John 16:13-14

16:13 But when he, ¹  the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide ²  you into all truth. ³  For he will not speak on his own authority, ⁴  but will speak whatever he hears, and will tell you ⁵  what is to come. ⁶  16:14 He ⁷  will glorify me, ⁸  because he will receive ⁹  from me what is mine ¹⁰  and will tell it to you. ¹¹ 

John 16:2

16:2 They will put you out of ¹²  the synagogue, ¹³  yet a time ¹⁴  is coming when the one who kills you will think he is offering service to God. ¹⁵ 

Colossians 1:20

1:20 and through him to reconcile all things to himself by making peace through the blood of his cross – through him, ¹⁶  whether things on earth or things in heaven.

[16:13]  ¹ tn Grk “that one.”

[16:13]  ² tn Or “will lead.”

[16:13]  ³ sn Three important points must be noted here. (1) When the Holy Spirit comes, he will guide the disciples into all truth. What Jesus had said in 8:31-32, “If you continue to follow my teaching you are really my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free,” will ultimately be realized in the ongoing ministry of the Holy Spirit to the disciples after Jesus’ departure. (2) The things the Holy Spirit speaks to them will not be things which originate from himself (he will not speak on his own authority), but things he has heard. This could be taken to mean that no new revelation is involved, as R. E. Brown does (John [AB], 2:714-15). This is a possible but not a necessary inference. The point here concerns the source of the things the Spirit will say to the disciples and does not specifically exclude originality of content. (3) Part at least of what the Holy Spirit will reveal to the disciples will concern what is to come, not just fuller implications of previous sayings of Jesus and the like. This does seem to indicate that at least some new revelation is involved. But the Spirit is not the source or originator of these things – Jesus is the source, and he will continue to speak to his disciples through the Spirit who has come to indwell them. This does not answer the question, however, whether these words are addressed to all followers of Jesus, or only to his apostles. Different modern commentators will answer this question differently. Since in the context of the Farewell Discourse Jesus is preparing the twelve to carry on his ministry after his departure, it is probably best to take these statements as specifically related only to the twelve. Some of this the Holy Spirit does directly for all believers today; other parts of this statement are fulfilled through the apostles (e.g., in giving the Book of Revelation the Spirit speaks through the apostles to the church today of things to come). One of the implications of this is that a doctrine does not have to be traced back to an explicit teaching of Jesus to be authentic; all that is required is apostolic authority.

[16:13]  ⁴ tn Grk “speak from himself.”

[16:13]  ⁵ tn Or will announce to you.”

[16:13]  ⁶ tn Grk “will tell you the things to come.”

[16:14]  ⁷ tn Grk “That one.”

[16:14]  ⁸ tn Or “will honor me.”

[16:14]  ⁹ tn Or “he will take.”

[16:14]  ¹⁰ tn The words “what is mine” are not in the Greek text, but are implied. Direct objects were often omitted in Greek when clear from the context.

[16:14]  ¹¹ tn Or “will announce it to you.”

[16:2]  ¹² tn Or “expel you from.”

[16:2]  ¹³ sn See the note on synagogue in 6:59.

[16:2]  ¹⁴ tn Grk “an hour.”

[16:2]  ¹⁵ sn Jesus now refers not to the time of his return to the Father, as he has frequently done up to this point, but to the disciples’ time of persecution. They will be excommunicated from Jewish synagogues. There will even be a time when those who kill Jesus’ disciples will think that they are offering service to God by putting the disciples to death. Because of the reference to service offered to God, it is almost certain that Jewish opposition is intended here in both cases rather than Jewish opposition in the first instance (putting the disciples out of synagogues) and Roman opposition in the second (putting the disciples to death). Such opposition materializes later and is recorded in Acts: The stoning of Stephen in 7:58-60 and the slaying of James the brother of John by Herod Agrippa I in Acts 12:2-3 are notable examples.

[1:20]  ¹⁶ tc The presence or absence of the second occurrence of the phrase δι᾿ αὐτοῦ (di’ autou, “through him”) is a difficult textual problem to solve. External evidence is fairly evenly divided. Many ancient and excellent witnesses lack the phrase (B D* F G I 0278 81 1175 1739 1881 2464 al latt sa), but equally important witnesses have it (Ì⁴⁶ א A C D¹ Ψ 048^vid 33 Ï). Both readings have strong Alexandrian support, which makes the problem difficult to decide on external evidence alone. Internal evidence points to the inclusion of the phrase as original. The word immediately preceding the phrase is the masculine pronoun αὐτοῦ (autou); thus the possibility of omission through homoioteleuton in various witnesses is likely. Scribes might have deleted the phrase because of perceived redundancy or awkwardness in the sense: The shorter reading is smoother and more elegant, so scribes would be prone to correct the text in that direction. As far as style is concerned, repetition of key words and phrases for emphasis is not foreign to the corpus Paulinum (see, e.g., Rom 8:23, Eph 1:13, 2 Cor 12:7). In short, it is easier to account for the shorter reading arising from the longer reading than vice versa, so the longer reading is more likely original.