But Jesus answered them, “My Father is still working, so I am working, too.” For this cause therefore the Jews sought all the more to kill him, because he not only broke the Sabbath, but also called God his own Father, making himself equal with God. Jesus therefore answered them, “Most certainly, I tell you, the Son can do nothing of himself, but what he sees the Father doing. For whatever things he does, these the Son also does likewise. For the Father has affection for the Son, and shows him all things that he himself does. He will show him greater works than these, that you may marvel. For as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son also gives life to whom he desires. For the Father judges no one, but he has given all judgment to the Son, that all may honor the Son, even as they honor the Father. He who doesn’t honor the Son doesn’t honor the Father who sent him.
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John 5:17-23 sits inside this longer paragraph.
The man went away, and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had made him well. For this cause the Jews persecuted Jesus, and sought to kill him, because he did these things on the Sabbath. But Jesus answered them, “My Father is still working, so I am working, too.” For this cause therefore the Jews sought all the more to kill him, because he not only broke the Sabbath, but also called God his own Father, making himself equal with God. Jesus therefore answered them, “Most certainly, I tell you, the Son can do nothing of himself, but what he sees the Father doing. For whatever things he does, these the Son also does likewise. For the Father has affection for the Son, and shows him all things that he himself does. He will show him greater works than these, that you may marvel. For as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son also gives life to whom he desires. For the Father judges no one, but he has given all judgment to the Son, that all may honor the Son, even as they honor the Father. He who doesn’t honor the Son doesn’t honor the Father who sent him.
Parallel Translations
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But Jesus answered them, “My Father is still working, so I am working, too.”
For this cause therefore the Jews sought all the more to kill him, because he not only broke the Sabbath, but also called God his own Father, making himself equal with God.
Jesus therefore answered them, “Most certainly, I tell you, the Son can do nothing of himself, but what he sees the Father doing. For whatever things he does, these the Son also does likewise.
For the Father has affection for the Son, and shows him all things that he himself does. He will show him greater works than these, that you may marvel.
For as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son also gives life to whom he desires.
For the Father judges no one, but he has given all judgment to the Son,
that all may honor the Son, even as they honor the Father. He who doesn’t honor the Son doesn’t honor the Father who sent him.
-
And Iesus answered them: my father worketh hidder to and I worke.
Therfore the Iewes sought the moare to kill him not only because he had broken the Saboth: but sayde also that God was his father and made him selfe equall with God.
Then answered Iesus and sayde vnto them: verely verely I saye vnto you: the sonne can do no thinge of him selfe but that he seeth the father do. For whatsoever he doeth that doeth the sonne also.
For the father loveth the sonne and sheweth him all thinges whatsoever he him selfe doeth. And he will shewe him greter workes then these because the shoulde marvayle.
For lykwyse as the father rayseth vp the deed and quickeneth them even so the sonne quyckeneth whom he will.
Nether iudgeth the father eny man: but hath committed all iudgement vnto the sonne
because that all men shuld honoure the sonne even as they honoure the father. He that honoureth not the sonne the same honoureth not the father which hath sent him.
Show all 3 translations
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But Iesus answered them, My Father worketh hitherto, and I worke.
Therefore the Iewes sought the more to kill him: not onely because he had broken the Sabbath: but said also that God was his Father, and made himselfe equall with God.
Then answered Iesus, and said vnto them, Verely, verely I say vnto you, The Sonne can doe nothing of himselfe, saue that he seeth the Father doe: for whatsoeuer things he doth, the same things doeth the Sonne in like maner.
For the Father loueth the Sonne, and sheweth him all things, whatsoeuer he himselfe doeth, and he will shewe him greater workes then these, that ye should marueile.
For likewise as the Father rayseth vp the dead, and quickeneth them, so the Sonne quickeneth whom he will.
For the Father iudgeth no man, but hath committed all iudgement vnto the Sonne,
Because that all men shoulde honour the Sonne, as they honour the Father: he that honoureth not the Sonne, the same honoureth not the Father, which hath sent him.
Examined in Scripture Analysis
Contradictions (2)
Questions where the Bible appears to say two different things, with the passages on each side set together.
Cross-references (165)
- John 12:49 (v19) For I spoke not from myself, but the Father who sent me, he gave me a commandment, what I should say, and what I should speak.
- John 8:28 (v19) Jesus therefore said to them, “When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am he, and I do nothing of myself, but as…
- John 14:10 (vv17, 19) Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? The words that I tell you, I speak not from myself; but the Father who…
- 1 John 2:23 (v23) Whoever denies the Son doesn’t have the Father. He who confesses the Son has the Father also.
- Luke 10:16 (v23) Whoever listens to you listens to me, and whoever rejects you rejects me. Whoever rejects me rejects him who sent me.”
Show all 100 cross-references
- John 10:18 (v19) No one takes it away from me, but I lay it down by myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. I received this…
- John 5:27 (v22) He also gave him authority to execute judgment, because he is a son of man.
- John 9:4 (vv17, 19) I must work the works of him who sent me while it is day. The night is coming, when no one can work.
- John 5:28-30 (v19) Don’t marvel at this, for the hour comes in which all who are in the tombs will hear his voice, and will come out; those who have done…
- Acts 17:31 (v22) because he has appointed a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness by the man whom he has ordained; of which he has given…
- Romans 8:11 (vv19, 21) But if the Spirit of him who raised up Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised up Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life…
- Matthew 11:27 (vv20, 22, 23) All things have been delivered to me by my Father. No one knows the Son, except the Father; neither does anyone know the Father, except the…
- 2 Corinthians 5:10 (vv19, 22) For we must all be revealed before the judgment seat of Christ that each one may receive the things in the body according to what he has…
- Matthew 28:18 (v22) Jesus came to them and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth.
- 2 John 1:9 (v23) Whoever transgresses and doesn’t remain in the teaching of Christ, doesn’t have God. He who remains in the teaching has both the Father and…
- John 10:30 (v18) I and the Father are one.”
- John 10:33 (v18) The Jews answered him, “We don’t stone you for a good work, but for blasphemy: because you, being a man, make yourself God.”
- John 15:23-24 (v23) He who hates me, hates my Father also. If I hadn’t done among them the works which no one else did, they wouldn’t have had sin. But now…
- Acts 10:42 (v22) He commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that this is he who is appointed by God as the Judge of the living and the dead.
- Colossians 1:16 (vv17, 19) For by him all things were created in the heavens and on the earth, visible things and invisible things, whether thrones or dominions or…
- Deuteronomy 32:39 (v21) “See now that I myself am he. There is no god with me. I kill and I make alive. I wound and I heal. There is no one who can deliver out of…
- Jeremiah 17:5-7 (v23) Yahweh says: “Cursed is the man who trusts in man, relies on strength of flesh, and whose heart departs from Yahweh. For he will be like a…
- John 9:39 (v22) Jesus said, “I came into this world for judgment, that those who don’t see may see; and that those who see may become blind.”
- 1 Corinthians 12:6 (v17) There are various kinds of workings, but the same God, who works all things in all.
- John 11:25 (v21) Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will still live, even if he dies.
- John 14:16-23 (v19) I will pray to the Father, and he will give you another Counselor, that he may be with you forever: the Spirit of truth, whom the world…
- Romans 2:16 (v22) in the day when God will judge the secrets of men, according to my Good News, by Jesus Christ.
- 2 Timothy 4:1 (v22) I command you therefore before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, who will judge the living and the dead at his appearing and his Kingdom:
- John 17:2 (vv21–22) even as you gave him authority over all flesh, so he will give eternal life to all whom you have given him.
- Luke 12:8-9 (v23) “I tell you, everyone who confesses me before men, the Son of Man will also confess before the angels of God; but he who denies me in the…
- Luke 21:15 (v19) for I will give you a mouth and wisdom which all your adversaries will not be able to withstand or to contradict.
- John 19:7 (v18) The Jews answered him, “We have a law, and by our law he ought to die, because he made himself the Son of God.”
- 1 Thessalonians 3:11-13 (v23) Now may our God and Father himself, and our Lord Jesus Christ, direct our way to you. May the Lord make you to increase and abound in love…
- John 8:58 (v18) Jesus said to them, “Most certainly, I tell you, before Abraham came into existence, I AM.”
- Ephesians 6:24 (v23) Grace be with all those who love our Lord Jesus Christ with incorruptible love. Amen.
- Hebrews 1:6 (v23) When he again brings in the firstborn into the world he says, “Let all the angels of God worship him.”
- John 3:35 (vv20, 22) The Father loves the Son, and has given all things into his hand.
- John 5:21 (vv19–20) For as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son also gives life to whom he desires.
- Psalms 96:13 (v22) before Yahweh; for he comes, for he comes to judge the earth. He will judge the world with righteousness, the peoples with his truth.
- Luke 7:14-15 (v21) He came near and touched the coffin, and the bearers stood still. He said, “Young man, I tell you, arise!” He who was dead sat up, and…
- John 5:23 (v18) that all may honor the Son, even as they honor the Father. He who doesn’t honor the Son doesn’t honor the Father who sent him.
- John 5:24-26 (v19) “Most certainly I tell you, he who hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life, and doesn’t come into judgment, but has…
- John 14:23 (v18) Jesus answered him, “If a man loves me, he will keep my word. My Father will love him, and we will come to him, and make our home with him.
- Acts 26:8 (v21) Why is it judged incredible with you, if God does raise the dead?
- Titus 3:4-6 (v23) But when the kindness of God our Savior and his love toward mankind appeared, not by works of righteousness which we did ourselves, but…
- Hebrews 1:3 (v17) His Son is the radiance of his glory, the very image of his substance, and upholding all things by the word of his power, who, when he had…
- 1 Peter 4:5 (v22) They will give account to him who is ready to judge the living and the dead.
- Genesis 2:1-2 (v17) The heavens, the earth, and all their vast array were finished. On the seventh day God finished his work which he had done; and he rested…
- Psalms 9:7-8 (v22) But Yahweh reigns forever. He has prepared his throne for judgment. He will judge the world in righteousness. He will administer judgment…
- Psalms 98:9 (v22) Let them sing before Yahweh, for he comes to judge the earth. He will judge the world with righteousness, and the peoples with equity.
- Matthew 16:27 (v22) For the Son of Man will come in the glory of his Father with his angels, and then he will render to everyone according to his deeds.
- Romans 8:9 (v23) But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if it is so that the Spirit of God dwells in you. But if any man doesn’t have the Spirit of…
- 2 Thessalonians 2:16-17 (v23) Now our Lord Jesus Christ himself, and God our Father, who loved us and gave us eternal comfort and good hope through grace, comfort your…
- 2 Peter 3:18 (v23) But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be the glory both now and forever. Amen.
- Isaiah 40:26 (v17) Lift up your eyes on high, and see who has created these, who brings out their army by number. He calls them all by name. by the greatness…
- Luke 8:54-55 (v21) But he put them all outside, and taking her by the hand, he called, saying, “Child, arise!” Her spirit returned, and she rose up…
- John 7:1 (v18) After these things, Jesus was walking in Galilee, for he wouldn’t walk in Judea, because the Jews sought to kill him.
- John 7:19 (v18) Didn’t Moses give you the law, and yet none of you keeps the law? Why do you seek to kill me?”
- John 8:54 (v18) Jesus answered, “If I glorify myself, my glory is nothing. It is my Father who glorifies me, of whom you say that he is our God.
- John 11:43-44 (v21) When he had said this, he cried with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” He who was dead came out, bound hand and foot with wrappings, and…
- John 16:14 (v23) He will glorify me, for he will take from what is mine, and will declare it to you.
- Romans 6:22 (v23) But now, being made free from sin and having become servants of God, you have your fruit of sanctification and the result of eternal life.
- Romans 14:7-9 (v23) For none of us lives to himself, and none dies to himself. For if we live, we live to the Lord. Or if we die, we die to the Lord. If…
- Romans 14:10-12 (v22) But you, why do you judge your brother? Or you again, why do you despise your brother? For we will all stand before the judgment seat of…
- 1 Corinthians 10:31 (v23) Whether therefore you eat, or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.
- Philippians 2:6 (v18) who, existing in the form of God, didn’t consider equality with God a thing to be grasped,
- Revelation 22:1 (v18) He showed me a river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb,
- Genesis 1:1 (v19) In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.
- Genesis 1:26 (v19) God said, “Let’s make man in our image, after our likeness. Let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the sky,…
- 1 Kings 17:21 (v21) He stretched himself on the child three times, and cried to Yahweh, and said, “Yahweh my God, please let this child’s soul come into him…
- 2 Kings 4:32-35 (v21) When Elisha had come into the house, behold, the child was dead, and lying on his bed. He went in therefore, and shut the door on them…
- 2 Kings 5:7 (v21) When the king of Israel had read the letter, he tore his clothes, and said, “Am I God, to kill and to make alive, that this man sends to me…
- Psalms 50:6 (v19) The heavens shall declare his righteousness, for God himself is judge.
- Psalms 146:3-5 (v23) Don’t put your trust in princes, in a son of man in whom there is no help. His spirit departs, and he returns to the earth. In that very…
- Ecclesiastes 11:9 (v22) Rejoice, young man, in your youth, and let your heart cheer you in the days of your youth, and walk in the ways of your heart, and in the…
- Isaiah 43:10-11 (v23) “You are my witnesses,” says Yahweh, “With my servant whom I have chosen; that you may know and believe me, and understand that I am he.…
- Jeremiah 17:10 (v19) “I, Yahweh, search the mind. I try the heart, even to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his doings.”
- Zechariah 13:7 (v18) “Awake, sword, against my shepherd, and against the man who is close to me,” says Yahweh of Armies. “Strike the shepherd, and the sheep…
- Matthew 3:17 (v20) Behold, a voice out of the heavens said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.”
- Matthew 12:21 (v23) In his name, the nations will hope.”
- Matthew 22:37-38 (v23) Jesus said to him, “ ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the first…
- John 2:19 (v19) Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.”
- John 5:16 (v18) For this cause the Jews persecuted Jesus, and sought to kill him, because he did these things on the Sabbath.
- John 11:25-26 (v19) Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will still live, even if he dies. Whoever lives and believes…
- John 14:9 (v18) Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you such a long time, and do you not know me, Philip? He who has seen me has seen the Father. How do…
- Acts 14:17 (v17) Yet he didn’t leave himself without witness, in that he did good and gave you rains from the sky and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts…
- Acts 17:28 (v17) ‘For in him we live, move, and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘For we are also his offspring.’
- 1 Corinthians 6:19 (v23) Or don’t you know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God? You are not your own,
- Philippians 4:13 (v19) I can do all things through Christ, who strengthens me.
- 2 Thessalonians 1:7-10 (v22) and to give relief to you who are afflicted with us, when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming fire,…
- Revelation 5:8-14 (v23) Now when he had taken the book, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, each one having a harp, and…
- Revelation 20:11-12 (v22) I saw a great white throne, and him who sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away. There was found no place for them. I…
- Exodus 4:11 (v19) Yahweh said to him, “Who made man’s mouth? Or who makes one mute, or deaf, or seeing, or blind? Isn’t it I, Yahweh?
- Psalms 2:12 (v23) Give sincere homage to the Son, lest he be angry, and you perish on the way, for his wrath will soon be kindled. Blessed are all those who…
- Psalms 50:3-6 (v22) Our God comes, and does not keep silent. A fire devours before him. It is very stormy around him. He calls to the heavens above, to the…
- Psalms 138:3 (v19) In the day that I called, you answered me. You encouraged me with strength in my soul.
- Proverbs 8:22-31 (v20) “Yahweh possessed me in the beginning of his work, before his deeds of old. I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, before the…
- Ecclesiastes 12:14 (v22) For God will bring every work into judgment, with every hidden thing, whether it is good, or whether it is evil.
- Isaiah 45:21 (v23) Declare and present it. Yes, let them take counsel together. Who has shown this from ancient time? Who has declared it of old? Haven’t I,…
- Zechariah 9:9 (v23) Rejoice greatly, daughter of Zion! Shout, daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your King comes to you! He is righteous, and having salvation;…
100 distinct cross-references across this passage (165 total citations).
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this passage (25 sources)
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John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain On vv17–23 17. My Father worketh hitherto. We must see what…
17. My Father worketh hitherto. We must see what kind of defense Christ employs. He does not reply that the Law about keeping the Sabbath was temporary, and that it ought now to be abolished; but, on the contrary, maintains that he has not violated the Law, because this is a divine work. It is true that the ceremony of the Sabbath was a part of the shadows of the Law, and that Christ put an end to it by his coming, as Paul shows, (Colossians 2:16;) but the present question does not turn on that point. For it is only from their own works that men are commanded to abstain; and, accordingly, circumcision — which is a work of God, and not of men — is not at variance with the Sabbath.
What Christ insists upon is this, that the holy rest which was enjoined by the Law of Moses is not disturbed when we are employed in works of God. And for this reason he excuses not only his own action, but also the action of the man who carried his bed; for it was an appendage, and — as we might say — a part of the miracle, for it was nothing else than an approbation of it. Besides, if thanksgiving and the publication of the divine glory be reckoned among the works of God, it was not a profanation of the Sabbath to testify the grace of God by feet and hands. But it is chiefly concerning himself that Christ speaks, to whom the Jews were more hostile. He declares that the soundness of body which he has restored to the diseased man is a demonstration of his divine power. He asserts that he is the Son of God, and that he acts in the same manner as his Father.
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What is the use of the Sabbath, and for what reasons it was enjoined, I do not now argue at greater length. It is enough for the present passage, that the keeping of the Sabbath is so far from interrupting or hindering the works of God, that, on the contrary, it gives way to them alone. For why does the Law enjoin men to abstain from their own works, but in order to keep all their senses free and occupied for considering the works of God? Consequently, he who does not, on the Sabbath, allow a free course and reign to the works of God, is not only a false expounder of the Law, but wickedly overturns it.
