In John 5, Jesus heals a man on the Sabbath which draws the ire from the Pharisees who had more restrictive views of Sabbath practices. In John 5:17, Jesus says:
“My Father is working until now, and I am working.”
In response to Jesus pointing to God as his Father, the Pharisees begin to actively conspire against Jesus.
18 This was why the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him, because not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God.
We know the end of the story. Jesus is ultimately crucified. But it is because Jesus said that God was his father that jump started the Pharisees in their conspiracy against him.
In an event which is not recorded in John, Jesus is before the Pharisees. The sonship question comes up again.
Matthew 26:63-64:
the high priest said to him, “I adjure you by the living God, tell us if you are the Christ, the Son of God.” 64 Jesus said to him, “You have said so. But I tell you, from now on you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power and coming on the clouds of heaven.”
That’s the final straw in Matthew’s gospel and the Pharisees seek to have Jesus crucified.
Then the high priest tore his robes and said, “He has uttered blasphemy. What further witnesses do we need? You have now heard his blasphemy. 66 What is your judgment?” They answered, “He deserves death.” 67 Then they spit in his face and struck him. And some slapped him, 68 saying, “Prophesy to us, you Christ! Who is it that struck you?” (Matthew 26:65-68).
The pharisees look at the words of Christ as blasphemy.
But it wasn’t. It was the truth.
Incarnationally, morally, theologically, Jesus is the Son of God and God is his father.
But in John 5, we see the opposition rising.
What started as a miracle turned into a Sabbath controversy.
And what became a Sabbath controversy was intensified by Jesus pointing to himself and his relation to God.
The sonship of Christ and the fatherhood of God points us to the gospel.
We are God’s children, created in his image who had forsaken God through our sin.
Jesus is the perfect Son of God who was forsaken so we could be forgiven for our sins.
As radical as it is that Jesus addressed God as his father, he invited us to do the same when he taught the disciples how to pray in the Sermon on the Mount.
your Father knows what you need before you ask him. 9 Pray then like this:
“Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name. (Matthew 6:9)
The Apostle Paul says in the opening salutations of all of his letters: grace and peace to you from God our father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
The fatherhood of God is bestowed upon the people of God because Jesus is the true Son of God.
Jesus is the son of God who allows us to be adopted as God’s children and to approach God as our own father.
John 1:12 says:
to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God
The adoption language is used by Paul at the beginning of his letter to the Ephesians.
3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, 4 even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love 5 he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ. (Ephesians 1:3-5)
That’s the Good News of the Gospel. The Son of God allows us to call God our father.
Thanks for reading! If you liked this post, please share and subscribe!
In John 5, Jesus heals a man on the Sabbath which draws the ire from the Pharisees who had more restrictive views of Sabbath practices. In John 5:17, Jesus says:
“My Father is working until now, and I am working.”
In response to Jesus pointing to God as his Father, the Pharisees begin to actively conspire against Jesus.
18 This was why the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him, because not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God.
We know the end of the story. Jesus is ultimately crucified. But it is because Jesus said that God was his father that jump started the Pharisees in their conspiracy against him.
In an event which is not recorded in John, Jesus is before the Pharisees. The sonship question comes up again.
Matthew 26:63-64:
the high priest said to him, “I adjure you by the living God, tell us if you are the Christ, the Son of God.” 64 Jesus said to him, “You have said so. But I tell you, from now on you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power and coming on the clouds of heaven.”
That’s the final straw in Matthew’s gospel and the Pharisees seek to have Jesus crucified.
Then the high priest tore his robes and said, “He has uttered blasphemy. What further witnesses do we need? You have now heard his blasphemy. 66 What is your judgment?” They answered, “He deserves death.” 67 Then they spit in his face and struck him. And some slapped him, 68 saying, “Prophesy to us, you Christ! Who is it that struck you?” (Matthew 26:65-68).
The pharisees look at the words of Christ as blasphemy.
But it wasn’t. It was the truth.
Incarnationally, morally, theologically, Jesus is the Son of God and God is his father.
But in John 5, we see the opposition rising.
What started as a miracle turned into a Sabbath controversy.
