1:1 “In the beginning was the Word.” The prologue establishes Jesus as the earthly incarnation of “the Word,” which existed side by side with God the Father since the beginning. But elsewhere we are told that Jesus was “begotten” as God’s son at a particular point in time, which then must have been sometime after the beginning. For example, “Thou art my son. Today I have begotten thee.” (Hebrews 5:5) Also, Colossians 1:15, where Jesus is referred to as “the first born of all creation,” thus establishing not only Jesus’s birth at a point in time, but identifying him as a part of “creation,” and thus not in existence at the beginning. Note the many similarities between this prologue and the speech made by Wisdom in Proverbs 8:22-30.
“The Word” is the English translation of the Greek logos. It literally means “word” but has broader meanings that overlap with Greek philosophy and with Hebrew thought as well. In Greek it was used to signify the underlying order and rationality of the universe, or in religious terms, God’s plan or blueprint for all of creation. The prologue of John’s gospel equates Jesus the man with this concept, telling us that the Word became incarnate in the flesh with Jesus (1:14), to serve as intermediary between mankind and God. The opening lines of the book of Hebrews echo this theme, speaking of the Son, “through whom also he [God] created the world.” (Hebrews 1:2) Thus, in this prologue, “the evangelist meant to claim that Jesus was the self-expression of God – the revealed, public side of the divine being. By claiming that Jesus is the Word of God the author supposes that Jesus is the divine medium of communication with humanity.” (Anchor Bible Dictionary, vol. 3, p. 923) The implication is that people can no longer communicate with God directly, but must go through Jesus as intermediary. Jesus even states this explicitly in John 14:6 – “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father but by me.”
“And the Word became flesh.” This is much stronger than Paul’s assertion that God sent “his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh.” (Romans 8:3) For Paul, “flesh” is by nature sinful, and Jesus was only in the “likeness” of flesh, which is not quite the same as saying he “became” flesh.
1:18 “No one has ever seen God.” Yet large crowds of people saw Jesus, and we were told in 1:1 that “the Word was God.” Was Jesus then not God, after all? In the Old Testament, seeing God was a rather common occurrence, so 1:18 is at odds with numerous Old Testament passages. See, for example, Exodus 24:11; Isaiah 6:1; 1 Kings 22:19.
The verse goes on to refer to “the only begotten God” or “the only begotten son,” depending on which Greek text you have. The verse is cryptic, and can be translated variously depending on the specific text and on where you choose to put the punctuation. This verse ends the prologue, and the gospel narrative starts with verse 19.
1:19 “The Jews” appear frequently in John’s gospel, and they play the role of antagonists to Jesus much as the “scribes and Pharisees” do in the synoptic gospels. The phrase “the Jews” occurs 75 times in the four gospels, and 60 of those are from the gospel of John. Of course, Jesus was a Jew, and so were his followers, so what could the gospel author possibly have meant by casting “the Jews” as the enemies of Jesus? Some commentators have assumed that “the Jews” really meant the religious officials of the Sanhedrin (council). But using a broad term like “the Jews” in this way only makes sense if John’s gospel was written at a time when the followers of Jesus had already begun to develop an identity as a separate religious group – i.e., Christians - rather than as a sect within Judaism. Thus, many scholars see the use of this phrase as evidence that the gospel of John was written rather late in the first century, after the Christian movement had come to think of itself as a community distinct from “the Jews,” and including many non-Jewish members.
1:20 “I am not the Christ.” There was some question in the minds of these Jewish priests as to whether John the Baptist was the “Christ” (Greek), or “Messiah” (Hebrew). The literal meaning of the two words is the same (i.e., “anointed one”), but their meaning has shifted over time. The meaning that would have been familiar to most Jews during Jesus’s time would be that the Messiah was a future Jewish king who would lead Israel to independence by throwing off the oppressive yoke of the Roman occupiers. Christians modified the meaning of the word to refer to the sacrificial son of God who atones for the sins of the world. In this verse, in the mouths of the Jewish priests, it’s obviously the former that is meant. The Baptist answers, “I am not the Christ.”
1:21 John declares that he is not Elijah, either. Yet Jesus, speaking of John the Baptist, reveals that “he is Elijah who is to come.” (Matthew 11:13-14) See also Matthew 17:12-13.
1:19-27 Nowhere in this passage is there any hint that John the Baptist preached any message other than the coming of Jesus. However, in all the other gospels, we are told that the Baptist’s message was “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” (Matthew 3:2) Mark 1:4 and Luke 3:3 have him “preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.”
1:29-30 Here and in 1:15 and 1:34, John the Baptist immediately recognizes Jesus as “the lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world” and in 1:34 as the “son of God.” However, in Luke 7:19-20, John the Baptist is not so sure, as he sends two of his disciples to Jesus to find out whether Jesus is “he who is to come, or shall we look for another?”
1:35-42 The calling of Andrew and Simon (Peter) as disciples. In this version, Andrew and Peter join Jesus on their own initiative, unlike in Mark 1:16-17 and Matthew 4:18-20, where Jesus sees them fishing and calls upon them to follow him.
1:39 “For it was about the tenth hour.” The tenth hour, if we follow the usual Jewish custom of reckoning the hours from dawn, would have been about 4 pm. This is the interpretation accepted by OAB (p. 1288) and by TIB (vol. 8, p. 487). This point will become relevant when we come to John 19:14, and the contradiction between John’s and Mark’s gospels as to the timing of Jesus’s crucifixion. Apologists like to claim that John’s gospel uses “Roman” time, but not only are Roman and Jewish timekeeping the same, the gospel of John was not even written in Rome, nor for a Roman audience. The best scholarly opinion places its composition in Ephesus (in present-day Turkey) or somewhere in Syria. (L. Michael White, From Jesus to Christianity, p. 310) For other verses dealing with the time issue see the comments to 4:6, 19:14, and Matthew 27:45.
1:41 Upon meeting Jesus for the first time, Andrew goes to tell his brother Simon (Peter) that “we have found the Messiah.” Apparently, the disciples are clear from the very beginning as to Jesus’s identity. But this is in marked contrast to the synoptic gospels (Mark, Matthew, Luke) where the disciples often wonder aloud who this Jesus really is. See for example, Luke 8:25 – “Who then is this, that he commands even the winds and the water, and they obey him?”
1:44 Bethsaida is identified as the town of Philip and also of Andrew and Peter. But in Mark the house of Andrew and Simon (Peter) is located in Capernaum (Mark 1:21, 29).
1:45 The suggestion here is that Moses and the prophets foretold the coming of Jesus of Nazareth, but no specific reference is given, and indeed there is no mention at all in the Hebrew scriptures of either Jesus or the village of Nazareth. All claims of such prophecies rest on highly symbolic interpretations of passages taken out of context from the Old Testament writings. Note that Philip refers to Jesus as “the son of Joseph," and not as "son of God." The virgin birth has no place in John’s gospel.
1:45-46 Jesus is identified here as being from Nazareth, and there is no suggestion that he was born in Bethlehem, as claimed by the birth stories of Matthew (2:1-5) and Luke (2:4, 11). In fact, the lack of any connection between Jesus and Bethlehem leads to skepticism as to whether he really was the Messiah in John 7:40-43.
1:49 Nathanael addresses Jesus as both the “son of God” and the “king of Israel.” Once again the disciples have no doubt as to who Jesus is, but see the note to 1:41 on the contrast with the synoptic gospels.
1:51 After speaking directly to Nathanael in verse 50, Jesus switches to a plural pronoun and verb in verse 51, indicating that he is now speaking to more than one person. It is not clear, however, who these listeners are. The distinction is reflected in the KJV by the use of the singular thou/thee in verse 50, and the plural ye/you in verse 51, but modern translations use “you” for both, which obscures the distinction. Oddly, Jesus’s words in verse 51 are prefaced by the phrase, “and he says to him” not “them.”
2:1 Jesus’s mother is introduced, but not by name. Nowhere in John’s gospel are we told that her name is Mary. There are, of course, other Marys mentioned in the gospel, such as Mary the sister of Lazarus, and Mary Magdalene. Joseph, however, is twice mentioned as Jesus’s father, in 1:45 and 6:42.
2:4 What have you to do with me? These harsh words from Jesus to his mother are the same used by the demons when speaking to Jesus in Mark 1:24 and Matthew 8:29. The phrase is something of a non sequitur, given that it does not directly respond to his mother’s comment that the wine is gone. Jesus’s response seems to indicate that he wants nothing to do with the problem of the wine, and yet he goes ahead and solves the problem anyway.
The harshness of these words leads some translators to soften Jesus’s tone by mistranslating the phrase. For example, NIV gives it as “Dear woman, why do you involve me?” which is more polite, but less exact.
2:9 In his first recorded miracle in John’s gospel, Jesus turns water into wine – and good wine, too, as we learn in verse 10.
2:13-16 Suddenly Jesus is already chasing the moneychangers and merchants out of the temple, an episode that does not occur in the other gospels until Jesus’s final week in Jerusalem. In verse 16, Jesus accuses the merchants of turning the temple into a “house of trade,” but in the synoptic gospels his phrase is a “den of robbers.”
This is the first of Jesus’s four trips to Jerusalem portrayed in John’s gospel. The others occur in John 5:1; 7:14; 12:12. The other three gospels only have Jesus traveling once to Jerusalem, during the final week of his life.
2:20 “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple.” The construction of the temple was begun in the reign of Herod the Great in approximately 20 B.C. If the figure given by “the Jews” is correct here, then this incident is dated at approximately 27 A.D. (TIB, vol. 8, p. 500)
2:21 In case the allusion was lost on anyone, it is spelled out here that Jesus was speaking metaphorically in talking about the temple being destroyed. He really was speaking of “the temple of his body.” This shows that Jesus himself did not always intend his words to be taken literally. And if his comments about the temple were not meant literally, how many other sayings of Jesus might be taken in a symbolic sense? Was “hell fire” also perhaps only a metaphor?
2:22 Here we are told that the disciples remembered Jesus words after he had risen from the dead, and recalled how he was speaking about “the temple of his body.” But contrast this with John 20:9, where it is claimed that the disciples “did not know the scripture, that he must rise from the dead.”
3:1 This Nicodemus, a Pharisee, appears again in 7:50 and 19:39.
3:3-6 The conversation with Nicodemus illustrates a pattern that recurs often in John’s gospel. Jesus makes a metaphorical statement, but his listener misses the point and only understands the literal meaning. Jesus then goes on to elaborate on the meaning of the metaphorical statement.
3:10 Poor Nicodemus can hardly be held accountable for failing to grasp Jesus’s meaning. Jesus was, after all, not known for speaking clearly and directly. See the comment to Mark 4:2-12 on Jesus’s proclivity for hiding the truth from his listeners.
3:13 Jesus claims that “No one has ascended into heaven but he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man.” But according to the Old Testament, this is not true. In 2 Kings 2:11, Elijah and Elisha were walking together, and “Behold, a chariot of fire and horses of fire separated the two of them. And Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven.” Enoch also was taken up into heaven without experiencing death. (Genesis 5:24; Hebrews 11:5)
3:14 The story of Moses and the bronze serpent is in Numbers 21:9. The comparison seems to be that those who look up to the risen Jesus will be granted life, just as the snake-bitten Israelites were saved from death by looking at the bronze serpent. It is a bizarre comparison, because the serpent is the animal through which sin entered the world in the garden of Eden (Genesis chapter 3). Also, the bronze serpent fashioned by Moses is a graven image of the type prohibited by the second commandment in Exodus 20:4 and Deuteronomy 5:8,as well as by Leviticus 26:1. Furthermore, in 2 Kings 18:4 we read that when Hezekiah became king of Judah, he broke the bronze serpent of Moses into pieces because the people had burned incense to it as to a false god. In fact, “the serpent was one of the symbols of the Baal religion.” (OAB, p. 481) So as metaphors go, the serpent of Moses is particularly ill-suited to represent the theology of John’s gospel.
