25 Truly, truly, I say to you, an hour is coming and now is, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live. 26 For just as the Father has life in Himself, even so He gave to the Son also to have life in Himself; 27 and He gave Him authority to execute judgment, because He is the Son of Man. 28 Do not marvel at this; for an hour is coming, in which all who are in the tombs will hear His voice, 29 and will come forth; those who did the good deeds to a resurrection of life, those who committed the evil deeds to a resurrection of judgment.
30 “I can do nothing from Myself. As I hear, I judge; and My judgment is righteous, because I do not seek My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me.
31 “If I alone bear witness about Myself, My witness is not true. 32 There is another who bears witness about Me, and I know that the witness which He gives about Me is true. John 5: 25-32 LSB
John 5: 25-32
I am going to quote J Mac a lot here because it is a beautiful and convicting sermon, an eye opener.
You have to believe. For example, that the disciples in John 1 who came to Jesus, affirmed who He was, left following John the Baptist, followed Jesus who was identified as the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, that they had found the Messiah was their own profession, their own confession, you have to believe that they were given eternal life. You have to believe that the Samaritans were given eternal life for believing in the name of Jesus. You would be unfair. There would be no legitimate reason to withhold from them salvation. It would be given to them similar to those who were redeemed in the Old Testament with the addition that the Old Testament saints were looking forward to the one who would come and those early believers in the New Testament, before the cross, before the resurrection, before the arrival of the Holy Spirit, were affirming who the one who had come actually was. It was already the hour of life, but it was only beginning…only beginning. In fact, when that hour actually arrived in its fullness on the Day of Pentecost, three thousand were saved, and then five thousand were saved and it was explosive from there on.
So what our Lord is referring to here is not literal physical resurrection, but spiritual resurrection because that’s the only time that was happening at that present time. People were spiritually dead…go back to verse 25…when the dead, spiritually dead.
You say, “Spiritual death, doesn’t that show up in Ephesians? Do we have any indication that people were called spiritually dead in the gospels?” We do in Matthew 8:22, “Let the dead bury their dead.” Jesus early in His ministry is calling unregenerate people dead in Matthew 8:22. Spiritual death was a reality from the fall of man. All men are born in a state of spiritual death, and when Paul talks about people being dead in trespasses and sins, he’s not inventing a new doctrine, he’s not designing some kind of new idea, he’s simply declaring what has always been the case. All men are born dead in trespasses and sins. That’s how it is. And so, God is in the business of making people alive. All the Old Testament saints were dead in trespasses and sins and made alive, those who came to true faith in God.
Let me broaden it out a little bit. One of the themes in the gospel of John is that Christ is in the business of making dead people live. If you go back to chapter 1 verse 4, you read, “In Him was life…in Him was life.” If you go to chapter 3, familiar verse, verse 15, “Whoever believes will in Him have eternal life.” Verse 16, “Whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.” You go to verse 36 which we read earlier, “He who believes in the Son has eternal life.” Chapter 4 verse 14, Jesus says to the woman at the well, “Whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst, but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life.”
You come to chapter 5, go down to verse 39, “You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life. It is these who testify about Me and you’re unwilling to come to Me so that you may have life.” Chapter 6 is the same thing, verse 27, “Do not work for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to eternal life which the Son of Man will give to you.” Verse 33, “For the bread of life is that which comes down out of heaven and gives life to the world.” Verse 35, “I am the bread of life, he who comes to Me will not hunger, he who believes in Me will never thirst.” Verse…the end of the chapter, verse 68, essentially the same thing. “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have words of eternal life.” Just a few other samples because this is such an important aspect of the ministry of Christ, it’s the heart of it. “Ten:10, the thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.” Verse 28, “I give them eternal life and they will never perish.” Chapter 11 verse 25, Jesus said to Martha, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me will live, even if he dies.” And then our familiar theme verse, John 20:31, “These are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in His name.” Nothing is more characteristic, nothing is more inimitable, nothing is more essential in the ministry of Jesus than giving life…giving spiritual life to those who are spiritually dead. This is not about a man teaching ethics, or morality, or virtue, or religious ideologies. This is one who gives life to dead people, spiritually dead.
