Amen.
Turn with me in your Bibles please to John 5, beginning at verse 16.
And this was why the Jews were persecuting Jesus, because he was doing these things on the Sabbath. But Jesus answered them, ‘My Father is working until now, and I am working.’ 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.
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. 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. 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, that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father. Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him.
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.
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.
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.
I can do nothing on my own. As I hear, I judge, and my judgment is just because I seek not my own will, but the will of him who sent me. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.
Let’s pray. Father, you’ve given us your word to comfort us and to guide us. You’ve given us your word to testify to who Jesus says he is. Help us to receive it and believe it, and to accept and trust him and take Jesus at his word. We pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen.
So after healing the paralytic at Bethesda, the Evangelist explains that the Jews were persecuting Jesus because he was doing these things on the Sabbath. Because Jesus was engaging in righteous acts of mercy and justice on the Sabbath. Because Jesus was not content to just sit and do nothing on the Sabbath to comply with their man-made regulations and traditions. Because Jesus understood that the command to remember the Sabbath and keep it holy is as much about doing good things for God’s glory—doing justice, loving kindness, and walking humbly with God—as it is about refraining from working for our own benefit and pleasure.
You know, there is a very strange thing about religiosity, whether it is of Jewish or Christian flavor. Pious religiosity loves to transform devotional self-denial into self-righteousness. That’s a charge contemporary Christians frequently levy against the Pharisees, as did Jesus. But this charge may also be brought against Christians who fall into the trap of legalism—doing these things for their own sake.
But next John announces another more serious charge against Jesus. 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. Any person, especially a Jewish person, who claims equality with God is obviously guilty of blasphemy, unless he actually is God. However, in John’s gospel, and unlike the synoptics, the Evangelist does not portray Jesus as being very shy about proclaiming his divinity.
Jesus is clearly proclaiming himself to be God the Son. Now this is the first time in this gospel that Jesus claims the Lord as his Father, saying, ‘But Jesus answered them, ‘My Father is working until now, and I am working.” Although it is implied earlier, the two previous implications— you’ll recall—were part of John the Evangelist’s opening and closing commentaries. But now Jesus is the one speaking, and he’s speaking clearly, and he’s really beginning to upset the religious elite.
Because Jesus claims equality of likeness, of similarity, between himself and the Lord, as well as equality of continuity in their activity. By saying, “My Father is working until now, and I am working” suggests that Jesus is somehow picking up and continuing to work from wherever the Lord might have left off, thereby equating his capacity and activity to God’s.
But as controversial as that is on its own, it’s just the first salvo of Jesus declaring who he is and what his work is. Because Jesus will now assert his specific equality and union with the Lord in regards to his activity, his ability to give life, an inherent natural possession of life within himself, his reception of and deservingness to receive honor and his sovereign authority to enact justice and judgment—his condemnation or justification.
That last example, the authority of Jesus to dispense justice, is an attribute of our Savior that inspires terror in all the wicked—everyone who lives apart from Christ. But it inspires joy within all of his righteous elect—all who are united into Christ and adopted into the family of God as his holy children. This judicial authority is the specific work that Jesus is now laying claim to.
Now something peculiar to Jesus’s recorded speeches in John’s gospel is the expression, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you.’ It’s used 25 times. This repetitive ‘truly, truly’ presents a unique verbal emphasis, translating the Hebrew term amen, and essentially meaning, ‘Let this be true.’ It’s assertively used by Jesus here to call close attention to very important statements of truth.
And here in this passage, there are three instances of him saying ‘truly, truly,’ and each instance identifies an important point about the judicial work of Christ. Before we look at those three points, we need to remind ourselves of what this work of judgment actually is, and the context where Jesus and John are using it.
Remember the conclusion to Jesus’s conversation with Nicodemus: Jesus said, ‘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. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his work should be exposed. But 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.’
