a king opposes Caesar. If Pilate failed to act against one the Jewish hierarchy believed was a threat to the emperor, the suspicions of the paranoid Tiberius could easily be aroused, and Pilate would suffer for it, as Sejanus had done.61
13–16a. The eighth episode: When the Jewish leaders told Pilate that, if he released Jesus, he was no ‘friend of Caesar’, they were playing their trump card. There was probably an implied threat: if you release him, we will make sure that Caesar finds out. When Pilate heard this, he brought Jesus out and sat down on the judge’s seat at a place known as the Stone Pavement (which in Aramaic is Gabbatha). His taking his place on the judge’s seat (bēma) signalled that he was about to give judgment in the case. The judge’s seat was set up on a stone pavement (lithostrōtos) outside the praetorium which in Aramaic was called Gabbatha. The evangelist does not say that Gabbatha is a translation of lithostrōtos, but simply that this was what the pavement was called in Aramaic. Many suggestions have been made concerning the meaning of Gabbatha (e.g. ‘elevated place’), but we do not know for sure what it meant.
The evangelist notes that It was the day of Preparation of the Passover; it was about noon (lit. ‘sixth hour’) when Pilate brought Jesus out and took his place on the judgment seat. Preparation day was the day of preparation not for Passover but for the Sabbath which followed Passover (cf. 19:31).
‘Here is your king,’ Pilate said to the Jews. Pilate was seeking to shame the Jewish leaders by presenting Jesus as their king for the second time (cf. 18:39). But they shouted, ‘Take him away! Take him away! Crucify him!’ Jesus suffered the shame of public rejection by his own people as they engaged in challenge and riposte with Pilate. ‘Shall I crucify your king?’ Pilate asked, again presenting Jesus to the Jewish leaders as their king (cf. 18:39; 19:14). To their everlasting shame, the chief priests answered: We have no king but Caesar. In the Old Testament, the Lord is the true king of Israel:
Lord, our God, other lords besides you have ruled over us,
but your name alone do we honour.
(Isa. 26:13)
Jewish people concluded the great Hallel (the recital of Pss 113 – 118) with the prayer: ‘From everlasting to everlasting thou art God; beside thee we have no king, redeemer, or saviour; no liberator, deliverer, provider; none who takes pity in every time of distress or trouble. We have no king but thee.’ When God gave the Israelites the kings they wanted, these kings were seen as exercising kingship in the name of the Lord (see 1 Chr. 29:23). For the chief priests to say We have no king but Caesar was both a travesty of the Jewish faith as well as a renunciation of Jesus, their true Messiah. Indeed, ‘He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him’ (1:11).
In the face of the intransigence of the chief priests, Finally Pilate handed him over to them to be crucified. He handed Jesus over to the chief priests in the sense that he yielded to their pressure to have Jesus crucified. As Luke 23:24 has it, ‘Pilate decided to grant their demand.’ The actual crucifixion was carried out by Roman soldiers (19:23–24).
While the Jewish leaders were determined to see Jesus crucified, and while Pilate could find no fault in him yet still succumbed to pressure to hand an innocent man over to be crucified, all this took place only in accordance with God’s sovereign plan. As the evangelist says: ‘This took place to fulfil what Jesus had said about the kind of death he was going to die’ (18:32; cf. Phil. 2:6–8). Jesus said to Pilate: ‘You would have no power over me if it were not given to you from above’ (19:11). Even the worst deeds of sinful humans are made to serve God’s purposes.
Jesus made an important statement when he told Pilate, ‘My kingdom is not of this world.’ It was not of this world, first, because Jesus derived his authority from God, not from any human source. This, of course, does not mean that his kingly rule does not operate in this world. This is presumed in his kingdom parables, and was demonstrated in his healings and exorcisms, in his power over the elements, his raising people from the dead and, of course, in his own glorious resurrection. Second, it was not only of this world, because it also relates to the ‘heavenly’ world, the new heaven and the new earth. Jesus will rule over his people at a later time in another place, and therefore he was no present threat to Pilate (see ‘Additional note: “My kingdom is not of this world”’, pp. 418–419).
After Pilate succumbed to the demands of the Jewish leaders to have Jesus crucified, the soldiers took charge of him. This section records the actual crucifixion and the notice Pilate had affixed to Jesus’ cross (19:16b–22), the soldiers’ division of Jesus’ clothes among themselves (19:23–24), Jesus entrusting his mother to the beloved disciple’s care (19:25–27), Jesus’ declaration, ‘It is finished’ (19:28–30), the piercing of his side and testimony to the truthfulness of the one who saw it (19:31–37) and Jesus’ burial by Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus (19:38–42).
16b–18. So the soldiers took charge of Jesus. Four Roman soldiers were commissioned to carry out the crucifixion (19:23). Carrying his own cross, he went out to the place of the Skull (which in Aramaic is called Golgotha). Condemned criminals carried the cross beam to the place of crucifixion. Jesus carried it at least as far as the gate of the city, where, according to the Synoptic Gospels, Simon from Cyrene, who was coming into the city at the time, was forced to carry it for him (Matt. 27:32/Mark 15:21/Luke 23:26). This gave rise to the tradition that Jesus fell under the weight of the cross because of weakness and loss of blood brought about by the flogging he had received.
The execution party made its way to the place of the Skull (Gk. kranion, the Aramaic equivalent being gulgoltâ, i.e. Golgotha). The site of Golgotha today is to be found within the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Gordon’s Calvary62 near the bus station is not the site, though in appearance it may be more like the first-century site of the crucifixion than what can be seen in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre today.63 There they crucified him, and with him two others – one on each side and Jesus in the middle. Because his primary focus is upon Jesus, the evangelist says nothing more about the other two. The Synoptic Gospels describe them as rebels/criminals (Matt. 27:38/Mark 15:27/Luke 23:32) being justly executed for their crimes (Luke 23:39–41). Crucifixion was a barbaric form of execution. Köstenberger describes its horrors:
For hours (if not days), the victim would hang in the heat of the sun, stripped naked and struggling to breathe. In order to avoid asphyxiation, he had to push himself up with his legs and pull with his arms, triggering muscle spasms that caused almost unimaginable pain. The end would come through heart failure, brain damage caused by reduced oxygen supply, suffocation and shock. Atrocious physical agony, length of torment, and public shame combined to make crucifixion a most horrible form of death.64
19–20. Pilate had a notice prepared and fastened to the cross. It read: jesus of nazareth, the king of the jews. Pilate felt forced, under the implied threat from the chief priests that they would report him to Caesar, to condemn a man he knew was innocent of any capital offence. Now, it seems, he attached this notice to the cross of the condemned man to aggravate them. Two factors ensured the aggravation. First, Many of the Jews read this sign, for the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city. Jesus was crucified just outside the city of Jerusalem in a place where people would pass by and read the notice. (Although the site of Golgotha, within the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, is inside the walls of present-day Jerusalem, it was outside the walls of first-century Jerusalem.) Second, the sign was written in Aramaic, Latin and Greek, and could therefore be read by all – by Judean Jews, Romans, Jews of the diaspora, and Gentile God-fearers and proselytes.
