Yohanes 3:2

3:2 came to Jesus ¹  at night ²  and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the miraculous signs ³  that you do unless God is with him.”

Yohanes 9:30-33

9:30 The man replied, ⁴  “This is a remarkable thing, ⁵  that you don’t know where he comes from, and yet he caused me to see! ⁶  9:31 We know that God doesn’t listen to ⁷  sinners, but if anyone is devout ⁸  and does his will, God ⁹  listens to ¹⁰  him. ¹¹  9:32 Never before ¹²  has anyone heard of someone causing a man born blind to see. ¹³  9:33 If this man ¹⁴  were not from God, he could do nothing.”

Yohanes 10:25

10:25 Jesus replied, ¹⁵  “I told you and you do not believe. The deeds ¹⁶  I do in my Father’s name testify about me.

Yohanes 10:37-38

10:37 If I do not perform ¹⁷  the deeds ¹⁸  of my Father, do not believe me. 10:38 But if I do them, even if you do not believe me, believe the deeds, ¹⁹  so that you may come to know ²⁰  and understand that I am in the Father and the Father is in me.”

Yohanes 11:37

11:37 But some of them said, “This is the man who caused the blind man to see! ²¹  Couldn’t he have done something to keep Lazarus ²²  from dying?”

Yohanes 14:10-11

14:10 Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father is in me? ²³  The words that I say to you, I do not speak on my own initiative, ²⁴  but the Father residing in me performs ²⁵  his miraculous deeds. ²⁶  14:11 Believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father is in me, but if you do not believe me, ²⁷  believe because of the miraculous deeds ²⁸  themselves.

Yohanes 15:24

15:24 If I had not performed ²⁹  among them the miraculous deeds ³⁰  that no one else did, they would not be guilty of sin. ³¹  But now they have seen the deeds ³²  and have hated both me and my Father. ³³ 

Yohanes 17:4

17:4 I glorified you on earth by completing ³⁴  the work you gave me to do. ³⁵ 

[3:2]  ¹ tn Grk “him”; the referent (Jesus) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[3:2]  ² tn Or “during the night.”

[3:2]  sn Possibly Nicodemus came…at night because he was afraid of public association with Jesus, or he wanted a lengthy discussion without interruptions; no explanation for the timing of the interview is given by the author. But the timing is significant for John in terms of the light-darkness motif – compare John 9:4, 11:10, 13:30 (especially), 19:39, and 21:3. Out of the darkness of his life and religiosity Nicodemus came to the Light of the world. The author probably had multiple meanings or associations in mind here, as is often the case.

[3:2]  ³ sn The reference to signs (σημεῖα, shmeia) forms a link with John 2:23-25. Those people in Jerusalem believed in Jesus because of the signs he had performed. Nicodemus had apparently seen them too. But for Nicodemus all the signs meant is that Jesus was a great teacher sent from God. His approach to Jesus was well-intentioned but theologically inadequate; he had failed to grasp the messianic implications of the miraculous signs.

[9:30]  ⁴ tn Grk “The man answered and said to them.” This has been simplified in the translation to “The man replied.”

[9:30]  ⁵ tn Grk “For in this is a remarkable thing.”

[9:30]  ⁶ tn Grk “and he opened my eyes” (an idiom referring to restoration of sight).

[9:31]  ⁷ tn Grk “God does not hear.”

[9:31]  ⁸ tn Or “godly.”

[9:31]  ⁹ tn Grk “he”; the referent (God) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[9:31]  ¹⁰ tn Or “hears.”

[9:31]  ¹¹ tn Grk “this one.”

[9:32]  ¹² tn Or “Never from the beginning of time,” Grk “From eternity.”

[9:32]  ¹³ tn Grk “someone opening the eyes of a man born blind” (“opening the eyes” is an idiom referring to restoration of sight).

[9:33]  ¹⁴ tn Grk “this one.”

[10:25]  ¹⁵ tn Grk “answered them.”

[10:25]  ¹⁶ tn Or “the works.”

[10:37]  ¹⁷ tn Or “do.”

[10:37]  ¹⁸ tn Or “works.”

[10:38]  ¹⁹ tn Or “works.”

[10:38]  sn Jesus says that in the final analysis, the deeds he did should indicate whether he was truly from the Father. If the authorities could not believe in him, it would be better to believe in the deeds he did than not to believe at all.

[10:38]  ²⁰ tn Or “so that you may learn.”

[11:37]  ²¹ tn Grk “who opened the eyes of the blind man” (“opening the eyes” is an idiom referring to restoration of sight).

