This detailed Bible research infographic examines John 13:3 and John 16:28 and asks whether John literally said Jesus was “returning” or “going back” to God. It compares several English translations with the Greek text, showing that John 13:3 says Jesus was “going to God” and that the final clause of John 16:28 says, “I go to the Father.” John 16:28 also contains the Greek word palin, meaning “again,” so its context must be carefully considered when interpreting the passage and the question of Jesus’ pre-existence.
QUICK FACTS: JOHN 13:3 & JOHN 16:28
DID JOHN REALLY SAY JESUS WAS “RETURNING” OR “GOING BACK” TO GOD?
John 13:3 and John 16:28 are frequently used to support the belief that Jesus personally existed with God before His human birth.
Why?
Because several popular translations tell readers that Jesus was:
“RETURNING TO GOD”
or:
“GOING BACK TO GOD.”
For example, the New Living Translation renders John 13:3:
“Jesus knew that the Father had given him authority over everything and that he had come from God and would return to God.”
The English Standard Version says:
“…he had come from God and was going back to God.”
Those translations naturally give the impression that Jesus was previously with God, came to earth, and was now returning to the place where He had personally been before.
But is “back” or “return” actually what John wrote?
Let's examine the Greek.
WHAT DOES THE GREEK OF JOHN 13:3 ACTUALLY SAY?
The important words are:
ἀπὸ Θεοῦ ἐξῆλθεν καὶ πρὸς τὸν Θεὸν ὑπάγει
Literally:
ἀπὸ Θεοῦ — from God
ἐξῆλθεν — he came forth/went out
καὶ — and
πρὸς τὸν Θεόν — to God
ὑπάγει — he is going
Therefore, a straightforward rendering is:
“HE CAME FORTH FROM GOD AND IS GOING TO GOD.”
Notice what John does not write.
There is no separate Greek word meaning:
❌ BACK
and John does not use a verb here that inherently means:
❌ RETURN
The BLB accordingly reads:
“…that He came forth from God and He is going to God.”
This is an important translation distinction.
COMPARE THE TRANSLATIONS
Some translations make the idea of returning explicit:
NLT
“would return to God”
NIV
“was returning to God”
ESV
“was going back to God”
NASB
“was going back to God”
CSB
“was going back to God”
But compare more literal renderings:
BEREAN LITERAL BIBLE
“…He came forth from God and He is going to God.”
ASV
“…he came forth from God, and goeth unto God.”
DARBY
“…he came out from God and was going to God.”
WORLD ENGLISH BIBLE
“…he came forth from God, and was going to God.”
The difference is obvious:
GOING TO GOD
is not linguistically identical to:
GOING BACK TO GOD.
The latter adds an interpretive sense of return.
DOES THIS MEAN THE MODERN TRANSLATIONS ARE BASED ON A DIFFERENT GREEK TEXT?
No.
This is important.
Unlike a genuine textual variant where manuscripts contain different words, the issue in John 13:3 is primarily one of:
TRANSLATION AND INTERPRETATION.
The Greek text contains the idea of going to God.
Translations using “back” or “return” are interpreting the movement as a return because they understand Jesus' coming “from God” as implying prior personal presence with God.
That theological interpretation may be defended from the wider Gospel of John, but:
“BACK” IS NOT A SEPARATE WORD IN THE GREEK TEXT.
Readers deserve to know the difference.
NOW LOOK AT JOHN 16:28
John 16:28 is even more important because it contains very similar language.
The BLB reads:
“I came forth from the Father and have come into the world; again, I leave the world and go to the Father.”
The Greek is:
ἐξῆλθον ἐκ τοῦ Πατρὸς καὶ ἐλήλυθα εἰς τὸν κόσμον· πάλιν ἀφίημι τὸν κόσμον καὶ πορεύομαι πρὸς τὸν Πατέρα.
The final words mean:
“AND I GO TO THE FATHER.”
The verb:
πορεύομαι — poreuomai
means:
I go / I proceed / I journey.
Again, the final clause does not literally say:
“I GO BACK TO THE FATHER.”
BUT JOHN 16:28 CONTAINS AN IMPORTANT WORD: πάλιν
We need to be especially careful here.
John 16:28 does contain:
πάλιν — PALIN
which commonly means:
“AGAIN.”
However, its placement is important.
The BLB renders it:
“…again, I leave the world and go to the Father.”
So we should not claim that John 16:28 contains absolutely nothing capable of conveying repetition.
It does.
But the Greek does not simply contain the expression:
“RETURN TO THE FATHER”
or:
“GO BACK TO THE FATHER.”
The translator has to decide how the clauses and πάλιν should be expressed naturally in English.
That makes John 16:28 more nuanced than John 13:3.
DOES “COMING FROM GOD” NECESSARILY MEAN PRE-EXISTENCE?
This is the much bigger question.
Many Christians reason:
Jesus came from God.
Therefore:
Jesus must previously have been personally alive in heaven with God.
But does the expression “from God” necessarily mean that?
Not automatically.
John uses “from God” language in ways that can refer to divine origin, authorization, mission or sending, not necessarily physical travel from heaven.
For example, John 1:6 says:
“There came a man having been sent from God. His name was John.”
— John 1:6, BLB
John the Baptist was:
“SENT FROM GOD.”
Yet this does not mean John the Baptist personally lived in heaven before his birth.
Therefore:
“FROM GOD”
by itself cannot prove personal pre-existence.
Context must determine what John means when he applies this language to Jesus.
JESUS WAS SENT BY GOD
This is one of John's major themes.
Jesus repeatedly describes Himself as:
THE ONE WHOM GOD SENT.
For example:
“…that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.”
— John 17:3, BLB
Here Jesus distinguishes between:
THE ONLY TRUE GOD
and:
JESUS CHRIST WHOM THAT GOD SENT.
