“I have brought you glory on earth by finishing the work you gave me to do. And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began.”

Many Christians have read this as evidence that Jesus existed with God before his birth. Jesus speaks of having “glory” with God before the world began. Read naturally in English, the scene almost constructs itself: Jesus was with God before creation, possessed divine glory there, came to earth, and now asks to receive that glory again.

But look more closely at what Jesus actually says. Jesus speaks of “the doxa I had with you before the world existed.”

The key word is doxa, translated as “glory.” Its related verb, doxazō, is translated as “glorify.” In English, these have become deeply theological words. “Glory” evokes heaven, radiance, majesty, even divinity. But the Greek word carries a wider idea: honor, reputation, worth, importance, significance. To doxazō someone is to honor or exalt them, to make their importance apparent.

And John has already shown us what Jesus means by this.

“I have brought you glory on earth by finishing the work you gave me to do.”

Jesus brought God doxa by doing God’s work on earth. The idea is not that Jesus somehow made God more glorious. By carrying out God’s work, Jesus made God known. He made God’s significance visible in the world.

Then the prayer turns.

Jesus has spent his life making God’s significance visible. He has finished the work he was given. He is about to be killed. Now he asks the Father to make his significance visible.

This changes how we can hear that final phrase: “the doxa I had with you before the world existed.” What was with God before the world existed, in the sentence itself, is Jesus’ doxa. His significance.

Suddenly another reading comes into view.

Jesus need not be describing a memory of personally living beside God before creation. He can be speaking about something that preceded his earthly life: the significance his life already held with God. Before Abraham, before Israel, before the world itself, what Jesus would become and what his life would mean already belonged to God’s plan.

Now that plan has been lived out.

Jesus has done the work. He has taught what God gave him to teach. He has gathered the people God gave him. He has made God known. And with death immediately ahead of him, there is nothing more he can do to establish what his life meant. That final step belongs to God.

The prayer can therefore be heard not as, “Give me back the divine splendor I possessed when I lived with you in heaven,” but as something much simpler: “I have shown the world who you are by completing the work you gave me. Now show the world who I am.”

Read this way, the two verses form a beautiful symmetry. Jesus has brought significance to God on earth by completing God’s work. Now he asks God to reveal the significance that belonged to Jesus with God from the beginning.

Once doxa is allowed to carry its broader sense of significance, the verse no longer has to point to the pre-existence of a person, but rather to the pre-existence of his significance. His doxa.

Give this the verse can be retranslated as:

“I have brought you significance on earth by finishing the work you gave me to do. And now, Father, show my significance, the significance I had with you before the world began.”

This made the Jews still more determined to kill him, because he was not only breaking the Sabbath, but, by calling God his own Father, he claimed equality with God.

The typical interpretation is that Jesus has just made an extraordinary claim about his own identity. By calling God his Father, Jesus is claiming to possess the same divine status or nature as God. The Jewish leaders understand the implication: Jesus is claiming equality with God. Their attempt to kill him is therefore not merely about Sabbath breaking, but about what they perceive as blasphemy. On this reading, “equality with God” is essentially a statement about who Jesus is.

But that interpretation asks the word “equal” to carry considerably more meaning than the Greek itself contains.

Equal, ἴσος (isos) in Greek, means equal, equivalent, or the same in some relevant respect. It does not inherently mean identical in nature, essence, or being. The dimension of equality has to come from context.

The same construction appears in Matthew 20:12, where workers complain that the landowner “made them equal to us” after paying everyone the same wage. The workers obviously do not mean that the other workers have become equal to them in every conceivable respect. They have been made equal in the matter being disputed: their compensation.

The matter being disputed in John 5 is equally obvious: working on the Sabbath.

Jesus has just healed a man on the Sabbath. The religious authorities object. Jesus responds:

“My Father is working until now, and I am working.”

The logic may be much simpler than the traditional interpretation makes it.

The Sabbath is a rule governing human beings. Genesis says that God rested after creation, but nowhere suggests that God subsequently stops working every seventh day. God continues sustaining the world, giving life and doing good regardless of what day it is.

Jesus makes essentially the same point elsewhere:

“The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.”

Notice what he does not say. He does not say that humanity was created to obey the Sabbath. He says the opposite. The Sabbath came into existence for the sake of human beings. The institution serves people; people do not serve the institution.

So when religious authorities condemn Jesus for doing good because it happens to be the Sabbath, his response can be read as remarkably straightforward:

God keeps working. So will I.

Their doctrine has taken a rule intended for human benefit and elevated it above the obvious reality it was supposed to serve.

That makes John’s description of their reaction particularly interesting:

ἴσον ἑαυτὸν ποιῶν τῷ θεῷ

Literally:

“making himself equal to God.”

