Departure Becomes a Promise of Abiding Presence

“Troubled” is the verb used of Jesus himself at the tomb of Lazarus (11:33), in 12:27 and at the announcement of betrayal (13:21). He now forbids it to his friends. “Heart” is singular though “your” is plural, one heart shared by the group, and the Greek “ye believe” can be read either as a statement or as a second command.

In 2:16 “my Father’s house” was the temple in Jerusalem, whose courts were ringed with chambers. The middle clause can also be punctuated as a question, “would I have told you that I go to prepare a place?”, and several early copies carry the extra word that makes that reading natural.

“Receive you unto myself” uses paralambano, the verb for Joseph taking Mary home as his wife (Matthew 1:20, 24). Some readers hear a bridegroom preparing rooms in his father’s house and returning for the bride; that is an inference from custom, not something the verse states. “I will come” is a present tense in Greek: I am coming.

The King James follows the longer text, “whither I go ye know, and the way ye know”. Most modern editions read the shorter “where I go, ye know the way”. Either way Jesus credits them with knowledge they do not believe they have, and the claim is built to be challenged.

Thomas is the one who said “Let us also go, that we may die with him” (11:16), and he will be the one who wants to touch the wounds (20:25). He speaks in the plural for the whole room, and his objection is plain logic: an unknown destination makes the route unknowable.

The sixth of the seven “I am” sayings with a predicate in the Book of John, after bread, light, door, shepherd and resurrection, with the vine still to come in 15:1. Three nouns follow a single article each, each claim standing in its own right before the sentence closes on the Father.

The manuscripts divide over the tone. One reading is a rebuke, “if ye had known me, ye should have known my Father”; another is a promise, “if you have come to know me, you will know my Father”. “From henceforth” marks a threshold: from this night the seeing is declared already done.

Philip asks for what Moses asked on Sinai, “shew me thy glory” (Exodus 33:18). There is an irony in who asks: in 12:21 it was to Philip that the Greeks came saying “Sir, we would see Jesus.” The man who fielded a request to see Jesus now makes one to see the Father.

Philip was among the very first called (1:43), so “so long time” covers the whole ministry. “Hath seen” is a Greek perfect, a seeing that stays seen. The prologue had said no man hath seen God at any time, but the Son hath declared him (1:18); this is that sentence turned into a conversation.

The question is framed in Greek to expect a yes. “Of myself” repeats a line Jesus has used again and again, in 5:19, 7:17, 8:28 and 12:49, so Philip is being asked to recall three years of the same claim rather than to accept a new one.

The fallback, believe “for the very works’ sake”, is the argument Jesus offered his opponents at the feast of dedication (10:37-38). What he once said to men gathering stones he now says to his own disciples, with no hint of reproach in the offer.

“Verily, verily” is the doubled amen found only in the Book of John, twenty-five times in all. The promise is to “he that believeth”, singular and general, not to the eleven alone, and the reason given is not the believer’s strength but the Son’s departure.

“In my name” enters the farewell discourse here and returns in 15:16 and 16:23-26. To act in someone’s name meant to act as his authorised agent. Here Jesus says “that will I do”; in 15:16 and 16:23 the Father is the one who gives. The two statements sit side by side without strain.

The verse nearly repeats the last, which is why a few copies drop it. Many of the oldest manuscripts read “if ye shall ask me any thing in my name”, prayer addressed to Jesus himself, and that small “me” is one of the earliest traces of such prayer in the text.

Some manuscripts have a future, “ye will keep my commandments”, which turns the command into a description of what love does. The plural “commandments” sits oddly beside the single “new commandment” of 13:34, and suggests the whole body of his words rather than one rule.

“Pray” here is erotao, a verb of asking that the Book of John uses for Jesus’ requests to the Father, the asking of one near rather than a supplicant. “Another” implies a first. In 1 John 2:1 the same title, parakletos, is given to Jesus Christ and rendered “advocate”.

“Spirit of truth” is also a phrase of the Dead Sea Scrolls, where the Community Rule sets a spirit of truth against a spirit of deceit. Two prepositions carry the change: he dwells “with” them now and shall be “in” them, though some manuscripts read “is in you”.

The Greek word behind “comfortless” is orphanous, orphans. Rabbinic writings could speak of a teacher’s disciples as left fatherless at his death, and Jesus has just called them “little children” (13:33). “I will come” is again a present in Greek, as if already under way.

“A little while”, mikron, is a phrase that will return seven times in 16:16-19 and baffle them. The contrast is between two kinds of seeing: the world looks with the eye and will lose sight of him at the burial; the disciples will see him after it.

“At that day” is the prophets’ phrase for the day the LORD acts, heard all through Isaiah and Zechariah. The sentence nests three relations inside one another, I in the Father, you in me, I in you, so the disciples find themselves written into the relation between Father and Son.

“Manifest” is emphanizo, to make visible. The Greek Old Testament uses it for Moses’ plea in Exodus 33:13, “shew me now thy way”, rendered there as a request that God show himself. Philip’s request of verse 8 is here answered in a different key: shown to the one who loves.

Luke lists this man as “Judas the brother of James” (Luke 6:16; Acts 1:13), and Matthew and Mark put Thaddaeus in the same slot. His question takes up the verb “manifest” and repeats what Jesus’ brothers demanded in 7:4: “shew thyself to the world.”

Jesus speaks of himself and the Father as “we”, as in 10:30, “I and my Father are one.” The promise of God coming to dwell recalls the old covenant pledge “I will set my tabernacle among you” (Leviticus 26:11), now made to a single person rather than a camp.

The many “sayings” of the first half become one “word” in the second. The plural is what a hearer keeps or neglects one by one; the singular is the message as the Father owns it, which is why rejecting the sayings is rejecting the sender.

“Being yet present” is a form of meno, the Book of John’s verb of abiding. “These things have I spoken unto you” is a refrain that marks the joints of the discourse, returning in 15:11, 16:1, 16:25 and 16:33, each time as Jesus steps back to say why he has said it.

In 1611 “Ghost” simply meant spirit, as in giving up the ghost. The pronoun “he” is masculine in Greek though pneuma, spirit, is neuter: the grammar treats the Comforter as a person. Here the Father sends him in Jesus’ name; in 15:26 Jesus sends him from the Father.

Shalom was the ordinary Hebrew greeting and farewell, so a parting “peace” was expected. The verb “leave”, though, is the one used of bequeathing an estate, and this is a legacy. “Be afraid” is deiliao, a word for cowardly shrinking found nowhere else in the New Testament.

In the fourth century Arius cited “my Father is greater than I” against the Son’s full deity; Athanasius and the Nicene writers answered that it speaks of the Son as sent and incarnate, or of the Father as source. “If ye loved me” is a contrary-to-fact form, gently implying that their grief is about their own loss.

This is the second time Jesus has explained a prediction in these words; the first was 13:19. Isaiah makes announcing events before they happen the mark of the true God (Isaiah 48:5), and the Book of John has Jesus do exactly that on the eve of the events.

The prince of this world is named three times in the Book of John: 12:31, here, and 16:11. “Cometh” is a present tense, already on the road. Judas walked out into the night at 13:30, and Satan had entered him at 13:27, so the approach is quite literal.

“Arise, let us go hence” uses the same two Greek words Jesus speaks in Gethsemane in Mark 14:42. Yet three more chapters of speech follow before 18:1 says he went forth, which is why some think chapters 15-17 were spoken on the way or were set here from another occasion.