15:5 “I am the vine; you are the branches. The one who remains 1 in me – and I in him – bears 2 much fruit, 3 because apart from me you can accomplish 4 nothing. 15:6 If anyone does not remain 5 in me, he is thrown out like a branch, and dries up; and such branches are gathered up and thrown into the fire, 6 and are burned up. 7 15:7 If you remain 8 in me and my words remain 9 in you, ask whatever you want, and it will be done for you. 10 15:8 My Father is honored 11 by this, that 12 you bear 13 much fruit and show that you are 14 my disciples.
15:9 “Just as the Father has loved me, I have also loved you; remain 15 in my love. 15:10 If you obey 16 my commandments, you will remain 17 in my love, just as I have obeyed 18 my Father’s commandments and remain 19 in his love. 15:11 I have told you these things 20 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. 21 15:13 No one has greater love than this – that one lays down his life 22 for his friends. 15:14 You are my friends 23 if you do what I command you. 15:15 I no longer call you slaves, 24 because the slave does not understand 25 what his master is doing. But I have called you friends, because I have revealed to you everything 26 I heard 27 from my Father. 15:16 You did not choose me, but I chose you 28 and appointed you to go and bear 29 fruit, fruit that remains, 30 so that whatever you ask the Father in my name he will give you. 15:17 This 31 I command you – to love one another.
15:18 “If the world hates you, be aware 32 that it hated me first. 33 15:19 If you belonged to the world, 34 the world would love you as its own. 35 However, because you do not belong to the world, 36 but I chose you out of the world, for this reason 37 the world hates you. 38 15:20 Remember what 39 I told you, ‘A slave 40 is not greater than his master.’ 41 If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they obeyed 42 my word, they will obey 43 yours too. 15:21 But they will do all these things to you on account of 44 my name, because they do not know the one who sent me. 45 15:22 If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not be guilty of sin. 46 But they no longer have any excuse for their sin. 15:23 The one who hates me hates my Father too. 15:24 If I had not performed 47 among them the miraculous deeds 48 that no one else did, they would not be guilty of sin. 49 But now they have seen the deeds 50 and have hated both me and my Father. 51 15:25 Now this happened 52 to fulfill the word that is written in their law, ‘They hated me without reason.’ 53 15:26 When the Advocate 54 comes, whom I will send you from the Father – the Spirit of truth who goes out from the Father – he 55 will testify about me, 15:27 and you also will testify, because you have been with me from the beginning.
1 tn Or “resides.”
2 tn Or “yields.”
3 tn Grk “in him, this one bears much fruit.” The pronoun “this one” has been omitted from the translation because it is redundant according to contemporary English style.
4 tn Or “do.”
5 tn Or “reside.”
6 sn Such branches are gathered up and thrown into the fire. The author does not tell who it is who does the gathering and throwing into the fire. Although some claim that realized eschatology is so prevalent in the Fourth Gospel that no references to final eschatology appear at all, the fate of these branches seems to point to the opposite. The imagery is almost certainly that of eschatological judgment, and recalls some of the OT vine imagery which involves divine rejection and judgment of disobedient Israel (Ezek 15:4-6, 19:12).
7 tn Grk “they gather them up and throw them into the fire, and they are burned.”
8 tn Or “reside.”
9 tn Or “reside.”
10 sn Once again Jesus promises the disciples ask whatever you want, and it will be done for you. This recalls 14:13-14, where the disciples were promised that if they asked anything in Jesus’ name it would be done for them. The two thoughts are really quite similar, since here it is conditioned on the disciples’ remaining in Jesus and his words remaining in them. The first phrase relates to the genuineness of their relationship with Jesus. The second phrase relates to their obedience. When both of these qualifications are met, the disciples would in fact be asking in Jesus’ name and therefore according to his will.
11 tn Grk “glorified.”
12 tn The ἵνα (Jina) clause is best taken as substantival in apposition to ἐν τούτῳ (en toutw) at the beginning of the verse. The Father is glorified when the disciples bring forth abundant fruit. Just as Jesus has done the works which he has seen his Father doing (5:19-29) so also will his disciples.
13 tn Or “yield.”
14 tc Most
15 tn Or “reside.”
16 tn Or “keep.”
17 tn Or “reside.”
18 tn Or “kept.”
19 tn Or “reside.”
20 tn Grk “These things I have spoken to you.”
21 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).
22 tn Or “one dies willingly.”
23 sn This verse really explains John 15:10 in another way. Those who keep Jesus’ commandments are called his friends, those friends for whom he lays down his life (v. 13). It is possible to understand this verse as referring to a smaller group within Christianity as a whole, perhaps only the apostles who were present when Jesus spoke these words. Some have supported this by comparing it to the small group of associates and advisers to the Roman Emperor who were called “Friends of the Emperor.” Others would see these words as addressed only to those Christians who as disciples were obedient to Jesus. In either case the result would be to create a sort of “inner circle” of Christians who are more privileged than mere “believers” or average Christians. In context, it seems clear that Jesus’ words must be addressed to all true Christians, not just some narrower category of believers, because Jesus’ sacrificial death, which is his act of love toward his friends (v. 13) applies to all Christians equally (cf. John 13:1).