But equal in what respect?

The preceding sentence has just supplied one:

“My Father is working until now, and I am working.”

God works. Jesus works.

Jesus has put himself on equal footing with God concerning the exact rule under dispute. The religious authorities insist that Jesus must stop working because it is the Sabbath. Jesus points to the obvious counterexample: God himself does not stop working on the Sabbath. And Jesus refuses to stop doing good merely because their religious doctrine says that he should.

This also explains naturally why the confrontation becomes so threatening. Jesus is not merely violating one Sabbath rule. He is challenging the entire legalistic reasoning behind it. The authorities claim that their interpretation represents God’s will. Jesus points out that their interpretation does not even describe God’s own behavior.

Nothing in ἴσος itself requires John to be saying that Jesus was claiming equality of divine essence. That is a theological interpretation of the sentence, not the meaning contained in the Greek word. In context, the equality can be much more immediate: equality regarding Sabbath work.

A retranslation that preserves that contextual connection could therefore be:

This made the Jews still more determined to kill him, because not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he justified it by pointing out that God himself worked on the Sabbath too, giving himself a freedom they believed should belong to God alone.

If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!

At first glance, this sounds straightforward: ask God for something, and he’ll give you what you asked for. For many modern readers it can make God sound like a vending machine. But that’s not what Jesus was saying.

Notice the examples that come before this verse. When a son asks for bread, Jesus doesn’t say, “Which father won’t give him bread?” Instead, he says, “Which father gives him a stone?” Similarly, when a son asks for a fish, he doesn’t say, “Which father won’t give him a fish?” He says, “Which father gives him a snake?”

Jesus isn’t promising that a parent always gives what a child asks for. He’s pointing out that a parent does not respond with something harmful. The focus isn’t on guaranteeing the request. It’s on the response ultimately being good.

“Give good things” can subtly reinforce the idea of a vending machine. But the word Jesus uses is agatha (ἀγαθά), which literally means “the good,” or simply “what is good.” English translations usually add the word “things” because English requires a noun, but that can unintentionally shift the emphasis from what is good to what is received.

The record of this same teaching in Luke 11:13 is helpful. Instead of saying “give what is good,” he writes “give the holy spirit.” The emphasis is not on asking and receiving as a transaction, but on the goodness of what God ultimately gives.

There is one other part of this verse that has shifted in meaning over time. When modern readers hear “who are evil” they can think Jesus is making an offhand judgement on humanity. But Jesus is speaking about ordinary parents. The word “evil” here (ponēroi, πονηροί) refers more broadly to having moral flaws. His point is that even parents who have moral flaws still do not respond to a child’s request by giving them something harmful.

The promise of this passage isn’t that every request will be granted. It’s that what we receive will be good.

Given this, a retranslation could be:

If you, despite your moral flaws, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give what is good to those who request of him.

“You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain.”

For many modern readers, this commandment has become almost entirely about speech. Saying “Oh my God.” Using God’s name casually. Treating sacred words irreverently.

But the commandment itself feels heavier than that. It appears alongside prohibitions against murder, theft, and adultery. And when we return to the Hebrew itself, the meaning opens into something much larger.

The Hebrew reads:

“Lo tissa et-shem YHWH eloheikha lashav.”

The first key word is “tissa.” Most English translations render it as “take,” but the Hebrew verb means more literally “carry,” “bear,” “lift,” or “wield.” It is not primarily a word about speaking. It is a word about carrying something into the world.

In the ancient Near East, invoking a god’s name was not casual. People swore oaths in the names of their gods. Kings claimed divine authority. Prophets spoke on behalf of heaven. Priests acted as representatives of the divine. To invoke a god’s name was to appeal to that god’s authority, backing, or witness.

The commandment is not mainly concerned with accidentally pronouncing certain syllables. It is concerned with invoking divine authority.

The next phrase is “et-shem YHWH,” “the name of YHWH.” To a modern reader, a name is mostly a label, a sound used to identify someone. But in the ancient world, a name meant far more than that. A name represented identity, reputation, authority, and manifested character.

To act “in the name” of a king meant acting with his authority. Israel itself was said to bear God’s name among the nations. The temple bore God’s name because it represented His presence. So this commandment is not merely about a word. It is about claiming alignment with God Himself.

Then comes the final word: “lashav,” traditionally translated “in vain.” But in modern English, “vain” has become weak and vague. It sounds like casualness or flippancy. The Hebrew word is stronger. “Shav” means falsehood, deception, emptiness, fraudulence, or worthlessness.

Throughout the Hebrew prophets, this becomes a recurring theme. People oppress the vulnerable, exploit others, pursue corruption, and then claim God is on their side. False prophets speak in God’s name. Religious leaders invoke divine authority while acting contrary to divine character. Again and again, the issue is not pronunciation. It is attaching God to what is false.

