15:9 “Just as the Father has loved me, I have also loved you; remain 6 in my love. 15:10 If you obey 7 my commandments, you will remain 8 in my love, just as I have obeyed 9 my Father’s commandments and remain 10 in his love. 15:11 I have told you these things 11 so that my joy may be in you, and your joy may be complete. 15:12 My commandment is this – to love one another just as I have loved you. 12 15:13 No one has greater love than this – that one lays down his life 13 for his friends.
1 tn Grk “The disciples said to him.”
2 tn Or “the Jewish authorities”; Grk “the Jews.” In NT usage the term ᾿Ιουδαῖοι (Ioudaioi) may refer to the entire Jewish people, the residents of Jerusalem and surrounding territory, the authorities in Jerusalem, or merely those who were hostile to Jesus. (For further information see R. G. Bratcher, “‘The Jews’ in the Gospel of John,” BT 26 [1975]: 401-9.) Here the phrase refers to the Jewish leaders. See the previous references and the notes on the phrase “Jewish people” in v. 19, and “Jewish religious leaders” in vv. 24, 31, 33.
3 tn Grk “seeking.”
4 tn Grk “And are.” Because of the difference between Greek style, which often begins sentences or clauses with “and,” and English style, which generally does not, καί (kai) has not been translated here.
5 tn Or “the Judeans”; Grk “the Jews.” Here the phrase refers to the friends, acquaintances, and relatives of Lazarus or his sisters who had come to mourn, since the Jewish religious authorities are specifically mentioned as a separate group in John 11:46-47. See also the notes on the phrase “the Jewish leaders” in v. 8 and “the Jewish people of the region” in v. 19, as well as the notes on the word “people” in vv. 31, 33.
6 tn Or “reside.”
7 tn Or “keep.”
8 tn Or “reside.”
9 tn Or “kept.”
10 tn Or “reside.”
11 tn Grk “These things I have spoken to you.”
12 sn Now the reference to the commandments (plural) in 15:10 have been reduced to a singular commandment: The disciples are to love one another, just as Jesus has loved them. This is the ‘new commandment’ of John 13:34, and it is repeated in 15:17. The disciples’ love for one another is compared to Jesus’ love for them. How has Jesus shown his love for the disciples? This was illustrated in 13:1-20 in the washing of the disciples’ feet, introduced by the statement in 13:1 that Jesus loved them “to the end.” In context this constitutes a reference to Jesus’ self-sacrificial death on the cross on their behalf; the love they are to have for one another is so great that it must include a self-sacrificial willingness to die for one another if necessary. This is exactly what Jesus is discussing here, because he introduces the theme of his sacrificial death in the following verse. In John 10:18 and 14:31 Jesus spoke of his death on the cross as a commandment he had received from his Father, which also links the idea of commandment and love as they are linked here. One final note: It is not just the degree or intensity of the disciples’ love for one another that Jesus is referring to when he introduces by comparison his own death on the cross (that they must love one another enough to die for one another) but the very means of expressing that love: It is to express itself in self-sacrifice for one another, sacrifice up to the point of death, which is what Jesus himself did on the cross (cf. 1 John 3:16).
13 tn Or “one dies willingly.”
14 tc A number of early
15 tn The translation “will continue to make it known” is proposed by R. E. Brown (John [AB], 2:773).