If it be objected, that the example of God is held out to men, that they may rest on the seventh day, the answer is easy. Men are not conformed to God in this respect, that He ceased to work, but by abstaining from the troublesome actions of this world and aspiring to the heavenly rest. The Sabbath or rest of God, therefore, is not idleness, but true perfection, which brings along with it a calm state of peace. Nor is this inconsistent with what Moses says, that God put an end to his works, (Genesis 2:2;) for he means that, after having completed the formation of the world, God consecrated that day, that men might employ it in meditating on his works. Yet He did not cease to sustain by this power the world which he had made, to govern it by his wisdom, to support it by his goodness, and to regulate all things according to his pleasure, both in heaven and on earth. In six days, therefore, the creation of the world was completed, but the administration of it is still continued, and God incessantly worketh in maintaining and preserving the order of it; as Paul informs us, that in him we live, and move, and are, (Acts 17:28;) and David informs us, that all things stand so long as the Spirit of God upholds them, and that they fail as soon as he withdraws his support, (Psalm 104:29.) Nor is it only by a general Providence that the Lord maintains the world which He has created, but He arranges and regulates every part of it, and more especially, by his protection, he keeps and guards believers whom he has received under his care and guardianship.
And I work. Leaving the defense of the present cause, Christ now explains the end and use of the miracle, namely, that by means of it he may be acknowledged to be the Son of God; for the object which he had in view in all his words and actions was, to show that he was the Author of salvation. What he now claims for himself belongs to his Divinity, as the Apostle also says, that
he upholdeth all things by his powerful will, (Hebrews 1:3.)
But when he testifies that he is God, it is that, being manifested in the flesh, he may perform the office of Christ; and when he affirms that he came from heaven, it is chiefly for the purpose of informing us for what purpose he came down to earth.
John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv17, 18, 19, 21, 22 The work of God was never the breach of…
The work of God was never the breach of the Sabbath: but the works of Christ are the works of the Father, both because they are one God, and also because the Father doth not work but in the Son.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv17–23 17 But Jesus answered them, My Father worketh hitherto,…
17 But Jesus answered them, My Father worketh hitherto, and I work.
Ver. 17. My Father worketh] Yet without labour or lassitude, in conserving the whole creature. This he doth every day, and yet breaketh not the sabbath; Ergo nec ego, Therefore, neith do I.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv17–23 We read of no objection they made to Christ,…
We read of no objection they made to Christ, as to what he had done, only that they persecuted him, which they might do without speaking to him: but it should seem by what we read in this verse, that some of the Jews had objected to him his violation of the sabbath (as they thought); yet, as we before noted, answered (in the dialect of the gospel) doth often signify no more than the beginning of a discourse upon some proper occasion offered. Our Saviour defends himself from the example of his Father, in the remembrance of whose resting from his work of creation on the seventh day from the beginning of the creation, the Jews kept their sabbath; who, though he rested from his work of creation, yet hitherto
worketh, as well on the sabbath day as any other day, by his preservation of created beings: so (saith he) I, who am the Son of this Father, also work; upholding all things by the word of my power, Heb 1:3. So that works of Divine Providence are lawful on the sabbath day; such was this. I work no other way than my Father still worketh, though he rested on the seventh day from the creation.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
William Burkitt 1703 · Public Domain On vv17, 18, 20, 21, 22 From this verse to the end of the chapter,…
From this verse to the end of the chapter, we have our Saviour’s apology for his working the foregoing cure on the impotent man on the sabbath day. And the chief argument he insists upon, is drawn from his unity and eqaulity in nature and operation with his Father; As the Father worketh, says he, so I work. Here he speaks of himself, not as a servant, or instrument in the Father’s hand, but as the fellow-worker with the Father, both in the works of creation, and in the works of providence, and preservation also.
Learn hence, 1. That though Almighty God has long since ceased from the work of creation, yet not from the work of preservation. My father worketh hitherto; not by creating new kinds of creatures but by upholding and preserving what he has already created.
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Learn, 2. That Christ the Son of God, is joined with, and undivided from the Father, in working. As the Father created all things by him (not as a man, and as an instrument in his Father’s hand; for then he was not such) but as his fellow-worker, being equal in nature and power with the Father: in like manner as the Father preserveth, sustaineth, governeth, and upholdeth all things, so doth Christ; the Father’s actions and his being the same, My Father worketh hitherto, and I work.
William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain On v17 We have here Christ's discourse upon occasion of his…
We have here Christ's discourse upon occasion of his being accused as a sabbath-breaker, and it seems to be his vindication of himself before the sanhedrim, when he was arraigned before them: whether on the same day, or two or three days after, does not appear; probably the same day. Observe,
I. The doctrine laid down, by which he justified what he did on the sabbath day (Joh 5:17): He answered them. This supposes that he had something laid to his charge: or what they suggested one to another, when they sought to slay him (Joh 5:16), he knew, and gave this reply to, My Father worketh hitherto, and I work. At other times, in answer to the like charge, he had pleaded the example of David's eating the show-bread, of the priests' slaying the sacrifices, and of the people's watering their cattle on the sabbath day; but here he goes higher and alleges the example of his Father and his divine authority; waiving all other pleas, he insists upon that which was instar omnium - equivalent to the whole, and abides by it, which he had mentioned, Mat 12:8. The Son of man is Lord even of the sabbath day; but he here enlarges on it. 1. He pleads that he was the Son of God, plainly intimated in his calling God his Father; and, if so, his holiness was unquestionable and his sovereignty incontestable; and he might make what alterations he pleased of the divine law. Surely they will reverence the Son, the heir of all things. 2. That he was a worker together with God. (1.) My Father worketh hitherto. The example of God's resting on the seventh day from all his work is, in the fourth commandment, made the ground of our observing it as a sabbath or day of rest. Now God rested only from such work as he had done the six days before; otherwise he worketh hitherto, he is every day working, sabbath days and week-days, upholding and governing all the creatures, and concurring by his common providence to all the motions and operations of nature, to his own glory; therefore, when we are appointed to rest on the sabbath day, yet we are not restrained from doing that which has a direct tendency to the glory of God, as the man's carrying his bed had. (2.) I work; not only therefore I may work, like him, in doing good on sabbath days as well as other days, but I also work with him. As God created all things by Christ, so he supports and governs all by him, Heb 1:3. This sets what he does above all exception; he that is so great a worker must needs be an uncontrollable governor; he that does all is Lord of all, and therefore Lord of the sabbath, which particular branch of his authority he would now assert, because he was shortly to show it further, in the change of the day from the seventh to the first.
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II. The offence that was taken at his doctrine (Joh 5:18): The Jews sought the more to kill him. His defence was made his offence, as if by justifying himself he had made bad worse. Note, Those that will not be enlightened by the word of Christ will be enraged and exasperated by it, and nothing more vexes the enemies of Christ than his asserting his authority; see Psa 2:3-5. They sought to kill him,
1. Because he had broken the sabbath; for, let him say what he would in his own justification, they are resolved, right or wrong, to find him guilty of sabbath breaking. When malice and envy sit upon the bench, reason and justice may even be silent at the bar, for whatever they can say will undoubtedly be over-ruled.
2. Not only so, but he had said also that God was his Father. Now they pretend a jealousy for God's honour, as before for the sabbath day, and charge Christ with it as a heinous crime that he made himself equal with God; and a heinous crime it had been if he had not really been so. It was the sin of Lucifer, I will be like the Most High. Now, (1.) This was justly inferred from what he said, that he was the Son of God, and that God was his Father, patera idion - his own Father; his, so as he was no one's else. He had said that he worked with his Father, by the same authority and power, and hereby he made himself equal with God. Ecee intelligunt Judaei, quod non intelligunt Ariani - Behold, the Jews understand what the Arians do not. (2.) Yet it was unjustly imputed to him as an offence that he equalled himself with God, for he was and is God, equal with the Father (Phi 2:6); and therefore Christ, in answer to this charge, does not except against the innuendo as strained or forced, makes out his claim and proves that he is equal with God in power and glory.
III. Christ's discourse upon this occasion, which continues without interruption to the end of the chapter. In these verses he explains, and afterwards confirms, his commission, as Mediator and plenipotentiary in the treaty between God and man. And, as the honours he is hereby entitled to are such as it is not fit for any creature to receive, so the work he is hereby entrusted with is such as it is not possible for any creature to go through with, and therefore he is God, equal with the Father.
1. In general. He is one with the Father in all he does as Mediator, and there was a perfectly good understanding between them in the whole matter. It is ushered in with a solemn preface (Joh 5:19): Verily, verily, I say unto you; I the Amen, the Amen, say it. This intimates that the things declared are, (1.) Very awful and great, and such as should command the most serious attention. (2.) Very sure, and such as should command an unfeigned assent. (3.) That they are matters purely of divine revelation; things which Christ has told us, and which we could not otherwise have come to the knowledge of. Two things he saith in general concerning the Son's oneness with the Father in working: -
[1.] That the Son conforms to the Father (Joh 5:19): The Son can do nothing of himself but what he sees the Father do; for these things does the Son. The Lord Jesus, as Mediator, is First, Obedient to his Father's will; so entirely obedient that he can do nothing of himself, in the same sense as it is said, God cannot lie, cannot deny himself, which expresses the perfection of his truth, not any imperfection in his strength; so here, Christ was so entirely devoted to his Father's will that it was impossible for him in any thing to act separately. Secondly, He is observant of his Father's counsel; he can, he will, do nothing but what he sees the Father do. No man can find out the work of God, but the only-begotten Son, who lay in his bosom, sees what he does, is intimately acquainted with his purposes, and has the plan of them ever before him. What he did as Mediator, throughout his whole undertaking, was the exact transcript or counterpart of what the Father did; that is, what he designed, when he formed the plan of our redemption in his eternal counsels, and settled those measures in every thing which never could be broken, nor ever needed to be altered. It was the copy of that great original; it was Christ's faithfulness, as it was Moses's, that he did all according to the pattern shown him in the mount. This is expressed in the present tense, what he sees the Father do, for the same reason that, when he was here upon earth, it was said, He is in heaven (Joh 3:13), and is in the bosom of the Father (Joh 1:18); as he was even then by his divine nature present in heaven, so the things done in heaven were present to his knowledge. What the Father did in his counsels, the Son had ever in his view, and still he had his eye upon it, as David in spirit spoke of him, I have set the Lord always before me, Psa 16:8. Thirdly, Yet he is equal with the Father in working; for what things soever the Father does these also does the Son likewise; he did the same things, not such things, but tauta, the same things; and he did them in the same manner, homoiōs, likewise, with the same authority, and liberty, and wisdom, the same energy and efficacy. Does the Father enact, repeal, and alter, positive laws? Does he over-rule the course of nature, know men's hearts? So does the Son. The power of the Mediator is a divine power.
[2.] That the Father communicates to the Son, Joh 5:20. Observe,
First, The inducement to it: The Father loveth the Son; he declared, This is my beloved Son. He had not only a good will to the undertaking, but an infinite complacency in the undertaker. Christ was now hated of men, one whom the nation abhorred (Isa 49:7); but he comforted himself with this, that his Father loved him.
Secondly, The instances of it. He shows it, 1. In what he does communicate to him: He shows him all things that himself doth. The Father's measures in making and ruling the world are shown to the Son, that he may take the same measures in framing and governing the church, which work was to be a duplicate of the work of creation and providence, and it is therefore called the world to come. He shows him all things ha autos poiei - which he does, that is, which the Son does, so it might be construed; all that the Son does is by direction from the Father; he shows him. 2. In what he will communicate; he will show him, that is, will appoint and direct him to do greater works than these. (1.) Works of greater power than the curing of the impotent man; for he should raise the dead, and should himself rise from the dead. By the power of nature, with the use of means, a disease may possibly in time be cured; but nature can never, by the use of any means, in any time raise the dead. (2.) Works of greater authority than warranting the man to carry his bed on the sabbath day. They thought this a daring attempt; but what was this to his abrogating the whole ceremonial law, and instituting new ordinances, which he would shortly do, "that you may marvel!" Now they looked upon his works with contempt and indignation, but he will shortly do that which they will look upon with amazement, Luk 7:16. Many are brought to marvel at Christ's works, whereby he has the honour of them, who are not brought to believe, by which they would have the benefit of them.
2. In particular. He proves his equality with the Father, by specifying some of those works which he does that are the peculiar works of God. This is enlarged upon, Joh 5:21-30. He does, and shall do, that which is the peculiar work of God's sovereign dominion and jurisdiction - judging and executing judgment, Joh 5:22-24, Joh 5:27. These two are interwoven, as being nearly connected; and what is said once is repeated and inculcated; put both together, and they will prove that Christ said not amiss when he made himself equal with God.
(1.) Observe what is here said concerning the Mediator's power to raise the dead and give life. See [1.] His authority to do it (Joh 5:21): As the Father raiseth up the dead, so the Son quickeneth whom he will. First, It is God's prerogative to raise the dead, and give life, even his who first breathed into man the breath of life, and so made him a living soul; see Deu 32:30; Sa1 2:6; Psa 68:20; Rom 4:17. This God had done by the prophets Elijah and Elisha, and it was a confirmation of their mission. A resurrection from the dead never lay in the common road of nature, nor ever fell within the thought of those that studied only the compass of nature's power, one of whose received axioms was point blank against it: A privatione ad habitum non datur regressus - Existence, when once extinguished, cannot be rekindled. It was therefore ridiculed at Athens as an absurd thing, Act 17:32. It is purely the work of a divine power, and the knowledge of it purely by divine revelation. This the Jews would own. Secondly, The Mediator is invested with this prerogative: He quickens whom he will; raises to life whom he pleases, and when he pleases. He does not enliven things by natural necessity, as the sun does, whose beams revive of course; but he acts as a free agent, has the dispensing of his power in his own hand, and is never either constrained, or restrained, in the use of it. As he has the power, so he has the wisdom and sovereignty, of a God; has the key of the grave and of death (Rev 1:18), not as a servant, to open and shut as he is bidden, for he has it as the key of David, which he is master of, Rev 3:7. An absolute prince is described by this (Dan 5:19): Whom he would he slew or kept alive; it is true of Christ without hyperbole.
[2.] His ability to do it. Therefore he has power to quicken whom he will as the Father does, because he has life in himself, as the Father has, Joh 5:26. First, It is certain that the Father has life in himself. Not only he is a self-existent Being, who does not derive fRom. or depend upon, any other (Exo 3:14), but he is a sovereign giver of life; he has the disposal of life in himself; and of all good (for so life sometimes signifies); it is all derived from him, and dependent on him. He is to his creatures the fountain of life, and all good; author of their being and well-being; the living God, and the God of all living. Secondly, It is as certain that he has given to the Son to have life in himself. As the Father is the original of all natural life and good, being the great Creator, so the Son, as Redeemer, is the original of all spiritual life and good; is that to the church which the Father is to the world; see Co1 8:6; Col 1:19. The kingdom of grace, and all the life in that kingdom, are as fully and absolutely in the hand of the Redeemer as the kingdom of providence is in the hand of the Creator; and as God, who gives being to all things, has his being of himself, so Christ, who gives life, raised himself to life by his own power, Joh 10:18.
[3.] His acting according to this authority and ability. Having life in himself, and being authorized to quicken whom he will, by virtue hereof there are, accordingly, two resurrections performed by his powerful word, both which are here spoken of: -
First, A resurrection that now is (Joh 5:29), a resurrection from the death of sin to the life of righteousness, by the power of Christ's grace. The hour is coming, and now is. It is a resurrection begun already, and further to be carried on, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God. This is plainly distinguished from that in Joh 5:28, which speaks of the resurrection at the end of time. This says nothing, as that does, of the dead in their graces, and of all of them, and their coming forth. Now, 1. Some think this was fulfilled in those whom he miraculously raised to life, Jairus's daughter, the widow's son, and Lazarus; and it is observable that all whom Christ raised were spoken to, as, Damsel, arise; Young man, arise; Lazarus, come forth; whereas those raised under the Old Testament were raised, not by a word, but other applications, Kg1 17:21; Kg2 4:34; Kg2 13:21. Some understand it of those saints that rose with Christ; but we do not read of the voice of the Son of God calling them. But, 2. I rather understand it of the power of the doctrine of Christ, for the recovering and quickening of those that were dead in trespasses and sins, Eph 2:1. The hour was coming when dead souls should be made alive by the preaching of the gospel, and a spirit of life from God accompanying it: nay, it then was, while Christ was upon earth. It may refer especially to the calling of the Gentiles, which is said to be as life from the dead, and, some think, was prefigured by Ezekiel's vision (Eze 37:1), and foretold, Isa 26:19. Thy dead men shall live. But it is to be applied to all the wonderful success of the gospel, among both Jews and Gentiles; an hour which still is, and is still coming, till all the elect be effectually called. Note, (1.) Sinners are spiritually dead, destitute of spiritual life, sense, strength, and motion, dead to God, miserable, but neither sensible of their misery nor able to help themselves out of it. (2.) The conversion of a soul to God is its resurrection from death to life; then it begins to live when it begins to live to God, to breathe after him, and move towards him. (3.) It is by the voice of the Son of God that souls are raised to spiritual life; it is wrought by his power, and that power conveyed and communicated by his word: The dead shall hear, shall be made to hear, to understand, receive, and believe, the voice of the Son of God, to hear it as his voice; then the Spirit by it gives life, otherwise the letter kills. (4.) The voice of Christ must be heard by us, that we may live by it. They that hear, and attend to what they hear, shall live. Hear and your soul shall live, Isa 55:3.