We know that the word translated in both as judgment, here in chapter 3 and chapter 5, is this Greek word ‘crisis,’ a word that simply means a decision or to decide, but may also be used to describe the negative outcomes of judgment, like condemnation or damnation, as the King James will translate some of the verses here.
In considering the judicial work of Christ, we have to begin by confessing that everyone will be judged—crisis—by Jesus. When all the evil and wicked who love the darkness will be judged and condemned, while all those who do what is true and who come to the light will be judged and justified.
So following up his initial claim of equality, unity, and continuity with the Father, Jesus authoritatively speaks, expounding upon a particular quality and practice of their relationship. 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.’
What Jesus is describing is Christian discipleship—how he learned with the Father by following his example, by copying and echoing whatever the Father does. Jesus used the same method of imitation when teaching his disciples. Imitation is the method commanded by the Great Commission of Matthew 28, to make disciples by teaching them and showing them all that Christ commanded, making disciples who will then go out and make more disciples the same way.
In turn, the Apostle Paul, he also commended this method in practice to the Corinthian Church, writing, ‘Be imitators of me as I am of Christ.’ So clearly, this is the way that Jesus explains why he was discipled by the Father—because the Father loves the Son and shows him all that he himself is doing.
It is because of the Father’s love for the Son that Jesus disciples his followers, because of his love for them—a particular love which flows through him from the original source, the Father, to the apostles and down through the ages to us today.
So now, immediately after following these two miraculous healings, the royal official’s dying son and the man who had lived 38 years as a paralytic, Jesus asserts, ‘And greater works than these he will show you, that you may marvel. For as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to those whom he will.’
Proclaiming that his ability and willingness to heal or repair the living is just the tip of the iceberg, Jesus is saying, ‘You ain’t seen nothing yet.’ That when everyone sees and realizes the truth, then they would marvel. By this, Jesus is claiming to be equal with God by being able to bestow and restore life as the one who created all life in the first place—an ability that will be proven with his friend Lazarus.
Then Jesus declares something that is surprising, or should be surprising to all of us: ‘For the Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son, that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father. Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him.’ Isn’t that a surprise? That the Lord God Almighty, the holy lawgiver, the sovereign creator of the universe, is not the supreme and universal judge of mankind?
I must admit that when I first encountered this passage of John during seminary and read this, I was surprised and shocked. It was as if I was reading or hearing something new for the first time. But this was only actually the first of two things that really surprised me in this passage.
Because the Son is equal to the Father, the Lord God, this idea that the Father delegated his judicial authority to the Son merely represents a shift in the attitude of our relationship with Christ. It’s not a shift in anyone’s actual authority. See, the Son has been given this power and the responsibility of judgment to bring glory to the Father as the perfectly just judge.
The Son has this power and responsibility of judgment to decide the disposition of all creation as the Creator. Because it was by and through him that all things were made. Does not the potter have the power of judgment and decision over the clay, whether to set it for honorable or dishonorable use, whether to treasure it as a valued possession or to destroy it and smash it into shards of refuse?
The Son is given this authority and the right to judge all people so that they may honor him as they should honor the Father. Because by honoring him, they honor the Father. See, the Father and Son are so perfectly united and equal that they perfectly share their honor and glory, and it flows back and forth from one to the other.
Now back in verse 17, when Jesus first described the Lord as his Father, that was something that would have been extremely unorthodox for a Jew of the first century to say, but it would not necessarily have been blasphemy. But what Jesus is now describing presents an understanding which, to the mind of the Orthodox Jew, was approaching blasphemy.
And then Jesus crosses the line. Not only does he cross the line, but Jesus jumps right past it and does not look back afterward, saying, ‘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.’
Previously, whenever Jesus mentioned the Son of Man, we know that he was implying that he is the Son, yet he never said it or claimed the title outright, merely implying. He always left himself some plausible deniability while allowing others to make that assertion about him—like John the Evangelist in chapter 1, verse 14, John the Baptist in chapter 1, verse 34, and Nathaniel in chapter 1, verse 49.