21–22. The chief priests of the Jews protested to Pilate, ‘Do not write “The King of the Jews”, but that this man claimed to be king of the Jews.’ What they said was, in fact, not true. While Jesus had accepted the crowd’s acclaim, ‘Blessed is the king of Israel!’, when he entered Jerusalem (12:12–15), we have no record that he ever claimed this title, and he avoided doing so when questioned by Pilate (18:33–37).
The chief priests had rejected Jesus as their king, declaring, ‘We have no king but Caesar’ (19:15), but Pilate was declaring this crucified person to be their king. Having decided to hand Jesus over for crucifixion under the implied threat from the chief priests that they would report him to Caesar (see commentary on 19:13–16a), Pilate was in no mood to listen to their protest: Pilate answered, ‘What I have written, I have written.’ He was determined to let the affront stand, and he appears to have been saying more than he himself really understood (cf. 11:49–52).
23–24. Following the ancient custom that allowed executioners to take the garments of the condemned person as a perquisite, When the soldiers crucified Jesus, they took his clothes, dividing them into four shares, one for each of them, with the undergarment remaining. Jesus’ outer garment was apparently torn along the seams and the cloth divided among the four soldiers. However, they did not tear the undergarment (chitōn, a long tunic worn next to the skin) because This garment was seamless, woven in one piece from top to bottom. Seeing that the garment was seamless, the soldiers said to one another, Let’s not tear it . . . Let’s decide by lot who will get it. All this was a pragmatic action on the part of the soldiers, but the evangelist believed that This happened that the scripture might be fulfilled that said, ‘They divided my clothes among them and cast lots for my garment.’ The quotation is from Psalm 22:18 (from which Jesus’ cry of dereliction was also drawn; cf. Matt. 27.46; Mark 15:34). The evangelist includes it here to show that Jesus’ passion and death occurred in accordance with the will of God, something he does repeatedly in this Gospel (2:19–22; 13:18; 19:24, 28, 36, 37). So this is what the soldiers did. That Jesus’ clothing was appropriated by the soldiers meant that he was left naked, underlining the extent of the humiliation heaped upon him when he was crucified.
25. All of the Gospels make mention of the women who stood around the cross (19:25–27; cf. Matt. 27:55–56; Mark 15:40–41; Luke 23:49), but only the Gospel of John makes specific mention of the mother of Jesus: Near the cross of Jesus stood his mother, his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. The niv editors have added the words the wife in the phrase Mary the wife of Clopas. Literally rendered, it would read simply, ‘Mary of Clopas’, which could mean that Mary was either the wife or the daughter of Clopas. The list of women is then susceptible to three interpretations involving two, three or four women: (1) two women, that is, Jesus’ mother (daughter of Clopas) and her sister (Mary Magdalene) – unlikely because the two sisters would then have had the same name (Mary); (2) three women, that is, Jesus’ mother, his mother’s sister (Mary of Clopas) and Mary Magdalene – again unlikely because the two sisters would have had the same name; or, the most likely (3) four women comprising two pairs – one unnamed pair (Jesus’ mother and her sister) and a named pair (Mary the wife of Clopas and Mary Magdalene). Mary the wife of Clopas appears only here in the New Testament.65 Mary Magdalene features prominently in all Gospels, not only at the foot of the cross but also in the resurrection stories (20:1, 18; cf. Matt. 28:1; Mark 16:1, 9; Luke 24:10), and is described as the one from whom Jesus drove out seven demons (Mark 16:9; Luke 8:2).
26–27. What follows is remarkable. Though experiencing the agonies of crucifixion, When Jesus saw his mother there, and the disciple whom he loved standing near by, he said to her, ‘Woman, here is your son,’ and to the disciple, ‘Here is your mother.’ The mother of Jesus appears only twice in this Gospel: in 2:1–11 at the wedding in Cana and here in 19:25–27 at the foot of the cross. In Cana, she demonstrated exemplary faith in Jesus, telling the servants to do whatever he told them. Here we see Jesus, in extremity, acting as an exemplary son, making provision for his mother by entrusting her to the care of the disciple whom he loved. His mother was henceforth to regard this disciple as her son, and the disciple was to regard her as his mother, thus taking over the responsibility that had belonged to Jesus during his lifetime.66
The reason why he entrusted her to the beloved disciple instead of to one of his own brothers was probably because, at that time, they did not believe in him as his mother did (7:2–5), and were not present at the crucifixion.67 The beloved disciple proved to be an exemplary disciple: From that time on, this disciple took her into his home. Tradition has it that the beloved disciple, identified as the apostle John, came to live in Ephesus and brought Mary to live with him there.
Some see in Jesus’ words to the beloved disciple Here is your mother the elevation of Mary as the mother of all disciples, but this goes well beyond the intention of the evangelist and ignores the significance of his final words, From that time on, this disciple took her into his home, which suggest that Jesus’ mother was placed in the disciple’s care, and not vice versa.
28. He had taken care of his mother, and Later, knowing that everything had now been finished, and so that Scripture would be fulfilled, Jesus said, ‘I am thirsty.’ As he hung upon the cross, Jesus knew that he had finished the works God had sent him into the world to do (cf. 4:34; 5:36; 17:4).
The evangelist saw in Jesus’ words I am thirsty a fulfilment of something foreshadowed in Scripture. The allusion may be to Psalm 22:15, where the sufferer says,
My mouth is dried up like a potsherd,
and my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth.
The evangelist cited this psalm earlier in relation to the dividing of Jesus’ clothes among the Roman soldiers (19:23–24). By drawing attention to the way Scripture was being fulfilled in what took place during Jesus’ crucifixion, the evangelist shows again that all was being accomplished in accordance with the divine plan.
29–30. A jar of wine vinegar was there, so they soaked a sponge in it, put the sponge on a stalk of the hyssop plant, and lifted it to Jesus’ lips. There may be an allusion here to Psalm 69:21:
They put gall in my food
and gave me vinegar for my thirst.
Wine vinegar was cheap wine for the soldiers and was probably diluted with water. Most likely it was one of the soldiers who offered Jesus the wine vinegar, an unusually kind gesture suggesting that this soldier might have been the one who later confessed Jesus as the Son of God (Mark 15:39). The wine vinegar was offered to Jesus in a sponge placed on (a stalk of) hyssop (hyssōpos). Roman crosses were not tall, and the stalk of hyssop, which was not very strong, would not need to have been very long to accomplish the task. Only the Gospel of John identifies hyssop; the other Gospels simply refer to a stick (kalamos).68 There may be an allusion here to the hyssop used to daub the lintels and doorposts with blood to protect the Israelites when the angel of death ‘passed over’ at the time of the exodus, thus connecting Jesus’ death with that of the Passover lamb. While Jesus refused the wine mixed with myrrh (which would have deadened somewhat the pain of crucifixion) that was offered to him at the cross (Matt. 27:34/Mark 15:23), he accepted the wine vinegar that was offered, now knowing that all was accomplished.