And what became a Sabbath controversy was intensified by Jesus pointing to himself and his relation to God.
The sonship of Christ and the fatherhood of God points us to the gospel.
We are God’s children, created in his image who had forsaken God through our sin.
Jesus is the perfect Son of God who was forsaken so we could be forgiven for our sins.
As radical as it is that Jesus addressed God as his father, he invited us to do the same when he taught the disciples how to pray in the Sermon on the Mount.
your Father knows what you need before you ask him. 9 Pray then like this:
“Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name. (Matthew 6:9)
The Apostle Paul says in the opening salutations of all of his letters: grace and peace to you from God our father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
The fatherhood of God is bestowed upon the people of God because Jesus is the true Son of God.
Jesus is the son of God who allows us to be adopted as God’s children and to approach God as our own father.
John 1:12 says:
to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God
The adoption language is used by Paul at the beginning of his letter to the Ephesians.
3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, 4 even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love 5 he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ. (Ephesians 1:3-5)
That’s the Good News of the Gospel. The Son of God allows us to call God our father.
Thanks for reading! If you liked this post, please share and subscribe!
Honoring the Sabbath and keeping it Holy is in the Ten Commandments. Specifically, it’s the fourth commandment found in Exodus 20. When the command is given in Exodus, the basis for this command goes back to creation.
Exodus 20:11:
For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.
The Sabbath is important.
Throughout much of Israel’s history, they had not taken the Sabbath as seriously as they should have.
In the prophets, their failure to keep the Sabbath is pointed to as a symptom of their sin and lack of devotion to God.
In Ezekiel 20:10-26, Israel’s profaning of the Sabbath is looked at as a direct cause of their downfall.
In Amos 8:5, the Israelites are judged for their half-hearted Sabbath observance and their regular desire to have the Sabbath conclude so that they can resume pursuing their own ends and their own goals.
We see a similar idea at the beginning of the Book of Isaiah. The Israelites are half-hearted in their pursuit of God. And their Sabbath observance is mentioned in Isaiah 1:13:
13 Bring no more vain offerings;
incense is an abomination to me.
New moon and Sabbath and the calling of convocations—
I cannot endure iniquity and solemn assembly.
Half-heartedly going through the motions is looked upon by God as vain.
He wants true, genuine worship.
As we’ve talked about on numerous occasions, in the Old Testament, Israel is eventually judged by God and they lose their land.
When the southern kingdom was able to return to their land, they attempted to learn from their past sins in the final centuries before Christ.
Here’s something you might not have known.
In the gospels, you have Jesus constantly interacting with the Pharisees. But where are they in the Old Testament? They’re not there.
Or think about rabbis. Where does the Old Testament ever talk about someone going to their rabbi?
It doesn’t.
It was after the Israelites had lost the land and returned from exile that these institutions arose.
And part of the goal was a return to the law.
They wanted to learn from history and learn from their past sins as a people, and so one of the cultural responses was a hyper-sensitivity to the Law of the Old Testament.
The Law was good. Romans 7:12 tells us that the Law is holy. 1 Timothy 1:8 tells us that the Law is good if used properly.
But in an effort to make sure that they followed the Law, they added rules that were not Biblical onto the Biblical Law as a way of trying to ensure adherence.
By the first century, Jewish tradition had listed 39 different activities which were prohibited on the Sabbath.
In some schools of thought, adherence to the Sabbath was more important than life and death.
And so for this man who has just been healed, for him to move his bed is looked upon as a violation of the Sabbath because that’s viewed as technically being work.
They’re missing sight of what Jesus has just done for this man.
The religious establishment tells this man that it is not lawful for him to pick up his bed and carry it on the Sabbath.
But according to who’s law? It’s according to their interpretation not to a specific command of scripture.
The Sabbath command in the Old Testament relates to work. This man isn’t doing work. He’s simply picking up his belongings after being healed. He’s not committing a sin here.
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John 5 begins with a miraculous healing from Jesus.
