Discovery BoxJohn 5:19 
Context5:19 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
John 5:30
Context5:30 I can do nothing on my own initiative. 6 Just as I hear, I judge, and my judgment is just, 7 because I do not seek my own will, but the will of the one who sent me. 8
John 8:28
Context8:28 Then Jesus said, 9 “When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am he, 10 and I do nothing on my own initiative, 11 but I speak just what the Father taught me. 12
John 8:42
Context8:42 Jesus replied, 13 “If God were your Father, you would love me, for I have come from God and am now here. 14 I 15 have not come on my own initiative, 16 but he 17 sent me.
John 7:28
Context7:28 Then Jesus, while teaching in the temple courts, 18 cried out, 19 “You both know me and know where I come from! 20 And I have not come on my own initiative, 21 but the one who sent me 22 is true. You do not know him, 23
John 14:10
Context14:10 Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father is in me? 24 The words that I say to you, I do not speak on my own initiative, 25 but the Father residing in me performs 26 his miraculous deeds. 27
1 tn Grk “answered and said to them.”
2 tn Grk “Truly, truly, I say to you.”
3 tn Grk “nothing from himself.”
4 tn Grk “that one”; the referent (the Father) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
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.
6 tn Grk “nothing from myself.”
7 tn Or “righteous,” or “proper.”
8 tn That is, “the will of the Father who sent me.”
9 tn Grk “Then Jesus said to them” (the words “to them” are not found in all
10 tn Grk “that I am.” See the note on this phrase in v. 24.
11 tn Grk “I do nothing from myself.”
12 tn Grk “but just as the Father taught me, these things I speak.”
13 tn Grk “Jesus said to them.”
14 tn Or “I came from God and have arrived.”
15 tn Grk “For I.” Here γάρ (gar) has not been translated.
16 tn Grk “from myself.”
17 tn Grk “that one” (referring to God).
18 tn Grk “the temple.”
19 tn Grk “Then Jesus cried out in the temple, teaching and saying.”
20 sn You both know me and know where I come from! Jesus’ response while teaching in the temple is difficult – it appears to concede too much understanding to his opponents. It is best to take the words as irony: “So you know me and know where I am from, do you?” On the physical, literal level, they did know where he was from: Nazareth of Galilee (at least they thought they knew). But on another deeper (spiritual) level, they did not: He came from heaven, from the Father. Jesus insisted that he has not come on his own initiative (cf. 5:37), but at the bidding of the Father who sent him.
21 tn Grk “And I have not come from myself.”
22 tn The phrase “the one who sent me” refers to God.
23 tn Grk “the one who sent me is true, whom you do not know.”
24 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.
25 tn Grk “I do not speak from myself.”
26 tn Or “does.”
27 tn Or “his mighty acts”; Grk “his works.”
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).
