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.