3:16 For many believers, this verse sums up the entire Christian theology. Martin Luther called it “the gospel in miniature.” (quoted in OAB, p. 1289)
3:16-21 In the original Greek texts, there are no quotation marks to indicate where Jesus stops speaking to Nicodemus, so in many translations these are supplied based on the interpretation of the translators. Some continue the quotation marks from Jesus’s remarks in 3:10 all the way through verse 21, as though Jesus himself is speaking this entire passage in reply to Nicodemus. This creates some theological awkwardness in that Jesus is then speaking of himself in the past tense by saying that God “gave” his only son, as though this giving did not include the crucifixion itself, which is still in the future. Other translations close the quotation marks at the end of verse 15, presenting verses 16 through 21 as editorial commentary by the gospel author.
3:17 So did Jesus come to judge the world, or not? In this verse, we are told no, but in 5:22 we find that the Father “has given all judgment to the Son” and in 9:39 Jesus himself says, “For judgment I came into this world.” See also the comment to 8:26. Note that the RSV has “condemn” here and in verse 18, but the literal meaning of the Greek is “judge.”
3:22 Jesus remained in Judea “and baptized.” This is echoed by the words of John the Baptist’s disciples in 3:26, but is contradicted by 4:2, which tells us that Jesus did not baptize, only his disciples did.
3:23-24 After Jesus begins his ministry, John the Baptist continues to preach and baptize. But Matthew and Mark do not have Jesus beginning to preach until after John the Baptist is arrested. (Matthew 4:12,17; Mark 1:14)
3:25 This verse is apparently unconnected with the narrative which follows.
3:26 The disciples of John the Baptist feel some competitive rivalry with Jesus’s successful ministry. John’s response in verses 27-30 indicates his willingness to step aside in favor of Jesus’s heavenly credentials. Here again it is a matter of interpretation as to where to close the quotation. RSV ends the remarks of John the Baptist with verse 30, but some other translations continue the quotation through the end of the chapter.
4:2 The author changes his mind, and now says that Jesus was not baptizing, in contrast to verse 3:22.
4:6 On his way from Judea to Galilee, the weary Jesus sits down beside a well. “It was about the sixth hour.” Once again we have to ask what system of time reckoning the author was using. This would not be an issue except for the fact that apologists have tried to claim that John’s gospel uses “Roman time,” as a way of escaping the contradiction between Mark and John as to the hour of Jesus’s crucifixion. And it would not do to claim that the crucifixion time is expressed in the “Roman” manner while all other references to time in John’s gospel follow the Jewish scheme. But both the Romans and the Jews counted the daylight hours from dawn, so this argument fails anyway. Thus, Jesus stops here for water at about noon (i.e., about six hours after sunrise). This is the predominant view of unbiased sources. The Interpreter’s Bible describes Jesus as “weary with travel and the heat of the midday sun.” (TIB, vol. 8, p. 521) The New Oxford Annotated Bible notes that the sixth hour is “about noon.” (OAB, p. 1290) But the NASB translation continues to have a note to this verse saying that the sixth hour is “perhaps” 6 pm in “Roman” time, failing to note that there is no difference between Roman and Jewish timekeeping. See also the notes to 1:39 and 19:14, as well as the comment to Matthew 27:45 for additional sources.
4:7-26 Jesus, again speaking in riddles, confuses the Samaritan woman at the well with his talk about the “living water” that promises eternal life. Verse 21 hints at the rivalry between Jerusalem and Samaria as to the proper location from which to worship the Jewish god. Jesus goes on to say that “God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in sprit and truth,” implying that the physical location of worship is of no consequence. When the woman eventually replies that she knows the Messiah is coming, Jesus reveals, “I who speak to you am he.” Again, John’s Jesus is much more open about his identity than the Jesus of Matthew, Mark and Luke, where he repeatedly tries to hide his true identity from his followers. See, for example, Mark 3:11-12; Matthew 12:16; 16:20.
4:27 Why would Jesus’s disciples have “marveled that he was talking with a woman”? After all, women formed a large part of the Jesus movement, and we are told elsewhere that Jesus had regular dealings with his female followers. See for example, Mark 15:40-41 which mentions the many women who followed Jesus and “ministered” to him. Luke 8:2-3 also mentions the names of several women who were Jesus’s followers and financial backers.
4:43-45 Jesus departs from Samaria and resumes his journey to Galilee. But verse 44 is very difficult to reconcile with the other gospels, for it implies that Galilee is not Jesus’s “own country,” and his welcome in Galilee is contrasted with the lack of honor that a prophet can expect in his own country. So is the author implying that Judea is Jesus’s “own country”? We were already told in 1:45 that Jesus was from Nazareth, and Matthew, Mark, and Luke’s gospels all state that the “city” of Nazareth was in Galilee, but nowhere in John’s gospel is it stated that this Nazareth was located in Galilee. Does John have some other location in mind for Jesus’s hometown – outside of Galilee?
5:1 Here we have the second visit to Jerusalem recorded in John’s gospel. (The others are described in 2:13, 7:14; and 12:12.) As previously noted, this contradicts the other three gospel accounts, which have the adult Jesus visiting Jerusalem only during the last week of his life. The author describes this occasion as “a feast of the Jews,” but does not say which feast is meant.
5:3-9 The “moving of the water” was possibly caused by the presence of an underground spring. The simple people of the time attributed it to divine intervention. The sick and infirm would wait for the waters to move, and then try to be the first one to enter the water. The winner of this grotesque competition would supposedly be cured of his or her ailment. The losers would continue to wait and hope for better luck next time. Jesus allows one of these individuals to bypass this process and heals him on the spot. But we are not told why Jesus singled out this one man for special treatment, or why Jesus did not also heal all the others who were each waiting for their own miracle.
5:16-17 Jesus runs afoul of the Jewish authorities for healing (i.e., doing work) on the Sabbath. Jesus could have respected the Sabbath by waiting until the next day to heal the man, who had, after all, been suffering for thirty-eight years, and no doubt could have tolerated one more day of misery. And why did Jesus and God let the man suffer for thirty-eight years in the first place, rather than preventing his disease altogether? There were plenty of non-Sabbath days during those thirty-eight years when Jesus could have healed him without violating the Sabbath commandments.
Jesus’s response to “the Jews,” that God continues to work and so Jesus himself will continue to work, ignores the fact that the point of the Sabbath was to serve as a day of rest for God after his six days of work in creating the heavens and the earth.
5:18 The author tells us that Jesus “called God his Father, making himself equal with God.” And in 10:30 he claims that “I and the Father are one.” But then how can it be that Jesus also says, “The Father is greater than I”? (14:28) The relationship between Jesus and God as portrayed in John’s gospel is not subtle and sublime, but confusing and contradictory.
5:19 Jesus repeatedly declares that God the Father is in charge, and Jesus himself is just carrying out orders. This same thought is expressed in 5:30; 6:38; 8:28; 8:42; 12:49; and 14:10. But in contrast to these verses, Jesus proclaims in 10:18 that he is laying down his life on his own initiative, because he has authority to do so. See also the comment to 5:30.
5:22 According to this verse, God the Father judges no one because he has given all judgment to the Son. But see John 3:17 where we are told that “God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him.” So was Jesus sent to judge the world or not? The issue is further confused by Jesus’s words in John 8:15, where he tells the Pharisees that “I judge no one,” and in 8:16 where he says that if he did judge, he would not do so alone, but together with God the Father.
The question of who judges the world is answered frequently but inconsistently by John’s gospel. Here is a scorecard:
Did Jesus come to judge the world?
No – John 3:17, 8:15; 12:47
Yes – John 5:22; 5:27; 8:26; 9:39
Does God the Father judge the world?
Yes – John 8:50
No – John 5:22
5:24 The key to salvation is to hear Jesus’s word and believe “Him who sent me.” There is nothing here about believing in the resurrection of Jesus himself as a prerequisite for escaping judgment.
5:30 “I can do nothing on my own authority.” There is an apparent contradiction here with 10:18, where Jesus says that he lays down his life of his own accord, and that he has the “power” (RSV, KJV) to do so. (The Greek word here is exousia, which can also be translated as “authority” as well as “power” and is so rendered in the NASB and NIV.) While it might be possible to escape this dilemma by arguing that this authority exercised by Jesus is not his own, but comes from God himself, thus taking 5:30 to be consistent with the rest of 10:18 – “This charge I have received from my father,” this position underscores again the subordinate position of Jesus to God the Father, which then is contradicted by such claims as are found in 10:30, 17:11, 17:22, to the effect that Jesus and God are one. So on either reading, there is a contradiction: either with 10:18 as to whether Jesus acts on his own authority, or with the verses claiming that Jesus and God are one.
The contrast between “my own will” and “the will of him who sent me” recalls the words of the anguished Jesus in Gethsemane, where he asked God to relieve him of his mission, but finally agreed, “not what I will, but what thou wilt.” (Mark 14:36)
5:32 “There is another who bears witness of me.” There can be no doubt that Jesus here is speaking of God the Father (see verse 37 following). But notice how Jesus refers to God as “another.” “Another” cannot also be “same,” so the Trinitarian theology that views Jesus and God as the same divine being is undercut by this verse.
5:39 Jesus is still speaking to “the Jews” in a speech that began in verse 19. Here he accuses them of searching the Jewish scriptures for the truth, but rejecting the prophecies of Jesus that are supposedly contained in those scriptures.
5:44 Here we read that God is “the one and only God.” But Paul, who wrote before the gospel of John was written, waters down the concept, conceding that there are many gods, but only one of them is for the followers of Jesus: “For even if there are so-called gods whether in heaven or on earth, as indeed there are many gods and many lords, yet for us there is but one God, the Father.” (1 Corinthians 8:5-6) Obviously for Paul, the concept of one god is not a physical fact, but only refers to how many gods the Christian community recognizes.
5:46 Here Jesus explicitly claims that for the Jews to reject Jesus implies that they are rejecting Moses as well, “for he wrote of me.” However, there is no mention of Jesus anywhere in the Old Testament, and certainly not in the books traditionally attributed to Moses. Passages taken out of context and reinterpreted form the basis of Christian claims that the Old Testament predicts the coming of Jesus. For a critique of some of these alleged prophecies, see the comments to Matthew 1:22-23; 2:23; 11:10; 12:18-21; 21:5, and 27:9.
6:1 Chapter 5 took place in Jerusalem (see 5:1), where Jesus delivered the speech in verses 19-47 to “the Jews.” Now suddenly, Jesus goes away to the “other” side of the Sea of Galilee. Either there is material missing, which recounts how Jesus got back to Galilee from Jerusalem, or “chapter 6 relates events that took place before those narrated in chapter 5.” (TIB, vol. 8, p. 555)
6:4 The author feels compelled to explain to his readers that Passover is “the feast of the Jews.” It is remarks like this that indicate John’s gospel was written after Christianity was no longer a sect of Judaism, but had developed into a separate religious community whose members were mostly non-Jews – thus supporting the view that John was the last of the four gospels to be written. However, it is not clear why the author chooses to mention Passover here. The feeding of the five thousand is obviously not intended to be a Passover meal, so the remark seems out of place.
6:5-14 The feeding of the five thousand. This story in John’s gospel follows in broad outline the parallel version in Mark 6:34-44 (repeated in Matthew 14:14-21 and Luke 9:12-17). However, John’s version differs in several details. In John 6:5, Jesus himself asks how they are going to buy enough bread to feed all the people, but in the synoptic gospels it is the disciples who raise this question to Jesus. (Mark 6:35; Matthew 14:15; Luke 9:12.) In John, it is “a lad” who has the five loaves and two fish, but in the synoptics the disciples themselves have the food. (Mark 6:38; Matthew 14:17; Luke 9:13.) In 6:11 Jesus himself distributes the loaves to the crowd, but in the synoptics, Jesus gives the loaves to the disciples for distribution. (Mark 6:41; Matthew 14:19; Luke 9:16.) John adds the people’s reaction to what Jesus has done, and has them proclaim, “This is indeed the prophet who is to come into the world!” (6:14), but the other gospels do not record any such popular reaction. Finally, John does not mention anything about the women and children, in addition to the five thousand men, who figure in Matthew’s account (Matthew 14:21).