Jesus travels to Jerusalem for one of the Jewish feasts. In other words, it’s one of the Jewish holy days. We don’t know exactly which one. John talks a lot about the feasts in this gospel. He mentions three Passovers, mentions the feast of booths, among others. The fact that he does not specify in this instance might be that the specific feast is not theologically significant to this event.
Verse 2 begins to tell us about a specific place to which he travels within Jerusalem.
Now there is in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate a pool, in Aramaic called Bethesda, which has five roofed colonnades.
Verse 3 gives us the likely reason for why Jesus is there.
In these lay a multitude of invalids—blind, lame, and paralyzed.
So there are people who have various physical ailments and who regularly go to this pool.
From the context of the passage, it seems that they did this because they thought the pool itself was a place of physical healing.
The problem with this is that it is God alone who brings healing.
So that being said. I think it’s helpful to look at verse 3 and then continue it into verse 5.
3 In these lay a multitude of invalids—blind, lame, and paralyzed. 5 One man was there who had been an invalid for thirty-eight years.
So lots of people who suffered from various disabilities would go to this pool. In verse 5, we’re introduced to a man who has been an “invalid,” as the text says, for 38 years.
Think about that for just a moment.
38 years, in a time that was before modern medicine.
We don’t know all of the ailments he might have had, but among them, as we will learn in this passage, he was unable to walk. 38 years of suffering. The average life expectancy in this period was about 35.
Verse 6, he encounters Jesus.
6 When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had already been there a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to be healed?
Jesus sees the man lying by the pool. There are others there. He doesn’t seek Jesus out, but Jesus seeks this man out.
Why?
We’re never told. It’s the divine initiative. It’s providence.
The text says that Jesus knew he had been there a long time, which is reminding us of the supernatural knowledge Jesus has as God.
And then he asks the man “do you want to be healed?”
An interesting question
It’s interesting to consider the first two sign Jesus has performed. When he turns water into wine, his mother comes to him. In John 4, it was the Roman official who came to Jesus and asked him to heal his son. But in this event, the man does not come to Jesus.
It is Jesus who comes to him.
That’s one of several reasons why this event is significant in this gospel and it’s making a theological point.
God heals whom he will. And it is not always because of great faith that he heals a person. Everyday there are people who God heals, God blesses in a multitude of different ways where they didn’t ask for it, they aren’t looking to God. It’s simply because of God’s own goodness, grace, and providence.
Verse 7, the man responds:
7 The sick man answered him, “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, and while I am going another steps down before me.”
This guy thinks that being at this pool is his hope of healing.
He’s superstitious.
It’s not the pool that heals, it’s not being the first one in the pool that offers the promise of healing. It is ironic that he looks to the water as if it’s some mystical force of healing, when he’s in the presence of Jesus.
They’re in Jerusalem, the holy city. They’re near the temple, the sacred site which represented the presence of God on earth. And he’s focused on getting into a pool.
The point isn’t to fault this man for having the desire to be healed. Everyone who’s afflicted wants that.
But he’s looking to the wrong place.
Illustration – faith healing
It’s a point I made a few weeks ago, but our society and our world is drawn to people who claim to be faith healers and superstition.
In the early days of the Coronavirus epidemic, disgraced televangelist Jim Bakker was selling a silver substance which he claimed could cure a person of the virus. Peter Popoff who was another disgraced televangelist in the 80s continues to offer miracle spring water.
There are people who pray to statues or believe that praying in a specific place will carry unique favor with God.
Those are not Christian values.
Christianity is not a faith of superstition. It’s a faith that’s rooted in the almighty God of creation. God knows all. He is sovereign. Praying in special ways, or special places, or with special objects is not the basis by which God suddenly will hear us.
It’s idolatry.
But Jesus shows him grace anyway.
8 Jesus said to him, “Get up, take up your bed, and walk.” 9 And at once the man was healed, and he took up his bed and walked.
As we’ve seen other times in this gospel, John is very matter of fact in his reporting of Jesus’ miracle.
Jesus tells him to pick up his bed. I’m sure the term “bed” is pretty generous here. It’s not like he had a sleep number mattress out by the lake. It was likely a very thin and dingy mat that he was using.
So that’s our first scene. The miracle which Jesus has performed for this man.
