17:24-26 Prayer for the Future Union of His Own with Himself

17:24-26 Prayer for the Future Union of His Own with Himself

14–17

The Farewell Discourses

With 14:1 begins Jesus’ great farewell discourse in chs. 14–16, which culminates and is concluded in the so-called high-priestly prayer of ch. 17. Although in 13:31ff. we have already encountered anticipations of themes that are variously elaborated in the farewell discourse, still chs. 14–17 clearly constitute a single distinct composition that forms the fifth part of this Gospel and a unique chapter in Jesus’ self-revelation in it.

For the literary character of this discourse, scholars have correctly referred to the genre of the farewell discourse or testament, which was very popular in antiquity, both in the Greco-Roman and in the Jewish world (e.g., in the Old Testament, Gn. 27:1-40; 47:29–50:14; 50:22-26; Deuteronomy 31–34; in the New Testament, Acts 20:18ff.; 2 Timothy 4; and of course the Synoptic farewell discourse, Mark 13 par.).¹ Three elements are dominant in this genre—in keeping with the nature of testamentary farewell discourse: review of the past, giving of instructions, and a look forward to the future, usually combined with words of consolation and admonition.²

It is not hard to recognize these elements in Jesus’ farewell discourse, as the exegesis will show, but John 14–17 is not simply a typical “farewell discourse.” “A testament in the mouth of the Prince of Life is, however, most unusual and we can hardly suppose that the Evangelist failed to reflect on this paradox.”³ We cannot speak here, therefore, of a “farewell” or “last will and testament” in the true sense of these words. The continuing fellowship of Jesus with his own after he “goes to the Father” constitutes the real theme of this discourse. The connection with the traditional literary genre serves to bring out the turning point in the great curve of Jesus’ self-revelation in the Fourth Gospel (the Gospel’s “christology”), which is the point at which the Son of man’s descent from heaven passes over into his ascent back to where he came from (cf. 3:13; 12:23ff.).⁴

All this is dealt with in regard to its bearing on Jesus’ disciples, who remain behind on earth. In this respect the line begun in 13:1 is continued. Jesus’ attention is not wholly focused on his departure to the Father, his own glorification, but above all on the salvation implied in it for his disciples in the world.

Thus this discourse is distinguished from the great farewell discourse in the Synoptic Gospels (Mark 13 par.). There the disciples’ future is framed within a series of apocalyptic events that encompass heaven and earth. Not a trace of that appears in the Johannine farewell discourse. Here everything is concentrated on the continuing spiritual fellowship of Jesus as the heavenly Lord with his disciples on earth. There is no clear historical future perspective, no explicit mention of the formation of the coming church as an institution, and no mention of the church’s future development in history. The relationship of church and world comes up only in terms of antithesis. The present and coming kingdom of God, the worldwide missionary continuation of Jesus’ work on earth, and the self-understanding of the church in the world in light of this mission do not come up.

Scholars have viewed this as one of the many surprising marks of the Fourth Gospel, perhaps even the most surprising of all, and have proposed a variety of material and historical explanations—for example, that the church is considered in John only in terms of its individual members or that the Johannine community, because of its sectarian nature, was marginal to the general development of the churches and led a strongly introverted life.⁵

Regardless, however, of the many important and unanswered questions regarding the future and life of the coming church in the world, this must not seduce us into an individualizing or sectarianizing reduction of the message of the Fourth Gospel. The disciples are clearly addressed in terms of their apostolic calling as those who will continue Jesus’ work on earth (14:12ff. and passim), and their joint witness, as those who have been with Jesus from the beginning, is too emphatically characterized as fundamental for the entire coming church (14:26, 27; 15:16; 20:30, 31) for this to be valid. But all this is subsumed under the perspective of the continuing fellowship of the ascended Jesus with his disciples on earth and of the coming church that will believe in Jesus through their word. Their common future is grounded in that fellowship. That is the “eschatological” dimension of 14:1ff., as well as the conclusion of the end of ch. 17. But Jesus is also the way who leads to that future. And all the ethical admonition, comfort, and power that radiate from this farewell have no other purpose than that the church on earth should understand itself as belonging to him in heaven and that it should abide in him as he abides in its members. In this the church, together with Jesus—in accordance with an ancient depiction of the people of God—appears as the vine and the branches in which he, responding to the church’s faith and prayer, its life under his word, its affliction, and its calling in the world, will prove himself to be the Living One.

A second and closely related perspective here is that for their future Jesus refers his disciples to the “other Paraclete.” He himself will still have many things to tell them, but they will not be able to bear them now. Therefore he must speak to them mainly in “figures” (16:12, 25). But he will send them his Spirit as the great “helper” who will show them the way to the future, will further explain Jesus’ words to them, and, in the great continuing conflict between the church and the world, will vouch for the truth and make it plain (cf. 16:7ff.).

In saying this Jesus is not taking leave and referring the disciples exclusively to the Spirit for their future. He is going away, and they will see him no more. But he will also “come,” after “a short while,” to manifest himself to them as the Living One (14:9ff.) and, with the Father, to make his home with them (14:23), just as at some time he will “come again” to take them to himself in his Father’s “rooms” (14:3). But the Spirit “dwells with” them and will “be in” them (14:17) in order to maintain their fellowship with their heavenly Lord. How all this is to be understood theologically in its unity and diversity is not part of Jesus’ focus in his farewell. The truth here is that between the Lord and the Spirit the church will find in this field of interaction and power the ground of its existence, its way to the future, and its calling in the world.

The many things that the church will have to face in the future—in regard to both its relation to the world and its own organization—recede into the background. But one cannot conclude from this silence that the Fourth Gospel has little ecclesiological content. All one can say is that this farewell discourse directs the coming church toward ongoing fellowship with its Lord and guidance by the Spirit as the only possible and permanent point of orientation to enable it to manifest itself in the world as the church of Christ. In theological terms, in the Fourth Gospel eschatology and ecclesiology are totally under the sway of christology.

There is considerable difference of opinion concerning the composition of the farewell discourse. Again questions are raised with respect to the original unity of the text we have before us, now mainly in chs. 14–16.

The much-debated but unresolved problem of the transition between chs. 14 and 15 plays an important role here. At the end of ch. 14 (in vs. 31) Jesus invites his disciples to join him in leaving the scene of their meal and seems to indicate a desire to break off his conversations with them. But in 15:1ff. the discourse is continued at great length and with no explanation why. From ancient times it has been concluded that the remainder of the discourse and the prayer in ch. 17 were uttered by Jesus on the way to the Mount of Olives. In the same way, in Mark and Matthew Jesus’ prediction of Peter’s denial occurs not in the “upper room” but on the road to Gethsemane (Mt. 26:30ff.; Mk. 14:26ff.). But it is hard to imagine that all that is in chs. 15–17 was said during the walk at night to Gethsemane. Not until 18:1, it seems, do we read of the departure⁶ from the house where the last meal took place.

Accordingly, two other explanations are offered. The first is that the text has fallen into disarray, and part or all of ch. 14, including vs. 31, ended up in the wrong place and thus lost its natural link with 18:1.⁷ But an acceptable reconstruction of the putative original order is hard to give. For that reason most recent interpreters have stopped trying to find one. Lifting the conclusion of ch. 14 from its context, in which it fits perfectly well, is already most objectionable. If therefore one transposes the whole of ch. 14 to the end of the discourse, one runs into the very real objection that ch. 14 is basic to the whole of chs. 14–16. The most important objection to this transposition of part or all of ch. 14 to the end of chs. 14–17 is ch. 17 itself, which is so clearly the conclusion and culmination of the whole discourse⁸ that to put it back at the beginning⁹ seems far too forced.

Others therefore think that in the text before us we have not an original unit but a later combination, from either the Evangelist or other “redactors,” of a number of compositions of words of Jesus that originated earlier. Ch. 14 (possibly 13:31–14:31) is generally considered the “original” farewell discourse, to which chs. 15–17 are said to have been added later.¹⁰ Others stay more closely to the text as it has been handed down to us and believe that in chs. 14 (or 13:31–14:31) and 15–16 we have two independent farewell discourses, one more concise and one more elaborate. Both were incorporated into the Gospel, unchanged and in succession, out of respect for their author, by the final redactors (cf. 21:24ff.).¹¹

Others go much further and think that underlying chapters 15–16 (or 15–17) is a much more complicated tradition history. This view has prompted a variety of widely divergent tradition-historical explanations.¹² Some think that the material incorporated here comes mostly from the Evangelist and has been added to ch. 14 later by a redactor.¹³ Others think this is all the work of later redactors and believe they can discern not only distinct “layers” but also very different “unharmonized” theologies.¹⁴ All this is said to be a clear reflection of the different phases the Johannine community passed through in its confrontation with the synagogue and then later with the hostile world around it (cf., e.g., 15:18ff.).¹⁵

But however we judge the formal break between ch. 14 and chs. 15–17, we must take our starting point in the unity of content in chs. 14–17. Chs. 15 and 16 are expansions of ch. 14, which ends provisionally with vs. 31. The idea that in ch. 15 we have the beginning of a “second” farewell discourse is hard to accept. The parable of the true vine, which begins abruptly in 15:1, gives from the outset no sign that a new discourse is beginning. Neither the parable nor the explication in 15:9-17 alludes to a farewell situation. They can only be understood as such against the background of ch. 14. Furthermore, 15:1-17 is materially closely related with ch. 14 in that the image of the vine elaborates at length an important motif in ch. 14—the continuing fellowship between Jesus and his own (cf. 14:2ff., 23).

The same is true for the long section from 15:18 to 16:12 (or 16:15), in which the time of Jesus’ departure is further unfolded, now admittedly from a new perspective, that of “hatred of the world,” but again in close connection with ch. 14. For what is said about the Spirit’s assistance clearly forms an expansion of the brief announcement of “another¹⁶ Paraclete” made earlier in 14:16. The relative clause “whom I will send to you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father” in 15:26 clearly refers back to the main sentence of the earlier announcement, as does 16:13: “When the Spirit of truth comes.”

The conclusion of chs. 15–16 in 16:12-33 is in content nothing other than a return to and expansion of (the conclusion of) ch. 14. It picks up the dialogue form of the beginning of ch. 14. Everything is focused, as in ch. 14, on the concrete farewell situation, and again we have a transition to events that are about to happen, as in 14:31. The transition in 16:12-15 is also clearly linked with the transition in 14:25-26 (cf. vs. 30). At the same time 16:12-33 expands on the ideas in ch. 14: Jesus speaks more fully than in 14:19 about the “short time” of his absence and the new dispensation to come (16:19-28) and prepares his disciples for events that are now immediately at hand (vss. 29-33).

Surveying the whole, one clearly sees the extent to which ch. 14 is foundational to chs. 15 and 16 in content and sometimes even verbally. There is no indication whatever that a second discourse begins in ch. 15. We get the impression rather that the themes advanced in ch. 14, which are already linked with 13:31ff., return in the following chapters, in the usual manner of the Fourth Gospel, more expansively and in terms of new viewpoints, and receive a new conclusion in 16:16-33, one that is again oriented to the end of ch. 14. How and when the new start marked by 15:1 came into being can hardly be ascertained with any degree of assurance. In any case the unity in content and style of this section militates against the idea that the author (or “redactor[s]”) destroyed the original conjunction of ch. 14 and ch. 18 to make room for a number of additional themes of diverse origin without apparently worrying about or giving thought to the result of such a intrusion into the existing structure.¹⁷

Others, viewing things more historically, have seen in the new viewpoints in chs. 15 and 16 (e.g., “hatred of the world,” 15:18ff.) and in supposed contradictions and differences of nuance in the different parts of chs. 14–16 an indication of the different historical “phases” and “layers” by which the Gospel is thought to have been built up and in which theological developments in the “Johannine community” are thought to be reflected.¹⁸ But the resourcefulness displayed in this method is often greater than its power to persuade, and it does not solve “the problem of 14:31.” This is not to deny of course that the expansion of ch. 14 in chs. 15 and 16 shows conceptual development. But the question is whether one must try to discover from that development “phases” in the continuing fortunes and theology of the later community¹⁹ or whether it is more natural to think—in view of the unity in content of the whole—that the author himself, who had more resources at his disposal than he used in ch. 14, felt the need at some time to illumine or enrich what he had written. That he did not remove the end of ch. 14 or adapt it to the section he added may seem strange. But this is no more inexplicable than that those who were responsible for the final redaction of the Gospel left the text that came down to them in this way as they found it.

14:1-31

Jesus’ Departure: A Reason for Joy, Not Sadness

Ch. 14 forms a distinct unit provisionally concluded by vs. 31 (cf. vss. 1 and 27). The composition as a whole is a continuous explication, from various angles, of the salvific character of Jesus’ departure, summarized in the end by the statement that the disciples’ love for him must not express itself in sadness and fear but in joy (vss. 27ff.).

Further division of the chapter is difficult. One can discern a number of clear perspectives in terms of which the main idea is unfolded, but the transitions are vague. One must keep in mind the merely relative importance of even a cautious grouping of related verses (as we will attempt for the sake of clarity below).²⁰

14:1-3

No Final Farewell

1, 2 Although following 13:38 the abruptly introduced saying “Let not your hearts be troubled” constitutes the opening statement of a new section, this admonition clearly relates to the situation described in the preceding, in particular to the announcement—which the disciples have not understood—of Jesus’ departure and of their inability to follow him (13:33). With increasing clarity it has dawned on them that things are heading toward a separation, a prospect that not only disturbs their feelings of love for him but also in no way fits the images they have formed of their following him. It therefore was a direct challenge to their faith in him (cf. Lk. 22:31ff.).

Jesus responds to both issues. His statement is first of all a pastoral word of comfort by which he seeks to quiet their inner dejection and agitation—feelings that were not foreign to Jesus himself.²¹ In the same breath, however, he appeals to them to continue to believe in him,²² a motif carried through in what follows (cf. vss. 10ff.). But here this appeal is meant especially as a request to trust that he will not permanently leave them behind but will keep his promise that they will follow him later (13:36).

To this end he appeals to their faith in God as the basis for their faith in him: “Surely you believe in God! Then believe also in me!” (Or “If you believe in God, then believe also in me!”).²³ Jesus will not be setting out for an unfamiliar destination. He is going to the Father, and this is the guarantee of the disciples’ future. He has spoken to them of his Father as their Father. With this appeal in mind he immediately adds: “In my Father’s house are many dwellings.” Not only is he, the Son of that household, expected at the place where he was “at home,” but also those he has made his own (cf. 17:6, 10).

The last part of vs. 2, “if it were not so …,” is hard to translate.²⁴ In view of the context, however, the meaning can hardly be other than: “If matters stood otherwise with my going away and if it were only my business and not yours as well, then would I have spoken to you about it as I have? For I am going away precisely for the purpose of preparing a place for you.” With “would I have told you …?” Jesus is evidently referring to his “going away” and their “following afterward” (13:36); he now explains that he is going away “to prepare a place” for them, imagery that fits the earlier mention of “my Father’s house.”²⁵

3 Still, this goal of going away, however full of promise and encouragement for the disciples it is, does not cancel out the separation itself. What now follows therefore, though it does not yet involve the intervening time, expresses the full significance of what his going away and preparing a place means for them: “I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am you may also be.” His departure will mean the definitive cancellation of the separation and will give to their “following later” unimagined content. He himself will return for them and will thus make good his promise to them: “Where I am, there will my servant be also”; “if anyone serves me, the Father will honor him” (12:26; cf. 17:24).

These statements are of characteristic significance for the Fourth Gospel for more than one reason. In the first place, right at the beginning of the farewell discourse they place the whole of the disciples’ coming time on earth in the perspective of Jesus’ final return to take them to where he is. The same thought comes back at the end of ch. 17. All that lies between the beginning and the end of chs. 14–17 is devoted to Jesus’ concern for them in the interim before his final coming, which thus gets by far the most attention. But this interim is bounded by a future that is determinative for the whole road that they have to travel. Their life on earth finds its direction, goal, and power in their belonging to him who is in heaven. From now on that will mark the secret and the ambivalence of their existence on earth (cf. 16:33).

These statements are also characteristic for the Fourth Gospel because this future is not portrayed to the disciples in the language of traditional eschatology but in that of Jesus’ self-consciousness as the one sent by the Father. We encounter here what we have already noted²⁶ about the church’s learning to understand itself in terms of its union with Christ. Jesus describes the future abode of the church not only as “where he is going” and “where he is” but also as his “Father’s house,” in which there are many “rooms” and in which he will “prepare a place” for his own. “House” as a term for the place where God resides conveys an idea found frequently in both the Old Testament and in Jewish and Hellenistic writings of the time of Jesus. But in these writings “house of God” is normally used of the temple, not heaven.²⁷ In any case, the focus of the expression here is that it is “my Father’s” house, the place where Jesus goes because he is at home there.

Similarly, “dwellings” or “rooms” as a term for the place where people will be after this life was certainly known in the religious world of Jesus’ day. Still, the way in which it is used here is certainly not explained by this religio-historical background.²⁸ It flows, rather, directly from Jesus’ self-consciousness and his understanding of heaven as his Father’s house. In that house there is room in abundance. That is what makes it his Father’s house. With “preparing a place” we again have a concept that has clear parallels in the New Testament (Mt. 25:34; Mk. 10:40; 1 Co. 2:9; Hb. 11:16; 1 Pt. 1:4) and elsewhere.²⁹ But here the concept is subject to the imagery in vs. 2a. Jesus is returning as the Son of the house (cf. 8:35)³⁰ who has completed his task and who can therefore assign all the rooms available in the house to the many who believe in his name. The church’s future is completely determined by its union with Christ, and this gives the eschatological depiction of the church this graphic and sober character (see further the comments on 17:24).

Many interpreters have serious objections to this explanation, especially of Jesus’ “return.” The difficulty arises out of the Fourth Gospel’s supposed “present eschatology,” the idea that this Gospel consistently represents the salvation that appeared in Jesus’ coming as the inauguration and realization in the present of the great future. This is thought to contradict, and therefore make unacceptable, the explanation of Jesus’ “return” in the sense of the parousia referred to elsewhere in the New Testament.

In keeping with this “present eschatology” some interpreters have interpreted vss. 2-3 as referring to a spiritual reunion of Jesus with his disciples. 14:22ff. also mentions Jesus’ “coming,” but not then in the eschatological sense, but in the sense of his “coming” after his resurrection and of his permanent fellowship with his disciples on earth. This plays a large role in this spiritual interpretation of 14:2f., in which the “Father’s house” with its “many rooms” in a spiritual sense is “the spaces of God’s love” in which Jesus causes his disciples to share by “taking them to himself,” that is, by making them spiritually one with himself.³¹ In a somewhat more nuanced way others say that Jesus’ spiritual “return” after Easter finds its completion for his disciples in the “place of consummation” described in vs. 2. They add, however, that we cannot link to this last act of Jesus’ coming the idea of his appearance in glory, the parousia. They stress that the whole passage reinterprets the tradition of the parousia.³² Becker’s judgment is more radical. He admits that vss. 2 and 3 can only be understood as referring to the parousia (Hb. 9:28 is “close both in time and content”) and speak of Christ’s exaltation and communion with his disciples in the same sense as “the early Christian tradition in 1 Co. 16:22ff.; 1 Th. 1:9, etc.” But the Fourth Evangelist used an older apocalyptic revelatory saying that he “explains and decisively reinterprets in what follows (vss. 4ff., 18ff.).”³³ Still others believe that Jesus’ “return” and his taking his disciples to himself refer to his bringing his disciples to himself when they die.³⁴

All these forced understandings of vss. 2 and 3 are based on the view (repeatedly combated in this commentary) that because of the “presence” statements in John there is no room for a still to be expected “coming” of Jesus that has dimensions of glory that are not or cannot be manifested in this earthly dispensation. The earthly future of the disciples, as it is spoken of in this farewell discourse, is set in a framework of pronouncements about the future (14:2, 3 and 17:24ff.), which proves that there is room for such a still future “coming” of Jesus—in agreement with passages like 5:27f.; 6:39f., not to mention 1 Jn. 2:28, which explicitly refers to Jesus’ parousia. Jn 3:2 describes the parousia over against the “not yet” of the present: “We are God’s children now. It does not yet appear what we will be, but we know that when he appears we will be like him, for we shall see him as he is.”

Still it is true—and characteristic for John’s Gospel (but cf. 5:28)—that the description of this future revelation, of Jesus’ coming again, is devoid of apocalyptic imagery and cosmic dimensions and limits itself to the salvation contained in it for the disciples. There is thus a remarkable difference between John and Paul. The latter also speaks, in virtually the same words, of believers being “taken up” and of “being always with the Lord” (1 Th. 4:16ff.). But whereas Paul, especially in 1 Thessalonians, pulls out all the stops on his apocalyptic organ (“the voice of the archangel,” “the trumpet of God,” “being caught up together in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air”), John expresses the same thing in the language of his christology, of Jesus’ union with the Father and of the disciples’ participation in that union by dwelling with him in “the house of his Father,” so that “where I am, you may be also” (cf. 17:23ff.). If one wishes to speak of a reinterpretation, then this relates not to the substance of the parousia as the revelation of future glory but to the way in which this event is identified with and interpreted in terms of the person and work of Jesus as the Son of man and the Son of God, totally in keeping with the thrust of the entire Gospel. This implies a sobering of the apocalyptic picture, and the Evangelist no doubt had his reasons for that. The inconceivable “something” takes a back seat to “he” and “I” (“I am he …,” 8:28) and explains why the future becomes present, for Jesus is the coming one.

But this is not to deprive his “coming” of the dimension of glory, which still lies in the future. As the Son of God he is also the Son of man, in whose hands the Father has put all things (3:35; 5:20). Accordingly, Jesus’ farewell not only contains the promise of his permanent presence in and for the church in a timeless sense, but also opens up for the church the way it must go, the command it must fulfill, and the prospect of his return, when the church will see him as he is, in the revelation of his all-encompassing glory and power, for which the Father predestined him before the foundation of the world (cf. 17:24).

14:4-11

“You Know the Way”

In direct connection with the preceding Jesus now speaks further about the life of his disciples on earth after his departure. This becomes the topic of the farewell discourse until Jesus returns at the end of ch. 17 to what he spoke of in 14:1-3.

The internal structure of vss. 4-11 becomes clear only on close scrutiny. Jesus begins by saying that the disciples know the way he is going.³⁵ The theme is still that of encouragement with a view to the approaching separation (vs. 1), but now not on the basis of his return but on the basis of the disciples’ knowledge of where he is going as he leaves and hence also of the place where from now on they will be moving toward, the Father’s house (cf. vs. 6). With “you know the way” Jesus is telling them that, however much they may regret his leaving, they need not be in doubt about the destination of their own way on earth. By his departure they are given a clear indication of that goal.

5 Thomas’s radical objection to Jesus’ statement, though expressed with all respect, is not only characteristic of his own role in the Gospel (see the comments on 11:16; 20:24f.) but also conveys the uncertainty of his fellow disciples (“we do not know”). They have no idea what this “going away” is all about if it means the end of their following Jesus as the Messiah of Israel and Son of God confessed by them. How then can they know “the way” of which Jesus is speaking and to which they are apparently reduced as his disciples?

6 Jesus’ answer—with good reason called the core statement of this entire Gospel—is striking because in this last and all-encompassing “I am” statement he, as the departing one, calls himself the way. It is a way he not only points to but is, the only way that gives access to the Father. And it is in that function that he is also “the truth and the life.” He is the truth as the reliable one, the one who is what he says he is and does what he says he will do, just as he is the “true” vine who will in fact yield fruit (cf. Jr. 2:21). For that reason he is also the life that is from God and that imparts itself as “the light of humans” (1:4) so that they can know the Father as the only true God and Jesus Christ, whom the Father has sent (17:3). In all these core sayings Jesus posits himself in his exclusivity as the one sent by the Father and hence as the only way: “No one comes to the Father but by me.”³⁶ Other ways present themselves, but they do not prove to be true in accordance with “God is light and in him there is no darkness at all” (1 Jn. 1:5).

7 In vss. 7-11 the entire focus is once more on this significance of Jesus as the only access to the Father and the guarantee for the ongoing life of the disciples in the world, first in the pronouncement of vs. 7a: “If you have known me, you will know my Father also.” Jesus connects their knowledge of the Father and their life in fellowship with the Father not only to the future but above all to the faith experience they have received in their earthly contact with him.³⁷ In knowing Jesus, that is, in their faith in Jesus as he has revealed himself on earth, lies the secret and certainty for the coming church of its continuing knowledge of God as the Father of Jesus Christ. Because Jesus has kindled that knowledge in the hearts of his own, he cannot be separated from them. In the time that now exists with Jesus’ departure³⁸ they will not be reduced to their own resources or forced to find their own way. Living on the way to the future is living out of faith—knowledge of the God whom Jesus had revealed to them as his Father before their very eyes.

Since the textual witnesses supporting either of the two readings of vs. 7a are nearly equal in value, we must decide between them on the basis of which version of the statement seems more likely in context. Apart from minor differences, they are: “If you had known me, you would have known my Father also” (RSV) and “If you have known me, you will know my Father also.” The subjunctive in the first denies the disciples true knowledge of Jesus, while the second assumes just such knowledge and regards it as the necessary condition for knowledge of the Father. Although the disciples—Thomas as well as Philip in vs. 8—repeatedly give evidence of their incomprehension and “not knowing” (cf. vs. 9), the second reading seems much preferable to us. That Jesus would deny to his disciples knowledge of him and of the Father (like the unbelieving Jews in 8:19) does not seem possible because of vs. 7b³⁹ and, more generally, because of the bond that united Jesus with his disciples.

8 The last statement, “and you have seen him,” again encounters resistance, voiced this time by Philip in a brief but pithy reaction in which he interrupts Jesus: “Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.” Earlier Philip, responding to a “test” question of Jesus, showed that he did not understand the scope of Jesus’ authority (6:7).⁴⁰ But it is certainly not the Evangelist’s intent to expose Philip in particular as a person lacking in faith. He wants, rather, in conveying the reaction of Philip, a disciple from the beginning (1:43ff.), and Jesus’ answer to it, to display both the ultimate basis of the church’s faith—which is the revelation—and the contemplation by Jesus’ disciples of his glory in the flesh (1:18). Later Jesus will speak of the mission of “another Paraclete” and of his own “coming” again after his departure. But first he must repeat what he has said before in much the same language: that all this can only be, and can only be understood, on the basis of the work he has already accomplished in this world (cf. vss. 10, 11).

9-11 Jesus confronts Philip with an appeal to his own dwelling among them, a reality that is now coming to an end: “Have I been with you so long, and yet you have not known⁴¹ me, Philip?” Philip has been one of Jesus’ chosen disciples from the beginning (1:43; 15:16, 27). Jesus holds him accountable for that, undoubtedly with a view to the faith of the church whose existence will be based on Philip’s witness as well. It was true for Philip in particular—and this is Jesus’ accusation—that “the one who has seen me has seen the Father.” How then can he still say, “Show us the Father”?

Jesus explicates this anew (see the comments on 10:38; cf. also 14:20; 17:21) in a reciprocal formula of immanence in which he gives expression to his unity with the Father: “Do you not believe⁴² that I am in the Father and that the Father is in me?” For “I am in the Father” he appeals to the fact that he does not speak the words he addresses to them “on my own” but solely from within his unity with the Father (cf. 12:49; 6:17; 8:28);⁴³ and for “the Father is in me” to the fact that the Father does his works in uninterrupted communion with him.⁴⁴ Of course, with “my words” and “the Father’s works” Jesus is not setting out a contrast. It is true as well of the works that he does not do them on his own (cf. 5:19), and among the works that God does in him are his words as well (cf. 4:34; 17:4). For that reason “the Father’s works” are often interpreted as including Jesus’ words and miracles.⁴⁵

Still, there is something to be said, with a view to vs. 11b (cf. 10:38; 15:22, 23), for thinking especially of miracles in “the works” in vs. 10b. It is clear that, from the perspective of Jesus’ mission, his words and works are equally revelatory of his unity with the Father, but also that from a human point of view his miracles had more revelatory value than his words.⁴⁶ Jesus therefore begins by saying that the words he spoke testified to his unity with the Father. “Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father in me” in vs. 11 means in this context that Jesus’ words should also have been enough for his disciples (vs. 8). But when he adds, “but if not, then believe me for the sake of the works themselves,” this clearly relates to the effect—visible to all—of Jesus’ unity with the Father: the miracles are here, in distinction from his words, “the works themselves.” Of course in view of the entire context this is not to say (anymore than in 10:38) that faith in Jesus and in his Father has been reduced to faith in miracles. But in speaking thus at the time of his departure and in response to Philip’s “Show us the Father,” Jesus does point to the glory of his Father that is visible and tangible in his own coming in the flesh. Under the Father’s reign, so manifested, his disciples will be granted life as his followers and witnesses in the world.⁴⁷ This simultaneously leads into vss. 12 and 13.