24 tn See the note on the word “slaves” in 4:51.
25 tn Or “does not know.”
26 tn Grk “all things.”
27 tn Or “learned.”
28 sn You did not choose me, but I chose you. If the disciples are now elevated in status from slaves to friends, they are friends who have been chosen by Jesus, rather than the opposite way round. Again this is true of all Christians, not just the twelve, and the theme that Christians are “chosen” by God appears frequently in other NT texts (e.g., Rom 8:33; Eph 1:4ff.; Col 3:12; and 1 Pet 2:4). Putting this together with the comments on 15:14 one may ask whether the author sees any special significance at all for the twelve. Jesus said in John 6:70 and 13:18 that he chose them, and 15:27 makes clear that Jesus in the immediate context is addressing those who have been with him from the beginning. In the Fourth Gospel the twelve, as the most intimate and most committed followers of Jesus, are presented as the models for all Christians, both in terms of their election and in terms of their mission.
29 tn Or “and yield.”
30 sn The purpose for which the disciples were appointed (“commissioned”) is to go and bear fruit, fruit that remains. The introduction of the idea of “going” at this point suggests that the fruit is something more than just character qualities in the disciples’ own lives, but rather involves fruit in the lives of others, i.e., Christian converts. There is a mission involved (cf. John 4:36). The idea that their fruit is permanent, however, relates back to vv. 7-8, as does the reference to asking the Father in Jesus’ name. It appears that as the imagery of the vine and the branches develops, the “fruit” which the branches produce shifts in emphasis from qualities in the disciples’ own lives in John 15:2, 4, 5 to the idea of a mission which affects the lives of others in John 15:16. The point of transition would be the reference to fruit in 15:8.
31 tn Grk “These things.”
32 tn Grk “know.”
33 tn Grk “it hated me before you.”
34 tn Grk “if you were of the world.”
35 tn The words “you as” are not in the original but are supplied for clarity.
36 tn Grk “because you are not of the world.”
37 tn Or “world, therefore.”
38 sn I chose you out of the world…the world hates you. Two themes are brought together here. In 8:23 Jesus had distinguished himself from the world in addressing his Jewish opponents: “You are from below, I am from above; you are of this world, I am not of this world.” In 15:16 Jesus told the disciples “You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you.” Now Jesus has united these two ideas as he informs the disciples that he has chosen them out of the world. While the disciples will still be “in” the world after Jesus has departed, they will not belong to it, and Jesus prays later in John 17:15-16 to the Father, “I do not ask you to take them out of the world, but to keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.” The same theme also occurs in 1 John 4:5-6: “They are from the world; therefore they speak as from the world, and the world listens to them. We are from God; he who knows God listens to us; he who is not from God does not listen to us.” Thus the basic reason why the world hates the disciples (as it hated Jesus before them) is because they are not of the world. They are born from above, and are not of the world. For this reason the world hates them.
39 tn Grk “Remember the word that I said to you.”
40 tn See the note on the word “slaves” in 4:51.
41 sn A slave is not greater than his master. Jesus now recalled a statement he had made to the disciples before, in John 13:16. As the master has been treated, so will the slaves be treated also. If the world had persecuted Jesus, then it would also persecute the disciples. If the world had kept Jesus’ word, it would likewise keep the word of the disciples. In this statement there is the implication that the disciples would carry on the ministry of Jesus after his departure; they would in their preaching and teaching continue to spread the message which Jesus himself had taught while he was with them. And they would meet with the same response, by and large, that he encountered.
42 tn Or “if they kept.”
43 tn Or “they will keep.”
44 tn Or “because of.”
45 tn Jesus is referring to God as “the one who sent me.”
46 tn Grk “they would not have sin” (an idiom).
47 tn Or “If I had not done.”
48 tn Grk “the works.”
49 tn Grk “they would not have sin” (an idiom).
50 tn The words “the deeds” are supplied to clarify from context what was seen. Direct objects in Greek were often omitted when clear from the context.
51 tn Or “But now they have both seen and hated both me and my Father.” It is possible to understand both the “seeing” and the “hating” to refer to both Jesus and the Father, but this has the world “seeing” the Father, which seems alien to the Johannine Jesus. (Some point out John 14:9 as an example, but this is addressed to the disciples, not to the world.) It is more likely that the “seeing” refers to the miraculous deeds mentioned in the first half of the verse. Such an understanding of the first “both – and” construction is apparently supported by BDF §444.3.
52 tn The words “this happened” are not in the Greek text but are supplied to complete an ellipsis.
53 sn A quotation from Ps 35:19 and Ps 69:4. As a technical term law (νόμος, nomos) is usually restricted to the Pentateuch (the first five books of the OT), but here it must have a broader reference, since the quotation is from Ps 35:19 or Ps 69:4. The latter is the more likely source for the quoted words, since it is cited elsewhere in John’s Gospel (2:17 and 19:29, in both instances in contexts associated with Jesus’ suffering and death).
54 tn Or “Helper” or “Counselor”; Grk “Paraclete,” from the Greek word παράκλητος (paraklhto"). See the note on the word “Advocate” in John 14:16 for discussion of how this word is translated.
55 tn Grk “that one.”