When he had received the drink, Jesus said, ‘It is finished.’ In his prayer in 17:4 Jesus had told his Father, ‘I have brought you glory on earth by finishing the work you gave me to do’; in 19:28 we read: ‘knowing that everything had now been finished . . . Jesus said, “I am thirsty”’; now, having received the drink, he declared: It is finished. To understand the significance of these words, we need to remember that, in Matthew and Mark, the offer of wine vinegar followed Jesus’ cry of dereliction, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ (Matt. 27:46–49; Mark 15:33–37), which signalled the fact that he was bearing in his own person the awful consequences of human sin. When, in the Gospel of John, having received the drink, Jesus said, It is finished, he was referring not only to the work of revelation through word and sign, but also to the great work of redemption. Jesus had finished the work he came to do. He had given his flesh for the life of the world (6:51); as the good shepherd, he had laid down his life for the sheep (10:11, 14); he had become the one man who died for the nation (11:50); he was the ‘seed’ that would fall into the ground and produce many seeds (12:24); and he showed the love that was greater than any other – laying down his life for his friends (15:13).
The evangelist then adds: With that, he bowed his head and gave up his spirit. ‘To give up the spirit’ is an idiom best understood simply to mean ‘to die’;69 the same word, ‘to give up’ (paradidōmi), is used in Isaiah 53:12 to describe the death of the Suffering Servant.
31. Now it was the day of Preparation, and the next day was to be a special Sabbath. Preparation day was the day of preparation, not for the Passover meal, but for the ensuing Sabbath (cf. Matt. 27:62; Mark 15:42; Luke 23:54). It was a special Sabbath because it fell in Passover week. The evangelist adds: Because the Jewish leaders did not want the bodies left on the crosses during the Sabbath, they asked Pilate to have the legs broken and the bodies taken down. According to Deuteronomy 21:22–23, to leave the dead body of an executed person hanging on a tree overnight desecrated the land. The Jewish leaders wanted to have the bodies of Jesus and those crucified with him removed before sunset, which would usher in the Sabbath. Breaking the legs of those crucified hastened death by preventing the victims from supporting themselves with their legs; the arms alone could not take the weight for long and they soon died of asphyxiation. The irony was that the Jewish leaders, rightly seeking to ensure no desecration of the land, were at the same time desecrating themselves by pursuing to death an innocent man, their true Messiah.
32–34. With orders from Pilate The soldiers therefore came and broke the legs of the first man who had been crucified with Jesus, and then those of the other. But when they came to Jesus and found that he was already dead, they did not break his legs. Jesus had already given up his spirit (19:30), so when the soldiers came to break his legs, they found him dead. Instead of them breaking his legs, one of the soldiers pierced Jesus’ side with a spear. Presumably the spear thrust was to ensure that Jesus was dead, but the spear penetrated quite a way, bringing a sudden flow of blood and water. Medical experts have suggested a couple of explanations for this phenomenon. One is that the spear penetrated Jesus’ heart and the flow was made up of fluid (like water) from the pericardial sac and blood from the heart itself. Another explanation is that severe injury to the chest can result in haemorrhagic fluid gathering between the rib cage and the lung. This can separate into clear serum and red fluid, both of which would have flowed out when the chest cavity was pierced.70
Some regard the reference to the blood and water flowing from Jesus’ side as an allusion to the sacraments of the Lord’s Supper (blood) and baptism (water). While it is easy to see how later Christians might make such a connection, it is more likely that the evangelist mentions the blood and water to emphasize the reality of Jesus’ death at a time when this was being questioned.
35. No matter how we understand the physical explanation for the flow of blood and water, the phenomenon itself was regarded as very important: The man who saw it has given testimony, and his testimony is true. He knows that he tells the truth, and he testifies so that you also may believe. Here we encounter either a claim to be a truthful witness on the part of the beloved disciple himself, or an editorial comment supporting the veracity of his testimony by some other person who witnessed this event.71 This testimony is intended, like the whole of the Gospel (cf. 20:31), to engender faith on the part of the reader. It would appear that the flow of blood and water was seen as evidence for the reality of Jesus’ death, something that was soon to be questioned (see 1 John 5:6–8).
36–37. Reflecting upon the significance of Jesus’ legs not being broken but his side being pierced with a spear instead, the evangelist says, These things happened so that the scripture would be fulfilled: ‘Not one of his bones will be broken,’ and, as another scripture says, ‘They will look on the one they have pierced.’ The first quotation is from Psalm 34:20, with possible allusions to the Passover lamb, whose bones were not to be broken (Exod. 12:46; Num. 9:12). The second quotation is from Zechariah 12:10 and drawn from a passage which speaks of the mourning of Israel preceding their restoration. The evangelist probably had in mind the last day, when the tribes of the earth will look on the one who was pierced, and lament (cf. Rev. 1:7). For the evangelist, the fact that Jesus’ sufferings were foreshadowed in the Scriptures shows that all this took place in accordance with the divine plan; it was not only a terrible miscarriage of justice.
38. According to Roman custom, the bodies of executed criminals were not buried, but left to be devoured by vultures. The Mishnah indicates that it was Jewish custom to bury criminals’ bodies in common graves provided by the Sanhedrin (m. Sanh. 6:5). Neither was to be the fate of Jesus’ body. Later, Joseph of Arimathea asked Pilate for the body of Jesus. Now Joseph was a disciple of Jesus, but secretly because he feared the Jewish leaders. With Pilate’s permission, he came and took the body away. Joseph of Arimathea72 is described elsewhere as ‘a rich man’ (Matt. 27:57), one who was ‘waiting for the kingdom of God’ (Luke 23:51), and ‘a prominent member of the Council [Sanhedrin]’ (Mark 15:43). Only the Gospel of John says that he was a secret disciple of Jesus, one of those many leaders who believed in Jesus but were afraid to confess him openly, lest they be put out of the synagogue (see 12:42). But that was about to change. When he went to Pilate and asked for Jesus’ body, this would certainly become known to the other members of the Sanhedrin, and he would then bear the reproach of being a disciple of Jesus. We cannot be sure why Pilate granted his request. Perhaps it was because Joseph was a prominent member of the Sanhedrin, or perhaps because Pilate still felt that Jesus had not deserved to die as a criminal and therefore his body deserved better treatment.
39. Only the Gospel of John records that Joseph had assistance: He was accompanied by Nicodemus, the man who earlier had visited Jesus at night. Nicodemus brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about thirty-five kilograms. Nicodemus was also a member of the Sanhedrin (3:1; 12:42) who was a secret disciple. He had come to Jesus at first by night (3:1–15) and then had courageously raised a point of law in Jesus’ favour in the Sanhedrin (7:50–51). Now, with Joseph, he was making his discipleship public as together they ensured that Jesus’ body received an honourable burial. As the Gospel of John unfolds, therefore, we see Nicodemus, an influential teacher of Israel, moving gradually but surely from inquiry, through tentative support, to public confession of faith in Jesus. He functions as another example of the sort of belief that the evangelist hoped his Gospel would elicit in readers.
Nicodemus brought with him a mixture of myrrh and aloes. In the Old Testament, myrrh was used as a perfume (Ps. 45:8; Song 3:6; 4:6, 14; 5:1, 5, 13) and as one of the ingredients in the anointing oil produced by the perfumer for use in the tabernacle (Exod. 30:23). Its only other mention in the New Testament is as one of the gifts brought to the Christ child by the Magi (Matt. 2:11). While there is no evidence in the Bible for the use of myrrh as a burial perfume, there is in extra-biblical sources (e.g. Herodotus, History 2.86). Aloes is mentioned only here in the New Testament. In the Old Testament, like myrrh, it was used as a perfume (Ps. 45:8; Prov. 7:17; Song 4:14), but there is no mention of its use for burials. Thirty-five kilograms (75 lb) of myrrh and aloes is a very large amount, sufficient for a royal burial.