14:12-24

The Continuation of Jesus’ Work and Continuing Fellowship with His Own, the Assistance of the Spirit

This section is transitional in that from here on everything is focused on the time—beginning with Jesus’ departure—when the disciples will be left behind on earth, the time of the church in the interim between Jesus’ departure and his return. Three focal points are prominent here: the progress of Jesus’ work and the involvement of his disciples in it, as well as doing this work and keeping his commandments (vss. 12-15); the assistance of the Spirit as the “other Paraclete” (vss. 16-17); and Jesus’ ongoing fellowship with his own (vss. 18-24). Here again the thoughts flow into each other and their progression is not sharply demarcated. Thus vss. 12-15 anticipate vss. 18-24. Still there is a clearly discernible structure.

12 The disciples have been witnesses of Jesus’ works while he has been with them (so the preceding verses), and this is the permanent basis not only for their faith (and through them that of the coming church, 20:30, 31) but also for their involvement in the progress of his works on earth after he has gone from them. The new solemn opening (“Truly, truly, I say to you”) places a particularly heavy emphasis on the connection between faith and the disciples’ involvement in his works.⁴⁸ The statement, thus introduced, that “the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do; and even⁴⁹ greater works than these will that person do” thus gains the character of an authoritative promise to the disciples, the fulfillment of which will even surpass what they have been seeing him do.

Exegetes have always wondered what is signified by “and even greater than these.” Surely the disciples will not do greater works than the raising of Lazarus or the healing of a man blind from birth? The end of vs. 12, “because I go to the Father,” points in a different direction. “Greater” does not mean that their works will surpass those of Jesus but that the works that Jesus has done on earth are merely the beginnings and signs of the all-encompassing power and glory with which he as the heavenly Lord will be clothed and in the exercise of which the disciples will be involved in this dispensation of redemptive history. Twice earlier Jesus has spoken of “greater things” than those that he has shown to his disciples and other spectators (1:50; 5:20), and in both cases he refers to the Son of man, the apocalyptic figure clothed with all power (Dn. 7:13-14) with whom he identifies himself. In the farewell discourse Jesus does not speak (as, e.g., in 3:13; 6:62; 8:28; 12:23, 31ff.) of the Son of man. Nor does he portray the future task and position of the disciples in apocalyptic language, as in Lk. 22:29f., where, in his final dialogues with them, he appoints for them a kingdom as the Father has appointed it for him (cf. Mt. 28:18). And here (as in vss. 13-14) he puts the missionary mandate of his disciples in a grand perspective, but limits himself to that general promise—as he does elsewhere when he calls the disciples the “reapers” of what others (including himself) have “sown” (4:37f.)—the concrete and still unsuspected fulfillment of which will be manifest only later (cf. 16:12, 13).

13, 14 But the extent to which Jesus holds himself responsible and accountable for this fulfillment—at the same time and in the same act further explaining the real secret of these “greater works”—is evident from the answers to prayer he promises, a motif that recurs in the following chapters in various forms (15:16; 16:23, 24, 26; see also 15:7; 1 Jn. 3:21, 22; 5:14, 15). “Ask in my name” occurs only in John (but cf. Mt. 18:19, 20). It means something like “ask with an appeal to me.” But here Jesus is not only the one in whose name the disciples will pray but also the one to whom they will address their prayers⁵⁰ and who will himself answer them—unlike 15:16; 16:23, where the Father is the one addressed and the one who answers. Consequently, the text adds, “that the Father may be glorified in the Son.” The glorification of the Father in the Son will continue on earth even after Jesus has gone to the Father. But the works are still his, and he continues to bear responsibility for them, even though he has involved and authorized his disciples to assist therein as his apostles. Therefore, when they pray for the performance of those works with an appeal to his name, they can count on him to hear them. That is the pledge repeated with all due clarity and emphasis in vs. 14.⁵¹

Most remarkable in this pronouncement of course is the unqualified and unconditional nature of Jesus’ promise: “whatever⁵² you ask in my name,” “if you ask anything in my name.” Other similar promises of answered prayer add conditions such as doing the commandments, prayer in accordance with the will of God, or the agreement of two or more believers in what is asked (1 Jn. 3:21, 22; 5:14, 15; Mt. 18:19). It is often said that these conditions “may have been dictated by the realistic experience in the life of the community that not all requests were granted.”⁵³ It is usually concluded that the unconditional forms of the sayings are therefore “more original” and that “in the Johannine tradition the conditioned forms are not attributed to Jesus.”⁵⁴

Regardless of whether the sayings with conditions are understood as accommodations to experience, the saying here is not intended as an unconditional pledge that every believing prayer, of whatever content, will be heard. The saying must be understood in immediate connection with what precedes: it ties in with “for I go to the Father” and explains the “for” by suggesting that from his position in heaven Jesus will do whatever the disciples ask with a view to the glorification of the Father in the Son.⁵⁵ This saying must always, in fact, be understood anew in this context, with regard to both what Jesus’ disciples may ask of him, the Exalted One, and what they may expect as answers in this earthly dispensation. The main point is that, by putting so much stress here and in what follows on prayer in his name, Jesus is pledging to his disciples that he is not withdrawing from them by his departure but will be able, because of his heavenly glory, to give them everything they will need for the continuation of his work on earth, and he refers them to prayer as the way of his continuing fellowship with them.

After what was said first in vss. 9-11 and then in vss. 12-14 to encourage the perplexed disciples, vss. 15-24 further explicate the promise of Jesus’ continuing fellowship from two very important perspectives: that of the sending of “another Paraclete” (vss. 16-17) and that of Jesus’ own coming to them (vss. 18-24). The starting point of the whole passage is “keep my commandments” (vs. 15), to which there is recurrent reference in vss. 21, 23, and 24 (which is why vss. 15-24 belong together and why vs. 18 must not, as some interpreters think, be taken as the beginning of a new topic and a new pericope).

Verse 15 furnishes a further specification of what the disciples must do on the road ahead: “keep my commandments.” In this Jesus appeals to their love for him, partly because now that he is leaving them they are clearly showing it (cf. 13:36).⁵⁶ But he asks them to show that love in keeping the commandments later when he is gone. For that reason we must not think here primarily of moral precepts but of what Jesus has earlier revealed to them and taught them, that is, what vss. 23 and 25 (referring back to vs. 15) call his “word” (cf. 8:51f.; 15:20; 17:6). On the road ahead that will count above all in the keeping (not just in the sense of a precious possession but in the sense of a command to be carried out) of Jesus’ commandments. In so doing they will be revealed in the world as his disciples.

Verses 16-17 speak of how in this practice Jesus will demonstrate to them his permanent help and fellowship. To that end he first promises them that, on his request, the Father “will give you another Paraclete to be with you forever,” a promise only stated generally in this first announcement of the sending of the Paraclete; further explication of this promise will follow later. But at this point we must take a closer look at the general significance of the Paraclete as it is conveyed in these chapters of the Fourth Gospel and in the New Testament as a whole.⁵⁷

The (Other) Paraclete

Here we have the first of five most remarkable pronouncements on the Paraclete (see further 14:26; 15:26; 16:7-11, 12-15). He will be another Paraclete, that is, someone other than the one the disciples have until now possessed in the person of Jesus himself.⁵⁸ This Paraclete will take Jesus’ place after Jesus’ departure (cf. 16:7) and in his activity as Paraclete will do nothing other than what Jesus has been doing,⁵⁹ except that in doing it he will continue and advance Jesus’ work. He is further described as “the Spirit of truth” (vs. 17; 15:26; 16:13) or simply “the Holy Spirit.” It is striking that these “Spirit” designations are further descriptions of the Paraclete and not, as one might expect, the reverse. There can be no doubt that with these further characterizations the Evangelist is speaking of the Spirit of God as he is mentioned repeatedly throughout the Gospel in his absolute divine mode of existence and life-conferring power. Accordingly, as further characterizations of the other Paraclete, these names do not point to a conceptual universe in which a variety of spirits, both good and evil, act individually and make themselves felt in the world; the reference here is to nothing other than the Spirit of God as he manifests himself in the Paraclete, the Spirit of God who leads the church into the truth, the Holy Spirit who keeps the church close to God and distinguishes it from the world.

This does not of course explain the uniqueness of this name “Paraclete” for the Spirit, which is found only in the Fourth Gospel. In the history of exegesis, especially in recent years, much attention has been devoted to the name,⁶⁰ without leading to a consensus. Two main issues are at stake. First, what is the specific meaning of the word παράκλητος as a designation for the work of the Holy Spirit? Second, does this use of the word have its background in similar ideas in the Old Testament, in Jewish writings, or outside Judaism and, if so, to what degree?

As to the first of these questions, the consensus is that in John 14–16 παράκλητος does not have the meaning in Greek and Hellenistic usage of “advocate, professional legal adviser, defender, or representative before a court.”⁶¹ In 1 Jn. 2:1 Jesus himself is very clearly called “an advocate with the Father,” and this function is attributed to the Spirit elsewhere in the New Testament (cf. Ro. 8:27), though without the title παράκλητος. But in John 14–16 no such function of the Spirit as advocate of the disciples and defender before God is mentioned. Some Greek and Latin patristic writers did understand and translate the term in the juridical sense in these chapters, but also understood the Paraclete as “Comforter,” a meaning derivable from the active sense of the verb παρακαλέω,⁶² clear proof that even then exegetes were not satisfied with the translation “advocate.” But it is clear from what is said in the five statements in chs. 14–16 about the work of the Paraclete as the “Spirit of truth” who will lead the disciples into all truth, stand by them in their witness to Jesus and in their confrontation with “the world,” and show them the way to the future⁶³ that the translation “Comforter” is also inadequate.

If the special use of παράκλητος in John 14–16 cannot be ascertained on the basis of the ancient usage known to us, then we are led to the second question we have asked, which has been posed especially in more recent studies: Can we point to concepts or figures belonging to the religious environment of the New Testament that served as background for the figure of the Paraclete in John? Functions attributed in John to the Paraclete (like “guiding into truth,” “bringing to remembrance,” etc.) are widely ascribed to other God-given spirits, angels, wisdom, and the like.⁶⁴ This shows that in his descriptions of the work of the Spirit John was not speaking in a vacuum but could in all sorts of ways make terminological connections with expressions from the Old Testament and other religious literature. But it does not explain the specific use he makes of the word παράκλητος.

Others, therefore, have adopted as their starting point the concept—prevalent in the environment of the New Testament—of persons or angels or the Spirit (or even sacrifices and the like) that serve as advocates with God on behalf of the people.⁶⁵ With a view to the context of John 14–16 emphasis is given to the broader understanding of advocacy in the passages in question: the advocate with God is also God’s witness to humans (like Moses). Thus the Spirit is said not only to be the Advocate speaking to God on behalf of people but also one who speaks to people on behalf of God.⁶⁶

While all these extensive studies have cast much light on the figure of the advocate in the Old Testament and early Jewish literature, they do not solve the real problem: in John 14–16 the Spirit is not an (or the) advocate for the disciples; therefore this title cannot have been borrowed from the advocate figures of the Old Testament or other sources. Such “advocates” are, in isolated and disparate statements, credited with functions that sometimes echo, though not exactly, what is said about the Paraclete in John. But such functions are always closely linked with their advocacy functions as result or accompanying function, while in John it is precisely advocacy that is lacking in the work of the Spirit as Paraclete.⁶⁷

O. Betz locates the Johannine Paraclete concept much more specifically in Jewish writings, in what he calls the “heretical” Qumran literature.⁶⁸ Betz does start by assuming an advocacy function for the Paraclete. In the theology of the Qumran sect, he says, this function developed in a very specific and characteristic fashion, namely in the dualistic notion of the two opposing principles of the present age, “the spirit of truth” and “the spirit of deception,” Michael and Belial, the teacher of righteousness and his opponents. It is within the framework of this cosmic-dualistic judicial struggle that Betz understands the Johannine Paraclete, who as “the Spirit of truth” enters the arena against the deceptive spirit of the world as the great Advocate of the church and Accuser of the world.

However many incidental points of agreement may be demonstrable here,⁶⁹ the differences in content are far too great for us to be able to find the background for the Johannine “Spirit of truth” in Qumran’s dualistic struggle of the spirits. Decisive here is first of all the context in which the Paraclete of John 14–16 is introduced and receives his place in the history of redemption. Jesus calls him “another Paraclete,” obviously as one in addition to himself. He makes it clear that all that this Paraclete does is related to the continuation of his own work and is determined in content by his work. The Paraclete as “Spirit of truth” no more finds his background in angel or spirit figures of the Old Testament or the contemporary religious thought world than Jesus as the Son of God sent by the Father finds his background as Paraclete in those figures.⁷⁰ The Holy Spirit as Paraclete is not an alien figure in the Gospel, a being or spirit whose origin and identity must be more precisely established. He is rather specifically called “the Spirit of truth” or simply “the Holy Spirit,” and is no other than the Spirit of whom the Gospel speaks regularly (cf. 3:5f., 34; 4:23; 6:63; 7:39; 20:22).

As for the antithetical element in the work of the Spirit, the antithesis with “the world,” which plays such a large role in the Fourth Gospel as a whole, comes to clear expression in the sayings about the Paraclete. This occurs already with the first introduction of “the Spirit of truth,” which, in contrast with the disciples, “the world cannot receive.” And in 15:18–16:15, which refers to the “hatred of the world” against the disciples, the help they will receive from the Spirit is said in 16:8-11 to consist in the fact that in three ways the Spirit will put the world in the wrong. Nevertheless, in all this we are not dealing with a still undecided “dualistic power struggle,” nor is the picture in 16:8-11 that of a legal trial (before God) in which the Spirit as advocate argues the rights of the church against a spirit of deception.⁷¹ It is, rather, of the accomplished fact of Christ’s victory (16:33), whose truth and consequences the Spirit will forever make plain and thus assist the church on its way into the future. Here again it is evident that the designation “Paraclete” does not find its origin from the Spirit being an advocate in a still undecided trial but in the reality of the Spirit positively guiding the church into all truth, bringing to the church’s remembrance all the words of Jesus.

Therefore, for the specific use and meaning of the name “Paraclete” in John 14–16 we are dependent on the texts themselves and cannot base our conclusions on representations and figures in other sources. Some, perhaps most,⁷² scholars think that the title, so understood, already existed in the Christian tradition with which John was in contact. Even if this is true, it does not help us interpret and translate the term, since texts to establish this are lacking. An argument to the contrary is that this qualification of the Spirit is used exclusively in chs. 14–16 and that in 14:16, where it occurs for the first time, it has no definite article (so that it is “another Paraclete”) and so is clearly not a term for the Spirit with which the readers are assumed to be familiar. It is only in the later sayings that we read of the Paraclete, namely the one referred to in 14:16, and that the designation thus acquires the status of a title. All this supports the thesis that Jesus uses the term here ad hoc, referring thus to an understanding of the Spirit specific to this context.⁷³ The function of the Spirit as described here is clearly defined by the situation of the approaching farewell, that is, by what the disciples would especially need once Jesus had left.⁷⁴ The Spirit is therefore the one “who will be with you forever,” whom “you know because he remains with you and will be in you”; that is, he will make himself known to them in the permanent assistance and fellowship that he will give to them. And that in contrast with “the world,” which “cannot receive him” because it lacks the proper spiritual organ needed to perceive him and hence will not know him either. “Paraclete”—we may conclude—here has a specific meaning that can hardly be conveyed in one word in our language (and many others) but of which the dominant idea is of someone who offers assistance in a situation in which help is needed.⁷⁵

In that sense, too, he is the “other Paraclete” besides Jesus. This proves that Jesus does not equate himself with the Spirit.⁷⁶ Even with respect to his heavenly existence and his future, Jesus is not the Spirit, and what is said elsewhere of the Spirit is not all true of Jesus. This distinction of persons and work will be maintained every time that we read of the unique activity of the Spirit over against Jesus and of Jesus’ activity over against the Spirit (e.g., 15:26; 16:7). Highly characteristic for the Fourth Gospel, on the other hand, is how closely the work of the Spirit as Paraclete of the church in the interim is bound up with that of Jesus himself and must be understood completely in its light—proof, if further proof is needed, that the Fourth Gospel’s christology is its all-controlling motif. The paraclete is another (the other) Paraclete besides Jesus, the one whom the Father will send at Jesus’ request, in the service of true insight into what Jesus has said (cf. vs. 26). He will not speak from himself but will glorify Jesus and take all that he has to say “from me” (Jesus). Thus all his work will go back to that of Jesus (cf. 16:13ff.). Hence the striking resemblance of the work of the Spirit and Jesus’ own work.⁷⁷ Sometimes their activities even totally coincide, as in 14:23, where it is said that Jesus, with the Father, will “make our home” with the person who keeps his word, which is said in virtually identical words⁷⁸ of the Spirit as well (cf. 14:16, 17).⁷⁹

18-20 Vs. 18, with a fresh start, continues the line of thought begun in vss. 12ff. Regardless of what has been said of the sending of the Spirit, it is also true of Jesus himself as the departing one that “I will not leave you behind as orphans.” The idea of “orphans” is evoked by his farewell and refers to the relation between Jesus and his own as teacher and pupils.⁸⁰ In 13:33 Jesus, admittedly, calls his disciples “children,” but Jesus is nowhere called their father.

Then, very simply, follows the statement “I will come to you.” Over the years this “coming” has been interpreted in close connection with vs. 3, whether, as in the exegesis of the ancient Latin fathers, by applying the content of vss. 19 and 20 totally to Jesus’ parousia, or, as some moderns do, by taking everything that occurs after Jesus’ departure (resurrection, ascension, Pentecost, and second coming) as a single “coming” in which successive phases are not temporally distinguished.⁸¹ But though “I will come to you” as such is nonspecific, it is clear from what immediately follows that this “coming” and the disciples’ soon-to-be expected seeing again of Jesus⁸² can only be the self-revelation visible to the disciples of Jesus of the risen one in his appearing to them.⁸³ Also what follows, “because I live, you will live also” and “in that day you will know,” points in that direction, though obviously “you will live also” does not apply only to those who have “seen” Jesus as the risen one (20:29).

“In that day” marks the great transition to be effected by Jesus’ resurrection.⁸⁴ For the world Jesus’ going away represents the end of the time in which the light was present (12:35). “Yet a little while” is a heavily charged phrase familiar from the Old Testament (Is. 10:25; 29:17; Jr. 28:17 LXX; Ho. 1:4; Ps. 36:10 LXX) that indicates a state of being left alone and “seeking in vain” (7:33, 34). For the disciples, however, “yet a little while … and you will see me.” His coming to them will not be long delayed and will deliver them from the uncertainty in which now they are still caught up. With “because I live, you will live also” Jesus does not mean that this life will not be theirs until later or that faith in it will be based on this “seeing.” For Jesus’ entire self-revelation has already consisted in the reality that he is the Resurrection and the Life; everyone who now believes in him, even if he or she dies, will yet live (11:25; cf. 5:26, 27; 10:18). The saying “because I live, you will live also” rather means that in Jesus’ coming and their “seeing” him it will become overpoweringly clear that just as death has no power over him, so no one will be able to snatch them out of his hand, and all this because of his unity with the Father (cf. 10:28-30).

For, as vs. 20 tells us, “in that day,” that is, the day of his resurrection, “you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you.” It is that unbreakable unity of the Father and the Son that will effect the resurrection and into which from now on the disciples will be incorporated—a unity of life between him and them that will be expressed in the same “reciprocal formula of immanence” as that of the unity of the Father and the Son (cf. 17:21ff.), what Paul refers to when he speaks of dying with Christ and of being raised with him (Ro. 6:3ff.; Col. 2:12; 3:1ff.) and which will be further unfolded in what follows.

21 In a way that is typical for the Fourth Gospel, vs. 21 harks back to vs. 15 in order to place the meaning of what was said there in a broader context and a clearer light. Again Jesus speaks of having and doing⁸⁵ his commandments (in the broad sense of “my word”; cf. vss. 23f. and see the comments on vs. 15) as the indispensable (vs. 15) and unmistakable (vs. 21) evidence of his disciples’ love for him. While earlier, in vss. 16 and 17, Jesus has already pledged to them the assistance of the Spirit, he now returns to it as the great principle of the continuing fellowship he will maintain with them in his “coming” to them in and after the resurrection. Thus one can say that vs. 21 further interprets the immediately preceding words “you in me, and I in you.” But here—and here again the power of the resurrection proves itself—the love of the Father is included and given prominence: “He who loves me will be loved by my Father.” At the same time we learn the real and final goal of Jesus’ departure. Not that the Father will only be moved to that love by the return of his Son and the completion of his task (cf. 3:16). But the Father’s love only comes fully into its own and finds its dwelling place (cf. vs. 23) in those who have received Jesus as the one sent by him (3:16; cf. 16:27) and have been moved by Jesus to faith in the love of God.

But this leaves untouched what the disciples may still expect from Jesus himself, as is evident from the end of vs. 21. However much in his departure to be with the Father there is an element of “stepping back” behind the Father (cf. vs. 28; 16:26f.), still the love existing between Jesus and the disciples remains the lasting foundation of their fellowship; from their side, in keeping his commandments and doing his word; from his side, in “I will love him and manifest myself to him.”

The word translated “manifest”⁸⁶ occurs only here in John’s Gospel and can have several meanings.⁸⁷ By itself it could very well refer to Jesus’ appearances after his resurrection (Mt. 27:53, though in the rest of the New Testament it is not used for this purpose; see also Ac. 10:43 and Mk. 16:9),⁸⁸ and the choice of this striking word can certainly be explained in part in terms of the influence of contexts in which the appearances are clearly in view. Still, here it is clear from the context that the self-manifestation of Jesus mentioned in vs. 21 is not restricted to those appearances. The transition from the second to the third person in vss. 20 and 21 by itself points to a more general meaning. But it is evident especially from the further explanation Jesus gives in vs. 20 that we are here dealing with his progressive self-revelation after his departure.⁸⁹ Admittedly, as stated above, the transitions are fluid. The different stages of Jesus’ coming in ch. 14 (vss. 3, 19, 23), however undeniable, are not sharply demarcated from each other in their temporal succession. The intent of the structure of the discourse is clearly not to describe the stages of the redemptive dispensation beginning after Jesus’ death, but rather, with the reserve with which Jesus speaks before his resurrection, referring his disciples to the other Paraclete for what is to come (16:12ff.), to bring home to them one thing: Jesus will not leave them behind as orphans but will, also after his first “coming” (vs. 18), manifest himself to them again and again as the Living One (cf. vs. 23).

22-24 However, it is this “self-revelation” promised by Jesus to his disciples, in contrast to the world’s failure to see, which he has predicted, which causes Judas⁹⁰ to ask, “Why?”⁹¹ According to some scholars, the question is prompted by the thought that showing himself demonstratively to the world would serve Jesus’ cause better than merely revealing himself to the disciples, a consideration that will later be used by unbelieving critics of Jesus’ resurrection and that the Evangelist puts in Judas’s mouth here. But even without this last item of information, the question attributed to Judas is not at all hard to understand: Why must the world be excluded? Would not the world, on seeing Jesus again, be much more willing to believe in him?

Jesus’ answer (vs. 23) contains nothing other than what Jesus has already said in vs. 21. His self-revelation after his departure will only be open to those who will keep his word as the word of the one sent by the Father and thus give proof of their love for him. It is they, therefore, who are loved by God and may count on his continuing fellowship. This fellowship is described here, and this new element further qualifies Jesus’ self-revelation: “and we will come to him and make our home with him.”⁹²

The idea of God dwelling with his people is a frequent motif in the Old Testament and is used there in both cultic and eschatological senses (e.g., Ex. 25:8; Ezk. 37:26f.; Zc. 2:10 LXX⁹³). The reference here is to the new spiritual presence—prepared by Jesus—of God in the hearts of people (cf. 4:23, 24), to be understood of course in close connection with the ongoing indwelling of the Spirit (vs. 17). Again Jesus mentions “coming,” as in vs. 18 (and vs. 3), but now in the plural, the “we” of Jesus with the Father, which is repeatedly stressed (vs. 21; 16:27). Again it is expressed—and here in the image of indwelling—that only with Jesus’ departure will the real purpose of his coming and dwelling on earth (1:14) be achieved. That purpose is the restoration of human fellowship with God himself (cf. vs. 28). Jesus no longer comes alone, as the one sent by the Father, to pave the way for God’s love in the world and to create a dwelling place for that love in the hearts of his own. He comes, rather, together with the Father, “for the Father himself loves you, because you have loved me and have believed that I came from the Father” (16:27).

But still remarkable is the parallelism with the act of “preparing a place” in vss. 1, 2. There, too, the reference is to occupying “dwellings,” but there the concern is with places in heaven “in my Father’s house,” whence Jesus “comes” to take his own to himself in the dwellings prepared for them there. In this pre-Easter discourse Jesus always refers to the whole of his future fellowship with his own with the one word “come,” and the succession of different redemptive-historical phases in this coming is largely veiled. Nevertheless in this strikingly diverse use of the same image there is additional proof of the differences in this “coming” and therefore of the untenability of the view that in John the resurrection and the parousia coincide, with no mention of a clearly distinguishable interim between the two of them.⁹⁴

Finally (vs. 24), in response to Judas’s question why Jesus does not reveal himself to the world, Jesus says only, “Whoever does not love me does not keep my words.” At this point he draws no further conclusions but the intent is clear. Again the point is that keeping Jesus’ words is the criterion of loving and belonging to him.

Accordingly, when Jesus said of the world that it will “see him no more” (vs. 19), this is not because he has excluded it in advance. “No more” tells us that the world has “seen” and especially heard Jesus while he has been among them as the light and has said to them, “While you have the light, believe in the light” (12:35, 36). From all this—contracted here into “my words”—no one is excluded; but one who does not keep Jesus’ words—this is the unspoken conclusion—excludes himself or herself from seeing the Risen One and from lasting fellowship with him and the Father. All this is so because of the decisive significance of the word, of which Jesus finally (also, significantly, in answer to Judas) once more says: “and the word that you hear is not mine but that of the Father who sent me.” Therefore, “the world will see me no more” does not mean that after Jesus’ departure there is no future left other than the “darkness” against which Jesus has warned but—and this is the dominant thrust throughout the Fourth Gospel—that there is no fellowship with the heavenly Jesus for those who think they can escape the decision confronting them in the word of the earthly Jesus, the one sent by the Father.

14:25-31

A Provisional Ending

25, 26 In the Farewell Discourse “These things I have spoken to you” is a frequently recurring phrase (15:11; 16:1 [cf. vs. 4], 6, 25, 33), with which the instruction that precedes is held up before the disciples as words of farewell that are not to be forgotten, often with a purpose clause (“so that”) in which Jesus makes known the intent of the instruction. Here Jesus adds, “while I am still with you,” thus indicating that his instruction to his disciples is coming to an end, certainly one more reason for them not to forget while he is still with them what he is imparting to them as his farewell gift. But this phrase serves especially—as vs. 26 expressly indicates—to refer them again to the “other” Paraclete, who will continue Jesus’ work among them.

Here the Paraclete is called by the customary name “the Holy Spirit” (see the comments on vs. 16) and is further described as the one “whom the Father will send in my name.” Until now Jesus has always been the one referred to as sent by the Father. That mission is now coming to an end and will soon be completed. Jesus’ future “coming” to his disciples will have another character. That is not to say that the Spirit will come in the place of Jesus or that Jesus will not be involved in the Spirit’s mission (which until now has been his mission). For the Father, the great director of the mission, will send the Spirit “in my name,” which here means “at my initiative” (vs. 16: “at my request”). Elsewhere the same thing is said with “the Paraclete, whom I will send to you from⁹⁵ the Father” (15:26; cf. 16:7). Accordingly, however hard it may be for us to put all that is said in the Farewell Discourse about the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit into a well-integrated trinitarian context, the picture here is not unclear: The work that the Spirit is sent out to do as the other Paraclete remains the work of Jesus; the work is being continued by the Spirit, but Jesus, in his heavenly mode of existence and position of power, is and remains the great sponsor of that work.