6:15 Jesus withdraws to the mountain because the crowd wanted to make him king. Obviously the crowd thought of Jesus as the earthly messiah, the warrior king who would free Israel from Roman domination. Why would they think this? Surely Jesus could have disabused them of this notion if he had wanted to. We have seen how Jesus repeatedly speaks in symbolic language that the masses do not comprehend. Why did he speak this way instead of clearly, so that his listeners would understand?
6:16 The disciples head out across the lake to Capernaum. But in Mark’s parallel version, they are bound for Bethsaida (Mark 6:45). Both towns were on the Sea of Galilee, but were several miles apart.
6:17 “Jesus had not yet come to them” at the time the disciples set off across the lake. But in Mark 6:45 it is Jesus himself who “made his disciples get into the boat and go before him to the other side.”
6:19 “Walking on the sea.” The Greek phrase epi teis thallaseis is translated here as “on the sea,” but it can also mean “by the sea,” or “at the sea,” and in John 21:1 is translated as “by the sea.” It is only by the context of the story and the disciples’ surprised reactions that we understand Jesus to have been walking on the water. (See The Analytical Lexicon to the Greek New Testament, Zondervan, 1993, pp. 202-203.) The parallel versions of this story are in Mark 6:45-51 and Matthew 14:24-33. It is absent from Luke’s gospel.
6:27 Speaking figuratively once again, Jesus tells the hungry crowd, “Do not labor for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to eternal life, which the Son of man will give to you.” Calling himself the “bread of life” (v. 35), Jesus either does not care if the people starve, or else he must think that the kingdom of God is so imminent that there will be no need for physical sustenance.
6:38 “I have come down from heaven.” John’s gospel is the only one where Jesus claims to have come from heaven. This is a stark contrast with the synoptic gospels, where Jesus repeatedly warns others not to reveal his heavenly identity. See also 10:36, where Jesus admits publicly that he is the son of God.
Here we once again have the contrast between Jesus’s will and that of God. If Jesus and God are the same divinity, how can they have separate (and conflicting) wills?
6:40 Another “gospel in miniature.” Eternal life is for those who behold the son and believe in him.
6:42 Whoever these grumbling Jews are, it is clear that they have known Jesus since childhood, and that they know his father Joseph, as well as his mother. It is unlikely therefore that they are religious leaders from Jerusalem, but rather members of the local Jewish community in Jesus’s home district. Being familiar with his origin, they are obviously not impressed with his claim to have come down from heaven. A similar question is asked in Luke 4:22 (“Is not this Joseph’s son?”) but is attributed to the townspeople of Nazareth. See also the questions in Matthew 13:55.
6:44 “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him.” This verse undermines the whole gospel message. Whether to believe in Jesus is not the individual’s choice. It depends solely on God’s will.
6:46 Again, we are told that no one has ever seen God. See the comment to 1:18 for some counter examples from the Old Testament.
6:54 “He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life.” Jesus practically invites misunderstanding when he expresses himself in this way. We assume that he was speaking figuratively, but his listeners in ancient Palestine can be forgiven for thinking that he was proclaiming some sort of bizarre cannibalistic cult. His statement is particularly shocking when we consider that the Hebrew scriptures forbid the eating of blood. (Leviticus 3:17) Even his own disciples acknowledged, “This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?" (verse 60) Remember it is only in John’s gospel that Jesus speaks in such a manner. The Jesus of Matthew, Mark, and Luke is, comparatively, much more down to earth.
6:64 “There are some of you that do not believe.” Jesus speaks these words to his own disciples. (The passage is a continuation of the quotation beginning in verse 61.) Thus, Jesus faced disbelief among his own closest followers, and not only from Judas the betrayer. However, note that “disciple” does not always refer to one of the twelve. Jesus had many followers, and the word “disciple” is often used in contexts where the broader meaning is a better fit.
6:65 Again we are told that no one can come to Jesus unless God the Father grants it. It follows then that no individual can be blamed for not believing, since it is only God who makes such belief possible.
6:66 Jesus begins to lose support, as many of his followers fall away. Again, we are not told that these deserters include any of the chosen twelve, but it may be significant that nowhere in John’s gospel is there a list of all twelve disciples, and in none of the post-resurrection appearances are we told that all eleven remaining disciples are present. In the appendix (chapter 21) there is an appearance by the Sea of Tiberias (Sea of Galilee) where only seven are mentioned, and even two of those are not identified. It appears, however, by the wording of verse 67, that the twelve are all still present, even after the desertion mentioned in verse 66.
6:68 “You have the words of eternal life.” This is how the verse reads in the RSV, KJV, and NIV, but the Greek text does not include the definite article, and so the more accurate reading (as in the NASB), is “You have words of eternal life.”
6:70 “One of you is a devil.” The disciples would not have known what to make of this accusation, as Jesus has not explained to them that one of their number would betray him.
7:2 The feast of tabernacles (or “booths,” or “tents”) is described in Leviticus 23:33-43, including the requirement that “You shall dwell in booths for seven days.” (Leviticus 23:42)
7:3-5 Jesus’s own brothers are skeptical, and do not believe in him. They challenge him to appear before the crowds in Jerusalem, if he thinks he’s such a great miracle worker. However, we already had an instance of Jesus working miracles in Jerusalem, in John 2:23. There was also the healing of the sick man in John 5:8-9, which occurred during a previous feast in Jerusalem. It seems unlikely that his brothers would have been unaware of these earlier visits to Jerusalem.
7:6 Jesus declines his brothers’ suggestion, preferring to remain in Galilee, and claiming that the time is not right for him to return to Jerusalem.
7:8 Jesus says he is not going up to this feast, but then does just the opposite in verse 10. The earliest Greek texts have as a literal translation in verse 8 “I am not going up to this feast,” but later manuscripts replace “not” with “not yet” which helps to resolve the contradiction with verse 10. The KJV, being based on one of these later manuscripts, has “I go not up yet unto this feast,” but the RSV and NASB omit “yet,” while the NIV inserts it.
7:10 Even though Jesus follows his brothers’ suggestion to visit Jerusalem, he does so secretly, and only shows himself when he begins teaching in the temple (verse 14).
7:12 The people of Jerusalem are divided in their assessment of Jesus. Some consider him a good man, while others think he leads the people astray. Still others (verse 20) believe he is possessed by a demon. Some are convinced (verse 31) that the Messiah himself could not be expected to perform greater miracles than those performed by Jesus.
7:23 Jesus argues that if circumcision can take place on the Sabbath, then healing a man’s entire body on the Sabbath should be allowed as well. The law commands that circumcision be performed on all baby boys when they are eight days old (Genesis 17:11-12). If the eighth day falls on the Sabbath, then there is a potential conflict between the law of circumcision, and the law of doing no work on the Sabbath. However, this exposes the flaw in Jesus’s argument, for circumcision on the eighth day is an express commandment from God, while healing the sick is not, and could wait until the next day. The Pharisees, in their interpretation of Mosaic law, did allow for healing on the Sabbath in exceptional circumstances, but only in matters of life or death, where delay might prove fatal. None of Jesus’s healings fall into this category.
7:26 The nuance expressed in the last half of this verse is not fully captured by every translation. The RSV expresses it best with “Can it be that the authorities really know that this is the Christ?” The crowd is puzzled that Jesus is allowed to speak in spite of the rulers’ opposition to him. If the rulers secretly know that he is the Christ (i.e., Messiah), then that would explain their reluctance to lay hands on him. We were previously told (e.g., 5:18; 7:1) that it was the intent of “the Jews” to kill Jesus.
7:27 The Jerusalemites continue to debate Jesus’s identity. In this verse, some people object that Jesus cannot be the Christ (Messiah) because he is known to hail from Galilee, whereas “whenever the Christ may come, no one knows where he is from.” And yet this is contradicted by verse 42, where scripture is said to reveal that the Christ will come from Bethlehem.
7:30 If the Jewish authorities were indeed eager to arrest or kill Jesus (see vv. 19, 25), it is very odd that they would allow him to continuing teaching publicly in the temple. The gospel author explains this away by simply asserting that Jesus’s hour “had not yet come.”
7:38 This quotation, which supposedly is from scripture, does not appear anywhere in the Old Testament.
7:41-42 Once again the people question whether the Christ could possibly come from Galilee, when he is expected to come from Bethlehem. Support for Bethlehem as the Messiah’s place of origin is found in Micah 5:2 and 1 Samuel 16:1. The skeptics in the crowd also point out that the Messiah was to be a descendant of king David, as suggested by Isaiah 11:1; Jeremiah 23:5; and Psalm 89:3-4. The implication here is that Jesus, who was neither from Bethlehem nor descended from David, could not possibly be the expected Messiah. The gospels of Matthew and Luke attempt to address this problem by adding stories of Jesus’s birth in Bethlehem, and they both present genealogies that attempt to demonstrate Jesus’s relationship to David, although the genealogies contradict each other. (See the comment to Matthew 1:6.) And in Mark 12:35-37 and Matthew 22:42-45, Jesus himself argues against the notion that the Christ will be descended from David. Note that John’s gospel makes no attempt to argue that Jesus was born in Bethlehem, but leaves the doubts of the crowd unanswered.
7:50-51 While the Pharisees express their displeasure that Jesus has still not been arrested, Nicodemus, whom we first met in 3:1, argues that Jesus should not be judged until given a proper hearing. The Pharisees counter (v. 52) that no prophet is expected to come from Galilee, although no OT reference for their view is given.
7:52-8:12 These verses have “been decisively shown not to have been a part of the original gospel. The oldest Greek witnesses do not include it.” (ABD, vol. 3, p. 913) This passage includes the famous challenge, “He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.” (KJV)
8:14 After the Pharisees accuse Jesus of bearing witness of himself, Jesus answers, “Even if I bear witness of myself, my witness is true.” However this directly contradicts his assertion in 5:31 where he says, “If I bear witness to myself, my testimony is not true.” Apologists will try to resolve this contradiction by claiming that the meaning of “bear witness” is different in the different contexts, but this gets into the realm of interpretation and away from the literal meaning of the text. It is a common tactic of apologists to resort to interpretative methods when the literal meanings are embarrassing, while rejecting any interpretative approach to the meaning of other passages.
8:15 Jesus again claims that he is not judging anyone. But there are contradictory statements throughout John’s gospel as to whether Jesus came to judge or not. See the scorecard in the comment to 5:22.
8:19 The Pharisees give Jesus every opportunity to explain himself, but he continues to be uncooperative and to reply in riddles.
8:25 Trying to understand him, Jesus’s listeners ask, “Who are you?” But he still does not give them a straight answer. If Jesus’s message was so important for mankind, why does he make it so difficult to understand?
8:26 Did Jesus come to judge the world? Apparently so, for here Jesus proclaims, “I have much to say about you and much to judge.” Other passages take up the same theme: “As I hear, I judge; and my judgment is just.” (John 5:30) Also see Acts 10:42 - “He [Jesus] is the one ordained by God to be judge of the living and the dead.” But later Jesus reverses himself: “I did not come to judge the world but to save the world.” (John 12:47) See also the comment to 3:17, and the scorecard in the comment to 5:22.
8:28 Here we have another verse that calls into question Jesus’s status as a co-equal branch of the divine trinity. He admits that he does nothing on his own authority, and that he speaks “as the Father taught me.” If Jesus was taught by the Father, then there must have been a time when his knowledge was imperfect, thus contradicting the notion that Jesus (as “the Word”) existed for all time alongside God the Father in divine perfection.
8:32-36 Jesus teaches that those who follow him will be free. But Paul saw it otherwise: “He who was free when called is a slave of Christ.” (1 Corinthians 7:22) But even Paul is not consistent within his own writings, for elsewhere he declares, “So through God you are no longer a slave but a son.” (Galatians 4:7)
8:42 Jesus did not come on his own initiative, but because God sent him. Jesus apparently was just following orders. We saw in Mark 14:36 that Jesus’s will was not always the same as God’s will. We can legitimately ask whether these conflicting wills extended back to the point in time when God decided to send Jesus to earth as the Word incarnate. And if Jesus and God are two aspects of the same divinity, how could they even have conflicting wills, as the passage from Mark asserts?