But now, after just describing this flow of activity, power, and authority, and honor within the relationship of God the Father and God the Son, Jesus declares himself to be the very Son he just described. ‘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.’
Jesus’s word is God’s word. He’s already been acknowledged as having come from God by Nicodemus, that he brings a message from the Divine. And that whoever hears him and believes his message believes the Lord who sent him and gave him his message. Therefore, whoever hears and believes—whoever has passed to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and his message—possesses eternal life.
However, those who believe in and trust Christ will still be judged, but they will not come into condemnation, as the King James translates it, because according to their faith, they have passed from death to life. They have already been judged and their condemnation has been suffered by Jesus on the cross. They have already passed through the crisis and are justified by Jesus Christ.
Therefore, as the Son, Jesus is the judge, condemning the unrepented wicked and justifying as righteous those who are born again and are living out an active faith, as evidenced by the good fruit of repentance and works of mercy. As the judge, Jesus dispenses justice by condemning the wicked, and he dispenses mercy and grace by justifying those who are born again. But we must remember, mercy and grace have no relation to justice—they are neither just nor unjust. They are not fair because they are non-justice, apart from and unrelated to anything deserved.
Then, after having claimed this authority as God’s Son, Jesus declares the imminence of the judgment, saying, ‘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.’ Proclaiming both regeneration and the hope of the resurrection, because the authoritative word of Christ is the word of life—as in the beginning God created the heavens and earth, and God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light.
As in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. Therefore, when Jesus speaks, everyone—the living and the dead—will listen and respond because the Father has given him authority to execute judgment because he is the Son of Man.
They must listen, and they must obey out of respect for his authority. Now we know that the Son of Man, this phrase for Jesus, is sourced from Daniel’s vision, where 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.
So now Jesus is using this expression as the Old Testament source for his claim of judicial authority. Interestingly, this is also the first occasion in the Gospels where Son of Man and Son of God are identified as the same person, and where Jesus claims to be that person. I mean, this was big. This was explosive. This was controversial and should justly upset the Jews because in their opinion, this was blasphemy—unless it’s true.
Wait, there’s more. Jesus declares something else that goes further, that’s even more surprising to his hearers than us—something stepping up from vague expectations about a resurrection. He says, ‘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.’
When I encountered this in seminary, this was the second thing that really surprised me, because Jesus is announcing a universal resurrection. To be fair, before reading this, I had never really read or heard much of anything about the resurrection except that it is the future of every Christian. I had never given it much thought about what happens to those who are outside of Christ, beyond the negative and undesirable impressions about conditions in hell.
And I expect this idea of universal resurrection is surprising to most of us here because the resurrection is really not something we spend much time talking about—even during funerals, when the topics should be most obviously on our minds. And since we hardly say anything about the resurrection beyond the mere hope of it, how can we really hope for something that we don’t know much about?
I’m not sure, but I believe that our silence on this issue has resulted in many of us being unprepared for dying, causing us to lose out on much of the comfort and hope and peace and joy that we should experience during those times because of this hope in the resurrection of Christ. I mean, having a better expectation about what is to come and the blessed benefits that we anticipate receiving helps us to avoid, or at least lessen our anxiety and fears about dying.
So we should want to know more, to have a better expectation about it. Because everything we know concerning about what is to come are all promises that Jesus Christ has given to us for our good benefit. Those details are something we will consider at a much later time; for now, we are just focusing on the simple fact of the resurrection.
So if you are like me, then you probably find this idea of universal resurrection surprising because contemporary Christianity generally teaches that only Christians will be resurrected. We might call it the resurrection of the just—that is, the good. But if we honestly believe scripture, particularly these words of Jesus and the description of the day of judgment that John gives in Revelation 20, the universal resurrection is a logical necessity.
Because just as life precedes death, resurrection must precede the judgment. Because as the writer of Hebrews tells us, ‘And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment.’ Because someone who is dead cannot be rightly judged. Furthermore, it’s only logical that someone who gives life be the only one able to righteously and justly impose a sentence of death because they’re the only ones who could correct any possible error, who could repair a miscarriage of justice.