The main point is the nature of the work that is here assigned to the Spirit as the one who assists the disciples: “He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.” The need for this among the disciples was acute, as is evident from the questions that they ask Jesus during this farewell, which prove their incomprehension. But the Spirit’s work will relate to their understanding of all of Jesus’ coming and work, the mode of his going to the Father, and everything in his speech and conduct that has seemed puzzling and incomprehensible. The Spirit will “teach” them “all,” as “the Spirit of truth” (vs. 17; 15:26; 16:13). Therefore, the statement about “teaching all things” is explained by “and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you,” which obviously relates not just to the disciples’ capacity to remember but also to the process of learning to understand that which lay hidden,⁹⁶ as an undiscovered treasure, in their memories and tradition concerning Jesus (see also the comments on 15:26; 16:13f.). It is clear from the terms of this Paraclete saying, as well as that of 16:13, that these sayings relate mostly to the disciples as the eyewitnesses whom Jesus has chosen and called, who have been with him from the beginning (15:27), and in whose minds the Spirit can therefore bring to remembrance Jesus’ words. It is also clear that the Evangelist thus indirectly gives an important clue to the character of his own Gospel.⁹⁷

27-29 The conclusion of the whole of ch. 14 begins with the customary shalom greeting, here expressly intended as farewell: “Peace I leave with you,” reinforced by the emphatic statement “my peace I give to you.” The possessive pronoun “my” and the words “I give” are further explained in what follows: “not as the world gives do I give to you.” The “world”—here, presumably, meaning “people in general”—extends shalom as a wish, pious or otherwise, sincerely or perhaps superficially, but always without the ability to give what is wished for the other. Jesus’ “shalom” is not a cheap wish. He is now at the point of going away on a journey in which he will have to fight for that peace against the powers of darkness and violence (vs. 30; 16:33), a peace that he will have to bring back from the depths of death (cf. 20:19, 26). But he also knows where and to whom he is going, and his “shalom” is therefore a benediction full of grace and divine power. For that reason he now repeats the word with which he began: “Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid” (vs. 1; cf. 16:33).⁹⁸

Indeed, still more than that (vs. 28): “You certainly heard me say to you, ‘I go away, and I will come to you.’ Now then, if⁹⁹ you love me and believe in my word, you must certainly rejoice that I am going to the Father.” Then follows Jesus’ final “argument,” in which he, as though his own words were not enough, steps back to appeal to the weak and vacillating faith of his disciples, an argument that should convince them of the reliability of his farewell shalom: “for the Father is greater than I.” This is the same motif that he began his words of encouragement with: “if you believe in God, then believe also in me.” But this time he says it with all the force of his being sent by the Father: not to seek his own glory but that of his Sender (cf. 5:19, 30; 7:17f.; 8:38; 14:10).

This strange form of argument,¹⁰⁰ “the Father is greater than I,” has over the years occasioned an assortment of profound dogmatic discussions of the intratrinitarian ontological relationship between the Son and the Father and of the relationship between Jesus’ divine and human “natures.”¹⁰¹ But in the process these words have all too often been abstracted from the line of thought pursued in the text, where Jesus is obviously not concerned to teach his disciples about the nature of his divine personhood or the distinction between his human and his divine nature—or to detract from the glory in which he participated as the Son of God (cf. 5:20f.). All that is at issue here is what is “more,” “greater,” or “more profitable” (cf. 16:7) for the disciples: Jesus’ remaining with them on earth or his going away to the Father? In the context everything is focused on his departure. That the Father is “more” than Jesus means only that his return to the Father is the beginning of a new dispensation of grace, one based in heaven and therefore coming down from the Father. This new dispensation will exceed the limitations of the dispensation represented by Jesus’ presence on earth (cf. vs. 12), just as the glory that Jesus will receive as the Son who returns to the Father will be greater than his earthly glory (17:5, 24), even though both issue from his oneness with the Father. Jesus is not excluded from that “greater” reality that the Father will confer on the disciples after Jesus’ departure (cf. 17:11-13). He will, in fact, have a hand in it, as is evident from everything that has been said so far, especially about his “coming” to them. Therefore, his disciples, instead of wanting to keep him with them, should extend their vision to a higher plane than what they have thus far been capable of, so that, when these things happen, they will not remain behind in despair and unbelief but be in a state of joy and expectancy.

This last point is expressed in vs. 29: “And now I have told you before it happens, so that, when it does, you may believe” (cf. 13:19; 16:4, 32f.). They are to “believe,” not simply “be prepared for” or “be warned against” the moment at which they must give him up. They are to believe in the “greater” reality with which he will return.¹⁰²

30-31 From this point on the time is short: Jesus will no longer talk “much”¹⁰³ with his disciples, because the enemy is already on his way. Again he calls this enemy “the ruler of this world” (see the comments on 12:31; 16:11). For what is taking place is not just what people are devising against him and have already brought about (cf. 18:3). It bears the eschatological stamp of the conflict between the kingdom of God and the domain of Satan, the power of darkness (cf. Lk. 22:53). This transcendent background becomes visible again and again throughout the story of Jesus’ suffering and death (cf. 6:70; 8:44; 13:2, 27).

Jesus immediately adds: “but he has no hold on me.”¹⁰⁴ Jesus does not belong to the “world” of which Satan is the ruler and on which Satan can make claims. Rather, the crisis, the judgment that is now being passed on the world, will furnish proof of what Jesus earlier called the casting out of the ruler of this world (12:31; cf. 16:33). But he also makes it known that for him what is about to take place is not an imaginary struggle, not merely a “triumphant” departure from this world, which conceals itself behind the screen of his suffering and dying.¹⁰⁵ It is, rather, “so that the world will know that I love the Father.”¹⁰⁶

This love is further explicated in the very emphatic concluding statement: “And as the Father has commanded me, so I do” (cf. 12:49, 50). Jesus is commanded to lay down his life in order to take it up again (cf. 10:17f.), in keeping with the great rule of his coming, which is that “no one has ascended into heaven but he who descended from heaven” (3:13). This means that he will not avoid the confrontation with the ruler of this world, who is coming to meet him with everything that is at his disposal in this world: betrayal, denial, violence, and injustice, but will step forward to meet him. And Jesus will do that so that the world may know that for him this is the direction and the manner in which the Father has commanded him to go. It will “know” this when in the near future it sees him walk through the streets of Jerusalem, condemned to die, and then hanging on a cross; it will “know,” if it wants to or not, if it understands it or not, that that is the way and the manner in which he will overcome the ruler of this world, and in him the world, not by might or violence, but by the power of his love for the Father and of the Father’s love.

Again it is evident that “the world” is the embodiment of the power of unbelief and opposition to God and therefore the designation of the great antithesis in which Jesus finds himself. But the world also remains the object of Jesus’ claim to faith and conversion (cf. 17:21) and is included in Jesus’ self-surrender in death (cf. 6:51). For precisely when he delivers himself up, the world must learn to know him as the Other and the Greater in whom judgment (cf. 12:31) passes over the mode of existence to which it is subject and shows it the only way in which it can be delivered from judgment.

With this the climax of Jesus’ discourse has been reached. “Rise, let us go from here” gives the signal that Jesus will fulfill the “so I do.” Although, in light of all that still follows, various attempts have been made to interpret the end of vs. 31 metaphorically, the words “from here” point clearly to a literal change of location (cf. 18:1). The problem of the continuing farewell discourse demands another explanation (see above, pp. 485ff.).

15:1-8

“I Am the True Vine”

1 Now begins, without any transitional formula or connection with the preceding but with the emphatic thematic saying “I am the true vine,” a new line of thought that, under another key word (“love”), is continued in vss. 9-17. This is clearly a first addition introduced into the text later than ch. 14.¹⁰⁷ In a way that is characteristic for the Fourth Gospel it offers a further explication of themes that have been introduced earlier. Vss. 1-8 contain a graphic elaboration of the spiritual fellowship Jesus has promised in ch. 14, a fellowship that he will maintain with his disciples after his departure (cf. 14:23). In vss. 9-17, similarly in close connection with 14:15, 21f., this fellowship is further explicated and developed in terms of remaining in one another’s love.

At the outset the idea of fellowship between Jesus and his own is centrally expressed, in a highly characteristic way, in the image of the vine. As in ch. 10, so here one can speak of a “similitude” (10:6) with allegorical features (15:2, 6), which is therefore difficult to define precisely according to genre.¹⁰⁸ Of more importance for the meaning is that in this opening statement “I am the true vine” we have an “I am” saying in which “the true” emphasizes distinction from or even the contrast with persons or things that have received the same predicate¹⁰⁹—like “the true bread” in distinction from the bread in the wilderness and “the good shepherd” in contrast to robbers and hirelings (6:32ff.; 10:11; cf. 2:10). In all these sayings, the designation is to be understood in a redemptive-historical sense, that is, in the light of the Old Testament and Jewish writings in which Israel is referred to as the vine planted by God (e.g., Ps. 80:9-12, 15f.; Ho. 11:1; Ezekiel 15; 19:10f., Jr. 2:21 [LXX ἄμπελον … ἀληθινήν]).¹¹⁰

But the imagery also occurs in more varied form, in particular in the familiar song of the vineyard in Isaiah 5.¹¹¹ In the context of our text there is no clear indication that the opening statement in vs. 1 and its elaboration are linked with a specific Old Testament passage.¹¹² The main thing, however, is that Jesus, by calling himself the true vine and, in immediate association therewith, his Father the planter and keeper of the vineyard,¹¹³ applies to himself this redemptive-historical description of the people of God. He thus becomes the one who represents or embodies the people. As in ch. 10 he is called the true Shepherd of God’s flock (in contrast to the false shepherds, in accordance with Ezekiel 34), so here he is the vine, God’s “planting” of the people who belong to him in the world. This implies that the disciples’ belonging to Jesus as the “branches” of the vine (vs. 5) denotes not only a personal relationship but also their incorporation into the great community of the people God has appropriated for himself out of the world (cf. 17:6).¹¹⁴ In distinction from ch. 10, the contrast between the “true” and the “false” or the “true” and the “useless” vine is not further specified (as in Ezk. 15:1-8; 19:10; see also ch. 17); by speaking of “the true vine” this verse refers to the vine’s positive purpose-fulfilling and fruit-bearing character (cf. Jr. 2:21).

2-3 Accordingly, as the primary qualification of the “true” vine Jesus, we are immediately told, “Every branch in me that bears no fruit he cuts away. And every branch that does bear fruit he prunes¹¹⁵ so that it may bear more fruit.” Often, as with the parable of the good shepherd,¹¹⁶ the intent of these words is sidetracked because “cutting away” and “cleaning” are given an allegorical meaning that is not in the text. For example “cutting away” is associated with excommunication,¹¹⁷ and “cleaning” is associated with church discipline¹¹⁸ or with the purifying effect of a trial of faith or the like. But “cutting away” is further explained in vs. 6, and there is a clear indication in vs. 3 of the meaning of “cleaning”: “You are already clean by the word that I have spoken to you.”

Accordingly, the special care that the Father bestows on the vine as planter and vinedresser and his making it the “true” vine does not consist of an assortment of secondary actions that support the mission of his Son, but in this mission itself, in the dividing and purifying power of Jesus’ word of authority, which is the word of God himself (and is therefore introduced into the metaphor as God’s own action). What makes Jesus the true vine is that, as the one sent by God, he gathers a community, a fellowship of life, in which his word exerts a redeeming, life-creating, continually purifying, and dividing effect (cf. 14:23f.). For that reason he can say to his disciples, “You are already clean,” which does not mean they have already attained a degree of spiritual or moral perfection, but that he has so deeply bound them to himself by his word that in virtue of that fellowship they are able and ready to do his word and to bear fruit (cf. vss. 7f.; see also the comments on 13:10).¹¹⁹

4-5 Therefore everything depends on remaining in him, in order, on the basis of that new purity in him, to bear much fruit. For “As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it remains in the vine, neither can you unless you remain in me.” The same thought returns in vs. 5 in the form of a promise, with another characteristic “I am” saying,¹²⁰ and with an additional admonition: “apart from me you can do nothing.”

This motif of “remaining” is characteristic of the Fourth Gospel and recurs in all sorts of expressions,¹²¹ but here it occurs more often (seven times) and with greater emphasis than elsewhere. This is explained by the farewell situation, in which Jesus is urging his disciples to remain faithful to him after his departure. The necessity and nature of this “remaining” are advanced here, more clearly than anywhere else, with the image of the vine as the only possibility of continuing to bear fruit. Therefore, “remaining in him” is not a state of rest, an adherence to what the disciples have already received in Jesus solely to conserve it (cf. Mt. 25:24f.), but an adherence to him as the vital source of help and strength, in order to bear much fruit.

Hence the imperative: “Remain in me!” But joined to this imperative in the frequently repeated “reciprocal formula of immanence” is “and I in you,” a phrase to be understood from just as much an active “remaining” by the propulsive effect of his word and Spirit. “For apart from me you can do nothing,” that is, nothing that corresponds to the new life that he bestows and the new commandment that he gives. For without this reciprocal remaining in him and him in them they will fall back on themselves, either in total unfruitfulness or lapsing into the wild growth that is no longer shaped by his word, into activism or idealism that is neither derived from nor directed to him.

6 The uselessness and hopelessness of this prospect is once more (cf. vs. 2) brought out with great clarity and seriousness: “Whoever does not remain in me is cast out as a branch and withers.”¹²² Again it is evident that “remaining in him” does not consist in a self-sufficient and settled state. There is a sort of fellowship with Jesus, a temporary faith and fruitbearing (6:66ff.; 8:31ff.; cf. Mt. 13:19 [and vs. 21!]), that is comparable to withered or unpruned wild branches and, in its outcome, to what happens to such branches. Here the image and the thing signified run together: the one who “does not remain in me” is “cast out,” a metaphorical reference to judgment that is used elsewhere apart from the imagery of the vine and the branches (cf. 6:37). But what comes next, “as a branch and withers; and people¹²³ gather the branches and throw them into the fire, and they are burned,” is not an allegorical reference to the way in which judgment is realized in the lives of humans (see again on vs. 2). It refers, rather—within the framework of the vine imagery—to what is useless for the purpose for which the vinedresser planted his vine, the purpose, that is, for which the Father sent his Son into the world, and the judgment implied therein (cf. 3:16ff.; Mt. 3:10; Ezk. 15:1-8).

Verse 7 continues the thought in a positive direction. “And my words remain in you” stands in place of and explains the “I in you” of vss. 4 and 5, referring to the permanent impact of Jesus’ words on his own.¹²⁴ If they remain in him and he in them, then the promise in 14:13 applies to them: their prayers will be heard. For prayer is one of the most important forms of “remaining in him.” Here again their prayers and the answers to those prayers will be related especially to “the works” that they will do as Jesus’ disciples and that will thereby be qualified as “the fruit of the vine.”

Verse 8 forms a kind of conclusion, one that returns to the beginning and summarizes the purpose of all that has preceded. The glorification of the Father, which consists in their “bearing much fruit” and thus shows that they are “my disciples” (cf. 17:10).¹²⁵ At the same time these words, which conclude the “similitude,” bring the passage as a whole back into the atmosphere of farewell. For with this assignment and promise Jesus sends them into the future.

15:9-17

“Remain in My Love”

Verses 9-17 are linked closely with vss. 1-8 and need to be understood completely within that context. The vine is not mentioned again apart from an allusion in vs. 16, but with the aid of the vine imagery vss. 1-8 have described a framework that is filled in in vss. 9-17.

This is immediately clear in vs. 9, where the theme “remain in me” from vss. 1-8 becomes “remain in my love.” The fellowship described in vss. 1-8 is thus further defined as a fellowship of love, specifically as a fellowship of the love that is represented by Jesus, which the disciples must “remain” as branches that find the source of their vitality in the vine. Moreover, just as vs. 1 refers to the one who planted the vine, so here the opening statement is “As¹²⁶ the Father has loved me, so have I loved you.” The love in which the disciples must remain does not begin with Jesus but has its source and energy in the love with which the Father has loved his Son by “giving” him for the salvation of the world (3:16).

10 What applies to the origin of the love described here applies also to what it means to “remain in my love”: “If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love.” This saying virtually repeats 14:15, 21, but here it is further conditioned by, and finds its deepest grounding in, the obedience of the Son himself to the Father in the fulfillment of his mission in the world.

11 But before discussing this reality, Jesus recapitulates what he has just said, beginning with the customary “These things I have spoken to you” (see the comments on 14:25). The recapitulation is simultaneously a climax: “that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.” To remain in Jesus’ love is at the same time to share in his joy, a joy Jesus finds in being loved and sent by the Father and in carrying out the Father’s commandments. What Jesus elsewhere calls his food and drink, namely “to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work” (4:34), he here calls the joy that fills his life. It is the prospect of that joy that Jesus also offers his disciples now that he is sending them into the world. What now fills them with sadness will later prove to be the way that leads them to the highest fulfillment of their lives (cf. 14:28; 16:22) and to the honor that the Father bestows on those who seek to follow Jesus as servants (cf. 12:26). The expression “that your joy may be full” is a typically Johannine description of the highest implication of Jesus’ self-revelation to his own (cf. 3:29; 16:24; 17:13; 1 Jn. 1:4).¹²⁷ Here all the stress lies on the disciples’ being absorbed into the joy of their Lord in fulfilling God’s work on earth, if they remain in his love.

12-14 Following this high point vs. 12 returns to vs. 10 as the beginning of a further explication of “my commandments.” For the first time in this passage the content of Jesus’ commandment is described as the disciples’ love for each other. Again, however—and here the main idea of the pericope is continued—Jesus adds, “as I have loved you.” To make this clear Jesus refers to the greatest sacrifice friends can make for each other, the sacrifice of their lives. In the formulation given here, “No one has greater love than this: that someone lay down¹²⁸ his life for his friends,” no consideration is given to the position that it would even be a greater love to lay down one’s life for his enemies (cf. Mt. 5:44; Ro. 5:6f.). But throughout this passage the reference is to mutual relations among the disciples (cf. vss. 12, 17). It is also clear that Jesus is speaking here from the concrete situation of farewell, in which he interprets his departure to go to the Father, the voluntary laying down of his life, as the demonstration and example of his love for the disciples as his friends.

Therefore, with “You are my friends if you do what I command you,” that is, when you love each other (vs. 14), Jesus does not mean that he makes his friendship with them dependent on their obedience to his commandments. He means, rather, that in their love for each other they will be recognizable as those whom he has made his friends by taking them up into his love. Some interpreters believe that vs. 13 gives expression to the lengths to which the disciples’ love for each other should go if they love just as Jesus has loved them: they, too, should be prepared to die for each other. Appeal is made to 1 Jn. 3:16, where this link is expressly made.¹²⁹ That verse speaks of the extremity of love required of Christians for each other. But the point here and in the “as” in vs. 12 is the uniqueness of Jesus’ part in the community of love that unites him and Christians: he unites himself to them as a friend among friends, and he makes for them the greatest sacrifice that friends can make for each other.¹³⁰

Accordingly, vs. 15 (with vs. 16) further pursues the theme of the uniqueness of Jesus’ kindness to his friends as their Lord: “No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing.” A servant’s duty is simply to obey without asking questions. All that matters is the command. “But I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you.” Not that their subordinate position as pupils in relation to their teacher and servants in relation to their master was abolished by this (cf. 13:13, 16); rather, their servant status solely under the commandment has now made way for their initiation into the purposes of their Lord—into the secret of his own coming and mission in the world, which Jesus refers to as “all that I have heard from my Father” (cf. 5:19, 20, 30; 3:11, 32; 8:26, 40). This is the Father’s means of redeeming the world. By the sacrifice of his Son he will gather a new people in the world, a fellowship of love, men and women living in the freedom of the children of God and brought under the regime of the Son of his love (cf. 1:13; 8:31, 32, 35; Ro. 8:34-36).

16, 17 For that reason the relation in which the disciples stand to Jesus is not based on their initiative: “You have not chosen me” as leader to give shape to your moral and social ideals, but “I have chosen you.” This saying speaks of Christ’s sovereign freedom to choose whom and what he will—and of the privilege of being called out of the world (vs. 19) to be Jesus’ disciples and friends. The purpose Jesus has for those so chosen is that they are “appointed”¹³¹ to “go and bear fruit,” a statement that recalls the nature of their communion with him as branches of the vine. Similarly, the words that follow, “and that your fruit should remain,” continue the thought of “remaining” in Jesus (vss. 1-8), in his love (vss. 9ff.). With that, Jesus again attaches to this reality the certainty that their prayers will be heard by the Father in everything they may ask in Jesus’ name (cf. 14:30f.).¹³² For in the fulfillment of their task as Jesus’ disciples the way to the Father lies open for them so that with an appeal to Jesus’ name they may ask of the Father everything he has commanded them.

Interpreters differ on whether “go and bear fruit” refers particularly to the missionary mandate.¹³³ “Go” could, at first sight, point in that direction, as in, for example, Lk. 10:3. But it is questionable whether this word by itself can prove that this intent is present. It may rather serve, as elsewhere, to place greater stress on the second verb (“bear fruit”), with which it forms a unit.¹³⁴ In this passage fruitbearing represents the disciples’ love for one another, and this argues against a specifically missionary intent here, so that few have followed that interpretation. This is not to deny, however, that the proclamation of the gospel in the world constitutes part of the fruitbearing of the disciples, nor that the mutual love of the disciples has a “missionary” meaning (cf. 13:35).

Verse 17 concludes the passage by again referring to the disciples’ mutual love (thus forming an inclusio) as the great content of Jesus’ commandment (cf. vs. 12), now for the first time without “as I have loved you.” “One another” thereby gets all the emphasis, obviously not in an exclusive sense but in order—within the context of and as a summary of all that precedes in vss. 1-16—to point to love as the great principle in the building and maintaining of communion and as the criterion of God’s community in the world, the “vine” he has planted.

In sum, just as 1 Corinthians 13 has been called the New Testament’s “ode to love,” so also Jn. 15:1-17 is the magna carta of the Christian love commandment. In 1 Corinthians 13 Paul describes love as the greatest of the triad of faith, hope, and love in the rich plurality of its manifestations. So here John, by placing the “similitude” of the true vine first, indicates the great redemption-historical connections within which Jesus taught his disciples to understand the “new commandment” that he gave them. For the love that Jesus asked of his own is no other than that love (“just as”) with which the Father had loved him, the love that moved the Father to send his Son into the world and to unite in him, the true vine, his people in the world, a new community. For the disciples this love consists in remaining in the love of the Son who, by giving his life for them, his friends, provided the new foundation and the new criterion for their love for one another. By the fruits of this love of the disciples for each other, the Father glorifies himself in this new community, the vine he has planted.

It is by this grand conception of being taken up by faith in Jesus into the love of the Father and the Son that the church can understand itself in its uniqueness in and for the world. It is also therein that the church receives the essential criterion for its belonging to the community of the true vine.

15:18–16:15

The Hostility of the World and the Witness of the Paraclete

The transition from the end of 15:17 to this new pericope is rather abrupt. Throughout vss. 1-17 the focus is on the close fellowship that unites Jesus with the disciples as his friends. But now the overriding emphasis is on the hostility that will be directed against the disciples after Jesus’ departure. However, in this very contrast lies the connection between the two sections, as is specifically clear from the reference in vs. 19 back to Jesus’ election of the disciples, which was mentioned in vs. 16. It is the privilege of being chosen by Jesus out of the world that is the world’s reason for hating them (vss. 18-21). The motif of hostility remains central in what follows, first in its inexcusable character (vss. 21-25), then, as a warning to the disciples, in its quality as a lethal threat (in 16:1ff.). This section is also marked by the repeated and explained promise of the Holy Spirit, first in 15:26-27, where the reference is to the witnessing function of the Spirit together with that of the disciples; then in 16:7-11, where the character of this witness as directed against the world stands outs. 16:12-15 concludes this section with Jesus’ statement that he must now restrict himself to what he has just said, but that the Paraclete, as the Spirit of truth and the guide for the future, will continue Jesus’ work on earth and provide his disciples with everything that they will need for that future.

18-19 The opening words, “If the world hates you,” present this hatred to the disciples not only as a possibility but as a reality that they cannot avoid because they belong to Jesus: “Know that it has hated me before it hated you.”¹³⁵ Although this hostility is presented here (especially in vs. 19) as an essential characteristic of the world, this is no proof that this Johannine understanding is rooted in a Gnostic dualism proceeding from an original opposition between God and the world.¹³⁶ Passages such as 3:16; 4:40; 6:51; 1 Jn. 4:14 could certainly not be harmonized with such a background.

The coming of Jesus, especially the authority with which he conducted himself in the world as the Son of God, encounters radical and, as it were, monolithic opposition (cf. 3:19ff.; 7:7; 10:33, etc.), the real cause and culpable character of which is further pointed out in vss. 21ff. That hatred will also be directed at the disciples. If they were “of the world” (vs. 19), that is, if they let their conduct be conditioned by their belonging to the world,¹³⁷ the world would not hate them (7:7), but would love them, regard them as its own, and deal with them as such. The disciples, however, as persons who have been called out of the world by Jesus and made his possession and friends (cf. vss. 14-16), do not belong to the world. For that reason the world hates them as killjoys—as followers of the one who constantly finds fault with the world and consigns it to God’s judgment because of its estrangement from God.

20, 21 Again Jesus reminds his disciples of the rule he impressed on them at the meal: “A servant is not greater than his master” (cf. 13:16). In speaking of a “servant” (i.e., a slave), he is not contradicting what he said in vs. 15. Because he has taken them into his confidence as his servants and involved them so closely in his mission, it is all the more true that as his servants they are “not greater” than he, that is, not above what he, in carrying out his mission, must endure. Jesus then proceeds to speak of “persecution.” The world’s hatred will not limit itself to spiritual resistance but will also threaten their safety and their lives (cf. 16:1ff.), as was also true for him. What follows is striking: “If they kept my word, they will keep yours also,” words that in this context, where the subject is the world’s hatred, do not seem to fit (cf. also vs. 21). For this reason some interpreters take the “if” as “to the degree that,” which, they say, has a purely negative meaning.¹³⁸ But perhaps the intent of the parallelism in vs. 20b is to interpret “A disciple is not greater than his master” in the general sense that the disciples must share the bad with their master no less than the good, which, for Jesus’ disciples would, in fact, mean something predominantly negative.

Verse 21 again refers to the close tie between Jesus and the disciples as the real cause of the world’s hatred. With “on my account” (= “because of me”; cf. Mk. 13:13; Mt. 10:22) Jesus links everything that will happen to them to himself. He puts it down on his own account, as it were. The disciples are not responsible for it.

Before he enters on a discussion of this in 16:1, Jesus once more discloses the deepest cause and the real character of the world’s hatred. He does this in the same words with which he has repeatedly told “the Jews” the real reason for their unbelief and hostility toward him: they thereby gave proof that they did not “know him who sent me,” and that in the deep existential sense of the word “know”: they were estranged from, and did not let themselves be appropriated by, the God of whom Jesus spoke and for whom he, as the one sent by the Father, sought to win them by his words and works.¹³⁹

22-25 The deep seriousness of this is now expressed with stringent reasoning and brought to its ultimate conclusion. “If I had not come and spoken to them, they would have no sin; but now they have no excuse (πρóφασις).” Here Jesus speaks of sin in absolute terms. He does not mean, naturally, that if he had not come there would have been no sin in the world. But he measures the excusable character of sin—yes or no—by the world’s response to his coming and his word. If Jesus had not come and had not spoken of God as he has, then God would not yet have spoken his final word of love to the world and the world would not yet have given God its final answer. But now that the world has not “known” the Father in the mission of his Son, no reservations or excuses remain with respect to sin. Sin—even previously committed sin—stands in its full significance as sin (cf. 9:41).

On that basis the awesome saying of vs. 23 can now follow: “Whoever hates me hates my Father also.” “Hate” shares in the absoluteness of Jesus’ words about sin and bears not a moral or affective sense but the most objective sense it can. To hate is to turn away from the way that God has opened for salvation. This hatred is the human “no” to the divine “yes” expressed in the mission of his Son. And this all the more because the power and authority that God has given the Son to speak and act in his name was so unmistakable that it should have convinced the world. For—here vs. 24 again picks up the argument of vs. 22 but now in a heightened sense—“if I had not done among them the works that no one else did, they would not have sin. But now they have both seen and hated both me and my Father.” The two “both … and” constructions have a cumulative effect of bringing to expression in a single loaded sentence both the mystery and guilt of “seeing” the works and nevertheless “hating me and my Father.”¹⁴⁰ Here, too (see the comments on 14:10f.), Jesus first speaks of his words (vs. 22), then in vs. 24 of his works (i.e., his miracles) as the most undeniable proofs of his divine mission (see also the comments on 10:37f.). The works are proofs not only because he has in them given evidence of his supernatural ability but above all because he has demonstrated in them the saving Word of God that has become incarnate in him.

