John 16
John 16 is the sixteenth chapter of the Gospel of John in the New Testament of the Christian Bible. It records Jesus' continued Farewell Discourse to his disciples, set on the last night before his crucifixion. In this chapter, Jesus speaks about the work of the Holy Spirit, the joy of the believers and his victory over the world. The book containing this chapter is anonymous, but early Christian tradition uniformly affirmed that John composed this Gospel.
Text
The original text was written in Koine Greek. This chapter is divided into 33 verses.Textual witnesses
Some early manuscripts containing the text of this chapter are:- Papyrus 75
- Papyrus 5
- Papyrus 22
- Codex Vaticanus
- Codex Sinaiticus
- Codex Bezae
- Codex Alexandrinus
- Codex Ephraemi Rescriptus
- Papyrus 60.
Places
Purpose
The evangelist's purpose in this section of his gospel is to support the early Church for whom he is writing, to ensure that they do not fall away . Some commentators suggest he is writing for a specific group of believers called the Johannine Community.Verse 1
Heinrich Meyer relates "all this" to, the section of this discourse which anticipates the world's hatred for the disciples.English translations vary widely in the way they treat the opening verse of this chapter:
- that ye should not be caused to stumble
- that ye should not lose faith
- that ye should not be offended.
- that you should not be offended
- so that you will not fall away
- so that you won't be caught by surprise
- to keep you from being afraid
- that you may not be scandalized
- so that you won't lose your faith when you face troubles
- to keep you from stumbling
- that you may avoid the offenses that are coming
- so that your faith may not be shaken
- so that you may not be tripped
- so that you will not turn back
Verse 2
Jesus foretells the exclusion from the Jewish synagogues which the evangelist has already alluded to in and.This verse continues:
For "service", the Greek has the word λατρεια, meaning divine worship.
Verse 4
Lutheran writer Johann Bengel notes that while Jesus had not said these things before, he was previously aware of the hatred which would arise.Verse 5
The King James Version adopted the wording "I go my way" for this verse.William Robertson Nicoll comments that the disciples' failure to ascertain clearly where Jesus was going reflected their absorption with "the thought of His departure and its consequences of bereavement themselves".