Yohanes 5:19

5:19 So Jesus answered them, ¹  “I tell you the solemn truth, ²  the Son can do nothing on his own initiative, ³  but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father ⁴  does, the Son does likewise. ⁵ 

Yohanes 12:35

12:35 Jesus replied, ⁶  “The light is with you for a little while longer. ⁷  Walk while you have the light, so that the darkness may not overtake you. ⁸  The one who walks in the darkness does not know where he is going.

[5:19]  ¹ tn Grk “answered and said to them.”

[5:19]  ² tn Grk “Truly, truly, I say to you.”

[5:19]  ³ tn Grk “nothing from himself.”

[5:19]  ⁴ tn Grk “that one”; the referent (the Father) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[5:19]  ⁵ sn What works does the Son do likewise? The same that the Father does – and the same that the rabbis recognized as legitimate works of God on the Sabbath (see note on working in v. 17). (1) Jesus grants life (just as the Father grants life) on the Sabbath. But as the Father gives physical life on the Sabbath, so the Son grants spiritual life (John 5:21; note the “greater things” mentioned in v. 20). (2) Jesus judges (determines the destiny of people) on the Sabbath, just as the Father judges those who die on the Sabbath, because the Father has granted authority to the Son to judge (John 5:22-23). But this is not all. Not only has this power been granted to Jesus in the present; it will be his in the future as well. In v. 28 there is a reference not to spiritually dead (only) but also physically dead. At their resurrection they respond to the Son as well.

[12:35]  ⁶ tn Grk “Then Jesus said to them.”

[12:35]  ⁷ tn Grk “Yet a little while the light is with you.”

[12:35]  ⁸ sn The warning Walk while you have the light, so that the darkness may not overtake you operates on at least two different levels: (1) To the Jewish people in Jerusalem to whom Jesus spoke, the warning was a reminder that there was only a little time left for them to accept him as their Messiah. (2) To those later individuals to whom the Fourth Gospel was written, and to every person since, the words of Jesus are also a warning: There is a finite, limited time in which each individual has opportunity to respond to the Light of the world (i.e., Jesus); after that comes darkness. One’s response to the Light decisively determines one’s judgment for eternity.