John 5:28–29

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.

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.

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.

"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.

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.

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."

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.

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.

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.

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.

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."

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.

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.

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.

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.