Secondly, A resurrection yet to come; this is spoken of, Joh 5:28, Joh 5:29, introduced with, "Marvel not at this, which I have said of the first resurrection, do not reject it as incredible and absurd, for at the end of time you shall all see a more sensible and amazing proof of the power and authority of the Son of man." As his own resurrection was reserved to be the final and concluding proof of his personal commission, so the resurrection of all men is reserved to be a like proof of his commission to be executed by his spirit. Now observe here,
a. When this resurrection shall be: The hour is coming; it is fixed to an hour, so very punctual is this great appointment. The judgment is not adjourned sine die - to some time not yet pitched upon; no, he hath appointed a day. The hour is coming. (a.) It is not yet come, it is not the hour spoken of at Joh 5:25, that is coming, and now is. Those erred dangerously who said that the resurrection was past already, Ti2 2:18, But, (b.) It will certainly come, it is coming on, nearer every day than other; it is at the door. How far off it is we know not; but we know that it is infallibly designed and unalterably determined.
b. Who shall be raised: All that are in the graves, all that have died from the beginning of time, and all that shall die to the end of time. It was said (Dan 12:2), Many shall arise; Christ here tells us that those many shall be all; all must appear before the Judge, and therefore all must be raised; every person, and the whole of every person; every soul shall return to its body, and every bone to its bone. The grave is the prison of dead bodies, where they are detained; their furnace, where they are consumed (Job 24:19); yet, in prospect of their resurrection, we may call it their bed, where they sleep to be awaked again; their treasury, where they are laid up to be used again. Even those that are not put into graves shall arise; but, because most are put into graves, Christ uses this expression, all that are in the graves. The Jews used the word sheol for the grave, which signifies the state of the dead; all that are in that state shall hear.
c. How they shall be raised. Two things are here told us: - (a.) The efficient of this resurrection: They shall hear his voice; that is, he shall cause them to hear it, as Lazarus was made to hear that word, Come forth; a divine power shall go along with the voice, to put life into them, and enable them to obey it. When Christ rose, there was no voice heard, not a word spoken, because he rose by his own power; but at the resurrection of the children of men we find three voices spoken of, Th1 4:16. The Lord shall descend with a shout, the shout of a king, with the voice of the archangel; either Christ himself, the prince of the angels, or the commander-in-chief, under him, of the heavenly hosts; and with the trumpet of God: the soldier's trumpet sounding the alarm of war, the judge's trumpet publishing the summons to the court. (b.) The effect of it: They shall come forth out of their graves, as prisoners out of their prison-house; they shall arise out of the dust, and shake themselves from it; see Isa 52:1, Isa 52:2, Isa 52:11. But this is not all; they shall appear before Christ's tribunal, shall come forth as those that are to be tried, come forth to the bar, publicly to receive their doom.
d. To what they shall be raised; to a different state of happiness or misery, according to their different character; to a state of retribution, according to what they did in the state of probation.
(a.) They that have done good shall come forth to the resurrection of life; they shall live again, to live for ever. Note, [a.] Whatever name men are called by, or whatever plausible profession they make, it will be well in the great day with those only that have done good, have done that which is pleasing to God and profitable to others. [b.] The resurrection of the body will be a resurrection of life to all those, and those only, that have been sincere and constant in doing good. They shall not only be publicly acquitted, as a pardoned criminal, we say, has his life, but they shall be admitted into the presence of God, and that is life, it is better than life; they shall be attended with comforts in perfection. To live is to be happy, and they shall be advanced above the fear of death; that is life indeed in which mortality is for ever swallowed up.
(b.) They that have done evil to the resurrection of damnation; they shall live again, to be for ever dying. The Pharisees thought that the resurrection pertained only to the just, but Christ here rectifies that mistake. Note, [a.] Evil doers, whatever they pretend, will be treated in the day of judgment as evil men. [b.] The resurrection will be to evil doers, who did not by repentance undo what they had done amiss, a resurrection of damnation. They shall come forth to be publicly convicted of rebellion against God, and publicly condemned to everlasting punishment; to be sentenced to it, and immediately sent to it without reprieve. Such will the resurrection be.
(2.) Observe what is here said concerning the Mediator's authority to execute judgment, Joh 5:22-24, Joh 5:27. As he has an almighty power, so he has a sovereign jurisdiction; and who so fit to preside in the great affairs of the other life as he who is the Father and fountain of life? Here is,
[1.] Christ's commission or delegation to the office of a judge, which is twice spoken of here (Joh 5:22): He hath committed all judgment to the Son; and again (Joh 5:27): he hath given him authority.
First, The Father judges no man; not that the Father hath resigned the government, but he is pleased to govern by Jesus Christ; so that man is not under the terror of dealing with God immediately, but has the comfort of access to him by a Mediator. Having made us, he may do what he pleases with us, as the potter with the clay; yet he does not take advantage of this, but draws us with the cords of a man. 2. He does not determine our everlasting condition by the covenant of innocency, nor take the advantage he has against us for the violation of that covenant. The Mediator having undertaken to make a vicarious satisfaction, the matter is referred to him, and God is willing to enter upon a new treaty; not under the law of the Creator, but the grace of the Redeemer.
Secondly, He has committed all judgment to the Son, has constituted him Lord of all (Act 10:36; Rom 14:9), as Joseph in Egypt, Gen 41:40. This was prophesied of, Psa 72:1; Isa 11:3, Isa 11:4; Jer 23:5; Mic 5:1-4; Psa 67:4; Psa 96:13; Psa 98:9. All judgment is committed to our Lord Jesus; for 1. He is entrusted with the administration of the providential kingdom, is head over all things (Eph 1:11), head of every man, Co1 11:3. All things consist by him, Col 1:17. 2. He is empowered to make laws immediately to bind conscience. I say unto you is now the form in which the statues of the kingdom of heaven run. Be it enacted by the Lord Jesus, and by his authority. All the acts now in force are touched with his sceptre. 3. He is authorized to appoint and settle the terms of the new covenant, and to draw up the articles of peace between God and man; it is God in Christ that reconciles the world, and to him he has given power to confer eternal life. The book of life is the Lamb's book; by his award we must stand or fall. 4. He is commissioned to carry on and complete the war with the powers of darkness; to cast out and give judgment against the prince of this world, Joh 12:31. He is commissioned not only to judge, but to make war, Rev 19:11. All that will fight for God against Satan must enlist themselves under his banner. 5. He is constituted sole manager of the judgment of the great day. The ancients generally understood these words of that crowning act of his judicial power. The final and universal judgment is committed to the Son of man; the tribunal is his, it is the judgment-seat of Christ; the retinue is his, his mighty angels; he will try the causes, and pass the sentence. Act 17:31.
Thirdly, He has given him authority to execute judgment also, Joh 5:27. Observe, 1. What the authority is which our Redeemer is invested with: An authority to execute judgment; he has not only a legislative and judicial power, but an executive power too. The phrase here is used particularly for the judgment of condemnation, Jde 1:15. poiēsai krisin - to execute judgment upon all; the same with his taking vengeance, Th2 1:8. The ruin of impenitent sinners comes from the hand of Christ; he that executes judgment upon them is the same that would have wrought salvation for them, which makes the sentence unexceptionable; and there is no relief against the sentence of the Redeemer; salvation itself cannot save those whom the Saviour condemns, which makes the ruin remediless. 2. Whence he has that authority: the Father gave it to him. Christ's authority as Mediator is delegated and derived; he acts as the Father's Viceregent, as the Lord's Anointed, the Lord's Christ. Now all this redounds very much to the honour of Christ, acquitting him from the guilt of blasphemy, in making himself equal with God; and very much to the comfort of all believers, who may with the greatest assurance venture their all in such hands.
[2.] Here are the reasons (reasons of state) for which this commission was given him. He has all judgment committed to him for two reasons: -
First, Because he is the Son of man; which denotes these three things: - 1. His humiliation and gracious condescension. Man is a worm, the son of man a worm; yet this was the nature, this the character, which the Redeemer assumed, in pursuance of the counsels of love; to this low estate he stooped, and submitted to all the mortifications attending it, because it was his Father's will; in recompence therefore of this wonderful obedience, God did thus dignify him. Because he condescended to be the Son of man, his Father made him Lord of all, Phi 2:8, Phi 2:9. 2. His affinity and alliance to us. The Father has committed the government of the children of men to him, because, being the Son of man, he is of the same nature with those whom he is set over, and therefore the more unexceptionable, and the more acceptable, as a Judge. Their governor shall proceed from the midst of them, Jer 30:21. Of this that law was typical; One of thy brethren shalt thou set king over thee, Deu 17:15. 3. His being the Messiah promised. In that famous vision of his kingdom and glory, Dan 7:13, Dan 7:14, he is called the Son of man; and Psa 8:4-6. Thou has made the Son of man have dominion over the works of thy hands. He is the Messiah, and therefore is invested with all this power. The Jews usually called the Christ the Son of David; but Christ usually called himself the Son of man, which was the more humble title, and bespeaks him a prince and Saviour, not the Jewish nation only, but to the whole race of mankind.
Secondly, That all men should honour the Son, Joh 5:23. The honouring of Jesus Christ is here spoken of as God's great design (the Son intended to glorify the Father, and therefore the Father intended to glorify the Son, Joh 12:32); and as man's great duty, in compliance with that design. If God will have the Son honoured, it is the duty of all to whom he is made known to honour him. Observe here, 1. The respect that is to be paid to our Lord Jesus: We must honour the Son, must look upon him as one that is to be honoured, both on account of his transcendent excellences and perfections in himself, and of the relations he stands in to us, and must study to give him honour accordingly; must confess that he is Lord, and worship him; must honour him who was dishonoured for us. 2. The degree of it: Even as they honour the Father. This supposes it to be our duty to honour the Father; for revealed religion is founded on natural religion, and directs us to honour the Son, to honour him with divine honour; we must honour the Redeemer with the same honour with which we honour the Creator. So far was it from blasphemy for him to make himself equal with God that it is the highest injury that can be for us to make him otherwise. The truths and laws of the Christian religion, so far as they are revealed, are as sacred and honourable as those of natural religion, and to be equally had in estimation; for we lie under the same obligations to Christ, the Author of our being; and have as necessary a dependence upon the Redeemer's grace as upon the Creator's providence, which is a sufficient ground for this law - to honour the Son as we honour the Father. To enforce this law, it is added, He that honours not the Son honours not the Father who has sent him. Some pretend a reverence for the Creator, and speak honourably of him, who make light of the Redeemer, and speak contemptibly of him; but let such know that the honours and interests of the Father and Son are so inseparably twisted and interwoven that the Father never reckons himself honoured by any that dishonour the Son. Note, (1.) Indignities done to the Lord Jesus reflect upon God himself, and will so be construed and reckoned for in the court of heaven. The Son having so far espoused the Father's honour as to take to himself the reproaches cast on him (Rom 15:3), the Father does no less espouse the Son's honour, and counts himself struck at through him. (2.) The reason of this is because the Son is sent and commissioned by the Father; it is the Father who hath sent him. Affronts to an ambassador are justly resented by the prince that sends him. And by this rule those who truly honour the Son honour the Father also; see Phi 2:11.
[3.] Here is the rule by which the Son goes in executing this commission, so those words seem to come in (Joh 5:24): He that heareth and believeth hath everlasting life. Here we have the substance of the whole gospel; the preface commands attention to a thing most weighty, and assent to a thing most certain: "Verily, verily, I say unto you, I, to whom you hear all judgment is committed, I, in whose lips is a divine sentence; take from me the Christian's character and charter."
First, The character of a Christian: He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me. To be a Christian indeed is, 1. To hear the word of Christ. It is not enough to be within hearing of it, but we must attend on it, as scholars on the instructions of their teachers; and attend to it, as servants to the commands of their masters; we must hear and obey it, must abide by the gospel of Christ as the fixed rule of our faith and practice. 2. To believe on him that sent him; for Christ's design is to bring us to God; and, as he is the first original of all grace, so is he the last object of all faith. Christ is our way; God is our rest. We must believe on God as having sent Jesus Christ, and recommended himself to our faith and love, by manifesting his glory in the face of Jesus Christ (Co2 4:6), as his Father and our Father.
Secondly, The charter of a Christian, in which all that are Christians indeed are interested. See what we get by Christ. 1. A charter of pardon: He shall not come into condemnation. The grace of the gospel is a full discharge from the curse of the law. A believer shall not only not lie under condemnation eternally, but shall not come into condemnation now, not come into the danger of it (Rom 8:1), not come into judgment, not be so much as arraigned. 2. A charter of privileges: He is passed out of death to life, is invested in a present happiness in spiritual life and entitled to a future happiness in eternal life. The tenour of the first covenant was, Do this and live; the man that doeth them shall live in them. Now this proves Christ equal with the Father that he has power to propose the same benefit to the hearers of his word that had been proposed to the keepers of the old law, that is, life: Hear and live, believe and live, is what we may venture our souls upon, when we are disabled to do and live; see Joh 17:2.
[4.] Here is the righteousness of his proceedings pursuant to this commission, Joh 5:30. All judgment being committed to him, we cannot but ask how he manages it. And here he answers, My judgment is just. All Christ
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv17–23 But Jesus answered them,.... Being convened before them, and…
But Jesus answered them,.... Being convened before them, and charged by them with the violation of the sabbath, he vindicated himself in the following manner, saying;
my Father worketh hitherto: he who is my Father, not by creation, or adoption, but by nature, though he ended all his work on the seventh day, and rested from what he had done; yet he did not cease from working at all, but has continued to work ever since, on sabbath days, as well as on other days; in upholding and governing the world, in continuing the species of beings, and all creatures in their being; in providing for them, and in dispensing the bounties of his providence to them; in causing his sun to shine, and showers of rain to descend on the earth; and in taking care of, and protecting even the meanest of his creatures: and much more men; and still more his own people:
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and I work; or "also I work"; as the Syriac and Arabic version reads; i.e. in conjunction with him, as a co-efficient cause in the works of providence, in the government of the world, in upholding all things in it, in bearing up the pillars of the earth, in holding things together, and sustaining all creatures: or I also work in imitation of him, in doing good both to the bodies and souls of men on the sabbath day, being the Lord of it: I do but what my Father does, and therefore, as he is not to be blamed for his works on that day, as none will say he is, no more am I. So Philo the Jew says (b),
"God never ceases to work; but as it is the property of fire to burn, and of snow to cool, so of God to work.''
And what most men call fortune, he calls the divine Logos, or word, to whom he ascribes all the affairs of providence (c).
(b) Leg. Ailegor. l. 1. p. 41. (c) Quod Deus sit Immutab. p. 318.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv17–23 My Father worketh until now, and I work -…
My Father worketh until now, and I work - From the creation till now he hath been working without intermission. I do likewise. This is the proposition which is explained ver. 19-30, confirmed and vindicated in ver. 31 and following verses.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv17–23 Verse 17. My Father worked hitherto, and I work.]…
Verse 17. My Father worked hitherto, and I work.] Or, As my Father worketh until now, c., καθως being understood. God created the world in six days: on the seventh he rested from all creating acts, and set it apart to be an everlasting memorial of his work. But, though he rested from creating, he never ceased from preserving and governing that which he had formed: in this respect he can keep no sabbaths for nothing can continue to exist, or answer the end proposed by the Divine wisdom and goodness, without the continual energy of God. So I work - I am constantly employed in the same way, governing and supporting all things, comforting the wretched, and saving the lost; and to me, in this respect, there is no sabbath.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv17, 21 Joh 5:17-20. Jesus answered — “By the Jews, who…
Joh 5:17-20. Jesus answered — “By the Jews, who in the preceding verses are said to have persecuted Jesus, we are to understand the rulers, as appears from Joh 5:33, where Jesus, speaking to the persons who sought to kill him, (Joh 5:18,) says unto them, Ye sent unto John, and he bare witness unto the truth. But the messengers that were sent to John were priests and Levites, (Joh 1:19,) persons of character who would not have undertaken the office, unless by the appointment of the rulers, called on that occasion, as well as here, the Jews. Hence the apology which Jesus now made for himself is such as was proper to be pronounced before the most capable judges; for it is the most regular defence of his character and mission that is anywhere to be found in the gospels, comprehending the principal arguments in behalf of both, setting them forth with the greatest strength of reason, clearness of method, and conciseness of expression.” — Macknight. My Father worketh hitherto — From the beginning of the creation till now he hath been working without intermission, particularly in doing good to men by his unwearied providence. For on the sabbath day, as well as on other days, through the invisible operation of his almighty power, he supports the whole frame of nature, and carries on the motions of the heavens, upon which the vicissitudes of day and night, and of the seasons depend, so necessary to the production of food, with the other means of life. And I work — I imitate my Father, and work also continually. This is the proposition which is explained from Joh 5:19-30, and confirmed and vindicated in the 31st and following verses. As the Jews built their observation of the sabbath upon God’s having rested thereon from the works of creation, this argument was decisive: nevertheless, the apology offended them exceedingly, and they sought the more to kill him, because he not only had broken the sabbath — Which they were confident he had done; but said also, that God was his Father — Greek, Πατερα ιδιον, his own proper Father, as the expression signifies; his Father in so peculiar and appropriating a sense as, in effect, to make himself equal with God; and therefore asserting that he acted like God, and arguing his own right to work on the sabbath day from God’s working upon it. Since the whole nation of the Jews thought God to be their Father, (Joh 8:41,) they would not have accounted it blasphemy in Christ to have called God his Father, had they not interpreted it in so high and appropriating a sense. The conclusion which they drew from his words, our Lord did not deny, but showed that in all things he acted agreeably to the will of God, and that he was equal in power to God, doing whatever he saw the Father do, an honour which flowed to him from the immense love of the Father. The expression, the Son can do nothing of himself, manifests, not his imperfection, but his glory, for it implies his eternal, intimate, indissoluble unity with the Father. Hence it is absolutely impossible that the Son should judge, will, testify, or teach any thing, without the Father, Joh 5:30, &c.; Joh 6:38; Joh 7:16 : or that he should be known or believed on separately from the Father. And he here defends his doing good every day without intermission, by the example of his Father, from which he cannot depart. For the Father loveth the Son — Namely, with a peculiar, an infinite love; and showeth him all things that himself doeth — A proof of the most intimate unity; his most secret counsels lie open to the Son: and he will show him — By doing them; greater works than these — Which he has hitherto performed; will enable him to do greater miracles than any he has done hitherto; that ye may marvel — Which though they may not convince, will certainly astonish you, and make it impossible for you to gainsay him, at least, with any show of reason. Thus they marvelled, and were astonished, when he raised Lazarus, and when they were compelled to witness the awful prodigies that attended his death.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv17–23 My Father - God.
