John 05(25–47)

Introduction

I had reason this week to read over a sermon I preached on Hebrews 6, where the writer says to his readers that we’re to leave the elementary teachings about Christ and we’re to go on to maturity. And in the sermon I explained that when he refers to the elementary teachings about Christ, he means the ABCs of the faith. He’s talking about the basic things which all believers are to know and believe. And he mentions some of those basic things in the passage: repentance and faith; and instruction about baptism; and the resurrection; and eternal judgment. Those are some of the basics.

And when he says we’re to leave them behind, he doesn’t mean we’re to forget them. It’s not that we outgrow the ABCs of the faith and must abandon them. No, the basics of the faith are foundational and we must never forget them or abandon them. We need to remember everything we ever learned about repentance and faith and baptism and the resurrection and eternal judgment. Those things are foundational to our faith.

But he means there are always new things for us to know and believe. There are new doctrines for us to grasp and there are new depths for us to explore. Once we’ve laid the foundation, we must build on it by learning new things about the faith.

And it struck me as I re-read that sermon that this is what we’re doing in these studies from John’s gospel. John’s gospel is theologically rich and he’s revealing to us some of the deep things of the faith about our God, who is one God in three persons. He’s written to us about the divine Word was with God in the beginning and who is himself God. And all things came to be through him. And in him is life so that he has all life in himself and he gives us our life in this world. And as well as giving us our life, he gives us light so that every living person knows deep down inside that there’s a God who deserves their worship.

And then, the divine Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. No-one has ever seen God, John wrote, but the only begotten God, who is at the Father’s bosom, has made him known by coming to earth as one of us to reveal like never before what God is like.

So, John has taught us about the Father and the Son. And he’s taught us about the Holy Spirit who gives new life to us through the new birth so that we’re able to repent and believe in the Son for eternal life.

And he’s taught us about the greatness of God’s love and how he gave his only begotten Son to be our Saviour. Whoever believes will not perish, but will have eternal life.

And last week’s passage was about how the Son is equal with the Father. The Son is equal with the Father because the Father communicates all that the Father is to the Son; and the Son receives from the Father all that the Father is. And therefore the Son’s power to do anything is from the Father. And the power he receives from the Father is the same as the Father’s power. One is not more powerful than the other; and one is not weaker than the other. One is not greater than the other; and one is not lesser than the other. They are equal.

These are not elementary things. These are not part of the ABCs of the faith. But God in his word instructs us to move beyond the ABCs of the faith and to build on the foundation that has been laid and to go on to spiritual maturity by considering the deep things of God.

And, of course, this is what we’ll do for ever and for ever in the life to come, because in the life to come we’ll see God — the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit — and his glory. And in seeing him and his glory, we’ll be made perfectly happy. And that’s because this is what we were made for. We were made for communion with God. We were made to know God and to find joy in him. And since our God is infinite, then we’ll never get to the end of his glory. We’ll never reach the bottom of his perfections. There will always be new things about him for us to see and to know and to wonder at and to admire. There will always be new things which will thrill our soul and which will add to our ever-expanding happiness. And we’ll never get bored and we’ll never grow tired. We’ll learn more and more and more about our God and it will always be wonderful.

And what we will do in eternity, we begin to do now in time as we consider these, the deep things of God. And as God reveals more and more of himself to us in his word, then there are more and more things for us to admire about him. There are more and more reasons for us to praise him. There are more and more things for us to love in him.

In today’s passage, the Lord Jesus speaks to us about life: how the Father has life in himself; and how the Father has given the same life in himself to the Son; and how by believing in the Son we receive new life in Christ in this world and we will receive resurrection life when he comes again. And so, he speaks to us about life. But he also speaks to us about the judgment.

God’s life

Let’s focus first on what our Lord says in verse 26 about the Father’s life and his own life as the Son. I’ll read verse 26 again: ‘For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son to have life in himself.’ So, the Father has life in himself and the Son has life in himself.