To all this—in an elliptical construction¹⁴¹—vs. 25 adds that however mysterious and culpable the world’s hatred may be, it occurs in fulfillment of a word “written in their law: ‘They hated me without a cause.’ ” The appeal to what is “written” occurs frequently in rabbinic literature and is no less characteristic for the Fourth Gospel than for the other Gospels (cf. 6:31, 45; 10:34; 12:14, 16), further proof of the extent to which its entire presentation of Jesus’ self-revelation has its roots in the Old Testament to the same degree. Therefore the reference here to “their” law is clearly intended not to distance the reader from the law as belonging exclusively to “Judaism” but to place the Jews’ hatred in the perspective of a law that they themselves regarded as holy and inviolable (cf. 5:39).¹⁴²

Here again “law” is to be understood in the broad sense of “Scripture,” as in 10:34. The quotation is from the Psalms, but it is not certain which. The reference may be to Ps. 35:19 or to Ps. 69:4 (and Ps. 109:3 and Ps. 119:161 also speak of “attacking” or “persecuting without cause”). Perhaps “the word” here is not a specific text but the recurrent Old Testament motif of the innocent but persecuted righteous. Some interpreters, not without reason, think especially of Ps. 69:4, since elsewhere in the New Testament Psalm 69 is applied to Jesus (2:17; 19:28 [?]; Mt. 27:34; Ro. 15:35).

It is specifically this element of hate “without cause” that Jesus applies to himself and by which the psalmist asserts his innocence before God and people and laments the unfounded, irrational,¹⁴³ and mysterious character of the hatred he must endure at the hands of his enemies. This is proof again (cf. 12:27; 13:18) of how deeply Jesus in his suffering understood himself to be one with the true people of God as it comes to expression in Israel’s holy tradition. At the same time it is he against whom this hatred without cause comes to its fulfillment, that is, where it becomes manifest in its final (“eschatological”) seriousness as the attitude of not wanting to “know” the Messiah of Israel, the one sent by the Father. It becomes manifest as well in its impotence (cf. 12:31; 14:30), but in this connection especially in its essentially inexplicable and mysterious character (cf. 1;10, 11).

26, 27 Over against this refusal to acknowledge him Jesus now posits as the great counterweight that will vindicate him against the world, the coming and work of the Paraclete, the Spirit of truth (cf. 14:17).

In distinction from 14:16, 26, where the Father is the one who sends the Paraclete, here Jesus is the sender (as in 16:7), with the addition, however, of “from the Father,”¹⁴⁴ and “who proceeds from the Father.” The terminology varies and is unsystematized. In 14:26 we read that the Father will send the Spirit, but with the addition of “in my name.” Admittedly, the “procession” of the Spirit is only described as occurring “from the Father,” just as Jesus “proceeded from the Father” (8:42; 16:27, etc.). The Father—we may say—is primary in these relations, the source and origin of all life and salvation. All that the glorified Son is empowered to do and does occurs in fellowship with the Father (cf. 17:21, 23), but the Father puts everything at the disposal of the Son, including the sending of the Spirit (cf. Ac. 2:33).

When, after all the negative things he has said, Jesus now promises the coming of the Paraclete as the one who will bear witness to him, this is naturally intended to reassure the disciples that in the enormous opposition they encounter in the world they will not stand alone. The Paraclete’s witness to Jesus is the assistance that the Spirit will give the disciples in the great controversy between the church and the world with regard to the truth concerning Jesus, that is, the trustworthiness of his self-revelation in word and deed as the one sent by the Father. The earthly Jesus not only bore witness to himself but could also appeal to the testimony of others, namely John the Baptist and, above all, the Father, who bore witness to Jesus in Jesus’ works, as also to the witness of the Scriptures (see 5:31f., 36f., 39). In the same way, in his heavenly life, Jesus will have the Spirit as his permanent witness on earth, a witness who will forever keep Jesus’ name and cause alive in their imperishable significance in Jesus’ community of disciples and through them in the world.

Jesus will speak at length about the content of the Paraclete’s witness. For now the Evangelist is content to state the promise—and immediately adds (vs. 27), “but you also are witnesses.” The Spirit not only enables them to stand against the world’s resistance but above all stands by them as they continue Jesus’ work on earth (cf. 14:12f.). Hence the addition “because you have been with me from the beginning,” words that clearly refer to the original apostolic eyewitness of the disciples as the foundation of the coming church (cf. 1:14; 20:30, 31; 21:24). “The beginning,” as frequently in the New Testament, is the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry, when he attached his disciples to himself so that, as is clear here, they might be witnesses of his works and words (cf. Mk. 1:1; Lk. 1:2). It is so that they can bear that witness that the Spirit will inspire and enable them (cf. 14:26). The Spirit will not “speak of himself” but will “take of mine” and so lead the disciples in, and keep them faithful to, Jesus’ own words and works (see the comments on 16:13-15).¹⁴⁵

Some interpreters think that “because you are [present tense] with me from the beginning” also refers to the disciples’ ongoing fellowship with the exalted Christ, on which their witness concerning Jesus is therefore also grounded (“because”). From this they conclude that the witness concerning Jesus (and hence that of the Fourth Gospel) repeatedly referred to here is not just (or not at all) to the earthly Jesus but also to the exalted Christ.¹⁴⁶

But “you are with me” clearly refers to the disciples’ association with the earthly Jesus that has continued from the beginning to the present moment of Jesus’ farewell, an association that is expressly distinguished from the time to come (14:25; 16:2, 12f.).¹⁴⁷ It is therefore not to be understood as referring proleptically to their association with the glorified Christ. Furthermore, although the disciples’ witness concerning Jesus will be dependent on the Spirit, who will enable them to understand the coming and significance of the earthly Jesus, this does not mean that the object of their witness—and hence the very concept of “witness” itself—will shift from the earthly Jesus to the heavenly Jesus, in connection with which the former will only enable them to speak correctly of the latter. The disciples are—in keeping with the meaning of the word “witness”—witnesses of that which they have seen and heard from the beginning. Of that the Holy Spirit will bring the true meaning “to their remembrance,” namely the glory of Jesus as he was and not as he became by his going away.

This is why the subject matter of the Fourth Gospel is not witness concerning the presence of the glorified Christ in the church but witness concerning the antecedent incarnation of the Word as the foundation of the faith of the coming church (20:30, 31). This is not, of course, to detract one iota from the ontological identity of the earthly and heavenly Jesus, but it is in keeping with the nature of the gospel as historical kerygma.¹⁴⁸

16:1-4a With “I have said this to you,” words that are characteristic for these chapters, Jesus returns both to his warning against the world’s hatred and to the immediately preceding promise of the Spirit. Both the warning and the promise are intended to keep the disciples from “falling,” that is, from letting themselves be drawn away from faith¹⁴⁹ in Jesus.

From the verses that follow it becomes especially clear that when the Fourth Gospel mentions “the world” and its hate it is referring to Jews that do not believe in Christ. In their unbelief they manifest themselves as the world that is alienated from God (cf. 8:21, 23). For “they” (continuing the “they” in 15:21ff.) “will put you out of the synagogues” (vs. 2),¹⁵⁰ which, as in 9:22, refers not to an official synagogue disciplinary measure but to a decision to regard and treat a person as no longer belonging to the Jewish community.¹⁵¹ This manifestation of the world’s hatred had apparently already occurred and in fact was no longer unusual (cf. 9:22; 12:42). With “indeed,¹⁵² the hour is coming” Jesus tells his disciples that the hatred will escalate: “whoever kills you will think he is offering service to God.” This probably refers to actions on the part of Jews who are no longer content to eject believers in Jesus from the synagogue but who persecute Christians and threaten their lives from religious motives, either on their own (Ac. 7:58; 14:19; 2 Co. 11:24f.) or through Jewish or Gentile rulers (Ac. 9:14; 12:1f.; 14:5f.; 18:12, etc.).

Verse 3 repeats what has been said in 15:21,¹⁵³ but this time with the addition (vs. 4a) that when that time comes the disciples will remember Jesus’ words, that he has foretold all this to prepare them for it (cf. 13:19; 14:29).

4b-6 Again Jesus tells his disciples that they must not think of his departure as only a source of sadness and loss and not of advantage. He “did not say these things” to them “from the beginning,” not to conceal these matters but “because I was with you”: in his presence they were safe and secure (cf. 11:9). “But now,” he continues, “I am going to him who sent me,” and everything will therefore be different from what it has been. With “yet none of you asks me, ‘Where are you going?’ ” he is, if not making an accusation, at least expressing astonishment that they apparently lack interest in that question. He himself says why they have not asked: “Because I have said these things to you, sorrow has filled your hearts.” Their minds are still so fixed on “these things,” his departure and their remaining behind, that they cannot think of anything else, such as the salvific purpose of his departure. That is what they should focus their thoughts on, which he will again forcefully point out to them (vs. 7).

It has repeatedly been asked how vs. 5b can agree with 13:36 and 14:5, where the question where Jesus was going has already been raised. For some interpreters this is just one more proof that the order of the chapters was disturbed (see pp. 484f. above).¹⁵⁴ Others say, correctly in our opinion, that 16:5 only expresses in a different way what was intended in 13:36 and 14:5, namely that the disciples did not understand where Jesus was going.¹⁵⁵ Literally, “Where are you going?” has been asked before,¹⁵⁶ but only as an expression of incomprehension of what was going to happen to Jesus (and to the disciples). Apparently the disciples, even after Jesus has told them of the salvific character of his departure, have not reached the point where they want further information from him about his departure from that perspective (cf. 16:17f.). “In asking, they did not lift up their minds to trust as they should above all have done, and this was the chief duty that they were bound to perform. And so the meaning is, ‘As soon as you hear of my departure, you become alarmed and do not consider whither or for what purpose I go away’ ” (Calvin).¹⁵⁷

7 In the face of this negative reaction to his departure Jesus now states with great emphasis: “But I tell you the truth”—what follows has the status of a revelatory saying—“it is to your advantage that I go away.” For why it is to their advantage he cites the promise of the Paraclete in 15:26 and affirms that they will only experience the blessing of that promise after he has gone to the Father and has sent the Spirit to them. Earlier Jesus has pointed out to his disciples the “advantage” of his departure—an announcement that should have made them joyful—on that occasion with the motivation: “for the Father is greater than I” (14:28; cf. 14:12).

These passages make it clear how Jesus’ coming into and departure from the world (cf. 13:1, 3) can only be understood in the broader redemptive-historical context of God’s work of salvation. Jesus’ coming as the incarnation of the Word is the fulfilling culmination of this work of salvation. But as such it is temporary (cf. 9:4; 11:9f.; 12:35). He descends in order to ascend back to where he was (3:13). But this return does not mean the end of his work on earth but rather a new beginning that will by the sending of the Spirit bring Jesus’ work to full manifestation. It is not enough to say that the disciples will fully understand the true identity of Jesus only through the internal presence of the Spirit.¹⁵⁸ For Jesus’ earthly interaction with his disciples has already been based on the internal bond between him and them (cf. 13:10; 15:3, 9ff.). Accordingly, when in 7:39, with a view to the expected coming of the Spirit, Jesus says: “He who believes in me, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water,” this undoubtedly refers to the outpouring of the Spirit into the hearts of believers, which will lead them to a better understanding, but it also has to do with the continuation of Jesus’ work on earth and the new power that the Spirit will inject into it. The disciples, with the assistance of the Spirit, will play an important role in this (15:26, 27). Therefore, when Jesus says that his departure is to their advantage because thereby he will prepare the way for the Spirit’s coming, it is not of course their personal interest he has in view. Their existence in the security of Jesus’ presence will come to an end. But only by the coming of the Spirit will they become that for which Jesus has called and loved them. By the Spirit they will become Jesus’ apostles in the full sense of the word (20:22f.); the Spirit will teach them not to remain fixed on what they have experienced during their time with Jesus (cf. Lk. 22:35ff.), will lead them into the future, and will incorporate them into the “greater works” that still lie ahead (14:12f.), though still under Jesus’ ongoing control and protection (14:13, 14; 15:16).

Verses 8-15 further explicate that ongoing work of the Spirit for the disciples’ benefit. In keeping with the dominant theme of this entire pericope the assistance of the Spirit relates first of all to the world’s spiritual opposition (vss. 8-11). The difficulty of these verses is evident from the divergence here among commentaries and monographs on this passage.¹⁵⁹

8-11 Verse 8 begins with a summary of what is explicated in vss. 9-11: “And he [the Paraclete], by his coming, will prove the world guilty¹⁶⁰ with respect to¹⁶¹ sin, righteousness, and judgment.” Others translate ἐλέγξει as “convince” rather than as “prove guilty.”¹⁶² “Sin,” “righteousness,” and “judgment” are what the world will be convinced of by the Paraclete. But unlike 8:46, this translation does not fit here, because the world being (subjectively) convinced would clash with 14:17.¹⁶³ The reference here is rather to the world being objectively proved wrong in its inexcusable unbelief. “Sin,” “righteousness,” and “judgment” are perspectives in terms of which the world’s wrong and guilt will be proven. How, then, should we understand this activity of the Spirit against the world? According to some interpreters, this refers to a cosmic trial taking place before God. The Paraclete, as advocate of the believing community, represents the cause of Jesus against the world and thus helps the church achieve victory. For similar conceptions of the final judgment scholars refer to contemporary Jewish apocalyptic literature in which especially the figure of Enoch, as accuser of the ungodly, is said to resemble the Johannine Paraclete.¹⁶⁴

It is clear that the Fourth Gospel’s antithesis between Jesus and hostile Jews, described as “the world,” and the conflict with the “ruler of this world,” which lies behind it, is repeatedly described in forensic terms and portrayed as a trial (e.g., 5:31ff., 36f.; 8:13f., 17f.) in which God will one day pronounce judgment (5:45; cf. 3:18f.; 5:24; 12:31, 48). These forensic features return in our immediate context with the description of the disciples and the Paraclete as witnesses (cf. 15:26; 16:11). But it is another question whether in vss. 8-11 all this has the form of a legal trial in which the Paraclete plays the role of advocate and does so on the analogy of a figure like Enoch in Jewish apocalyptic. Even apart from the fact that Enoch’s role in the final judgment has a totally different meaning from that of the Paraclete, here the Paraclete does not act before God as prosecutor or public defender in a trial that is still undecided, but as one who brings the truth to light with respect to a settled issue (cf. vs. 11). The idea, as has already been stated in general terms in 15:26,¹⁶⁵ is rather that in his witness vis-à-vis the world the Spirit acts as (helper-)Paraclete to the disciples in their ongoing witness concerning Jesus by portraying to them the true nature of the world, of Jesus’ departure, and of his victory over the world.¹⁶⁶

Verses 9-11 go on by explicating¹⁶⁷ how the Spirit proves the world guilty: “with respect to sin, that they do not believe in me” (vs. 9), “with respect to righteousness, that I go to the Father and you will see me no more” (vs. 10), and “with respect to judgment, that the ruler of this world is judged” (vs. 11). For the first the Evangelist refers back to 15:21ff. (cf. 9:41). What makes the world culpable is its conflict with Jesus. Its real sin is that “they do not believe in me.” As in 3:18, they have not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God, despite the full authority of his self-revelation. The Fourth Gospel consistently stresses the religious character of sin. It is not blind to sin as moral corruption (cf. 3:19, 20) or to the enslaving character of sin (cf. 8:34ff.). But it reaches behind these characteristics of sin by stressing that the world’s deepest misery and lostness does not consist in its moral imperfection but in its estrangement from God and its refusal to allow itself to be called out of that condition by the one whom God has sent for that purpose (9:41).

The witness of the Spirit, thus described, is not—any more than that of the Son himself—aimed at the condemnation and destruction of the world in the judgment of God (cf. 3:17). But vs. 9 does heavily underscore where, in this “contest” with the world, the Spirit draws the line of demarcation and on what his witness—and that of the believing community that is shaped by his assistance—is concentrated: on faith in Jesus, in whom God has spoken his decisive word in the world, both to save and to judge (3:36).

Over against “sin” stands “righteousness” (vs. 10).¹⁶⁸ Neither term has an article or a genitive modifier. In their essential nature, sin and righteousness are absolute opposites.¹⁶⁹ But both are defined in the controversy over Jesus. For just as sin is explicated as unbelief that is anti-Jesus, so righteousness is explicated as Jesus’ going to the Father, an event in which, against those who reject him as the one sent by the Father, he is unmistakably vindicated, proven righteous. Elsewhere also Jesus’ vindication as the Son of God is attributed to the Spirit, but then by the Spirit’s part in Jesus’ resurrection and ascension to glory (1 Tm. 3:16; cf. Ro. 1:4; 8:11).¹⁷⁰ The kinship among these passages in undeniable because here as well the vindication implicit in Jesus’ departure is in his resurrection and glorification. Here, however, the vindication of Jesus is a dominant element in the ongoing witness of the Spirit and thereby a basis for the witness of the believing community against the world, which sees Jesus’ death as his ultimate powerlessness and hence as a stumbling block in the way of faith in him (cf. 1 Co. 1:18, 23f.).

The meaning of vs. 10b, “and you will see me no more,” is hard to establish. That the disciples will not see Jesus again is, of course, inherent in his departure. Perhaps these words intend nothing more than to mark his departure as his passage to another world, to his glorified mode of existence. Some interpreters want to go further and think that this clause involves the disciples in Jesus’ vindication by his departure. But despite all attempts to the contrary it is extremely difficult to assign a meaning that is advantageous to the disciples to this negative statement—unless it refers to the advantage of not seeing over the seeing that has until now conditioned their association with him (cf. vs. 7). But if that is the meaning, it has been conveyed in an extremely subtle manner.¹⁷¹

The third point with respect to which the Spirit will prove the wrong and culpability of the world is “judgment,” which is further explicated with the statement that “the ruler of this world is judged” (vs. 11). These words clearly refer back to 12:31ff. (cf. 14:30). What Jesus announced there will return, in the witness of the Spirit, as an accomplished event: God’s condemnation, on the cross, once and for all, of “the ruler of this world,” the power of sin and unbelief that has held the world in thrall. Here this is stated as the counterpart of what has just been said about “righteousness,” that is, about the vindication of Jesus by God in the highest exercise of his authority, as the regime of love and self-surrender. For it is in one and the same event that both “judgment” and “righteousness” are realized in their once for all eschatological significance.

One can hardly fail to notice the antithetical sharpness with which this witness of the Spirit against and to the world is described. Frequently this is explained in terms of the historical situation in which these words were spoken, or in terms of the threatened position in which the Johannine community is said to have found itself. But it is of no less importance that this antithesis concerns the nature of the choice with which Jesus’ mission, specifically his death and resurrection, always confronts the world, and which therefore always shapes the witness of the Spirit and the witness—dependent thereon—of the believing community in the world.

Still, even here this antithesis is not just directed against the world. Here, too,¹⁷² the positive significance of the proclamation of judgment in the Word of God that continues to go out to the world remains in force. As long as that Word goes out, judgment is not God’s final and definitive word. Therefore, in announcing the witness against the world, Jesus is not taking his leave from the world in order from now on to go on only with his disciples. What determines the nature of this antithesis is Jesus’ absolute and unremitting claim on the world, the claim with which he was sent into the world by the Father and which he, even as he returns to the Father, asserts over the world with undiminished vigor by the sending of his Spirit, not to condemn the world but to save it.

All this, in keeping with the character of the Fourth Gospel, is not laid out in a meticulously balanced system of teachings. That will be immediately apparent from the following verses. What is true, above all else here—and in this respect the “world” also undoubtedly reflects the historical situation—is Jesus’ promise that the Spirit of truth will triumph over the power of the world, even when that power surrounds the disciples in all its dark menace, as in this moment of farewell, as Jesus is about to go away and leave them behind in the world.

12-15 By thus speaking of the Spirit Jesus clarifies the Spirit’s “help” to his disciples at a point where that help is essential for them. At the same time he also tells them that there is still much he must tell them about the future, but they “cannot bear that now.” The “now” is the same as that of 13:7, the “now” that Jesus mentioned to Peter along with a “later.” Like “not understand” in 13:7, the disciples’ inability to “bear” referred to here¹⁷³ undoubtedly refers to the opaque character of the events that are taking shape as Jesus speaks. Despite his words of consolation and his promise to “come back” so that they can see him again, Jesus cannot unpack for them the full meaning of these events; that would be too much for them (cf. vss. 31, 32). Only the overpowering surprise of seeing him again after his resurrection will explain the riddle—partly in the light of the Scriptures (cf. 20:9) and above all through the assistance of the Spirit.

It is on the coming of the Spirit of truth¹⁷⁴ that Jesus now again focuses all their attention (vss. 13f.). “He will guide you into all the truth,” like “walk in the truth,” occurs repeatedly in the Psalms (e.g., Pss. 25:5; 86:11) in reference to the true knowledge of God that believers desire of him so as to be able to “walk” in its light. In that truth the Spirit will from now on guide the disciples, and fully (“all truth”). But the Spirit will not speak “of himself”¹⁷⁵ but of “whatever he will hear,”¹⁷⁶ just as Jesus has not spoken “of himself,” but of what he heard and saw of the Father (see the comments on 15:19f.;¹⁷⁷ 3:32; 8:26, 28, 40; 14:10; 15:15). The issue here is the continuity of the Spirit’s word in relation to that of Jesus as revelation that goes back to the Father. Accordingly, “the Spirit’s word is not something new, to be contrasted with what Jesus said … the Spirit only states the latter afresh. The Spirit will not bring new illumination, or disclose new mysteries; on the contrary, in the proclamation effected by him, the word that Jesus spoke continues to be efficacious.”¹⁷⁸ Therefore, “and declare to you the things that are to come” should be understood not in a specifically apocalyptic sense but in more general terms: the Spirit will lead the believing community on its way into the future “into all truth” as it will need it then.

Verses 14 and 15 again reinforce the preceding promise with other words. The stress on the work of the Spirit in glorifying Jesus is explicated with “he will take what is mine and declare it to you.” The Spirit will totally adhere to what Jesus calls “what is mine,” that is, the word Jesus has spoken and the work he has done on the Father’s command and in fellowship with him (cf. vs. 15). This does not mean that the Spirit merely repeats Jesus’ words. He takes “what is mine,” bringing forth the treasure entrusted to Jesus, in order to redistribute it in his own way, “bringing it to remembrance” (cf. 14:26), and thus is the permanent mediator between Jesus and those who belong to Jesus. All this is twice summed up in the general word “declare,”¹⁷⁹ which elsewhere as well has a referential sense, indicating a reannouncement of what has been communicated before.¹⁸⁰

Vs. 15, in conclusion, picks up the expression “what is mine” from vs. 14 as referring to “all that the Father has” (cf. 17:10) and of which the Father has given to Jesus full disposal as the Son (cf. 3:35). Because the Father has given it to Jesus, the Spirit will take from “what is mine.” He will declare nothing other than God’s own Word as God has revealed it in the coming and work of Jesus Christ.

I have already noted at some length that these sayings, along with those in 14:26 and 15:26, are of special importance for the evaluation of the unique character of the Fourth Gospel.¹⁸¹ It is the Spirit who thus witnesses along with the disciples and makes their witness into a vehicle of his own (cf. 14:26, 27). The Spirit does this because they were with Jesus “from the beginning.” Accordingly, however much the working of the Spirit as described in chs. 14–16 involves the entire church to come and is not restricted to the disciples whom Jesus addresses in his words of farewell, one cannot simply characterize this discourse as a general address to the coming community (cf. 17:20). The reference here is above all to the apostolic witness effected by the Spirit, which forms the foundation of the coming church’s faith (20:30, 31). It is the disciples whom Jesus himself has chosen, who, despite their grief over his imminent departure, are called, as the first ones to be called in this way, to give that foundational witness. As such they are distinguished in the Fourth Gospel from the coming church (see also the comments on 14:26).

16:16-33

“You Will See Me Again,” “Sorrow Will Become Joy”

This section forms the conclusion of the farewell discourse. In content it is closely linked with ch. 14. The great middle part of the discourse (15:1–16:15) distances itself somewhat from the concrete situation of the story by relating primarily to the future existence of the believing community as God’s (new) planting, its life in a world that is hostile to it, and the assistance of the Paraclete that comes to its aid in that hostile world. But 16:16ff. take us back totally into the atmosphere of the imminent separation and the things that will face and threaten the disciples immediately afterward. It is remarkable for this close connection with ch. 14 that the disciples’ interventions, which were characteristic for the first section and lacking in 15:1–16:15, now return.

Nonetheless duplications suggesting two distinct farewell discourses are not present here. The motif of the “little while” in 14:19, though it recurs here, does so from a new perspective (see the comments on vs. 16). Furthermore, the incomprehension of the disciples, which came to expression in 14:5 and 8, returns, but in heightened form (vss. 17-18). After the lengthy answer Jesus gives in vss. 19-28, there is a shift in the disciples’ mood such that Jesus must now warn them against the danger of underestimating what still awaits them (vss. 29-33). Hence in both respects one can speak here of a supplementation of ch. 14; as a result the situation of farewell and the readiness of the disciples to comply with the words “rise, let us go from here” come to stand in a clearer light. Therefore, the idea that in all this there is evidence of the work of different authors is hard to render plausible. One matter remains: the composition of the entire discourse fails to meet the criteria modern authors would want to apply to a farewell discourse. But it is hard to see why the responsibility for this should be attributed to one or more later “redactors” (who would then have given themselves that degree of license) and not to the original author himself.

One might say that vs. 16 refers back to 14:19 (cf. 13:33). Both texts speak of “a little while” and refer to “not seeing again” and “seeing.” However, whereas in ch. 14 the disciples’ imminent seeing again is taken up into the discussion of the ongoing fellowship of love between Jesus and the disciples (cf. also 13:33, 34), here the entire focus is again on his imminent departure as the great stumbling block for the disciples’ being at peace. But here again with the “little while” the Evangelist refers to Jesus’ imminent death and resurrection (and assumes that his readers so understand). Nevertheless, it is entirely in keeping with the historical situation (“pre-Easter”) that Jesus here again uses the much less specific word “see” without indicating how or where they will see him.

17, 18 The disciples’ striking and elaborate repetition of Jesus’ words,¹⁸² first in the private reaction of some of them (vs. 17; cf. 4:27; 6:52) and then in vs. 18, further underscores the incomprehension spoken of in these words. The “little while” within which from now on everything will take place and that they will not see him again and then see him again are totally unclear to them. Also the whole idea of his departure to the Father, despite all he has said about it earlier in response to their questions (cf. 14:2, 3, 5f.; 16:5), remains opaque to them.¹⁸³ Hence (vs. 18) the question that lay unanswered on everyone’s tongue¹⁸⁴ but that no one—out of respect or fear of revealing their irresoluteness again—dared put to Jesus directly: “What does he mean by ‘a little while’? We do not know what he means.”

19-22 Again, because he knows his disciples (cf. 6:61; see also the comments on 1:47ff.; 2:24f.), Jesus knows what they are talking about among themselves. In his response, in which he repeats his saying of vs. 16,¹⁸⁵ there is an element of amazement that they are still in doubt¹⁸⁶ about the meaning of his words, which they should understand by now. With great prophetic emphasis he now portrays to them the answer as a reality that they must no longer deny or evade: “Truly, truly, I say to you, you will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice.” That speaks of the (short) time in which, by (and by the manner of) his departure, everything that they have believed of him and hoped for will seem lost and in which the world will think that it has succeeded in its schemes against him and is rid of him for good. Jesus portrays this to his disciples in unvarnished words, undoubtedly “so that when their hour comes you may remember that I told you about them” (16:4; cf. 13:19). The secret of his suffering and death is no less strange to his disciples than that of his resurrection and ascension (cf. 13:37f.; 16:31). Therefore he tells them again, “You will be sorrowful,” but this time adding, with no less emphasis, “your sorrow will turn into joy” (20b).

Jesus then proceeds directly (vs. 21) to the ever-new image of the woman giving birth, who experiences pain “because her hour has come,” and then joy, which makes her forget the pain, because “a child has been born into the world.” The image is used often, with an assortment of applications, in biblical and Jewish writings (cf. Is. 26:17f.; 66:7f.; Mi. 4:9f., etc.), and there is no reason to think that its use here refers back to a single specific text.¹⁸⁷ The tertium comparationis lies not only in the conversion of sorrow into joy but also in the fact that without this sorrow no joy is possible and that the joy is “brought forth,” as it were, by the sorrow.¹⁸⁸ That is also how it will be for the disciples: “So you have sorrow now,” as inevitably as a woman in labor. “But I will see you again” as the Living One (cf. 14:19), the one who will disclose himself to them and change their sorrow into joy, a joy that “no one will take from you.” For in his return “out of” his going away, in his life “out of” death, lies the certainty that nothing and no one will ever be able to separate them from his love.