So when John says Jesus came “from God,” we must consider John's extensive language of divine commissioning and sending rather than automatically translating the expression into a statement about Jesus travelling from heaven before His birth.
JOHN THE BAPTIST PROVIDES A USEFUL COMPARISON
Again, consider:
“There came a man having been sent from God. His name was John.”
— John 1:6, BLB
Nobody concludes:
JOHN THE BAPTIST PRE-EXISTED IN HEAVEN
simply because John was:
“FROM GOD”
or:
“SENT FROM GOD.”
Therefore, the expression itself does not settle the pre-existence question.
Jesus' case may involve additional evidence elsewhere in John's Gospel, but that additional evidence must actually be demonstrated.
It cannot simply be inserted into John 13:3 through the English word:
“BACK.”
WHAT ABOUT JOHN 1:1?
This becomes especially important because many Christians identify Jesus personally with:
“THE WORD”
in John 1:1.
They therefore read John 13:3 and John 16:28 through that interpretation:
The Word was with God → Jesus came from God → Jesus went back to God.
But that is already an interpretive chain.
If we are investigating whether Jesus personally pre-existed His birth, we should not assume the conclusion before examining the individual passages.
The question must first be:
WHAT DOES EACH TEXT ACTUALLY SAY?
Only then should we construct our theology from them.
“GOING TO GOD” DOES NOT BY ITSELF MEAN “RETURNING TO WHERE I PREVIOUSLY LIVED”
This is the central point.
Suppose someone says:
“I am going to God.”
That statement alone does not tell us that the person previously lived with God in heaven.
Therefore:
“HE IS GOING TO GOD”
does not grammatically equal:
“HE IS RETURNING TO THE PLACE WHERE HE PERSONALLY EXISTED BEFORE HIS BIRTH.”
That additional conclusion comes from interpretation.
And that is exactly why the words:
“BACK”
and:
“RETURN”
matter when readers are investigating Christ's alleged pre-human existence.
DOES THIS PROVE JESUS DID NOT PRE-EXIST?
Here we should avoid going further than the evidence allows.
The absence of the English word “back” from the Greek of John 13:3 does not by itself prove that Jesus did not personally pre-exist.
Likewise, it does not settle every pre-existence passage in John's Gospel.
Those passages—including John 1:1, John 6, John 8:58, John 16:28 and John 17:5—must each be examined in their own context.
But John 13:3 certainly should not be presented as though John literally wrote:
“JESUS WAS RETURNING TO GOD.”
He wrote that Jesus:
CAME FORTH FROM GOD
and:
WAS GOING TO GOD.
Whether that means a return to a previous heavenly personal existence is an interpretive conclusion, not something supplied by a Greek word meaning “back.”
THIS DISTINCTION IS VERY IMPORTANT
Imagine someone reading only the NLT:
“…he had come from God and would return to God.”
The natural impression is:
Jesus was originally with God → Jesus came here → Jesus returned there.
But a reader looking at the Greek sees:
“…He came forth from God and He is going to God.”
Now the theological question remains open:
WHAT DOES “CAME FORTH FROM GOD” MEAN?
That is exactly the question Bible students should investigate.
A translation should not be mistaken for proof of the interpretation it has chosen.
QUICK FACTS — WHAT HAVE WE DISCOVERED?
1. JOHN 13:3 DOES NOT CONTAIN A SEPARATE GREEK WORD FOR “BACK.”
The text says Jesus:
“IS GOING TO GOD.”
2. “RETURN” IN THE NLT IS AN INTERPRETIVE RENDERING.
It expresses how the translators understand Jesus' movement from and to God.
3. JOHN 16:28 ENDS WITH:
“I GO TO THE FATHER.”
4. JOHN 16:28 DOES CONTAIN πάλιν — “AGAIN.”
So this verse must be handled more carefully than simply saying that all concepts of repetition are absent.
5. “FROM GOD” DOES NOT AUTOMATICALLY PROVE PRE-EXISTENCE.
John the Baptist was also described as:
“SENT FROM GOD.”
Yet John did not pre-exist his birth.
6. THESE VERSES ALONE DO NOT SETTLE THE PRE-EXISTENCE QUESTION.
The wider Gospel of John must be examined.
7. BUT WE SHOULD DISTINGUISH THE GREEK TEXT FROM THE TRANSLATOR'S INTERPRETATION.
“Going to God” is what the Greek says in John 13:3.
“Going back to God” expresses an interpretation of what that journey means.
FINAL CONCLUSION
Did John literally write in John 13:3 that Jesus was:
“RETURNING TO GOD”
or:
“GOING BACK TO GOD”?
NOT LITERALLY.
John says Jesus:
“CAME FORTH FROM GOD AND IS GOING TO GOD.”
The words “return” and “back” found in several English translations make explicit the translators' understanding that Jesus was returning to a previous heavenly location.
That interpretation may be argued from other passages, but it should not be confused with the literal wording of John 13:3.
John 16:28 similarly concludes:
“I GO TO THE FATHER,”
although that verse also contains πάλιν — “again,” and therefore requires careful contextual interpretation.
So we should not claim these verses prove either side merely by pointing to an English translation.
Instead:
CHECK THE GREEK.
DISTINGUISH TRANSLATION FROM INTERPRETATION.
EXAMINE WHAT “FROM GOD” MEANS THROUGHOUT JOHN.
THEN TEST THE CLAIM OF PRE-EXISTENCE AGAINST THE WHOLE OF SCRIPTURE.
As Jesus said:
“Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and it will be opened to you.”
— Matthew 7:7, BLB
Research by Simon Brown
wwwrealdiscoveriesorg-simon.blogspot.com
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