How do they receive that life? Go back to John chapter 5, you’re familiar with this, this is familiar to any believer. They receive that life because they hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live.” He is the only one, the only voice with the only message that gives life in a world of spiritual death and desolation. Only those who hear His voice come alive spiritually.
You can imagine a world full of corpses lying all over, and one lone living man moving among millions of corpses, calling them to live. This is what the work of Jesus is, spiritually speaking. They that hear shall live. - J Mac
V. 25 An hour is coming and now is - He gives the Amen, Amen at the beginning, Truly this is important, Truly this is something that you have yet to understand. This well is so deep, and it changes everything the mind has overlooked or dismissed about the call of God and the miracles. What is the hour? It is the era that is coming, but it also says, "and now is", The Savior is here, Life is here, the One Who gives it is here. This is an offer of salvation, and those Who are His sheep will hear and regeneration will begin.
V. 25b When the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God - This is the effectual calling of His sheep. The Bible makes it clear in Genesis that in the day you eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you will surely die. They went on to live physically for hundreds of more years, but our parents were spiritually dead, as all who are born in Adam are after him. God doesn't come to save decent people, there are none. We are all born dead in our trespasses and sins. This is what some would call the doctrine of Total Depravity, and it was Christ is teaching, what He told Nicodemus back in chapter 3 that he must be born again. It is not a helping hand, an adjustment, it is a corpse being brought to life. What physically happens to Lazarus is spiritually taking place in the elect, they are being raised from the dead, just like Lazarus, without the dead man's permission, for in me there is no good thing, no ability to good in my fallen nature.
Now this is not just a general hearing, but this is an effectual hearing with the heart. This is not just information, this is transformation. This is…this is part of the work of the Spirit that we saw in John 3 in regeneration. This is God reaching down and giving life and then speaking with a voice that the heart hears, the soul hears. New life pours in to the soul. This is not a superficial hearing.
You remember that in Matthew 7, Jesus will say one day to people, “Depart from Me, I never knew you.” And who are those people that He says depart from Me I never knew you to? They say, “Lord, Lord, we’ve done all this in Your name. We’ve proclaimed Your name. We’ve done miracles in Your name. We’ve cast out demons in Your name.” He says, “Depart from Me, I don’t know you.” This is not superficial. This is not a physical hearing. This is an effectual hearing, this is a hearing in the believing heart and the believing soul, this is based upon God’s gracious awakening of the dead soul. There was only one voice that could penetrate spiritual death, only one voice, and that’s the voice of the Son of God. Mark it down, verse 25, “The dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live.” You may be the witness, I may be the preacher, but the voice they have to hear is not our voice, the voice they have to hear is the voice of God, for He alone can give life.
Men don’t come alive on their own. Dead men don’t come alive by some religious motion, or ceremony. They don’t come alive by some ritual. They don’t come alive through the cleverness of a teacher. They don’t come alive by self-improvement. They come alive when the voice of Christ calls out. Ephesians 5:14 says, “Awake, you that sleep, and rise from the dead and Christ will give you life.”
V. 26 Even so He gave to the Son - The Son has life in Himself as well, and as JMac points out this is not a modelist God where God switches modes, sometimes He is the Father, sometimes He is the Spirit, no, there has to be a Being in order to give something to Him. This is why we say the eternally begotten Son, so far above my imaginings.
And you might say, “Well didn’t Jesus have life? Isn’t He the eternal life?” Yes. Yes in the fullness of His glory He had life but in some mystical way, He eternally proceeds from the Father, He eternally proceeds from the Father. He is the eternally begotten Son of the Father. Yes it’s mysterious.
