John 16:8

16:8 And when he ¹  comes, he will prove the world wrong ²  concerning sin and ³  righteousness and ⁴  judgment –

John 4:54

4:54 Jesus did this as his second miraculous sign ⁵  when he returned from Judea to Galilee.

John 7:50

7:50 Nicodemus, who had gone to Jesus ⁶  before and who was one of the rulers, ⁷  said, ⁸ 

John 11:17

Speaking with Martha and Mary

11:17 When ⁹  Jesus arrived, ¹⁰  he found that Lazarus ¹¹  had been in the tomb four days already. ¹² 

John 12:12

The Triumphal Entry

12:12 The next day the large crowd that had come to the feast heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem. ¹³ 

John 19:39

19:39 Nicodemus, the man who had previously come to Jesus ¹⁴  at night, ¹⁵  accompanied Joseph, ¹⁶  carrying a mixture of myrrh and aloes ¹⁷  weighing about seventy-five pounds. ¹⁸ 

John 20:8

20:8 Then the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, came in, and he saw and believed. ¹⁹ 

[16:8]  ¹ tn Grk “when that one.”

[16:8]  ² tn Or “will convict the world,” or “will expose the world.” The conjunction περί (peri) is used in 16:8-11 in the sense of “concerning” or “with respect to.” But what about the verb ἐλέγχω (elencw)? The basic meanings possible for this word are (1) “to convict or convince someone of something”; (2) “to bring to light or expose something; and (3) “to correct or punish someone.” The third possibility may be ruled out in these verses on contextual grounds since punishment is not implied. The meaning is often understood to be that the Paraclete will “convince” the world of its error, so that some at least will repent. But S. Mowinckel (“Die Vorstellungen des Spätjudentums vom heiligen Geist als Fürsprecher und der johanneische Paraklet,” ZNW 32 [1933]: 97-130) demonstrated that the verb ἐλέγχω did not necessarily imply the conversion or reform of the guilty party. This means it is far more likely that conviction in something of a legal sense is intended here (as in a trial). The only certainty is that the accused party is indeed proven guilty (not that they will acknowledge their guilt). Further confirmation of this interpretation is seen in John 14:17 where the world cannot receive the Paraclete and in John 3:20, where the evildoer deliberately refuses to come to the light, lest his deeds be exposed for what they really are (significantly, the verb in John 3:20 is also ἐλέγχω). However, if one wishes to adopt the meaning “prove guilty” for the use of ἐλέγχω in John 16:8 a difficulty still remains: While this meaning fits the first statement in 16:9 – the world is ‘proven guilty’ concerning its sin of refusing to believe in Jesus – it does not fit so well the second and third assertions in vv. 10-11. Thus R. E. Brown (John [AB], 2:705) suggests the more general meaning “prove wrong” which would fit in all three cases. This may be so, but there may also be a developmental aspect to the meaning, which would then shift from v. 9 to v. 10 to v. 11.

[16:8]  ³ tn Grk “and concerning.”

[16:8]  ⁴ tn Grk “and concerning.”

[4:54]  ⁵ tn This sentence in Greek involves an object-complement construction. The force can be either “Jesus did this as,” or possibly “Jesus made this to be.” The latter translation accents not only Jesus’ power but his sovereignty too. Cf. 2:11 where the same construction occurs.

[7:50]  ⁹ tn Grk “him”; the referent (Jesus) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[7:50]  ¹⁰ tn Grk “who was one of them”; the referent (the rulers) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[7:50]  ¹¹ tn Grk “said to them.”

[11:17]  ¹³ tn Grk “Then when.”

[11:17]  ¹⁴ tn Grk “came.”

[11:17]  ¹⁵ tn Grk “he”; the referent (Lazarus) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[11:17]  ¹⁶ tn Grk “he had already had four days in the tomb” (an idiom).

[12:12]  ¹⁷ map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[19:39]  ²¹ tn Grk “him”; the referent (Jesus) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[19:39]  ²² sn See John 3:1-21.

[19:39]  ²³ tn Grk “came”; the words “accompanied Joseph” are not in the Greek text but are supplied for clarity.

[19:39]  ²⁴ sn Aloes refers to an aromatic resin from a plant similar to a lily, used for embalming a corpse.

[19:39]  ²⁵ sn The Roman pound (λίτρα, litra) weighed twelve ounces or 325 grams. Thus 100 Roman pounds would be about 32.5 kilograms or 75 pounds.

[20:8]  ²⁵ sn What was it that the beloved disciple believed (since v. 7 describes what he saw)? Sometimes it is suggested that what he believed was Mary Magdalene’s report that the body had been stolen. But this could hardly be the case; the way the entire scene is narrated such a trivial conclusion would amount to an anticlimax. It is true that the use of the plural “they” in the following verse applied to both Peter and the beloved disciple, and this appears to be a difficulty if one understands that the beloved disciple believed at this point in Jesus’ resurrection. But it is not an insuperable difficulty, since all it affirms is that at this time neither Peter nor the beloved disciple had understood the scripture concerning the resurrection. Thus it appears the author intends his reader to understand that when the beloved disciple entered the tomb after Peter and saw the state of the graveclothes, he believed in the resurrection, i.e., that Jesus had risen from the dead.