My Father - God.
Worketh hitherto - Worketh “until now,” or until this time. God has not ceased to work on the Sabbath. He makes the sun to rise; He rolls the stars; He causes the grass, the tree, the flower to grow. He has not suspended His operations on the Sabbath, and the obligation to “rest” on the Sabbath does not extend to Him. He created the world in six days, and ceased the work of creation; but He has not ceased to govern it, and to carry forward, by His providence, His great plans on the Sabbath.
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And I work - “As God does good on that day; as he is not bound by the law which requires his creatures to rest on that day, so “I” do the same. The law on that subject may be dispensed with, also, in my case, for the Son of man is Lord of the Sabbath.” In this reply it is implied that he was equal with God from two circumstances:
Because he called God his Father, Joh 5:18. Because he claimed the same exemption from law which God did, asserting that the law of the Sabbath did not bind him or his Father, thus showing that he had a right to impose and repeal laws in the same manner as God. He that has a right to do this must be God.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On vv17–22 My father worketh until now:[3] and I work. The…
My father worketh until now:[3] and I work. The Jews looked upon it of obligation to do nothing on the sabbath, because God is said to have rested the seventh day; on which account the rest on the seventh day was commanded. Christ puts them in mind, that though it be said he rested the seventh day, (that is, produced no more new kinds of creatures) yet that God may be said to work always, by preserving and continually governing the world: and I, saith he, do all things that he doth, I work with him, being one and the same in nature and substance with him: nay, even as man, I do nothing but what is conformable to his will; and so you need not fear that I break the sabbath. --- The Christian faith teacheth us, that Jesus Christ was both God and Man. The objections of the ancient and modern Arians, only shew that Christ was also truly a man, and that divers things which he speaks of himself, or which are said of him in the holy Scriptures, apply to him as man. Nothing is more certain, and agreed on by all. But at the same time we ought to take notice, that Christ has affirmed many things of himself, and many things are asserted of him in the Scriptures, which by no means could be applied to him unless he were also truly and properly one and the same God with his eternal Father. And these are the passages by which the Arians and Socinians might be convinced of their errors and blasphemies. (Witham) --- If Christ had not been the natural Son of God, these words, which he says in excuse of his seeming breach of the sabbath, would rather have increased the strength of their accusation. For no governor, when accused of any crime, excuses himself by saying the king does the same. But as the Son is equal to the Father, his excuse is a true one. (St. John Chrysostom, hom. xxxvii. in Joan.) --- The rest God entered into after the creation, and which he was pleased to honour by that of the sabbath, is no hinderance to the operations of his power in the preservation of his works, nor to the operations of his grace in the sanctification of souls.
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[BIBLIOGRAPHY]
Pater meus usque modo operatur, Greek: ergazetai. See St. John Chrysostom, Greek: om. le. on these words. St. Cyril, lib. ii. in Joan. chap. vi. St. Augustine, trac. xvii. in Joan. &c.
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv17–23 My Father worketh hitherto and I work--The "I" is…
My Father worketh hitherto and I work--The "I" is emphatic; "The creative and conservative activity of My Father has known no sabbath-cessation from the beginning until now, and that is the law of My working."
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv17–23 First great discourse, furnished by John, of Jesus to…
First great discourse, furnished by John, of Jesus to the hostile Jews, Joh_5:17-47.
The best biblical scholars consider this defence, or self-explanation, to have been delivered by Jesus before the Sanhedrim. It bears, hence, some slight resemblance to the Apologia, or defence of Socrates before the Helioea, or popular court, of Athens. The two discourses resemble at least in this, that both refuse to extenuate, but boldly magnify and glory in the matter charged. Hence Luther calls this “a sublime apology, which makes the matter worse.” We have here, doubtless, rather an outline than full report of the discourse. It consists of two parts: The first, 17-30, bases his defence for an apparent act of Sabbath-breaking upon his eternal Sonship of God. The second, 31-47, adduces the threefold witness to his Sonship.
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I. The eternal Sonship of Christ.
17. Worketh hitherto—By virtue of his oneness with God, Jesus is truly Lord of the Sabbath; and he no more violates the Sabbath by sending the current of vitality through the limbs of this paralytic, than the Father violates the Sabbath by keeping the stars in their courses, or sustaining the generations of men in the flow of life. God, having indeed closed the work of original creation with the creation of man, rested therefrom through a long Sabbath of time, even until now. God’s creative days were each perhaps an age; and this world’s long age may be his Sabbath. But he breaks neither that Sabbath, nor the Sabbath-day that commemorates that repose, by carrying on the ordinary train of nature or redemption. And as he has hitherto worked even through these Sabbaths, so do I work. I create nothing absolutely; but I control, hasten, or even vary, the processes of ordinary nature.
Hitherto—From the close of his creative work until now.
I work—My secret power in healing this man worked, just as God’s secret power worked in his generation and birth.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv17–23 17–47. The Discourse on the Son as the Source…
17–47. The Discourse on the Son as the Source of Life
17. answered them] This was how He met their constant persecution. The discourse which follows (see introductory note to chap. 3) may be thus analysed. (S. p. 106.) It has two main divisions—I. The prerogatives of the Son of God (Joh_5:17-30). II. The unbelief of the Jews (Joh_5:31-47). These two are subdivided as follows: I. 1. Defence of healing on the Sabbath based on the relation of the Son to the Father (Joh_5:17-18). 2. Intimacy of the Son with the Father further enforced (Joh_5:19-20). 3. This intimacy proved by the twofold power committed to the Son (a) of communicating spiritual life (Joh_5:21-27), (b) of raising the dead (Joh_5:28-29). 4. The Son’s qualification for these high powers is the perfect harmony of His Will with that of the Father (Joh_5:30). II. 1. The Son’s claims rest not on His testimony alone, nor on that of John, but on that of the Father (Joh_5:31-35). 2. The Father’s testimony is evident (a) in the works assigned to the Son (Joh_5:36), (b) in the revelation which the Jews reject (Joh_5:37-40). 3. Not that the Son needs honour from men, who are too worldly to receive Him (Joh_5:41-44). 4. Their appeal to Moses is vain; his writings condemn them.
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17–30. The Prerogatives and Powers of the Son of God
17, 18. Defence of healing on the Sabbath based on the relation of the Son to the Father.
My Father worketh hitherto, &c.] Or, My Father is working even until now; I am working also. From the Creation up to this moment God has been ceaselessly working for man’s salvation. From such activity there is no rest, no Sabbath: for mere cessation from activity is not of the essence of the Sabbath; and to cease to do good is not to keep the Sabbath but to sin. Sabbaths have never hindered the Father’s work; they must not hinder the Son’s. Elsewhere (Mar_2:27) Christ says that the Sabbath is a blessing not a burden; it was made for man, not man for it. Here He takes far higher ground for Himself. He is equal to the Father, and does what the Father does. Mar_2:28 helps to connect the two positions. If the Sabbath is subject to man, much more to the Son of Man, who is equal to the Father.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv17–22 (17) My Father worketh hitherto (or, up to this…
(17) My Father worketh hitherto (or, up to this moment).—They charge Him with breaking the law of God. His answer to this charge is that His action was the result of His Sonship and unity with that God. The very idea of God implied action. This was familiar to the thought of the day. Comp., e.g., in the contemporary Philo, “God never ceases working; but as to burn is the property of fire, and to be cold is the property of snow, thus also to work is the property of God, and much the more, inasmuch as He is the origin of action for all others” (Legis Allegor. i. 3. See the whole section. The English reader will find it in Bohn’s Ed., vol i., p. 53). The rest on the seventh day was the completion of the works of creation (see this stated emphatically in Gen_2:2-3). It was not, it could not be, a cessation in divine work, or in the flow of divine energy. That knew nor day nor night, nor summer nor winter, nor Sabbath nor Jubilee. For man, and animal, and tree, and field, this alternation of a time of production and a time of reception was needed, but God was the ever-constant source of energy and life for all in heaven and earth and sea. The power going forth to heal that sufferer was the same power which sustained them in well-being. The strength which passed through his half-dead frame, and bade it live, was the same which every Sabbath morning awoke them from death’s image, sleep, and would awake from death itself (Joh_5:21). The sun shone, and fruitful showers fell, and flower burst its bud, and harvest ripened, and they themselves, in energy of life, had grown on every day alike. God ever worketh up to this present moment. That God is also Father. The Son, therefore, worketh in the same way. This poor sufferer, lying helpless, is of the same human nature with the Son of God. He has in faith and hope made himself receptive of the divine energy, and that energy which can know no Sabbath, but is ever going forth to every heart that can receive it, hath made him whole.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv17–23 Vers. 17-47. (3) The reply of Jesus to the…
Vers. 17-47. (3) The reply of Jesus to the hostile Jews. The discourse of the Lord Jesus, in reply to the persecuting spirit and deadly purpose of the Jewish authorities, is now given at length. There is a fulness and order and progress observable throughout of immense importance as establishing the sacred origin of the words. The simplicity of the style, quite Hebraic in its freedom from conjunctive forms, discriminates it from the Philonic presentation of certain analogous but different ideas. If, as Godet has remarked, we venture on the hazardous speculation that the prologue to the Gospel merely places before us the Philonic conception of YEOS and LOGOS , making God to be the inconceivable, unapproachable, impersonal Essence, coming into activity in the LOGOS who is self-dependent, but who exhausts all the vitality and activity of the supreme Yeov , we may, with Reuss, find hero what is contrary to both the prologue and to the views of the Divine Being, which repudiate the correlative subordination of the Son of God. But the prologue is based on the identity of nature between YEOS and LOGOS , and the subordinate and yet eternal relation of the latter to the former. There is an infinite fulness of being and activity in the Father, who yet is and loves and energizes in all things through the LOGOS , the MONOGENHS . It appears to us that precisely the same truth is taught here, but it is taught in terms derived from the consciousness of the Logos incarnate, and with reference to a part only of the operations of the Logos, viz. in the providential, redeeming, and quickening work of the Son. This narrative shows how actual revelations of the Logos were made through the human consciousness of him who was lifted up into the being of the Son of God, and who became the Interpreter of the Son to men. The prologue is built upon the discourse is an inspired and transcendental generalization of the truths here and elsewhere announced. The discourse is the basis of the prologue in the thought of the evangelist. The originality of the discourse is conspicuous. Its theme shows it to be closely allied with the discussions which shortly after this created such fierce animosities in the synagogues of Galilee, whither his Jerusalem enemies pursued him. We shall find that there Jesus declared that "the Son of man was Lord of the sabbath," and was competent in that capacity to assert what was contained and involved in the sabbath. On another occasion he vindicated for his disciples the right to food on the sabbath, (Mar_2:23-28)
(1) on the historic ground that the royal hero of the Old Testament was at liberty, in dire emergency, to eat the priest"s shewbread, which narrow ritualism would have refused to starving laymen;
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(2) that his Person was a temple, and his service a temple service, which would be a further justification of the conduct of the disciples, as priests in the temple, in their submission to the higher law of duties, "profane the sabbath and are blameless." The cures he persistently wrought on the sabbath were justified by the principle that it is lawful to do acts of kindness, to save life, to release the sin- and Satan-bound daughter of Abraham on the sabbath; and that such sabbath keeping was part of the original significance of the day. Here the Lord takes the higher ground that he and the Father, in works of providence, healing, and life giving, are one.
Vers. 17, 18. (a) The claim of special relation with the Father.
But Jesus answered them (apekrinato ; here and ver. 19 are the only places where the author uses this aorist, My Father worketh hitherto; i.e. until now; has not, has never, ceased from working. Some critics, eager for disparaging comment, have said "this is point blank denial of the sabbath rest of the Creator as exhibited in Ge 1, 2, and Ex 20. But, on the contrary, it is the true exposition of those grand utterances. God through his Logos, the Father through his Son, did bring his strictly creative works to an end with the six days; but then he entered on the seventh day, the rest of his preserving, protective, reproductive energy; then he began to pursue his redeeming and quickening operations in all regions of his dominion. My Father worketh, energizes, until now. His "rest" is an infinite activity of wisdom and power, of righteousness and mercy. The true sabbath is this rest of God. Man has to enter into this rest, and cooperate with and utterly abandon himself to the will of God. Sabbath keeping is the great symbol of such entire satisfaction with God. The activities from which man has to cease on the holy day are man"s own, man"s self-centred labours; but he, too, may combine the highest activity with profound repose. My Father worketh until now, and I work I, who am his Instrument, his Word, his Manifestation, his Messenger, abstaining from all mere self-originated, self-poised, self-centering toil, I work with him for him. I work obviously and visibly that you may see for yourselves what he has ever been doing silently and unobserved." Philo had said ("Leg. All.," 1:3) "that God never ceases to create, nor takes a holiday from his works;" and the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews
(4) had grasped, as an echo of Christ"s own teaching, the perpetuity of Divine rest through all the ages of work; but the naked thought here soars far above them both. The dawning of every clay, the opening of the flowers, the flowing of the rivers, the sustenance of vegetable, animal, and human life, reveal through every moment of the agelong sabbath rest, and on every sabbath day, his intense and constant activity.
Vers. 17-23. Our Lord"s vindication of his conduct.
It is summarized in a single significant sentence: "My Father worketh hitherto, and I work.
I THE TRUE MEANING OF OUR LORD"S DECLARATION.
1. His Fathers life is characterized by unceasing activity. He may have ceased to put forth power in the way of creative energy, but he is still active in the spheres of providence and redemption.
2. Christs work is coordinate with that of the Father, and not merely dependent upon it. The assertion implies equality of operation.
3. The sabbath miracle just performed was part of his Divine activity, but not on that account inconsistent with the sabbath law.
(1) As One "born under the Law"; (Gal_4:4, Gal_4:12) as a "Minister of the circumcision", (Rom_15:8) he could not repudiate the Law, which was only to cease with his death; but
(2) the work of mercy done on the sabbath was really included in the spirit of the Law.
II THE JEWISH INTERPRETATION PUT UPON OUR LORD"S DECLARATION. "Therefore sought they the more to kill him, because he not only had broken the sabbath, but said also that God was his Father, making himself equal with God." The interpretation was perfectly just, and, accordingly, Jesus, instead of repudiating it, uses four arguments to confirm its truth.
1. First argument. His perfect Sonship involves identity of will and operation with the Father. "The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do: for what things soever he doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise.
(1) The Arian infers from the words, "The Son can do nothing of himself," that Christ is not equal to the Father.
(2) But the Lord asserts that separate action is impossible on account of the unity of the Father and the Son; and
(3) that the action of Father and Son is coextensive in virtue of the sameness of nature.
2. Second argument. The love of the Father to the Son leads to his communicating to the Son "all things that himself doeth: and he will show him greater works than these, that ye may marvel.
(1) The Father"s love to the Son is based on their essential nature.
(2) Love is the perfect revelation of the Father, and is therefore communicative in its very nature.
(3) It is through the Son this love of the Father streams downward to believers. (Joh_16:27)
(4) The greater works yet to be done might excite the wonder of the Jews, and leave them without excuse in their unbelief. Wonder ought to excite to faith.
3. Third argument. The Son is joined with the Father in quickening the dead. "For as the Father raiseth up the dead, and quickeneth them; even so the Son quickeneth whom he will.
(1) This work is an act of omnipotence possible to God only. If Christ can do it, he must be God.
(2) The work is impossible to man, whether it be regarded as referring to the resurrection of the dead at the judgment day, or to the spiritual resurrection of sinners in the present life.
(3) Christ"s power was manifest
(a) in raising Lazarus, the son of the widow of Nain, and the daughter of Jairus;
(b) in the conversion of many souls during his ministry;
(c) and will be still more gloriously manifest in the final resurrection of the dead.
(d) He is sovereign in the exercise of his power: "The Son quickeneth whom he will.
(i) Yet his will is not independent of the Father"s will, for hequickeneth all whom the Father hath given to him.
(ii) But the salvation that springs out of this quickening is not ofworks, nor of him that runneth, but of him that showeth mercy.
4. Fourth argument. Judgment belongs to the Son. "For the Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment to the Son.
(1) The Father is, in a true sense, Judge of all the earth, but he does not judge without the Son; for he will yet judge the world in righteousness by his Son. (Act_17:31)
(2) Yet he has committed the judgment to the Son of man. This prerogative of judgment implies equality of Father and Son.
(3) The design of this arrangement. "That all men should honour the Son, even as they honour the Father." This text condemns those Socinians who refuse to worship Christ as they worship the Father.
(4) The Jews of our Lord"s day, like the Socinians of our day, dishonour the Father in the very act of refusing due homage to the Son. "He that honoureth not the Son honoureth not the Father who hath sent him." Divine honour can only be given to a Divine person. "My glory will I not give to another," saith God.
The incessancy of Divine ministry.
Healing is work. The sabbath is for rest. Thus the Jews, in their rigid formality, objected against Jesus that, in restoring the infirm and sick man to health and vigour, he had transgressed the Law, because he had wrought the cure upon the sabbath day. The calumnies and persecutions of his enemies were met on the part of Christ by these simple and significant words: "My Father worketh even until now, and I work." There is no pause in the Creator"s beneficence, none in the Saviour"s ministrations.