Our Lord is referring here to God’s aseity. I’ve mentioned this attribute of God before. The word itself comes from the Latin a se which means ‘from self’. And when theologians talk about God’s aseity, they mean that all that God is is from himself; and all that God has is from himself. In other words, God does not rely on anyone or anything outside of himself for anything. All that God has, all that God is, is from himself and it’s not from anyone outside of God.

By contrast, what we have and what we are is from outside ourselves. When we were born, we relied on our parents for everything and they continued to provide us for us and to care for us throughout our childhood and beyond. And throughout our life, we rely on other people for companionship and support; we rely on teachers to educate us; we rely on health professionals to help us when we’re ill; in church we rely on ministers to minister God’s word and sacraments to us and we rely on elders to oversee our spiritual well-being and we rely on our fellow believers for fellowship. And I could go on, but you get the point that we rely on other people continually.

And, of course, ultimately we rely on God for all things. He’s the one who made the heavens and the earth and who gave us our life and who gives us everything else we need for life.

Every day we rely on other people and we rely ultimately on God for all things. By contrast, God relies on no-one and nothing outside of himself. All that he is is in and of himself. All that he has is in and of himself. His very being — his life as the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit — is in and of himself.

And that means that he himself is life and all life comes from him. He is indeed the fountain of life and life flows from him to every living creature. Our own natural life and the natural life of all of God’s creatures comes from God and from his own abundant, abounding, overflowing life. And our spiritual life in this world and eternal life in the world to come comes from the same source. It comes from God, because God himself is life. He has all life in himself as the Father, the Son and the Spirit.

And since God has life in himself, then he can give us life without giving it away. So, if I were to give you £100, I could only do so by giving away my own £100. You would have £100 more and I would have £100 less. But when God gives us life in this world, or when he gives us eternal life in the world to come, he gives it to us without giving it away, because he has all life in himself. And his life is eternal. It’s without beginning and it’s without end. And it’s unchangeable and it can never run out, because he has it in himself and he himself is eternal and unchangeable.

And since our God has all life in himself, since our God has all that he is in himself, then he does not need us. He does not need us for anything. We do not add anything to God, because God has all that he is in himself. And that means that his giving us life in this world and his giving us eternal life in the world to come is an act of God’s overflowing and abounding love. It’s an act of his grace and mercy. It’s an act of sheer generosity. He does not need us for anything and we do not add anything to him in any way, because he already has all life and everything else in himself. And so, making us and giving us our life in this world and giving us eternal life in the world to come is due entirely to God’s overflowing and generous love.

The Lord Jesus says in verse 26 that God the Father has life in himself. But it’s not only God the Father who has life in himself, because the Lord goes on to say that God the Father has granted the Son to have life in himself as well. So, the Father has life in himself and so does the Son. And we can add that the Holy Spirit has life in himself also. All three persons of the Trinity have life in themselves, because all three persons of the Trinity have one and the same divine being. And therefore all three of them have one and the same divine life.

But since the Son is from the Father and receives all that he is from the Father, then that means he receives ‘life in himself’ from the Father. So, we can put it this way: The Father has ‘life in himself’ from no-one. And the Son has ‘life in himself’ from the Father. And the Spirit has ‘life in himself’ from the Father and the Son. And their life together as Father, Son and Spirit is fullness of life, it’s eternal life, it’s abundant life. And it flows from the Father through the Son and by the Spirit to us.

New life in Christ

And that takes us back to verse 25. We started with verse 26, which is about the life of the Father and the Son. But let’s turn now to verse 25 which is about new life in Christ. Our Lord said: ‘I tell you the truth, a time is coming and has now come when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live.

So, our Lord refers to a time that is coming and has now come when the dead will hear his voice and come to life.

Since he says that that time has already come, then he can’t be talking about the resurrection of the dead, because that hasn’t happened yet. We know from elsewhere in the New Testament, that the resurrection of the dead won’t take place until Christ comes again in glory and with power to raise the dead. So, he can’t be referring to that.

So, what is he talking about when he refers to people in the present who are dead, but who hear his voice and come to life? To what is he referring?

He’s talking about the same thing he talked to Nicodemus about. He’s talking about how people receive new life in Christ through the new birth. All of us are, by birth, spiritually dead. We’re physically alive. We’re out and about and we’re active. We’re physically alive. But we’re spiritually dead because we’re sinners by birth and we don’t know God and his love.

