Acts 11:14

11:14 who will speak a message ¹  to you by which you and your entire household will be saved.’

Exodus 24:3

24:3 Moses came ²  and told the people all the Lord’s words ³  and all the decisions. All the people answered together, ⁴  “We are willing to do ⁵  all the words that the Lord has said,”

John 6:63

6:63 The Spirit is the one who gives life; human nature is of no help! ⁶  The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life. ⁷ 

John 6:68

6:68 Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom would we go? You have the words of eternal life.

John 12:50

12:50 And I know that his commandment is eternal life. ⁸  Thus the things I say, I say just as the Father has told me.” ⁹ 

John 17:3

17:3 Now this ¹⁰  is eternal life ¹¹  – that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, ¹²  whom you sent.

John 17:8

17:8 because I have given them the words you have given me. They ¹³  accepted ¹⁴  them ¹⁵  and really ¹⁶  understand ¹⁷  that I came from you, and they believed that you sent me.

John 17:1

Jesus Prays for the Father to Glorify Him

17:1 When Jesus had finished saying these things, he looked upward ¹⁸  to heaven ¹⁹  and said, “Father, the time ²⁰  has come. Glorify your Son, so that your ²¹  Son may glorify you –

John 1:1-3

The Prologue to the Gospel

1:1 In the beginning ²²  was the Word, and the Word was with God, ²³  and the Word was fully God. ²⁴  1:2 The Word ²⁵  was with God in the beginning. 1:3 All things were created ²⁶  by him, and apart from him not one thing was created ²⁷  that has been created. ²⁸ 

John 5:11-12

5:11 But he answered them, “The man who made me well said to me, ‘Pick up your mat ²⁹  and walk.’” 5:12 They asked him, “Who is the man who said to you, ‘Pick up your mat ³⁰  and walk’?” ³¹ 

[11:14]  ¹ tn Grk “words” (ῥήματα, rJhmata), but in this context the overall message is meant rather than the individual words.

[24:3]  ² sn The general consensus among commentators is that this refers to Moses’ coming from the mountain after he made the ascent in 20:21. Here he came and told them the laws (written in 20:22-23:33), and of the call to come up to Yahweh.

[24:3]  ³ sn The Decalogue may not be included here because the people had heard those commands themselves earlier.

[24:3]  ⁴ tn The text simply has “one voice” (קוֹל אֶחָד, qol ’ekhad); this is an adverbial accusative of manner, telling how the people answered – “in one voice,” or unanimously (see GKC 375 §118.q).

[24:3]  ⁵ tn The verb is the imperfect tense (נַעֲשֶׂה, na’aseh), although the form could be classified as a cohortative. If the latter, they would be saying that they are resolved to do what God said. If it is an imperfect, then the desiderative would make the most sense: “we are willing to do.” They are not presumptuously saying they are going to do all these things.

[6:63]  ⁶ tn Grk “the flesh counts for nothing.”

[6:63]  ⁷ tn Or “are spirit-giving and life-producing.”

[12:50]  ⁸ tn Or “his commandment results in eternal life.”

[12:50]  ⁹ tn Grk “The things I speak, just as the Father has spoken to me, thus I speak.”

[17:3]  ¹⁰ tn Using αὕτη δέ (Jauth de) to introduce an explanation is typical Johannine style; it was used before in John 1:19, 3:19, and 15:12.

[17:3]  ¹¹ sn This is eternal life. The author here defines eternal life for the readers, although it is worked into the prayer in such a way that many interpreters do not regard it as another of the author’s parenthetical comments. It is not just unending life in the sense of prolonged duration. Rather it is a quality of life, with its quality derived from a relationship with God. Having eternal life is here defined as being in relationship with the Father, the one true God, and Jesus Christ whom the Father sent. Christ (Χριστός, Cristos) is not characteristically attached to Jesus’ name in John’s Gospel; it occurs elsewhere primarily as a title and is used with Jesus’ name only in 1:17. But that is connected to its use here: The statement here in 17:3 enables us to correlate the statement made in 1:18 of the prologue, that Jesus has fully revealed what God is like, with Jesus’ statement in 10:10 that he has come that people might have life, and have it abundantly. These two purposes are really one, according to 17:3, because (abundant) eternal life is defined as knowing (being in relationship with) the Father and the Son. The only way to gain this eternal life, that is, to obtain this knowledge of the Father, is through the Son (cf. 14:6). Although some have pointed to the use of know (γινώσκω, ginwskw) here as evidence of Gnostic influence in the Fourth Gospel, there is a crucial difference: For John this knowledge is not intellectual, but relational. It involves being in relationship.