23, 24 As in 14:20, after the promise that they will see him again, Jesus gives a further explication of the salvation that attends the promise, introducing it with “on that day,” words to be repeated in vs. 26. He does not thereby shift the perspective to the parousia, since what he describes in vss. 23-24 clearly precedes what comes with the parousia.¹⁸⁹ Nor does “on that day” fix all that follows on the day when they see him again. It rather designates the day of the general resurrection as the beginning of a new dispensation characterized above all by the fact that “you will no longer ask anything of me.” Jesus thus undoubtedly refers to questions like those the disciples have been asking (cf. 14:5; 16:18, 19).¹⁹⁰ The great joy of seeing him again will put an end to the torment of uncertainty. In place of uncertainty Jesus again emphatically holds out to them the prospect of the Father granting them all that they will ask of him in Jesus’ name (cf. 15:7, 16). Apparently, the intent of this passage is that seeing Jesus again as the one glorified by God will not only silence the questions that still assault them but will also open for them the way to the Father, enabling them from this point on to pray to their Father in Jesus’ name in the certainty of being heard.

The comment in vs. 24, “Hitherto you have asked nothing in my name,” thus marks the change of dispensations: though Jesus has from the beginning pointed out to them the way to the Father and has himself been that way, up until now he has been with them on earth, the place from which their prayers have gone up. He has not yet been in heaven, the place from which the prayers are answered. Accordingly, “praying in my name,” in the sense of making an appeal to Jesus’ power and authority as the one glorified by the Father in heaven, marks the difference between “hitherto” and “from now on.”¹⁹¹ On the basis of the approaching transition Jesus urges and promises his disciples: “Pray and you will receive,” again with the addition found in 15:11 (cf. 17:13): “so that your joy may be complete,” that is, so that they may have the joy of seeing him again, which no one will be able to take away from them (cf. vs. 22).

25 Once more the Evangelist employs the concluding formula, “I have said this to you” (cf. 14:25; 15:11; 16:1), but this time with the remarkable addition “in veiled language” (ἐν παροιμίαις), which is then repeated in the following clause with its opposite, “openly, in plain words” (παρρησίᾳ), both referring to Jesus’ words “concerning the Father.” παροιμία has a range of meanings including “parable,” “riddle,” and “cryptic saying.”¹⁹² The key question here is what Jesus refers to with “this” or “these things.” He does not refer thus to the image in vs. 21, which clarifies and does not conceal. More likely he refers to the words in vs. 18 that tripped the disciples up (“We do not know what he is saying”). But evidently he has a broader meaning. In vs. 25b he refers more generally to his speaking “about the Father” and points the disciples to the future, when he will no longer speak “in veiled language” but will “tell you about the Father in plain words.”¹⁹³

Jesus has in mind here what he has called (in vs. 12) the “many things” that he cannot tell them now (because they “cannot bear them” now) but that the Spirit of truth will teach them. Here, by contrast with the future clarity, Jesus’ earthly message and self-revelation, which the Evangelist has been describing, are characterized as provisional. For, although in his witness to Jesus’ coming and work on earth the Evangelist is conscious of being allowed to share in the Paraclete’s witness (see the comments on 13:26; 14:26), his whole presentation of Jesus’ self-revelation is no less characterized by this use of images and allusions, the full meaning of which must remain hidden to Jesus’ hearers, both the disciples and “the Jews.” Indeed, it must often have sounded puzzling to their ears.

Admittedly, some interpreters think that the reason for this incomprehension was not Jesus’ manner of speaking but unbelief (in the case of “the Jews”) or failure to achieve believing insight (in the case of the disciples). According to this view Jesus’ saying in vs. 25a should be understood in a subjective sense: “I have spoken in language that was mysterious to you.”¹⁹⁴ But we must make some careful distinctions here. The entire Gospel aims to bring out the undeniable grandeur and majesty of Jesus’ self-revelation as the glory of the incarnate Word and to expose the inexcusable character of unbelief in the face of this revelation (cf. the concluding sayings in 12:37-42; 15:22-24). This applies primarily of course to Jews who are hostile to Jesus. When they finally say, “How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Christ, tell us plainly (παρρησίᾳ),” Jesus answers with “I told you and you do not believe” and as a final ground appeals to his works (10:24, 25, 37, 38). But in some situations he also faults the disciples, who amid all opposition have been faithful to him, for their lack of faith: “Have I been with you so long, and yet you do not know me” (14:8; cf. vs. 16; see also 20:27)? Therefore in 16:25 Jesus does not want in any way to detract from the fundamental clarity of his earlier self-revelation or to explain or excuse the inadequate reaction of his disciples.¹⁹⁵

But this does not alter the fact of the veiled character of Jesus’ words and actions—that in their deepest meaning they are often neither understood nor understandable (cf. 13:7). And this is true not only of what the Evangelist explicitly says would be understood only after Jesus’ resurrection or at the parousia of the Son of man (cf. 2:22; 6:61, 62; 7:39; 8:28; 12:16, 32, 33; 13:7); this element in Jesus’ pre-Easter words and deeds, this reference to a later horizon of understanding, characterizes the whole of his preaching, as can be demonstrated from several core sayings and high points in Jesus’ self-revelation (e.g., 1:51; 3:13f.; 4:13f., 21f.; 5:21f., 25f.; 6:33f., 48, 51; 7:33f., 37f.; 8:21f., 56f.; 9:4f., 35f.; 10:6, 17f.; 11:9f.; 12:23f., 35f.; 13:31f.). It is also evident from the reactions of those who hear but do not understand, which cannot be charged solely to their unbelief (e.g., 4:11f.; 6:30f., 41f., 52, 60; 7:35f., 41; 8:52; 10:24; 12:34; 14:5f., 8, 22).¹⁹⁶ It is nowhere more clear than in this veiled language that the Evangelist, though he stands in the full light of fulfillment, is nevertheless, as a transmitter of Jesus’ words and works, fully conscious of the pre-Easter redemption-historical situation in which they were spoken and done.¹⁹⁷

It is against this background that the “plain proclamation¹⁹⁸ concerning the Father” Jesus holds in prospect is to be understood. The reference here cannot only be to the few words the Evangelist records of the resurrected Jesus in chs. 20 and 21 but must also include the character of the preaching of salvation that begins in that “hour” (cf. 16:14, 15). What gives this preaching its “open” character and removes the veil from the preceding παροιμίαι is the great event of Jesus’ death and resurrection, an event that to the disciples is still veiled during the farewell discourse. Until now Jesus has been able to speak of the necessity and deep mystery of this event only in veiled language and “parables” (cf. 2:20; 3:13, 14; 6:51f.; 12:24f.). Only the realization of that event, or complex of events, as it was now about to occur in his going to the Father, would enable them to “see” and understand all his preaching concerning the Father and himself as the only way, truth, and life.

26, 27 Jesus now guides the disciples’ thinking in that direction by adding to the preceding announcement: “On that day you will pray to the Father in my name; but I do not say to you that I will [still] pray to the Father for you,” that is, that he will speak to the Father on their behalf that their prayers might be answered. Here Jesus gives expression to the real and ultimate goal of his entire mission and the task he was to fulfill on earth, which was to restore people to fellowship with God. For that reason his preaching was fundamentally a proclamation of the Father and he had to walk to the end the way of love in a world estranged from God and hostile to himself. But also for that reason there would be a time when, because that task had been completed, his intercession would no longer be needed. It has been rightly said¹⁹⁹ that this does not contradict the idea of the heavenly intercession of the Son (Ro. 8:34; Hb. 7:25) because that intercession is not concerned with the ongoing answering of prayer but with the Christian’s status before God, which is grounded on the priestly work of Christ. For his own Jesus is the way to the Father and will remain that in their prayers “in his name,” and his return to the Father means that in him they have one who prepares a place for them in heaven and acts there as their advocate (cf. 14:2; 12:26; 17:24). But his departure also implies that “the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth, for such the Father himself seeks to worship him” (4:23, 24; cf. 6:45). Here this is expressed in the words of vs. 27: “for the Father himself loves you, because you have loved me and have believed that I came from the Father.” Love for Jesus restores direct access to God. In that love the Father recognizes his own (cf. 14:21, 23; 1:13; 17:9f.). It is the one great love by which God loved the world in his Son and which returns to him in those who, in the name of his Son, turn to him as their Father (cf. 17:20-23).²⁰⁰

The concluding chiasm in vs. 28 is magnificent in both its harmonious simplicity and the consciousness of power and authority that it conveys. Jesus once more portrays to his disciples the way he must go in order, as the one sent by the Father, to fulfill his task. As a summary of his entire self-revelation this saying is reminiscent of the fundamental saying in 3:13 regarding the descent and ascent of the Son of man in their mutual determination and inseparable unity. “I came from the Father” echoes the conclusion of vs. 27. The disciples have learned to believe in Jesus as the one from the Father.²⁰¹ “I have come into the world” does not just say the same thing in different words but explicates “coming from” as “going into the world,” here undoubtedly intended in the pregnant sense of “descending” with all its consequences. But Jesus did not come into the world to remain there indefinitely and to go down into its history but “to leave the world and to go to the Father” as the continuation of his coming from the Father, which has been his aim from the beginning.²⁰² In contrast with 3:13, here the emphasis is on this latter part. It is Jesus’ departure that disturbed the disciples.

29, 30 The disciples’ response here is strikingly different from their earlier reactions to Jesus’ words. It is as if all at once they feel the need to place themselves unconditionally behind him and seek to remove the impression that he can no longer count on them. Against his saying in vs. 25, “the hour is coming,” they twice set the word “now,” as if they are already in the situation in which they need not ask him any questions (vs. 23).²⁰³ For this they base themselves on his words and say, “Now you are speaking plainly, no longer in any way in obscure language.” What has impressed them is the continuing authority and power with which Jesus speaks to them of the Father: “Now we know that you know all things, and need no one to question you.” By this they mean not only that he has again demonstrated that he knows their questions before they ask them (vs. 19) but also that he has all the answers to their questions and therefore needs no one to put these questions to him. “For this reason,”²⁰⁴ they conclude, despite all their earlier questions, they do not doubt (“we believe”) that he has come from God.

This witness of the disciples is striking for the great loyalty that comes through in it, evidence that they are clinging in faith to Jesus as the one sent by the Father. But the manner in which they reject the idea that only the future will give the answers they need as Jesus’ disciples is clearly reminiscent of 13:36ff., where Peter opposes Jesus’ restrained way of speaking of the future. This is evident from the answer Jesus now gives them, though it is less sharp than his earlier response to Peter’s overbearing self-confidence.

31-33 Jesus places a provocative question mark over the disciples’ “by this we believe”: “Do you now believe?”²⁰⁵ It is the same question he put to Peter in 13:38 and in the same way echoes the words of the previous speaker.²⁰⁶ Not that he thereby questions their sincerity, but he does let them know that the time (“now”) to speak so confidently has not yet arrived. An “hour” other than the one they think they can anticipate must come first and is indeed already presenting itself, the hour in which the world’s hostility will so powerfully press down on them that they will abandon him and seek their refuge elsewhere: “The hour is coming, indeed it has come, when you will be scattered, every man to his home, and will leave me alone.” Most commentators correctly refer to Mt. 26:31; Mk. 14:27, where Jesus, similarly at the Last Supper, announces the flight of the disciples (“You will all fall away”), which is interpreted as fulfillment of Zc. 13:7 (“I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered”). Here, too, there is mention of “being scattered,” undoubtedly also as an image of sheep without a shepherd. But the Evangelist proves his independence from the Synoptic tradition, for the background of the saying is not only in Zechariah 13 but also in 1 Kg. 22:17, which mentions not only scattering of sheep but also “everyone returning to his home in peace.” There the idea is that when in the battle the captain (the “shepherd”) has been put out of action the enemy will stop fighting against the scattered army. They can then all return to their home in peace.²⁰⁷ In our text we have the same idea: in the hour that is now dawning Jesus will have to bear the full burden of the world’s hostility to him alone, while the disciples go free, each to his home, and abandon Jesus. The disciples will not be the ones abandoned (like sheep); Jesus will be abandoned (as the shepherd). “And will leave me alone” need not therefore imply an accusation of disloyalty or cowardice (cf. 18:10) but states rather that there will be a time when the disciples cannot follow Jesus (cf. 13:36) and Jesus must walk the road alone, and can do so as the good Shepherd who gives his life for his sheep so that not one of them is lost (cf. 18:9; 10:11, 15, 28). For that reason we then read: “but I am not alone, for the Father is with me” (cf. 8:16, 29). He goes his way as one sent by the Father, to whom the Father’s love goes out precisely because he lays down his life in order to take it up again (10:17) and who therefore knows himself to be “with the Father” when all others abandon him.

Jesus thus does not unreservedly accept the disciples’ confession of faith. Instead, he confronts them with the reality that is now coming toward them. But he does so not to take from them the confidence of faith that possesses them but to make them understand that their faith will be severely tested. That is undoubtedly the import of his final statement in vs. 33. Again—and with it this entire last great “addition” in 16:15-33 returns to the conclusion of ch. 14—Jesus speaks to them of peace,²⁰⁸ “peace in me,” now identified as the content and import of all his preceding words. Here, too, as in 14:27, he sets that “peace” over against “the world,” but here the world in its permanent hostility against the disciples. However great that threat may be—and it will undoubtedly come to them!—they must not be afraid: “Be of good cheer, I have overcome the world” (see the comments on 12:31; 14:30; 16:11). With this final exhortation and assertion of his power Jesus concludes his farewell discourse, as a word that they should always and again call to mind (cf. 13:19; 14:26), not only in the “hour” that is now coming and has come, but throughout their entire permanently embattled existence as the believing community in the world.

17:1-26

The Farewell Prayer

Jesus’ farewell discourse shades off into and is concluded²⁰⁹ by a farewell prayer. For centuries this prayer has also been called the “high priestly prayer.”²¹⁰ This name is appropriate when we view this prayer as an intercession for the coming church (cf. vss. 9, 20), and the sacrifice to which Jesus refers (vss. 17, 19) can serve as an argument for this description. But this characterization cannot be derived from the text, neither here, while Jesus is still on earth when he makes his intercession, nor from the farewell discourse, which mentions his future intercession in heaven (16:26). In substance this prayer is very closely linked with the farewell discourse,²¹¹ which is why we choose the designation “farewell prayer.”

As with the farewell discourse, so for this final prayer scholars have referred to similar farewell prayers by well-known figures in the Old Testament and in Jewish writings. The degree to which one can speak here of a specific literary genre that might have served as a model for Jesus’ farewell prayer seems doubtful. One can, it is true, point to common elements in Jesus’ prayer and in other similar “testamentary” farewell prayers, specifically the review of the past, the associated element of giving an account, and the intercession for the future of those who remain behind, which dominates this prayer structurally.²¹² These similarities to other farewell prayers are important, but they tend in large part to flow naturally from the farewell situation as such.

Expositors agree that the unique character of the person and work of Christ as attested throughout the farewell discourse determines the content, form, and diction of the farewell prayer. As in all the preceding discourses of Jesus,²¹³ so in this prayer we have not a document taken verbatim from the lips of Jesus but a composition of the Evangelist, who, conscious of sharing in Jesus’ mandate and authorization to the apostles to be his witnesses, shaped Jesus’ farewell within the framework and in the language in which he presents Jesus’ earthly self-revelation as a whole (cf. 1:1-18).²¹⁴ One must therefore not look for the historical in the specific phraseology of this prayer, as though the Spirit “brought to” the apostles’ “remembrance” and thus by inspiration conveyed the very words of Jesus. The prayer is, rather, a portrayal of the sovereign way in which Jesus, as the one sent by the Father, returns to his Sender, asking to be discharged from the work that he has completed, but also praying for its continuation by the Father himself. Thus the Evangelist not only interprets his own faith, or that of the believing community, but also functions as a witness to and transmitter of Jesus’ self-revelation, which was to form the foundation for that faith (20:30, 31; 21:24).

The prayer begins with Jesus’ petition for his glorification by the Father on the basis of his completed work (vss. 1-5) and goes on, in close connection with this, to intercession for the maintenance and consummation of this work in Jesus’ disciples and the coming community (vss. 6-26). Expositors have attempted to further divide the prayer in a variety of ways and on the basis of a number of methods and criteria. Some proceed from the structure of representatives of the farewell prayer genre, others from the rhythmic cadence that the prayer is said to show or from the recurrent transitional formula “and now” and the use of certain transitional keywords.²¹⁵ The majority, however, attempt to lay bare the structural outline on the basis of the content of the prayer.²¹⁶ But neither form nor content has thus far led to a consensus. We must ask, therefore, whether the Evangelist actually went to work as schematically as commentators have supposed. In our opinion the structure is not severe enough and the transitions are too fluid for us to speak of a detailed and sharply delineated thought scheme.

This is not to deny, however, that, on the basis of the opening petition (vss. 1-5), which dominates the whole, the intercession for the disciples in vss. 6-26 shows a clearly progressive movement of thought that can be summed up in a few main points: Jesus’ intercession for his own as those given to him by the Father concerns in succession their preservation and sanctification in the world (vss. 11-19) and their unity as those shaped by these realities (vss. 20-23). The prayer as a whole is concluded by Jesus’ petition that his own may share in the eternal glory that has been given to the Son by the Father (vss. 24-26).

17:1-5

Jesus’ Petition for His Glorification on the Basis of His Completed Work

1, 2 In close connection with his words of farewell to his disciples Jesus now turns his eyes to heaven with this petition: “Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you.” In this form of address and the subsequent words the unique character of this prayer immediately stands out. It cannot be compared with any other prayer uttered in a situation of farewell. It is certainly a prayer, being addressed from start to finish to God. But it can also be called a farewell prayer, since Jesus utters it in the hearing of his disciples and lays before God the completion of his work on earth, so that from this time on God himself will assume responsibility for that work. But it is also clear that Jesus remains the crucially involved partner in that work. Without his presence in heaven the continuation of his work by the Father is inconceivable. This is evident not only in the last part of this prayer (cf. vss. 21ff., 24ff.) but also at the beginning: when he says “glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you,” he is not praying for a new relationship to the Father or for a glory that will from now on be mutually realized between him and the Father (“intertrinitarianly”) away from the earth and in heaven. The reference is, rather, to no other glory than the glory he already possesses on earth, the glory pronounced over him by the voice from heaven (12:28), the glory in which he as the incarnate Word has become manifest and been seen (1:14; 2:11, etc.) and in which he as the Son has consistently glorified the Father (cf. 11:4, 40; 9:3).

Verse 2 speaks of this explicitly: Jesus, by way of motivation,²¹⁷ immediately adds, “since you have given him power over all flesh” (cf. 3:35; 13:3). We have repeatedly referred to the parallel pronouncements in 13:31, 32, which in identical terms mention the reciprocal glorification of the Father and the Son of man.²¹⁸ It is in the function and power²¹⁹ of the figure of the eschatological Son of man that the Son of God came down from heaven, in order thus (cf. 3:13), from heaven, to exercise that power in an unrestricted sense (cf. 7:39), an exercise to which he was predestined by the Father and for which he now prays. This glorification is then further described with the Semitic term (cf., e.g., Jr. 32:27) “over all flesh,” that is, over all (human) life, created by God, in its impermanence, mentioned here presumably because of the end for which the Father has clothed Jesus with that power, namely to grant eternal life to humans, who do not possess this life in themselves (cf. 3:16; 5:26f., etc.)—specifically “to all whom [or that] the Father has given him” (cf. 6:39, 44), a further qualification of the power and mandate given to Jesus by the Father that recurs in what follows and receives special attention in vss. 6-10 (see below).

3, 4 Verse 3 interrupts the connection with vs. 4 and further explicates the meaning of “eternal life”: “And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.” It is most striking that this explanation takes place in prayer to God and that Jesus speaks of himself in the third person as “Jesus Christ,” a designation that occurs only one other time in the entire Gospel, not in a quotation (1:17). Accordingly, this verse is usually viewed as an insertion by a later hand.²²⁰ It is questionable, however, whether this striking addition must be explained as a disturbing “alien body” inserted by a later hand. In the presentation of Jesus’ prayer of farewell by the Evangelist it may be intended as an indication of the extent to which Jesus from the beginning involved the overhearing disciples in his prayer by once more depicting before their eyes the power given him by the Father in its full salvific meaning, as it concerned them. When in this connection the Evangelist (possibly) uses formulations used in the later community, he does not substitute the confession of the community for his witness as apostle and interpreter of Jesus but rather confirms the extent to which the confession of the one true God and of Jesus Christ whom he sent forms the interpretation of the heart of Jesus’ self-revelation right into his farewell prayer.

At the same time these words, however much they were added with an eye to the disciples and as a link between vss. 2 and 4, contain one more motive for God to hear Jesus’ prayer for his glorification. For by granting eternal life to his disciples, life consisting in the fact that they have again learned to know the Father as the one true God and Jesus Christ as the one whom he has sent, Jesus has glorified the Father on earth (vs. 4) and has attained the full goal of the mandate (the “work”) that the Father has given him to fulfill.

5 Therefore he can now (“and now”) pray for his glorification, a state he then proceeds to describe as “the glory that I had with you before the world was made.” These words speak of the preexistent,²²¹ original glory of the Son with the Father that Jesus, now that as Son he is returning to the house of the Father (cf. 16:28; 14:1), presently requests of the Father as the glory due to him there. It is the unique glory of the Son “with” the Father,²²² of the Word that was “with God²²³ and was God” (1:1), a glory antecedent to the power with which he was clothed as the Son of man by God when he descended from heaven. But it is not an absolute state of glory, uninvolved in any revelation, but a divine glory that transcends the temporal world in its relatedness to “all things,” for it is the glory of the divine Word, by whom all things were made and in whom was life and the light of life of humans (1:4, 5) as he has made it known in the incarnation of the Word. Therefore, if Jesus is here, on the boundary between two worlds, praying to be permitted to return to the glory he had with the Father, he is thinking not just of himself with a view to rediscovering himself and withdrawing to the “eternal” glory due to himself alone, but rather of that glory in its ongoing relatedness to his work on earth.

For that reason the petition for his glorification now passes into prayer for his own, in a multiplicity of aspects, having as its final object that in their way they might also share in his glory, the glory that the Father gave him, because to that end the Father has loved him and destined him from before the foundation of the world (vs. 24; cf. 3:16, 35; 5:20; 10:17; 15:9).

17:6-10

Jesus’ Intercession for Those Given to Him by the Father

6-8 The transition to Jesus’ intercession for the disciples occurs in vs. 6. Before giving explicit content to this intercession (vss. 11ff.), Jesus first (vss. 6-10) renders an account—certainly as support for his intercession—to the effect that he has completed his work entirely in keeping with the will of his Father. This has consisted, first, in that he has manifested (nothing other than) “God’s name,”²²⁴ which alternates with “your word” (or “words”) and with “everything that you have given me.” That “everything” is all that Jesus has said and done and also, and this is no less characteristic for this entire passage (cf. vs. 2), those to whom Jesus has revealed God’s name, those “whom you gave me out of the world,” to which is added, as if to put full emphasis on this last element: “they were yours,²²⁵ and you gave them to me.”

These last expressions have (again) elicited the charge of “determinism,” here specifically God’s exclusive election by grace before all times.²²⁶ But the reference here to “yours” and to “those whom you have given me” does not refer to a pretemporal election and still less is meant in a deterministic sense. It has, rather, a salvation-historical (or “eschatological”) sense.

The best commentary on this is 6:37, 39, 44ff. There also we read of “everything that the Father has given me,” which is qualified as what “the Father draws” so that it “will come to me.” “It will come” in keeping with fulfillment of the (“eschatological”) prophecy of salvation of those who are drawn. That prophecy reads, “All will be taught by God.” As a result of it “Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me” (6:45). Jesus did not manifest God’s name to those who had no knowledge of it but rather to those who were among the people to whom God had from of old revealed “his name” and to whom he had obligated himself to reveal his name in the future (cf. Is. 52:6; Ezk. 39:7).²²⁷ The addition “out of the world” does indicate that God has given them to Jesus out of the alienation from God that has surrounded them (cf. 1:9, 10) by “drawing” them out of it (cf. 6:44, 45) so that they might “come” to Jesus (6:37). At the same time the entire passage stresses that this “giving” of “his own” to Jesus by the Father must not be understood in a deterministic sense (which would render talk of “faith” superfluous) but took place precisely in the way of Jesus’ manifestation of God’s name and by way of the faith of the persons thus addressed by Jesus.

This connection comes immediately to expression in 17:6 and continues with almost monotonous repetition in vss. 7 and 8. “They were yours, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word,” that is, they observed and appropriated the word (vs. 6).²²⁸ “Now they know/acknowledge that everything you have given me is from you” (vs. 7).²²⁹ “Now” refers to the result of Jesus’ entire work (“everything”) as this is being manifested among those with whom Jesus enters into this prayer before the Father. “For the words that you gave to me I have given to them, and they have received them in the—ever deepening²³⁰—awareness that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me” (vs. 8). As is evident from the faith they display as God’s people, they have recognized in Jesus the one who sent Jesus.

Jesus, we may conclude, traces everything back to God himself: all his public actions as the manifestation of God’s name, all his words and works as given²³¹ to him by the Father, his entire coming from God,²³² and those with whom he now appears before God and for whom he prays as those whom the Father has given²³³ him, as is evident from their faith in him. In all this one can see the element of Jesus’ “account” of what he has done, which characterizes other prayers as well.²³⁴ But here it functions above all as ground for his intercession for his own. It is the Father’s own work, the Father’s own people, with whom he is returning to the Father and for whom he now further requests the Father’s preservation.

This last point is forcefully and sharply brought out a second time in vss. 9-10: “I am praying for them; I am not praying for the world but for those whom you gave me, because they are yours.” “I am not praying for the world” has caused consternation, but it does not characterize Jesus’ attitude to “the world” in general (cf. vs. 18; 6:51). It must be understood in the context we have mentioned: Jesus is giving an accounting for his now-completed work. Just as in being sent by the Father Jesus did not go his own way (cf. 6:38, 39) and did not seek glory from people (cf. 5:41f.; 7:18), so here he comes in prayer before the Father with the outcome of that work and not with other people, nor does he here pray for others, but for those who have been given to him by the Father and in whom he has found room for the words of the Father. For that reason he can finally say: “All mine are yours,” all that he can call his own as a result of the realization of his mandate had been given him by the Father, and nothing less than that. But here, too, this is the case in the mutuality based on his unity with the Father: “and yours are mine,” his own for whom he now prays as those who believe in him and who belong to him, with the certainty that the Father will hear him. The conclusion of vs. 10, “And I am glorified in them,” ties in with the preceding and at the same time leads to what follows. For it is the glory of the work completed for and in his own, the continuation and consummation of which Jesus now asks and desires from the Father.

17:11-19

Jesus’ Petition for the Preservation and Sanctification of His Own in the World

11-13 Now begins the actual intercession (vs. 11b) in a slowly unfolding train of thought and constant recalling of the same motifs.

The focus of this intercession is the preservation of the disciples in the world and is motivated by Jesus’ departure from the world while²³⁵ his disciples stay in it. This prompts him to use a repeated solemn form of address and prayer: “Holy Father,²³⁶ keep them in your name, which you have given me.”²³⁷ The preservation has in view the threatening character of the world surrounding them (vss. 14, 15; cf. 15:18ff.). Here again the means to that end is the name entrusted to Jesus by the Father (vs. 6; cf. vs. 12), understood as the efficacious working of the word of God addressed to them, the goal and result being that within that word they may be one, “as we are one.” This last phrase introduces a motif that helps to shape the entire prayer and, while not coming to its full development until vss. 20ff., serves here to define the unity of the disciples as their being taken together into the fellowship of the Father and the Son. In that fellowship they are safe from that which threatens them in the world.

Vs. 12 speaks of the preservation “in your name” as that which Jesus has been doing “while I was with them,” and further describes it with “I guarded them,” probably, in view of vs. 12b (“lost”), to be understood in terms of the image of the shepherd watching over his flock (cf. 10:12, 28, 29). The result has been that “none of them [the flock] was lost,” however much the enemy has been against them. As in 13:10, the exception—Judas—is mentioned and described here as “the son of destruction,” a model of what it means to be “lost,”²³⁸ the fate from which Jesus has protected his own. “That the Scripture might be fulfilled” is not meant in a deterministic sense as making what was once predicted and decided in the name of God necessary. It refers, as does 13:18, to texts like Ps. 41:9 to point out that Jesus knew himself to be one with, and had to go the way of, the threatened people of God in the world to fulfill their God-given task. This appeal to Scripture is striking in the prayer of the Son to the Father (see the comments on vs. 2). But the Evangelist includes it in his reproduction of the prayer as proof to fellow hearers of the prayer that Judas’s lostness, far from being unconnected with Jesus’ mission from the Father, was one of the elements shaping its content.

With “but now” (vs. 13), which contrasts with “while I was with them” in vs. 12, Jesus expands the thought of vss. 11 and 12: his departure to the Father and the necessity of surrendering his care for his own into the hand of the Father is no loss for the disciples, but instead a cause of joy (cf. 14:28): “But now I am coming to you; and I say this [in their hearing] in the world so that they may have my joy made complete in themselves.” Again we encounter the typically Johannine expression “fullness of joy,” which Jesus applies to himself and to his disciples as a term for complete salvation (see the comments on 3:19; 15:11; 16:24) and uses here of the joy that they who remain in the world may share with him in his departure: “my joy in them.” They could not wish for themselves a better preservation and a more certain future than what Jesus, as his last word and deed in the world, places in the hands of his Father.