40–42. Taking Jesus’ body, the two of them wrapped it, with the spices, in strips of linen. They wrapped Jesus’ body with strips of linen, applying the mixture of spices as they did so. This was intended to counteract the unpleasant odour associated with a decaying corpse. The evangelist explains, for the benefit of non-Jewish readers, This was in accordance with Jewish burial customs. Then he adds: At the place where Jesus was crucified, there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb, in which no one had ever been laid. Only the Gospel of John mentions the proximity of a garden to the place where Jesus was crucified, and that in this garden was located the tomb where he was buried. The mention of a new tomb heightens the sense of the honour that was being paid to Jesus’ body, as did the large amount of spices used. All this served to counteract the humiliation involved in his crucifixion.
The reason for the use of this tomb was quite pragmatic: Because it was the Jewish day of Preparation and since the tomb was near by, they laid Jesus there. It was necessary to get Jesus’ body into the tomb hastily because evening would usher in the Sabbath. Hence a nearby tomb was used. Matthew 27:60 explains that it was Joseph’s own new tomb into which Jesus’ body was placed.
Even when Jesus was crucified, God’s sovereign plan and purposes could not be thwarted. Pilate had a notice affixed to the cross that read jesus of nazareth, the king of the jews. Apparently he did this out of spite to taunt the Jewish leaders, who then asked him to change the wording to ‘this man claimed to be king of the Jews’. This Pilate refused to do, and, under God, his very determination to let his summary of the charge stand ensured that the truth about Jesus remained fastened to the cross.
The evangelist also underlines the fact that God’s purposes were being played out through his fourfold reference to the fulfilment of Scripture in events occurring when Christ hung on the cross: the division of Jesus’ clothes among the soldiers (19:23–24/Ps. 22:18), Jesus saying ‘I am thirsty’ (19:28/Ps. 22:15), and the fact that not a bone of Jesus’ body was broken (19:36/Ps. 34:20) and that his side was pierced by a spear (19:37/Zech. 12:10).
In the midst of his own agony, Jesus would have been aware of his mother’s agony as well. When Joseph and Mary brought Jesus to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord, the aged Simeon told Mary that ‘a sword will pierce your own soul too’ (Luke 2:35). As a mother, she must have felt that sword piercing her soul as she saw her son dying on the cross. Jesus was not only aware of her pain, but made provision for her care after his death by committing her into the hands of the disciple whom he loved. Jesus served God his Father first and foremost, but he also showed his love, and fulfilled his filial responsibility, towards his mother.
When Jesus received the wine vinegar he was offered, he said, ‘It is finished’, then ‘bowed his head and gave up his spirit.’ He had borne the awful consequences of human sin in his own person and secured salvation for all who believe; the great work of redemption was complete. Shortly afterwards, his Father would raise him up and bestow on him
the name that is above every name,
that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow . . .
and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord.
(Phil 2:9–11)
The evangelist underlines the importance of truthful testimony when he says, in relation to the blood and water that flowed when Jesus’ side was pierced: ‘The man who saw it has given testimony, and his testimony is true. He knows that he tells the truth, and he testifies so that you also may believe’ (19:35). Authentic faith is based on reliable evidence concerning the historical reality of Jesus and what he has done for us.
Contemplating the significance of Jesus’ death on the cross, Calvin says,
we ought to consider the dreadful weight of His wrath against sin and the immeasurable greatness of His goodness towards us . . . We are assuredly too stupid if we do not see plainly in this mirror how much God abominates sin . . . But when, on the other hand, God declares that our salvation was so dear to Him that He did not spare His only-begotten Son, what an abundance of goodness and grace do we here behold!73
Chapter 19 concluded with an account of Jesus’ burial, and chapter 20 records early post-resurrection appearances of Jesus to his disciples. It consists of four sections: (1) events that took place at the empty tomb on the morning of the first day of the week (20:1–18); (2) events that occurred in a locked room on the evening of that day (20:19–23); (3) events that occurred in a locked room one week later (20:24–29); (4) a concluding statement of purpose for the writing of the Gospel (20:30–31).
1–3. Jesus’ body was placed in the tomb on the evening of the day of preparation for the Sabbath, and it remained there during the Sabbath; then, Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the entrance. The Gospel of John says nothing about a stone having been placed across the entrance of the tomb, though the mention of its removal here presupposes that. Seeing the stone removed (and the tomb empty), Mary Magdalene was distraught, So she came running to Simon Peter and [to] the other disciple,74 the one Jesus loved, and said, ‘They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don’t know where they have put him!’ There are earlier references to the other disciple (18:15, 16), but only here is he identified as the one Jesus loved (cf. 13:23; 19:26; 21:7, 20), who is best identified as the apostle John. Finding these two disciples, Mary Magdalene expressed her distress: we don’t know where they have put him! The first-person plural we suggests that Mary Magdalene was not alone in her early-morning visit to the tomb, though her companions are not mentioned (cf. Matt. 28:1; Mark 16:1; Luke 24:1). Seeing the tomb empty, she assumed that they (probably Jesus’ enemies) had taken his body. Stealing bodies from tombs was a serious offence. An inscription found at Nazareth records a decree by the emperor Claudius making it a capital offence. Hearing Mary Magdalene’s report, Peter and the other disciple started for the tomb.
4–5. Both were running, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. He bent over and looked in at the strips of linen lying there but did not go in. That they were running probably reflects the sense of urgency they felt at hearing Mary Magdalene’s report of the missing body of Jesus. His body had been wrapped in strips of linen by Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus (19:40) and placed in the tomb. When the other disciple looked in, all he could see was the strips of linen, but no body. For some reason, he did not enter the tomb for closer inspection.
6–7. Then Simon Peter came along behind him and went straight into the tomb. He saw the strips of linen lying there, as well as the cloth that had been wrapped round Jesus’ head. The cloth was still lying in its place, separate from the linen. No mention is made of the burial cloth in the account of the burial (19:38–41), but it was common to use one for the face of the deceased (cf. 11:44). The main point is that the linen strips were just lying there with no body, and the burial cloth was lying where Jesus’ head had been. Clearly, the body of Jesus had not been stolen by his enemies nor removed by his friends. In either case, the linen strips and the burial cloth would not have been removed at the tomb, as the removal of the body would have been carried out in haste so as not to be observed.
Perhaps Jesus’ resurrected body simply passed through the linen strips, leaving them still in the shape of his body, though somewhat collapsed. Attentive readers will notice the difference between Lazarus’s restoration to life and Jesus’ resurrection. Lazarus emerged from the tomb still ‘wrapped with strips of linen, and a cloth round his face’, and he had to be released by others (11:44), whereas in the case of Jesus, the linen strips and burial cloth were simply left behind as he rose from the dead.