But then, through the new birth, the Holy Spirit comes to us and implants new life in us so that we’re able to pay attention to the voice of the Son of God and we’re able to believe what he says about salvation and we’re able to believe in him as the only Saviour of the world. Those who were once spiritually dead are made alive. And they’re made alive because of God. God the Father has life in himself. God the Son has life in himself. God the Holy Spirit also has life in himself. And the Father gives life to his people through his Son and by his Spirit.

And the Lord says that they hear ‘the voice of the Son of God’. When the Lord was on the earth, the people were literally able to hear his voice. They were able to see him and to touch him and to hear him, because he was right there, in front of them. However, people in every generation also hear him in another way, because he comes to us in the preaching of the gospel. He comes to us in the preaching of the gospel; and he speaks to us with a voice that wakens the dead; and he gives us his Spirit who implants new life in us so that we’re able to pay attention to the message and believe in him for forgiveness and for peace with God and for the hope of everlasting life in the presence of God.

Later in John’s gospel, the Lord will perform a miracle as a sign of what he does when he gives us this new life through the preaching of the gospel. I’m referring to the story of Lazarus. Lazarus had died and had been in the tomb for four days before the Lord Jesus arrived. But the Lord Jesus stood outside his tomb and called to the dead man. And the dead man heard the Son of God’s voice and came out of the tomb alive. A man who was physically dead heard the voice of the Son of God. And that dead man came to life. And spiritually dead men and women and boys and girls all around the world in every generation hear the voice of the Son of God in the preaching of the gospel. And those spiritually dead people come to life. They come to new life in Christ, because God the Father, who has all life in himself, reaches out to them through the Son who has all life in himself and by his Spirit who has all life in himself.

And that’s what he has done for us. Because of his abundant and generous love, God reached out to us and he raised you from spiritual death to new life in Christ. And from the fullness of his abundant life, he gave us new life in Christ.

Resurrection life

So, our Lord has spoken about the Father’s life and his own life. And he’s spoken about the new life we have in Christ. And next he speaks to us about resurrection life. Take a look at verse 28: ‘Do not be amazed at this, for a time is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice and come out — those who have done good will rise to live, and those who have done evil will rise to be condemned.’

In verse 25 he spoke about a time that is coming and has now come. In this verse he speaks about a time that is coming and it hasn’t yet come. So, he’s referring here to something in the future. He’s referring to the resurrection of the dead. And we know from elsewhere in the New Testament that the resurrection of the dead will take place whenever Christ comes again.

And so, Christ will come in glory and with power. He will come, we read in 1 Thessalonians, with a loud command and with voice of an archangel and with the trumpet call of God. And just as the voice of someone calling us wakens us from sleep, so the voice of the Son of God calling us will waken us from death.

And since he’s referring to ‘all who are in the graves’, then he’s talking here about the general resurrection of the dead. Usually when we talk about the resurrection, we’re talking about the resurrection of believers, whose bodies will be raised from the dead, reunited with their souls, and they will live in body and soul with the Lord for ever.

But the Lord is now speaking about the general resurrection. Not only believers will be raised, but unbelievers will be raised as well. Believers — that is, those who have done good — will rise to live. Unbelievers — that is, those who have done evil — will rise to what? They will rise, not so much to live, but to be condemned. Yes, they will be made alive again at the resurrection. But their future existence is very different from those who will enjoy everlasting life in the presence of God. Instead of enjoying everlasting life in the presence of God, they will be raised to be condemned and to suffer eternal punishment, away from the presence of God. They will be alive, but they are hardly living because they will be suffering endless punishment for all that they have done wrong in this life.

Notice, of course, that the Lord is not saying that those who are raised to life will be raised because they have done good. Doing good is not the reason they will be raised. They will be raised because of Christ, who gave up his life to pay for their sins and who was raised from the dead to give them life. They will be raised because of him and because of his promise to give eternal life to all who trust in him as the only Saviour of the world. And so, they will be raised to life because of Christ and because of Christ alone.