I HERE IS TEACHING UPON THE RELATION OF THE FATHER AND THE SON. The Jews were quick to discern the claim implicitly contained in the language of Jesus. He was "making himself equal with God." This he did, both by speaking thus of his "Father," and by asserting of himself what was true of no mere man, but of God only.
II HERE IS TEACHING UPON THE UNINTERMITTING CONTINUITY OF THE DIVINE OPERATIONS. Christ gives no countenance to the very common notion that God created the universe, as a mechanic may a machine, leaving it when wound up to do its work, with no energy exercised, no interest shown, no interference taking place on the part of the Creator. God is ever working. In all the laws of nature, in all the movements of society, we are justified in tracing his ever-present and most beneficent hand.
III HERE IS TEACHING UPON THE PARAMOUNT AUTHORITY OF THE LORD CHRIST. What dignity is there in the assertion of our Master, "I work"! He came to this earth in order to work; his life among men was a life of toil. "I must," said he, "work the works of him that sent me, while it is day." Especially did he work in the vanquishing of human ills, and in the promotion of human purity and well being. His work was not only wise; it was effective. Satan worked; Christ counter worked. Christ worked with Divine efficiency.
IV HERE IS TEACHING UPON THE RELATION BETWEEN CHRIST AND MEN"S VIEWS AND PRACTICES WITH REFERENCE TO RELIGION. The Jews cavilled and quibbled, made much of trifles, were strict in ceremonial observances. How did the Lord and Saviour act in view of Jewish formalities? "I work! such was his reply, his rebuke. They might talk and find fault, they might forget the sufferer and the sinner in their exaltation of the Law. The Lord showed them a more excellent way, when he quietly but assiduously did the work for which he came into the world.
V HERE IS TEACHING UPON THE NATURE OF THE CHURCH"S MINISTRY. If the Father and the Son concur in working, and if their work is incessant, what must be the vocation of the representatives of Christ, the servants of God? Surely their ministry must needs he one of toil. And if even the sabbath was a suitable occasion for the performance of a miracle of healing and of mercy, can Christians put the Lord"s day to a better use than they do when they spend its hours in seeking the salvation of mankind? T.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On v19 The Son can do nothing of Himself, but what…
Joh_5:19-23
The Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He seeth the Father do
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The unity of the Father and the Son
The Jews sought to kill Jesus in obedience to the law
(1) because He wrought a miracle on the Sabbath;
(2) because He vindicated Himself on the ground of His equality with God, who constantly works such miracles in His providence on the Sabbath.
So far from disclaiming the Jewish inference He here confirms it. Note
I. CHRISTS RELATION TO THE FATHER IN ALL HE DOES (Joh_5:19).
1. Unity of operation. These words assert that as it is impossible for the Son to do anything of Himself, so it is impossible that the Father can do anything without the Son. The cure of the impotent man, therefore, was by both.
2. Distinction of persons. The Father shows, the Son sees; the Father purposes, the Son executes.
3. Identity of works. They do the same, not similar things. The same Jesus stands in the midst of us and says, Wilt thou be made whole? If we despise Him speaking in His word we despise the great God with whom we have to do.
II. THE GROUND OF THIS RELATION (Joh_5:20).
1. Love is the expression of the Fathers feeling toward the Son.
2. He communicates Himself to the Son and makes Him His counsellor.
3. This relation Christ made known that they might marvel--admire Gods glorious manifestation of Himself and give Him glory.
III. INSTANCES OF THE WORKS ILLUSTRATIVE OF THIS RELATION.
1. (Joh_5:21). Resurrection and quickening, including no doubt the physical, but referring mainly to the spiritual process.
(1) Raising up. Sin, as a frightful incubus, rests on the soul exerting its paralysing influence. This spiritual death is chased away.
(2) Quickening. New life is imparted. Death implies previous life. A tree cut down and withered is different from a stone. In Adam the soul died; when the Son quickens a new and more glorious life is communicated.
(3) There can be no consideration more alarming than our continuance in this death. How dreadful to pass away without having the experience of this raising up and quickening, and to lie for ever in condemnation as self-destroyed.
2. (Joh_5:22-23). Judgment.
(1) To Him is committed the whole administration of the gospel; and when His supreme government is asserted as here, it means that the Father judgeth no man alone--both judge.
(2) He will preside at the eternal awards.
IV. IMPORTANT INFERENCES DEDUCED FROM THIS RELATION.
1. If Christ is not worshipped God is not (Joh_5:23). God must be approached according to the revelation He has made of Himself: we cannot do so unless we know Him as the Father who sent the Son.
2. Salvation comes by the word of Christ (Joh_5:24).
(1) This hearing, no doubt, includes listening with the outward ear; a great and necessary duty. But it is also (Joh_5:25) of a kind which awakens to life, with the mind and spirit, therefore, prompting to action, so that we become not hearers only, but doers.
(2) Salvation is by resting on the true object of faith--in God as sending the Son not as the Creator, etc.
(3) This salvation is everlasting life--a great salvation therefore. How shall we escape if we neglect it. (A. Beith, D. D.)
The Fathers love to the Son
I. THE FATHER LOVETH THE SON. What has this to do with us What have we to do with the Son? The answer to the latter will answer the former. If we are one with Christ the fact that God loves Him
1. Will solve a number of curious and doubtful questions. Satan is always trying to draw believers away from what is simple. The Father loveth the Son. Can Satan deny that? If not, then if I be the Sons, all the outgoings and principles of God concerning me must be of love. Everything must be consistent with that.
2. Will lift us up above a number of depressions.
(1) Are we tried?
(2) lonely;
(3) poor;
(4) weary and worn. Whoever was so tried as the beloved Son?
II. CHRIST RESTED IN THE FATHERS LOVE, AND IN THE DEEP CONSCIOUSNESS OF IT PUT FORTH IMMENSE POWER.
1. Wherever love attains its highest form there is rest. It puts away all ifs and speculations, and goes down into the ocean depths of certainties which are beyond the reach of surface storms.
2. This should give us great power
(1) in prayer, passing into Gods mind through an inlet of love; its answer coming forth through the outlet of love;
(2) in faith;
(3) in hope.
III. CHRISTS RELATION TO THE FATHER DETERMINES HIS ADMINISTRATION OF THE FUTURE, AND OUR RELATION TO HIM DETERMINES OUR PART IN IT. In present and future resurrection and judgment. (P. B. Power, M. A.)
Christs reply
resembles Luthers: I cannot do otherwise; or, to take a nearer example, Jesus puts His work under the guarantee of the Fathers, as the impotent man had just put his under the shelter of Jesus. (F. Godet, D. D.)
Christs limitations
Neither the man nor the angel exists who could dare to say of himself: I can do nothing of myself; because no mans and no angels self is essentially and inseparably one with the self of God. The creature can tear itself away from its Creator, and place its I in opposition to Him; it can seek its life in itself, instead of in Him, and it can act in its own name (Joh_8:44); the Son of God, on the contrary, has nothingof His own, no self, which does not eternally contain the same life which the Father has. (R. Besser, D. D.)
The Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment to the Son
The delegation of judicial authority to Christ
I. JUDGMENT APPERTAINS TO GOD. It is His in criminal causes (Rom_12:19) and in civil things (Psa_82:1). No function of God is so often reiterated. And He is the Judge of judges themselves. Judgment is so essential to God that it is co-eternal with Him.
1. He knows, and therefore naturally detests evil. We are blind, and need the assistance of the law to know what is evil. And if a man be a judge what an exact knowledge of the law is required of him--for some things are sins to one nation which are not to another, and some things are sin at one time which are not at another. Only God has a universal knowledge, and therefore detestation of evil.
2. He discerns when thou committest evil. Hence you have to supply defects in laws so that things done in one country may be tried in another. But God has the power of discerning all actions in all places. Earthly judges have their distinctions and so their restrictions; some things they cannot know--what mortal can, and some things they cannot take knowledge of, for they are bound by evidence. But nothing keeps God from discerning and judging everything.
3. He knows how to punish evil. The office of a judge being not to contract or extend the law, but to declare its true meaning. God hath this judgment in perfection, for He made the law by which He judges. Who then can dispute His interpretation? As, then, God is judge in all these three respects, so He is a judge
(1) without appeal;
(2) without needing any evidence (Pro_24:12; Pro_16:2; 1Co_4:4); and if so, not only I, but not the most righteous man, nor the Church He hath washed in His own blood, shall appear righteous in His sight.
II. How then, seeing that judgment is an inseparable character of God, can it be said that THE FATHER JUDGETH NO MAN? Not certainly because weary. He judges as God, not as Father. In the three great judgments of God the whole Trinity judges.
1. Before all times in our election.
2. Now in separating of servants from enemies.
3. At the last judgment in separating the sheep from the goats.
Consider God altogether, and so in all outward works, all the Trinity concurs, because all are one God; but consider God in relation, in distinct persons, and so the several persons do something in which the other persons are not interested. So the Son judgeth, the Father judgeth not, for that judgment He hath committed.
III. TO THE SON HE HATH COMMITTED ALL JUDGMENT, the image of the invisible God, and so more proportional unto us, more apprehensible by us.
1. But doth He judge as Son of God or as Son of Man. Upon this the Fathers and Reformers are divided. But take this rule, God hath given Christ this commission as Man, but Christ had not been capable of it had He not been God too. The ability is in Him eternally, but the power of actual execution was given Him as Man.
2. All judgment
(1) Of our election. If I were under the condemnation of the law, and going to execution, and the kings pardon were presented to me, I should ask no question as to motives and circumstances, but thankfully attribute it to his goodness and accept it; so when I consider myself as under Gods consideration, and yet by the working of Gods Spirit I find I am delivered from it I inquire not what God did in His cabinet council. I know that He hath elected me in Christ. And, therefore, that I may know whether I do not deceive myself I examine myself whether I can truly tell my conscience that Christ died for me, which I cannot do if I have not a desire to conform myself to Him; and if I do that then I find my predestination.
(2) Of our justification, for there is none other name, etc. Do I then remember what I contracted with Christ when I took His name at baptism? Have I fulfilled those conditions? Do I find a remorse when I have not? Do I feel remission of those sins when I hear the gracious promises of the gospel to repentant sinners? Have I a true and solid consolation when I receive the seal of pardon at the Sacrament? Therefore this judgment is His also.
(3) Of our glorification (Rev_1:7). Then He shall come as Man and give judgment for things done or omitted towards Him as Man, for not feeding, etc. Conclusion: Such is the goodness of God that He deals with man by the Son of Man.
1. If you would be tried by the first judgment; are you elected or no? Do you believe in Christ?
2. If by the second, are you justified or no? Do you find comfort in the Word and sacraments of Christ?
3. If by the third, do you expect a glorification? Are you so reconciled to Jesus Christ now that you durst say now, Come quickly, Lord Jesus? then you are partakers of all that blessedness which the Father intended for you when, for your sake, He committed all judgment to the Son. (J. Donne, D. D.)
The Redeemer our Judge
That our Saviour was perfect God and perfect man is a truth which cannot be denied and Christianity not fall to the ground. But this very combination will cause apparent inconsistencies in the way in which He is spoken of. And it should be remembered that what holds good of Him in one capacity may be inapplicable to Him in another. As God judgment could not be committed to Him. He had it by Divine necessity and right. But it is as Mediator, a Being in which the two natures combine, that He is entrusted with the authority as Judge.
I. HE WILL JUDGE AT THE LAST DAY. What are the qualifications requisite for such an office?
1. Obviously no mere creature can fulfil that function. There must be acquaintance with secrecies of character as well as open actions. Hypocrisy must not pass undetected, nor unobtrusive merit fail of recompense. Angels cannot be judges of human character, nor possess themselves of all the necessary evidence. Omniscience alone will suffice.
2. But if we cannot approach an angelic judge with confidence, how approach omniscient Deity? A created judge is immeasurably nearer than the Creator, though of a different nature.
3. You ask, therefore, for one who shall have a thorough fellow feeling with those brought to his bar, i.e., a man. But how can you hope to have a man who, qualified by sympathy, should yet possess the qualification of omniscience?
4. This combination, however, does exist. A man sits on that great white throne, bone of our bone, but God to whom all things are naked and open.
II. HE JUDGES NOW, for all judgment is committed to Him.
1. To this we are indebted for that tenderness which characterizes Gods present judgments. Afflictions are not allowed to come together; the rough wind is restrained till the east wind has passed away. Chastisement is very different conceived as inflicted by God and inflicted by the Mediator.
2. If this be so how heavy will be the final judgment! There will be no pleading that our case was not thoroughly understood. All along we have been drawn by the cords of a man; then the impenitent will be judged by the Man who died for them and tried by every possible means to turn them from enemies into friends. His presence itself will condemn, and they will call to the rocks, etc., to hide them from not the thunderbolts of avenging Deity, but from the face of Him who became man for their salvation. Anything might be better borne than the glance of this face so eloquent of rejected mercies. (H. Melvill, B. D.)
The judgment
Men will have views very different from what they now have.
I. THE MISER will see a life spent in gathering gold with terror.
II. THE AMBITIOUS will wonder that he could barter his soul for office.
III. THE SENSUALIST will dread to review his luxury and lewdness.
IV. THE SOPHIST will argue no more against Divine truth.
V. THE IMPENITENT will be amazed at his madness in clinging to his sins.
VI. THE MOCKER will jest no more about sacred things,
VII. THE PROFANE will howl over the folly that resulted God. (W. H. Van Doren, D. D.)
The judgment will be searching
I will tell you a dream of one of quality, related to myself by the dreamer himself. Said he, I dreamed the day of judgment was come, and all men appeared before Christ. Some were white, others spotted. Methought, said he, I was all white, saving that I had one black spot upon my breast, which I covered with my hand. Upon the separation of these two sorts I got among the white on the right band. Glad was I; but at last a narrow search was made, and one came and plucked away my hand from my breast; then appeared my spot, and I was thrust away among the spotted ones. (Thomas Larkham.)
That all men should honour the Son even as they honour the Father
Equal honour to be paid to the Father and to the Son
I. WHY?
1. Because the perfections of the Father are those of the Son (Joh_5:26). Omnipotence, Omnipresence, Omniscience, Holiness, Love, etc.
2. Because the works of the Father are those of the Son (Joh_5:19). Creation, Providence, Redemption, Resurrection.
3. Because the administration of the Father is that of the Son (Joh_5:22).
(1) Now over kingdoms, cities, families, individuals.
(2) At the great day.
4. Because it is the special desire of both the Father and the Son.
(1) Of the Father, because on the honour of the Son the whole blessedness of the universe is centred.
(2) Of the Son, because the Father is only honoured through the Son. God was not honoured in Judaism, witness its lapses into idolatry and its ultimate formalism; nor by Mohammedanism, witness its cruelty and licentiousness; nor in heathenism, where He is not known at all; nor by Deism, as proved by its development into agnosticism and atheism. Only in Christendom is God honoured, because Christ is honoured.
II. How?
1. By admiring the perfections of the Divine Son. The chiefest among ten thousand, etc.
2. By acknowledging the services of the Divine Son. We are His because He made, preserved, and redeemed us; therefore we should glorify Him as our Master, Friend, Saviour.
3. By co-operating with the rule of the Divine Son.
(1) By obeying it ourselves.
(2) By securing its recognition in others.
4. By making the Supreme desire in the universe the master passion and motive of our souls; doing all things with the one aim of securing the honour of the Son and of the Father through Him.
III. Where?
1. At home.
(1) In secret prayer. This will test the purity and constancy of our motive.
(2) In our families, bringing them up to honour Christ by reverencing His name, word, and ordinances.
2. In the sanctuary.
(1) By attentively listening to the Word.
(2) By regular attendance at His table.
(3) By heartiness in His worship.
3. In the world eschewing all business, amusements, etc., likely to bring dishonour on Him. (J. W. Burn.)
He that honoureth not the Son honoureth not the Father
Amphilochus, Bishop of Iconium, entered the palace of Theodosius, and bowed to the Emperor, but not to Arcadius his son. The Emperor reminding him of his neglect, the good man still refused, and on his showing great displeasure, Amphilochus replied, O king, how much more will Jehovah abhor those rejecting His Son! (W. H. Van Doren, D. D.)
Christs demand of a man
Across a chasm of eighteen hundred years Jesus Christ makes a demand which is beyond all others difficult to satisfy. He asks that for which a philosopher may often seek in vain at the hands of his friends, or a father of his children, or a bride of her spouse, or a man of his brother. He asks for the human heart; He will have it entirely to Himself; He demands it unconditionally; and forthwith His demand is granted. (Napoleon I.)
Christ claims Divine honours
And they worshipped Him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy. Did they sin in worshipping the Lord Jesus Christ? After their long career of intimacy, did love to such a being, who had exhausted the symbolism of life to express His life-giving relations to them; with every conceivable incitement, reverence, and worship; with love, wonder, joy, and gratitude kindling their imaginations towards Him; without a solitary word of caution lest they should be snared by their enthusiasm, and bestow upon Him the worship that belonged only to God--did they sin in worshipping Him? If they did, was not Christ Himself the tempter? If they did not, may not every living soul worship Him? (H. W.Beecher.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
B. W. Johnson 1891 · Public Domain On vv17, 18, 19, 22 17. My Father worketh hitherto, and I work. The…
17. My Father worketh hitherto, and I work. The answer of Jesus to his accusers goes to the very root of the matter. The basis on which the Sabbath rested was that God had ceased his creative labors on the seventh day. Jesus shows that God's rest was not idleness. The Father had continued his works of love and mercy. He worked in these works right on till Jesus came; “now,” says the Son, “I work as my Father works. There is no suspension on the Sabbath of works of benevolence and mercy.” The Father's example is the pattern given to direct man.