8:44 Jesus charges that the Jews who oppose him – or even question him – are the sons of the devil. But God created all things (Acts 17:24; Ephesians 3:9; Revelation 4:11), including the devil. So ultimately, these “sons of the devil” would also be sons of God, and Jesus’s response fails to explain why his listeners doubt him.
8:48 Having previously identified Jesus as coming from Galilee (7:41), these Jews now consider him to be a Samaritan, and still possessed by a demon (7:20; 10:20). Samaria was one of the geographical divisions of the land of Israel, and was located between Judea (where Jerusalem was situated) and Galilee to the north.
8:53 The Jews again ask Jesus who he claims to be. Throughout this debate, it is “the Jews” who seem to be seeking an honest dialog to discover who Jesus really is, while Jesus himself speaks obscurely and refuses to clarify their misunderstanding.
8:57 “You are not yet fifty years old.” This seems like an odd statement to make to a man who according to the conventional view was in his early thirties when he was crucified. Perhaps Jesus had aged beyond his years, or possibly he was older than the birth stories of Matthew and Luke would suggest.
8:58 “Before Abraham was born, I am.” In making this statement, Jesus equates himself with God, which explains the attempted stoning for blasphemy in verse 59.
9:2 The man was born blind, but the disciples seem to entertain the possibility that his blindness may be the result of some sin that he had committed. But when could he have committed such a sin? If blindness from birth were punishment for some sin, then the sin would have had to be committed before the man was born. Perhaps in a previous life? Reincarnation is not known to be a part of the belief system of Jesus and his disciples.
9:3 Jesus answers that neither the man nor his parents sinned. The purpose of the blindness is to display the works of God. Presumably, this means his miraculous healing, which soon follows. But what about all the other people born blind who are not being healed? And not just blindness but other illnesses and infirmities as well? It is only a few select individuals who are healed in the gospel narratives. All the other sufferers continue to suffer. For all these unlucky people, the disciples’ question in 9:2 remains unanswered. Biblical apologists like to say that the blind man’s healing illustrates Jesus’s role as the light of the world. Pointing out such obvious symbolism might get you a B+ in freshman English, but it does nothing to explain why all the other suffering people do not also get healed.
9:6 In order to restore the blind man’s sight, Jesus goes through an elaborate process of spitting on the ground (we are not told how much spit was required), mixing the spit with dirt to make clay, applying the clay to the man’s eyes, and instructing the man to go and wash in a certain pool. After doing so, the man comes back with his sight restored. It is not clear why Jesus goes to all this trouble, when he could have just touched the eyes as he did for the two blind men in Matthew 20:34. Or he could have just spat directly into the man’s eyes as he did for another man in Mark 8:23. However, spit alone seems not to be as effective, because Jesus required a second attempt to finish healing the man in Mark’s account, because after the first spit treatment the man said he saw people “looking like trees walking.” But perhaps neither spit nor clay is required, because in Mark 10:51-52 a blind man is healed, and there is no indication that any physical treatment at all was required. In fact, in that instance, Jesus told the man that it was his faith that had made him well.
9:8-9 The villagers cannot agree on whether the man who comes back from the pool with full sight is the same blind man who formerly sat begging. Had there been a switch? Was the whole episode a setup to convince the gullible crowds to believe in Jesus’s healing powers?
9:16 Jesus attracts the attention of the Pharisees, who accuse him of breaking the Sabbath. Apparently, merely healing on the Sabbath is a violation (see Mark 3:2), but Jesus has gone even farther by manufacturing the healing clay as well.
9:18-27 The Pharisees try to elicit testimony against Jesus from the healed man and his parents.
9:31 “God does not listen to sinners.” Unfortunately, “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” (Romans 3:23) Apparently then, God does not listen to any of us.
9:39 Jesus again says that he has come into the world to judge the world. But refer back to the scorecard in the comment to 5:22 for a list of contradictory verses.
9:41 “If you were blind, you would have no sin.” (NASB) This foreshadows Jesus’s words in 15:22: “If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have sin; but now they have no excuse for their sin.” This is very similar to Paul’s position that without the law, people would have no knowledge of sin and would not be held responsible for it. (Romans 3:20; 5:13)
In this verse (9:41) the RSV has “guilt” in place of “sin,” but the Greek word is hamartia, which is the usual word for “sin.”
10:1-5 The parable of the good shepherd seems to teach that a flock will not follow anyone but their own true leader. Applying this principle to human flocks – as Jesus obviously intends us to do – we must conclude that there is no worry about people following a false prophet or leader, because to do so would be just as unnatural as the sheep following a stranger or thief. Concerns then, about false prophets leading the people astray, seem to be unwarranted. But we nevertheless see such concerns expressed, for example, in Matthew 7:15; 24:5; 24:11; 24:24; Mark 13:6; 13:22; and 2 Peter 2:1. If Jesus is correct, and the flock so easily recognizes those who would lead them astray, then the Church’s subsequent vigorous prosecution of “heretics” seems pointless and unnecessarily divisive.
10:6 Jesus tells this parable to the Pharisees, who were extremely learned men, well versed in the scriptures. It is unlikely that they would have been so obtuse as to fail to grasp Jesus’s meaning, as alleged in this verse. For a contrasting example, see Mark 12:12, where the chief priests, scribes, and elders correctly perceive that the parable of the vineyard applies to them.
10:8 Since Jesus says that “all who came before me are thieves and robbers,” John the Baptist must have been a thief and a robber, since he came before Jesus to prepare the way. Yet Jesus says elsewhere that John was the greatest of all men. See Matthew 11:11; Luke 7:28.
10:9-15 For those who still don’t get it, Jesus explains the symbolism of the parable of the good shepherd.
10:16 Jesus declares that he has “other sheep, that are not of this fold; I must bring them also, and they will heed my voice. So there shall be one flock, one shepherd.” This is generally interpreted by Christians to refer to the Gentiles, i.e., non-Jews, and to give approval to Paul’s self-proclaimed mission to spread Christianity beyond the confines of the Jewish community to all nations. However, there are conflicting statements from Jesus elsewhere in the gospels. See, for example, Matthew 15:24, where Jesus declares that he was sent “only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”
10:17-18 Jesus claims here that he lays down his life “of my own accord.” He is like a good shepherd, who “lays down his life for the sheep.” (v.11) The tone is one of calm serenity in the face of impending sacrifice. However, contrast this attitude with the tormented Jesus of Mark’s gospel, who is “very sorrowful, even to death” (Mark 14:34), and who pleads with God to “remove this cup” if at all possible (Mark 14:36), and who cries out in agony on the cross, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” (Mark 15:34)
This verse is even contradicted within John’s gospel itself. For Jesus says here that “I have authority” to “lay down my life,” while in 5:30 he says “I can do nothing on my own authority.”
10:19-21 The “Jews” continue to be divided in their assessment of Jesus, with some still thinking that he is insane and possessed by a demon.
10:24 It is not clear whether the “Jews” posing this question to Jesus are the religious leaders or the ordinary people, but whoever they are, they are obviously tired of Jesus’s riddles, asking him to “tell us plainly” if he is the expected Messiah. Jesus’s response in verses 25-30 is anything but plain, as he still refuses to answer directly.
10:30 Jesus claims that “I and the Father are one.” But in 14:28 we read, “The Father is greater than I.”
10:31 Jesus’s statement that he and God are one is too much for the pious Jews, who begin stoning him for blasphemy. Death by stoning is prescribed as the penalty for blasphemy in Leviticus 24:16.
10:32 Either Jesus truly does not understand why they are stoning him, or he pretends to not understand, for he purports to believe that he is being stoned for the good works that he has done.
10:33 The stoners set him straight, and inform him that he is being stoned for blasphemy, for making himself the equal of God.
10:34 Jesus attempts to defend himself against the charge of blasphemy. However, his defense is only convincing on the surface. When we look closely into the details, we find that Jesus has argued deceptively and unconvincingly.
Jesus’s basic argument is that God himself called men “gods” in the Hebrew scriptures. The quotation he cites is from Psalm 82:6. So his defense is that if God himself referred to men as gods, it cannot be blasphemy when Jesus, who was sent by God, claims to be the son of God.
The rebuttal to Jesus’s argument could have been made, and may in fact have been made, by the Pharisees who were listening to him. However their response, if any, is not recorded in John’s gospel. First of all, it is clear from the full context of Psalm 82 that God (Yahweh) is speaking not to men, but to a council of divine beings. This is obvious from the reference to a “divine council” in v.1, and the phrase “in the midst of the gods” in v.2. The Christian apologists like to interpret this as referring to the human judges of Israel, but this view is not persuasive. “Jewish tradition . . . interpreted this psalm as the condemnation of the human rulers of Israel, similar to Isaiah 3:13-15, but v.7 makes no sense on this interpretation and it is almost universally accepted today that the picture is of YHWH’s heavenly court . . . similar to the pantheons of other nations.” (Oxford Bible Commentary, p. 389.) Secondly, in John 10:36 Jesus misstates the charge against him. He was not stoned for claiming to be “the son of God,” but for claiming that “I and the Father are one.” (v. 30) So even if we grant for the sake of argument Jesus’s interpretation of Psalm 82, it still does not apply to his situation, because saying that any man is “a god” is not the same as saying that the man and God “are one,” as Jesus claimed in v. 30.
And let’s not lose sight of the fact that if God was presiding over a heavenly court, consisting of multiple “gods” in Psalm 82, the notion that Judaism and Christianity are monotheistic religions is dealt a severe blow.
10:36 Jesus admits publicly that he is the “son of God.” This is in marked contrast to his comments in the synoptic gospels, commanding that his identity be kept secret. (E.g., Mark 3:11-12; Matthew 12:16; 16:20). See also the comment to John 18:20.
10:39 An attempt is made to arrest Jesus, but he escapes.
11:1-44 The resurrection of Lazarus. John’s gospel is the only one in which this famous story appears.
11:2 This verse refers to the story recounted in verse 12:3. These appear to be the same Mary and Martha mentioned in Luke 10:38-42.
11:4 In other words, the illness that Lazarus has is not a fatal one, but he will be made to die from it anyway, just so that Jesus can show off his own powers and be glorified.
11:6-7 Jesus has been preaching outside of Judea, and remained “in the place where he was” an extra two days, presumably to give Lazarus time enough to die. (See v.4.) After these two days had passed, he was then ready “to go into Judea again.” Bethany, the hometown of Lazarus, Martha and Mary (v.1) was in Judea, a short distance from Jerusalem.
11:11-14 How can anyone ever know what Jesus is really talking about, when he goes to such lengths to avoid speaking directly? Here again he is speaking symbolically, saying that “Lazarus has fallen asleep.” But the disciples again misunderstand, because they took his words at face value, so Jesus has to clarify by speaking plainly: “Lazarus is dead.”
11:17 There is no question now of Lazarus being merely “asleep.” He has been in the tomb for four full days.
11:26 “Whoever lives and believes in me shall never die.” Of course, many of Jesus’s believers have died, so naturally the apologists take this saying symbolically, too. However, Jesus does not explain exactly what he means here, so it can be pretty much interepreted to mean whatever the apologists want it to mean.
11:33 Jesus is troubled, and deeply moved, even though it was his own decision to delay his return and let Lazarus die. Is he feeling remorse, or empathy? There’s no way to tell.
11:35 “Jesus wept.” This is often cited as the “shortest verse in the Bible.” However, the Greek text also contains a definite article, so the length is actually three words.
11:43 Although Jesus here raises Lazarus from the dead, we read in Acts 26:23 that Jesus himself was “the first to rise from the dead.”
11:44 Lazarus comes forth still wrapped in the burial cloths, which cover his face and bind his hands and feet. It is not clear how he manages to “come forth” with his hands and feet tied, but if Jesus could raise him from the dead, it seems that he also could have caused the wrappings to fall away, so the poor man would not have to hop his way out of the tomb, while unable to see where he was going.
11:47-53 The raising of Lazarus gives rise to the plot to destroy Jesus. But in Mark 11:18 it is instead the disruption in the temple that caused the chief priests and scribes to begin looking for a way to destroy him. Here in John’s version, the religious authorities are concerned that Jesus’s popularity with the masses will attract the attention of the Roman occupiers and result in repressive measures.
