19 So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of His own accord, but only what He sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, that the Son does likewise. 20 For the Father loves the Son and shows Him all that He Himself is doing. And greater works than these will He show Him, so that you may marvel. 21 For as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whom He will. 22 For the Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son, 23 that all may honour the Son, just as they honour the Father. Whoever does not honour the Son does not honour the Father who sent Him. 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.
As I mentioned last week, the rest of John 5 follows directly after Jesus healed the lame man at the Pool of Bethesda. You’ll remember that the Pharisees demanded to know from the healed man just who it was who commanded him to carry his bed on the Sabbath. The miracle itself was completely irrelevant to them, and for the remainder of chapter 5 which we will cover today and next Sunday, Jesus answers His critics with this lengthy discourse.
As a result of the miracle and the dispute that followed it, Jesus makes claims which we will be looking at this morning, and next week we will look at the proofs He gives of His claims, and how He challenges His opponents.
Here we see the ultimate reason for Jesus confronting the Jewish leaders’ religious hypocrisy. He now declared beyond any doubt just who He was. This was Jesus’ personal statement of His deity, as He makes a series of bold claims in regard to His relationship to the Father, and it is these claims which led directly to the ongoing persecution by the Pharisees. In their eyes, Jesus’ claims were nothing short of blasphemy, which resulted in Him finally being put to death.
He claimed to be equal with God in His person, equal with God in His works, equal with God in His power and sovereignty, equal with God in His judgment and equal with God in His honour.
Things were now coming to a head, and a key verse in understanding just what Jesus was saying is verse 18, where we ended last week. “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.”
This is in fact a key verse in the whole gospel of John, because the many confrontations that Jesus was to have with the Pharisees have their root or source in John 5:18. If Sabbath-breaking was a serious offence, claiming equality with God was nothing short of rank heresy. The deity of Christ is a central theme of the gospel of John, and in 10:30 Jesus says very simply, “I and the Father are one.” By claiming that He and the Father are one, Jesus was establishing His authority, and the Pharisees just could not believe what they were hearing. It’s no wonder they hounded Him all the way to the cross.
You’ve probably heard before that some argue that Jesus never claimed deity and was greatly misunderstood, but that’s simply not true. The American theologian Robert Lightner, who died a few years ago, wrote in one of his books, “Christ has existed eternally as the Son of God. Though no specific verse states this truth precisely that way, the evidence pointing in that direction is overwhelming. Whenever the title is used of Him, it speaks of His divine essence. His fierce critics, the Jewish religious leaders, did not fail to make the connection between His repeated claims that God is His Father and His claim for deity, that He is equal with God the Father.”
The Jewish authorities knew exactly what Jesus was claiming and ultimately they killed Him for it.
In Jesus’ opening statement to the Pharisees in verse 19, He begins by saying, “Truly, truly,” and He does this three times in the 11 verses we’re looking at today. Other English translations say, “most assuredly, I tell you the truth, very truly, and verily verily.” This was an emphatic way of saying, “Listen very carefully to what I’m saying because I’m telling you the truth.” As the Pharisees became increasingly hostile, Jesus became even more fearless, forceful, and emphatic, and in John 5 He connected His healing on the Sabbath directly to the Father.
Jesus clearly intended the Jews to think of Him as equal with God. It would be absurd for a mere man to claim to do the things which God Himself does. Jesus claimed to see what the Father was doing, so in order to make such a claim, He must have continual access to the Father and complete knowledge and understanding of God and His ways. This is something no normal human being has. We have the occasional glimpse of God and His mysterious ways, but what we do know about God is infinitely less than what we don’t know.
The Jews accused Jesus of making Himself equal with God, but instead of denying the charge, Jesus made these bold statements as proof of the fact that He and the Father are one. Just as the Father raises the dead and gives life to them, so the Son does the same. Raising the dead is possible only for God, yet Jesus claims this power for Himself.
Jesus says in verse 20, “The Father loves the Son and shows Him all that He Himself is doing. And greater works than these will He show Him, so that you may marvel.” So not only does Jesus see the works of God, but He had the power to perform them as well. He goes on to say that God would show Him greater works than these, so that the people would marvel. They had already seen Him performing miracles. They’d just seen Him heal a man who had been crippled for 38 years, but now Jesus says they would see even greater things. The first would be the raising of the dead, and the second would be His work of judging mankind, as He says in verses 21 and 22: “For as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whom He will. For the Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son.”
What did Jesus mean by saying that He gives life just as the Father does? This clearly goes much deeper than raising the physically dead to life, as in the case of Lazarus. As God raises people from the dead and gives them life, so Jesus gives condemned sinners eternal life. He says 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.”
Turning water into wine or healing a lame man was nothing. Even calling Lazarus out of his tomb pales into near insignificance in comparison to the greatest miracle of all - the staggering truth that the enemies of God, rebellious sinners like you and me are given the gift of eternal life, as the condemnation of our sins is completely removed from us and placed on Christ instead.
