John 5: 19 – 29
It’s Time to Decide
19 Then Jesus answered and said to them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He sees the Father do; for whatever He does, the Son also does in like manner. 20 For the Father loves the Son, and shows Him all things that He Himself does; and He will show Him greater works than these, that you may marvel. 21 For as the Father raises the dead and gives life to them, even so the Son gives life to whom He will. 22 For the Father judges no one, but has committed all judgment to the Son, 23 that all should honor the Son just as they honor the Father. He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent Him. 24 “Most assuredly, I say to you, he who hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life. 25 Most assuredly, I say to you, the hour is coming, and now is, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God; and those who hear will live. 26 For as the Father has life in Himself, so He has granted the Son to have life in Himself, 27 and has given Him authority to execute judgment also, because He is the Son of Man. 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.
I have heard before from some skeptics that The Lord Jesus Christ never claimed to be God. In the beginning of my life as a believer in Jesus Christ they might have confused my thoughts. I know today that many who make this claim have not read the bible. For we are going to see in this study our Lord confirms His equality with our Holy Father God, Adoni Yahweh.
We are going to read and see from our Lord Jesus His statement that He Is co-equal with the Father. He does not want anyone to be in any doubt, but does it in semi-veiled terms comparable with His use of parables. He leaves them to think through the implications. It may be of help if we first summarize what Jesus is about to say, for it will help to bring home just how great a claim He was making. Notice how close the relationship is between Father and Son, and how Jesus links Himself with the Father in the greatest issues of life:
• Verse 19 – He Is The Son and is doing what His Father does.
• Verse 20 - He Is The Son Who Is loved by the Father so that the Father shows Him all that He the Father does.
• Verse 21 - He Is The Son Who like the Father can make alive whoever He wills.
• Verse 22 - He Is The Son to Whom the Father has committed all judgment.
• Verse 23 - He Is The Son Who Is deserving of equal honor with The Father.
• Verses 25 – 26 - He Is The Son Who like the Father has life in Himself, so that as the Son of God He will summon the dead to life at the last day.
• Verse 27 - He Is The Son to Whom the Father has given the authority to exercise judgment because He Is the Son of Man.
A glance over Jesus’ claims here helps to explain the attitude of the Scribes and Pharisees. They were being put on the spot, for they either had to recognize the stupendous nature of His claims and respond to Him, or dismiss them out of hand. They reveal Him as a figure of gigantic proportions. It will be apparent that the third, fifth and sixth statements are inconceivable unless Jesus really is equal with the Father, while the remainder also brings out His uniqueness in the scheme of things, the seventh being Messianic. We will now consider them in more detail.
19 Then Jesus answered and said to them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He sees the Father do; for whatever He does, the Son also does in like manner. 20 For the Father loves the Son, and shows Him all things that He Himself does; and He will show Him greater works than these, that you may marvel.
The words our Holy Master and Lord Jesus shares here with us are amazing. From my studies over the years I have not seen, heard, or read from other teachers the great significance He Is sharing with us. Please notice His statement – ‘the Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He sees the Father do; for whatever He does, the Son also does in like manner. 20 For the Father loves the Son, and shows Him all things that He Himself does; and He will show Him greater works than these, that you may marvel.’ So, I ask you this question that needs to be answered, ‘How does He see what The Father Is doing?
When you go through the Gospels you come to understand that our Lord Jesus would go off by Himself to pray. For example we read in the Gospel of Luke this in chapter 6, “12 Now it came to pass in those days that He went out to the mountain to pray, and continued all night in prayer to God. 13 And when it was day, He called His disciples to Himself; and from them He chose twelve whom He also named apostles.’ Here we read that our Lord Jesus went to spend some time with Father God. It would seem from His time with Adoni Yahweh that He was shown who He should pick as His Apostles. And yes one in these twelve was a traitor. Did our Lord Jesus see this ‘son of perdition’ ahead of time and know all about him? I would answer yes to this question – of course He did. In fact if you do a study of our Lord’s parables where Judas was present you will see that many of them were referring to him. Here are a couple of the parables that should have hit Judas’s conscience; Parable of the Faithful Servant, Parable of the Leaven, Parable of the wheat and tares, Parable of the rich man and Lazarus. In fact we also have learned that at the last supper Judas was the guest of honor. The Lord over and over was telling Judas that He knew what Judas was up to. Our Lord Is a Merciful God and gave him a chance to turn yet Judas still did his evil deed.
For the Father to show our Master and King Jesus what He was doing was imitated by Satan. Do you remember when? How about the Lord’s temptations? We read in the Gospel of Luke chapter 4 this, “1 Then Jesus, being filled with the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, 2 being tempted for forty days by the devil. And in those days He ate nothing, and afterward, when they had ended, He was hungry. 3 And the devil said to Him, “If You are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread.” 4 But Jesus answered him, saying, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God.’?” 5 Then the devil, taking Him up on a high mountain, showed Him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. 6 And the devil said to Him, “All this authority I will give You, and their glory; for this has been delivered to me, and I give it to whomever I wish. 7 Therefore, if You will worship before me, all will be Yours.” 8 And Jesus answered and said to him, “Get behind Me, Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship the LORD your God, and Him only you shall serve.’