8–9. Finally the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went inside. When he had a closer look at the linen strips and the facial burial cloth just lying there without any trace of Jesus’ body, He saw and believed. We are not told what he believed. Did he simply believe Mary Magdalene’s report that the tomb was empty?75 Such a view Carson describes as
unbearably trite . . . it not only makes both Peter and the beloved disciple unbelievably stupid (they, unlike Mary, have to enter the tomb to find it empty!), it also fails to account for the absolute usage of the verb ‘to believe’, not to mention the introduction of the relation between seeing and believing (v. 29).76
Therefore, it is more likely that he believed that Jesus had been raised from the dead.77
The evangelist adds in parenthesis, They still did not understand from Scripture that Jesus had to rise from the dead. It did take some time before the disciples understood that Scripture predicted the resurrection of Jesus. According to Luke, the risen Jesus himself opened the eyes of his disciples to understand what was written about him ‘in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms’, including the fact that ‘the Messiah will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day’ (Luke 24:25–27, 44–46; cf. Isa. 53:10–12; Hos. 6:2; Ps. 16:10). Acts 13:32–34 records that Paul, referring to Isaiah 53:3, said that ‘God raised him from the dead so that he will never be subject to decay. As God has said, “I will give you the holy and sure blessings promised to David.”’
It is important to note the emphasis that John and other New Testament writers place upon the empty tomb. For them, the resurrection of Jesus was certainly not just ‘spiritual’ survival after death; it involved a resurrection of the body.
10–12. Then the disciples went back to where they were staying. We are not told where they were staying. It may have been in Bethany, where they had spent the previous week, or in Jerusalem, in the house where the Last Supper had taken place.
Presumably Peter did not understand the significance of what he had seen, and if the other disciple did understand, for some reason he kept it largely to himself – though one would imagine he must surely have told at least Mary the mother of Jesus, whom he had taken into his own home (19:26–27).
Mary Magdalene did not understand the significance of the empty tomb either and was still grief-stricken, so when the two disciples returned to where they were staying, the evangelist says: Now Mary stood outside the tomb crying. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb and saw two angels in white, seated where Jesus’ body had been, one at the head and the other at the foot.78 The niv’s Now translates the conjunction de, which may also be translated ‘but’. In that case, the evangelist would be contrasting the actions of Mary, who stayed at the tomb, with those of the two disciples, who went home.
Mark mentions ‘a young man dressed in a white robe’ (Mark 16:5), Luke refers to ‘two men in clothes that gleamed like lightning’ (Luke 24:4), Matthew speaks of ‘an angel of the Lord’ whose ‘clothes were white as snow’ (Matt 28:2–3) and John refers to ‘two angels in white’. The overall impression is of angels in appearance like men stationed at the place where Jesus’ body had lain, one at one end of the rock ledge in the tomb where the head of Jesus’ body had been, the other at the opposite end where his feet had been. The presence of angels at the tomb testifies to the fact that the disappearance of Jesus’ body was caused by divine, not human, intervention.
13. The angels asked her, Woman, why are you crying? Mary, not yet understanding the significance of the empty tomb, replied: They have taken my Lord away . . . and I don’t know where they have put him. She had already spoken to Peter and the other disciple, and clearly they knew nothing about any of Jesus’ disciples having removed the body. This confirms that the they she supposed had removed the body must refer to Jesus’ enemies, hence the compounding of her grief. The other Gospels say that Mary (with others) had come with spices to anoint Jesus’ body (Mark 16:1; Luke 23:56; 24:1), doing what was expected to honour him and at the same time expressing their grief. But even this activity had been denied Mary by what she supposed was the removal of his body by enemies.
14. Having said this, and apparently aware that there was now someone outside the tomb, she turned round and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realise that it was Jesus. Perhaps she did not immediately recognize him because her eyes were filled with tears and the last person she expected to see was Jesus. Alternatively, perhaps there was something about Jesus’ resurrection body which hindered immediate recognition.
15. Jesus addressed Mary Magdalene, Woman, why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for? Moloney comments on the irony involved when ‘the one whom she seeks asks her whom she is seeking’.79 Still she did not recognize him, and Thinking he was the gardener, she said, ‘Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him.’ The tomb was located in a garden (19:41), and she wondered whether the gardener had removed Jesus’ body from the tomb, and not his enemies. If so, she wanted to know where he had put it so that she could ensure that it received a proper burial.
16–17. Jesus said to her, ‘Mary.’ Once she heard him addressing her personally as Mary (not just as ‘Woman’; cf. v. 15), she recognized him immediately. The Shepherd had called his sheep by name and she recognized his voice (cf. 10:3–4). She turned towards him and cried out in Aramaic, ‘Rabboni!’ (The only other place in the New Testament where the expression ‘Rabboni’ is found is Mark 10:51, where blind Bartimaeus says to Jesus, ‘Rabbi, I want to see.’) The evangelist explains for readers who do not speak Aramaic that Rabboni . . . means ‘Teacher’.
Jesus’ next words to Mary Magdalene are difficult to understand. Jesus said, ‘Do not hold on to me.’80 Why should Jesus not want Mary Magdalene to touch him? It is unlikely that it was a rejection of natural affection. Prior to his death and resurrection, Jesus had showed no reticence about being touched or receiving affection. He had allowed Mary, the sister of Martha and Lazarus, to anoint his feet with perfume and wipe them with her hair (12:3). After his resurrection, he encouraged Thomas to put his finger in the nail prints in his hands and to put his hand into the spear wound in his side (20:27). In Matthew 28:9, when Jesus met Mary Magdalene and ‘the other Mary’, he did not discourage them when they ‘clasped his feet and worshipped him’.
The reason Jesus gave Mary Magdalene for not touching him was for I have not yet ascended to the Father. Two related things need explanation: what did Jesus mean by saying that he had not yet ascended to the Father, and why was that a reason for Mary Magdalene not to touch him? In his farewell discourse, Jesus spoke repeatedly of his return to the Father (13:1, 3; 14:28; 16:17, 28; 17:1, 5, 11) and this invariably meant his return to the Father’s presence through death, resurrection and exaltation. Now, after his death and resurrection, Jesus said, ‘I have not yet returned to the Father’, meaning apparently that he had not yet finally left this world in which he was appearing to his disciples to return to the Father. Köstenberger suggests that ‘this transitory condition explains the awkwardness that surrounds the interim between the resurrection of Jesus and the sending of the Spirit’.81
Why was this a reason for Mary not to touch him? Keener suggests that it was because Jesus did not want her to become too attached to his physical presence, because in future his presence would be mediated through the Spirit.82 Carson suggests that Jesus’ words to Mary could be rendered:
I am not yet in the ascended state . . . so you do not have to hang on to me as if I were about to disappear permanently. This is a time for joy and sharing the good news, not for clutching me as if I were some jealously guarded private dream-come-true.83
There is some support for this in what Jesus said next: Go instead to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’ Mary Magdalene had a task to perform. She had to inform Jesus’ brothers – that is, his disciples (cf. 20:18) – that he was now returning to the Father. This was not a time to be dwelling in Jesus’ presence, touching or holding him; there was a job to do. When Jesus said, I am ascending to my Father, it did not mean that he was at that precise moment actually departing to the Father, but rather that the process of his return to the Father was under way. In fact, that process began with the betrayal, continued through the cross and resurrection, and would culminate in his exaltation.
