John 14:18-23

14:18 “I will not abandon ¹  you as orphans, ²  I will come to you. ³  14:19 In a little while ⁴  the world will not see me any longer, but you will see me; because I live, you will live too. 14:20 You will know at that time ⁵  that I am in my Father and you are in me and I am in you. 14:21 The person who has my commandments and obeys ⁶  them is the one who loves me. ⁷  The one ⁸  who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and will reveal ⁹  myself to him.”

14:22 “Lord,” Judas (not Judas Iscariot) ¹⁰  said, ¹¹  “what has happened that you are going to reveal ¹²  yourself to us and not to the world?” 14:23 Jesus replied, ¹³  “If anyone loves me, he will obey ¹⁴  my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and take up residence with him. ¹⁵ 

John 14:28

14:28 You heard me say to you, ¹⁶  ‘I am going away and I am coming back to you.’ If you loved me, you would be glad ¹⁷  that I am going to the Father, because the Father is greater than I am. ¹⁸ 

[14:18]  ¹ tn Or “leave.”

[14:18]  ² tn The entire phrase “abandon you as orphans” could be understood as an idiom meaning, “leave you helpless.”

[14:18]  ³ sn I will come to you. Jesus had spoken in 14:3 of going away and coming again to his disciples. There the reference was both to the parousia (the second coming of Christ) and to the postresurrection appearances of Jesus to the disciples. Here the postresurrection appearances are primarily in view, since Jesus speaks of the disciples “seeing” him after the world can “see” him no longer in the following verse. But many commentators have taken v. 18 as a reference to the coming of the Spirit, since this has been the topic of the preceding verses. Still, vv. 19-20 appear to contain references to Jesus’ appearances to the disciples after his resurrection. It may well be that another Johannine double meaning is found here, so that Jesus ‘returns’ to his disciples in one sense in his appearances to them after his resurrection, but in another sense he ‘returns’ in the person of the Holy Spirit to indwell them.

[14:19]  ⁴ tn Grk “Yet a little while, and.”

[14:20]  ⁵ tn Grk “will know in that day.”

[14:21]  ⁶ tn Or “keeps.”

[14:21]  ⁷ tn Grk “obeys them, that one is the one who loves me.”

[14:21]  ⁸ tn Grk “And the one.” Here the conjunction καί (kai) has not been translated to improve the English style.

[14:21]  ⁹ tn Or “will disclose.”

[14:22]  ¹⁰ tn Grk “(not Iscariot).” The proper noun (Judas) has been repeated for clarity and smoothness in English style.

[14:22]  ¹¹ tn Grk “said to him.”

[14:22]  ¹² tn Or “disclose.”

[14:23]  ¹³ tn Grk “answered and said to him.”

[14:23]  ¹⁴ tn Or “will keep.”

[14:23]  ¹⁵ tn Grk “we will come to him and will make our dwelling place with him.” The context here is individual rather than corporate indwelling, so the masculine singular pronoun has been retained throughout v. 23. It is important to note, however, that the pronoun is used generically here and refers equally to men, women, and children.

[14:28]  ¹⁶ tn Or “You have heard that I said to you.”

[14:28]  ¹⁷ tn Or “you would rejoice.”

[14:28]  ¹⁸ sn Jesus’ statement the Father is greater than I am has caused much christological and trinitarian debate. Although the Arians appealed to this text to justify their subordinationist Christology, it seems evident that by the fact Jesus compares himself to the Father, his divine nature is taken for granted. There have been two orthodox interpretations: (1) The Son is eternally generated while the Father is not: Origen, Tertullian, Athanasius, Hilary, etc. (2) As man the incarnate Son was less than the Father: Cyril of Alexandria, Ambrose, Augustine. In the context of the Fourth Gospel the second explanation seems more plausible. But why should the disciples have rejoiced? Because Jesus was on the way to the Father who would glorify him (cf. 17:4-5); his departure now signifies that the work the Father has given him is completed (cf. 19:30). Now Jesus will be glorified with that glory that he had with the Father before the world was (cf. 17:5). This should be a cause of rejoicing to the disciples because when Jesus is glorified he will glorify his disciples as well (17:22).