But I would even go a step beyond that and I would say that in His humiliation He willfully, personally, voluntarily restricts the use of His divine attributes so that even in His incarnation, He only does that which the Father desires Him to do. I would say that the Father, therefore, has allowed Him even in His incarnation to give life. He could have called ten thousand angels, right? The Father had not given Him permission to do that. He could have known the time of His return, but He said the Son of Man doesn’t know that. There’s willful restriction in His humiliation of His divine prerogatives. His nature doesn’t change, but He chooses to limit Himself to that which the Father wills. And here we find that the Father wills that Jesus even in the humiliation of His incarnation is still giving life. - JMac
V. 27 And He gave Him authority to execute judgment because He is the Son of Man - Man had fallen and so man would have to pay. In order to keep Adam and Eve alive, to rescue some of them, someone would have to pay the price of sin. Someone of an eternal nature would have to become man in order be what man was not. He is also by this the supreme judge, for even nature has made God known, but men make idols of things or their selves because they are dead and yet even then without excuse. God does not owe me the Bible, but in knowing that is His communication of truth and salvation, I read it ravenously, I love it, I can hear Him speaking. No one wants to talk about judgment, and the only verse most know is "judge not lest ye be judged", but dead people only quote such things, they can't hear them spiritually.
The Son of Man is an interesting title. It’s a Messianic title from Daniel 7. It appears as His title in judgment, whereas Son of God back in verse 25 appears as His title in spiritual resurrection. It takes God to raise the dead. Why is He called Son of Man in judgment? Because as Son of Man, He is the Messiah. But as Son of Man He understands perfectly because He lived as a man and being tempted in all points like as we are, yet without sin, He has perfect knowledge of all human experience and therefore His justice, of course, is secured by experience as well as divine knowledge as just and accurate and perfect judgment. It is not just God judging man, it is not just man judging man. If it was just God, there would be no experience of man’s dilemmas. If it was just man, there would be no divine omniscience. He is the God/Man, His judgment cannot be impugned, either from the side of divine omniscience, or the side of human experience.
So God gives Him authority to execute judgment because He is the Son of Man. Do not marvel at this. Do not marvel at this.” I mean, this is a preemptive statement because what He’s going to say is so shocking. An hour is coming in which all who are in the tombs will hear His voice.” Don’t be shocked by what I’m going to tell you, but an hour is coming when the voice will be hear d again and it will empty the graves of this planet, it will empty them. It will draw out of graves bodies no longer there. They will be created for eternity. When He says the tombs are empty, all He means by that is not necessarily that there better be something there or nothing’s coming out. What will that do to all the cremated folks? All He means is that the dead will take on a physical form. This has no present aspect, this is not now is, this is future. This is not the effectual heart-hearing that brings salvation. This will awaken dead people. And this will bring bodies to join their spirits already out of the presence of God or in the presence of God. The same voice that wakes the spiritually dead, will pierce the clods and the waters of the world and the dirt and dust and find the dead and bring those long-forgotten forms into the world of the visible.
This is astonishing power. mind-boggling power. How do you literally in a moment recreate every human being who has ever lived and join that recreated form suitable for heaven or hell with the spirit of the person already in the presence of God or out of His presence? The power is beyond imagination…beyond comprehension. But that hour will come…that hour will come.
As we said earlier, an hour is a period of time. The hour that now is has gone on for two thousand years. The hour that will come will go on for a long time also. It will begin with the Rapture of the church when believing Christians who are alive will be caught up in the air and they’ll be changed on the way up. It will be followed by resurrections through the period of the Tribulation time. There will be a resurrection at the end of the Tribulation, Daniel talks about that, resurrection of Tribulation believers and Jews. There will then be a millennial kingdom of a thousand years and at the end of that, the dead from all human history who are unregenerate and ungodly will be raised and brought before the Great White Throne Judgment of Revelation 20 to be judged. So there is a period of time, starting with the Rapture of the church, ending with the final hours of the great time of the millennial Kingdom when that judgment will be carried out. It isn’t all in one moment. People confuse this.