[17:3]  ¹² tn Or “and Jesus the Messiah” (Both Greek “Christ” and Hebrew and Aramaic “Messiah” mean “one who has been anointed”).

[17:8]  ¹³ tn Grk And they.” The conjunction καί (kai, “and”) has not been translated here in keeping with the tendency of contemporary English style to use shorter sentences.

[17:8]  ¹⁴ tn Or “received.”

[17:8]  ¹⁵ tn The word “them” is not in the Greek text, but is implied. Direct objects were often omitted in Greek when clear from the context.

[17:8]  ¹⁶ tn Or “truly.”

[17:8]  ¹⁷ tn Or have come to know.”

[17:1]  ¹⁸ tn Grk “he raised his eyes” (an idiom).

[17:1]  ¹⁹ tn Or “to the sky.” The Greek word οὐρανός (ouranos) may be translated “sky” or “heaven” depending on the context.

[17:1]  ²⁰ tn Grk “the hour.”

[17:1]  ²¹ tc The better witnesses (א B C* W 0109 0301) have “the Son” (ὁ υἱός, Jo Juios) here, while the majority (C³ L Ψ Ë¹³ 33 Ï) read “your Son also” (καὶ ὁ υἱὸς σου, kai Jo Juio" sou), or “your Son” (ὁ υἱὸς σου; A D Θ 0250 1 579 pc lat sy); the second corrector of C has καὶ ὁ υἱός (“the Son also”). The longer readings appear to be predictable scribal expansions and as such should be considered secondary.

[1:1]  ²² sn In the beginning. The search for the basic “stuff” out of which things are made was the earliest one in Greek philosophy. It was attended by the related question of “What is the process by which the secondary things came out of the primary one (or ones)?,” or in Aristotelian terminology, “What is the ‘beginning’ (same Greek word as beginning, John 1:1) and what is the origin of the things that are made?” In the New Testament the word usually has a temporal sense, but even BDAG 138 s.v. ἀρχή 3 lists a major category of meaning as “the first cause.” For John, the words “In the beginning” are most likely a conscious allusion to the opening words of Genesis – “In the beginning.” Other concepts which occur prominently in Gen 1 are also found in John’s prologue: “life” (1:4) “light” (1:4) and “darkness” (1:5). Gen 1 describes the first (physical) creation; John 1 describes the new (spiritual) creation. But this is not to play off a false dichotomy between “physical” and “spiritual”; the first creation was both physical and spiritual. The new creation is really a re-creation, of the spiritual (first) but also the physical. (In spite of the common understanding of John’s “spiritual” emphasis, the “physical” re-creation should not be overlooked; this occurs in John 2 with the changing of water into wine, in John 11 with the resurrection of Lazarus, and the emphasis of John 20-21 on the aftermath of Jesus’ own resurrection.)

[1:1]  ²³ tn The preposition πρός (pros) implies not just proximity, but intimate personal relationship. M. Dods stated, “Πρός …means more than μετά or παρά, and is regularly employed in expressing the presence of one person with another” (“The Gospel of St. John,” The Expositor’s Greek Testament, 1:684). See also Mark 6:3, Matt 13:56, Mark 9:19, Gal 1:18, 2 John 12.