However, they can be described as those who have done good, because the Lord Jesus gives to his believing people the Holy Spirit to sanctify us and to make us more and more willing and able to do good here on earth. Our good deeds mark us out as those who belong by faith to Christ the Saviour. But our good deeds are not the reason we’ll be raised. We will be raised from the dead to enjoy everlasting life, because of Christ and him alone.

And so, when Christ comes again, God the Father who has all life in himself will reach out to us through his Son who has all life in himself and by his Spirit who has all life in himself to give us resurrection life. And we receive this resurrection life, not because we deserve it, and not because we have earned it, and not even because our resurrection to life adds anything to God. Our resurrection does not add anything to God. Our resurrection does not benefit him in any way. It does not increase his glory, because his glory, like God himself, is infinite and unchangeable.

Our resurrection adds nothing to God. And so, the reason any of us will be raised to everlasting life is due to God’s infinite and unchangeable love. He made us to be the objects of his love. And he has loved us by giving us our life in this world and by giving us new life in Christ and by giving us resurrection life when Christ comes again. And then, for ever and for ever he will continue to love us and to do good to us. From the fullness of his life, he’ll give us everlasting life. And he’ll give us everlasting life from the fullness of his life, because of the greatness of his love for us.

Judgment

And yet there’s a dark shadow over today’s passage. In verse 27 our Lord says that God the Father has given him authority to judge because he is the Son of Man.

The title ‘Son of Man’ comes from Daniel 7 where we read about one like a son of man, who approached God. And he received from God authority, glory and sovereign power and a kingdom that will never be destroyed. God was revealing to Daniel that the day will come when Christ’s humiliation on earth will be over and he’ll be exalted to the highest place as king over all. And he will rule as king over all as one of us. And as one of us, he will come to judge the world. So, he will come again as one of us and the dead will be raised. And everyone who has ever lived will stand before him to be judged.

And according to verse 30, his judgment is just.

And then in verses 31 to 47, the Lord talks to the Jews, who were persecuting him and who wanted to kill him, about the various witnesses to him. In verse 33 he refers to John the Baptist, who bore witness to the Saviour. And in verse 36 he refers to the very work that his Father gave him to finish. So, he’s referring to the saving works which he has performed. In verse 37 he says that the Father himself has borne witness to him. And then in verse 39 he refers to the Old Testament Scriptures, which the Jews studied diligently, without realising that the Scriptures are all about the Lord Jesus. He also mentions Moses in verses 45 and 46, who wrote about him in the Scriptures. But, since they don’t believe what Moses wrote, then how are they going to believe what the Lord says?

And so, the Lord is saying to these people, who are persecuting him and who want to kill him: You don’t believe in me. You should believe in me, because John bore witness to me, God the Father bore witness to me, my works bear witness to me, the Scriptures and Moses bear witness to me. You should believe in me that I’m the Son of God the Father; and I’m equal to the Father; and like the Father I have all life in myself; and I’m able to give you new life in this world and resurrection life in the world to come. You should believe in me, but you don’t.

And this is the tragedy. They should believe in him, but they have chosen not to believe in him. And if they remain in their unbelief, then, when Christ comes again to raise the dead and to judge the world, they will be raised, not to life, but to be condemned. And they will be sent away from the presence of God for ever. When he comes as judge, he will send them away.

Conclusion

And here’s the thing. If it were not for God’s kindness to us, if it were not for his abundant goodness and love, then you would be just like them. You would not believe and you would be facing condemnation and eternal punishment when he comes again. But because of his abounding love, he sent his Son to give up his life to pay for your sins in full. And then he sent his Spirit into your life to implant new life in you and to enable you to repent and believe. And all who believe can look forward to the coming of Christ, because when Christ comes again it will be to raise you from the dead and it will be to give you everlasting life in the presence of God, where God will love you for ever and for ever. And he’s able to give you this everlasting life, because the Son, like the Father, has life in himself and he gives it to whoever he wishes.

And since this is true, then we should rejoice in God’s abundant love towards us. And we should use the life he has given us to bring glory and honour to his name.