By referring to God as my Father and your Father, Jesus not only implied some distinction between his and his disciples’ relationship with the Father, but also included them with himself as children of God. Cyril of Jerusalem comments: ‘He does not say, “to our Father”, but distinguishing and saying first what was proper to himself, “to my Father”, which was by nature. Then he adds, “and your father”, which was by adoption.’84
18. Mary Magdalene went to the disciples with the news: ‘I have seen the Lord!’ And she told them that he had said these things to her. She first told them the amazing news that she had seen the Lord, and then she communicated his message to them. In the course of just a few verses (20:11–18), the evangelist has chronicled Mary Magdalene’s movement from grief to joyous belief. Lincoln comments:
Mary Magdalene, then, has a remarkable role in the narrative. She is near the cross at Jesus’ death (19.25), discovers the opened tomb, receives the first resurrection appearance, and, as part of this, is given the commission to make the key announcement to the disciples. It is not surprising that she has been called ‘the apostle to the apostles’.85
The evangelist does not say how the disciples received her message; according to Mark 16:10–11/Luke 24:9–11, they regarded it as an idle tale.
19–20. The events described in the previous section (20:1–18) took place at the tomb in the early morning of the first day of the week. The evangelist now begins his account of what happened later that day: On the evening of that first day of the week, when the disciples were together, with the doors locked for fear of the Jewish leaders . . . He does not tell us how many disciples were present on this occasion, though the statement in 20:24 that ‘Thomas (also known as Didymus), one of the Twelve, was not with the disciples when Jesus came’ suggests that the disciples included at least the Twelve less Thomas and Judas Iscariot.
Peter and ‘the other disciple’ had seen the empty tomb, and Mary Magdalene had seen the Lord and had passed on his message to the disciples that he was soon to return to the Father. Nevertheless, the disciples had not yet fully appreciated that Jesus had risen from the dead. They were still afraid of what the Jewish leaders might do to them because they were his followers, and so they secluded themselves behind locked doors. Locked doors might keep out any sent by the Jewish leaders, but they could not exclude the risen Lord: Jesus came and stood among them and said, ‘Peace be with you!’ He thus fulfilled his threefold promise to come to them again (14:18, 23, 28). His sudden appearance to his disciples behind locked doors, like his emergence from the tomb, demonstrated that in his resurrected state he was no longer bound by earthly limitations.
Prior to his death, Jesus had told his disciples that they would all be scattered and would leave him alone (16:32). When he was arrested, he told the soldiers to let his disciples go (18:8–9); he was then taken alone to the high priest and eventually to Pilate to be condemned to death. The disciples, and especially Peter, who had denied him three times (18:17–18, 25–27), would have felt deeply ashamed that they had abandoned Jesus in his hour of need. When Jesus now appeared to them behind locked doors, his greeting Peace be with you! showed that he was not holding their failures against them; rather, he was offering a restored relationship.
After he said this, he showed them his hands and side. By showing them the nail prints in his hands86 and the spear wound in his side, Jesus removed any doubt they may have had that the one who stood before them in that locked room was Jesus who had been crucified but was now risen from the dead.87 He had predicted that the disciples’ sorrow at his death would be turned to joy following his resurrection (16:20–22), and now The disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord.
21. Again Jesus said, ‘Peace be with you!’ This time, these words came with a commission for his disciples. Instead of reproaching them for their failures, he commissioned them as his emissaries: As the Father has sent me, I am sending you (cf. 17:18). To express Jesus’ being sent by the Father here, the evangelist uses the verb apostellō, while for the disciples’ being sent by Jesus he uses the verb pempō. However, nothing should be made of this as the words are used synonymously in the Gospel of John for the sending of Jesus by the Father (e.g. 3:17; 5:36/4:34; 5:23), the disciples by Jesus (e.g. 4:38/20:21), John the Baptist by God (e.g. 1:6; 3:34/1:33) and various people by the Jewish leaders (e.g. 1:19, 24/1:22).
The Gospel of John speaks often of Jesus having been sent into the world by the Father: to do his will (6:38–39; 8:29), speak his words (3:34; 8:28; 12:49; 14:24; 17:8), perform his works (4:34; 5:36; 9:4) and win salvation for all who believe (3:16–17). That the disciples were sent to continue the words and works of Jesus is foreshadowed at various places in the Gospel: Jesus urged them to lift up their eyes and see fields ripe for harvest, and told them that he had sent them to reap where others had laboured (4:35–38); he said that those who believed in him would do the works that he did and greater works than these, because he was returning to the Father (14:12); he told them, ‘I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit – fruit that will last’ (15:16); he said that when the Advocate came, ‘he will testify about me. And you also must testify, for you have been with me from the beginning’ (15:26–27); and when he prayed for his disciples, he said to the Father, ‘As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world’ (17:18). This last text, which parallels 20:21, confirms that the sending of the disciples was ‘into the world’ – that is, with a mission to the world. The other texts reveal that the essential content of their mission was to ‘harvest’ men and women for the kingdom by their witness to Jesus, by word and deed, alongside the ongoing witness of the Holy Spirit.
While Jesus’ words about sending his disciples as the Father had sent him applied primarily to the Twelve (see Mark 3:13–19), there is a sense in which all believers are privileged to share in this commission, in so far as they all are recipients of the Spirit whom he bequeathed to his disciples (cf. 20:22). With the particular enabling that the Spirit provides, each believer plays a part in continuing the work and witness to Jesus.
22. Following Jesus’ words of commissioning, the evangelist says: And with that he breathed on them and said, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit.’ The words on them are missing in the Greek text, being supplied by the niv translators. So the text could simply read, ‘he breathed and said . . .’ However, the word used for ‘breathe’ is emphysaō, which, though found only here in the New Testament, occurs several times in the lxx. There it refers to God breathing life into the man formed from the dust (Gen. 2:7; cf. Wisdom 15:11), Elijah breathing into the nostrils of the widow’s dead son while calling upon the Lord to restore his life (1 Kgs 17:21 lxx) and Ezekiel prophesying to the wind to breathe life into the slain in the valley of dry bones (Ezek. 37:9). In each case, the verb is used to indicate not just breathing, but breathing into people, so it is probably legitimate to add ‘on them’ in 20:22 as the niv does.
In many places in the Gospel of John, the coming role of the Spirit is predicted: John (the Baptist) was told that Jesus would baptize with the Holy Spirit (1:33); Jesus told the woman of Samaria that those who drink the ‘water’ he gives will never thirst again because it will become in them ‘a spring of water welling up to eternal life’ (4:10, 13–14); Jesus promised that rivers of living water will flow from within those who believe in him – by which the evangelist says that he meant the Spirit, to be given when Jesus was glorified (7:37–39); and when Jesus went away, he promised to send his disciples another Advocate, the Holy Spirit, who would help them, remind them of what he had said to them, testify about him, prove the world wrong about sin, righteousness and judgment, guide the disciples into all truth and tell them of what was yet to come (14:16–17, 26, 28; 15:26; 16:7–15). And finally, here in 20:22, he breathed on them and said, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit.’ What exactly Jesus meant by this, and how it is to be related to the coming of the Holy Spirit recorded in Acts 2, is difficult to determine and has been variously interpreted.