Read in its ancient context, the commandment is not primarily warning against casual expressions. It is warning against invoking God in support of deception, hypocrisy, injustice, or emptiness.

Given this, a clearer retranslation of Exodus 20:7 is:

“Don’t invoke God to support what is false.”

“He took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke and gave it to them, saying, ‘This is my body which is given for you. Do this in memory of me.’ Likewise, he took the cup after supper, saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you.’”

Those words have shaped one of the most familiar rituals in Christianity: communion. The bread becomes Jesus’ body, broken at the crucifixion. The wine becomes his blood, spilled on the cross. Christians then eat bread and drink wine to remember what Jesus did for them.

But that may not be what Jesus was saying.

Jesus is not standing in a church, designing a ritual for future generations. He is sitting at a table with his disciples on the night before his death. He takes bread, breaks it apart, and hands the pieces to them. Then he takes wine and shares it with them. The actions come first. The words explain the actions.

When Jesus says, “Τοῦτό ἐστιν τὸ σῶμά μου,” the word σῶμα (sōma) is usually translated “body.” But σῶμα does not only mean a physical body. In Greek it can also mean a person’s embodied self, their life as lived in the world. Jesus is not pointing to his physical body. He is taking bread, breaking it apart, and giving it away. The bread is a visual of what he is doing with his own life: giving it away to others.

He then creates the same visual with the cup. Jesus says “ἐν τῷ αἵματί μου,” usually translated “in my blood.” But αἷμα (haima), “blood,” often means more than literal blood. In Greek and Jewish thought, blood stands for a person’s life — everything they are and everything they give. “The life of the flesh is in the blood” (Leviticus 17:11). Jesus is once again using something visible and ordinary as a picture of what he is doing with his life: giving it away to others.

What, then, is the “new covenant”? Jesus says, “ἡ καινὴ διαθήκη” (hē kainē diathēkē) — literally, “the new covenant.” But to modern readers, “covenant” often sounds formal and religious. In Greek culture, a new covenant meant a new arrangement, a new relationship, a new way things now work between two sides. Jesus is saying that through his life the relationship between God and humanity is changing.

Given this, a retranslation of Luke 22:19–20 is:

“He took some bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it up and gave pieces to them, saying, ‘This is what I am doing with my life — giving it to you. Share your life the way I shared mine, so that I am not forgotten.’ Likewise, he took the cup after supper, saying, ‘Just as this wine is poured out and shared with you, so is my life. Through my life there is now a new relationship between God and humanity.’”

Maybe Jesus wanted his followers to repeat this meal. But if so, the point was not merely to remember him. It was to remember what he was showing them: a life given away for others.

One of them, a lawyer, asked him a question, testing him. “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the law?” Jesus said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the first and great commandment. A second likewise is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments.”

Several of the key words in this translation sound familiar but are actually difficult for modern readers to understand concretely. What does it mean to “love” God? What does it mean to “love” your neighbor? And what exactly are “heart, soul, and mind”?

The biggest challenge is the word “love.” In the Greek text, Jesus uses the same verb in both commands: ἀγαπήσεις (agapēseis), usually translated “you shall love.” In modern English, however, “love” is often heard mainly as an emotion or feeling. In the biblical context, it describes something more practical: the way a person directs their loyalty, trust, and actions.

The difficulty is that this same posture takes a different form depending on who it is directed toward.

When the object is God, loving God means loyalty and trust — allowing God to guide your life rather than treating your own judgment as final. The phrase “with all your heart, soul, and mind” is not describing three separate spiritual parts of a person, but in Hebrew speech it was simply a way of saying “in every part of your life” — the whole of your inner life.

When the object is your neighbor, the same posture becomes the practical treatment of other people. It means taking another person’s well-being as seriously as you take your own. The phrase “as yourself” encourages you to project your own baseline desire for safety, respect, and care onto the person next to you. You simply imagine the roles reversed and act accordingly.

The two commands are closely connected. Trusting God means you do not have to treat life as a competition where you must secure everything for yourself. When you trust that reality is ultimately governed by God, you are freed from the fear that drives selfishness. That makes it possible to look at your neighbor and genuinely treat them the way you would want them to treat you.

Because the concrete action differs in the two cases, simply repeating the same English word “love” can make the teaching sound clear while leaving its actual meaning vague. For this reason, this retranslation expresses the practical meaning of each command rather than preserving the same English verb in both places:

One of them, a lawyer, asked him a question, testing him. “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the law?” Jesus said to him, “‘Trust God, in every part of your life.’ This is the first and greatest command. A second likewise is this: ‘Treat your neighbor the way you would want them to treat you.’ The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments.”