Wednesday, November 26, 2008

John 5:19-29

19 Jesus gave them this answer: "Very truly I tell you, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does. 20 For the Father loves the Son and shows him all he does. Yes, and he will show him even greater works than these, so that you will be amazed. 21 For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son gives life to whom he is pleased to give it. 22 Moreover, the Father judges no one, but has entrusted all judgment to the Son, 23 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.

24 "Very truly I tell you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be judged but has crossed over from death to life. 25 Very truly I tell you, a time is coming and has now come 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 judge because he is the Son of Man.

28 "Do not be amazed at this, for a time is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice 29 and come out—those who have done what is good will rise to live, and those who have done what is evil will rise to be condemned.



Dig Deeper

A few weeks ago I had to go into my eldest son's school for a regular yearly conference with his counselor. He is in his last year before starting high school so this conference focused a great deal on his portfolio and his future both in high school and beyond. One of the things that the students begin to do with their portfolios is to determine what they might want to do for a career and then start thinking about the types of classes, experiences, and college education that they might need to achieve that. As we were looking through his portfolio on the computer in the counselor's office, we came to the page that had a question concerning what career they might like to pursue as an adult. I was quite encouraged to see that my son had listed that he would like to be a biblical teacher and biblical scholar. In his mind, he wants to follow in the footsteps of his dad. That's a pretty uncommon thing in our world today, but it was the usual course of events in the ancient world. A son would take up the career of his father, watching him, mimicking him, and learning from him. Under those circumstances, the best way to get good at what your father did was to do exactly what the father did and to listen to his every instruction.

This idea of apprenticeship between a father and son is the common imagery upon which Jesus draws to explain why he was claiming to be sharing in the same work as the Father. What the Jewish leaders could only understand as blasphemy or the wild ravings of a lunatic were actually quite understandable. He was simply doing what most any son would do in their culture. He had learned His Father's way of doing things, and was now going about copying that, carrying out the work of His Father in the precise way that His Father would do it.

John tells us in verse 19 that Jesus gave them this answer, which seems a bit puzzling because he hasn't recorded any specific question in the previous verse. What John likely means is that there was a general question or misunderstanding which evoked a great deal of rage and anger about Jesus' claims to be doing the work of his Father. A claim that made himself equal to God in their eyes. His response is important, as John has set it up as the definitive reason for what he is doing. It is further emphasized by Jesus saying "Very truly I tell you." This was a claim to be telling the truth without need for a further witness, which in Jewish culture was something only God could rightly do.

So how could Jesus claim to be doing the same work that the Father was doing, which is another level above just doing what the Father sent him to do (he certainly was also doing that but there was more to it than just being a messenger)? Jesus could share in the same work and be exempt from Sabbath regulations because the son can do nothing by himself. Jesus wasn't just going around making up this Messiah stuff as he went along. He certainly wasn't acting according to his own will. He was doing the work of his Father. He was doing exactly what he had seen the Father do all throughout history (again John demonstrates as he did in the prologue that the Son and the Father share an essence and purpose but are still distinct beings from one another). So what is that the Son had seen his Father doing? Without pressing the point beyond its intention, it's likely that Jesus is referring to the work of reconciling the world back to God. Jesus had been right there as the Father set about to reconcile a world marred by sin back to Himself and restore the full image of God to men. Jesus was now here partaking in that same work.

They should not be amazed then when they see the Son doing incredible things and demonstrating the new creation. The Father, after all was the creator of the universe. He was the only one with the power to raise the dead and give them life (Deut. 32:39; 1 Sam. 2:6; 2 Ki. 5:7). Only the Father can give life to the dead, whether it be the physically dead or the spiritually dead (Ezek. 37). John has already made it clear in chapter 3, that the world stands condemned in darkness already because of their sin. In that sense, it could rightly be said that all have sinned (Rom. 3:23), all stand condemned already (3:18), and thus, all humans are dead in their sins (Eph. 2:1; Col. 2:13).

The Father has the power to raise the dead and give them life, and so does the Son. The Son has life in himself and gives life to whom he is pleased to give it. In this one short incredible explanation that Jesus gives in this passage, John gives us nearly every major theme of his entire Gospel. Jesus is the true Son of God that has replaced Israel (5:19; cf. 15:1), the faithless son (Ex. 4:22). It is he who serves as Jacob's ladder connecting the earthly life of the present age to the heavenly realm of the the life of the age to come, eternal life 5:24). This life, however, is available only to those who hear the logos (the word) of Jesus and believe (5:24). It is to those who believe in the logos who will enter into the life of Christ where life is found (5:26). Only those in Christ will share in the new creation that Jesus is bringing both now, in the present age, and in the resurrection that is yet to come (5:29).

The ministry of Jesus is all about bringing the dead to life. Those who hear his word and believes will have eternal life. If people believed in God, truly believed in Him according to His word and not their own vision of what He is and should be doing, then they will believe in the life that He has sent. Many people in our day view the concept of eternal life as something that happens to us after we die, as though we die, go off to another location called heaven, and then and only then do we experience everlasting life there. This is not exactly what Jesus means, however. Eternal life was the life of the age to come. It was the life of God's restored creation and His complete presence with His people. Those who enter into the life of Christ have that life available to us now, in the present age, pointing people ahead to the time when heaven and earth will be brought together completely forever (Eph. 1:10), which will happen when Christ appears and resurrects those in him.

Most Jews during the first century absolutely believed that God would one day bring an end to the present age. He would send the Messiah who would bring an end to evil in the world by defeating Israel's enemies and exalting Israel to her rightful place in the world. The righteous would be resurrected from the dead and would reign with God forever. This would be the end of the present age, the end of time, so to speak. In verses 28 and 29, then, when Jesus says that they should not be amazed at what he has just said because a time is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice and come out. The righteous will rise to live while the unrighteous will receive their full condemnation, this was not the surprising part. It might sound a bit unusual or shocking to us, but this was the part that they all understood and believed in. Jesus describes their common belief in order to verify the shocking part for them that they were not expecting.

The shocking part that Jesus would reveal little by little was that this passage from death to life and entrance into the age to come was available now. The time was coming, they all knew that and believed that, but that the time has now come? Now that was hard to swallow. He was telling them that those who believed in the life of Christ and entered into could share in the life of the age to come now. How could that possibly be? How could that make any sense at all?

This is the great power of the new creation. It's not just some run-of-the-mill spiritual experience that someone can have. It is new life welling up inside of you from God's own Spirit. If everyone could believe in a future resurrection, then why could God not offer that in the present age? What Israel expected of all the righteous at the end of time would take place for the One righteous human in the middle of time. Israel would be exalted to rule the nations, but Jesus is the true Israel. The righteous would be resurrected and enter into the age to come, but Jesus is the only righteous one. Yet, he has made that life and that resurrection life available now to those who would only believe in his life, die to themselves, and enter in. The shocking thing for Jesus' original audience, and perhaps still for us in different ways, was that they could have that life in the present as it anticipated and guaranteed the full consummation of the resurrection life in the age to come.



Devotional Thought

People in the first century had a tendency to believe in God's future age more than they did of having spiritual life in the present age. Although we often have a much different conception of the age to come, we tend to focus much more on "going to heaven" than we do with realizing the life of the age to come in the present age. Are you truly doing your best to grab hold of eternal life now and demonstrate to the world around you what it looks like to live in a community that is reconciled to God.

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