Discovery BoxJohn 15:18--16:4
Context15:18 “If the world hates you, be aware 1 that it hated me first. 2 15:19 If you belonged to the world, 3 the world would love you as its own. 4 However, because you do not belong to the world, 5 but I chose you out of the world, for this reason 6 the world hates you. 7 15:20 Remember what 8 I told you, ‘A slave 9 is not greater than his master.’ 10 If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they obeyed 11 my word, they will obey 12 yours too. 15:21 But they will do all these things to you on account of 13 my name, because they do not know the one who sent me. 14 15:22 If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not be guilty of sin. 15 But they no longer have any excuse for their sin. 15:23 The one who hates me hates my Father too. 15:24 If I had not performed 16 among them the miraculous deeds 17 that no one else did, they would not be guilty of sin. 18 But now they have seen the deeds 19 and have hated both me and my Father. 20 15:25 Now this happened 21 to fulfill the word that is written in their law, ‘They hated me without reason.’ 22 15:26 When the Advocate 23 comes, whom I will send you from the Father – the Spirit of truth who goes out from the Father – he 24 will testify about me, 15:27 and you also will testify, because you have been with me from the beginning.
16:1 “I have told you all these things so that you will not fall away. 25 16:2 They will put you out of 26 the synagogue, 27 yet a time 28 is coming when the one who kills you will think he is offering service to God. 29 16:3 They 30 will do these things because they have not known the Father or me. 31 16:4 But I have told you these things 32 so that when their time 33 comes, you will remember that I told you about them. 34
“I did not tell you these things from the beginning because I was with you. 35
[15:18] 2 tn Grk “it hated me before you.”
[15:19] 3 tn Grk “if you were of the world.”
[15:19] 4 tn The words “you as” are not in the original but are supplied for clarity.
[15:19] 5 tn Grk “because you are not of the world.”
[15:19] 6 tn Or “world, therefore.”
[15:19] 7 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.
[15:20] 8 tn Grk “Remember the word that I said to you.”
[15:20] 9 tn See the note on the word “slaves” in 4:51.
[15:20] 10 sn A slave is not greater than his master. Jesus now recalled a statement he had made to the disciples before, in John 13:16. As the master has been treated, so will the slaves be treated also. If the world had persecuted Jesus, then it would also persecute the disciples. If the world had kept Jesus’ word, it would likewise keep the word of the disciples. In this statement there is the implication that the disciples would carry on the ministry of Jesus after his departure; they would in their preaching and teaching continue to spread the message which Jesus himself had taught while he was with them. And they would meet with the same response, by and large, that he encountered.
[15:20] 11 tn Or “if they kept.”
[15:20] 12 tn Or “they will keep.”
[15:21] 13 tn Or “because of.”
[15:21] 14 tn Jesus is referring to God as “the one who sent me.”
[15:22] 15 tn Grk “they would not have sin” (an idiom).
[15:24] 16 tn Or “If I had not done.”
[15:24] 17 tn Grk “the works.”
[15:24] 18 tn Grk “they would not have sin” (an idiom).
[15:24] 19 tn The words “the deeds” are supplied to clarify from context what was seen. Direct objects in Greek were often omitted when clear from the context.
[15:24] 20 tn Or “But now they have both seen and hated both me and my Father.” It is possible to understand both the “seeing” and the “hating” to refer to both Jesus and the Father, but this has the world “seeing” the Father, which seems alien to the Johannine Jesus. (Some point out John 14:9 as an example, but this is addressed to the disciples, not to the world.) It is more likely that the “seeing” refers to the miraculous deeds mentioned in the first half of the verse. Such an understanding of the first “both – and” construction is apparently supported by BDF §444.3.
[15:25] 21 tn The words “this happened” are not in the Greek text but are supplied to complete an ellipsis.
[15:25] 22 sn A quotation from Ps 35:19 and Ps 69:4. As a technical term law (νόμος, nomos) is usually restricted to the Pentateuch (the first five books of the OT), but here it must have a broader reference, since the quotation is from Ps 35:19 or Ps 69:4. The latter is the more likely source for the quoted words, since it is cited elsewhere in John’s Gospel (2:17 and 19:29, in both instances in contexts associated with Jesus’ suffering and death).
[15:26] 23 tn Or “Helper” or “Counselor”; Grk “Paraclete,” from the Greek word παράκλητος (paraklhto"). See the note on the word “Advocate” in John 14:16 for discussion of how this word is translated.
[16:1] 25 tn Grk “so that you will not be caused to stumble.”
[16:2] 26 tn Or “expel you from.”
[16:2] 27 sn See the note on synagogue in 6:59.
[16:2] 29 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.
[16:3] 30 tn Grk “And they.” Because of the difference between Greek style, which often begins sentences or clauses with “and,” and English style, which generally does not, καί (kai) has not been translated here.
[16:3] 31 sn Ignorance of Jesus and ignorance of the Father are also linked in 8:19; to know Jesus would be to know the Father also, but since the world does not know Jesus, neither does it know his Father. The world’s ignorance of the Father is also mentioned in 8:55, 15:21, and 17:25.
[16:4] 32 tn The first half of v. 4 resumes the statement of 16:1, ταῦτα λελάληκα ὑμῖν (tauta lelalhka Jumin), in a somewhat more positive fashion, omitting the reference to the disciples being caused to stumble.
[16:4] 33 tn Grk “their hour.”
[16:4] 34 tn The words “about them” are not in the Greek text, but are implied.
[16:4] 35 sn This verse serves as a transition between the preceding discussion of the persecutions the disciples will face in the world after the departure of Jesus, and the following discussion concerning the departure of Jesus and the coming of the Spirit-Paraclete. Jesus had not told the disciples these things from the beginning because he was with them.