11:55 “The Passover of the Jews was at hand.” This is the third Passover recorded by the evangelist since the beginning of Jesus’s public career. The first two occurrences are found in 2:13 and in 6:4. The gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke mention only one Passover as occurring during Jesus’s preaching career, that being the one that occurred during the last week of his life.
12:1-8 Jesus revisits the house of Lazarus, Martha, and Mary, where Mary anoints his feet with costly perfume. This story appears in all four gospels, but with significant differences in the details. For a comparison of the four versions, see the comment to Mark 14:3-8.
12:6 We learn here that Judas “had the money box.” What money box? We have not been told before that Jesus’s group had a money box, but apparently they collected enough money during the course of their travels to require a box for carrying it, and entrusted Judas Iscariot to be the treasurer. It would be interesting to know where this money came from, because elsewhere Jesus advises his disciples when he sends them out as missionaries to take no money with them, and to freely give their services “without pay.” (Matthew 10:8-9)
12:13 Note that Jesus is hailed as “King of Israel,” which is the charge he eventually was crucified for. Thus, he was not welcomed into the city as “son of God” or as “savior,” showing that the crowds did not connect these titles with Jesus, probably because he himself had not claimed them in his preaching. Recall that John’s gospel – the latest of the four gospels to be written - is the only one that portrays Jesus throughout as claiming to be of divine origin.
12:14 Jesus finds a donkey and rides it into town. The evangelist says nothing about whether Jesus sent his disciples into the city to find the donkey, as related in the other three gospels. (Matthew 21:1-3; Mark 11:1-7; Luke 19:28-35) Perhaps the author wanted to avoid portraying Jesus as coveting another person’s donkey, which is a violation of the tenth commandment (Exodus 20:17). Unfortunately, the other three gospels testify that Jesus did indeed covet another person’s donkey, thus violating the commandment and making Jesus a sinner. See the comment to Matthew 21:2 on Jesus’s sins related to taking the donkey.
12:15 A “prophecy” from the Old Testament (Zechariah 9:9) is cited as foretelling Jesus’s riding into town on a donkey. Of course, donkeys were a common mode of transportation during ancient times, and there would have been nothing remarkable about anyone at all riding into Jerusalem on a donkey.
12:16 The disciples do not understand the meaning of these events, nor the connection to the “prophecy” from Zechariah. But if the disciples themselves do not understand after being with Jesus throughout his ministry, how could anyone else be expected to understand what it was all about? This theme of the clueless disciples runs through Mark’s gospel as well. See for example, Mark 4:13; 7:18; 8:17.
12:20-22 Some Greeks (i.e., non-Jews) who happened to be in Jerusalem request to see Jesus. Philip and Andrew relay their request to him, but instead of answering directly whether he will or won’t see them, Jesus launches into another of his rambling symbolic discourses, and the Greeks are forgotten. Some Christians see the request of these Greeks as a sign that Jesus’s time has come, and connect it with Jesus’s words in v.23. However, this is a matter of interpretation. In this view, the Greeks enter the scene only to start the ball rolling toward Jesus’s arrest and crucifixion. Having performed that service, they depart from the stage.
12:23 Ignoring the request of the Greeks, Jesus now proclaims that “the hour has come for the Son of man to be glorified.” “Glorify” appears frequently (16 times) in John’s gospel, but rarely in the other three. Matthew’s gospel is the only other one that uses the term, and only in reference to glorifying God. John, on the other hand, writes repeatedly about glorifying Jesus. “Glorify” is the English translation of the Greek doxazo, which has the general sense of to extol, magnify, invest with dignity or majesty. (See Mounce, The Analytical Lexicon to the Greek New Testament, p. 152.) Hence, to be honored, worshipped, or adored captures the general meaning of the term. Some Christians extend the meaning, and speak of each Christian’s “glorification in Christ.” In this sense it is the final step in what Christians view as the process of salvation. As one website puts it, “The Christian's glorification describes their ultimate and complete conformity to the image of Christ Jesus.” (http://www.abideinchrist.com/selah/aug7.html) The English word “glorify” has thus taken on theological connotations that can scarcely be found in the meaning of the original Greek word.
12:24 Of course, Jesus’s knowledge of agronomy is flawed here. A planted seed does not “die,” as he claims. It grows. A seed that dies bears no fruit at all. Apologists will explain this by saying once again that Jesus is speaking figuratively, but it’s beginning to seem that most of the New Testament needs to be taken figuratively in order to avoid the many absurdities which otherwise would bring down the whole structure. And if the New Testament must be understood through interpretation rather than plain reading, its meaning simply becomes a huge debate among conflicting interpreters, rather than the unerring literal word of God.
12:25 There can be no plainer statement than this of Christianity’s thorough devaluation of the present world and our lives in it. The key to eternal life is to “hate” one’s own life in this world. Christianity is essentially a negative religion, which strips all value from the real world in which we live, and transfers it to a shadowy future existence which is not even described, much less shown to actually exist.
12:27 In a direct challenge to the portrayal in Mark’s gospel, the author here does not have Jesus requesting to be released from his mission. Despite the fact that his soul is “troubled,” Jesus rejects the thought of asking God to save him from this hour. However, in Mark 14:35, Jesus is much more troubled, and directly prays to God that “if it were possible, the hour might pass from him.” Mark’s gospel was written before John’s, and the author of John “probably knew Mark’s text.” (Oxford Bible Commentary, p. 984.) At the time the gospels were composed, the New Testament writings had not yet been gathered together into an approved canon, and no text would have yet been considered as indisputably authoritative. Thus, it appears that the discrepancy here is intentional, and that the author of John is deliberately “correcting” a false (heretical?) impression given by Mark’s gospel that Jesus was not fully on board with the divine plan.
12:28-29 A voice from heaven is quoted, but it must not have spoken clearly, because in v.29 we learn that the crowd “who stood by and heard it” (NASB) thought that it had merely thundered. “Others” were saying that an angel had spoken, but it is not explicitly stated that these “others” were present at the time, nor that they actually heard the voice.
12:31 This verse suggests an immediacy which is often overlooked by apologists. “Now is the judgment of this world, now shall the ruler of this world be cast out.” The “ruler of this world” is generally thought to be Satan (the devil), but if so, his mischief in the world should have come to an end shortly after Jesus spoke these words. Yet the fundamentalists are convinced that Satan still holds sway over the world even 2000 years later. Jesus obviously believed that he was living in the end times, and does not even hint of a second coming to occur many centuries later. See the comment to Matthew 24:34 for a discussion of Jesus’s failed prophecy that the end was near.
12:32 Jesus proclaims here that if he is lifted up out of the earth that he “will draw all men to myself.” But of course all men have not been drawn to him, and it does not appear that they ever will be.
12:34 Although Jesus has been referring to himself as the “Son of Man” throughout his career, the crowd seems unfamiliar with the term, asking “Who is this son of man?” See the comment to Mark 8:31 for a discussion of the title “Son of Man.”
12:37 The crowd does not believe, in spite of the many signs performed by Jesus. In 7:5 we learned that “even his brothers did not believe in him.” Although Jesus is thought of as divinely omnipotent, his powers of persuasion clearly are limited.
12:38-41 Jesus’s failure to convince his audience obviously requires some explanation, and so the author cites two Old Testament passages which imply that Jesus’s listeners were never intended to believe him in the first place, and in fact were deliberately prevented from believing him because their eyes were blinded and their hearts hardened by God. Thus, the unbelief of the crowds was seen as fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy. But what was the point in performing the miracles and preaching to the crowds, if they were never intended to believe anyway? The passages cited are from Isaiah 53:1 (cited in v.38) and Isaiah 6:10 (cited in v.40).
12:42 Here we have another rationalization for Jesus’s failure to obtain widespread belief in his mission. Allegedly there were many, even of the rulers, who did believe, but were afraid to express their belief because they feared the Pharisees. However, if they really believed that Jesus was the son of God, it seems that they would have feared him more than the Pharisees.
12:47 Another contradictory statement about Jesus coming to judge the world. Refer back to the scorecard in the comment to 5:22.
12:49 Jesus informs his listeners that “I have not spoken on my own authority; the Father who sent me has himself given me commandment what to say and what to speak.” Again, this does not square with the Trinitarian notion that Jesus is the incarnate Word, co-equal and co-eternal with God the Father. If one commmands and the other obeys, then the latter is subordinate to the former.
13:1 The last supper is clearly identified as occurring before Passover. See also John 19:14 where Jesus is already in custody on “the day of preparation of the Passover.” However, in Mark 14:14 the meal with the disciples is just as clearly identified as the Passover meal itself.
13:2 There is some question as to when and how Satan influenced Judas, urging him on to his traitorous deed. Here we read that during supper “the devil had already put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, to betray him,” but we later find (v.27) that Satan entered into Judas after Jesus gave Judas a morsel of food to indicate which of his followers would betray him. Luke’s version (Luke 22:3) places the entry of Satan into Judas earlier, before the last supper, which in Luke’s gospel is the Passover meal.
There is, however, also a logical problem: Was Jesus’s crucifixion God’s plan or Satan’s? If it was God’s own plan, and theologically necessary in order to save mankind from its sins, then it hardly makes any sense to blame either Satan or Judas for it, as they were merely carrying out God’s will, as implied in v.18. But if it was Satan’s own plan, then God and Jesus could have stopped it. In any case, the betrayal is not needed in order to advance the story line, because Jesus was well known among the Jewish religious officials, who could have had him arrested at anytime, without depending on any of his followers to turn him over.
13:10 Although Jesus is addressing Peter, when he says “You are clean” he is speaking of the disciples as a group, using the plural form of the Greek pronoun for “you.”
13:18 The reference is to Psalm 41:9, which is not quoted in its entirety. The full verse reads: “Even my bosom friend in whom I trusted, who ate of my bread, has lifted his heel against me.” It is certainly questionable whether Judas was ever Jesus’s “bosom friend” or that Jesus “trusted” him, since Jesus would have known all along that Judas was going to play the role of traitor in the divine plan. We are told so explicitly in verse 6:64 – “For Jesus knew from the first who those were that did not believe, and who it was that would betray him.” So the context of the verse from Psalm 41 is not a good fit with the context of the Judas story, and certainly is not totally "fulfilled" by Judas's actions.
13:21 Jesus announces to the disciples that one of them will betray him. The disciples are curious as to who Jesus means, but they do not ask him directly. Instead, Peter gestures to the disciple “whom Jesus loved” and asks him to “Tell us who it is of whom he speaks.” This unnamed disciple “whom Jesus loved,” appears again in 19:26; 20:2; 21:7; 21:20. In the end (21:24), he is identified as the author of this gospel. However, he remains unnamed, and it is not clear what sort of special relationship Jesus had with him. Did Jesus not “love” all his disciples? Or did he perhaps “love” this particular disciple in a special way? Peter’s remark in 21:21, asking “Lord, what about this man?”, suggests that the disciple “whom Jesus loved” was not one of the original twelve, or else Peter would not have questioned his role.
13:26 Jesus signals that Judas will be the betrayer, by handing him a morsel of food. But he only explained this signal to the special disciple, and not to the entire group. Thus, even after Jesus urges Judas to do his deed quickly (v.27), we find in v.28-29 that none of the other disciples understood what Jesus was referring to. And the disciple “whom Jesus loved” is not recorded as having passed this information along to Peter, who had prompted the question in the first place.
13:27 Satan enters Judas while the last supper is in progress. Luke 22:3, however, has Satan enter Judas at least a day before the last supper. This appears to be a contradiction, but a well-known tactic of the apologists can appear to reconcile these two statements, by assuming that Satan entered, left, and then re-entered Judas. Of course, there is no scriptural basis for this assumption of Satan’s traveling back and forth in and out of Judas, and no indication in the text that this is what the author had in mind, but apologists often invent additional details, unsupported by evidence, which attempt to expand the context to a point where it can accommodate two statements which, based on the biblical text alone, would be contradictory.
13:29 Once again we are told of a money box entrusted to Judas, but we are not told where Jesus’s group got their money. See the comment to 12:6.
