Yohanes 8:25-32

8:25 So they said to him, “Who are you?” Jesus replied, ¹  “What I have told you from the beginning. 8:26 I have many things to say and to judge ²  about you, but the Father ³  who sent me is truthful, ⁴  and the things I have heard from him I speak to the world.” ⁵  8:27 (They did not understand that he was telling them about his Father.) ⁶ 

8:28 Then Jesus said, ⁷  “When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am he, ⁸  and I do nothing on my own initiative, ⁹  but I speak just what the Father taught me. ¹⁰  8:29 And the one who sent me is with me. He has not left me alone, ¹¹  because I always do those things that please him.” 8:30 While he was saying these things, many people ¹²  believed in him.

Abraham’s Children and the Devil’s Children

8:31 Then Jesus said to those Judeans ¹³  who had believed him, “If you continue to follow my teaching, ¹⁴  you are really ¹⁵  my disciples 8:32 and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” ¹⁶ 

[8:25]  ¹ tn Grk “Jesus said to them.”

[8:26]  ² tn Or “I have many things to pronounce in judgment about you.” The two Greek infinitives could be understood as a hendiadys, resulting in one phrase.

[8:26]  ³ tn Grk “the one”; the referent (the Father) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[8:26]  ⁴ tn Grk “true” (in the sense of one who always tells the truth).

[8:26]  ⁵ tn Grk “and what things I have heard from him, these things I speak to the world.”

[8:27]  ⁶ sn They did not understand…about his Father is a parenthetical note by the author. This type of comment, intended for the benefit of the reader, is typical of the “omniscient author” convention adopted by the author, who is writing from a postresurrection point of view. He writes with the benefit of later knowledge that those who originally heard Jesus’ words would not have had.

[8:28]  ⁷ tn Grk “Then Jesus said to them” (the words “to them” are not found in all mss).

[8:28]  ⁸ tn Grk “that I am.” See the note on this phrase in v. 24.

[8:28]  ⁹ tn Grk “I do nothing from myself.”

[8:28]  ¹⁰ tn Grk “but just as the Father taught me, these things I speak.”

[8:29]  ¹¹ tn That is, “he has not abandoned me.”

[8:30]  ¹² tn The word “people” is not in the Greek text, but is supplied for clarity and smoothness in the translation.

[8:31]  ¹³ tn Grk “to the Jews.” In NT usage the term ᾿Ιουδαῖοι (Ioudaioi) may refer to the entire Jewish people, the residents of Jerusalem and surrounding territory (i.e., “Judeans”), the authorities in Jerusalem, or merely those who were hostile to Jesus. (For further information see R. G. Bratcher, “‘The Jews’ in the Gospel of John,” BT 26 [1975]: 401-9; also BDAG 479 s.v. ᾿Ιουδαῖος 2.e.) Here the phrase refers to the Jewish people in Jerusalem who had been listening to Jesus’ teaching in the temple and had believed his claim to be the Messiah, hence, “those Judeans who had believed him.” The term “Judeans” is preferred here to the more general “people” because the debate concerns descent from Abraham (v. 33).

[8:31]  ¹⁴ tn Grk “If you continue in my word.”

[8:31]  ¹⁵ tn Or “truly.”

[8:32]  ¹⁶ tn Or “the truth will release you.” The translation “set you free” or “release you” (unlike the more traditional “make you free”) conveys more the idea that the hearers were currently in a state of slavery from which they needed to be freed. The following context supports precisely this idea.

[8:32]  sn The statement the truth will set you free is often taken as referring to truth in the philosophical (or absolute) sense, or in the intellectual sense, or even (as the Jews apparently took it) in the political sense. In the context of John’s Gospel (particularly in light of the prologue) this must refer to truth about the person and work of Jesus. It is saving truth. As L. Morris says, “it is the truth which saves men from the darkness of sin, not that which saves them from the darkness of error (though there is a sense in which men in Christ are delivered from gross error)” (John [NICNT], 457).