Verily, verily, I say unto you, that he that hears my word, and believes him that has sent me, has life eternal, and does not come into judgment, but is passed out of death into life.
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.
Verily, verily, I say unto you, that an hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and they that have heard shall live.
In John 5 Jesus announces that a new hour has arrived — an hour in which His own voice raises the dead. Two questions follow: who are "the dead," and what makes His voice able to do this?
The word is not describing corpses in a graveyard. It describes the people in front of Him — busy, religious, and lifeless toward God.
It is indeed the sad truth: men busy with all the world's activities are here "the dead." The question is not stricter morality or holier religion. They may acquire one or the other or both, and still lack life. Dogma cannot give it any more than practice. It flows from the Son of God, who gives life to whom He will. Yet it comes by faith, through the word which the Spirit applies with living power.
Some take "the dead" here to mean people who have already died. One writer answers that plainly:
It is an inexcusable mistake to apply "the dead" in John 5:25 to those who have died. The phrase describes instead the common condition of fallen mankind, dead in trespasses and sins (Eph. 2:1, 5). "An hour is coming, and is now here" tells us what the Son of God has been doing ever since He came. He works by the gospel, which gives life to those who hear His voice.
The verse does not say the dead hear His words; it says they hear His voice. One writer points to an example from the book of Acts.
In Acts 13:27 we learn that the people of Jerusalem heard the actual words of the prophets every Sabbath day. Yet they did not know "the voice of the prophets". It is clear, then, that we may hear the words and miss the voice… The voice is the true meaning of the words. It is the message the words contain. The meaning of the voice of the Son of God is the revelation of God in love acting in sovereign grace toward man.
That shifts attention away from a message and onto a Person:
We naturally ask what words they hear. But it is not yet the words that are in question — it is the Voice. There are words, of course; but the point is that the Voice is that of the Son of God. The eye is fixed on the Person who speaks. It is the Son of God who is made known, and the dead become alive by it.
A dead man cannot hear. One writer takes that objection head-on.
Can a dead person hear? In a natural sense it is a contradiction in terms. Yet Scripture tells us that Lazarus, the widow's son, and Jairus' daughter all heard that voice. So it is with dead souls… The Speaker is the Son of God. And God, in the Person of His Son, gives life. He gives life — not notions, not creeds. Our part is that of faith.
Jesus says the hour is coming and has already begun. The word "hour" here is not sixty minutes.
The hour here refers to what has been going on ever since Christ was on earth up to this very moment. "The hour" there takes in nearly two thousand years.
The Son gives life to whom He will. That ends the long argument about how a person gets life.
A greater blessing was now within the reach of every one, if they would receive it… Here He stated man's condition by nature — dead in trespasses and sins. He declared man's need, and He announced the way to meet it. Man needed what he could never get by his own effort — spiritual life… From now on, all debate about how to get it was over.
Christ's work has two stages, and He takes a different title in each.
Next He shows man's real state — not weak only, but "dead" before God. And even now the voice of His Son calls, so that men who have heard may live… For the Son had come. As the Father has life in Himself, so He gave the Son also to have life in Himself. Being man, He receives all from the Father… So He gives life now. At the end He will carry out judgment, by the authority given Him, because He is Son of man.
- Dead. Not people in the grave, but living people who are dead toward God. No morality or religion can cure it.
- Voice. You can hear the words and still miss the voice. The voice is the meaning inside them, and it reveals a Person acting in sovereign grace.
- Hour. It began when Christ was on earth and has run for nearly two thousand years — we are still inside it.
- Live. No one achieves life; the Son gives it — not notions, not creeds. Faith is our only part.
- Coming. The voice that raises souls now will raise bodies then — He gives life as Son of God, and judges as Son of Man.
For even as the Father has life in himself, so he has given to the Son also to have life in himself,
In Jerusalem the Lord has healed a man at the pool, and He is answering the charge that He made Himself equal with God. Verse 26 explains how a dead soul can hear His voice and live — and it raises a question: how can One who is God receive anything?
The verse opens with "For." Commentators read it as the ground of the promise just made in verse 25: the dead hear the voice of the Son of God and live.
"Truly, truly, I say to you, an hour is coming, and is now here, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live" (v. 25). For the Son had come, and as the Father has life in Himself, so He gave to the Son also to have life in Himself. Being man, He receives everything from the Father. He is careful to honour Him alone, as that is man's only right place.
The gift is not life as such, given to someone who lacked it. Writers point instead to the power that goes with the phrase "in Himself" — the capacity to pass life on.
In taking the place of Son on earth He accepts everything as a gift from the Father, even "to have life in Himself." Life was in Him as the Word (John 1:4). But here the Father gives it to Him as the Son on earth to have life in Himself. This does not mean that the Father gave the Son life as such. He gave Him the power to communicate that life to others.
