John 6:47

6:47 I tell you the solemn truth, ¹  the one who believes ²  has eternal life. ³ 

John 6:53

6:53 Jesus said to them, “I tell you the solemn truth, ⁴  unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, ⁵  you have no life ⁶  in yourselves.

John 3:3

3:3 Jesus replied, ⁷  “I tell you the solemn truth, ⁸  unless a person is born from above, ⁹  he cannot see the kingdom of God.” ¹⁰ 

John 3:5

3:5 Jesus answered, “I tell you the solemn truth, ¹¹  unless a person is born of water and spirit, ¹²  he cannot enter the kingdom of God.

[6:47]  ¹ tn Grk “Truly, truly, I say to you.”

[6:47]  ² tc Most witnesses (A C² D Ψ Ë^1,13 33 Ï lat and other versions) have “in me” (εἰς ἐμέ, eis eme) here, while the Sinaitic and Curetonian Syriac versions read “in God.” These clarifying readings are predictable variants, being motivated by the scribal tendency toward greater explicitness. That the earliest and best witnesses (Ì^66,75vid א B C* L T W Θ 892 pc) lack any object is solid testimony to the shorter text’s authenticity.

[6:47]  ³ tn Compare John 6:40.

[6:53]  ⁴ tn Grk “Truly, truly, I say to you.”

[6:53]  ⁵ sn Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood. These words are at the heart of the discourse on the Bread of Life, and have created great misunderstanding among interpreters. Anyone who is inclined toward a sacramental viewpoint will almost certainly want to take these words as a reference to the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, or the Eucharist, because of the reference to eating and drinking. But this does not automatically follow: By anyone’s definition there must be a symbolic element to the eating which Jesus speaks of in the discourse, and once this is admitted, it is better to understand it here, as in the previous references in the passage, to a personal receiving of (or appropriation of) Christ and his work.

[6:53]  ⁶ tn That is, “no eternal life” (as opposed to physical life).

[3:3]  ⁷ tn Grk “answered and said to him.”

[3:3]  ⁸ tn Grk “Truly, truly, I say to you.”

[3:3]  ⁹ tn The word ἄνωθεν (anwqen) has a double meaning, either “again” (in which case it is synonymous with παλίν [palin]) or “from above” (BDAG 92 s.v. ἄνωθεν). This is a favorite technique of the author of the Fourth Gospel, and it is lost in almost all translations at this point. John uses the word 5 times, in 3:3, 7; 3:31; 19:11 and 23. In the latter 3 cases the context makes clear that it means “from above.” Here (3:3, 7) it could mean either, but the primary meaning intended by Jesus is “from above.” Nicodemus apparently understood it the other way, which explains his reply, “How can a man be born when he is old? He can’t enter his mother’s womb a second time and be born, can he?” The author uses the technique of the “misunderstood question” often to bring out a particularly important point: Jesus says something which is misunderstood by the disciples or (as here) someone else, which then gives Jesus the opportunity to explain more fully and in more detail what he really meant.

[3:3]  ¹⁰ sn What does Jesus’ statement about not being able to see the kingdom of God mean within the framework of John’s Gospel? John uses the word kingdom (βασιλεία, basileia) only 5 times (3:3, 5; 18:36 [3x]). Only here is it qualified with the phrase of God. The fact that John does not stress the concept of the kingdom of God does not mean it is absent from his theology, however. Remember the messianic implications found in John 2, both the wedding and miracle at Cana and the cleansing of the temple. For Nicodemus, the term must surely have brought to mind the messianic kingdom which Messiah was supposed to bring. But Nicodemus had missed precisely this point about who Jesus was. It was the Messiah himself with whom Nicodemus was speaking. Whatever Nicodemus understood, it is clear that the point is this: He misunderstood Jesus’ words. He over-literalized them, and thought Jesus was talking about repeated physical birth, when he was in fact referring to new spiritual birth.

[3:5]  ¹¹ tn Grk “Truly, truly, I say to you.”

[3:5]  ¹² tn Or “born of water and wind” (the same Greek word, πνεύματος [pneumatos], may be translated either “spirit/Spirit” or “wind”).