5:11 On this topic we have much to say 16 and it is difficult to explain, since you have become sluggish 17 in hearing. 5:12 For though you should in fact be teachers by this time, 18 you need someone to teach you the beginning elements of God’s utterances. 19 You have gone back to needing 20 milk, not 21 solid food.
1 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).
2 tn Or “becoming aware of it.”
3 tn Or “discussing.”
4 tn Grk “do you not hear?”
5 tn Grk “And answering, he said to them.” The participle ἀποκριθείς (apokriqeis) is redundant, but the phrasing of the sentence was modified slightly to make it clearer in English.
6 tn Grk “O.” The marker of direct address, ὦ (w), is functionally equivalent to a vocative and is represented in the translation by “you.”
7 tn Or “faithless.”
8 tn Grk “how long.”
9 tn Or “put up with.” See Num 11:12; Isa 46:4.
10 sn The pronouns you…you are plural, indicating that Jesus is speaking to a group rather than an individual.
11 tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “so” to indicate the implied result of the disciples’ inability to believe in Jesus’ resurrection.
12 tn Grk “O,” an interjection used both in address and emotion (BDAG 1101 s.v. 1).
13 tn The word “people” is not in the Greek text, but is supplied to complete the interjection.
14 sn The rebuke is for failure to believe the promise of scripture, a theme that will appear in vv. 43-47 as well.
15 tn On the syntax of this infinitival construction, see BDAG 364-65 s.v. ἐπί 6.b.
16 tn Grk “concerning which the message for us is great.”
17 tn Or “dull.”
18 tn Grk “because of the time.”
19 tn Grk “the elements of the beginning of the oracles of God.”
20 tn Grk “you have come to have a need for.”
21 tc ‡ Most texts, including some early and important ones (א2 A B* D Ψ 0122 0278 1881 Ï sy Cl), have καί (kai, “and”) immediately preceding οὐ (ou, “not”), but other equally significant witnesses (Ì46 א* B2 C 33 81 1739 lat Or Did) lack the conjunction. As it was a natural tendency for scribes to add a coordinating conjunction, the καί appears to be a motivated reading. On balance, it is probably best to regard the shorter reading as authentic. NA27 has καί in brackets, indicating doubts as to its authenticity.