Not everyone limits the giving to the time when the Son became man. Others press the sentence itself — "as… so." They ask when either Father or Son began to have life in Himself.
It is impossible to apply this to the Incarnation... The statement here is not "The Father has given to Him to have life in Himself because He is the Son of Man." The life given is as between the Father and the Son. The Son, as the Son, derives everything from the Father... When did the Father begin to have life in Himself? Was this ever true of the Father apart from the Son? This proves that the relationship of Father and Son is eternal. Who could introduce a point of time into verse 26? The Son is eternal with the Father, existing with Him in life and being.
The wording separates the Son from everyone else who has life.
Take a leaf in your hand. It has life in it, but not life in itself; it has life in the tree. If it had life in itself you could detach it from the tree and it would go on living independently of the tree. But the moment you detach it, that moment it withers and dies. Its life is in the tree and depends on its connection with the tree.
Life lodged in Christ rather than in us is not a limitation. It is the reason the believer's life cannot be spoiled.
Suppose life could have been detached from the Son of God, so that it was in us only and not in the Son. Then it might be damaged or decay. But because it is in the Son, it stays holy and imperishable. So we have it, and we know we have it on His word. Every good work, every right affection, all true service and acceptable worship flow from eternal life in the power of the Spirit.
The passage does not stop at life-giving. Kelly grounds each of the Son's two works in what He is.
Read faithfully, the whole context allows and maintains that there are two dealings set against one another: life-giving and judging. This contrast is kept up in every case. The Son has life because He is God; the Son judges because He is man. He is the only person in the Godhead who became man, and He gave up none of His rights as God. God has appointed Him judge of the living and the dead.
- Source. The Father has life in Himself. Life-giving power belongs to Him first, and the verse starts there.
- Gift. The Son received not existence but the power to hand life on. As Man He took even this from the Father, and never claimed it apart from Him.
- Dispute. Commentators differ. Does the giving belong to the Son's life on earth, or to the eternal relation of Father and Son?
- Vessel. We have life, but never "in ourselves." Like a leaf in a tree, we hold it by staying joined to Christ. That is why it cannot decay.
- Verdict. The same Person gives life because He is God and judges because He is man. Hearing His voice now decides which of the two you meet.
and has given him authority to execute judgment [also], because he is Son of man.
Jesus has been speaking about the life He gives. Now He gives the reason judgment is in His hands too: He is the Son of Man. Why does becoming a man give Him the right to judge? And what does that mean for the people who met Him in His lowliness?
The Lord carries two titles here, and each has its own work.
It is as Son of man that the Lord Jesus will sit on the throne. No doubt He will show His Divine knowledge when He judges. But, as He says plainly, the Father has given Him authority to execute judgment because He is Son of man. As Son of God He gives life; as Son of man He will judge. How solemn! Had He been only Son of God, who would have dared to despise Him? The light of His glory would have destroyed every proud enemy in front of Him at once.
His humanity is what gave men the opening to insult Him. That same humanity is what they will face.
He commits all judgment to the Son. He will judge in the very nature in which men treated Him as nothing. He will judge not only as God, though He is God, but as Man — the Man once utterly despised and rejected. Though He was the Son, He was willing to share in flesh and blood, and so become Son of man. Man will be judged in front of the Man he hated enough to kill. Man will stand and tremble before the exalted Man, the Lord Jesus Christ.
Verse 22 gives judgment to the Son. Verse 27 adds the reason: He is Son of Man. Men refused both titles, and God will see Him honoured in both.
Men reject Christ as the Son of God, and seek to kill Him as the Son of Man. God intends that those who have rejected Him will honour Him both as Son of God and as Son of Man. Since they have rejected Him, this can only happen in judgment. So He exercises judgment both as Son of God and as Son of Man (verses 22, 27).
Some have used His humanity as a reason to deny that He is God. The Father has answered that.
Men have used the Son's Manhood as an excuse to deny His deity. But the Father has made very sure that men will realise who the Son is. If men refuse to bow before the Son in the day of God's grace, they will have to bow before Him in the day of judgment.
The Gospels usually say "the Son of man". Here the Greek leaves out the word "the".
In Matthew, Mark and Luke He is always called "the Son of man". But in John 5:27 (as in Rev. 1:13 and Rev. 14:14) He is called "Son of man" without the article. As Westcott says, this stresses His true humanity, and His work as Judge belongs to that humanity rather than to His personality.
This authority has a scene attached to it: the raising of the dead at the end.
He has bought their bodies as well as their souls. Now the hour has come when all who are still in their graves must hear His voice and come out to the resurrection of judgment, and be judged by the spotless purity of the great white throne. Christ, not God, sits on that throne. God is "the Judge of all" (Heb. 12:23), yet He "has given all judgment to the Son," and that "because He is the Son of Man." (John 5:22, 27.) It is God's judgment, because Christ, the perfect man, carries out God's righteousness perfectly.