It’s another display of the power that Jesus has as God on earth, but it’s also important to this gospel because of what happens in the aftermath of this miracle.
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Text 24 Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life.
25 “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. 26 For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself. 27 And he has given him authority to execute judgment, because he is the Son of Man. 28 Do not marvel at this, for an hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice 29 and come out, those who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment.
Prayer
Our heavenly Father,
We again come to you in a Spirit of thanksgiving as we praise your holy name. May we marvel at your majesty over your creation. We praise you for the gift of everlasting life which is available to all through your Son, our Lord Jesus Christ.
Forgive us our sins Lord, as we are fallen people in a fallen world. We struggle with our areas of selfishness, our failings, our instances of pride, the times when we choose sin over you.
Lord, may we come to you on our own in confession of our sins. Lord, may you strengthen us to repent and to more and more live for you. May we be daily sanctified through your word and by the power of your Spirit. May we be transformed from one degree of glory to another.
I pray for each of us that we trust in Jesus, that we know him personally, that we know the salvation that he promises, that we believe in the life that he invites us into, that we have placed our hope for eternity onto his work, and that we might look to him as the greater priest who offered the final sacrifice, as the greater Son who makes us worthy to be your children, and as the greater sacrifice who gave his life for us so we could be forgiven.
May we all trust in that Lord. For any of us who are hanging onto any vestiges of self-justification or trusting in our own goodness as what will make us right with you, may we turn away from that and trust in Jesus. It is entirely by his work of a perfect life and his abounding grace that sinful people are forgiven. We praise you as the everlasting and eternal God. Would you grant us ears to hear as we study your most Holy Word. In Jesus’ name, amen.
Introduction – we love justice
Our society LOVES justice.
6 of the top 20 highest grossing movies of all time are Marvel super hero movies in a story line where good defeats evil. Other movies with themes of good and evil pervade the rest of the top 20: Star Wars, Avatar, the Lion King.
Many of our most popular television shows are in the legal sphere: Blue Bloods, Law and Order SVU, Chicago PD, FBI, SWAT, Seal Team, the new Hawaii 5-0, the new Magnum P.I, NCIS, NCIS: New Orleans, NCIS: Los Angeles, just to name a few. The most popular DVR’d television show in America last year? Live PD. When there’s a high profile criminal case, cable news networks will follow the smallest details around the clock. You have entire TV channels that are dedicated to crime. You have Court TV, Investigation Discovery which is basically the true crime channel. You have Headline News which is basically the Forensic Files channel.
Our love of justice carries over into other domains. In sports, if a consequential call is botched by a referee, there is outrage among fans. Even if it’s a team that people aren’t fans of. We like seeing the right thing happen. We like seeing the person wins who deserves it.
It’s what’s right. We love justice.
But justice so often doesn’t happen on the timetable that we want.
We’ve seen despotic dictators who led nations in misery and oppression live to ripe, old ages. We’ve seen scoundrels cheat to get ahead in business. We’ve seen crimes go unsolved and the culprits get away with it. It grates against our sensibilities and our sense of justice, of right and wrong.
But here today, we come to our passage as we continue in the Gospel of John. And we learn that judgment belongs to Christ.
Study If you recall last week, we made a couple of important affirmations which will again be relevant today. Jesus has the power of God.
From verse 19, we learned: For whatever the Father does, that the Son does likewise.
We learned that Jesus has the power over life. From verse 21: as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whom he will.
We also learned that Jesus is a judge. From verse 22: the Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son
And our passage today carries over the idea of the judgment that comes from Jesus which is a direct result of our relationship with Jesus.
Beginning in verse 24: Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life.
Beginning of this verse, Jesus says truly, truly. The Greek word for truly here is “amen,” from which we get our word amen. It’s the second time he’s used it in this chapter. Jesus does it to emphasize the importance of what follows.
Based on verse 24, what does Jesus say is the way to eternal life? Jesus says: whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life.
The word which Jesus is speaking of here is the fullness of Jesus’ teaching and gospel which he has revealed. And the true hearing of this word isn’t merely about some sound waves entering your ear canal. It’s hearing his word and responding to it. Truly hearing it. Living by it.