Going back to verse 22, Jesus says something else which would have been scandalous to the Jews. “The Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son.” Being steeped in what we know today as the Old Testament, the Jewish leaders knew that God alone had the right to judge humanity, so by claiming that the Father committed all judgment to Him, Jesus again claimed equality with God.
In verse 23 we see the reason that God has given authority to His Son to raise the dead and to judge the world. The reason is so that all should honour Christ just as they honour the Father. This is a crucial point for us to grasp, because this is where the Christian faith stands apart from all other faith systems. Throughout the Bible we are taught that God alone is to be worshipped. The very first of the Ten Commandments is, “You shall have no other gods before me.”
Now in John 5:23, Jesus says we are to honour Him just as we honour the Father. The only conclusion we can come to from this verse is that Jesus Christ is God.
Many people claim to worship God, but they deny that Jesus Christ is God. We’ve heard it all before - He was a great man, a wonderful teacher full of wisdom, but they deny the deity of Jesus Christ. Don’t fall for the lie that we all worship the same God, but we just do it differently. Jesus Christ is the only way to the Father. His statement in verse 23 puts Him on an absolute equality with God, and this means we are to honour Him in the same way we honour God Himself. But you cannot do that if you deny that Jesus is God, which every religion with the exception of Christianity does.
Anyone who does not honour Christ, does not honour God. The great irony here is that it was Jesus who was accused of blasphemy and executed for it, but it was the Jews who rejected Him as the Messiah who were really guilty of the sin of blasphemy. And so it is with anyone else who will not, in the words of Philippians 2, bow the knee at the name of Jesus and confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
When Jesus says in verse 24 that those who hear His word and believe in Him have passed from death to life, He is building on the truth He claimed in verse 21. He gives life to whomever He desires. Eternal life is given to the believer at the moment of conversion. Our justification is given completely and fully at the moment of belief in Jesus Christ. This is how we are able to live the rest of our earthly lives with the absolute assurance that our salvation is signed, sealed and as good as delivered as if it has already been received.
He says, “He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life.” Compare that with what He said to Nicodemus in 3:18. “Whoever believes in Him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.” Condemned already. As the apostle Paul reminds in in Ephesians 2, we are by our very nature children of wrath, and dead in our trespasses and sins.
But now, through faith in Jesus Christ we are raised to new life in Him. He not only raised Lazarus to life, but if you are a Christian, you have been raised to spiritual life because you have been born from above. When Jesus says that believers “have passed from death to life” in verse 24, it is in the perfect present tense. It is not only a promise of the future, but a present reality.
Those who put their faith in the atoning work of Jesus on the cross have passed from spiritual death into spiritual life. Before conversion, we were in our trespasses and sins, dead as far as love for God or fellowship with Him was concerned. But at the moment of being saved by faith in Jesus, we are given the gift of the Holy Spirit, and we now possess eternal life.
The opposite is also true. As Jesus said to Nicodemus, both life and condemnation are present possessions with eternal consequences.
For the Christian though, salvation is not only an object of hope for the future, but a present reality, because we are no longer condemned. Romans 8:1 says there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ. If you are saved by Christ you are not condemned now and you never will be condemned in the future. You are free from judgment because Jesus paid the penalty of your sins at Calvary. God will not demand the payment of this penalty again, because Jesus has paid it on your behalf.
He has finished the work of salvation, and nothing can be added to a finished work. If you have put your faith in the saving work of Jesus Christ on the cross, you will never be punished for your sins. Now that being said, until such time as we enter into glory, we continue to live in a fallen and broken world, where the fallout and consequences of our sins remain. We do suffer. Sometimes it is your fault, and at other times it is the fault of someone else’s sins. But the eternal condemnation of your sins has been dealt with.
Remember that our justification deals with the penalty of our sins. Sanctification deals with the power of sin in our lives, but one day you will experience glorification, when you will be free from not only the penalty and power of sin, but the presence of sin. And that will continue for all of eternity.
“Whoever hears my word.” To hear the word of Jesus means not only to listen to it, but also to receive it, to believe it, and to obey it. Many people hear the Gospel preached, but they do nothing about it. Jesus is saying here that we must accept His teaching as true, and believe that He is indeed the Saviour of the world.
“And believes Him who sent me.” It is a matter of believing God. But does that mean that sinners are saved simply by believing God? Many profess to believe in God, yet they have never been converted. No, what Jesus is teaching here is that we are to believe in God, who sent Jesus into the world. What are we to believe? That God sent Christ to be our Saviour. You are only saved when you believe what God says about Jesus, namely, that He is the only Saviour and that our sins can only be forgiven through His work on Calvary.
The Pharisees believed in God, but they did not believe that He sent Jesus as the only means of them being saved, which meant they remained dead in their sins. They were already condemned because they rejected Christ.
In verse 25 Jesus again emphasises the present reality of salvation for those who believe in Him when He 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.”