We find the principle described in Tolkien through a conversation between Gandalf and Frodo about Gollum, where Gandalf tells Frodo, ‘Many that live deserve death, and some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgment.’
So what Jesus says here is the same as what John later describes in Revelation—that all of the dead will be raised— all of the Christians, the Jews, the Muslims, Buddhists, atheists, and pagans—and that everyone shall be righteously judged by God the Son. Those who do evil will be judged and condemned and then cast into the lake of fire—a place of torment where they will be dying eternally, but without utter annihilation, as the righteous consequence for their wickedness in this life.
That’s what he means by the resurrection of judgment. Well, those who do good shall be raised, shall be judged, and justified by their active faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. And then, after receiving the mercy of God and forgiveness for their sins, they will be ushered into the eternal kingdom of Christ to forever dwell within the new heavens and new earth in the presence of God because of the imputed righteousness of Christ. That’s what he means by the resurrection of life.
And this is the most shocking and surprising part—this realization that since everyone is raised, everyone gets eternal life. The only difference between those who are good or evil after the judgment is their final destination—where they will spend their eternal life.
So where do you want hope or expect to spend your eternal life? This idea that judgment will follow our death is something that should concern every human person, because whether it is hope or fear for the consequences of judgment, it will naturally be influenced by a relationship with the judge.
If a person does not have a personal relationship with the judge, then they should be rightly nervous, because the best thing they can hope for is justice. Whereas if a person does have a personal relationship with the judge, then they might have a hope for mercy.
The good news is we are confident of the standard of justice because Jesus admits that he is not and will not be an arbitrary judge, saying, ‘I can do nothing on my own. As I hear, I judge, and my judgment is just because I seek not my own will but the will of him who sent me.’
Jesus professes that his judgment is and will be just because he doesn’t use his own standard, his own will. Instead, he confesses that he is using a known and accepted standard—the standard of the will of him who sent—the Torah, the moral law, the law of Moses. So we all may know the standard by which we will be judged.
Even those who may or may not have the law of Moses, they still know the standard because it’s written on their hearts—on the hearts of every person. And we are justly condemned by our own consciences, aren’t we? Everyone who examines themselves honestly must admit that they have not kept this moral law perfectly. They must admit their guilt for themselves and for God.
They must admit that they have no hope in themselves to stand before a Divine judge and assert their own righteousness. Instead, their only hope of being justified on the day of judgment is to assert that they are trusting in the imputed righteousness of Jesus Christ.
This is part of why Christians talk about having a personal relationship with Jesus, because our relationship is the consequence of our faith in him. It’s a relationship of dependence and trust. We depend on him alone and entirely for our justification and for the forgiveness of our sins so that we may not come into judgment but so that we may surely be passed from death to life.
That is our ultimate hope and the greatest promise of Christ for Christians—that we will be passed from death to life eternal in Christ’s Kingdom.
Finally, there are two points of certainty that we should take away from this passage today. The certainty of a universal resurrection followed by judgment according to the righteous standard of God, and the certainty of our Christian hope by our faith in Jesus Christ that we will pass through the judgment, because we are justified by his blood.
Remember, every cause has an effect. Every action has a reaction and predictable consequences. So if there is any absolute standard of righteousness, then the natural consequence of having such a standard must be the fact of judgment—a judgment that one is either righteous or wicked.
But if you trust in Jesus Christ as your Lord and your Savior, if you have a personal relationship with him as your elder brother, friend, and as your King, then you may be confident that you will pass through the judgment. Then you may be assured of your salvation through faith in Jesus Christ alone, by the grace of God alone, for his glory alone, according to the word of scripture alone.
Hear the words of Jesus, believe them, and follow them. ‘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.’
So believe that good news, trust that good news, and be assured of your salvation. Amen.