Psalms 41:13

41:13 The Lord God of Israel deserves praise ¹ 

in the future and forevermore! ² 

We agree! We agree! ³ 

Psalms 72:19

72:19 His glorious name deserves praise ⁴  forevermore!

May his majestic splendor ⁵  fill the whole earth!

We agree! We agree! ⁶ 

Psalms 89:52

89:52 ⁷ The Lord deserves praise ⁸  forevermore!

We agree! We agree! ⁹ 

John 3:3

3:3 Jesus replied, ¹⁰  “I tell you the solemn truth, ¹¹  unless a person is born from above, ¹²  he cannot see the kingdom of God.” ¹³ 

John 3:11

3:11 I tell you the solemn truth, ¹⁴  we speak about what we know and testify about what we have seen, but ¹⁵  you people ¹⁶  do not accept our testimony. ¹⁷ 

John 5:24-25

5:24 “I tell you the solemn truth, ¹⁸  the one who hears ¹⁹  my message ²⁰  and believes the one who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned, ²¹  but has crossed over from death to life. 5:25 I tell you the solemn truth, ²²  a time ²³  is coming – and is now here – when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live.

John 6:53

6:53 Jesus said to them, “I tell you the solemn truth, ²⁴  unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, ²⁵  you have no life ²⁶  in yourselves.

[41:13]  ¹ tn Heb “[be] blessed.” See Pss 18:46; 28:6; 31:21.

[41:13]  ² tn Heb “from everlasting to everlasting.” See 1 Chr 16:36; Neh 9:5; Pss 90:2; 106:48.

[41:13]  ³ tn Heb “surely and surely” (אָמֵן וְאָמֵן [’amen vÿ’amen], i.e., “amen and amen”). This is probably a congregational response to the immediately preceding statement about the propriety of praising God.

[72:19]  ⁴ tn Heb “[be] blessed.”

[72:19]  ⁵ tn Or “glory.”

[72:19]  ⁶ tn Heb “surely and surely” (אָמֵן וְאָמֵן [’amen vÿ’amen], i.e., “Amen and amen”). This is probably a congregational response of agreement to the immediately preceding statement about the propriety of praising God.

[89:52]  ⁷ sn The final verse of Ps 89, v. 52, is a conclusion to this third “book” (or major editorial division) of the Psalter. Similar statements appear at or near the end of each of the first, second and fourth “books” of the Psalter (see Pss 41:13; 72:18-19; 106:48, respectively).

[89:52]  ⁸ tn Heb “[be] blessed.” See Pss 18:46; 28:6; 31:21.

[89:52]  ⁹ tn Heb “surely and surely” (אָמֵן וְאָמֵן [’amen vÿ’amen], i.e., “Amen and amen”). This is probably a congregational response to the immediately preceding statement about the propriety of praising God; thus it has been translated “We agree! We agree!”

[3:3]  ¹⁰ tn Grk “answered and said to him.”

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

[3:3]  ¹² 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]  ¹³ 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.

[3:11]  ¹⁴ tn Grk “Truly, truly, I say to you.”

[3:11]  ¹⁵ tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “but” to show the contrast present in the context.

[3:11]  ¹⁶ tn The word “people” is not in the Greek text, but is supplied in the translation to indicate that the verb is second person plural (referring to more than Nicodemus alone).

[3:11]  ¹⁷ sn Note the remarkable similarity of Jesus’ testimony to the later testimony of the Apostle John himself in 1 John 1:2: “And we have seen and testify and report to you the eternal life which was with the Father and was revealed to us.” This is only one example of how thoroughly the author’s own thoughts were saturated with the words of Jesus (and also how difficult it is to distinguish the words of Jesus from the words of the author in the Fourth Gospel).

[5:24]  ¹⁸ tn Grk “Truly, truly, I say to you.”

[5:24]  ¹⁹ tn Or “obeys.”

[5:24]  ²⁰ tn Or “word.”

[5:24]  ²¹ tn Grk “and does not come into judgment.”

[5:25]  ²² tn Grk “Truly, truly, I say to you.”

[5:25]  ²³ tn Grk “an hour.”

[6:53]  ²⁴ tn Grk “Truly, truly, I say to you.”

[6:53]  ²⁵ 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]  ²⁶ tn That is, “no eternal life” (as opposed to physical life).