John 3:8

3:8 The wind ¹  blows wherever it will, and you hear the sound it makes, but do not know where it comes from and where it is going. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” ² 

John 5:30

5:30 I can do nothing on my own initiative. ³  Just as I hear, I judge, and my judgment is just, ⁴  because I do not seek my own will, but the will of the one who sent me. ⁵ 

John 6:40

6:40 For this is the will of my Father – for everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him to have eternal life, and I will raise him up ⁶  at the last day.” ⁷ 

John 8:12

Jesus as the Light of the World

8:12 Then Jesus spoke out again, ⁸  “I am the light of the world. ⁹  The one who follows me will never ¹⁰  walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”

John 8:24

8:24 Thus I told you ¹¹  that you will die in your sins. For unless you believe that I am he, ¹²  you will die in your sins.”

John 8:28

8:28 Then Jesus said, ¹³  “When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am he, ¹⁴  and I do nothing on my own initiative, ¹⁵  but I speak just what the Father taught me. ¹⁶ 

John 10:12

10:12 The hired hand, ¹⁷  who is not a shepherd and does not own sheep, sees the wolf coming and abandons ¹⁸  the sheep and runs away. ¹⁹  So the wolf attacks ²⁰  the sheep and scatters them.

John 10:38

10:38 But if I do them, even if you do not believe me, believe the deeds, ²¹  so that you may come to know ²²  and understand that I am in the Father and the Father is in me.”

John 11:44

11:44 The one who had died came out, his feet and hands tied up with strips of cloth, ²³  and a cloth wrapped around his face. ²⁴  Jesus said to them, “Unwrap him ²⁵  and let him go.”

John 12:24

12:24 I tell you the solemn truth, ²⁶  unless a kernel of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains by itself alone. ²⁷  But if it dies, it produces ²⁸  much grain. ²⁹ 

John 14:12

14:12 I tell you the solemn truth, ³⁰  the person who believes in me will perform ³¹  the miraculous deeds ³²  that I am doing, ³³  and will perform ³⁴  greater deeds ³⁵  than these, because I am going to the Father.

John 15:5

15:5 “I am the vine; you are the branches. The one who remains ³⁶  in me – and I in him – bears ³⁷  much fruit, ³⁸  because apart from me you can accomplish ³⁹  nothing.

John 15:19

15:19 If you belonged to the world, ⁴⁰  the world would love you as its own. ⁴¹  However, because you do not belong to the world, ⁴²  but I chose you out of the world, for this reason ⁴³  the world hates you. ⁴⁴ 

John 21:16

21:16 Jesus ⁴⁵  said ⁴⁶  a second time, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” He replied, ⁴⁷  “Yes, Lord, you know I love you.” Jesus ⁴⁸  told him, “Shepherd my sheep.”

[3:8]  ¹ tn The same Greek word, πνεύματος (pneumatos), may be translated “wind” or “spirit.”

[3:8]  ² sn Again, the physical illustrates the spiritual, although the force is heightened by the word-play here on wind-spirit (see the note on wind at the beginning of this verse). By the end of the verse, however, the final usage of πνεύματος (pneumatos) refers to the Holy Spirit.

[5:30]  ³ tn Grk “nothing from myself.”

[5:30]  ⁴ tn Or “righteous,” or “proper.”

[5:30]  ⁵ tn That is, “the will of the Father who sent me.”

[6:40]  ⁵ tn Or “resurrect him,” or “make him live again.”

[6:40]  ⁶ sn Notice that here the result (having eternal life and being raised up at the last day) is produced by looking on the Son and believing in him. Compare John 6:54 where the same result is produced by eating Jesus’ flesh and drinking his blood. This suggests that the phrase in 6:54 (eats my flesh and drinks my blood) is to be understood in terms of the phrase here (looks on the Son and believes in him).

[8:12]  ⁷ tn Grk “Then again Jesus spoke to them saying.”

[8:12]  ⁸ sn The theory proposed by F. J. A. Hort (The New Testament in the Original Greek, vol. 2, Introduction; Appendix, 87-88), that the backdrop of 8:12 is the lighting of the candelabra in the court of women, may offer a plausible setting to the proclamation by Jesus that he is the light of the world. The last time that Jesus spoke in the narrative (assuming 7:53-8:11 is not part of the original text, as the textual evidence suggests) is in 7:38, where he was speaking to a crowd of pilgrims in the temple area. This is where he is found in the present verse, and he may be addressing the crowd again. Jesus’ remark has to be seen in view of both the prologue (John 1:4, 5) and the end of the discourse with Nicodemus (John 3:19-21). The coming of Jesus into the world provokes judgment: A choosing up of sides becomes necessary. The one who comes to the light, that is, who follows Jesus, will not walk in the darkness. The one who refuses to come, will walk in the darkness. In this contrast, there are only two alternatives. So it is with a person’s decision about Jesus. Furthermore, this serves as in implicit indictment of Jesus’ opponents, who still walk in the darkness, because they refuse to come to him. This sets up the contrast in chap. 9 between the man born blind, who receives both physical and spiritual sight, and the Pharisees (John 9:13, 15, 16) who have physical sight but remain in spiritual darkness.