13:32 Jesus speaks of “the Jews” as though they were a group separate from his disciples. But he and his group of twelve were Jews as well.
13:38 In predicting Peter’s desertion, Jesus declares, “the cock will not crow, till you have denied me three times.” In Mark’s version of the same prediction, the cock will crow not once, but twice, before Peter’s third denial. (Mark 14:30,72)
14:3 “I will come again.” Jesus promises that he will return after he goes to prepare a place for the disciples “in my Father’s house.” This suggests the second coming, but it has none of the overpowering imagery of the coming of the Son of Man as portrayed in Mark 13:24-27 or Matthew 24:29-31.
14:6 “No one comes to the Father, but through me.” In other words, God is not directly accessible to individual believers. They must go through Jesus as an intermediary. A similar sentiment is expressed in Matthew 11:27. But we also were told earlier that no one can come to Jesus unless God the Father grants it (John 6:44; 6:65). So God and Jesus each guard access to the other. It appears then that individuals have no power to break into this closed loop, but must simply wait to be called by God or Jesus. But then in 10:30 Jesus said, “I and the Father are one.” So how can Jesus be an intermediary to himself? This state of logical confusion is regarded as an inscrutable sublime mystery by the apologists, but it is actually a hopeless muddle. Yet millions of souls are supposedly headed to eternal torment in hell for their failure to crack the puzzle.
14:9 Having set himself up as intermediary to God, Jesus now equates himself with God the Father, by telling Philip that “He who has seen me has seen the Father.” See also 10:30, and the comment to 14:6.
14:12 Jesus promises that those who believe in him will do “greater works” than Jesus himself. However, his current followers do not even seem to be raising anyone from the dead or calming the storms, much less any greater works still. It is unfortunate, because this would be a useful skill to have when tornadoes or lightning strike their churches.
14:13-14 “If you ask anything in my name, I will do it.” Not only that, but “If you ask anything of the Father, he will give it to you in my name.” (John 16:23) But it does no good for sinners to ask for anything, for “We know that God does not listen to sinners.” (John 9:31) Unfortunately, though, we are all sinners, according to Romans 3:23, “since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”
14:16-17 These verses introduce the “Counselor” (also translated as “helper” or “advocate”) who is identified as “the Spirit of truth,” to be with the disciples forever. Based on 14:26, this Counselor is identified with the Holy Spirit, the third member of the trinity. We find in v.26 that he will be sent by the Father, will teach all things to the disciples, and remind them of what Jesus has taught them, although in 15:26, we are told that Jesus himself is going to send the Counselor. And in 16:7-15 Jesus advises the disciples that if he does not go away, the Counselor will not come, but when the Counselor does come, he will “convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment.” (16:8) After the resurrection, in 20:22, Jesus breathes on the disciples and transfers the Holy Spirit to them. This Counselor is also referred to as the “Paraclete,” after the Greek term parakleitos.
14:22 Following up on Jesus’s statement in v.19, Judas (but not the Judas Iscariot who betrayed him) asks Jesus why he is going to disclose himself to the disciples alone, and not to the world. There has been no change of scene since the beginning of chapter 13, so we must assume that this conversation continues the dialogue between Jesus and the disciples which was begun during the last supper. Who is this Judas who thus questions Jesus? There is no list of the twelve disciples’ names in John’s gospel, but “Judas the son of James” is named in Luke 6:16. However, both Matthew and Mark list the names of the twelve disciples, with no mention of any Judas, other than Judas Iscariot. (See Mark 3:16-19; Matthew 10:2-4.)
14:26 Here the Counselor (Paraclete) is identified as the Holy Spirit. See the comment to 14:16-17.
14:28 “The Father is greater than I." But see 5:18 and 10:30 where Jesus and God are claimed to be equal. Also 17:11 where Jesus tells God, “we are one.”
14:30 “The ruler of this world is coming.” The ruler is not named, but is usually thought by Christians to be Satan. However, there is nothing in the text that prevents us from understanding Jesus to mean an earthly ruler, either the chief priest of the Jewish establishment, or the Roman authority – i.e., those coming to arrest him. The Greek archon, which is used here, is also used to refer to ordinary humans in Luke 18:18 and John 3:1, for example. Although RSV translates this phrase as “the ruler of this world,” the demonstrative pronoun this is absent from the Greek text, and the NASB translation “the ruler of the world” is more precise. The phrase in this verse is thus distinguished from similar ones in John 12:31 and 16:11, which do have the demonstrative, and are properly translated as “ruler of this world.”
15:1-11 The allegory of the vine and the branches. Chapter 14 ended with Jesus saying, “Arise, let us go from here.” But as chapter 15 opens, we do not find them going anywhere. Instead, Jesus commences a long farewell discourse to the disciples, which carries through until the end of chapter 16, followed by the “high priestly prayer” of chapter 17. The discourse begins with an allegory in which Jesus portrays himself as a grapevine, and his followers as branches of the vine. As long as the followers “remain in” Jesus, they will prosper and receive whatever they wish (v.7). But if they do not remain in him, they will be thrown away, cast into the fire, and burned (v.6). What exactly it means to “remain in” Jesus is not explained. The nation of Israel was also represented by the image of a vine in the Old Testament – e.g., Psalm 80:7-9; Isaiah 5:1-7 - but there is not any suggestion that the gospel allegory intends to recall these passages to mind.
15:13 This is an admirable saying, but we find out in the next verse what Jesus means by “friends.”
15:14 “You are my friends if you do what I command you.” This is a rather restricted notion of friendship. If practiced on the school playground we would call it bullying.
15:15 Although they are his friends only so long as they do what he commands, Jesus assures the disciples,“No longer do I call you slaves.” But Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 7:22 that “he who was free when called is a slave of Christ.” The basis for no longer calling the disciples slaves is that “the slave does not know what his master is doing,” but “all things that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you.” However, it turns out that the disciples were not so knowledgeable about God’s plans after all, for we are told later (20:9) that as yet the disciples “did not know the scripture, that he must rise from the dead.”
15:22 “If I had not come and spoken to them they would not have sin.” But the usual reason given for the coming of Jesus is to atone for the sins of mankind. If the statement in this verse is true, then there was no sin to be atoned for, until Jesus himself came, and thus no rationale for his sacrifice. See also v.24.
15:25 Jesus explains that the hatred of his opponents is simply the fulfillment of what was written in “their Law.” Those “who hate me without cause,” are mentioned in Psalm 35:19 and 69:4. In the strictest sense, the Law refers only to the first five books of the Hebrew scriptures (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy), so referring to a quotation from Psalms as “the Law” is stretching the concept somewhat. However, perhaps we cannot expect Jesus to be well-versed in the Hebrew scriptures, since he refers to it as “their” Law, distancing himself from both the Jews and their Law.
16:5 Jesus chides the disciples because none of them asked him where he was going. But in 13:36 Peter did ask "Lord, where are you going?" And Thomas attempted to raise the question in 14:5, saying “Lord, we do not know where you are going.” Yet, Jesus did not take the opportunity to explain.
16:7 This “counselor” is the holy spirit, introduced in 14:16 and identified in 14:26.
16:12 Jesus tells the disciples that there are many things he has not told them, because they “cannot bear them now.” And yet in 15:15 he told them, “all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you.”
16:13 The Counselor will reveal to the disciples “the things that are to come.” Nowhere in John’s gospel does Jesus inform the disciples as to what the end of the age will be like, when the world is judged, the forces of evil are overcome, and God’s manifest rule extends over all creation. Instead, this task is left to the holy spirit in the role of the Counselor. But if we believe the other three gospels, no such revelation from the holy spirit is necessary, because Jesus himself gave the disciples a quite detailed description of the end times. See Mark 13:5-30; Matthew 24:9-42; and Luke 21:8-36 for these apocalyptic disclosures. Not only does Jesus describe the coming of the kingdom of God, he predicted that it would arrive within the lifetime of those he was speaking to. See, for example, Mark 13:30; Matthew 24:34; Luke 21:32. Of course these predictions never came true.
16:23 Jesus places no limit on what can be requested from God the Father: “If you ask anything of the Father, he will give it to you in my name.” However, this is only to occur “in that day.” What day did Jesus have in mind? At the very least we may suppose that he meant the day of his resurrection, when the disciples’ “sorrow will turn into joy” (v.20) and “I will see you again.” (v.22). Verse 20:20 seems to fulfill this prediction. Could Jesus have meant more than this? Perhaps the end of time itself on the great day of judgment? There is no way to tell from the words in this verse, but the imagery all fits with the simple interpretation that the resurrection is meant. In that case, the promise that God will grant anything requested should have been operative from resurrection day onward. Needless to say, this has not been the case, since many prayers are not granted. Apologists will want to qualify Jesus’s remarks by adding that only those prayers consistent with Jesus’s message will be granted, and of course a true Christian would not ask for anything that conflicts with God’s own wishes. But such a watered-down promise would be worthless anyway, because it simply means that if you pray for what God already wants to do, it will be done. However, Jesus says “anything,” without qualification.
16:25 Jesus promises that the time will come when he begins to speak “plainly” of the Father. Hitherto he has been speaking figuratively. But why has he been speaking figuratively instead of plainly from the beginning? If his message is important enough to die for, isn’t it important enough to communicate it clearly?
16:29 The disciples think Jesus has now begun to speak plainly, but his statements in vv.27-28 are the same message he has been preaching throughout John’s gospel.
17:1-5 The high priestly prayer. Jesus opens by praying for himself, asking God to “glorify” him. See the comment to 12:23 for an explanation of “glorify.”
17:4 Jesus declares that his work has been accomplished. But what work is he talking about? He has not yet been crucified or resurrected, so that work at least remains unaccomplished. He has chosen the disciples, but they have not really understood his teachings (12:16; 13:7; 20:9), which were couched in confusing symbolic language. He has encountered skepticism even among his own family (7:5) and his own townspeople (Matthew 13:57), opposition from “the Jews” (5:16; 8:48; 10:20; 10:31) and disbelief from the crowds who followed him (12:37). Although John the Baptist was supposed to “make straight the way of the Lord,” (1:23), Jesus’s path has been anything but straight, and the attentive reader is hard pressed to list any considerable accomplishments up to this point in the narrative.
17:7-8 Jesus implies that the disciples now fully understand his role and mission, but 20:9 indicates that their understanding was less than perfect.
17:11 “And now I am no more in the world.” There are serious theological implications in this statement, which questions the nature of Jesus’s eventual crucifixion. If he is already no longer in the world, how can his crucifixion have entailed any physical suffering? Was Jesus’s suffering on the cross merely an illusion? Surely he would have to remain “in the world” in order to feel any pain.
17:20-24 This part of the high priestly prayer is often thought of as Jesus’s prayer for the universal church. However, there is no language that suggests any type of organization or structure, but only a reference to “those who believe in me through their [i.e., the disciples’] word” (v.20).
18:3-12 The arrest of Jesus. The fourth gospel’s account of Jesus’s arrest differs considerably from the other gospels in several details. According to this passage, those who came to seize Jesus included “a band of soldiers and some officers from the chief priests and the Pharisees.” None of the other gospel accounts mentions soldiers. Matthew 26:47 describes only “a great crowd with swords and clubs, from the chief priests and the elders of the people,” while Mark 14:43 has “a crowd with swords and clubs, from the chief priests and the scribes and the elders.” Luke 22:47 simply tells us that “there came a crowd, and the man called Judas, one of the twelve, was leading them,” but later in 22:52 we find that those who came out against Jesus were “the chief priests and officers of the temple and elders.” Thus, John’s gospel is the only one to mention soldiers, who could only have been Roman, as the Jews did not have their own army. Actually the Greek word used here is speira, which is “a band of soldiers, company, troop; used for a Roman cohort, about 600 soldiers.” (William D. Mounce, The Analytical Lexicon to the Greek New Testament.) So the synoptic gospels all have the arresting party coming from the Jewish religious authorities, while John’s account has Roman soldiers leading the way. Apologists will argue that the presence of the soldiers in John’s account is not a contradiction, but simply an omission on the part of the synoptic authors. In a strict logical sense, they are right. However, the presence of Roman soldiers, especially if it was an entire cohort, would simply be to too significant to omit. It is not credible that all three synoptic authors would choose to overlook their presence if indeed they were there.