According to some interpreters this passage reflects a very different view of the disciples’ future than what appears in chs. 14–16, in which Jesus speaks with so much emphasis of his own continuing care for his disciples (“I will not leave you desolate,” etc.) and of the Spirit’s care for them. According to these interpreters this proves that ch. 17 is the work of a different redactor than the preceding chapters.²³⁹ But this seems to be an all too narrow view of the varied manner in which the Evangelist does his work by again and again expatiating on what he has already said from new angles. Here, moreover, he describes Jesus’ prayer to the Father; all the emphasis therefore falls on the work of the latter. That no other “understanding” needs to underlie this material is also clear from the conclusion of ch. 14, which in vs. 28 is strongly reminiscent of 17:14; there, too, the disciples are exhorted to rejoice over Jesus’ departure, and in terms of the motif that is all-controlling here as well: “because the Father is greater than I” (14:28).

14-16 Verse 14 again picks up the thought of vs. 12a and, in a mode of reasoning that is most typical for John, gradually, by the addition of new viewpoints, works it out. In this connection special attention is devoted to the disciples’ relation to “the world,” which is mentioned first in its antithetic character: “I have given them your word, and the world has hated them.” The world is hostile because, as in 15:19, the disciples “are not of the world, as I am not of the world” (see the comments on 8:23 and 3:31). The world “hates” (see the comments on 15:18) that which is not “of the world”; it does not tolerate that which is foreign to it because that thing runs counter to the world’s starting point and pattern of life (cf. 3:19, 20; 7:7ff.).

Verse 15, however, besides making an important addition to what has just been said, offers further explanation of it and gives it a certain twist. The motif of preservation is continued, but when Jesus says, “I am not asking you to take them out of the world, but I ask you to protect them from the evil one,”²⁴⁰ he is also making known in what respect the disciples must be protected in the world. He is not thus distinguishing between “the world” and “the evil one.” What is called “the evil one” here is elsewhere called “the ruler of this world” (12:31; 14:30; 16:11), and the world is accordingly seen as his domain. For that reason we read next:²⁴¹ “They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.” Even so, the disciples’ place and mandate are in the world. Therefore, “I am not asking you to take them out of the world” is not concessive (“Even though …”), as though that would be better for the disciples. For that reason Jesus does not ask just that God protect them but introduces another viewpoint that controls the thought: “Sanctify them in the truth” (vs. 17).

17-19 “To sanctify” is tantamount to separating, to preparing the disciples for service to God. The idea of preservation is continued in sanctification (note the structural parallelism between vs. 11 and vss. 16 and 17), but, as the transition to vs. 18 shows, the stress is now completely on the positive aspect of sanctification, on consecration for the sacred service of God in the world. “In the truth” again refers to the realm in which that consecration is realized, that of the truth of God’s word and of his name (cf. vs. 11). Within that realm the disciples are not only safe in the world but also capable of continuing the work for which Jesus has destined them, their mission in the world.

Verses 18 and 19 speak of that mission. With “as you have sent me into the world” Jesus appeals to the agreement of the mandate he has given his disciples with his own mission from the Father and to the fact that their mission is based on his own and therefore serves to continue the Father’s work. The content and purpose of the disciples’ consecration are thus placed in a clear perspective. They do not consecrate themselves to service for God away from the world, but rather in the act of entering into the world. Again we encounter here the nuanced use of the word “world” in the Fourth Gospel. Although it frequently means nothing other than the domain of “the ruler of the world” and as such the sum total of human life in its alienation from and independence of God, here again the usage clearly shows how the world cannot be abandoned by God (cf. 3:16) or by Jesus (cf. 6:51) or, therefore, by the disciples.

We read here of the disciples’ being sent into the world, but their mission mandate does not come up until 20:21. This does not mean that in this regard, too, ch. 17 can only be explained in terms of the Evangelist’s postresurrection perspective. The disciples’ mission only acquires its full relevance after the resurrection, but their appointment as Jesus’ witnesses and apostles in the world is still the great presupposition of their call to follow Jesus (e.g., 4:36ff.; 6:12; 15:27; 17:20). What is new here is that Jesus—still in the world (vs. 13)—prays to the Father that the disciples may be equipped for this purpose. This points to Jesus’ own share in that consecration: “For their sake I consecrate myself [present tense], so that they may also be truly consecrated.”

10:36 also mentions Jesus’ “consecration,” but in connection with his having been sent by the Father (and hence in the sense found in 17:17). Here Jesus’ active self-consecration on behalf of his own is undoubtedly his self-surrender on their behalf. He consecrates himself as a sacrifice for his own. This meaning of “consecrate” goes back to Old Testament usage (e.g., Ex. 13:2; Dt. 15:19),²⁴² and the preposition “for”²⁴³ (“on behalf of” or “in place of”) is used in several New Testament statements concerning Jesus’ sacrificial death for his own (or “for the world,” cf. 6:51; Mk. 14:24; 1 Co. 11:24; Hb. 2:9, etc.).²⁴⁴

It is on account of the atoning, sin-removing power of Jesus’ sacrifice (cf. 1:29, 35) that the disciples will also be “truly consecrated” to the sacred ministry for which Jesus has appointed them to speak in his name. The use of “truly” refers to the uniqueness of this consecration, a consecration by which every other atonement ritual or priestly mediation designed to give them access to that ministry is rendered inadequate and superfluous.²⁴⁵

Several commentaries justifiably refer to the great distance between the “openness to the world” frequently recommended today also in Christian circles and the apparent world-avoiding attitude of the Johannine community, as seen in the farewell discourses and prayer. An example is Schnackenburg, who does not, however, regard this attitude as normative for a Christian worldview. While he recognizes that the evil one continues to threaten our world and that “the community which is on its guard against that evil power and prays (the Lord’s Prayer!) to be kept from it is performing a positive and provocative task on behalf of mankind,” he explains the attitude toward the world emerging here as originating “in a fundamentally dualistic way of thinking and in the situation in which an oppressed and inward-looking community was placed.”²⁴⁶

Brown’s judgment is much less critical. He, too, writes that the attitude described in John 17 “strikes many Christians as strange and even as a distortion of the true Christian apostolate”: “In an age of involvement where men are considering the role of the church in the modern world, the refusal of the Johannine Jesus to pray for the world is a scandal.” He points out, however, that hostility to the world is not peculiar to John but is reflected also in Ja. 4:4 and Gl. 1:4. But there are also many passages in the New Testament that “inculcate involvement in the world” and that become especially important when the church is tending to sequester itself from the world. But, he thinks, if Christians believe that “Scripture has a certain power to judge and correct,” then passages such as we find here in John “have a message for an era that is naively optimistic about changing the world or even about affirming its values without change.”²⁴⁷

In our opinion the idea of “Johannine dualism” is not at all helpful in theological interpretation if it refers to something more or other than the break, caused by sin, between God and the world created by him and belonging to him. That the world, even in its state of subjection to an alien power, remains the object of God’s saving will, expressed in his Son’s mission, belongs to the core content of the Gospel (1:3, 9ff.; 3:16). For that reason the undeniable difference between the assessment of the world that emerges here in Jesus’ prayer and the “openness” to “solidarity” with a predominantly non-Christian society so often advocated in our day can hardly be explained in terms of the Johannine community’s supposed dualistic view of life. How could that community also, and in the same breath, have Jesus say, “As you have sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world” (vs. 18)? What could dissuade that community from worrying about self-preservation and from withdrawing from the world more than the consciousness of having been sent into the world as Jesus had been sent, and had let himself be sent, into the world by the Father? The difference between Jesus’ farewell prayer in John and contemporary ideas of “openness” and “solidarity” vis-à-vis the world does not consist in the stronger mission-consciousness of the latter—the contrary is rather the case!—or in greater compassion toward the world’s distress. It lies rather in a radically different assessment of the nature of that distress and of the ongoing crisis in which the world is caught up. What “moves” Jesus, in this prayer and in his entire mission in the world, is, negatively, the world’s estrangement from and lostness before God its creator and, positively, Jesus’ struggle and willingness to offer himself up for the world (6:51) in order to restore it to the love of God, that is, to his own fellowship and unity with the Father. This difference in approach to the “distress” of the world cannot be traced back to dualistic cultural or religious elements that crept into the Gospel and that have been overcome in modern consciousness. It must be traced, rather, to the absolute character of Jesus’ self-revelation as the One sent by the Father, as the way, the truth, and the life as articulated in the Gospel.

In the light of this both parts of Jesus’ petition “I am not asking you to take them out of the world, but I ask you to protect them from the evil one” are equally fundamental. The first is not to be construed as relating concessively to the second. The disciples’ place in the world is not something that they can give up because the world is not something that God can give up. The watchword for their future and their self-preservation (their “identity”) cannot, therefore, be that they must position themselves as much as possible outside the world. They may be forced out because of the world’s hostility, but the essential nature of the church is not that of a conventicle. Precisely for that reason God must “protect” the church from “the evil one,” not only from open or violent hostility and “hatred” but also from the world’s desire to squeeze the church into its secular patterns of life and to seduce it into solidarity, a process that goes beyond the “distress” of the world.

17:20-23

“That They May Be One, Even As We Are One”

20 The transition to this section brings “those who believe in me through their world”²⁴⁸ into Jesus’ intercession, with vs. 18 clearly in the background. Jesus sends the disciples into the world to continue his work in the world by means of “the words” he “gives” them, just as the Father, when he sent Jesus into the world, gave him “his words” (cf. vs. 8).

That such a clear distinction is made here between Jesus’ disciples and future believers (“not only … but also”) does not mean that the whole preceding section concerned only the former. The “they” of whom Jesus has repeatedly spoken are not only the apostles, the founders of the future community, but also represent that community itself. Still it is again made clear how much Jesus lodged the preaching of the gospel above all in the apostolate of the disciples he himself called and empowered (see the comments on 15:26). But here “those who will believe in me through their word” are expressly mentioned in Jesus’ intercession along with the disciples themselves, undoubtedly because in the following verses everything is concentrated on the ultimate goal of Jesus’ entire work, the work he has begun on earth and will continue in heaven. And that goal is that all who believe in him may be one as he and the Father are one.

21 Verses 21-23 form a clear unit consisting of two strophes, as is evident not only from the repeated reciprocal formula of immanence but also from the repetition in the two concluding purpose clauses: “that the world may believe.”²⁴⁹ The first question that confronts us in vs. 21 is whether this verse describes the content of the prayer mentioned in vs. 20 (“I pray … that they may all be one”) or whether the opening clause is a purpose clause (“I pray … in order that they may all be one”). If the first, then, after praying for the preservation and consecration of the disciples present, Jesus now prays for the unity of “all,” both the disciples and the future church. But one can also understand vs. 20 (“I do not pray for these only …”) as referring to the preceding petitions: “I do not pray [all this] for them but also …,” then adding in a purpose clause: “that they may all be one.” In this way “those who will believe in me through their word” are brought into not only the petition for unity but also the preceding petitions, which is undoubtedly a more likely construal. This translation also commends itself in the light of vs. 11, where the subject of unity comes up in the same way: “that they may be one, even as we are one,” there also clearly as the goal of the preceding petition: “Father, protect them in your name.” We may conclude, therefore, that the unity intended here is not an additional and separate blessing Jesus asks of the Father but the great object that Jesus aimed for during his life on earth and now desires from the Father for the future as well: “in order that they may all be one [a clause appearing in vss. 11, 21, 22, and 23],²⁵⁰ even as we are one.”

On the meaning of this passage, which is often cited and discussed in ecumenical literature because of its ecclesiological significance,²⁵¹ opinions strongly diverge. What seems to be of fundamental importance for its interpretation is the repeated description of this unity: “as you, Father, are in me, and I am in you, may they also be [one] in us” (vs. 21), “as we are one” (vs. 22), and “I in them, and you in me,” with the addition “that they may become completely one” (vs. 23). The church’s final goal is not unity as such, however it is understood, but “unity in us,” being one “as we are one,” where “even as”²⁵² not only indicates a resemblance between the church’s unity and the unity between the Father and the Son, but also gives the church’s unity its ground and character. Accordingly, the theme of this passage can only be “that they may all be one in us.”

Käsemann,²⁵³ who strongly stresses this linkage as well, even thinks that the unity of the Christian community is vindicated here on the basis of its participation in the ontological unity of the Father and the Son.²⁵⁴ But there can be no misunderstanding the fact that when Jesus here repeatedly makes his unity with the Father foundational to his unity with his own and to their unity with each other, he has in mind not the ontological unity of the Father and the Son but the unity and reciprocal immanence between him and the Father as it comes to light in the performance of the divine work of salvation.²⁵⁵ It is this unity that surfaces in the Gospel again and again, not only with “the Son can do nothing on his own, but only what he sees the Father doing” (5:19) and “what he has heard from him” (cf. 8:26), but also where the same “reciprocal formula of immanence” is used (see the comments on 10:38; 14:10) and where Jesus explicitly states, “I and the Father are one” (10:30).²⁵⁶ That this sort of unity is also meant here is evident from everything that precedes, where Jesus in a number of expressions emphasizes the complete harmony and concurrence between the Father and the Son in carrying out the work of salvation assigned to him by the Father (vss. 2-4, 6-13; cf. vs. 10!).

All this gives us the thrust of Jesus’ prayer for his own. What is described with “even as you, Father, are in me, and I am in you” and “may they also be in us” as determinative for the church’s unity is the church’s participation and incorporation in the work accomplished by Christ in unity with the Father. The church’s participation is meant to take place in keeping with its nature as the one flock belonging to the one Shepherd (10:7), who knows his own as the Father knows him and as he knows the Father (10:14-16), and as branches engrafted in the one true vine, of which the Father is the “vinegrower” (15:1, 4f., 9f.). This has already been explicitly expressed in 17:11, 12, where Jesus prays that the Father may protect his disciples in the name that the Father has given him so that “they may be one as we are one” and then adds that he himself has guarded them in the name given to him by the Father so that “not one of them was lost” from that bond of unity, except “the son of perdition” (cf. 6:39).

Accordingly, what constitutes and qualifies this unity of the coming community and its incorporation into the fellowship of the Father and the Son is its having been brought and kept under the rule of the word and name of God, which the Father has given to his Son, and the Son has revealed to his own (vss. 6-8, 11-12). Therefore, too, the commandment that matches this prayer for unity is, as was stated earlier, “remain in my love,” that is, in Jesus’ commandments, “just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love” (15:9-10).

It is evident from all this that the unity of the coming community is not considered here from the viewpoint of “being with each other” and still less from that of their calling and willingness to form a united group with each other and to organize and shape it in the most efficient manner. That, too, undoubtedly belongs directly or in a more derivative sense to Jesus’ care for his church, even in his farewell discourse (cf. 13:12ff.). But here the dominant thought of Jesus’ prayer is that the church’s unity may be controlled by, and find its criterion in, its unity with the Father and the Son, that is, in Jesus’ coming into the world and his work in the world in keeping with his unity with the Father.

This is apparent also from the concluding clause of vs. 21: “so that the world may believe that you have sent me” (cf. vs. 23). What must engender this belief on the part of the world is not the church’s unity as such or the degree to which it asserts itself in the world as a unified movement (alongside similar movements!), but the liberating power of Jesus’ word and Spirit as it comes to expression in the church. This is what must bring the world to believe that Jesus did not come of his own accord and did not appoint himself as Savior but was sent by God himself. In several ways this places before the church the responsibility of its congruence with the mission and example of its Lord (cf. 13:15, 35; 15:16; 1 Jn. 2:19, 23, 24; 2 Jn. 8f.).²⁵⁷ But it is not this ecclesiastical responsibility, still less church problems (as in the Johannine letters), that controls the perspective of Jesus’ farewell prayer for unity. That perspective comes, rather, from the christological farewell, so that the prayer asks the Father to guard the work that Jesus has accomplished in the pursuit of his mandate and in agreement with the Father’s will and to vindicate him against the world: “that the world may believe that you have sent me.”

This is not to say that the statement “that the world may believe” has only a negative incriminating sense—“believe despite itself”—that then supposedly comes to clearer expression in vs. 23 with “(be compelled to) recognize” (cf. 8:28).²⁵⁸ It is clear from vs. 18 that the believing community has its positive mandate to fulfill in the world. But it is clear from the context that in this prayer Jesus is directly concerned about the continuation of his work and that of the Father in his own,²⁵⁹ and only indirectly about the world’s faith. The idea of the vindication of Jesus’ work against the world’s hostility (cf. 16:10) is no less at work here than that of the appeal to the world to recognize and confess Jesus as the one sent by the Father (see the comments below on vs. 25).

22-23 As in vss. 12-19, so here, along with praying to the Father for his own, Jesus appeals to what he himself has done for them during his earthly ministry:²⁶⁰ “The glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one.” This describes what Jesus gave to his own in the most exalted terms. Jesus has already said, “I have given them all that you have given me,” which was more precisely defined as “eternal life” (vss. 2-3).²⁶¹ By speaking now of giving his “glory” Jesus brings out how deep the foundation of their unity is and how far it reaches. For that reason “that they may all be one as we are one” is again followed in vs. 23 by “I in them, and you in me” to indicate that by his indwelling of the community (“I in them”) the community shares in the glory that the Father has given him (“you in me”). Jesus says all this to highlight the total and inviolable unity for which he has destined his own: “that²⁶² they may become perfectly one.”²⁶³

The meaning of this “glory,” as Jesus’ gift to his own and the basis for their perfected unity, is hard to describe in a single word.²⁶⁴ In vss. 24f. we again read of Jesus’ “glory,” but then as Jesus’ heavenly glory, the glory he had before the foundation of the world and that the disciples may one day contemplate in heaven. In vs. 22, however, the reference is not to this preexistent (and postexistent) glory of Jesus, which at his departure he still had to receive (vs. 2), but to the glory with which the Father clothed and equipped him as the Son of man for his mission in the world (cf. vs. 2a; 3:34, 35; 5:20, 27; 10:17). “Glory,” therefore, refers here not to a single, all-surpassing gift but to Jesus’ all-embracing authority and power and its manifestation during the performance of his task in the world (cf. 1:50, 51; 2:11; 11:4, 40ff.).

So when Jesus speaks here of the glory given to him by the Father as something he then gives to the disciples, this can hardly refer to anything other than that in their association with him they will be involved in the performance of that task, and not only for their own salvation but also as fellow agents in carrying out Jesus’ task, already during his life on earth (cf. 9:4; 4:38; 6:5, 12) but above all as those who will continue his work after his departure. Not only has Jesus given them charge to that end, but he has also promised his assistance, hearing all their prayers, even given them the prospect of doing “greater works” than those he himself has done (14:12-14, etc.; cf. also 20:21-23).

Verse 23, finally, also refers to this in virtually the same words as vs. 21:²⁶⁵ “that the world may recognize that you have sent me,” here, however, with the addition, “and have loved them as you have loved me.” God’s “love” for Jesus is closely tied with Jesus’ mission as the agent of God’s saving work in the world (cf. 3:35; 5:20; 10:17), and the same is true of God’s love for the disciples. This love is manifest in the fact that the Father not only protects the disciples but also wants to incorporate them in his work in the world and make them serviceable to that work (vss. 15ff.). Therefore, “that the world may recognize that you have loved them” means that in the disciples’ comings and goings in the world not only their unity with Jesus as the one sent by the Father (see the comments on vs. 21) but also the love of the Father himself for the world in and through their ministry will come to expression as an appeal to the world.

17:24-26

Prayer for the Future Union of His Own with Himself

24 Though vss. 24-26 are linked closely with the preceding, they also clearly form the conclusion of the prayer as a whole, starting with the new address “Father.” The content of these verses goes beyond what has preceded: Jesus now speaks of his disciples’ sharing in his future glory. One can therefore say that Jesus asks here for the culmination of everything he has prayed for on behalf of “those whom you have given me,” as he once more describes his disciples, commending them to his Father (cf. vss. 2, 6f.).

The new address “Father” (cf. vss. 1, 13), expanded in vs. 25 to “righteous Father,” again brings out the urgent and just character of what Jesus asks of the Father, as does the striking phrase “I desire,” with which he presents his petition to the Father. Jesus does not pray here as a claimant, but as the Son, as one who knew he could rightly assume ownership over the many rooms in the Father’s house (cf. 14:2, 3), a subject with which the end of the farewell prayer clearly returns to the opening word of the farewell discourse! “I desire,” spoken in the disciples’ hearing, is certainly intended therefore to tell them how much their future, no less than his own (vs. 1), concerns him and how certain they can be of sharing in its glory.

“That those also … may be with me where I am” undoubtedly, as in 13:36 and 14:3, refers to the great future in which Jesus will come again (14:3; elsewhere in Johannine writings called his “parousia”; cf. 1 Jn. 2:28; 3:2) and take his own to himself to be with him where he is, in the place of his heavenly glory.²⁶⁶ On the “where,” “when,” and “how” of this new mode of being, the Evangelist characteristically says nothing more. All that matters is the certainty of that future²⁶⁷ and “with me” as its content (cf. also Ph. 1:23; 1 Th. 4:17; Lk. 23:43; Rv. 3:4, 21, etc.).

This content is then further described as “seeing my glory that you have given me.” Even during his time on earth Jesus shared with his own the glory given to him by the Father (vs. 22; cf. 1:14), thus incorporating them into the perfection of the unity of the Father and the Son (vs. 23). But this presence—inaugurated with Jesus’ coming on earth—of the salvation promised by God does not take away the prospect of future glory, either for Jesus or for his own. Not until then, when Jesus will have departed and prepared for them a place in the Father’s house, will they see his full, no longer limited, glory and in seeing it be freed from what now obscures or blocks its realization. Or, as it is said in 1 Jn. 3:2: “Beloved, we are God’s children now. What we shall be does not yet appear, but we know that when he appears we will be like him, because we will see him as he is” (cf. also Col. 3:4).²⁶⁸ What is then said in vs. 24c, “because you loved me before the foundation of the world,” bases this coming glory of God’s eternal love on, that is, the good pleasure of the Father to cause his own to share in the glory given to the Son from all eternity (cf. Ep. 1:4).

25-26 Verse 25 ties in immediately with the preceding with an appeal to God’s justice. This appeal gives the preceding “I desire” its motivation and the whole prayer its final ground, its foundation in God’s good pleasure. To that end Jesus again points to his unity with the Father in carrying out this saving will and to the faith in it he has found in his own. And this in contrast with the world, so that by this appeal he seeks the answer to his prayer with all the more urgency as the vindication of himself and his own over against the world. It is in that sense also that “while the world …,” which is hard to place in the context, can best be understood: Jesus thus contrasts the world’s ignorance of the Father (cf. 7:28; 8:19, 55; 15:21) with his own knowledge of the Father,²⁶⁹ that is, with his fidelity to the task and word given to him by the Father, completely along the lines of 8:55. But in the same breath he adds: “and these have recognized that you sent me,” referring thus to the ones whom he now concretely introduces to the Father as those who have recognized him as sent by the Father, for whom he therefore now pleads in the same manner as for himself.

The conclusion in vs. 26 again sums up the entire purpose of Jesus’ mission: “I have made your name known to them.” That was his life and his “food” (4:32): to make the Father known as he wanted to be known, to teach them the “name” by which the Father wants to be invoked. To this Jesus adds: “and I will make it known.” His work on earth has not yet been completed. His passion still lies ahead of him, the suffering in which that “name” will still be at issue in the most far-reaching way. But here the reference is more to Jesus’ continuing work in heaven. This is also clear from the last words: “so that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.” With these words Jesus again places his entire mission in the vast context in which the Evangelist put it from the beginning (1:1ff.) and traces the salvation he brings to its ultimate source, the love that existed “before the foundation of the world” and proceeded from the Father to the Son, as the Word that was in the beginning with God and was God. In him that love went out to the world, because in the Word was life and the life was the light of all people (1:1-4). In the consciousness of being the bearer and mediator of that eternal love, Jesus prays that the love with which the Father has loved him may be in his disciples as what redeems and shapes their lives. But he himself will be the one who will keep them in that love (cf. 15:7ff.). Therefore once more he adds the words “and I in them” as the final and all-decisive word of the Savior.

1. See especially the extensive examination of the relevant Old Testament, apocryphal, and pseudepigraphal texts in M. Winter, Die Abschiedsworte der Väter und das Vermächtnis Jesu. Gattungsgeschichtliche Untersuchungen der Vermächtnisrede im Blick auf Joh. 13–17, 1988.

2. Cf. the summary in Winter, Abschiedsworte der Väter und das Vermächtnis Jesu, p. 244.

3. So E. Käsemann, The Testament of Jesus, 1968, pp. 4f. Whereas Winter speaks of John’s formal and material dependence on Old Testament and later Jewish “testamentary discourses,” he also recognizes “the unparalleled position of John in the history of the genre,” which finds its explanation in John’s christology and about which there can therefore be no doubt. “For in John both the understanding of the past and admonitions and pronouncements about the future are totally centered in Jesus” (Abschiedsworte der Väter und das Vermächtnis Jesu, p. 245).

4. On this basic motif see at greater length the comments above on 12:23ff.

5. Käsemann has especially raised this problem and has attempted to explain it at length in this manner; see his chapter on “The Community under the Word,” pp. 27-55 in The Testament of Jesus.

6. ἔξηλθεν.

7. For the various reconstructions see, e.g., J. Schneider, “Die Abschiedsrede Jesu. Ein Beitrag zur Frage der Composition von Johannes 13,31–17,26,” in Gott und die Götter (Festschrift for E. Fascher), 1958, pp. 103-12, esp. p. 104. Also Brown, Comm. II, pp. 583ff.

8. Cf. Schneider, “Die Abschiedsrede Jesu,” pp. 104ff.: “The prayer can only form the conclusion of the farewell discourse. It is its culmination. After Jesus has said to his disciples everything he has to say in his hour of farewell, he turns, already totally removed inwardly from events on earth, toward God.”

9. So Bultmann, who exchanges the order of chs. 14 and 17. See his Comm., pp. 461ff.

10. See, e.g., Schnackenburg. With regard to 13:31–14:31 he writes: “The evangelist’s authorship of this clear conception cannot be disputed, with the result that this section is for the most part not called into question by literary critics” (Comm. III, p. 48). Others, however, want to reckon with “redactional revisions and expansions in several places” in 13:31–14:31 (Winter, Die Abschiedsworte der Väter und das Vermächtnis Jesu, p. 176; so also Becker).

11. See Schneider, “Die Abschiedsrede Jesu,” p. 115, who refers for this idea to a similar view of Strathmann, Comm. (6th ed., 1951), p. 213.

12. See, e.g., the lengthy analysis of Brown, Comm. II, pp. 586ff. and the outline on pp. 545-47. He speaks of “several independent last discourses, eventually combined into the Last Discourse, as we know it” (p. 586) and arranges the material in three “divisions”: 13:31–14:31; chs. 15–16, and ch. 17. Chs. 15–16 he then divides into three “subdivisions” in which are found “last discourses” independent of 13:31–14:31. For Schnackenburg’s view of the origin of chs. 15 and 16, see his Comm. III, pp. 89ff.

13. So, e.g., Brown, Comm. II, p. 586: “The material in these added discourses [i.e., what appears after ch. 14] is not necessarily inferior to or later than the material of Division 1 [i.e., 13:31–14:31].” The final redactor incorporated “genuinely Johannine material.”

14. See, e.g., Becker, “Die Abschiedsreden Jesu im Johannesevangelium,” ZNW 61 (1970), pp. 215-46. Becker finds in chs. 15–16 three distinct “supplements” from three different authors, each with his own theological “concern” (pp. 229ff.).

15. See J. Painter, “The Farewell Discourses and the History of Johannine Christianity,” NTS 27 (1981), pp. 525-43. Also Winter, Die Abschiedsworte der Väter und das Vermächtnis Jesu, pp. 211ff., who thinks, however, that “these chapters do not contain sufficient information to permit the reconstruction of a ‘historical’ development of the Johannine community.”

16. Consistently described in chs. 15 and 16 as the Paraclete, that is, the one mentioned in 14:16.

17. Cf. Becker, Comm. I, p. 35, where he speaks (inter alia) of chs. 15–17: “These block-like insertions fail totally to fit the recognizable structure, and their literary oddity contains the most theological changes in viewpoint.” See also Winter, Abschiedsworte der Väter und das Vermächtnis Jesu, pp. 174f.

18. See specifically Painter, “Farewell Discourses.”

19. On the application of this method in general and on the farewell discourse in particular, see also the exposition in M. de Jonge, Jesus, Stranger from Heaven and Son of God, 1977, pp. 97-102, 199, which rejects this approach.

