---
title: John 16:23
url: https://jw-apologetics.app/verses/john-16-23/
markdown: https://jw-apologetics.app/verses/john-16-23.md
type: verse
perspective: Protestant (historic Nicene) response to Jehovah's Witness teaching
reference: John 16:23
testament: NT
section: Gospels
index: https://jw-apologetics.app/llms.txt
---

# John 16:23

## Text (Berean Standard Bible)

> In that day you will no longer ask Me anything. Truly, truly, I tell you, whatever you ask the Father in My name, He will give you.

## NWT Wording of the Key Phrase

- NWT (2013 revision): "In that day you will ask me no question at all. Most truly I say to you, if you ask the Father for anything, he will give it to you in my name."

## JW Usage

JWs pray to Jehovah alone, never to Jesus, and this verse is one of the anchors for that practice. Asking "in Jesus' name" is understood as invoking his merit and his mediatorial office — Jesus presents the request, Jehovah answers it. On that reading the verse establishes a chain of command rather than anything about who Jesus is, and the NWT's rendering makes the chain easier to see than most translations do.

## Protestant Usage

Jesus is inaugurating a new era of prayer, and the thing that marks it out is that his name is now attached to it. Before this, the disciples had not asked for anything in his name; from now on they will. Ask what that means about him. A creature's name cannot be the ground on which the Father grants requests — the Father says at Isaiah 42:8 that he will not give his glory to another. If prayer works because Jesus' name is attached to it, then his name is doing something no created name could do. Then read on to verse 26, which blocks the middleman picture directly: "I do not mean that I will make request for you, for the Father himself has affection for you." The Father is not being lobbied on your behalf. He responds to a prayer offered in the Son's name as though it came in his own. And John 14:14 puts the last piece in place: "if you ask me anything in my name, I will do it." Compare John 16:26, John 16:15, 1 Kings 8:39.

## NWT Issue

The NWT reads "if you ask the Father for anything, he will give it to you in my name." Nearly every other translation attaches the phrase to the asking rather than the giving: "whatever you ask the Father in my name, he will give you." The Greek word order permits both, and the question is genuinely debated among translators — but the two readings do different work. In the common rendering, the disciple prays in Jesus' name. In the NWT's, the Father gives in Jesus' name and the disciple simply asks. The result is that the verse most often used to establish prayer offered in Christ's name no longer quite says it, and the practice of never addressing Jesus in prayer loses its most obvious tension. Verse 26 in the NWT still has the disciples making request "in my name," so the two verses are worth reading together.

## Arguments Using This Verse

- [The Salvation-Name Dilemma](https://jw-apologetics.app/arguments/salvation-name-dilemma.md) — Old Testament — only Jehovah's name saves. New Testament — only Jesus' name saves. [Deity of Christ]
- [Until Now You Have Not Asked in My Name](https://jw-apologetics.app/arguments/john-16-23-26-prayer-trap.md) — John 16:23-26 — the unitarian collapse on prayer [Deity of Christ]