There was already a resurrection, the resurrection of Christ. There was even a kind of a preview of resurrection, you remember, at the death of Christ, the tombs were open and believers came out. There will be in the future the resurrection of the just…the just, the righteous and that will include the Rapture of the church, the resurrection of believers at the end of the time of Tribulation. And there will be resurrections, no doubt, during the millennial kingdom when believers die, they’ll come back, and they’ll die and they’ll come back, and they’ll die and they’ll come back. Then there will be the resurrection of the unjust at the end of the thousand years. - JMac
V. 29 To a resurrection of judgement - This is a very real thing, not metaphoric, and I can't stress it enough, God doesn't invent hell as a place of the imagination, a story to scare you towards good. It is not an invention of the Church in order to get people to live moral lives, it is clear throughout Scripture that our righteousness is nothing. We need the righteousness of Christ to live, and to do good works we must be found in Him. We cannot decide what is good, or say in this instance it becomes good because it is practical though it defies God's order. God sees the heart, and we may think ourselves sincere but mostly we are just avoiding the proper view of ourselves as fallen and unacceptable. Disobedience and unbelief always require a sacrifice. Feelings are the enemy often of good, and even keep us from doing good. Service can all be about ourselves and to our praise, robbing God of His due glory. Don't deceive yourself into thinking you have a good heart, your motives are pure, you didn't mean it for evil. Apart from Christ anything that man calls good mocks the cross.
It poses an interesting question. Why does it say those who did good to resurrection of life? Is that how you get saved? Is that how you get to the resurrection of life by doing good? Why does He say that? Doesn’t the Bible say, “By the deeds of the Law no flesh will be justified?” Doesn’t the Bible say, “Not by works lest any man should boast?” Why does He say that?
Because the contrast demands it. The contrast demands it. He can’t compare believer’s faith with unbeliever’s faith because unbelievers don’t have any faith. He can’t compare believer’s life with unbeliever’s life because they don’t have any life. They’re dead. But He can compare their works, that’s the only common commodity. We have faith, they don’t. We have life, they don’t. We have works, they do. So on the basis of that, He makes the comparison. Believer’s works are ta agatha(?), the excellent things. Unbeliever’s works are ta falla(?), worthless things.. In the end, it’s the same thing Jesus said, “By their fruits you will know them.” Believers whose faith is proven by their good deeds are compared to unbelievers whose good deeds demonstrate they have no faith. So two resurrections are coming. Spiritual resurrection, Jesus says, and it’s already begun and yet it’s coming. And it will hit with a bang on Pentecost and after that, as the church grows by the thousands, and it will go through history and we’re part of it, spiritual resurrection. But there’s also going to be a physical resurrection and every person who has ever lived in the history of the world will be raised to life in a form suited for heavenly blessing, or the punishment of hell.
“What will that body be like?” Well for us, Philippians 3 says it will be like unto His glorious body. That is His resurrection body. It was visible, He walked, He talked, He ate, but at the same time He walked through a wall, rearranging the molecules to pass through a wall. I can’t say any more than that. I do know that 1 Corinthians 15 says that God’s designed a whole lot of bodies and He can take care of it. But there also needs to be clear understanding that there’s a body for torment so that when you want to dismiss as merely some kind of metaphoric concept the idea of torture in hell or fire in hell or weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth, you have to stop yourself before you go too far and remind yourself that there will actually be a form in which the people in hell will exist that will experience suffering, torment.
“How do you avoid that?” Back to verse 24. “Truly, truly I say to you, he who hears My Word and believes Him who sent Me has eternal life and doesn’t come into judgment but has passed out of death into life,” to hear the Word of Christ, the voice of Christ, and believe Him. It is a work of God, but not apart from faith. What can the sinner do? We’ve said it again and again since the third chapter, “Believe…believe…believe.” Do I have to remind you of the simple statement of John 3:15? Whoever believes will in Him have eternal life. Believe…believe. Cry out to God to grant you faith to believe. Pray with me. - J Mac