Whoever hears this word and also believes in him who sent him.
In this overarching section of John 5, Jesus keeps making these statements that show us the profound unity between him and the Father, and also showing the distinction between them as two persons within the Trinity. And what Jesus is saying here is that to truly believe in God is to accept Jesus.
Jesus says that the person who believes has eternal life. And in the Greek, the form for “has” is in the present tense. It’s not that you will have eternal life. It’s that when you believe in Jesus’ word and in the God who sent him, you HAVE eternal life.
Jesus says: He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life.
Just as we have eternal life when we believe, it is also a present reality that we withstand the final divine judgment on account of what Christ has done for us. The person who does not believe is already in judgment. We are born in sin. Our default human setting is condemnation and judgment unless someone has heard the Word of Christ and believes the one who sent him.
The one who does believe has passed from eternal death to eternal life.
Verse 25: “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.
This verse once again begins “truly, truly.”
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.
A paradoxical statement.
There is a future time when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God. There is a future time when all will stand in judgment before the Lord. All will be resurrected, no matter how righteous or unrighteous, no matter how good or evil, everyone will stand before Christ.
Philippians 2:9-11 says: 9 Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
That time is coming.
Justice is coming. There will be a day of reckoning.
Judges and hunger
And the judgment will be perfect and righteous. We are often not good judges of character. Have you ever thought someone was really a stand up person, only to discover they were anything but? Have you ever disliked someone unfairly, only to discover that they were solid?
In our legal system, which strives to be just and fair, human judges are still just people and therefore still imperfect. In 2010, three researchers from the U.S. and Israel tracked parole rulings of eight judges over a ten month period. These were not new judges to the bench. On average, they had been judges for 22 years.
In reviewing 1,100 parole board hearings, the researchers found that people had a 65% higher chance of being given parole first thing in the morning. Then the likelihood dwindled lower and lower until the time of a mid-morning break or lunch where likelihood of being granted parole spiked again.
Jesus is the righteous, divine judge while being a little bit hungry and swaying a human judge.
Jesus judges perfectly and the judgment is based on our faith in him. Everyone will stand before Christ. But in our passage, Jesus says that hour is already here as well.
So we have this tension between what is here and what is coming.
How is it that the time is also already here when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God?
What Jesus is saying is that by his presence in the world, those who are Spiritually dead, those who are dead and sin but who hear the word of Christ, the gospel of Christ are given eternal life.
We will all stand before Christ in the future, but Jesus also ushered in the time through his word for people responding to the truth of the gospel and who he is.
Where is your hope? Where is your justification? Is it in yourself and being a good person? Being good enough? Doing a little more nice than bad? Or is it in the Lord Jesus? The one who is the judge who promises everlasting life because he himself bore our punishment?
Jesus is not saying “believe what you want.” He’s saying “believe in me!”
whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life.
Verse 26: For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself.
Another loaded statement. This might be the most difficult verse we’ve seen so far in our study of John. I think a lot of pastors wouldn’t even respect the intelligence of their congregations enough to tackle this verse, but give me just a moment.
The first part is simple enough. God has life in himself. God is self-existent. That’s a clearly attested Biblical affirmation.
But the verse says that the father has granted the Son also to have life in himself. We have already seen the homage from the Son to the Father.
Quoting again from 5:19: the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing
There is a submission between the Son and the Father. I mentioned last week that Jesus is subordinate to the Father during his lifetime. And I said last week that I believe this subordination began at the incarnation as Jesus was fully God and man.
A point I did not make last week is that Jesus is also eternally the Son of God. And for that, think of sonship somewhat like a title. The Father is eternally the Father. Jesus is eternally the Son.
What that is not saying is that Jesus is created. Once again, to quote from the opening of John.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God (John 1:1).
John 1:4, speaking of Jesus goes on to say: In him was life
Back in our passage. This a very technical idea, but I take it that Jesus is eternally existent and eternally God. And in the relationship within the Trinity, Jesus is eternally the Son of God.