[8:12]  ⁹ tn The double negative οὐ μή (ou mh) is emphatic in 1st century Hellenistic Greek.

[8:24]  ⁹ tn Grk “thus I said to you.”

[8:24]  ¹⁰ tn Grk “unless you believe that I am.” In this context there is an implied predicate nominative (“he”) following the “I am” phrase. What Jesus’ hearers had to acknowledge is that he was who he claimed to be, i.e., the Messiah (cf. 20:31). This view is also reflected in English translations like NIV (“if you do not believe that I am the one I claim to be”), NLT (“unless you believe that I am who I say I am”), and CEV (“if you don’t have faith in me for who I am”). For a different view that takes this “I am” and the one in 8:28 as nonpredicated (i.e., absolute), see R. E. Brown, John (AB), 1:533-38. Such a view refers sees the nonpredicated “I am” as a reference to the divine Name revealed in Exod 3:14, and is reflected in English translations like NAB (“if you do not believe that I AM, you will die in your sins”) and TEV (“you will die in your sins if you do not believe that ‘I Am Who I Am’”).

[8:28]  ¹¹ tn Grk “Then Jesus said to them” (the words “to them” are not found in all mss).

[8:28]  ¹² tn Grk “that I am.” See the note on this phrase in v. 24.

[8:28]  ¹³ tn Grk “I do nothing from myself.”

[8:28]  ¹⁴ tn Grk “but just as the Father taught me, these things I speak.”

[10:12]  ¹³ sn Jesus contrasts the behavior of the shepherd with that of the hired hand. This is a worker who is simply paid to do a job; he has no other interest in the sheep and is certainly not about to risk his life for them. When they are threatened, he simply runs away.

[10:12]  ¹⁴ tn Grk “leaves.”

[10:12]  ¹⁵ tn Or “flees.”

[10:12]  ¹⁶ tn Or “seizes.” The more traditional rendering, “snatches,” has the idea of seizing something by force and carrying it off, which is certainly possible here. However, in the sequence in John 10:12, this action precedes the scattering of the flock of sheep, so “attacks” is preferable.

[10:38]  ¹⁵ tn Or “works.”

[10:38]  ¹⁶ tn Or “so that you may learn.”

[11:44]  ¹⁷ sn Many have wondered how Lazarus got out of the tomb if his hands and feet were still tied up with strips of cloth. The author does not tell, and with a miracle of this magnitude, this is not an important fact to know. If Lazarus’ decomposing body was brought back to life by the power of God, then it could certainly have been moved out of the tomb by that same power. Others have suggested that the legs were bound separately, which would remove the difficulty, but the account gives no indication of this. What may be of more significance for the author is the comparison which this picture naturally evokes with the resurrection of Jesus, where the graveclothes stayed in the tomb neatly folded (20:6-7). Jesus, unlike Lazarus, would never need graveclothes again.

[11:44]  ¹⁸ tn Grk “and his face tied around with cloth.”

[11:44]  ¹⁹ tn Grk “Loose him.”

[12:24]  ¹⁹ tn Grk “Truly, truly, I say to you.”

[12:24]  ²⁰ tn Or “it remains only a single kernel.”

[12:24]  ²¹ tn Or “bears.”

[12:24]  ²² tn Grk “much fruit.”

[14:12]  ²¹ tn Grk “Truly, truly, I say to you.”

[14:12]  ²² tn Or “will do.”

[14:12]  ²³ tn Grk “the works.”

[14:12]  ²⁴ tn Or “that I do.”

[14:12]  ²⁵ tn Or “will do.”

[14:12]  ²⁶ tn Grk “greater works.”

[15:5]  ²³ tn Or “resides.”

[15:5]  ²⁴ tn Or “yields.”

[15:5]  ²⁵ 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.

[15:5]  ²⁶ tn Or “do.”

[15:19]  ²⁵ tn Grk “if you were of the world.”

[15:19]  ²⁶ tn The words “you as” are not in the original but are supplied for clarity.

[15:19]  ²⁷ tn Grk “because you are not of the world.”

[15:19]  ²⁸ tn Or “world, therefore.”

[15:19]  ²⁹ 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.

[21:16]  ²⁷ tn Grk “He”; the referent (Jesus) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[21:16]  ²⁸ tn Grk “said again.” The word “again” (when used in connection with the phrase “a second time”) is redundant and has not been translated.

[21:16]  ²⁹ tn Grk “He said to him.”

[21:16]  ³⁰ tn Grk “He”; the referent (Jesus) has been specified in the translation for clarity.