Let me stop right here for a moment. Please notice that Satan ‘showed Him all the Kingdoms of the world.’ Satan was able just like our Heavenly Holy Father was doing. Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ was shown by Father God what He Was doing in their time together. So my point is that our Lord really enjoyed getting alone with The Holy Father. In their time together our Lord and Savior was supernaturally shown what was happening and what was to happen. Can you see this amazing point? We all would love to have a time machine where you could go back in time to visit some great events in history. A popular and successful movie was with Michael Fox in ‘Back to the Future. ‘In one of the additional movies ‘Marty’ goes to the future where the town bully came up with a sports almanac that gave out all the scores. This guy went and used the book to bet on sure winners already knowing the outcomes. Now wouldn’t that be nice.
Our Lord Jesus also knew what the future would be and it was not at all very pleasant such as knowing about His ultimate sacrifice and death on the cross. But as the book of Hebrews chapter 12 tells us He with steadfast obedience move forward to accomplish His objective of giving His life as a ransom for us –“looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.”
The intimacy of the thought is outstanding. He sees what the Father is doing. He Is fully aware of all that God does. And He not only does whatever He sees the Father doing, but He Himself does nothing else. Whatever He does He does in the same way as the Father. Indeed His relationship with the Father is such that His Father loves Him as ‘the Son’ and shows Him all that He is doing. No one had ever made such claims. They had to be either true or blasphemous. He is indicating that He and the Father work in such unison that it was impossible for Him to act without it being in line with the Father’s will and actions. The two worked as One. And as the Father is ‘the (unique and only) Father’, so He is ‘The (unique and only) Son’.
21 For as the Father raises the dead and gives life to them, even so the Son gives life to whom He will.
We should remember here that the Jews saw a son as being almost the embodiment and extension of his father. There was a oneness between them that was not true of their relationship with any other. The good son reproduced the life and behavior of his father. Jesus makes clear that He does not work independently of the Father in anything. He does what the Father does, and wills what the Father wills. He Is a true Son.
Thus just as the Father can raise the dead and give life, both now and in the age to come, so He, the Son, claims to have the same power and authority, and to be able to do it by His own will. In other words He had the right to be able to do these things on His own. Nevertheless the context makes clear that He always exercises that will in line with His Father’s will because they always work together. Jesus will reveal this power in the raising of Lazarus (chapter 11), which amazed everyone who witnessed it, but the statement goes much further than that. He is claiming to give eternal life to all who believe and to have the power to raise men at the last day. He is offering eternal life through the Spirit now, and will Himself be the One Who raises men at the last day
22 For the Father judges no one, but has committed all judgment to the Son,
You have to stop and see the amazing significance here. Adoni Yahweh, God the Father, passes the judgment of eternal life to Jesus. Indeed judgment is totally in His hands. To be the One to Whom all judgment was committed could only signify that at the very least He was God’s favorite, and should lead on, with what He has already said, to the recognition of (to them) the unthinkable. That He was God. And yet He is also man, for the world will be judged by ‘that man whom God has ordained’ and resurrected as we learn in the book of Acts chapter 17 verse 31.
23 that all should honor the Son just as they honor the Father. He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent Him.
So now these religious leaders are going to have to face a decision about our Lord Jesus Christ.
Father God’s purpose is that He, Jesus Christ, will have equal honor with The Father. This can mean nothing other than equality of status, and thus oneness of being. Who else could have equal honor with the Father?
Our Lord Jesus makes it clear to these people that because of His relationship with The Father their attitude towards Him will make clear their attitude to and position before God. As He will say elsewhere, He has revealed God’s power in such a way that to reject His work is to be in danger of blaspheming against the Holy Spirit as Mark points out in chapter 3 verses 22-30.
24 “Most assuredly, I say to you, he who hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life.
He goes on to add that because He has been given the power to raise men at the last day He is able to offer life and certainty now. Those who hear His word (which means hear in the sense of responding to it fully), and believe Him Who sent Him, something which will be shown by their response to Jesus, will immediately have the life of the coming age, eternal life, the life of the Spirit. They do not have to wait for it, it can be theirs now, courtesy of both Father and Son. For such there will be no Judgment Day needed to determine their destiny, they will have already passed from death to life. It is a completed transaction. We all still have to face physical death, but when our Lord Jesus returns again, our bodies will be resurrected to live forever.
The Scribes and Pharisees earnestly sought eternal life. They believed that it could be theirs by strict obedience to the Laws and proved participation in the covenant community before God. And yet they were conscious that they always failed. So they strove harder, and still they failed. But our Merciful and Loving Lord Jesus was now offering to free them from the daily grind of hopeless striving. Let them now believe God as He speaks through the activities of His Son. Let them respond to His words. Then they will receive eternal life now. They will already have passed from death to life.
We cannot just pass by another awesome claim of our Lord Jesus here. Look with me again at His statement - ‘Hears My words -- and believes Him Who sent Me.’ Notice how the implication are that His words are God’s words, that His words can be seen as the very words of God. They need to believe His words because they are not only His but are the Father’s, so that their attitude to His words demonstrates whether they are willing to believe the Father.
25 Most assuredly, I say to you, the hour is coming, and now is, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God; and those who hear will live.
In saying that the dead will hear His voice, our Lord Jesus was talking about the spiritually dead who hear, understand, and accept Him. Those who accept Jesus, The Word, will have eternal life. Jesus was also talking about the physically dead. He raised several dead people while He was on earth, and at His second coming all the dead in Christ will rise to meet Him.
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.