Throughout John, we see the closeness of relationship between the Father and the Son. We see a very giving relationship between the two. We see them both honoring each other.
Again, I realize it’s a very complicated idea. But it’s worth exploring because it’s in God’s Word. And there is another very important point that verse 26 makes and that is that the Son has life in himself, and the fact that Jesus has life in himself speaks to his divinity.
That’s not something I can say. That’s not something you can say. We’re finite and frail.
I think of all of the measures that are being taken against coronavirus. There’s a lot of fear in our society. Human life is fragile. It can be over in an instant. Everyday, all over the world, healthy people wake up and it’s their last day in this life. It’s just the reality. We never know when our time is over.
But with Jesus? He has life in himself.
And it is because he has life in himself that he can give eternal life. It’s because he has life in himself that we can have the confidence in his promises.
Verse 27: And he has given him authority to execute judgment, because he is the Son of Man.
That is reminiscent of something which Jesus has already said. From our passage last week, and quoted at the beginning this morning. 5:22 says: the Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son
Jesus is the one who judges.
2 Corinthians 5:10: we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil.
Romans 2:16: on that day when, according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus.
Jesus is the one who will judge all men. He is the one to whom we will give an account.
The reason why God has given Jesus authority to judge is because Jesus is the Son of Man. This is a reference to the Book of Daniel.
Daniel 7:13-14 talks of a divine figure called the “Son of Man”
and behold, with the clouds of heaven
there came one like a son of man,
and he came to the Ancient of Days
and was presented before him.
But then verse 14 begins to talk about the power of this “Son of Man.”
And to him was given dominion
and glory and a kingdom,
that all peoples, nations, and languages
should serve him;
his dominion is an everlasting dominion,
which shall not pass away,
and his kingdom one
that shall not be destroyed.
Son of Man is the title which Jesus most often uses when referring to himself in the gospels.The Son of Man has these qualities which speak to his divinity but the title used here for Jesus “son of man” can also refer to a person.
So you have in the Old Testament, qualities of this divine and human figure who has dominion and glory of an eternal kingdom.
And what John is saying is that Jesus is this person, and that is why he is able to judge.
Do not marvel at this, for an hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice
Jesus is the judge of the world. There are certainly many scriptures which talk of God also being a judge, and certainly any adjudication would be perfectly agreed upon between the persons of the Trinity.
Once again, this goes against any sort of idea that it doesn’t really matter what you believe, or that all religions believe the same thing.
Other leading religious figures do not personally claim to raise everyone to life. But that’s exactly what Jesus states in this verse.
Again, this gospel confronts you.
That’s either true or it’s not.
Not all religions believe that the Lord Jesus is both Lord and judge.
Think of all of the billions of people who have come and gone before us. Every single one of them will one day stand in the presence of Christ. And that same is true for all of us and all who will follow until Christ returns.
Everyone will be raised by Christ, either to everlasting life in glory of everlasting judgment. Hitler will be raised and so will Martin Luther. Gengis Kahn will be raised and so will Billy Graham. Ted Bundy will be raised and so will C.S. Lewis. Napoleon will be raised and so will the Apostle John.
And so will I. And so will you.
Jesus is the judge. He is the standard by which people are either reconciled to the Father or condemned to eternal torment in their sins.
Verse 29: and come out, those who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment.
Verse 29, once again, might give us pause.
Wait a minute. Isn’t this all about faith and believing in Jesus. How is it that those who have done good are brought to resurrection life and those who have done evil are brought to a resurrection of judgment?
Good works in John ultimately culminate in believing in Jesus.
John 1:12 says: to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God
And again in John 3:21: whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God.”
And then the result of that true faith in Jesus is a life that is transformed and bears fruit. So it is not saying that we are judged based on works based righteousness.
Jesus judges based on our response to him. He is the one who has life in himself and has the power to give life. He is the judge who judges righteously.The faith must be genuine. The belief in Jesus must be real. He is the one who knows and who judges.
What do you believe?
Is he the eternal Lord who came into a sinful world and died to give everlasting life? Than our only response is to believe in the judge who came into the world and took our penalty for us on the cross.
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