---
title: John 5:26
url: https://jw-apologetics.app/verses/john-5-26/
markdown: https://jw-apologetics.app/verses/john-5-26.md
type: verse
perspective: Protestant (historic Nicene) response to Jehovah's Witness teaching
reference: John 5:26
testament: NT
section: Gospels
index: https://jw-apologetics.app/llms.txt
---

# John 5:26

## Text (Berean Standard Bible)

> For as the Father has life in Himself, so also He has granted the Son to have life in Himself.

## NWT Wording of the Key Phrase

- NWT (2013 revision): "For just as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted also to the Son to have life in himself."

## JW Usage

The word "granted" carries the weight in the Watchtower reading. If the Son was given life in himself, then there was a point at which he did not have it, and what he has is derived. The verse is offered as confirmation that Jesus depends on the Father for his very existence — the same point JWs draw from John 6:57 and from "the Father is greater than I."

## Protestant Usage

Look at what is granted rather than at the granting. The Father does not grant the Son life. He grants the Son to have life in himself — and that phrase is the whole point, because having life in yourself is precisely what creatures never have. Every created thing holds life the way a room holds borrowed light: from outside, moment by moment, dependent. To have life in oneself is the mark of the uncreated. So the verse says the Son possesses, as the Father possesses, exactly the attribute that separates God from everything else. On "granted": Trinitarian theology has always spoken of the Son as eternally from the Father — begotten, not made. The Father is the source within the Godhead, and the Son receives everything the Father is, eternally and without beginning. That is a different claim from being created at a point in time, and this verse fits it exactly: what is received is not life but self-existent life, which cannot be received at a moment because it has no moments. Pair it with John 1:4 — "in him was life." Compare John 1:4, John 6:57.

## Arguments Using This Verse

- [One Flock / Great Crowd in Heaven](https://jw-apologetics.app/arguments/one-flock.md) — John 10:16 / Revelation 7:9 [Eschatology]
- [I Live Because of the Father](https://jw-apologetics.app/arguments/john-6-57-i-live-because.md) — John 6:57 — incarnation context, not pre-existent origin [Deity of Christ]
- [Always the Father, Always a Son](https://jw-apologetics.app/arguments/eternal-father-eternal-son.md) — Malachi 3:6 / John 17:24 — if Jehovah never changes and has always been Father, he has always had a Son [Deity of Christ]
- [A Creature Can Point to Life; Only the Source Can Say 'I Am the Life'](https://jw-apologetics.app/arguments/i-am-the-life.md) — Psalm 36:9 / John 11:25 / John 14:6 / John 5:26 — the source of life is with Jehovah, and Jesus says he is that life [Deity of Christ]