“An hour is coming, and is now here.” This refers to what is sometimes called the ‘now, but not yet’ principle of salvation. Those who are born again are already spiritually resurrected, while a future physical resurrection is still to come.
Jesus says something very important in verses 25 - 27. Look at how He refers to Himself here. “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. For as the Father has life in Himself, so He has granted the Son also to have life in Himself. And He has given Him authority to execute judgment, because He is the Son of Man.”
As the Son of God, He is equal with the Father and with the Holy Spirit, and as the Son of God, He gives life. But He is also the Son of Man. He came into this world as a man, lived here among men, and died on the cross as a substitute for men and women. He was rejected and crucified when He came into the world as a man. When He comes again, He will come to judge His enemies and to be honoured in this very same world where He was once so cruelly treated. Because He is both God and man, He is perfectly qualified to be Judge.
Jesus often referred to Himself as the Son of Man, and the reason He did this was to connect Himself with the vision given to the prophet Daniel. As the Son of Man, Jesus was fully human, but He remained fully the Son of God at the same time. “I saw in the night visions, 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. 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.” (Daniel 7:13-14)
The significance of Jesus referring to Himself as the Son of Man would not have been lost on the Pharisees He was speaking to, because they would have been very familiar with the writings of Daniel. Again, Jesus makes it very clear that He was equal to God.
Verses 28 - 29: “An hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice and come out, those who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment.”
Let’s look firstly at those who have done good and those who have done evil. It is so important that we understand what Jesus was talking about here. He was not teaching justification by works. The only good we can do when it comes to the issue of salvation, is believing in Jesus Christ as the atoning sacrifice for our sins. When we believe in Him, we receive a new nature that produces good works, but these good works, as important as they are, are the fruit, not the root of our salvation.
On the other hand, the evil done which Jesus talks about is rejection of Himself as the only means of being saved. Remember 3:18-19. “Whoever believes in Him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil.”
Our deeds, whether good or bad are evidence or fruit of our nature as being saved or unsaved, but our deeds never determine our salvation. There is both a warning and a comfort in this reality. Firstly, you cannot earn your way into heaven, regardless of how genuine, generous or sacrificial your good works are. And secondly, as a Christian, you will continue to sin. You don’t need me to remind you of that, but you will not be condemned for your evil deeds after being saved. The condemnation happened at Calvary.
Verse 29 does not teach that people who have done good will be saved because of their good deeds, and those who have done evil will be condemned because of their evil deeds. Christians are not saved by doing good, but we do good because we have been saved. Good works are not the cause of salvation, but the effect. In the context of verse 29, those who have done evil are those who have never put their faith and trust in Christ, and consequently whose lives have been evil in the sight of God, which leads onto our final point for today.
In verses 28 and 29, Jesus speaks about two resurrections - the resurrection to life, and the resurrection to judgment. “Do not marvel at this, for an hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear His voice and come out, those who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment.”
The same John who wrote this gospel was also the author of the book of Revelation, and there is a clear link between Jesus’ words in John 5 and the vision John was given in Revelation 20. “And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Then another book was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged by what was written in the books, according to what they had done. And the sea gave up the dead who were in it, Death and Hades gave up the dead who were in them, and they were judged, each one of them, according to what they had done. Then Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire. And if anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.” (Revelation 20:12-15)
John 5:28-29 and Revelation 20:12-15 and many other passages of Scripture stand directly opposed to the false doctrine of annihilationism - this idea that believers go to heaven after they die, but those who reject Jesus are not punished, but instead are annihilated. They simply cease to exist, almost as if they had never lived at all. This is one of the many heresies that the Jehovah’s Witnesses cult teaches.
This, however, is not what the Bible teaches. You might have seen this tweet by the theologian Steven Lawson which I copied onto our Facebook page a couple of weeks ago: “Jesus is calling. Salvation is offered. Time is fleeting. Death is approaching. Eternity is looming. Judgment is coming. Heaven is beckoning. Hell is waiting.”
Hell is a very real place, and a multitude of people are going there for all of eternity. Don’t be one of them. In the words of the apostle Paul in 2 Corinthians 5:20-21, “We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake He made Him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.”
Homegroup Study Notes
Read John 5:19-29
What is Jesus implying by His statement, “The Son can do nothing of His own accord, but only what He sees the Father doing?”
Discuss the connection between verses 21 and 24, in particular the power to raise the dead that Jesus claims for Himself.
In chapter 11 we will be looking at the raising of Lazarus, but there are far more eternal implications in His remarkable statement in verse 24.
Compare Jesus’ words here with Ephesians 2:1-7.
What does He really mean when He says that those who believe in Him have “passed from death to life?”
Discuss the claim Jesus makes in verse 23 that all are to honour the Son as they honour the Father.
What are the implications here for followers of other religions?
The Bible makes it very clear that salvation comes by faith alone, and not through our good works. Bearing this in mind, what was Jesus referring to in verse 29 when speaking of doing good and evil?