20. On the internal organization of ch. 14 and the various proposals for subdividing the material, see also Brown, Comm. II, pp. 623ff. and his own “hesitant” proposal. In the same spirit Schnackenburg, Comm., III, pp. 57f.

21. μὴ ταρασσέσθω ὑμῶν ἡ καρδία, using the verb also used in 12:27 of Jesus’ own inner agitation, there echoing Ps. 6:3.

22. εἰς ἐμὲ πιστεύετε, durative present.

23. The chiastically structured pronouncement coordinates two clauses (“believe in God,” “believe in me”) and makes the second (imperatival) clause dependent on the first (indicative).

24. “However it is turned, it still does not give a satisfactory meaning” (Schnackenburg, Comm. III, p. 59).

25. Popular for a long time was the translation “I would have told you,” that is, “I would have told you [that there would not be a place for you in my Father’s house]” (e.g., NIV). But such a statement would not only be very businesslike (others call it “trivial” or “banal”) but really redundant. Most recent interpreters therefore reject it, and rightly. It is better to think here of a question (see also Nestle-Aland). Some then extend the question to the end of vs. 2—“Would I have told you that I am going away to prepare a place for you?”—and refer to passages such as 12:26, 32. But there the striking expression “prepare a place” (which fits so well with vs. 14:2a!) is not used. Accordingly, we will have to limit the question to the first words (εἰ δὲ μή, εἶπον ἄν) and expand it somewhat: “If the situation were otherwise—that is, with my going away—would I have spoken to you about it in that manner?” (see, e.g., Schnackenburg, Comm. III, pp. 57ff.). But the translation remains somewhat conjectural.

26. See above,

27. Cf. BAGD, s.v.

28. On all this see at length G. Fischer, Die himmlischen Wohnungen. Untersuchungen zu Joh. 14,2f., 1975. Fischer notes (p. 290) that his studies have clearly shown that “though ideas occur in certain religious currents that are reminiscent of the imagery in Jn. 14:2a, the elements of correspondence are never so conclusive as to establish religio-historical dependence.”

29. Cf. Fischer, Die himmlischen Wohnungen, p. 86, where he speaks of “the apocalyptic motif that the eschatological riches of salvation, created already at the beginning of time and lying ready in secret for the elect, will be revealed at the end of time.”

30. For the link with 8:35, see also Schnackenburg, Comm. III, p. 62.

31. For these ideas, which again take various forms, see the lengthy overview in Fischer, Die himmlischen Wohnungen, pp. 299-304. In this sense see also C. H. Dodd, the well-known exponent of “realized eschatology,” though he does acknowledge that in Jn. 14:2 we have “the closest approach to the traditional language of the Church’s eschatology” (The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel, 1963, pp. 404ff.).

32. So, in a very lengthy argument, Schnackenburg, Comm. III, p. 62: Jesus’s words that he is coming back and will take his disciples to himself “should not … be in any way interpreted as referring to the parousia since this would be in contradiction to the evangelist’s present eschatology.”

33. Becker, Comm., pp. 460f.

34. So Bultmann, who thinks that here the Evangelist uses the language of Gnostic mythology: The souls of initiates are taken up after death into the world of light, where they will see the glory of the Revealer (Comm., pp. 599ff.) But apart from the gnosticizing character of this explanation, the “coming again” mentioned in vs. 3 too clearly refers to a single grand event for us to think here of Jesus coming back over and over at the deaths of his disciples. Cf. also Käsemann: “Of course, John 14,2f. does not mean that in the hour of death Jesus brings his own to himself” (The Testament of Jesus, p. 72).

35. At first sight the sentence construction is somewhat unclear. Strictly speaking it refers only to his way, though the way of the disciples is clearly intended as well (vs. 6). Some scholars try to bring this out in translation by relating οἴδατε to both ὅπου ἐγὼ ὑπάγω and τὴν ὁδóν (“You know where I am going, and you know the way to it as well”). This undoubtedly conveys the sense, but it is more a clarification than a translation. Some manuscripts insert καί after οἴδατε and repeat οἴδατε after τòν ὅδον, clearly also as a clarification. But this addition is not necessary for an understanding of the text, especially because the whole emphasis is on “the way,” which is certainly not intended only as the way of Jesus.

36. εἰ μὴ διʼ ἐμοῦ.

37. The “if” is not meant conditionally but rather causally as denoting a reality: “since” (BDF §372.1). For another reading see below.

38. ἀπʼ ἄρτι usually means “from now on” and is often so translated here. But as, e.g., in 13:19 (note perfect ἑωράκατε), it evidently refers not to the future that is at that moment being inaugurated but to a situation that has existed (see also Bultmann, Comm., pp. 608, n. 1, 478, n. 4). Other interpreters admittedly think that here, too, the phrase should be translated “from now on (you know him).” In that case they have in mind the coming revelation of Jesus in his suffering and departure to the Father, in which the Father will make himself known in him, or the coming of the Spirit, who will teach them and remind them of all things (vs. 26; 16:13). But both the present “you know him” and the perfect “you have seen him,” which is further explained in vss. 9ff., point in another direction.

39. Accordingly, expositors who opt for the first reading are forced to consider whether vs. 7b is an ameliorating addition to the “hard” saying in vs. 7a (e.g., Brown, Comm. II, p. 621, who opts for the first reading and declares vs. 7b “suspect as an amelioration of a difficulty”).

40. There also commenting on the (in)sufficiency of something; see also Schnackenburg, Comm. III, p. 68.

41. ἔγνωκας, perfect, refers to a lasting and real acquaintance.

42. οὐ πιστεύεις expects an affirmative answer.

43. On this see at length the comments above on 5:19.

44. ἐν ἐμοὶ μένων.

45. For the understanding and use of ἔργον in John see at length W. Nicol, The Semeia in the Fourth Gospel, 1972, pp. 116f.

46. Cf. Brown, Comm. II, p. 622, on this text. Brown speaks of “greater confirmatory value.”

47. See also Schnackenburg, Comm. III, p. 70: The admonition in the farewell discourse is “clear evidence of the evangelist’s deep and radical reflection about the words and works of Jesus as well as his entire activity on earth and his appearance among men.”

According to Bultmann, who throughout his commentary relativizes the significance of Jesus’ miracles in the Fourth Gospel and in fact regards them as superfluous (see my comments on 11:32ff. above), the statement “and if not, believe me for the sake of the works themselves” refers exclusively to the words of Jesus: “Jesus’ word … discloses a man’s reality. If he tries to understand himself by subjecting his existence to this word then he will experience the work of the Father on him” (Comm., pp. 609f.); see also his Theology of the New Testament II, 1955, p. 61: “the ‘works’ of v. 11 are neither more nor less than the ‘words’ of v. 10”; cf. further his Comm., pp. 388 and 390. But how could the alternative (εἰ μή) to faith in Jesus’ word (that is, his saying that he and the Father are one and that the disciples have seen the Father in him) lie in faith in that same word? Against this view see also Schnackenburg, Brown, and other commentators, as also Nicol, Semeia in the Fourth Gospel, p. 119.

48. For a similar effect of the ἀμὴν ἀμὴν λέγω ὑμῖν, see the comments above on 10:1.

49. καί here has an ascensive sense: “even.” See BDF §442.12.

50. At least according to the most commonly followed reading, με, in vs. 14. Although in vs. 13 με is lacking after αἰτήσητε, it is also—as ποιήσω proves—presupposed there.

51. Despite the omission of this verse as redundant in some manuscripts and the fact that it is “disputed and omitted by many recent literary critics” (Schnackenburg, Comm. III, p. 73).

52. ὅ τι ἄν.

53. So Brown, Comm. II, p. 635.

54. Ibid.

55. Cf. M. de Jonge, Jesus: Stranger from Heaven and Son of God, p. 178: “vs. 12 gives the assurance that ‘whoever believes in me, the works that I do he shall do also, and greater works than these shall he do.’ Why? Because Jesus is going to the Father and will do whatever the believers shall ask ‘in his name.’ ”

56. ἐὰν has the meaning of εἴ where it introduces a causal indicative (cf. BDF §373): “if you truly love me, as I know you do.” The following τηρήσετε is close in intent to the indicative (which some manuscripts have), but then in the form of the expression of trust.

57. Leaving aside 1 Jn. 2:1, which speaks of Jesus himself.

58. This is certainly the intent. It is not, as only a few translate, “another, a Paraclete,” a translation that excludes the idea of a preceding Paraclete. Against this view, see, e.g., J. Behm, TDNT V, 800.

59. See the summary and comparison in Bultmann, Comm., pp. 566f.

60. See J. Behm, TDNT V, pp. 800-814; O. Betz, Der Paraklet, 1963; R. Brown, “The Paraclete in the Fourth Gospel,” NTS 13 (1967), pp. 113-32; G. Johnston, The Spirit-Paraclete in the Gospel of John, 1970; U. B. Müller, “Die Parakletenvorstellung im Johannesevangelium,” ZTK 71 (1974), pp. 31-77; J. Veenhof, De Parakleet, 1974. See also the excursuses in Bultmann, Comm., pp. 566-72; Schnackenburg, Comm. III, pp. 138-54; Becker, Comm., pp. 470-75 (with extensive bibliography, p. 470).

61. For the material see, e.g., J. Behm, TDNT V, pp. 800ff.

62. Ibid., p. 803.

63. Not so H. Riesenfeld, who persists in translating “Comforter,” appealing to the Old Testament figure of Wisdom, specifically as it appears in Pr. 8:4ff. While “comforter” and “comfort” have an eschatological sense in other Old Testament passages as well, such as Isaiah 40ff., in Pr. 8:4—as is evident from the Septuagint translation—Wisdom is said to assume the role of the eschatological Comforter, and in view of the functions further attributed to Wisdom in Proverbs, these instances have given rise both to the idea and the name of the Paraclete, the one who is the Spirit of Truth, as this is manifest in John 14–16. So Riesenfeld in “A Probable Background to the Johannine Paraclete,” in Ex orbe religionum (Festschrift for G. Widengren) I, 1972, pp. 266-74, specifically pp. 272f.

But the Septuagint translation in Pr. 8:4, παρακαλῶ need not mean “comfort” (instead of “call”) and seems in any case a weak ground for the view that Wisdom in Proverbs 8 produced both the name and the idea for “the eschatological Comforter” as the background of John 14–16.

64. On this general background see at length Brown, “The Paraclete in the Fourth Gospel,” and his Comm. II, pp. 1135-39. He refers to “the basic elements, scattered in Jewish thought, that appear in the Johannine picture of the Paraclete” (p. 1139). For a summary of these more general features see also J. Behm, TDNT V, pp. 806-12.

65. For the texts in question see Strack/Billerbeck II, pp. 560f., and, at length, N. Johansson, “Parakletoi.” Vorstellungen von Fürsprechern für die Menschen vor God in der alttestamentlichen Religion, im Spätjudentum und im Urchristentum, 1940.

66. A position already defended by S. Mowinckel in “Die Vorstellungen des Spätjudentums vom heiligen Geist als Fürsprecher,” ZNW 52 (1933), pp. 97-130; in the same line, see Johansson, “Parakletoi,” pp. 157ff. Also J. Behm, TDNT V, pp. 806ff., despite questions that he raises and difficulties that attend this view, which he does not consider insuperable (p. 812).

67. Accordingly, most of the more recent commentaries see little of value in this (temporarily popular) explanation; see, e.g., Schnackenburg, Becker, and Bultmann. Bultmann writes: “there is no point in going back to Jewish ideas to discover the origin of the figure of the Paraclete, because the interpretation of this figure as Spirit is secondary” (Comm., p. 570). Bultmann himself looks for the religio-historical background in Gnostic (and other) writings in which certain mythological figures are described as “helpers” and guides, ideas that show much more correspondence with the functions of the Paraclete in John 14–16. But here, too, the distance is very great (see the comments below on the view of O. Betz).

68. Betz, Der Paraklet.

69. Ibid., pp. 176-202.

70. Cf. Becker, Comm., p. 472: “It is hardly the case that personal-angelological concepts stood godfather to the Johannine Spirit-Paraclete concept, and a direct derivation of the Johannine Spirit of truth from Qumran is impossible on religio-historical grounds.”

71. See the exegesis below,

72. According to Schnackenburg, Comm. III, p. 148.

73. Cf. Becker, Comm., pp. 473f.

74. It has been correctly remarked that other “very fundamental functions of the Holy Spirit [e.g., those mentioned in ch. 3] are not mentioned here” (L. Floor, Persoon en werk van de Heilige Geest, 1988, p. 33).

75. Cf., e.g., Brown, “The Paraclete in the Fourth Gospel,” pp. 118ff.:

No one translation (like “witness,” “spokesman,” “counsellor,” “helper”) captures the complexity of these functions. In rendering this word into Latin for the Vulgate, Jerome had a choice among such Old Latin renderings as advocatus and consolator and the custom of transliterating the term simply as paracletus. In the Gospel he took the latter expedient (advocatus appears in 1 John), a course also followed in the Syriac and Coptic traditions.

Brown recommends that we do the same and use “Paraclete, a near transliteration that at least preserves the uniqueness of the title and does not emphasize one of the aspects of the concept to the detriment of others.” In his translation Schnackenburg also lets the original word stand (Comm. III, pp. 138-54). Bultmann writes: “The meaning of the term here is ‘helper,’ not ‘advocate’ as it is in I Jn. 2:1” (Theology II, p. 88 n.).

76. On this see also Floor, Persoon en werk van de Heilige Geest, pp. 32f.

77. For a complete list of corresponding statements about the Spirit and about Jesus, see Bultmann, Comm., p. 567. Cf. also his Theology II, pp. 88f.

78. Cf. μονή in vs. 23 with μένειν in vs. 17.

79. Bultmann speaks of the Paraclete as “a parallel figure to Jesus himself” (Comm., p. 567). He claims that the Evangelist has taken over the motif of “two successive sendings of two Paracletes” (“the duplication of the figure of the Revealer”) from his Gnostic source as an “appropriate form” for expressing his conception of the Holy Spirit (Comm., p. 567). Elsewhere Bultmann speaks of a “two-fold designation” that is solely intended to make certain the progress and power of the revelation, “the power of the proclamation in the community” (pp. 553ff.).

Still, however strong the parallelism between the work of the Spirit in the church and the work of Jesus, it is hard to think that the Evangelist needed a mythological figure stemming from the thought-world of Gnosticism to give expression to this concurrence. The Holy Spirit is not a new figure imported into this context. What unites the person of the Spirit as “the other Paraclete” so closely with that of the glorified Christ and makes their respective activities one is the care of the church, which is given as a task to Jesus by the Father (cf. 17:6ff.) in the new dispensation of salvation inaugurated with Jesus’ glorification.

80. Cf. Strack/Billerbeck II, p. 563, for the use of the same imagery in rabbinic literature. The idea that “orphans” here has the same sense as “the poor” (οἱ πτωχοί) has in Mt. 5:3; 11:5; Lk. 4:18; 6:20, etc., which would then characterize the role of the Paraclete as that of the great advocate of the oppressed people of God in the trial between God and Satan taking shape in the coming of God’s Kingdom (a thesis that D. E. Holwerda defends at length in his dissertation, The Holy Spirit and Eschatology in the Gospel of John, 1959), is hard to make plausible in the context of chs. 14–16 and is therefore certainly not to be accepted as “a key to the understanding of the Farewell Discourses” (proposition 2 in Holwerda’s dissertation; see also

81. See, e.g., Bultmann, Comm., p. 620; see also p. 580.

82. 16:16 reads “A little while, and you will see me no more; again a little while, and you will see me,” and therefore even more clearly pinpoints the meaning of “yet a little while” in 14:19. Cf. also Brown, Comm., ad loc.: “the statement in vs. 19 that the world will not see Jesus does not fit the parousia at all.”

83. For this θεωρεῖν, alternating with ὁρᾶν, as terminology that bears exclusively on the visible appearance of Jesus, see 20:14, 20, 25, 27, 29; Schnackenburg: “The Easter experience is the subject of reflection in this statement” (Comm. III, p. 78).

84. Some scholars, appealing to 16:23, interpret “day” more broadly as “time,” which then applies also to “coming” and “seeing” (e.g., Fischer, Die himmlischen Wohnungen, pp. 318ff.). θεωρεῖν would then denote in general the continuing “new experience of the Lord” and not “a once-for-all event” (Fischer, p. 316). But θεωρεῖν, like ὁρᾶν, is used exclusively for the appearances and in this connection also shapes the meaning of “in that day,” even though that phrase taken alone can, in fact, denote a longer period. Cf. Schnackenburg on 14:20: “On ‘that day,’ that is, the day of Easter, that true knowing … begins” (Comm. III, p. 79).

85. ἔχειν and τηρεῖν “are parallel and correspond in the same way as ἀκούω and φυλάσσω (12:47) or ἀκούω and πιστεύω (5:24)” (H. Riesenfeld, TDNT VIII, p. 144).

86. ἐμφανίζω.

87. See R. Bultmann and D. Lührmann, TDNT IX, pp. 7f.

88. Where words having the same stem are used for the appearances: ἐμφανὴ γενέσθαι (Ac. 10:43), ἐφανή (Mk. 16:9), and ἐφανερώθη (Jn. 21:14).

89. For some interpreters this is a reason for believing that in vss. 19f. as well the reference is not to the resurrection and to “seeing” the appearances but to Jesus’ fellowship with his own in a general and lasting sense (cf. the comments on vss. 19f.). Others even think that in vs. 21 the aim of the saying is to reinterpret the entire traditional view of “the appearances of the Risen One,” as in Mk. 16:9—where the related word ἐφανή is used—and that in the sense of vs. 23 (cf. R. Bultmann and D. Lührmann, TDNT IX, p. 7; Becker, Comm., p. 468). However, in our opinion, the import of vss. 19 and 20 too clearly proves the opposite.

90. Expressly distinguished from Judas Iscariot (cf. Lk. 6:16; Ac. 1:13), later also identified with the Thaddaeus mentioned in Mk. 3:18 and the Lebbaeus of Mt. 10:3. Syriac manuscripts read, in place of “Judas,” either “Thomas” (sy^s) or “Judas Thomas” (sy^c). For the implications of this reading, which is generally considered secondary, see A. F. J. Klijn, “John XIV and the Name Judas Thomas,” in Studies in John (Festschrift for J. N. Sevenster), 1970, pp. 88-96.

91. καί (lacking in some manuscripts but not unusual in questions; cf. BDF §442.8) τί (= διὰ τί) γέγονεν ὅτι (= διʼ ὅτι), literally “And for what reason is it? Why?”

92. μονὴν … ποιησóμεθα. The difference between this and the more customary μένειν (1:38; cf. 14:17) is that it gives expression to the initiatory act: “take up residence.”

93. Where the daughter of Zion is exhorted to rejoice, “For lo, I come and I will pitch my tent (κατασκηνώσω) among you.”

94. As two representations of the same thing, namely that faith in Jesus means being transposed into “eternal life” as “eschatological existence.” Cf. Bultmann, Comm., pp. 622f.; Becker, Comm., pp. 468f.; also Schnackenburg writes: “The statement in v. 2 about the ‘many dwellings in the Father’s house’ is now fulfilled, but with a paradoxical change of emphasis.… The disciples are now ‘where Jesus is’ (see v. 3), in the sphere of God’s love.” Though “John has not lost sight of physical death … he also clearly expects that the final revelation and sight of glory will take place in the heavenly world.…”

95. παρά with genitive.

96. Cf. above and the comments on 2:22; 12:16; and 20:9.

97. Cf. L. T. Witkamp, Jezus van Nazareth in de gemeente van Johannes, 1986, p. 305: “What is meant is again clearly indicated by John’s Gospel itself: what we find in it is not a complete overview of the history and words of Jesus (cf. 20:30), but an interpretive reminder that attempts to lay bare the essence, the interior, of the tradition.”

98. μὴ ταρασσέσθω ὑμῶν ἡ καρδία μηδὲ δειλιάτω. δειλάω means “be disheartened in a cowardly manner”; it appears with ταράσσεσθαι also in Is. 13:7. Cf. BAGD s.v.

99. For this use of εἰ with perfect indicative, see the comments on vs. 7.

100. So Bultmann, Comm., p. 629.

101. Specifically in the ancient christological conflicts, but also in later popular and scholarly discussion of the divine sonship of Christ. This led both to a subordinationist christology like that of Arius and—on the orthodox side—to the view that 14:28 referred to the irreversible order in trinitarian relationships (the Father begets the Son and not vice versa and so is “greater” in that sense). Others have sought a solution in the fact that Jesus speaks here from within his human nature as a “servant” and not from within his divine nature (e.g., Schnackenburg, Comm. II, pp. 85f.).

102. Cf. Calvin, though he puts less stress than we have on Jesus’ departure and change of scene. He, too, rejects the christological interpretation: “In these words He shows, not in what respect He differs in Himself from the Father, but why He descended to us; which was, to unite us to God. For, until we have reached that point, we stand so to say in mid-course. We also imagine only a semi-Christ and a mutilated Christ unless He leads us to God” (Comm. II, p. 89).

103. The word “much” is lacking in a Syriac version (sy^sin), which some commentators regard as giving the original text. The word was added, according to this view, because of all that follows in chs. 15–17. But in view of the otherwise unanimous manuscript and version witness it is hard to regard the single exception as the original text, which does not mean, of course, that chs. 15–17 are thereby disqualified as “not much.” It is rather an additional argument for the thesis that ch. 14 forms an original unit that was later augmented with chs. 15–17.

104. Various translations are possible. Usually scholars have in mind a Semitic expression meaning “he has no claim on me.” But one can also proceed from the sense of ἔχειν, “have power to, be capable of,” and translate: “in my case (as it concerns me) he is not capable of anything,” or, more simply, “against me he is powerless.”

105. For this interpretation of Jesus’ going away, see above,

106. The ἵνα clause seems to be dependent on no main clause. To take “Rise, let us go hence” as the clause on which it is dependent, as has been suggested, seems—if not “unreasonable” (so Bultmann)—forced, a too abrupt stylistic transition from the farewell discourse to a proposal to take to the road (though in content it would yield good sense). Usually, therefore, the ἵνα is taken to be elliptical (as in 13:18; cf. 9:3), indicating why Jesus’ words must now end. The translation could therefore be: “but (or “because”) the world must know.…”

107. See above,

108. See also the comments above on 10:6.

109. Bultmann calls the “I am” formula as it is used here a “recognition formula” (Comm., pp. 225f.; see

110. Here, too, scholars have sought the religio-historical background elsewhere, namely in the myth of “the tree of life” as it occurs in the—very late!—Mandaean-Gnostic writings, where the imagery is elaborated in such a way that it is sometimes clearly reminiscent of certain phrases in John 15. For this view, see Bultmann, Comm., pp. 530ff.; he regards ἀληθινóς and καλóς as “the language of (Gnostic) dualism” (p. 530). And see especially E. Schweizer, Ego Eimi, 1939, pp. 37f. But this interpretation is clearly in retreat (Schweizer later altered his views significantly; see the second edition of Ego eimi, 1963, pp. 3ff.; also his Neotestamentica, 1963, pp. 77ff.). The Old Testament connection is much more plausible and, considering the recurring application in the Fourth Gospel of Old Testament concepts and motifs to the person and work of Jesus (“lamb of God,” “bread from heaven,” “temple,” fulfiller of “the Sabbath,” “good Shepherd,” 1:29; 6:32f.; 2:21; 7:23; 10:11), can be understood much more readily as the background of John 15 than can the use made in late Gnostic writings of a pagan myth. Apart from commentaries like those of Barrett, Brown, and Schnackenburg, see also the lengthy refutation by R. Borig, Der wahre Weinstock, 1967, pp. 135-98.

111. See at length Borig, Der wahre Weinstock, pp. 84-128; A. Joubert, “L’image de la Vigne (Jean 15),” in Oikonomia. Heilsgeschichte als Theme der Theologie, ed. F. Christ (Festschrift for O. Cullmann), 1967, pp. 93-99.

112. Though Dodd, Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel, p. 411, argues for a link with Psalm 80.

113. It is hard to explain why God is designated with the general word γεωργóς, “farmer, one who tills the ground,” and not with the obvious and more speciifc word ἀμπελουργóς (cf. Lk. 13:7). But this need not have a special reason (cf. Mk. 12:1-9, which repeatedly refers to vineyard workers—not the vineyard owner—as γεωργοί).

114. Contrary to E. Käsemann, The Testament of Jesus, p. 28: “Just as the concept ‘Church’ is absent, so are the titles of honour such as the ‘family’ or the ‘people of God,’ the ‘heavenly building’ or the ‘Body of Christ.’ Correspondingly, the disciples seem to come into focus only as individuals …”; also pp. 30f.: “It becomes evident that the community is viewed primarily not from the aspect of its corporateness, but rather from the aspect of its individual members.” On this “ecclesiological” aspect, see at length Borig, Der wahre Weinstock, pp. 250ff.: “zur Ekklesiologie der Weinstockrede.”

115. On the phenomenon of the concurrence of the two different but similar-sounding verbs αἴρειν and καθαίρειν, see BDF §488.2. καθαίρειν in the sense intended here of pruning and so “cleansing” a vine is rare; see Borig, Der wahre Weinstock, p. 38. It clearly functions here in part in connection with καθαροί in vs. 3.

116. See

117. Cf. 1 Co. 5:13 (ἐξάρατε), Dt. 17:7 (ἐξάρετε).

118. See also Bultmann, Comm., p. 533, n. 4 (cf. n. 2): “Nor of course does καθαίρειν stand for the church’s disciplinary action,” but church discipline “may be able to undertake the task of καθ. in certain circumstances.” But Bultmann does support Loisy’s view, according to which καθαίρειν is realized “through the action of the Spirit and the practice of charity.”

119. Partly on the basis of 13:10 some have thought that vs. 2a refers, or at least alludes, to Judas. With this one might consider whether vs. 2b does not then, in view of the situation, portray Peter as the example of a branch who in order to bear more fruit had to be radically purified and pruned by the great Vinedresser. Although in these two men we may see striking illustrations of the saying in vs. 2, the formulation and intent of that verse are too general to allow us to say that the reference is specifically to them.

120. Cf. 6:35, 48, 51; 10:11, 14.

121. See also the comments above on 8:31.

122. The aorists ἐβλήθη and ἐξηράνθη are usually taken to be gnomic or as pointing to the future; see BDF §333; see also Borig, Der wahre Weinstock, p. 51.

123. The passive that has become customary here in translations conceals the active voice of the original. One may supply οἱ ἄνθρωποι as the subject; cf. BDF §130.2.

124. The “words” (ῥήματα) remaining in believers is the same as the believers’ keeping the commandments (vss. 10, 20) and adds nothing to the believers’ remaining in Jesus, though it “highlights the element of obedience that is contained in the idea of loyalty of faith” (Bultmann, Comm., p. 538, n. 5).

125. καὶ γένησθε ἐμοὶ μαθηταί: “and you will be my disciples.”

126. This “as” is foundational for what follows. See the comments above on 13:15; see also 13:34; 15:12; 17:11, 21.

127. The use of the word “joy” for divine salvation has its background in much of the Old Testament. “Fullness of joy” occurs also in the rabbinic literature as a designation for the salvation that will be realized and revealed in the great future. See H. Conzelmann, TDNT IX, pp. 359-72; Strack/Billerbeck II, pp. 429, 566; for non-Jewish sources see Bultmann, Comm., p. 505, n. 4, where he strongly stresses the cultic character of this joy.

128. τίθεναι τὴν ψυχὴν αὐτοῦ by itself need not mean more than “risk his life” (cf. the comments above on 10:11). Here, where it is used of Jesus, it has the full meaning of “lay down his life” (cf. 10:15b, 17f.; 3:16).

129. E.g., Schnackenburg, Comm. III, p. 109.

130. Cf. Bultmann, Comm., p. 542: “the only thing that is specifically Christian is the grounding of this command and, in line with this, its realization”; see also the comments above on 13:34f.

131. ἔθηκα ὑμᾶς ἵνα: “appoint you to”; cf. BAGD s.v.: for this meaning see also Ac. 20:28; 1 Co. 12:18, 28.

132. The ἵνα in vs. 16b does not mean that fruitbearing has as its goal the answering of prayer and that the answer therefore depends on the bearing of fruit. This ἵνα is rather the continuation of the ἵνα in vs. 16a and links the answering of the disciples’ prayer to their election and appointment by Jesus.

133. On this see at length Borig, Der wahre Weinstock, pp. 237ff. He mentions two basic interpretations, one taking the fruitbearing to be “missionary activity,” the other (more commonly followed) taking it to be “the moral-religious activity of the disciples within the Christian community.” For the first view, see, e.g., Schlatter, Comm., p. 305; W. Thüsing, Die Erhöhung und Verherrlichung Jesu in Johannesevangelium, 1960, pp. 107f.