Lincoln says that Jesus’ action in 20:22 is the fulfilment of his promises of the Spirit recorded earlier in the Gospel, but he makes no attempt to explain how this might relate to Acts 2.88 Some regard 20:22 as the ‘Johannine Pentecost’, explaining that the Gospel of John, unlike the Gospel of Luke, has no follow-up volume, so therefore 20:22 functions as the evangelist’s equivalent to Acts 2.89 Others regard 20:22 and Acts 2 as records of separate impartations of the Spirit. So, for example, Cyril of Jerusalem says that 20:22 represents a lesser bestowal of the Spirit to be supplemented with a greater endowment at Pentecost,90 and Calvin says: ‘The Spirit was given to the apostles now in such a way that they were only sprinkled with His grace and not saturated with full power . . . when the Spirit appeared on them in tongues of fire, they were entirely renewed.’91 Michaels says that the impersonal Spirit giving life to the disciples in 20:22 ‘becomes “the Advocate” in a personal sense only later’, that is, at Pentecost, as described in Acts 2.92 Others suggest that Jesus’ action in 20:22 was symbolic, foreshadowing the bestowal of the Spirit to take place on the day of Pentecost.93 There are problems with all these explanations.
The view that 20:22 is the Gospel of John’s equivalent of the Pentecost event recorded in Acts 2 is problematic for a number of reasons: (1) John 20:22 describes an event that took place on the evening of the resurrection, whereas Acts 2 describes something that took place forty days later; (2) Thomas was not present for the John 20:22 event, whereas Acts 2 says that the Twelve (less Judas Iscariot, now replaced by Matthias) were all present, part of ‘a group numbering about a hundred and twenty’; (3) Jesus himself was not physically present in the event Acts 2 describes, but he was in that described in John 20:22; and (4) the event described in John 20:22 produced no real change in the disciples’ behaviour (they were still meeting behind locked doors when Jesus next appeared to them), whereas following the event of Acts 2 they preached about the risen Jesus publicly and with great boldness.94
There are problems also with those views that distinguish 20:22 from Acts 2 in terms of lesser and greater gifts of the Spirit. It must be remembered that Jesus was talking about receiving the person of the Holy Spirit, not about experiencing lesser or greater actions he might perform. There is nothing in the context of 20:22 to indicate that when Jesus said ‘Receive the Holy Spirit’, he had in mind something different from what they would experience when he sent the Holy Spirit to the disciples after his ascension.
To distinguish the Spirit who gives life to or regenerates the disciples in 20:22 from the Spirit coming to them as the Advocate in Acts 2 is also problematic, because earlier in the Gospel, there are texts stating that those who believe already have life, and this presumably applied to the disciples prior to Jesus’ resurrection (see e.g. 3:36; 5:24; 6:47, 54).
The view that what Jesus did in 20:22 was symbolic, foreshadowing the bestowal of the Holy Spirit which took place on the day of Pentecost, is attractive because it was on the day of Pentecost that the disciples were empowered to fulfil the commission Jesus spoke of in 20:21 and 23, which bracket 20:22. The drawback is that it makes Jesus’ word seem to have been ineffective at the time – he invites his disciples to receive the Holy Spirit, and nothing appears to happen. It may have to be acknowledged that, despite the many suggestions that have been made, we do not yet have a completely satisfying interpretation of 20:22 and how it relates to Acts 2.95
23. After breathing (on his disciples) and saying, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit’, Jesus said: If you forgive anyone’s sins, their sins are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven, indicating what the fundamental effects of their mission would be: they could declare forgiven those who accepted their message and believed in Jesus as Messiah, but they would also have to declare that there would be no forgiveness for those who rejected their message and refused to believe in him.
The words of 20:23 have affinities with teaching of Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew, where Jesus said to Peter, ‘I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven’ (Matt. 16:19). They also have affinities with what he said to the disciples generally in relation to those who would not heed admonition and who must therefore be treated as pagans or tax collectors: ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven’ (Matt. 18:18). Both these texts have their own contexts in Matthew’s Gospel, and we must not jump to the conclusion that what we find here in 20:23 means exactly the same. This text must be interpreted in the context of the Gospel of John.
This is the only place in the Gospel of John where forgiveness of sins is spoken about, though the idea of sins remaining unforgiven is mentioned a number of times (8:24; 9:41; 15:22, 24; 16:8–9; 19:11). The non-forgiveness of sins is always related to refusal to believe in Jesus, suggesting that forgiveness of sins comes through belief in him. It is noteworthy that Jesus’ statement If you forgive anyone’s sins, their sins are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven is intimately connected with the bestowal of the Holy Spirit (20:22–23), which is in turn related to the disciples being sent into the world as his witnesses (20:21–22; cf. 15:26–27). This supports the view that the way in which the disciples forgive sins and retain sins is by preaching the good news and declaring the effects of believing it (forgiveness) and of rejecting it (no forgiveness). It is important to notice the passive voice used in the statements in this verse regarding the forgiveness and non-forgiveness of sins. They function as divine passives, reminding us that God alone forgives sin (cf. Mark 2:3–12; Luke 5:17–26), and that Jesus’ disciples only declare what God does.
24–25. Thomas (also known as Didymus), one of the Twelve, was not with the disciples when Jesus came. Thomas is called Didymus three times in the Gospel of John (11:16; 20:24; 21:2) but never in the Synoptic Gospels. ‘Didymus’ means ‘twin’, suggesting that he had a twin brother or sister, of whom no mention is made in any of the Gospels. We would not have known that Thomas was absent on the previous occasion except that the evangelist here explains that this was the case.
So the other disciples told him, ‘We have seen the Lord!’ But he said to them, ‘Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.’ Thomas’s refusal to believe is expressed using the double negative (ou mē), showing that he was adamant about this matter. The same double negative is used to describe Peter’s refusal to allow Jesus to wash his feet (13:8). At first reading, it looks as if Thomas was more unbelieving than the other disciples, but this was not the case. They don’t seem to have believed Mary Magdalene when she said she had seen the Lord – it was not until Jesus appeared to them and showed them his hands and side that they believed that he had been raised from the dead, and they were filled with joy (20:20). Presumably they told Thomas about this, and he refused to believe that Jesus had risen from the dead unless he too saw the nail marks in his hands and the spear wound in his side. Earlier references to Thomas reveal one who was dogged in his commitment to Jesus (11:16) and honest about his doubts (14:5). It should be noted that all this assumes a bodily resurrection of Jesus, and not some spiritual survival beyond death.
26–27. Quite some time elapsed before Thomas’s doubts were resolved: A week later his disciples were in the house again, and Thomas was with them. Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, ‘Peace be with you!’ A week later (lit. ‘after eight days’), Jesus once again found his disciples behind locked doors, presumably still afraid of the Jewish leaders. Once again he greeted them with the words Peace be with you! Then he said to Thomas, ‘Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side.’ Without being told, Jesus knew of the conditions Thomas had placed upon his acceptance of the reality of his resurrection and invited him to touch him. Jesus’ resurrection body, though it could pass through locked doors, was physically real.