B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain On v19 Joh_5:19. The Son can do nothing of Himself.—This statement…
EXPLANATORY AND CRITICAL NOTES
Joh_5:19. The Son can do nothing of Himself.—This statement refers back to and justifies that of Joh_5:17. He is still speaking of the eternal relation in which He stands to the Father, but also of that relationship as manifested in His activity as the Son Incarnate. Even when in the form of a servant He sees and knows the Father’s working as men cannot see and know it, and His actions are the works of the Father.
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Joh_5:20. Loveth.—φιλεῖ expresses a feeling of tenderness and personal affection. Greater works.—These works lay already, as it were, within the ken of the Son. The wonderful works already done are but the prelude of the greater that will follow—not only the greater miracles which would cause the Jews to marvel (Joh_11:47), though not to believe, but the quickening of the dead and the strange work of judgment (Isa_28:16-22).
Joh_5:22. Judgment.—“Literally, the judgment which comes and will come, wholly, in all its parts, now in its first beginning and hereafter in its complete accomplishment” (Westcott).
Joh_5:24-29. In this section the relation of the divine Son to humanity is dealt with as the quickener of the dead and the judge of men.
Joh_5:24. Believeth Him.—πιστεύων τῷ πἑμψαντι. not εἰς. Believing God is simply accepting His word and message as true.
Joh_5:25. Now is.—The quickening of the spiritually dead is what is chiefly in view in this verse.
Joh_5:26. Life in Himself.—ἐν ἑαυτῷ is emphatic. As the Father is the self-existent One and the source of life, so is it with the Son. He also with the Father is a spring of self-sufficient life. “He generated such a Son who should have life in Himself, not as a participator in life, but one who should be as He Himself is—Life itself” (Augustine in Reynolds).
Joh_5:30. The Father and the Son do not act, so to speak, independently. Their action is ever in unison. So the judgments of the Son are in perfect accord with the Father’s will and thought.
Joh_5:33. Ye sent.—See Joh_1:19.
Joh_5:38. They had an idolatrous regard for the letter of the law; but the spiritual power of the word they did not know. Its searching and quickening power they had not experienced (Heb_4:12).
Joh_5:39. ἐρευνᾶτε.—Either indicative or imperative—“ye search” or “search.”
Joh_5:40. The freedom of man’s will and his consequent responsibility are here clearly asserted.
Joh_5:43. Should another come in his own name.—There were many who did so; and who, by flattering national vanity, and homologating the Jewish carnal expectations of a Messiah who should reign as a temporal king, led many after them. In all sixty-four false Christs have been enumerated, the most famous being Bar Cocheba. “The teacher who can utilise to the widest extent the fashionable worldliness, and can mingle the pungent human condiment with the princely food of the king’s banqueting-house, is he who at the present hour meets with the loudest response and the readiest reception” (Dr. Reynolds).
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.—Joh_5:19-47
Joh_5:19-23. The activity of the divine Son.—In these verses we again enter the region of unfathomable divine truth, already opened to us in the prologue, and into which we can enter but a little way. These verses give us a glimpse of the intimate union of God the Father and the Son, as it is revealed in the activity of the Son. “The action and honour of the Son are coincident with the action and honour of the Father” (Westcott). The impulse which moves them is the same. But as the Incarnate Son, who became obedient unto death for our sake, He does what He seeth the Father do; and the works which the Father gives Him these He finishes (Joh_5:36).
I. There is identity of activity on the part of the Father and the Son.—
1. This is seen to be the case from the beginning of things. He is identified with the Father in creation (Joh_1:3); and also in upholding the visible universe (Col_1:17).
2. Therefore in all the Father’s works of love and mercy He has been the constant participator. All through those ages darkened by sin and sorrow He has shared in all those exhibitions of divine goodness toward fallen humanity: so that His sun has shone and His rain has descended on the evil and the good—the just and the unjust.
3. Above all He has shared in that compassionate love which yearned over the ruined race; and in reply to the impulse of that love He said: “Lo, I come to do Thy will. My meat is to do the will of Him that sent me, and to finish His work” (Joh_4:34).
II. The Son’s work during His life on earth was therefore the Father’s work.—
1. The Jews had accused Him of contravening the Father’s will and law in healing the impotent man at Bethesda on the Sabbath, and bidding him take up his “bed” and walk.
2. Our Lord, in His vindication of His action, points out that He could not have acted otherwise. The Father is ever performing acts of beneficence—every morning His mercies are new; and the day of rest forms no exception. In healing the sick and relieving the wretched, therefore, the Son is but doing what the Father does.
3. The greatness of this miracle also proved that the Father must have been in purpose and action one with the Son. And this unity in work was further shown in the end for which the miracle was wrought. It was to quicken and strengthen faith, and thus deliver from sin’s guilt and power.
III. The future will testify to this unity in action as the past has done.—
1. As His word was powerful in times past to heal men, and above all to give them spiritual healing, so He is still powerful “to save unto the uttermost,” etc. (Heb_7:25). In His name still moral miracles are wrought among men, and will continue to be wrought till time shall end.
2. And then will be given yet more universal and striking proofs of that unanimity in thought and action which subsists between the Father and the Song of Solomon 3. To the Son is given the power of resurrection life for those who hear His word and believe on His name.
4. And to Him also is delegated the throne of judgment (Mat_25:31 et seq.) by the Father, that He may appear as the visible representative of the divine majesty and righteousness. And this is to the end that all men should honour the Son, etc.
Joh_5:19-29. Jesus is our Life.—In this Gospel Jesus declares that He is the Lord and that we are His creatures. He has given us life, and will grant it in all fulness. He is the express image of God in His being and working. We reflect His light. He is set over us as judge. Those who appeal to Him are acquitted; those who do not recognise His jurisdiction lose the process of eternity in all particulars. Those who do not desire that death, the king of terrors, should rule over them eternally must turn to Jesus. He has the keys of Hades and death (Rev_1:18). Those who make their reckoning for the judgment-day on any other rule have no deliverance. There are no side or back doors by which men can steal out of their graves and slink into heaven. The wide door of righteousness—on that day most wide—is called Jesus; and the broad way of eternal blessedness—on that day most wide and shining—is also called Jesus, and yet again Jesus. Therefore will we confess Jesus since Jesus is our life, because—
I. He awakes us from spiritual death.—He says in the Gospel that He quickens whom He will; and that the hour is coming in which the dead shall hear His voice and that those who hear shall live—nay, is already come. The spiritual awakening, however, is the condition of the resurrection unto life of the body. When the Word of God pierces the heart it also penetrates the mind. When the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ (2Co_4:6) lights up the soul the glorification of the body has already begun. And this will be apparent in victorious might when the change comes, for which we shall be sown in the field of death (1 Corinthians 15). When men who have lived in the world without true faith in God, without love to Christ or hope of eternal life, or any true delight in his Word, in prayer, etc., are awakened, and, looking around, ask how they stand, they see how far they were from the divine promises, how ignorant of their own hearts and of eternity. Now they see Christ, and in Christ the Father, and know that they have passed from death to life. This is a spiritual resurrection. It is that condition of heart in which men no more go about seeking God’s mercy because of their sin, crying out and hoping merely; but in which they joyfully appropriate it—in which they lay hands on the treasures of eternity in the name of Jesus, and say, These are mine through grace; in which they have within themselves the trustful assurance that it is not necessary any more to seek because they have already found. This experience is the same to all believers, and it is always connected with the name of Jesus. This name is life to the dead in sin, strength and refreshment to those who are quickened. And this heavenly life-essence has, God be thanked, power also in our day. The Father loves the Son and gives Him ever new and greater work to do in the world. And the porches of the Church remain, and are, a true Bethesda. God give the name of Jesus power with us, and enable us to walk in newness of life, enduring to the end, so that we may attain to—
II. The resurrection from the dead through the power of that same great name. Every one who has anything to hope for in life shuns the ways of death. None die willingly, else it had not been written, “All men must die,” but, “All men may die.” When therefore the Lord Jesus here promises that He will quicken men, and summon the dead, who have done good, to the resurrection of life, He evidently meant that He had gained for the miserable race, to which death brings so much anguish and sorrow, an unspeakable blessing. And surely He should have been received with open arms by all, more than a general who has victoriously snatched from the enemy a strong fortress which they had taken. And such a reception surely were well deserved! What were life to us were it to end in death? Our greatest desire is to live, not, indeed, in this life only: there must be another and better if it is to be truly life. He who merely brings us in one hand this uncertain life, and in the other certain death, from him I turn away. He cannot be my benefactor and friend. He who brings me life is He on whom I shall rely. It is incomprehensible how many people can live without a Saviour from death—especially in view of those dear to them. One has a wife whom he cherishes with a love that is akin to devotion; another has children whom he treasures as life’s jewels, on whom he sets his hopes, for whom he will do his utmost. But when they come to die, does he leave them to fare forth without asking whether it be true that he shall never see them again, or what is essential in order to re-union with them? There must surely be a great chilling of love when men can endure the death of loved ones without having any certain hope of life eternal for them and for themselves; and to whom the only mitigation of their grief is that the image of the departed may be retained among the treasures of memory. If this is what is meant by living, then it were better never to have lived. But this truly is life, when we learn and are assured that Jesus will bring again those who sleep in Him, that there will not only be a glorification of the souls, but of the dust of His saints, and that our highest happiness will be found when the little joys of earth have come to an end. For this, Jesus, and He alone, has become our surety. And in view of this all pure souls will echo the confession of Peter: Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life, etc. (Joh_6:68-69).—Abridged from Lecher.
Joh_5:25-26; Joh_5:28-29. The Son as Quickener of the dead.—The Son is the giver of life because He has life in Himself. It is the essence of the Father who is the living God, the I am; and therefore it is also essentially an attribute of the Son. And as the Father is not the God of the dead but of the living, so they who hear the Son shall live. And as death is but a type of spiritual corruption—indeed is in its present form a result of that corruption—so Jesus quickens the spiritually dead who listen to His voice; and thus through His life imparted to them gives the promise and potency of the resurrection life. That hour had already struck when Jesus spoke. An example of His quickening power had just been given; but they were not to wonder at what had been done and spoken: the time was coming when greater wonders would amaze them (Luk_7:11; Joh_11:43); and these would be but prophecies of His own rising, which is the prelude and prophecy of the end, when death shall be swallowed up in victory, etc.
I. Christ the living One has the keys of Hades and death.—
1. The hour is coming (it is not here said now is, as this refers to the future) when all who are in their graves, etc. The emphasis is here upon all, and the reference is to the bodies of men.
2. The souls of the redeemed had already been quickened (Joh_5:25). The meaning here evidently is that the bodies of the departed shall be raised, and united with the spirits awaiting the full consummation of their bliss or woe.
3. All shall go forth; “whether they died before Christ’s birth, to answer according to the measure of their less enlightened conscience, or whether they lived in the full noonday of Revelation,—all; those who have sunk into the grave honoured, loved, lamented, or who died with none to receive their latest breath, wherever be their places of rest, in desert or ocean; all, whether they treasured the Word of the Son of God like our evangelist, or despised it like Pilate,—this last voice louder than trumpet tone they shall hear without exception, and attend to the summons.” But not only shall all hear that dread voice; it shall bring about a manifestation of character and a determination of destiny. There is therefore—
II. The resurrection of life.—
1. They that have done good shall come forth to it. And in the order in which the two resurrections are placed we see the confirmation of the apostolic words, so pregnant yet mysterious: “The dead in Christ shall rise first.” “This is the first resurrection” (1Th_4:16; Rev_20:5).
2. And it is those who have done good who shall participate in the resurrection of life, i.e. those who by their life and actions declare that their spiritual life has been quickened by the Redeemer (Joh_5:25; Mat_25:34-40).
3. They shall not come into condemnation, having already passed from death unto life (Joh_5:24). Over them the second death has no power; for it cannot touch that spiritual life which is in them, and which makes them one with the Redeemer. Therefore is theirs a resurrection of life and to life, to be “kings and priests unto God and His Christ.” It is a resurrection of life because then they shall have escaped from all that fettered their spiritual life in its exercise; and shall have arrived at the full consummation of their salvation and the happiness of their complex nature, when the glorified spirit has been reunited to the purified and glorified body, and they shall be like Christ, seeing Him as He is. But there is also—
III. The resurrection of judgment.—
1. They that have done evil shall come forth to it. Their evil doing was evidence of their unrenewed nature, the proof that the “tree was corrupt” (Mat_7:17-19).
2. Therefore their resurrection, because they had no life in them, is one from death to death (Rev_20:12-15; Mat_25:41-46), whatever maybe the actual meaning of the awful imagery used in Scripture to depict this terrible state.
3. But in any view it must be death; for those who awake to the resurrection of judgment have severed themselves from the only source of life—life spiritual and eternal—Jesus Christ. “He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life” (1Jn_5:12). “Who shall abide the day of His coming, who shall stand when He appeareth?” Those who listen to that voice, now speaking in mercy, of the Son who can quicken us to newness of life.
“O God of truth and grace,
Teach as that death to shun,
Lest we be banished from Thy face,
And evermore undone.”
Montgomery.
Joh_5:22; Joh_5:27; Joh_5:30. The Son as Judge.—Christ occupies an altogether unique position as the Redeemer of men. He is our Advocate; for this end He took on Him the seed of Abraham, and passed into the heavens as our great High Priest, who is touched with the feeling of our infirmities. And this it is that peculiarly fits Him to be our Judge. He is not only the Omniscient, looking with piercing glance at our inmost being, and laying bare our most secret thoughts and feelings; but He is also the Son of man, having points of contact and sympathy with humanity. And the Father hath given Him authority to execute judgment because of this—to execute judgment; but in the fact of judgment the Son and the Father are one. There are two facts that seem to emerge clearly in this and other Scripture presentments of the future judgment, the first in regard to the materials, and the second in regard to the form of judgment. But notice—
I. The intuitions and even the reasoned convictions of the race have ever pointed to a coming judgment.—
1. It may be difficult to find the existence of this idea clearly defined among tribes wholly savage; although it is generally found in some form.
2. But when men rise higher in the scale of civilisation this idea emerges more strikingly, forming often a salutary check on men’s evil passions and inclinations.
3. Often, however, it has become an instrument of terror in the hands of a corrupt order to keep men under their power.
4. The student of history will find much that is interesting and curious regarding this belief in the annals of the past. From the intuition of and belief in a judgment sprang the Egyptian Osiris myth, the Greek Minos and Rhadamanthus, the Roman Orcus.
5. The temples and shrines of antiquity are eloquent indeed in their testimony to this belief.
6. Human reason also on a view of our present state, with its inequalities, etc., led many earnest thinking men in the past to entertain the belief that there would be a day of reckoning. All this is confirmed by Scripture. Turning then to the two facts spoken of we notice—
II. The materials on which the Judge shall base His decisions.—
1. Men are justified by faith; thus it may be truly said that “according to our faith will it be unto us in that day” (Joh_3:36).
2. But it is no less strongly asserted that men’s works shall form the ground of condemnation or acquittal.
3. Faith and works indeed are in a sense correlatives; and both are simply manifestations of the state of the heart. They are related to each other as the ray to the flame, the stream to the fountain, fragrance to the flower. They are both the produce of an inner spiritual life which comes from Christ.
4. A man’s works, therefore, are, as the fruit of his inner being, the witness of the spirit which is in him, the materials on which he will be judged on the day of judgment. Nothing is more clear and definite in Scripture than the statement of the truth, that in that day we shall “receive the things done in the body according to that we have done, whether it be good or bad” (2Co_5:10; Rev_20:13, etc.).
5. And this truth is conformable to reason as well. “Faith without works” must evidently be dead, and therefore worthless; and the proof of the possession of spiritual life in Christ is a life of new obedience to the glory of God. This brings us to the next fact.
III. The form of the judgment.—
1. From what has been advanced it is evident that it will be simply a manifestation and a separation. The imagery used in Scripture to depict the reality is merely employed as a vehicle to bring home the truth to our comprehension.
2. Judgment may even sometimes be said to begin here. “Some men’s sins are open beforehand, going before to judgment,” etc. (1Ti_5:24-25). Christ’s judgments are even now on the earth.
3. But it is at the last great day that the full manifestation will take place, when the Lord, the light of the world, shall come and “bring to light the hidden things of darkness,” etc. (1Co_4:5). The good shall then be attracted to the source of all goodness; and the wicked shall then find every subterfuge vain, and seek to hide themselves from Him who sits upon the throne (Rev_6:15-16).
4. The sentence indeed will be that already pronounced by men on themselves—it will be the declaration of what they are. Sin—separation from God, spiritual death. Righteousness—union with Christ, eternal life.
Therefore the books which will on that day be opened are being written now. The deeds done in the body will manifest our state. “The night is far spent, the day is at hand: let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armour of light” (Rom_13:12).
Joh_5:31-47. Witnesses to Christ.—To the unbelieving Jews our Lord graciously pointed out these witnesses to Himself, and to the divine origin and purpose of His mission which they had despised or neglected. Thus another opportunity was given to them to reconsider their position. In the first place He speaks of—
I. His witness concerning Himself.—
1. It was matter of accusation on the part of the Jews afterward (this shows how falsely) that He bore witness of Himself (Joh_8:13). But in view of the ordinary and, in our present state, necessary custom among men not to receive personal witness alone, as the Incarnate Son He forbore to do so.
2. Taking His word in connection with His life and works, the purity of His life, the beauty of His character, the heavenliness of His teaching, the majesty of His miracles, there should have been no difficulty in receiving that word as yea and amen. And it is so to all believing hearts.
