The Gospel According to John Quotes

“To have faith in the gospel message is not the same thing as responding positively to the story of Superman, who is also said to invade our turf from beyond. Although biblical faith has a major ‘subjective’ or ‘personal’ or ‘existential’ component, it depends even more on its object - on the other side of the ‘window’.”
― D.A. Carson, The Gospel according to John (The Pillar New Testament Commentary

“The new command398 is simple enough for a toddler to memorize and appreciate, profound enough that the most mature believers are repeatedly embarrassed at how poorly they comprehend it and put it into practice: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.”
― D.A. Carson, The Gospel according to John (The Pillar New Testament Commentary

“Whatever the precise referents, no Christian ‘harvester’ can ever justly forget that (1) success in reaping normally depends on the work of those who have gone before; and that (2) in those rare instances where sowing and reaping seem to go hand in hand, it is but the foretaste of the eschatological blessings still to come.”
― D.A. Carson, The Gospel according to John (The Pillar New Testament Commentary

“Apart from the light brought by the Messiah, the incarnate Word, people love darkness because their deeds are evil (3:19), and when the light does put in an appearance, they hate it, because they do not want their deeds to be exposed (3:20). In fact, wherever it is true that the light shines in the darkness, it is also true that the darkness has not understood it (taking katelaben as in the NIV). Reading v. 5 this way anticipates the rejection theme that becomes explicit in vv. 10–11. Alternatively, even if katelaben means something like ‘did not overcome it’ (see Additional Note), it is quite possible that John, subtle writer that he is, wants his readers to see in the Word both the light of creation and the light of the redemption the Word brings in his incarnation.”
― D.A. Carson, The Gospel according to John (The Pillar New Testament Commentary

“Apart from the light brought by the Messiah, the incarnate Word, people love darkness because their deeds are evil (3:19), and when the light does put in an appearance, they hate it, because they do not want their deeds to be exposed (3:20).”
― D.A. Carson, The Gospel according to John (The Pillar New Testament Commentary

“Follow thou me. I am the way and the truth and the life. Without the way there is no going; without the truth there is no knowing; without the life there is no living. I am the way which thou must follow; the truth which thou must believe; the life for which thou must hope. I am the inviolable way; the infallible truth, the never-ending life. I am the straightest way; the sovereign truth; life true, life blessed, life uncreated.404”
― D.A. Carson, The Gospel according to John (The Pillar New Testament Commentary

“Great God, in Christ you call our name and then receive us as your own, not through some merit, right or claim, but by your gracious love alone. We strain to glimpse your mercy-seat and find you kneeling at our feet.   Then take the towel, and break the bread, and humble us, and call us friends. Suffer and serve till all are fed, and show how grandly love intends to work till all creation sings, to fill all worlds, to crown all things.   Brian A. Wren (1936–)388”
― D.A. Carson, The Gospel according to John (The Pillar New Testament Commentary

“Jesus’ special knowledge of his Father’s will for him, articulated in v. 1, is now repeated, but with two significant additions: he knew not only that the time had come for him to leave this world, but that he had come from God and that the Father had put all things under his power. With such power and status at his disposal, we might have expected him to defeat the devil in an immediate and flashy confrontation, and to devastate Judas with an unstoppable blast of divine wrath. Instead, he washes his disciples’ feet, including the feet of the betrayer.”
― D.A. Carson, The Gospel according to John (The Pillar New Testament Commentary

“If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her. This is a direct reference to Deuteronomy 13:9; 17:7 (cf. Lv. 24:14)–the witnesses of the crime must be the first to throw the stones, and they must not be participants in the crime itself. Jesus’ saying does not mean that the authorities must be paragons of sinless perfection before the death sentence can properly be meted out, nor does it mean that one must be free even from lust before one can legitimately condemn adultery (even though lust and adultery belong to the same genus, Mt. 5:28). It means, rather, that they must not be guilty of this particular sin. As in many societies around the world, so here: when it comes to sexual sins, the woman was much more likely to be in legal and social jeopardy than her paramour. The man could lead a ‘respectable’ life while masking the same sexual sins with a knowing wink. Jesus’ simple condition, without calling into question the Mosaic code, cuts through the double standard and drives hard to reach the conscience.”
― D.A. Carson, The Gospel according to John (The Pillar New Testament Commentary

“27. Jesus’ disciples interrupt the conversation by their return from Sychar, where they had gone to purchase food (v. 8). Their unvoiced surprise that he was talking with a Samaritan woman reflects the prejudices of the day. Some (though by no means all) Jewish thought held that for a rabbi to talk much with a woman, even his own wife, was at best a waste of time and at worst a diversion from the study of Torah, and therefore potentially a great evil that could lead to Gehenna, hell (Pirke Aboth 1:5). Some rabbis went so far as to suggest that to provide their daughters with a knowledge of the Torah was as inappropriate as to teach them lechery, i.e. to sell them into prostitution (Mishnah Sotah 3:4; the same passage also provides the contrary view). Add to this the fact that this woman was a Samaritan (cf. notes on v. 9), and the disciples’ surprise is understandable. Jesus himself was not hostage to the sexism of his day (cf. 7:53–8:11; 11:5; Lk. 7:36–50; 8:2–3; 10:38–42).”
― D.A. Carson, The Gospel according to John (The Pillar New Testament Commentary

“The relevant social barriers of first-century Palestine may not have been that strong in any case: rabbis were expected to gain a skilled trade apart from their study (thus Paul was a leather-worker), so that the stratification that divided the teacher from the manual labourer in Stoic and other circles of the hellenistic world was not a significant factor in much of Palestine.”
― D.A. Carson, The Gospel according to John (The Pillar New Testament Commentary

“Irenaeus recalls: I remember the events of those days more clearly than those which have happened recently, for what we learn as children grows up with the soul and becomes united to it, so I can speak even of the place in which the blessed Polycarp sat and disputed, how he came in and went out, the character of his life, the appearance of his body, the discourse which he made to the people, how he reported his converse with John and with the others who had seen the Lord, how he remembered their words, and what were the things concerning the Lord which he had heard from them, including his miracles and his teaching,3 and how Polycarp had received them from the eyewitnesses of the word of life, and reported all things in agreement with the Scriptures (H. E. V. xx. 5–6).”
― D.A. Carson, The Gospel according to John (The Pillar New Testament Commentary