It is not good to demand proofs from the Lord before one will believe, but Jesus, who ‘knew what was in each person’, met Thomas where he was, inviting him to touch the nail prints in his hands and the spear wound in his side. He also told him: Stop doubting and believe (mē ginou apistos alla pistos; lit. ‘do not be disbelieving but believing’). Thomas had heard the witness of Mary Magdalene and his fellow disciples, but still could not believe that Jesus had risen from the dead. To be fair to Thomas, and as noted above, he was no more unbelieving than Mary Magdalene or the other disciples; after all, they too only came to believe in his resurrection when they saw him. Michaels comments:
Nor is Jesus asking Thomas to believe without verification. On the contrary, he is asking for faith based on seeing what the other disciples saw, and beyond that on physically touching Jesus’ wounds. He is offering Thomas exactly what Thomas demanded.96
28. The effect of Jesus’ words was immediate: Thomas said to him, ‘My Lord and my God!’97 Apparently, Thomas no longer needed to place his finger in the nail prints or his hand in Jesus’ side: seeing him was enough (cf. 20:29). This is the last of a series of confessions of Jesus found in the Gospel of John. John the Baptist testified that Jesus is the Son of God (1:34); Nathanael declared, ‘Rabbi, you are the Son of God; you are the king of Israel’ (1:49); the Samaritans said, ‘we know that this man really is the Saviour of the world’ (4:42); the man born blind said, ‘If this man were not from God he could do nothing’, and later worshipped him as the Son of Man (9:33, 35–38); Martha said, ‘I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, who is to come into the world’ (11:27); and the disciples said, ‘This makes us believe that you came from God’ (16:30). Thomas’s confession is not only the last; it is also the climactic confession of the Gospel of John. He confessed Jesus not only as his Lord, but as his God. It was a strongly personal confession.
29. Jesus told him, Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed. Thomas came to believe because he saw the risen Lord, but Jesus did not praise Thomas’s pathway to faith; rather, he pronounced a blessing upon those who have not seen him, yet have believed the testimony about him nevertheless. These are those who hear, or read, the witness to Jesus borne by the disciples and confirmed by the Spirit (15:26–27). This is the second pronunciation of blessing by Jesus in the form of a beatitude in the Gospel of John (cf. 13:17: ‘Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them’).
30–31. The account of Thomas’s climactic confession leads naturally into a statement of purpose for the writing of the Gospel of John. It is prefaced with the words: Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. In the first part of the Gospel, the Book of Signs, the evangelist recorded seven signs performed by Jesus: turning water into wine in Cana (2:1–11), raising the royal official’s son (4:46–54), healing the lame man at the Pool of Bethesda (5:1–9), feeding the five thousand (6:1–14), walking on the sea (6:16–21), healing the man born blind (9:1–7) and raising Lazarus (11:1–44). These were, as the evangelist says, but a selection from a far greater number of signs which Jesus performed in the presence of his disciples (cf. 21:25).
The actual purpose statement follows: But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.98 Not only the signs recorded but in fact the whole Gospel was written for this purpose. Repeatedly, the evangelist provides examples of people who made this confession: Nathanael (1:49), the Samaritans (4:42), the man born blind (9:33, 35–38), Martha (11:27), the disciples themselves (16:30) and Thomas (20:28).
The title Son of God was not a common designation for the Messiah among first-century Jews, but it is used in some texts in this way (see commentary on 1:34). Its use here is the last of a long line of explicit (1:34, 49; 5:25; 10:36; 11:4, 27; 19:7; 20:31) or implicit (3:16, 17, 18, 35, 36; 5:19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 26; 6:40; 14:13; 17:1) references to Jesus as the Son of God.
The people for whom the Gospel of John was primarily intended were the evangelist’s fellow Jews, proselytes and God-fearers: those who still needed to believe that Jesus of Nazareth was the true Messiah. Of course, the Gospel of John was intended for a wider audience as well, including Samaritans (see 4:42) and Gentiles (see 10:16; 12:20–26). While the primary purpose of the Gospel was to help people recognize Jesus as the Messiah, the Son of God, this does not exclude secondary purposes, chief among which is the encouraging and equipping of those who already believe (see Introduction, pp. 6–9). Chapters 13–17, including the foot-washing (13:1–17), the farewell discourse (13:31 – 16:33) and Jesus’ prayers (17:1–26), particularly serve this secondary purpose.
No-one witnessed Jesus’ actual rising from the dead, but chapter 20 records evidence of the resurrection: his tomb was found empty and he was seen alive by his disciples. And what they saw was not just a vision, but Jesus himself with his resurrection body, a body that could be touched and which at that time still bore the marks of crucifixion in his hands and side.
Three separate appearances of Jesus to his disciples are recorded in this chapter. The first was to Mary Magdalene, whom Jesus told not to hold on to him because he had not yet ascended to his Father. Touching Jesus was, in itself, no problem, for a little later he invited Thomas to do so. The prohibition in Mary’s case could have been either because Jesus did not want her to restrict her relationship with him to his physical presence, for soon it would be mediated to her by the Holy Spirit; or because he wanted her to go immediately and inform his other disciples that he was ascending to his Father (20:17).
The second appearance was to his other disciples, less Thomas, in a locked room. His greeting ‘Peace be with you!’ must have been reassuring to those who had deserted him at the time of his arrest and trials before the Sanhedrin and Pilate, and especially to Peter, who had denied him three times. Jesus not only offered reassurance, but he also commissioned them to carry on his mission: ‘As the Father has sent me, I am sending you’ (20:21). During his ministry, Jesus had a strong sense of having been sent by God to proclaim the good news of the kingdom (Luke 4:43), and when he chose the Twelve it was so ‘that they might be with him and that he might send them out to preach’ (Mark 3:14). Now, in his second appearance, he renewed this commission. Then, having recommissioned them, ‘he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit”’, signalling the empowerment he would provide them with for their mission. This action of Jesus and its relationship to the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost has been variously interpreted (see commentary on 20:22). In connection with this, Jesus said, ‘If you forgive anyone’s sins, their sins are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.’ This probably means that, as they preached the gospel message, they could affirm forgiveness for those who believed it, but that there was none for those who rejected it (see commentary on 20:23).
The third appearance was also in a locked room, but this time Thomas was present. Because he had refused to believe unless he put his finger in the nail prints in Jesus’ hands and his hand into his side, he has been described as ‘Doubting Thomas’. This is probably not fair, as the other disciples also doubted that Jesus had risen from the dead (see Luke 24:11) and only believed when they saw him and he showed them his hands and side (20:20). When Thomas saw Jesus for himself, apparently he no longer felt the need to touch the marks of the wounds in his hands and side, but acclaimed Jesus as ‘My Lord and my God!’ (20:28). This brings us back to the opening verse of the prologue: ‘In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.’ Jesus’ willingness to accommodate Thomas’s demands shows again how willing he is to meet people where they are, and to deal graciously with their doubts, while exhorting them to ‘Stop doubting and believe’. It would appear that doubt, though very uncomfortable, is only sinful when it degenerates into wilful disbelief. Finally, Jesus pronounced a blessing on those who had not seen and yet believed – which, of course, includes all those who have responded to the gospel down through the ages.
Chapter 20 concludes with the evangelist’s reason for recording the signs Jesus performed: to encourage people to believe in Jesus as the Messiah so that they might experience life ‘in his name’. This appears to have been his primary purpose in writing his Gospel, though he achieved some secondary purposes as well (see Introduction, pp. 6–9).