18:4-5 Jesus steps forward to ask who they are seeking. When they answer “Jesus of Nazareth,” Jesus replies, “I am he.” Unlike the synoptic accounts, there is no kiss from Judas to identify Jesus for the arresting authorities. (Matthew 26:48-49; Mark 14:44-45; Luke 22:47-48) Again, the apologists deny any contradiction, arguing that the author of John simply neglected to mention the kiss, but the rest of his narrative rules out this possibility. It is obvious that the arresting authorities did not know which one was Jesus when they asked for “Jesus of Nazareth,” because when Jesus identified himself, they “drew back and fell to the ground.” If they were thus surprised to find that they were already speaking with the man they had come to arrest, there could not have been any identifying kiss beforehand, and there would have been no point to any kiss after Jesus had already stepped forward. So the kiss of Judas cannot simply have been an omitted detail. The narrative in John’s gospel contradicts the other gospels on the question of the kiss.
18:9 "Of those whom thou gavest me I lost not one." Actually, Jesus did lose Judas Iscariot, even though that was supposedly part of the divine plan. And Peter later denied Jesus, but that apparently doesn’t count as “losing” him.
18:10 The story of the slave’s ear being cut off appears in all four gospels, but only here in the fourth gospel are we told that it was Peter who wielded the sword, and that the slave’s name was Malchus.
18:11 Jesus rebukes Peter and orders him to put his sword away. What then was the purpose of his telling the disciples to buy swords in Luke 22:36?
18:13 Here we are told that Jesus was first led to Annas, and Peter’s denial takes place in the courtyard of Annas’ house. After being questioned by Annas, Jesus was then bound over to Caiaphas (18:24). However, in Matthew 26:57, Jesus is instead led directly to Caiaphas from the place of his arrest, and it is in the courtyard of his house that Peter’s denial takes place. According to Luke 3:2, Annas and Caiaphas had been joint high priests, and according to Acts 4:6, Annas was still high priest after the resurrection, when he interrogated the disciples about their continued preaching. So it is not a contradiction when both Caiaphas and Annas are referred to as the “high priest.”
18:17 Peter denies being a follower of Jesus for the first time.
18:19 Jesus is questioned “about his disciples and his teaching.” This is the only interrogation he receives from the high priests in John’s gospel, in contrast to the much more extensive questioning reported in Mark 14:53-64; Matthew 26:59-66; and Luke 22:66-71.
18:20 “I spoke nothing secretly.” This claim is not borne out by the other gospels, where Jesus repeatedly tells his disciples and other followers to keep his identity and actions secret. See for example, Matthew 16:20, Mark 8:30, Luke 5:14.
18:24 Jesus is led from Annas to Caiaphas, but we are not told what happened with him at the house of Caiaphas. In verse 28, after the interlude of Peter’s denial, Jesus is already being led from Caiaphas to the Praetorium where he will meet Pontius Pilate. No details of the meeting with Caiaphas are given.
18:25 Peter for the second time denies being one of Jesus’s followers.
18:27 Peter denies knowing Jesus a third time, and a rooster crows, as predicted by Jesus in 13:38. This story appears in all four gospels, but Mark is the only one where Jesus predicts that the rooster will crow twice. (Mark 14:30,72) This contradiction with Mark cannot be answered by the apologists’ usual tactic of claiming that one of the crowings was simply omitted, because the prediction of Jesus in 13:38 (“The cock will not crow, till you have denied me three times.”) rules out the possibility that the cock would crow at all before the third denial. Yet in Mark 14:72, “immediately” after Peter’s third denial, the cock crowed a second time – which means that it must have crowed previously, before the third denial. This is a clear contradiction and cannot be “refuted” by imagining that the second crowing was simply omitted by John’s gospel.
18:28 The Jewish authorities do not enter the Roman governor’s residence (the Praetorium) because they do not want to be defiled and thus unable to eat the upcoming Passover meal. This indicates that the Passover meal has not yet occurred, contradicting Matthew 26:19, Mark 14:16, and Luke 22:15, in which the last supper eaten by Jesus with his disciples was identified as the Passover meal.
18:29-38 Interrogation before Pontius Pilate. Pilate asks what Jesus is accused of, but the Jewish authorities do not give him a direct answer. In verse 35, Pilate still seems unaware of any specific charges, as he asks Jesus, “What have you done?” By contrast, Luke’s gospel reports the specific allegations made against Jesus. Luke 23:2 has the Jewish religious leaders accusing Jesus of “perverting our nation, and forbidding us to give tribute to Caesar, and saying that he himself is Christ a king,” and that “"He stirs up the people, teaching throughout all Judea, from Galilee even to this place." (Luke 23:5) Note that John’s gospel has no mention of any meeting with Herod Antipas, ruler of Galilee, as reported in Luke 23:7-12.
18:34 When Pilate asks Jesus whether he is the King of the Jews, Jesus answers, "Do you say this of your own accord, or did others say it to you about me?" In Matthew 27:11, Mark 15:2, and Luke 23:3, Jesus’s response to the same question is “You have said so.” In contrast to Jesus’s reticence in the accounts of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, the Jesus in John’s gospel engages in an extended philosophical dialog with Pilate, which includes the very Platonic question, “What is truth?”
18:40 “Barabbas was a robber.” But elsewhere we are told that he was guilty of insurrection and murder. (Mark 15:7; Luke 23:25) Apologists like to point out that this is not necessarily a contradiction, since Barabbas could have been a robber while also being a murderer/insurrectionist. This is posible, but leaves open the question as to why the gospel authors were so incomplete in their descriptions. The usual response from the apologists then is that the gospels complement each other, and that when all four are put together the whole picture emerges. But this introduces more contradictions than it resolves, as shown by the many examples presented in this commentary.
19:2-3 This humiliation of Jesus at the hands of the soldiers before Pilate, takes place in Luke’s version before Herod Antipas instead (Luke 23:11). Herod Antipas, son of Herod the Great, ruled over Galilee as a client state of the Roman Empire.
19:7 “He made himself out to be the Son of God.” This is the only specific charge made against Jesus by his accusers in John’s gospel, and it is a purely religious one, which would have been unlikely to move Pilate. In 19:12, “the Jews” resort to a political argument instead, hinting that Jesus made himself out to be a king, and that failure to condemn him would call into question Pilate’s own loyalty to Caesar. Consequently, Pilate gives in and orders Jesus to be taken away for crucifixion. Luke 23:2-5 lists more specific charges against Jesus, which accuse him more of fomenting political turmoil than violating any religious requirements.
19:14 It is the sixth hour (i.e., about noon, counting from dawn), and Jesus is still with Pilate before the Jewish crowd. By this time, Mark’s version has had Jesus on the cross for a full three hours, for “it was the third hour when they crucified him.” (Mark 15:25) The attempt to wiggle out of this contradiction by claiming that John is using “Roman time” fails, because the Romans, too, counted the hours from dawn and not from midnight. For more on the Roman manner of reckoning time, see the sources listed in the comment to Matthew 27:45.
Note also that all this takes place on “the day of Preparation of the Passover.” This contradicts Matthew 26:19, Mark 14:16, and Luke 22:15, in which the Passover has already occurred, because they all identify the last supper eaten by Jesus with his disciples as being the Passover meal. See also the comment to 18:28.
19:17 John pointedly tells us that Jesus carried his own cross. In this he contradicts all three synoptic gospels, which have Simon of Cyrene carrying Jesus’s cross for him. (Mark 15:21; Matthew 27:32; Luke 23:26) John may have Jesus bearing his own cross in order to counter early Gnostic suggestions that Simon not only carried Jesus’s cross, but was actually crucified in his place. (The Interpreter's Bible, vol. 8, p. 779)
19:19 “Jesus of Nazareth, the king of the Jews.” The wording is slightly different in the other three gospels (Mark 15:26; Matthew 27:37; Luke 23:38), but shows that Jesus was executed for political reasons, and not for religious blasphemy.
19:23 Here it is only Jesus’s tunic (one garment) that the soldiers allocate based on casting lots. His other garments are divided equally into four parts. In Matthew 27:35, Mark 15:24, and Luke 23:34, we are told that they cast lots for his garments (plural).
19:24 The division of Jesus’s garments is claimed to be a fulfillment of this passage from Psalm 22:18. The Psalm goes on to beseech God to “hasten to my aid! Deliver my soul from the sword, my life from the power of the dog! Save me from the mouth of the lion, my afflicted soul from the horns of the wild oxen.” This hardly fits with John’s portrayal of Jesus as one who accepts his role in the divine plan of salvation. Psalm 22 is a lament by a man who is afflicted with a physical illness, and who promises God that if he recovers, he will “tell of thy name to my brethren; in the midst of the congregation I will praise thee.” (v.22). When the full context is considered, the passage does not fit with Jesus’s situation very well at all. Note that this Psalm opens with the words “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” which are reported as Jesus’s last words on the cross by both Matthew and Mark. See the comment to 19:30.
19:25 The women at the cross. While the synoptic gospels have the women “looking on from afar” (Mark 15:40; Matthew 27:55; Luke 23:49), John’s gospel has them “standing by the cross.” It is not entirely certain whether the author intends us to understand that three women or four were present. “His mother’s sister” may be “Mary the wife of Clopas” or these may be two different women. The women named in Mark 15:40 and Matthew 27:56 do not match perfectly with the names given in John’s gospel, but the authors of both Mark and Matthew mention that the women were only “among” those present, and not a complete list. Note that Jesus’s mother is mentioned, but not by name. She is otherwise mentioned only once in John’s gospel (2:1-5) but her name is never given. Despite her prominent role as the Blessed Virgin in the Christian pantheon, the name of Jesus’s mother appears only once, in passing, in the entire New Testament after Jesus’s crucifixion (Acts 1:14).
19:28 “I am thirsty.” The words suggest Psalm 69:21 – “They gave me poison for food, and for my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.” Apologists like to see this as a prophetic reference to Jesus’s thirst on the cross, and the vinegar offered to him in John 19:29. However, if this is a fulfilled prophecy, then what about the poison for food? There is no indication anywhere in the gospels that Jesus was given poison food, so based on the written accounts, we should be allowed to count this as a failed prophecy.
19:30 “It is finished.” Contrast these last words of Jesus with those reported in Mark 15:34 (“My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”); Matthew 27:46 (identical with Mark); and Luke 23:46 (“Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit!”). Again, the apologists will claim to “refute” this contradiction by claiming that Jesus might well have said all these words while on the cross, and in none of the versions is it explicitly stated that the quoted words are Jesus’s last. But after the quoted words in Luke, we are told “having said this he breathed his last,” which certainly conveys the intention that these were Jesus’s last words. Similarly in John’s version, after saying, “It is finished,” Jesus “bowed his head and gave up his spirit.” So again, the language used implies finality. And in any case, the tone of the words quoted in Matthew and Mark are so opposed to that of Luke and John, that we can hardly accept that they were even spoken by the same person. Mark’s (and Matthew’s) Jesus expresses feelings of desertion and betrayal, while the words of Luke’s and John’s Jesus express submission to God’s plan.
19:31-33 Because of the upcoming holy day, the Jews are eager to bury the crucified bodies before sunset. Death could be hastened by breaking the legs, so that the pressure on the lungs caused the victim to suffocate. However, Jesus is found to be already dead, so this treatment is not necessary.
19:36 “Not a bone of him shall be broken.” The events on the cross supposedly fulfill this “prophecy” which is from Psalm 34:20. However, this is a classic case of cherry-picking – i.e., choosing only those Old Testament passages that reflect events in the stories of Jesus’s life, while ignoring the many more Old Testament verses that conflict. For example, the author could just as well have referred back to Lamentations 3:4 (“He has made my flesh and my skin waste away, and broken my bones.”) or Psalm 51:8 (“Let the bones which thou has broken rejoice.”), and no doubt would have, if Jesus’s legs had instead been broken on the cross.
