Yohanes 14:15-17

Teaching on the Holy Spirit

14:15 “If you love me, you will obey ¹  my commandments. ²  14:16 Then ³  I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate ⁴  to be with you forever – 14:17 the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot accept, ⁵  because it does not see him or know him. But you know him, because he resides ⁶  with you and will be ⁷  in you.

Yohanes 14:21

14:21 The person who has my commandments and obeys ⁸  them is the one who loves me. ⁹  The one ¹⁰  who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and will reveal ¹¹  myself to him.”

Yohanes 14:23

14:23 Jesus replied, ¹²  “If anyone loves me, he will obey ¹³  my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and take up residence with him. ¹⁴ 

[14:15]  ¹ tn Or “will keep.”

[14:15]  ² sn Jesus’ statement If you love me, you will obey my commandments provides the transition between the promises of answered prayer which Jesus makes to his disciples in vv. 13-14 and the promise of the Holy Spirit which is introduced in v. 16. Obedience is the proof of genuine love.

[14:16]  ³ tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “Then” to reflect the implied sequence in the discourse.

[14:16]  ⁴ tn Or “Helper” or “Counselor”; Grk “Paraclete,” from the Greek word παράκλητος (paraklhto"). Finding an appropriate English translation for παράκλητος is a very difficult task. No single English word has exactly the same range of meaning as the Greek word. “Comforter,” used by some of the older English versions, appears to be as old as Wycliffe. But today it suggests a quilt or a sympathetic mourner at a funeral. “Counselor” is adequate, but too broad, in contexts like “marriage counselor” or “camp counselor.” “Helper” or “Assistant” could also be used, but could suggest a subordinate rank. “Advocate,” the word chosen for this translation, has more forensic overtones than the Greek word does, although in John 16:5-11 a forensic context is certainly present. Because an “advocate” is someone who “advocates” or supports a position or viewpoint and since this is what the Paraclete will do for the preaching of the disciples, it was selected in spite of the drawbacks.

[14:17]  ⁵ tn Or “cannot receive.”

[14:17]  ⁶ tn Or “he remains.”

[14:17]  ⁷ tc Some early and important witnesses (Ì^66* B D* W 1 565 it) have ἐστιν (estin, “he is”) instead of ἔσται (estai, “he will be”) here, while other weighty witnesses ({Ì^66c,75vid א A D¹ L Θ Ψ Ë¹³ 33^vid Ï as well as several versions and fathers}), read the future tense. When one considers transcriptional evidence, ἐστιν is the more difficult reading and better explains the rise of the future tense reading, but it must be noted that both Ì⁶⁶ and D were corrected from the present tense to the future. If ἐστιν were the original reading, one would expect a few manuscripts to be corrected to read the present when they originally read the future, but that is not the case. When one considers what the author would have written, the future is on much stronger ground. The immediate context (both in 14:16 and in the chapter as a whole) points to the future, and the theology of the book regards the advent of the Spirit as a decidedly future event (see, e.g., 7:39 and 16:7). The present tense could have arisen from an error of sight on the part of some scribes or more likely from an error of thought as scribes reflected upon the present role of the Spirit. Although a decision is difficult, the future tense is most likely authentic. For further discussion on this textual problem, see James M. Hamilton, Jr., “He Is with You and He Will Be in You” (Ph.D. diss., The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, 2003), 213-20.

[14:21]  ⁸ tn Or “keeps.”

[14:21]  ⁹ tn Grk “obeys them, that one is the one who loves me.”

[14:21]  ¹⁰ tn Grk “And the one.” Here the conjunction καί (kai) has not been translated to improve the English style.

[14:21]  ¹¹ tn Or “will disclose.”

[14:23]  ¹² tn Grk “answered and said to him.”

[14:23]  ¹³ tn Or “will keep.”

[14:23]  ¹⁴ tn Grk “we will come to him and will make our dwelling place with him.” The context here is individual rather than corporate indwelling, so the masculine singular pronoun has been retained throughout v. 23. It is important to note, however, that the pronoun is used generically here and refers equally to men, women, and children.