It’s Time To Decide Series

There is a saying that there is proof in the pudding. Our Holy Lord Jesus will raise some from the dead to prove that He will be also able to do it in the future.

26 For as the Father has life in Himself, so He has granted the Son to have life in Himself,

You know that El Shaddai, Almighty God Is The Source and Creator of life, for there is no life apart from God. How can there be? As already stated, our Lord Jesus Is The Creator and nothing that was made was made without Him. He Is our life. Apart from Him equals no life.

27 and has given Him authority to execute judgment also, because He is the Son of Man.

If you dug into the Old Testament you would find that there were three signs that the Messiah would do. John shows us that our Lord Jesus fulfilled all three signs in this chapter.

1. Daniel 7: 13 – 14 – All power and authority are given to Him as the Son of Man

2. Isaiah 35: 6 – The lame and sick are healed

3. Deuteronomy 32: 39 – the dead are raised to life.

28 Do not marvel at this; for the hour is coming in which all who are in the graves will hear His voice 29 and come forth—those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of condemnation.

You want to know what the future holds well our Lord in just two sentences puts it all together.

One day it will be the voice of The Lord Jesus that will command the dead to come forth. First of all our Lord comments about - ‘Those who have done good.’ This includes the thought that they have received His word and believed on Him as He says elsewhere in chapter 6 verse 29 what doing the works of God involves. Those who have received the gift of eternal life will reveal the genuineness of what they have received by their lives. ‘By their words they will be justified’ as our Lord Jesus was recorded to have said in the Gospel of Matthew 12.37. It is impossible to have the new life and live the old life. To do good is to do what God requires. It signifies full acceptability with God. Thus it includes having been reconciled to God and then having responded in an obedient life.

Then our Lord mentions - ‘Those who have practiced evil.’ Those who have not responded to Jesus’ words in this life will come forth to the resurrection of judgment, for they will have refused life. And this refusal will be revealed by the way they live and by their attitude to Him. They will practice selfishness and wrongdoing. No one was more conscious of failure than the genuine Pharisee, for he struggled to obey the Law and yet found himself failing again and again. But now he too is faced with the consequence, a consequence true for all. If they refuse the transforming of their lives through believing in Christ they can only receive judgment.

So Jesus has made clear Who He really Is. He not only reveals the Father’s workings while on earth, but He also works with the Father and offers eternal life now to all who hear His voice and respond from the heart, and it will in fact be His voice also which raises men at the last day, giving resurrection life to those who have responded to Him, and passing judgment on those have refused to hear His voice. They will have to obey His voice, either now or then, but if it is then it will be too late.