The vision that opens Revelation is read as the same Person in that character: "The Lord Jesus presented Himself to John as 'like to the Son of Man'… all of them hinge on this first great vision of the Son of Man in His judicial glory."
The order matters. He took the place of judgment before He takes the seat of judgment.
He was lifted up as the representative of men. He bore the judgment that lay on them, so that He might be the Redeemer before He takes the throne as Judge. He was lifted up on the cross, and just as certainly He will fill that throne.
There is still a way out, and it is open now:
Eternal life comes through hearing Christ's Word now and believing the One who sent His Son in love. Otherwise nothing is left but a resurrection of judgment, which will vindicate His injured name.
- The Man. As Son of God He gives life; as Son of Man He judges — the whole verse turns on the title He wore in rejection.
- The reason. Men used His manhood as their excuse to despise Him. The Father made that same manhood His right to judge them.
- The wording. Here the title drops the word "the". That stresses His true humanity.
- The throne. He will use that authority at the great white throne. It is God's judgment, carried out by the perfect Man.
- The order. He was lifted up as Redeemer before He sits as Judge. Hear His word now and you have life; refuse it, and judgment waits at the end.
Wonder not at this, for an hour is coming in which all who are in the tombs shall hear his voice,
Jesus had just told the Jewish leaders that the Son gives life to whom He will. The Father, He said, has handed all judgment over to Him. Verse 28 answers their shock. If His voice wakes dead souls today, a day is coming when it will empty every grave.
Jesus is not changing the subject. He is enlarging what He said in verse 25 about the dead hearing His voice.
Verses 28-29 are an extension of verse 25. There our Lord said that the hour is coming, and now is, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God. Here He expands it: the hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear His voice. Not isolated cases, such as Lazarus for instance, but all — some at the resurrection of life, and others at the resurrection of judgment.
In verse 25 the dead who hear live, so faith is in view. Verse 28 is different: everyone hears.
Here the hour is not one that "now is," but one entirely future. There is no call for faith, and no unbelief proved. Instead, "all who are in the tombs will hear His voice." Before, He spoke only of the believer and his blessing — dead by nature, but made alive by hearing the voice of the Son of God. That was an individual, personal thing for the soul. In this future hearing of His voice, faith is no longer the question. The Son of God puts forth His mighty power without limit and over all.
The verse before this one ties His authority to judge to His being the Son of Man. That title matters, because the men in front of Him were despising a Man.
It is as Son of man that the Lord Jesus will sit on the throne. As He says plainly, the Father has given Him authority to carry out judgment, because He is Son of man. As Son of God He gives life; as Son of man He will judge. How solemn! Had He been only Son of God, who would have dared to despise Him? The light of His glory would have consumed every proud enemy in an instant. It was His grace, in becoming man to save men, that exposed Him to contempt.
Six chapters later, Jesus stood at a tomb and did for one man what verse 28 promises for all.
"I am the resurrection," He had said. He proved it. It was a foretaste of the power that will call every sleeping saint from the tomb. It was a foretaste too of the power that will call out all the ungodly dead to appear at the great white throne. Nothing could stop Lazarus from obeying the voice of Christ. Nothing will keep the bodies of the ungodly dead in the grave. God's people can take heart. When He calls His own from the tomb, every one of them will come out. Ungodly people may well tremble as they read what His voice does.
Both groups rise inside one "hour," so many assume everyone rises at the same moment. Commentators reject that.
So the Lord announces another hour, distinct from the one that "now is," and only "coming." It is not an hour for making alive those of the dead who hear the voice of Christ. It is the hour when "all who are in the tombs" rise. This is resurrection proper, and the Lord carefully denies the popular idea of one general resurrection. Here, as elsewhere, we learn of two resurrections completely contrasted in character. In Revelation 20 they are contrasted in time, with the millennium and more between them.
The word "hour" can cover a long stretch of time. One writer measures both:
That "hour" lasts a thousand years; the "hour" in which Christ makes dead souls alive has already lasted more than eighteen hundred years. The "hour" in which He will raise dead bodies begins with His coming to change His living saints and raise His sleeping ones. It closes with the resurrection of the wicked dead, and their judgment before the great white throne — "the resurrection of judgment."
For anyone who has already answered that voice, the coming call completes a gift already received.
Those who have believed on the Son of God have heard His life-giving voice. They will hear that blessed voice again, calling them to share in the resurrection of life. The Christian now has eternal life in his soul, and so can never perish. In the resurrection of life he will have eternal life in his body too, conformed to the image of Christ and brought into His likeness.