19:37 “They shall look on him whom they have pierced.” This is an allusion to Zechariah 12:10, which says in full: “And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of compassion and supplication, so that, when they look on him whom they have pierced, they shall mourn for him, as one mourns for an only child, and weep bitterly over him, as one weeps over a first-born.” Obviously, “they shall look on him whom they have pierced” is not a prediction in this verse. The words appear only in a subordinate clause (introduced by “when”), and are not the main thrust of the sentence in which they appear. The meaning of the Old Testament verse is obscure. See The Oxford Bible Commentary, p. 614 for a discussion of the possibilities. Note that the piercing of Jesus’s side by the soldier is redundant for purposes of fulfilling this “prophecy,” as Jesus had already been pierced by having his hands and feet nailed to the cross.
19:38 Joseph of Arimathea, who takes charge of burying Jesus’s body, is described as a disciple of Jesus, following Matthew 27:57. The author of John adds that Joseph was a secret disciple, “for fear of the Jews.” Mark and Luke do not call him a disciple, but “a respected member of the council” (Mark 15:43), and “a good and righteous man” (Luke 23:50), who was “looking for the kingdom of God.” (Mark 15:43; Luke 23:51).
19:42 “As the tomb was close at hand, they laid Jesus there.” Thus, Joseph of Arimathea is the one who took down Jesus’s body and laid him in the tomb, and this is even more explicitly stated in Mark 15:46. However, in Acts 13:28-29 Paul is quoted as saying that those who asked Pilate to have Jesus killed were the ones who “took him down from the tree, and laid him in a tomb.”
20:1 The identities of the women who visited the tomb differ in all four gospels. John’s is the only gospel account that has Mary Magdalene visiting alone. Mark 16:1 has Mary Magdalene, Mary mother of James, and Salome visiting the tomb. Matthew 28:1 mentions Mary Magdalene and “the other Mary,” while Luke 24:10 has Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the “other” women. See the comment to 20:17 on the question of whether these other women were present, but not mentioned, in John’s account.
There are yet more discrepancies contained in this first verse of chapter 20. Here, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb “while it was still dark,” contradicting Mark 16:2 where the visit occurs “when the sun had risen.” And in contrast to Matthew 28:2, where an angel descends and rolls away the stone, John’s gospel reports that the stone was already rolled away when Mary Magdalene arrived.
20:2 Mary Magdalene runs to tell Peter and “the other disciple” what she has seen, but this contradicts Mark 16:8, where the women, including Mary Magdalene, “said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.” It also differs from Luke 24:9 where the women, including Mary Magdalene, tell the story to all the eleven disciples, not just Peter and the one other disciple. Mary’s remark to Peter and the other disciple, that “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him,” is very puzzling if the story told in Matthew 28:7 is true. For in Matthew, the women at the tomb are told by the angel that Jesus had risen from the dead and would meet the disciples in Galilee. So in Matthew’s account, Mary Magdalene does know what happened to Jesus, whereas in John’s version, she does not.
20:3-10 This scene in which Peter and the other disciple run to the tomb to check out Mary Magdalene’s story is not present in any of the other gospels. Note that there is no mention here of the two angels that are later seen by Mary Magdalene in verse 12.
20:5-7 Peter and the other disciple find the tomb empty. Remarkably, the actual resurrection itself is not described anywhere in the New Testament, even though it is the central event of the Christian religion. There is no claim that anyone actually saw Jesus rise up and walk out of the tomb after having been killed on the cross.
20:9 The specific “scripture” which supposedly predicted Jesus’s rising from the dead is not cited here. This verse seems like a non sequitur given the statement in verse 8 that the disciple had already looked into the tomb and believed. If he already believed, why would we be told that the disciples did not understand the scripture? But perhaps the meaning is that he had to see the empty tomb before believing, rather than relying on the alleged predictions contained in Hebrew scripture. Oddly, although the disciples “did not know the scripture, that he must rise from the dead,” the chief priests and Pharisees who accused him remembered very clearly that “that impostor said, while he was still alive, ‘After three days I will rise again.’” (Matthew 27:63)
20:11 Mary Magdalene looks into the tomb and sees “two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had lain, one at the head and one at the feet.” However, in Mark’s account (Mark 16:5), there is only “a young man sitting on the right side” in the tomb, but no mention of any angels. Luke 24:4 has two men inside the tomb, and the Greek word used here (andres) is literally “men,” i.e., human beings. In Matthew, there is indeed an angel (just one), but he sits upon the stone outside the tomb. (Matthew 28:2)
It is very awkward to try to escape from these discrepancies by the usual tactic of claiming that there is no contradiction, only an omission of certain details by each writer, and that the entire picture emerges when the accounts are combined. For this argument would imply that the true combined picture would have an an angel sitting on the stone outside the tomb, two or three men inside the tomb, along with two angels also inside the tomb. Those who make this claim would have us believe that none of the gospel writers found this large crowd of earthly and heavenly presences noteworthy enough to mention in their narratives. And adding to the implausibility, they would have us believe that Mary’s meeting at the tomb with Jesus himself (verses 13-17) was not considered sufficiently noteworthy to include in the gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke.
Keep in mind that the early Christian communities did not have all four gospels available so would not have been able to put together a composite view. Often, a particular group of followers would have only one gospel at their disposal as the basis of their belief and worship. The four gospels were not pulled together into what we now call the New Testament until centuries later. So the argument that omissions and gaps in one gospel can be supplemented by the others does not work for the time period of the early believers.
20:14-15 Mary Magdalene sees Jesus at the tomb, contradicting the angel in Matthew 28:6, and the young man in Mark 16:6, who told the women, “He is not here.” Amazingly, Mary does not recognize Jesus at first – even mistaking him for the gardener. This failure to recognize the risen Jesus is a common thread among the post-crucifixion narratives. See for example, Luke’s story of the two disciples on the road to Emmaus who encounter Jesus along the way, and walk a considerable distance with him without recognizing him. (Luke 24:13-31) And in John 21:4, the risen Jesus stands on the beach while some of the disciples are fishing, “yet the disciples did not know that it was Jesus.” If there is any historical reality at all to these stories, they suggest the possibility that a look-alike may have been making the rounds claiming to be Jesus risen from the dead.
20:17 Neither Jesus nor the two angels issue any instructions here for the disciples to meet Jesus in Galilee, as the angel and young man do in Matthew 28:7 and Mark 16:7, and as Jesus himself instructed in Matthew 28:10.
We also have a clue here as to how many women were actually present. The Greek verbs in “go to my brethren and say to them” are singular, meaning that Jesus is speaking to only one person, i.e., Mary Magdalene. Contrast this with Matthew 28:10 where “go and tell my brethren to go to Galilee” is a plural verb form, indicating that he is speaking to more than one. This distinction is not made in English, where the imperative “go” can refer to singular or plural. Thus, the use of the singular verb in John 20:17 argues against the view that the women mentioned in Matthew were present here, too, but simply were not mentioned by the author of John’s gospel. Clearly in John’s version, Mary Magdalene is the only woman present, in contradiction of the accounts in Matthew, Mark, and Luke.
20:18 Here Mary Magdalene tells the disciples, “I have seen the Lord.” But in Mark 16:8, the women, including Mary Magdalene, fled from the tomb, and “said nothing to any one, for they were afraid.”
20:19 The first appearance of the risen Jesus to the disciples. They are seated indoors, “the doors being shut where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews.” This contradicts Matthew 28:16 where the first meeting was outside on a mountain in Galilee. It is clear that both these accounts are intended to describe the first meeting between the risen Jesus and his disciples, because in Matthew some of them are doubtful (Matthew 28:17), which is the type of reaction to be expected for such an initial meeting. And in John 20:20, Jesus shows them the wounds in his hands and side, to prove that it is indeed him, which also would not have been necessary if he had already appeared to them on a previous occasion.
20:24 Jesus’s first appearance to the disciples after the crucifixion was only to ten of them, Thomas being absent. But Matthew 28:16 states quite plainly that the first appearance was to the eleven disciples who remained after Judas’s defection. Luke 24:33 agrees that the first appearance was to the eleven, although Luke (Jerusalem) and Matthew (Galilee) disagree over where the meeting occurred.
20:25 Doubting Thomas. Thomas, who was not present at Jesus’s first visit, refuses to believe that Jesus lives, unless he can see and touch him. He receives such evidence at the next meeting, eight days later, in verse 27.
20:29 Jesus mocks Thomas’s skepticism by saying, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe.” In other words, blessed are those who believe without any evidence.
20:31 The author of the gospel reveals his purpose in writing the book, i.e., “that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in his name.”
21:1 The final verse of chapter 20 appears to conclude the gospel of John. However, chapter 21, which is “clearly an appendix, added after the completion of the first 20 chapters” (Anchor Bible Dictionary, vol. 3, p. 914) presents some additional post-resurrection appearances. The Sea of Tiberias mentioned here is an alternate name for the Sea (or lake) of Galilee, as we saw in John 6:1.
21:2 Nathanael, who was introduced in 1:47, is identified here as a disciple of Jesus. The implication is that he is one of the twelve, but his name does not occur in the lists found in Matthew 10:2-4; Mark 3:16-19; or Luke 6:14-16. Note that the appearance which is about to be described is only to seven of the disciples, only three of whom are named. John’s gospel does not contain a full list of the twelve disciples by name.
21:4 Although Jesus has already appeared to the disciples twice since his crucifixion (20:19 and 20:26), in this meeting they do not recognize him. This is not the only time Jesus’s followers failed to recognize him. See the comment to 20:14-16 for additional examples.
21:14 The author remarks that this appearance at the Sea of Galilee was the third appearance of the risen Jesus to the disciples. This is important, because it prevents apologists from postulating additional unreported appearances within that time frame in order to avoid contradictions among the post-resurrection accounts. The author of John states very explicitly that the first appearance (20:19) was to the group of ten disciples minus Thomas, and that it occurred on the very day that the women visited the empty tomb. The second appearance to the disciples (20:26) was eight days later, with Thomas present. The third appearance occurred “after these things” (21:1) and took place at the Sea of Galilee (Tiberias). So there cannot have been any additional appearances to the disciples prior to the one at the Sea of Tiberias without contradicting what John’s gospel tells us about this being the third. Therefore, the appearance in Luke 24:36 must be identical with the first appearance of John’s gospel, since it occurred in the evening or during the night after the empty tomb was discovered. (See Luke 24:13, 24:33, and 24:36 where the phrases “that very day,” “that same hour,” and “as they were saying this” rule out an 8-day interval since the crucifixion.) In other words, Luke 24:33-49 and John 20:19-24 must be describing the same meeting, or else the meeting at the Sea of Tiberias is not the third, as John’s gospel declares, but at least the fourth.
The description of this meeting in Luke contradicts the description in John’s gospel, in telling us that all eleven were gathered together (Luke 24:33) while John’s version tells us that Thomas was missing (John 20:24), so there would only have been ten present. Paul, on the other hand, after an initial appearance to Peter (Cephas), mentions an appearance to “the twelve” (1 Corinthians 15:5), so apparently he is unaware not only of Thomas’s absence, but the falling away of Judas as well.
21:21 See the comment to 13:21 on the role of the unnamed disciple “whom Jesus loved.”
21:23 This verse is clearly intended to answer skeptics who were questioning why Jesus had not yet returned. The belief among some had been that Jesus would return before the last disciple died. The author explains that Jesus did not promise this, and that even if all the disciples are dead, Jesus will still come, eventually. “It is a reasonable inference that vs. 23 was written after his [the beloved disciple’s] death to remove this misunderstanding, and the distress caused by the delayed return of the Lord.” (The Interpreter’s Bible, vol. 8, p. 810.) Jesus’s continued absence was no doubt a problem for the early Christians to explain, as we also see in 2 Peter 3:4, where we are told of “scoffers” who ask, “Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things have continued as they were from the beginning of creation.”
21:24 The appendix to John’s gospel concludes by identifying the author as the disciple whom Jesus loved, although at no point in the gospel do we learn his name. It is also possible that the claim means that the gospel was written by a different person who was acquainted with or closely familiar with the testimony of this disciple.