[11:37]  ²² tn Grk “this one”; the second half of 11:37 reads Grk “Could not this one who opened the eyes of the blind have done something to keep this one from dying?” In the Greek text the repetition of “this one” in 11:37b referring to two different persons (first Jesus, second Lazarus) could confuse a modern reader. Thus the first reference, to Jesus, has been translated as “he” to refer back to the beginning of v. 37, where the reference to “the man who caused the blind man to see” is clearly a reference to Jesus. The second reference, to Lazarus, has been specified (“Lazarus”) in the translation for clarity.

[14:10]  ²³ tn The mutual interrelationship of the Father and the Son (ἐγὼ ἐν τῷ πατρὶ καὶ ὁ πατὴρ ἐν ἐμοί ἐστιν, egw en tw patri kai Jo pathr en emoi estin) is something that Jesus expected even his opponents to recognize (cf. John 10:38). The question Jesus asks of Philip (οὐ πιστεύεις, ou pisteuei") expects the answer “yes.” Note that the following statement is addressed to all the disciples, however, because the plural pronoun (ὑμῖν, Jumin) is used. Jesus says that his teaching (the words he spoke to them all) did not originate from himself, but the Father, who permanently remains (μένων, menwn) in relationship with Jesus, performs his works. One would have expected “speaks his words” here rather than “performs his works”; many of the church fathers (e.g., Augustine and Chrysostom) identified the two by saying that Jesus’ words were works. But there is an implicit contrast in the next verse between words and works, and v. 12 seems to demand that the works are real works, not just words. It is probably best to see the two terms as related but not identical; there is a progression in the idea here. Both Jesus’ words (recall the Samaritans’ response in John 4:42) and Jesus’ works are revelatory of who he is, but as the next verse indicates, works have greater confirmatory power than words.

[14:10]  ²⁴ tn Grk “I do not speak from myself.”

[14:10]  ²⁵ tn Or “does.”

[14:10]  ²⁶ tn Or “his mighty acts”; Grk “his works.”

[14:10]  sn Miraculous deeds is most likely a reference to the miraculous signs Jesus had performed, which he viewed as a manifestation of the mighty acts of God. Those he performed in the presence of the disciples served as a basis for faith (although a secondary basis to their personal relationship to him; see the following verse).

[14:11]  ²⁷ tn The phrase “but if you do not believe me” contains an ellipsis; the Greek text reads Grk “but if not.” The ellipsis has been filled out (“but if [you do] not [believe me]…”) for the benefit of the modern English reader.

[14:11]  ²⁸ tn Grk “because of the works.”

[14:11]  sn In the context of a proof or basis for belief, Jesus is referring to the miraculous deeds (signs) he has performed in the presence of the disciples.

[15:24]  ²⁹ tn Or “If I had not done.”

[15:24]  ³⁰ tn Grk “the works.”

[15:24]  ³¹ tn Grk “they would not have sin” (an idiom).

[15:24]  ³² tn The words “the deeds” are supplied to clarify from context what was seen. Direct objects in Greek were often omitted when clear from the context.

[15:24]  ³³ tn Or “But now they have both seen and hated both me and my Father.” It is possible to understand both the “seeing” and the “hating” to refer to both Jesus and the Father, but this has the world “seeing” the Father, which seems alien to the Johannine Jesus. (Some point out John 14:9 as an example, but this is addressed to the disciples, not to the world.) It is more likely that the “seeing” refers to the miraculous deeds mentioned in the first half of the verse. Such an understanding of the first “both – and” construction is apparently supported by BDF §444.3.

[17:4]  ³⁴ tn Or “by finishing” or “by accomplishing.” Jesus now states that he has glorified the Father on earth by finishing (τελειώσας [teleiwsas] is best understood as an adverbial participle of means) the work which the Father had given him to do.

[17:4]  sn By completing the work. The idea of Jesus being sent into the world on a mission has been mentioned before, significantly in 3:17. It was even alluded to in the immediately preceding verse here (17:3). The completion of the “work” the Father had sent him to accomplish was mentioned by Jesus in 4:34 and 5:36. What is the nature of the “work” the Father has given the Son to accomplish? It involves the Son’s mission to be the Savior of the world, as 3:17 indicates. But this is accomplished specifically through Jesus’ sacrificial death on the cross (a thought implied by the reference to the Father “giving” the Son in 3:16). It is not without significance that Jesus’ last word from the cross is “It is completed” (19:30).

[17:4]  ³⁵ tn Grk “the work that you gave to me so that I may do it.”