3. But in condescension to men’s weakness, and to take out of the way every excuse and occasion for offence, He waived His own inalienable right as the Truth to bear testimony concerning Himself. How great His grace and condescension! (Php_2:6-7). He appealed first to—
II. The witness of John.—
1. I receive not witness from a man, said our Lord. The testimony of His Father is that which He chiefly relied on (Joh_5:37). But graciously remembering the human weakness of His hearers, He called in the testimony of the Baptist.
2. John the Baptist indeed bore witness loyally to Christ. He was as a Lamp that burneth and shineth, although it was a light that must wane; and in reference to him men for a time realised that here was a man sent from God to bear witness to the truth.
3. And what was the witness He bore? It was that Jesus was before him; that He was the Lamb of God, who should take up and bear away the sin of the world; that He was the Son of God, the heavenly Bridegroom, whose voice His bride, the Church, would hear. And what other claim did Jesus advance but this? This witness, therefore, according to their own first estimate of him, should have had weight with the Jews. But, alas! they had not received his witness, and now his voice had gone silent. But however great the Baptist was in character and office, and however powerful his testimony was to convince unprejudiced minds, Christ cannot rest on his witness alone. There is—
III. A greater witness than John.—
1. The works which the Father gave Me to finish, etc. Under those works may be comprehended our Lord’s whole activity. From the divine side His works are contemplated as a “complete whole.” But in this world, during His incarnation and among men, they were done by Him at the time and in the place where they were best calculated to carry out His purpose.
2. But more especially to His miracles does this reference point. These are all to be regarded, so to say, as one witness. They form a cumulative testimony of the redeeming love of God to men in Christ. In them the old prophecies of the wonders and blessedness of Messiah’s reign were fulfilled and symbolised—they were types of the spiritual wonders which should be done in His name (Isaiah 35; Isaiah 41). In the spiritual sphere the sick in soul as in body were healed, and to the poor was the gospel preached. In the realm of nature the winds and waves obeyed His voice, so that the storm was stilled; the water was turned into wine; disease and death yielded to His word of power. All these miracles witnessed in unison to the divine origin and mission of the incarnate Son, so that He could afterward say, “If I do not the works of My Father,” etc. (Joh_10:37).
3. If one like Jesus rose among men to-day, would calm, right-thinking men doubt for a moment whence He derived His beneficent power and supermundane wisdom? But not alone do the works, given to Him by the Father to finish, testify of Christ.
IV. The Father Himself bears witness to the Son.—
1. The Father’s witness here seems to refer to all the testimony borne to Jesus as the Messiah, outside of His personal activity as the Redeemer.
2. This was given especially in the testimony of the Father through prophets and holy men of old. “They believed; they saw My day and were glad; but the Word that came to them finds no response in your hearts, is not living and abiding in you. Thus you are unable to rise to the true knowledge of the Father, and have neither heard His voice at any time, nor seen His shape.”
3. But the Father’s testimony was given also in the miraculous occurrences which took place at Christ’s birth and baptism; and also in the evident concurrence of the Father in Christ’s works of power. And this leads naturally up to the last witness called in.
V. The witness of Scripture.—
1. “If it be true,” Jesus seems to say, “that the Father hath witnessed of Me in those Scriptures by attending to the outward letter of which you think you will find salvation, then know that they indeed testify of Me.”
2. Christ is the centre of Scripture—its beginning, middle, and end. And He came to fulfil the law and prophets; for law and prophets bear witness to Him.
Joh_5:39. The clearness and sufficiency of the witness of Scripture.—We notice these objections: Is Scripture intelligible? Has not our age gone far beyond it? Is the reading of Scripture in any way fruitful? Does it merit unconditional confidence? In opposition to this, four characteristic traits of Holy Scripture may be mentioned in its honour. It is pellucid and clear; it is sufficient and adequate; it is fraught with authority and power. And each of these characteristic traits is founded on the fact that the Scripture bears witness to Christ. Because Scripture witnesses to Christ it is—
I. Clear and pellucid.—But how?
1. Is there not a science of theology which seeks to open up the meaning of Scripture by means of languages, etc.? Yes. Would that the origin and aim of theology were less forgotten! Luther’s most cherished title was that of Doctor of Theology. But a theologian must pray also, “What shall I do to be saved?” or Scripture remains to him a book with seven seals.
2. Truly, even to the prayerful believer many things in Scripture remain enigmatical. We see here in a glass darkly; and only on yonder side, when tongues and prophets cease, etc., shall we “know as we are known” (1 Corinthians 13).
3. But is it not clear when, as the gates of paradise are shut, etc., in the wilderness the tender promise of One who should bruise the serpent’s head is given, etc.? A unity of advance from book to book, one spirit of prophecy, one cry of longing, “Come, Lord Jesus”: “He it is,” said John, with outstretched finger. “To Him bare all the prophets witness,” said Peter. “In Him all the promises are yea and amen,” said Paul. “Search the Scriptures,” etc., said Jesus Himself. Here is clearness, perspicuity, to those who are pure in heart.
II. Search the Scripture; it is sufficient and adequate.—
1. It contains all which suffices for the movements and necessities of the spiritual life. It will not satisfy the Athenian desire for novelty. It would then be no book from eternity and for eternity.
2. All the news-sheets and journals of last night are this morning withered leaves. And all the journals for entertainment and amusement may help to drive away ennui, but not the fear of death, the terrors of conscience, or the horror of judgment.
3. Scripture, it is true, will not minister to that importunate curiosity which would seek to tear the veil from the spiritual world; but neither does it anticipate science, nor oppose it. What men can gain by culture and research Scripture does not reveal, etc. It is enough that the Originator of heaven and earth is the same as the Author of Scripture—that He who spake the first word will speak the last—that all men may drink from this fountain and be satisfied, because Holy Scripture gives full satisfaction, since it witnesses of Christ.
III. Search the Scripture; it is fraught with power.—
1. True, a number of men have not been affected by it. Philosophers sit in their chairs and despise the Nazarene and His eternal word. Leaders of thought mock at the deposed majesty of the Bible. Carnal men, etc., plume themselves on the idea that the doctrines of Scripture are coins now out of circulation. Even many preachers—they lead a dusty existence, for their Bibles are dust-covered.
2. But it is comforting that so long as there are men weary and heavy laden, thirsting after the beatitudes of the Sermon on the Mount, etc., so long as there are pain and sorrow in the world, where a Jairus has lost a child, etc., etc., so long will Holy Scripture retain its power and prove itself effective because it witnesses of Christ. But the Lord had to complain of the self-righteous and self-satisfied: “Ye will not come to Me,” etc.
IV. Does Scripture thereby lose its credit? Far from it; it is self-authenticating; it witnesses of Christ—that is its authority.—
1. We Protestants have no pope. We have Christ. He is the Head of the Church yesterday, to-day, and for ever. We do not rest upon tradition.
2. Do we truly receive the Scripture? There is a dead scriptural knowledge which has no real effect on men’s hearts. Some read not at all. Others hear and listen occasionally, but their hearts burn not either with misgiving or thankfulness. And what shall be said of those who forbid the free circulation of Scripture?
3. It is the Holy Spirit who delineates Christ in Scripture, the same Spirit who writes His name on our hearts, makes us living epistles.
4. The Scripture concludes all under sin: “There is none that doeth good; no, not one.” It includes all in the invitation to reconciliation. It opens to all the way of redemption. It witnesses to Christ as God’s Son. The revelation it includes is holy, merciful, simple, deep. All in it is so divine, yet so human. Come under this authority. Take and read. Hold fast that which thou hast, that no man take thy crown.—Abridged from Dr. R. Kögel.
Joh_5:39. Tolle, lege.—How shall the word come to us with power if it has not already done so? The first and most obvious duty, if we desire the word to come to us with power, is to—
I. Search it.—Knowledge of the contents of Scripture comes to us like all other knowledge. Then we must search it with open, teachable hearts, seeking the truth, and prepared to follow its guidance when revealed to us. You remember the incident in Augustine’s life when at Milan, tormented between his sinful life and desires and the desire to serve God, he heard in the garden the words tolle, lege. Hastening to the house, he took up the Pauline epistles, and unrolling the MS. at Romans 13, he read: “Let us walk honestly, as in the day; not in revelling and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying. But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ.” It was a voice from God, and proved the turning-point in the great Church father’s career. We must, then, search for truth in it as for hidden treasure; and we must search diligently and prayerfully, not forgetting that He who is its author can best make plain to us His own word. Guizot, in the following sentences, describes this power of the word: “Where has the Christian faith been best defended? There where the reading of the sacred books has been a general and assiduous part of public worship—there where it takes place in the interior of families and in. solitary meditation. It is the Bible, the Bible itself, which combats and triumphs most efficaciously in the war between incredulity and belief.”
II. But all this will be insufficient unless we use the Bible experimentally, i.e. not only to search it and learn it, but to act according to its precepts and commands. This is the highest and best proof of the Bible’s power. “If any man will to do His will, He shall know of the doctrine whether it be of God.”
III. There are many who come to the Bible, not to find what it says, but to find in it support for their own ideas. What wonder if it fail to profit them? But the chief hindrance to the receiving of the word with power is indifference to the truth which it contains, and, worse still, a positive disinclination to have its light brought to bear on the dark corners of the nature. Many do not wish to be disturbed in the enjoyment of their favourite vice or sin; and, like Felix, though they may tremble when in some way the word reaches conscience, yet they put it away from them to “a more convenient season.” But that is folly in the last degree, ruinous for time, fatal for eternity! Let ours be the wise course ever to search, learn, and inwardly digest that divine wisdom which makes wise unto salvation.
“The sacred page
With calm attention scan! If on thy soul,
As thou dost read, a ray of purer light
Break in, oh, check it not; give it full scope!
Admitted, it will break the clouds which long
Have dimmed thy sight, and lead thee till at last
Conviction, like the sun’s meridian beams,
Illuminate thy mind.”
Hayes.
“Within this awful volume lies
The mystery of mysteries:
Happiest they of human race
To whom their God has given grace
To read, to fear, to hope, to pray,
To lift the latch, to force the way;
But better had they ne’er been born
Who read to doubt, or read to scorn.”
Walter Scott.
Joh_5:39. Why are we to search the Scriptures?—The Scriptures here spoken of are the Old Testament Scriptures; and as it is known how highly the Jews prized those writings as the oracles of God, the force of Christ’s appeal may be estimated. And if these sacred Scriptures really did testify of Him, these unbelieving Jews were treasuring up wrath for themselves. How earnestly then should they have searched! But they were wilfully blind, and failed therefore to lay hold on that eternal life which their Scriptures revealed (Mat_13:15). Consider the importance of the Scriptures.
I. They are the oracles of God.—
1. The oracles were the responses by supposed divinities, heathen gods, to the inquiries of their worshippers. Some divine afflatus was supposed to be communicated to the priests or priestesses who served at the heathen shrine; or the image of the god was itself by sign or speech supposed to communicate the divine message; or the message was communicated by certain natural phenomena, etc.
2. The oracles of the Jews came to them by revelations through prophetic men during many centuries. They are contained in the books we now call the Old Testament; and the nature of their contents, and the striking unity shown in the progressive unfolding of the revelation, lift them high as heaven above the ambiguous and often foolish oracles of heathendom.
3. They contain what men never could have discovered for themselves concerning the nature of God, the way of access to Him, and the hope and promise of eternal life.
II. They bear especial witness to Christ.—
1. The whole ritual of sacrifice and many of the enactments of the law typified His atoning work, and thus pointed forward to Him.
2. The prophets plainly foretold Him—His person; His work and the glory of His kingdom; His sufferings and death.
3. The details they give are minute and circumstantial, e.g. the period and place of His birth; His betrayal; His meek endurance under trial and scourging; His cry on the cross as of One forsaken; His sepulture in a stranger’s tomb, etc., etc.
4. Moses and the prophets, indeed, testify of Him; blot Him out of their writings, and these will become confused and enigmatic.
III. They are an authoritative rule of life.—
1. None of the teachers of heathen antiquity, however great intellectually and morally, could give definite and authoritative rules of life and action. What they did give was founded on partial knowledge, and was therefore often misleading. Take, e.g., even such a great philosophical work as “The Republic of Plato.”
2. Those who take the Bible as their rule of life are led into the ways of righteousness, which are in the end ways of pleasantness and peace. These things being so, we ought therefore to—
IV. Search the Scriptures (remembering that to us is given a most glorious and clear revelation)—
1. Sincerely, desiring to know the truth and conform to it. If we believe them to be God’s Word we must search, and we must obey, even when it is not agreeable to flesh and blood to do what is commanded.
2. Diligently.—How much more earnestly and diligently do men attend often to other matters! The Scriptures are worthy of our most earnest attention. Dr. Johnson, when dying, said to a young friend, “Read the Bible every day of your life.”
3. Prayerfully.—There can be no true success in any good undertaking unless we seek it in prayer. Much lies in this, for we need the Spirit’s aid in order that our carnal minds may understand spiritual things.
4. With a view to spread the knowledge of the word.—Has it blessed our souls? Then we must and will seek to bring the same blessing to others.
Joh_5:40-47. Hindrances to faith.—The Jewish religion had become largely a racial and national question with the Jews. It was their nation, their religion, which they were concerned about; not God’s honour and glory and the advance of divine truth. They were no longer emulous of the blessing of Jehovah to the end that His saving health might be known among all nations (Psalms 67). They had fallen far below the spiritual conceptions of the prophets (Isaiah 60), and even of the law (Deu_6:5). The glory of their nation, of themselves, was their paramount aim and end. They would receive any one who came in his own name (false Christs and prophets, Mat_24:24) if only such would promise to carry out their aims for the national glory. This being their state of mind, it was not wonderful that there was antagonism on their part toward Jesus, and enmity in their hearts to Him. “Ye will not come to Me,” etc. (Joh_5:40). The reasons given for this are—
I. The want of love to God.—
1. It was not the love of God the Jews sought supremely; it was their own glory, their proud supremacy as the favoured race of heaven.
2. And yet they professed to have the love of God in their hearts. At least, they bound on forehead, neck, and arm, in writing on scrolls, those precepts of the law which gave love the first place (Deu_6:4-9; Deu_6:13-22, etc.); and the Pharisees especially made conspicuous the frontlet case containing those scrolls (Mat_23:5).
3. But our Lord saw that those outward declarations did not express any inward truth. Their hearts were destitute of the love they outwardly professed.
4. And as the love of God was not in them, how could they recognise it when it came to them in Christ? Those among them who truly had that love did not fail to recognise the witness of God to Christ (Nathanael, Nicodemus, etc.). But in those in whom the love of the world reigned the love of God was shut out. So is it, so must it ever be. The consequence of this want of love to God leads to the second reason—
II. The mistaking the chief end of man.—
1. The chief purpose of man’s creation, the end of his being, is the divine glory. There can be no higher aim. All our life and all its actions should be directed to this end (1Co_10:31).
2. But they who have no love to God in their hearts do not and cannot, so long as they remain in this state, glorify God in their lives, although God, who makes the wrath of men to praise Him, can make even those loveless lives redound to His honour.
3. How different was it with Christ! He, being in the form of God, deemed not His equality with God a thing to be grasped at, but emptied Himself, taking upon Him the form of a servant, etc. (Php_2:6-11). And He sought not glory from men, but from His Father (Joh_17:5, etc.). 4, No wonder, then, that the Jews did not perceive the glory of that life to which Jesus sought to win them, since their desire was for an outward, visible, personal glory, and the divine glory only as it could come to pass that way. The glory of Christ lay in what seemed the reverse of glory—in His humility (Joh_13:3-4), in His cross (Joh_17:4), in His self-sacrificing love, in His obedience unto death (Php_2:8-9).
5. And in His life of obedience Christ was men’s example (1Pe_2:11-25).
III. This want of love to God and mistaking of the end of life led finally to their rejection of the elder revelation and of Him who was its fulfilment.—
1. Jesus came not to judge the world, but to save it, in His life on earth. Therefore He said, “Do not think that I will accuse you,” etc. (Joh_5:45). It was enough to point out that, however vehemently they claimed Moses as their guide and professed to follow him, they entirely missed or rejected the very aim and end of the Mosaic economy.
2. The divine righteousness and glory are the purpose for which the law was established (Romans 2). But the Jews failed miserably in their interpretation and observance of the law (Rom_2:23), and thus failed to grasp its purpose (Rom_2:29).
3. Above all, they failed to see that the end of the law could be reached only through that substance which its shadowy types and its predictions foretold (Joh_5:46). Moses wrote of Christ. The Thorah is here ascribed to Moses personally, and the reference is to that special promise (Deu_18:18) for whose fulfilment the Jews professed to be waiting, and as a preparation for which the types and ceremonies of the law were instituted (Col_2:17). Thus, not seeing the end or purpose of the law, how could they understand Him who came to fulfil the law? These men had reproached Jesus with breaking the law; He showed them that they did not even understand the law.
IV. Application.—
1. A mere unenlightened reception of Scripture, without spiritually guided searching of it, is not sufficient (1Co_2:14).
2. The elder Revelation agrees with the new Revelation of Christ. Novum Testamentum in Vetere latet, vetus Testamentum in Novo patet.
3. The rejection of the elder Revelation must inevitably lead to the rejection of the new.
4. The word of God in Old Testament and New will remain a sealed book to those who have no true love of God in their hearts, and who seek merely their own honour and glory. The true end of human existence is hidden from them; hence they reject that word which reveals it, and that Saviour who came to exemplify it and make it possible for men.
