what would it mean He is saying, if we pair this with 'while He is in the world He is the light of the world' ?
what part of what He came to do is finished?
what i meant by my reply earlier was that it seems obvious that "His ministry" wasn't yet complete. taking up the cross, dying and resurrecting, going to the altar in heaven, appearing again to the disciples, ascending, sending the Spirit, appearing to Saul/Paul -- these are all very important parts of His ministry taken as a whole. some facet of it that required His presence in the world ((by some definition not equal to 'physical body present on earth')) may have been complete, but not 'His ministry'
-- which is to say, i think we need more precise language here.
Why?
What would it mean if we compare what Christ is saying in John 17:11 with the verse in John 9:5?
Why would we want to do that?
Why would we want to compare verses that have a different context?
I think you're trying to pair verses because of similar language, without taking into consideration the passages have different contexts.
Context:
A. In John 9:5 Christ is talking about being physically gone from the world.
B. In John 17:11, Christ cannot be talking about being physically gone from the world, AT THE MOMENT HE'S SPEAKING, because he's still physically in the world.
C. So you CANNOT take attributes of John 9:5, and apply them to the circumstances of John 17:11 AT THE MOMENT HE'S SPEAKING, as the two passages have different contexts.
I explained the context of John 17:11 back in post #29.
Semantics:
I can't see there are any issues beyond the simple semantics I outlined in post #29.
We quite commonly use language with a great variety of semantic nuance, which is explained through context.
If we ignore the context, and try to create artificial semantics, we end up in all kinds of confusion and ambiguity.
A. I think that all of this confusion is caused by merely pressing words beyond the common semantic understanding prescribed by the context in which they are found.
B. I think it's good to have these conversations, and ask questions, and peer deeply... but sometimes the answers are simple ones.
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