- One voice. The same voice that raises dead souls today will one day reach every tomb. Verse 28 extends verse 25 from the soul to the body.
- No exceptions. In this hour faith is no longer the issue. All hear, and all come out, under the mighty power of the Son of God.
- The Judge is a Man. As Son of God He gives life. As Son of Man, once despised, He has authority from the Father to judge.
- The proof already given. Lazarus walking out of the tomb is the preview: comfort for God's people, warning for the ungodly.
- Two outcomes, not one crowd. The Lord names a resurrection of life and a resurrection of judgment. Commentators argue that one "hour" is wide enough to hold a thousand years between them.
and shall go forth; those that have practised good, to resurrection of life, and those that have done evil, to resurrection of judgment.
The Lord has just said that an hour is coming when everyone in the graves will hear His voice. Here He tells us they will not all come out to the same thing: one voice calls, but two opposite outcomes follow.
Many readers assume Scripture teaches one general raising of all the dead.
Some readers have looked at this great question from their earliest days through the standards of doctrine and confessions of faith around them, and the idea of two resurrections has never once entered their minds. Still, Scripture does speak, in the clearest and plainest terms, of a "resurrection of life" and a "resurrection of judgment" — two resurrections, different in character, and different in time.
The deeper difference is not the clock but the nature of each raising.
A difference of character is a far more important feature than a difference in point of time. For my own part, I do not make so much of the long space between them. Even if only a minute separated the resurrection of life from the resurrection of judgment, the eternal and essential features would remain. The one is a resurrection of life, which the grace of God gives in His Son, and it always marks out those who have received Him here. The other is a resurrection of judgment, for those who would not have Him in this world.
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The main objection is the word "hour" in the previous verse — does it mean one moment? The Lord uses the same word four verses earlier.
In verse 25 the Lord says, "Truly, truly, I say to you, an hour is coming, and is now here, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live." These are certainly the spiritually dead. They heard the voice of the life-giving Son of God when He was here on earth, and they passed from death to life. But is this work all over? Blessed be God, no! Sinners are still hearing His voice; "the hour" runs on still. That removes the difficulty about verse 29. If "the hour" of verse 25 stretches over nearly two thousand years, it is not hard to believe that the same expression may cover one thousand years.
Writers match the two halves of the verse to the two scenes at the end of Revelation.
Revelation 20:4, 6, describes the life-resurrection — "they came to life and reigned with Christ. Over such the second death has no power." Revelation 20:12 to the end describes the judgment-resurrection — "the dead were judged... each one of them, according to what they had done."
One Person raises both groups, and the two titles He carries here mark the difference.
The first holds the righteous; all who are judged in the second are the evil. Our translators call it the resurrection of "damnation," though the real meaning of the word is "judgment." It is the same word used a verse or two earlier. Keep this in mind: as the Son of God, Christ gives life; as Son of Man, He comes to execute judgment in His kingdom. There is the resurrection of life, the resurrection of the believer. It applies to his body the power of life that he already has in his soul.
The verse sorts people by what they have done. So is doing good the way to be saved?
There is no disguising the solemn truth that God will and must have what is good and holy and righteous in His own people... Suppose someone put this before a sinner as a way to be reconciled to God, or to have his sins blotted out. That would deny Christ and His redemption. But hold fast that everything which brings us near to God is found in Christ. Faith alone links a sinner to the blessing of Christ, apart from the works of the law. Then there is no inconsistency at all in this: the same God who gives a soul to believe in Christ works in that soul by the Holy Spirit to produce what is in practice according to Himself.
So why does the verse describe the believer too by what he did?
Men receive for the "deeds done in the body," and it is in the body that they receive it. Notice that the saint here, like the sinner, is marked out by his "doings." Life is a "gift," not a reward. Yet the resurrection recognizes the fruits of that life, which the renewed man brings forth.
The Lord settled the believer's case five verses earlier.
And we do not come into judgment (John 5:24). Judgment has no application to those who share that life. Believers who died before the Lord comes for His Church will be in the resurrection of life, not in the resurrection of judgment. Those still alive at that hour will have their mortal bodies made alive by the power of that same life in which they now live to God.
- One voice. The same Son calls every grave open — He gives life as Son of God, and executes judgment as Son of Man. No one rises apart from Him.
- Two resurrections. Not one general raising. There is a resurrection of life and a resurrection of judgment. They differ in character, and commentators hold that time separates them too.
- One hour, stretched. "Hour" in verse 25 has already run two thousand years; the same word in verse 29 can cover a thousand more.
- One gift, shown in fruit. God gives life; no one earns it. But where He gives it, it shows itself in doing good, and the resurrection recognises that fruit.
- One decision, now. Those who would not have Him in the day of grace must meet Him in the day of judgment. Those who hear His word now will never come into it.