134. G. Delling, TDNT VIII, p. 505: “the prior imperative not only makes the expression more vivid but also prepares the ground for the second imperative.” See also Schnackenburg, Comm. III, p. 422, n. 71.

135. πρῶτον ὑμῶν, comparative (cf. BDF §62).

136. On this see the comments above on 3:3. This view (advanced by the school of Bultmann) is especially defended by L. Schrottroff in Der Glaubende und die feindliche Welt: Beobachtungen zum gnostischen Dualismus und seiner Bedeutung für Paulus und das Johannesevangelium, 1970.

137. For this use of ἐκ see the comments above on 3:31.

138. So, e.g., Brown, Comm. II, p. 687: “They will keep your word to the extent they have kept mine (and they have not kept mine).”

139. On this failure to “know” God, see also the comments on 7:28f.; 8:19, 51.

140. Cf. BDF §444.3: νῦν δὲ καὶ ἑωράκασιν καὶ (“and still”) μεμισήκασιν καὶ (“both”) ἐμὲ καὶ (“as well as”) τòν πατέρα μου (who to them seemed separate).

141. Cf. BDF §448.7: Elliptical ἀλλʼ ἵνα: “But this occurred that …,” “but it had to be that.”

142. See also the comments above on 8:12.

143. δωρεάν can have several meanings; here, however, it is clearly that which is “undeserved” (cf. BAGD s.v.).

144. παρὰ τοῦ πατρóς.

145. The reference here is evidently—in distinction, say, from Ro. 8:16—to what in theology is called the external testimony of the Holy Spirit in distinction from the internal testimony.

146. So, e.g., Bultmann: “Their witness is not, therefore, a historical account of that which was, but—however much it is based on that which was—it is “repetition,” “a calling to mind,” in the light of their present relationship with him (Comm., p. 554). Witkamp, who follows Bultmann in this last point, writes: “The witness is something other than a repetition of the past; it is witness concerning the glorified Christ. Because as the glorified one he is identical with the earthly Jesus, historical continuity is necessary to adequately describe the glorified Jesus” (Jezus van Nazareth, p. 311, italics added).

147. See also Brown, Comm. II, p. 690.

148. Clearer and more correct, in our opinion, is what Witkamp writes on 14:25 (Jezus van Nazareth, p. 306): “The church is permanently united with the earthly Jesus; therefore, the memory that the meaning of history discloses to the present is of central significance in the work of the Paraclete.” But later (

149. σκανδαλίζειν, “give offense,” “cause to fall,” on account of the σκάνδαλον (the “stumbling block”) placed in their path; the New Testament uses the middle voice (as here) especially of stumbling resulting from hatred and persecution (cf. Mt. 24:10; Mk. 4:17) or from the nature of the gospel (Jn. 6:6; 1 Co. 1:22; Gl. 5:11; Mt. 16:23).

150. ἀποσυναγώγους ποιήσουσιν, literally “make extra-synagogal.” On this expression and the controversy linked with it see the comments above on 9:22.

151. Like the synagogue “curse,” designed to lead to repentance. Cf. 9:22 (34); 12:42; Lk. 6:22.

152. ἀλλά in the sense of “indeed” (the time will come); see BDF §448.6. For this heightening see also Bultmann: “ἀλλʼ ἔρχεται ὥρα clearly contrasts that which is already familiar and no longer a matter of astonishment with something new and astounding: it will come to martyrdom!” (Comm., p. 556). This is one more reason for not thinking of expulsion from the synagogue as a measure applied only at the end of the first century, as many interpreters, following esp. J. L. Martyn, think today—and even find therein their main argument for positing the anachronistic character of John 9 and similar stories (see the comments above on 9:22; 12:42).

153. It is lacking (for that reason?) in some manuscripts.

154. See Bultmann, Comm., pp. 459f.

155. So Brown, Comm. II, p. 710, a conclusion with which he then, however, connects the hypothesis of different “layers” in the Fourth Gospel.

156. Some therefore believe that Jesus refers back here to those occasions by saying, “Now (unlike in 13:36) you no longer ask me.” So M. J. Lagrange, Comm., p. 418.

157. Calvin, Comm. II, p. 115.

158. So Brown, Comm. II, p. 711.

159. See, e.g., E. Bammel, “Jesus und der Paraklet in Johannes 16,” in Christ and Spirit in the New Testament (Festschrift for C. F. D. Moule), 1973, pp. 199f.; D. A. Carson, “The Function of the Paraclete in John 16:7-11,” JBL 98 (1979), pp. 547-66, with extensive discussion of the literature; at length also Witkamp, Jezus van Nazareth, pp. 281, 312-27.

160. ἐλέγξει is used of the introduction of evidence by which the truth is brought to light and falsehood is unmasked.

161. περί with genitive identifying the substance of the argument; cf. 8:46; Jude 15; BAGD s.v. ἐλέγχω.

162. Cf., e.g., RSV in contrast to NRSV.

163. So, correctly, also Brown, Comm. II, p. 711, with an appeal to Mowinckel.

164. So in particular O. Betz, Der Paraklet, but also Schnackenburg, Comm. III, p. 146, though he is more cautious in his formulations and rejects Betz’s idea that the “teacher of righteousness” in the Qumran literature played a similar role.

165. See also Bultmann, Comm., in loc.

166. Not in the sense, however, that the mind or spirit of the disciples is the “internal” forum before which the Spirit testifies. For it is the disciples’ task to be not the forum of the truth but its witnesses. For this view see Brown, Comm. II, p. 712, who correctly rejects the notion that “the trial” takes place before God, i.e., in the final judgment. But then he goes on: “The forum is internal. In Johannine realized eschatology elements of world judgement are incorporated here; yet the courtroom is not in some apocalyptic Valley of Jehoshaphat (Joel iii 2, 12) but in the mind and understanding of the disciples.” Brown appeals here to M.-F. Berrouard, “Le Paraclet, défendeur du Christ devant la conscience du croyant (Jean XVI 8-11),” RSPT 13 (1949), pp. 351-89. Against this too limited view of the work of the Paraclete, see also Witkamp, Jezus van Nazareth, p. 316.

167. The repeated “ὅτι” is not causal (“because”) but explicative. It refers not to knowledge people already possess but introduces a further explanation; cf. Bultmann, Comm., p. 563, n. 3: “Of course in vss. 9-11 ὅτι has in each case the purpose of expounding, not substantiating what has been said”; similarly Schnackenburg, who writes about these parallel ὅτι clauses as “explicative clauses” (Comm., ad loc.), against, among others, Zahn and Morris.

168. μὲν … δέ.

169. See also B. Lindars, “Δικαιοσύνη in Jn. 16:8 and 10,” in Mélanges Bibliques (Festschrift for B. Rigaux), 1970, pp. 275-85. Differently, W. Stenger, “Δικαιοσύνη in Jo. XVI 8:10,” NovT 21 (1979), pp. 2-10. The latter speaks of Jesus’ righteousness as “a basic righteousness he possesses in virtue of his origin.” But in vss. 8 and 10 the reference is to the concept of righteousness as such (with no subjective genitive). Elsewhere, too, the idea of Jesus’ ultimate vindication against his enemies repeatedly emerges more or less explicitly in the Fourth Gospel (e.g., 8:50, 54). On this see at length Schnackenburg, Comm. III, p. 131.

170. See also my De Pastorale Brieven, 1967, pp. 104f., and Aan de Romeinen, 1977², pp. 25, 178.

171. For the ongoing discussion of this difficult clause see, aside from the commentaries (esp. Schnackenburg, Comm. III, pp. 130f.), the above-mentioned monographs. For the last-mentioned view 20:29 is referred to; cf. Brown, Comm. II, p. 713: “Until Jesus returns to take them with him to his heavenly dwelling place (XIV,2-3, XVII,24), believers shall not see him physically but only in and through his Spirit, the Paraclete. They come under the rubric of those fortunate ones ‘who have not seen him and yet they have believed’ (XX,29).” But “not having seen” is not put on a level higher than “having seen” in 20:29.

172. See also the comments above on 12:37-43.

173. βαστάζειν, “of divine mysteries” (cf. BAGD s.v.).

174. ὅταν δὲ ἐλθῇ ἐκεῖνος.

175. ἀφʼ ἑαυτοῦ.

176. Also transmitted as “hears” (cf. 5:20).

177. See at greater length

178. Bultmann, Comm., p. 575.

179. ἀναγγέλειν.

180. See, e.g., Brown, Comm. II, p. 708, which refers to Joüon’s 1938 study.

181. See , above.

182. Though such repetitions are “typical of simple narrative, esp. in the Near East” (Brown, Comm. II, p. 720).

183. The ὅτι before ὑπάγω in the question in direct discourse in vs. 17 can best be taken as recitative.

184. ἔλεγον, imperfect of duration.

185. Again alternating between θεωρεῖν (in “not see”) and ὁρᾶν (of the future “seeing”). We will see this alternation again in the resurrection narrative (θεωρεῖν in 20:6, 12, 14; ὁρᾶν in 20:8, 18, 20, 25, 27, 29).

186. Ζητεῖτε: “asking yourselves about,” “wondering about” (cf. BAGD s.v.), durative present.

187. Unless “and your hearts will rejoice” in v. 22 refers back to Is. 66:14, where the same words—at some distance—follow the image of a woman giving birth in 66:7-11.

188. Other (especially Catholic) interpreters, appealing to Gn. 3:16; 4:1, see here an allusion to Eve and her progeny, which will destroy the head of the serpent. The woman of Rv. 12:1ff. is mentioned in this connection as well. There as here the woman who gives birth to the child is said to be Mary. A connection is also made with Jn. 19:25-27, where Jesus addresses Mary as “woman” and designates her as “mother” of the disciple “whom Jesus loved,” which is taken to refer to her position as “mother of the church.” The word θλίψις (“sorrow”) in 16:21 is then said to be an allusion to the eschatological “woes” that are to precede the coming of the Messiah, thus indicating allegorically the Messiah’s birth. For all the details, assembled from a wide range of sources, see esp. Brown, Comm. II, pp. 721f., 731f., who appeals to A. Feuillet, “L’heure de la femme (Jn 16,21) et l’heure de la Mère de Jésus (Jn 19,25-27),” Biblica 47 (1966), pp. 169-84, 361-80, 557-73. This mariological interpretation has been rightly rejected by other (including Catholic) commentators as far-fetched and based too much on fragmentary evidence; see, e.g., Schnackenburg, Comm. III, pp. 158f. See also above on the “mariological” links assumed in 2:3ff. and, below, the comments on 19:25-27.

189. See also Schnackenburg’s lucid exposition of 14:20 and 16:23.

190. Though ἐρωτᾶν can also refer to asking in the the sense of prayer (cf. vs. 2b; 14:16). In this connection, however, “ask questions” seems, in view of what precedes, more likely than “pray” since up to this point the disciples have not “prayed” to Jesus, and αἰτεῖν is used for prayer in what follows.

191. The idea is somewhat different if one does not, with other important manuscripts, link “in my name” with “what you ask” but with “will give it to you” (so many interpreters, including Bultmann, Schnackenburg, Barrett, and Lindars). The following words, “Hitherto you have asked nothing in my name,” argue for the reading that we (with Nestle) have followed and may have led to the other reading. The choice is difficult, but in the interpretation given above it makes little difference.

192. See the comments above on 10:6.

193. Cf. T. Zahn, Comm., 600: “In this connection one must not think only of 13:8, 10; 14:2, 23; 15:1-6; 16:21; on the contrary, the character of παροιμία, which conceals as well as reveals the truth, more or less marks all that Jesus has taught. The well-meaning in particular would not understand the naked truth.”

194. See, e.g., Becker, Comm. II, p. 503, who speaks of “subjective readiness to take it in” on the part of the disciples, who changed after the resurrection, while the “pre-Easter” and “post-Easter” statements of Jesus remained the same. See, however, vs. 25b: “then I shall no longer speak to you in figures but tell you plainly of the Father.” Bultmann, too, subjectizes (Comm., p. 584):

It is possible to understand the words of Jesus only in the reality of believing existence.… Not that he will say anything new; not even that the meaning of what has already been said will gradually become comprehensible to the mind; for Jesus had never imparted theoretical knowledge. Rather, what was once said will become clear in the eschatological existence, for which it was spoken from the beginning.

See also Calvin on vs. 25 (Comm. II, 128): “The fact, however, clearly shows that Christ was not speaking allegorically, but using a simple and even elementary way of speaking to His disciples; but such was their ignorance, that they hearkened to Him with astonishment. The obscurity therefore did not lie so much in the teaching as in their minds.”

195. For that reason the translation of ἐν παροιμίας as “in riddles” (“as if the early Jesus generally spoke only in riddles,” Becker, Comm., in loc.) is to be rejected. Even though such a description may be applied to certain sayings of Jesus, it is utterly inappropriate as a description of the general character of his preaching.

196. Scholars have pointed, correctly, to the analogy with the so-called “messianic secret” in Mark and the other Synoptic Gospels; see my Zelfopenbaring en Zelfverberging, 1946, pp. 66-69.

197. Bultmann, too, speaks of the “basic provisionality also of believing knowledge,” “which will only become true understanding through the tests it will have to undergo again and again in the future” (Comm., p. 576, n. 2), but of course he understands this not in a redemption-historical sense but in an “existentialist” sense.

198. ἀπαγγέλλω occurs only here in John (cf. 1 Jn. 1:2, 3 as an alternate for ἀναγγέλλω in vs. 5; on ἀναγγέλλω see the comments above on 16:4 and Schnackenburg, Comm. III, p. 161).

199. Brown, Comm. II, p. 735.

200. Cf., in this sense, Calvin’s lengthy and eloquent exposition ending with: “This is a remarkable passage, by which we are taught that we have the heart of God as soon as we place before Him the name of His Son.”

201. In some manuscripts the first half of the verse is lacking, perhaps because of homoioteleuton. Most interpreters adhere to the text we have followed.

202. πάλιν here denotes not a repetition but the converse of the first half of the saying.

203. χρείαν ἔχειν ἵνα is typically Johannine (cf. 2:25; BDF §393.5).

204. ἐν τούτῷ; see BDF §219.2.

205. ἄρτι picks up the νῦν in vss. 29f.; cf. 13:36f.

206. For this connection with 13:36ff., see also Schnackenburg, Comm. III, p. 164.

207. Cf. C. van Gelderen, De boeken der Koningen II, 1950², p. 303.

208. The allusion to 1 Kg. 22:27, in which there is similar mention of “peace,” may still be in effect here.

209. Cf. vs. 1: ταῦτα ἐλάλησεν … καὶ ἐπάρας … εἶπεν.… Bultmann’s view, according to which this prayer was originally placed before the farewell discourse (Comm., pp. 460ff.), has not been followed by others.

210. According to Schnackenburg the expression goes back to D. Chytraeus (d. 1600), but the idea that Jesus here intercedes as high priest for the people can already be found in Cyril of Alexandria (Schnackenburg, Comm. III, p. 433).

211. See, e.g., the thirteen points of contact M. Winter lists in Die Abschiedsworte der Väter und das Vermächtnis Jesu, pp. 208f.

212. Cf. Winter, Die Abschiedsworte der Väter und das Vermächtnis Jesu, pp. 209f.

213. See also

214. See the comments on vs. 3, which refers to Jesus in the third person.

215. For these views see further Schnackenburg, Comm. III, p. 169.

216. On these classifications see Becker’s ample overview in “Aufbau, Schichtung und theologie-geschichtliche Stellung des Gebetes in Johannes 17,” ZNW 60 (1969), pp. 54-83, here pp. 57-60; Becker, Comm., pp. 508-17.

217. For the causative sense of καθώς, see the comments above on 13:15; 15:9f.; cf. also 17:21ff.

218. See the comments above on 1:51; 3:14, 16; 5:27.

219. ἐξουσία; cf. Mt. 28:18.

220. Schnackenburg calls Jesus’ self-designation as “Jesus Christ” in the prayer “unsuitable and contrary to the style of the prayer as a whole” (Comm. III, p. 172). Also, the use of this name must be understood, it is said, as a traditional formula of professing one’s faith just as the attributes “only and true” (God) are said to be traditional attributes added to God’s name (see Bultmann, Comm., p. 494, n. 7).

221. πρò τοῦ τòν κóσμον εἶναι, expressed in vs. 24 by πρò καταβολῆς κóσμου, in 1:1 by ἐν ἀρχῇ; cf. also 6:62.

222. παρὰ σοί.

223. πρòς τòν θεóν.

224. By God’s “name” is meant God as he reveals and makes himself known in action (cf. 12:28). On the significance of God’s “name,” see at length C. A. van Peursen, De Naam die geschiedenis maakt. Het geheim van de bijbelse godsnamen, 1991, pp. 31ff. and passim.

225. σοὶ ἦσαν.

226. See Becker, Comm., p. 521. On p. 519 he writes: “This determinism, which conditions history and the ecclesiasticized dualism of cosmos and church, not only comes out in vs. 2 but permeates the entire prayer, as no other Johannine passage, so repetitively and so stereotypically. The language of divine giving stresses this determinism such that it has become superfluous to speak of faith.”

227. On this and on the link between “being drawn by the Father” and “believing in Jesus” see at length

228. For this (Johannine) meaning of τηρεῖν, see BAGD s.v.; Bultmann, Comm., p. 498, n. 2.

229. παρὰ σοῦ εἰσιν.

230. ἔγνωσαν ἀληθῶς. The preceding ἔγνωκαν in vs. 7 refers to the ultimate result. The aorists ἔλαβον and ἔγνωσαν refer to the way in which that result is obtained.

231. ἔδωκας, δέδωκας, vss. 6f.

232. παρὰ σοῦ, twice. παρὰ σοῦ ἐξῆλθον is not to be understood “trinitarianly” but as synonymous with σύ με ἀπέστειλας.

233. ἔδωκας twice, δέδωκας in vs. 9.

234. See

235. The second καί in vs. 11 is adversative.

236. This formula of address, which is imbued with a sense of God’s majesty and individuality, occurs also elsewhere in Jewish and Christian writings, though rarely in Christian writings (as in Rv. 6:10; see O. Procksch and K. G. Kuhn, TDNT I, pp. 88ff.).

237. In place of ᾦ δέδωκας several manuscripts have οὓς δέδωκας and therefore make the disciples, rather than the “name,” what has been given to Jesus. But the reading followed above has strong evidence, is accepted as original by most interpreters, and fits very well in the context.

238. ὁ υἱòς ἀπολείας refers back to the preceding (οὐδεὶς) ἀπώλετο. υἱóς with a genitive noun is a frequently occurring Semitic combination meaning “one who belongs to” or “one who is controlled by” (cf. BAGD s.v. υἱóς). The expression is used for the Antichrist in 2 Th. 2:3 and elsewhere in apocalyptic literature of Satan himself.

239. So, e.g., Becker, Comm., p. 523. He speaks of another “understanding” in ch. 17 from what is seen in 14:2ff., 18ff.: “With Jesus’ mission his mandate with repect to the community on earth runs out as well. Now God takes care of the community that has been left behind. The shift from christology to the doctrine of God is undeniable.”

240. τηρεῖν ἐκ, “protect them lest they fall into the hands of.” τοῦ πονηροῦ can be translated “evil” but here certainly refers to the personal “evil one” (cf. 1 Jn. 2:13; 4:4; 5:16). But the boundaries are fluid (cf. 1 Jn. 5:18f.).

241. In some manuscripts this has (for that very reason?) been omitted.

242. For the frequent use of ἁγιάζειν in the terminology of sacrifice, see also BAGD s.v.

243. ὑπέρ.

244. See also Bultmann, Comm., p. 235, n. 1. Accordingly, the view that Jesus’ self-consecration on behalf of his own relates not to his sacrifice but to his consecration in heaven on behalf of his disciples seems to be in conflict with the thrust of this whole pericope, which places all the emphasis precisely on what Jesus is now doing on earth for the consecration of his disciples with a view to their coming ministry on earth.

245. ἐν ἀληθείᾳ, here, in distinction from vs. 17, without the article and therefore to be taken adverbially. Others think it refers back to vs. 17 and therefore has to be understood in the same sense: “in the truth.” Although an assortment of meaningful ideas can be associated with this translation, the fact is that vs. 19 understands the consecration of the disciples under another viewpoint than vs. 17 does, namely that of Jesus’ self-offering alongside that of the realm of the truth of the word of God (see also 13:10; 15:3).

246. Schnackenburg, Comm. III, p. 184.

247. Brown, Comm. II, p. 764.

248. As spoken at the Last Supper, the present participle πιστευóντων undoubtedly refers to the future (for this usage see BDF §339.2b). Accordingly, several textual witnesses have the future participle.

249. This unity of composition is even more striking if, with Holwerda (“Punten in komma’s,” Opbouw 3 [34], 1990, pp. 52ff.), we join the first half of vs. 22 to what precedes so that it is dependent on (the first) “that the world may believe.…” Then “that they may be one” in vs. 22 repeats “that they all may be one” in vs. 21 and is therefore still dependent on “I pray” in vs. 21, while the conclusion of vs. 22, “even as we are one” (in keeping with “even as …” in vs. 21), together with vs. 23, forms the second strophe. So, beginning with vs. 22b, one must then read: “(I pray) that they may be one; even as we are one, I in them and you in me, so that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know.…” There is thus a consistently applied parallelism between the second strophe and the first (“I pray … that they may all be one even as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, so they in us, that the world …”), especially in the concluding purpose clauses.

Holwerda provides a totally consistent schematic ordering of the material. But however attractive and sagacious this transposition of periods and commas may be, objections can be made: First, the division of vs. 22 into three parts is oversubtle (especially the comma placed between ἕν and καθώς) and therefore hard to recognize as the intent of the Evangelist. Second, on grounds of subject matter there is good reason to take vs. 22a (in keeping with the traditional division of the verses) as the beginning of the second cycle and not as the conclusion of the first (see the comments above). Finally, Holwerda’s entire reconstruction stands or falls with the idea that the ἵνα in vs. 21a (which is then said to be picked up in the middle of vs. 22) introduces not a purpose clause (“in order that”) but the content of the prayer introduced in vs. 20 (“I pray that”), a view that in my opinion does not deserve preference (see again the comments above).

250. ἕν in vs. 21b is lacking before ὦσιν, at least in the reading that most follow. It is so obviously intended after καθώς that it could be omitted.

251. See, e.g., the extensive summary in Brown, Comm. II, pp 775ff., 782.

252. On this use of καθώς, see the comments above on 13:15; 15:10ff.; and 17:18.

253. In his lengthy critical discussion of “Christian unity” in The Testament of Jesus, pp. 56ff., which includes his rejection of the ethical, personalistic, and mystical views of this unity.

254. Ibid., pp. 70f. He refers to far-reaching Gnostic influence, namely the idea of emanation, according to which the divine imparts itself through a series of stages to the earthly. “This almost frightening understanding of the Johannine community must be called gnosticizing. Here one perceives most clearly John’s naive docetism, which extends to his ecclesiology also” (p. 70). For this understanding of the Fourth Gospel as naively docetic, see

255. See also Calvin on 17:21 (Comm II, p. 148): “Many of the fathers interpreted these words absolutely, as meaning that Christ is one with the Father because He is the eternal God. But the Arian controversy made them seize on detached passages and twist them to a foreign sense.” Christ speaks here, rather, of that unity in terms of his office as Mediator and as Head of the church.

256. See

257. See also Brown, Comm. II, p. 778.

258. So Calvin on vs. 21 (Comm. II, p. 148): “Believe” is “imprecisely used by the Evangelist for ‘to know’; that is, when unbelievers, convicted by their own experience, perceive the heavenly and divine glory of Christ. Hence, believing they do not believe; for this feeling does not penetrate into the inward attitude of the heart.” Becker acknowledges that “believe” in vs. 21b is more “liberal-minded” toward the world than “recognize” in vs. 23, which refers not to “recognition leading to salvation” but to “insight into one’s own lostness,” while vs. 21b assumes “the possibility that the world might come to believe.” This difference then again suggests to Becker that there are two different editorial hands at work here (Comm., p. 526). Following Käsemann, Becker writes that Christian mission is “not directed to the world as such” but only to those in the world whom the Father gave to Christ, “hence the elect, those who have been called to faith” (Becker, Comm., p. 527).

259. ἵνα in vs. 21b is no longer dependent on “I pray” in vs. 20 (as are the two preceding ἵνας), “but states the purpose or result of ἕν … εἶναι” (Bultmann, Comm., p. 514, n. 4; see also Brown, Comm. II, p. 770).

260. Cf. Schnackenburg: “This statement and that of vs. 22a can be grouped among a series of statements in which Jesus refers, in this discourse, to what he has done for the disciples: he has kept them in the Father’s name (v. 12); he has given them the word of the Father (v. 14); he has sent them into the world (v. 18) and he has sanctified himself for them (v. 19)” (Comm. III, p. 192). For the view that vs. 22a is to be understood with vs. 21 and is therefore dependent on “that the world may believe,” see n. 249 above.

261. “He had nothing for Himself alone but rather was rich to enrich His believers” (Calvin, Comm. II, p. 149).

262. ἵνα repeats the ἵνα in vs. 22 and introduces a final clause that is parallel with the final clause in vs. 22.

263. ἵνα ὦσιν τετελειμένοι is hard to translate and is therefore usually viewed as a further description of the unity: “that they may attain perfect unity” (cf. BAGD s.v. τελειóω). τελειóω refers here not to inner moral perfection but to being brought to the highest possible point, the attainment of the highest degree, here the highest degree of unity.

264. For various descriptions, see Schnackenburg, Comm. III, p. 192.

265. In place of πιστεύῃ in vs. 21, vs. 23 has γινώσκῃ, but with no plausible difference in meaning (e.g., Bultmann: “without distinction”). For the reading πιστεύσῃ and the conclusions to be drawn from it, see Brown, Comm. II, p. 776.

266. On this see at length the comments on 14:2f.

267. Käsemann: “The fact that this futurist hope is simply taken for granted in John, that it is expressed almost incidentally and emphasized only at the end of chapter 17, makes his hope all the more significant” (The Testament of Jesus, p. 72). The eschatology of the Fourth Gospel is thus limited to “the final unification of the community in heaven” and the glorification of the children of God. The old apocalyptic tradition in which a cosmic revolution was expected has been spiritualized under Gnostic influence.

But one may ask whether this self-evident character that Käsemann assumes with respect to the eschatologized hope of the community (even though it is expressed only “incidentally”) does not apply also to the future of the entire created world, however remarkable it may be that no separate mention is made of this in the Fourth Gospel (unlike the Synoptics). But apart from texts like 5:25, see, in general, the important role played by the Son of man in the Fourth Gospel (with clear reference in 5:27 to its cosmic-apocalyptic background in Daniel 7; cf. also Jn. 1:51; 3:13; 6:27, 62; 8:28). When Jesus’ glorification is described as the glorification of the Son of man (cf. 12:23; 13:31), this diction is hard to understand if one does not take into account “all power in heaven and earth” (Mt. 28:18), which is typical for Son of man eschatology (cf. also Jn. 17:2). Here, too, one must again ask about the Evangelist’s unique purpose and not draw far-reaching conclusions from his silences.

268. Here Bultmann, Comm., p. 520, is very much on target:

But nothing positive [anschaulich, i.e., “concrete”] can be said about it in explanation; for what is said in 1 John 3:2 is just as relevant here; οὔπω ἐφανερώθη τί ἐσóμεθα.… The only thing that is clear is that an existence for the believers with the Revealer beyond death is requested, and thus promised. Death has become insignificant for them (11.25f.); but not in the sense that they can ignore it because their earthly life is now complete and meaningful in itself; but because their life is not enclosed within the limits of temporal-historical existence. The reality of the revelation does not lie in the inward superiority of light over darkness, enabling the believer to stand outside the battle, safe in the knowledge of the eternal values and inward union with them. On the contrary, meaning is given to the temporal event in that it is determined by powers which have their reality beyond the reality it has, yet without being eternal in the sense of idealist thought. History is not a symphony in which everything is woven harmoniously into a whole; no, in history judgment is carried through. But this holds out a promise at the same time: what happens can achieve its purpose. History runs its course before the judgement-seat of God. Thus it is also true of the believer that his participation in life is not exhausted in his historical existence within time, even though nothing positive can be said about the “then” beyond death. The Evangelist avoids all speculation about any heavenly journey of the soul, and refrains from any description of conditions of another world, such as form part of Gnostic mythology. But the fact that he has seen that “the view beyond has been barred” from us, does not make him fall back on the opinion that human life can find its completeness in this world; he knows the double possibility: that it falls to pieces in condemnation, or that it is eternal in faith.

269. δέ, vs. 25b.

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