Over the Lenten season I worked on John 13 quite a bit. Since Easter, I’ve been translating and pondering John 14. My text is below, but first I have some notes on translation and theology.
Notes On The Translation
1. I chose to not capitalize common words, including ‘father’ and ‘son’. I know that goes against some people’s understanding of language, but I actually think it weakens what Jesus is saying to overemphasize these words in such an unusual way. I would not capitalize it if I were speaking of my father or yours.
2. The New Testament word ‘paraclete’, which Jesus uses here twice, is a sticky word to render. It can be mean all kinds of things – comforter, guide, advocate, helper, teacher – just about anything positive we might want or need is what paraclete can mean. I think it is such a great word and almost has the feeling of name or title, that I chose to transliterate it and capitalize it.
3. Verse 2 is very familiar to most Christ-followers, nevertheless it is famously hard to communicate. The idea is simple enough: Jesus is going to prepare us a place to live inside God’s great big dwelling. How to render this – rooms inside a mansion, houses in a gated community, homes in a neighborhood – is a little bit harder.
Notes On The Theology
1. Jesus teaches the exclusive nature of access to heaven and the father. He, and he alone, is the path to heaven and to the father. There are no other roads.
2. For The Paraclete to come, Jesus must leave. But he will not leave them alone or withour guidance.
3. The most fundamental factor for believe and inclusion in the Jesus community is obedience to Jesus’ words, primary of which is to love one another.
4. Some stumble over Jesus words in verse 28 where he seems to take a subordinate position to the father, ‘the father is greater than me.’ I do not understand it relationally but instead positionally. The context is that of Jesus going to heaven, and heaven is better than here. He is leaving this world (on the cross and resurrection) and going to the greater place where the father is. It is similar language we use all the time with the euphemism of death as ‘going to a better place.’
5. I wish Jesus would have elaborated on the ruler of this age who is coming for him (v. 30), but he does not. Instead, he tells us to not be upset and don’t be cowards. Seems like steady advice for always – keep your head clear and be brave!
John 14 From the Greek New Testament
1. Do not let your heart be upset. Believe in God and believe in me.
2. There are many living spaces in my father’s house. If this were not so, then I would not have told you I am traveling to prepare a place there for you.
3. If I travel and prepare a place for you, then I will come again and receive you myself, so you may be where I am.
4. You know the path to where I go.
5. Thomas said to him, ‘Lord, we do not know to where you go, so how are we able to know the path?
6. Jesus said to him, ‘I am the path, the truth, and the life. Nobody comes to the father except through me.
7. If you know me, then you will know my father, so you already know him and have seen him.’
8. Philip said to him, ‘Lord, show us the father and that will be enough.’
9. Jesus said to him, ‘I have been with you such a long time, and still, you do not know me, Philip? If you see me, you have seen the father. How then can you say, ‘show us the father’?
10. Do you not believe that I am in the father and the father is in me? The words I myself say to you are not what I speak but the father who abides in me. He does his works.
11. Believe me, then, I am in the father and the father is in me. If not, then believe because of these works.
12. Isn’t it true what I say to you, those who believe in me will do the works I do, but also greater, for I travel to the father.
13. Also, whatever you might ask in my name, this I will do so that the father might be glorified in the son.
14. I will do whatever you might ask in my name.
15. If you love me, then you will keep my commandments.
16. I will ask the father and he will give you another Paraclete so he can come be with you in this age.
17. He is the spirit of truth whom the world cannot receive because it does not see him nor know him. You know him because he abides in you and will be with you.
18. I will not leave you as orphans. I come to you.
19. A little while yet and the world will not see me, but you will see me for I live, and you will live.
20. You yourselves will know on that day that I am in the father, and you are in me, just as I am in you.
21. The person who has and keeps my commandments is the one who loves me. The one who loves me will be loved by my father and I will love him and will reveal myself to him.’
22. Judas – not Iscariot – said to him, ‘Lord, what has happened that you intend to reveal yourself to us but not the world.’
23. Jesus answered him, ‘Whoever loves me will keep my word, and my father will love him. We will then come to him and make our home with him.’
24. Those who love me not keep not my words. What you hear are not my words but my father’s who sent me.
25. I have spoken these things to you while I remain with you.
26. Yet the Paraclete, the Holy Spirit whom the father sends in my name, will teach you everything and he will remind you everything I said to you.
27. I leave you peace. My peace I give to you. I do not give in the same way the world gives. Let not your hearts be upset nor act cowardly.
28. You heard when I said to you, ‘I leave and I will come again to you.’ Now, if you loved me, you would rejoice, for I am going to the father, and the father is greater than me.
29. I have spoken to you now before it happens so that when it happens you might believe.
30. I will no longer say many things to you. The ruler of this world comes for me, but he has nothing over me,
31. for the world must learn that I love the father and I do just as the father commanded me. Get up. Let’s get out of here.’