[1:1]  ²⁴ tn Or “and what God was the Word was.” Colwell’s Rule is often invoked to support the translation of θεός (qeos) as definite (“God”) rather than indefinite (“a god”) here. However, Colwell’s Rule merely permits, but does not demand, that a predicate nominative ahead of an equative verb be translated as definite rather than indefinite. Furthermore, Colwell’s Rule did not deal with a third possibility, that the anarthrous predicate noun may have more of a qualitative nuance when placed ahead of the verb. A definite meaning for the term is reflected in the traditional rendering “the word was God.” From a technical standpoint, though, it is preferable to see a qualitative aspect to anarthrous θεός in John 1:1c (ExSyn 266-69). Translations like the NEB, REB, and Moffatt are helpful in capturing the sense in John 1:1c, that the Word was fully deity in essence (just as much God as God the Father). However, in contemporary English “the Word was divine” (Moffatt) does not quite catch the meaning since “divine” as a descriptive term is not used in contemporary English exclusively of God. The translation “what God was the Word was” is perhaps the most nuanced rendering, conveying that everything God was in essence, the Word was too. This points to unity of essence between the Father and the Son without equating the persons. However, in surveying a number of native speakers of English, some of whom had formal theological training and some of whom did not, the editors concluded that the fine distinctions indicated by “what God was the Word was” would not be understood by many contemporary readers. Thus the translation “the Word was fully God” was chosen because it is more likely to convey the meaning to the average English reader that the Logos (which “became flesh and took up residence among us” in John 1:14 and is thereafter identified in the Fourth Gospel as Jesus) is one in essence with God the Father. The previous phrase, “the Word was with God,” shows that the Logos is distinct in person from God the Father.

[1:2]  ²⁵ tn Grk “He”; the referent (the Word) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[1:3]  ²⁶ tn Or “made”; Grk “came into existence.”

[1:3]  ²⁷ tn Or “made”; Grk “nothing came into existence.”

[1:3]  ²⁸ tc There is a major punctuation problem here: Should this relative clause go with v. 3 or v. 4? The earliest mss have no punctuation (Ì^66,75* א* A B Δ al). Many of the later mss which do have punctuation place it before the phrase, thus putting it with v. 4 (Ì^75c C D L W^s 050* pc). NA²⁵ placed the phrase in v. 3; NA²⁶ moved the words to the beginning of v. 4. In a detailed article K. Aland defended the change (“Eine Untersuchung zu Johannes 1, 3-4. Über die Bedeutung eines Punktes,” ZNW 59 [1968]: 174-209). He sought to prove that the attribution of ὃ γέγονεν (}o gegonen) to v. 3 began to be carried out in the 4th century in the Greek church. This came out of the Arian controversy, and was intended as a safeguard for doctrine. The change was unknown in the West. Aland is probably correct in affirming that the phrase was attached to v. 4 by the Gnostics and the Eastern Church; only when the Arians began to use the phrase was it attached to v. 3. But this does not rule out the possibility that, by moving the words from v. 4 to v. 3, one is restoring the original reading. Understanding the words as part of v. 3 is natural and adds to the emphasis which is built up there, while it also gives a terse, forceful statement in v. 4. On the other hand, taking the phrase ὃ γέγονεν with v. 4 gives a complicated expression: C. K. Barrett says that both ways of understanding v. 4 with ὃ γέγονεν included “are almost impossibly clumsy” (St. John, 157): “That which came into being – in it the Word was life”; “That which came into being – in the Word was its life.” The following stylistic points should be noted in the solution of this problem: (1) John frequently starts sentences with ἐν (en); (2) he repeats frequently (“nothing was created that has been created”); (3) 5:26 and 6:53 both give a sense similar to v. 4 if it is understood without the phrase; (4) it makes far better Johannine sense to say that in the Word was life than to say that the created universe (what was made, ὃ γέγονεν) was life in him. In conclusion, the phrase is best taken with v. 3. Schnackenburg, Barrett, Carson, Haenchen, Morris, KJV, and NIV concur (against Brown, Beasley-Murray, and NEB). The arguments of R. Schnackenburg, St. John, 1:239-40, are particularly persuasive.

[5:11]  ²⁹ tn Or “pallet,” “mattress,” “cot,” or “stretcher.” See the note on “mat” in v. 8.

[5:12]  ³⁰ tc While a number of mss, especially the later ones (A^c C³ D Θ Ψ Ë^1,13 33 Ï latt sy), include the words τον κραβ(β)ατ(τ)ον σου (ton krab(b)at(t)on sou, “your mat”) here, the earliest and best (Ì^66,75 א B C* L) do not. Nevertheless, in the translation, it is necessary to supply the words due to the demands of English style, which does not typically allow for understood or implied direct objects as Greek does.

[5:12]  ³¹ tn Grk “Pick up and walk”; the object (the mat) is implied but not repeated.