HOMILETIC NOTES
Joh_5:22; Joh_5:27; Joh_5:29. The Son of Man as Judge.—The thought of judgment is wholesome in that it warns us to work out our salvation with fear and trembling. We readily think of Christ as the King who cometh to Zion meek and lowly, who calls to men: “Come unto Me, all ye that labour,” etc. (Mat_11:28). But we should also represent Him to ourselves as He to whom the Father hath committed the right to judge the quick and the dead. Consider:—
I. Those whom He shall judge.—All people who have lived shall stand before Him (Joh_5:28-29).
2. He shall separate the good from the evil (Joh_5:29).
II. The law according to which He shall judge.—
1. It is ultimately the rule of love to Himself and His brethren by which faith shows itself sincere, and which manifests itself in a holy and loving activity (1Jn_3:18; 1Jn_4:7; 1Jn_4:11, etc.).
2. Want of love is ultimately the cause of condemnation; for love to God will lead to service for Him; and also to fruitful activity in the world toward our brethren (1Jn_4:20-21).—From J. L. Sommer.
The great day of judgment.—
I. It is drawing near for all mankind (Joh_5:28).
II. It will bring the good and the evil to light (Joh_5:29).
III. It will determine the lot of each individual (Dan_12:13).—Idem.
Joh_5:39. The true meaning of Scripture not hidden.—Search the Scriptures. Better, Ye search the Scriptures. The question whether the mood is imperative or indicative, whether we have here a commandment to examine the writings of the Old Testament canon, or a reference to their habit of doing so, is one which has been discussed through the whole history of New Testament exposition, and one on which the opinion of those best qualified to judge has been, and is, almost equally divided. Observe that all the parallel verbs in the context are in the indicative. Why should there be a sudden change of construction in this instance only? We find, then, this order of thought.
1. God has in the Old Testament witnessed of Me, but ye, with unreceptive hearts, have never heard a voice nor seen a shape of God (Joh_5:37).
2. Ye have not His Word dwelling in you, or it would have witnessed of Me (Joh_5:38).
3. Instead of receiving the Scriptures as a living power within you, ye search and explain the letter of them from without (Joh_5:39).
4. Ye think they contain eternal life, and hence your reverence for them (Joh_5:39).
5. They really are witnesses of Me, and yet you, seeking in them eternal life, are not willing to come to Me that ye may have this life. It is believed that this is the most natural interpretation.… The only objection to it of weight is that the Greek word for “search” (ἐρευνᾶτε) is one which would not have implied blame. It means to search after, track, inquire after (cp. Joh_7:52); but, surely, this is just the expression for the literal spirit in which the rabbis treated their scriptures. Moreover, it is not the searching which is matter for blame, but the fact of the searching and not finding, which is matter for wonder. Here, too, as elsewhere, the argument from the meaning of a Greek word must be pressed only within strict limits when we remember that it represents in translation a then current Hebrew word. The Hebrew language had a word which just at that time was frequent on every rabbi’s lips, and which exactly corresponds to it. As early as the Book of Chronicles we find mention of the Midrashim or Commentaries.… May it not be, then, that the true meaning of these words is to be found in their bearing upon these rabbinic lives and works?—“Ye make your Midrashim on the Scriptures; ye explain and comment, and seek for hidden mystic meaning; ye do all this because ye think they contain eternal life; their true meaning is not hidden; they tell of life, and ye who seek it do not hear them, and will not come unto Me that ye might have life.”—Watkins.
ILLUSTRATIONS
Joh_5:25. The resurrection the hope of humanity.—We are told that the most savage nations live in a constant horror of death; their life is one long flight from it; it poisons their happiness; it bursts like a ghastly phantom upon their moments of peace. It is not death the agony that they shudder at, though there may be something terrible in that, but death the mystery, and “next to God the most infinite of mysteries;” death that slips the last cable of the soul, and sets it afloat on the shoreless sea of an eternal world; there it is that lies for them “the mute, ineffable, voiceless horror before which all human courage is abashed.” Can you wonder at this continuous dread? They know of no world beyond the grave, and what would life be without the trust in that? How purposeless and mean, how weary and hopeless; a journey leading nowhither; a gate opening upon nothing; a ship sent forth only that she may founder in the bare, unknown deeps. Look steadily at life, and consider what it is; how changeful, how short, how sorrowful. A light and thoughtless youth, of which the beauty and brightness pass rapidly away; and after that, chance and change and bereavement; cravings that meet with no fulfilment; the dying away of hopes, the disappointment of ambition,—a disappointment, perhaps, more bitter when it is gratified than when it fails; the struggle for a livelihood, the cares of a family, the deceitfulness of friendship, the decay and weakness of health and faculties, as inevitable old age comes on: and all the while heard at every silent interval with a plainness that creeps along the nerves, as though our ears caught the pacing of some ghostly tread in the far-off corridors of some lonely haunted house—all the while the monotonous echoing of death’s mysterious footfall, beard louder and louder, as day by day he approaches nearer and yet more near. And all this for so short a time that our petty schemes are broken off perpetually like a weaver’s thread, and the meanest works of our hand survive us and last on for other generations, to which our very names shall be covered with darkness. “And is this all? Is this, then, the period of our being? Must we end here? Did we come into the world only to make our way through the press, amid many jostlings and hard struggles, with at best only a few brief deceitful pleasures interspersed, and so go out of it again?” Alas for man if this were all, and nought beyond, O earth! And then again, if there be no resurrection of the dead, how infinitely pathetic, how quite unspeakably heartrending would be the phenomena of death itself. “If Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain; and your faith is also vain; and we are found false witnesses of God; and ye are yet in your sins; and”—all this is terrible enough, but mark the pathos of the climax, a pathos too deep for tears—“and then they also that are fallen asleep in Christ are perished.” Perished! what a world of desolate anguish, what sighs of unutterable despair, lie hid in that strange word. Most of you are too young to have ever stood, as all the eldest of us have, by the bedside of death; but none of you are too young to feel how awful such a scene would be if we did not believe and know that Christ has risen from the dead. There on that low bed lies one we loved, for whom our whole hearts yearned, to whom our whole affections clung; he was noble and good, he was one of the very few who loved us, and he would have undergone for us any sacrifice, and he had borne bravely and meekly the buffets of the world. It was a short life, hardly checkered (good and beautiful and upright as it was), hardly checkered with any sunshine amid its shade; and now it is over; it ends here: the bright eye is dull and glazed; the gentle face is white and cold; the good brave heart has ceased to beat. He has no more a part in anything that is done under the sun. The day was when he would have sprung to meet us, his whole face brightened at our approach; and now he lies there, cold to the voice of our affection, unmoved by our hot tears, with all the light of the soul quenched within him; gone, if there be no resurrection, to a dreary land where all things are forgotten; all that was good in him, all that was great in him, perished for ever, as we and ours must perish soon. Oh, if there were no resurrection, bow could we bear it? Would not the thought crush us down for very grief into the same open grave? Many of you will have read the famous vision of him who saw a bridge of threescore and ten arches, which spanned the rolling waters of a prodigious tide, and how the Genius said to him, “The bridge thou seest is Human Life; consider it attentively.” “And as I looked more attentively I saw several of the passengers dropping through the bridge into the great tide that flowed underneath it; and upon examination perceived that there were innumerable trap-doors concealed in the bridge, which the passengers no sooner trod upon, but they fell through them into the tide and immediately disappeared. My heart was filled with a deep melancholy to see several dropping unexpectedly in the midst of mirth and jollity, and catching at everything that stood by them to save themselves. Multitudes were very busy in the pursuit of bubbles that glittered in their eyes and danced before them; but often, when they thought themselves within reach of them, their footing failed and down they sank. ‘Alas!’ said I, ‘man was made in vain! How is he given away to misery and mortality! tortured in life and swallowed up in death!’ ”—F. W. Farrar.
Joh_5:27; Joh_5:29. The Judge it at the gate—prepare to meet Him.—Beloved! in this passage are not still greater things promised to the faithful? Verily, verily, etc. (Joh_5:24). Already here below is the believer possessor of life eternal, already here below is he a victor over death, and is freed from judgment. Behold, whosoever cometh to the long-suffering Judge, repentant, and judges himself in the penitent publican’s spirit (Luk_18:13), shall not come into judgment. Now sickness, poverty, loss, isolation, misjudgment, separation, affliction, and every sorrow will tend to bring you to the goal—in that you will be more than conquerors in all these things. In the Lord you have righteousness and strength. Consider your activity! That which impels you, that is yourself. And whither you are impelled there will you remain. In the direction in which the tree inclines it falls and there lies. Turned away from or turned toward Jesus—which is your position, your inner, your eternal sentence on yourself?… There is a judgment, the earth is rolling onward and mankind are pressing swiftly toward it, and the Son of man will destroy the house built on sand, and cast the guest without the wedding garment into outer darkness, and will say to the unmerciful with all their sins of omission: “Inasmuch,” etc. (Mat_25:45). Two great divine works of Jesus are referred to in this passage—the work of resurrection and the work of judgment. In view of them should all men honour the Son as they honour the Father. Kiss the Son! Pay homage to Him while it is called to-day! Pray to Him in the holy adornment of a renewed mind, of a living obedience, of a thorough purification through His blood, so that He may not be angry with you—when His anger is kindled but a little! Woe to all who oppose Him! Blessed are all they who put their trust in Him!—Dr. R. Kögel.
Joh_5:35. The “burning and shining light.—John the Baptist was a burning and shining light. He was burning with zeal for the honour of God, and with love for the welfare of His people; he shone with clear ray on the sins of all classes and conditions of his contemporaries, but also with mild, gentle, and comforting beams on the work and person of the coming Saviour. Israel, however, did not take John’s earnestness in earnest. Now they childishly greeted him with faultfinding and calumny, anon and also childishly with wonder and astonishment, but remained at all times debtors to that repentance which was the chief concern. They boasted and made a show of the famed preacher of righteousness, of their great countryman, yes, even of the powerful preacher of repentance. They toyed with the impressions he made; and even basked in them. For a little while they were contented to rejoice in his light, if they could only be spared the trouble of effecting in themselves a moral reformation. It is even related of a Herod that he willingly heard the imprisoned prophet, and did many things in obedience to his word (Mar_6:20). That John was worthy of being believed, the rulers of the people themselves showed when they sent a deputation of priests and Levites to him. But if the herald were great, how much greater and more worthy of belief was the King!—Dr. R. Kögel.
Joh_5:39. We honour God by receiving His Word.—The Word is the true manna; it is the bread which came down from heaven; it is the key of the kingdom of heaven; it is the savour of life unto life; it is the power of God unto salvation. In it God showeth unto us His might, His wisdom, and His glory. By it He will be known of us; by it He will be honoured by His creatures. Whatsoever truth is brought unto us contrary to the Word of God, it is not truth, but falsehood and error; whatsoever honour done unto God disagreeth from the honour required by His Word, it is not honour unto God, but blasphemy; as Christ saith, “In vain they worship Me, teaching for doctrines men’s precepts.” By Esay God saith, “Who requireth this at your hands?” (Isa_1:12). And by Jeremy, “I spake not unto your fathers, nor commanded them, when I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning burnt offerings and sacrifices. But this thing commanded I them, saying, Obey My voice; and I will be your God, and ye shall be My people; and walk ye in all the ways which I have commanded you, that it may be well unto you.” Again, “What is chaff to the wheat, saith the Lord?” What are your dreams to be weighed with the truth of God? “Search the Scriptures; in them ye shall learn to know Me, and how ye should worship Me; in them ye shall find everlasting life.” “The words of the Lord are pure words, as the silver tried in the furnace.” There is no filth or dross remaining in them. They are the storehouse of wisdom, and of the knowledge of God; in respect whereof all the wisdom of this world is but vain and foolish.—Bishop Jewell.
Joh_5:39. Apparent difficulties do not invalidate the witness of Scripture.—All those apparent discrepancies and contradictions in matters of fact, all those apparent departures from morality in matters of principle, which the unbeliever is subtle to detect and proud to parade, in the holy and blessed Scriptures, are a trial which costs the true-hearted Christian many an anxious moment of distress and perplexity, in proportion to his value for his Bible, his earnestness after truth, and his jealousy for the honour of his God and Saviour. It is no easy thing to say—but the man of Abraham’s mould will say it, as one after another of these difficulties is forced upon his notice—I may not be able to explain it, I may not be able to harmonise these seeming discords, I may not be able to separate accurately the precious from the vile, in this heap of positive statements, bold affirmations, and cruel inferences, to which you point me as the latest results of modern science, of so-called discovery, in its bearing upon the records of revelation; but of this I am sure, that anything which would shake my confidence in the absolute truth of that which is indeed God’s Word must be false, however plausible; that, whatever error may be intermingled with my idea of Scripture, or with my theory of inspiration, there can be no error in the very thing itself, which God communicated in His Son Jesus Christ; and therefore I shall not lose heart nor abandon hope by reason of any novelty which may offer itself for the acceptance of this generation: that which is true in it must be consistent with the truth, and with the Word of the True One; I may not see the meeting-point or the reconciliation, but there is a mind which beholds all things as one—His time I will wait, yea, even if it comes not to me living; for with Him is the fountain of light, and in His light, hereafter if not here, I shall myself one day see light.—C. J. Vaughan, D.D.
Joh_5:45-46. “The letter killeth, the spirit giveth life.”—“There is one who accuseth you, even Moses in whom, ye trust. If ye believe Moses ye would also believe Me, for he wrote of Me.” Those who reject Moses thus also reject Christ. Take heed then, ye who tamper with the integrity of Scripture, of your critical estimates of the Old Testament! Again, whoever rejects Christ also rejects Moses. Hear this, ye who cherish the Judaistic spirit, and do not boast of your Mosaicism! Long ago should the true—not the imaginary—Moses have been to you a schoolmaster to bring you to Christ! And finally, ye would—be free-thinkers, despisers alike of the Old and New Covenants: Moses with threatening, uplifted tables of the law, and Christ with silent but victoriously uplifted cross, will judge you. The contemporaries of Jesus supposed that in their merely external reception and use of the Scripture they had found the pledge and spring of eternal life. They had in their hands God’s Word written on parchment rolls. They carried it also stored up in memory. They had it on their tongues in common speech, as a subject of conversation; but they had not this Word in their hearts as living and quickening. It did not try their minds and hearts; it brought no reproof to their conscience, it was to them no sure support, no comforting hope, no message from the Father’s house to assure those going homeward. Ye have never, Jesus said in accusing tones, heard the Father’s voice. He who is of the truth hears the voice of the Father in that of the Son. He who sees the Son sees the Father.… Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God in Christ. But when the Son of God came out of the coverings and veil of the old Covenant like a bridegroom out of his chamber, like the sun out of his tent, they passed Him by, and when He stood in their way they slew Him.—Translated from Dr. R. Kögel.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
Alexander MacLaren 1905 · Public Domain On v17 Joh 5:17 - Joh 5:27.
John
THE LIFE-GIVER AND JUDGE
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Joh 5:17 - Joh 5:27.
‘The Jews’ were up in arms because Jesus had delivered a man from thirty-eight years of misery. They had no human sympathies for the sufferer, whom hope deferred had made sick and hopeless, but they shuddered at the breach of the Sabbath. ‘Sacrifice’ was more important in their view than ‘mercy.’ They did not acknowledge that the miracle proved Christ’s Messiahship, but they were quite sure that doing it on the Sabbath proved His wickedness. How formalism twists men’s judgments of the relative magnitude of form and spirit!
Jesus’ vindication of His action roused them still farther, for He put it on a ground which seemed to them nothing short of blasphemy: ‘My Father worketh even until now, and I work.’ They fastened on one point in that great saying, namely, that it claimed Sonship in a special sense, and vindicated His right to disregard the Sabbath law on that ground. God’s rest is not inaction. ‘Preservation is a continual creation.’ All being subsists because God is ever working. The Son co-operates with the Father, and for Him, as for the Father, the Sabbath law does not apply. The charge of breaking the Sabbath fades into insignificance before the sin, in the objectors’ eyes, of making such claims. Therefore our Lord proceeds to expand and justify them.
He makes, first, a general statement in Joh 5:19 - Joh 5:20, in which He sets forth the relation involved in the very idea of Fatherhood and Sonship. He, as perfect Son of God, is perfectly one with the Father in will and act, and so knit to Him in sympathy that a self-originated action is impossible, not by reason of defect of power, but by reason of unity of being. That perfect unity is expressed negatively {‘can do nothing’} and then positively {‘doeth likewise’}. But it is not manifest in actions alone, but has its deep roots in the perfect love which flows ever from each to each, and in the Father’s perfect communication to the Son, and the Son’s perfect reception from the Father. Jesus claimed to stand in such a relation to the Father that He was able to do whatsoever the Father did, and ‘in like manner’ as the Father did it; that He was the unique object of the Father’s love, and capable of receiving complete communications as to ‘all things that Himself doeth’; that He lived in such complete unity with the Father that His every act was the result of it, and that no trace of self-will had ever tinged His perfect spirit. What man has ever made such claims and not been treated as insane? He makes them, and likewise says that He is ‘lowly of heart’; and the world listens, if not believing, at any rate reverent, as in the presence of the best man that ever lived. Strange goodness, to claim such divine prerogatives, unless the claim is valid!
It is expanded in Joh 5:21 - Joh 5:23 into two great classes of works, which Jesus says that He does. Both are distinctively divine works. To give life and to judge the world are equally beyond human power; they are equally His actions. These are the ‘greater works’ which He foretells in Joh 5:20, and they are greater than the miracle of healing which had originated the whole conversation. To give life at first, and to give it again to the dead, and not only to revivify, but to raise them, are plainly competent to no power short of the divine; and here Jesus calmly claims them.
That tremendous claim is here made in the widest sense, including both the corporeally and the spiritually dead, who are afterwards treated of separately. The Son is the fountain of life in all the aspects of that wide-reaching word; and He ‘quickeneth whom He will,’ as He had spontaneously healed the impotent man. Does that assertion contradict the other, just before it, that He does nothing of Himself? No; for His will, while His, is ever harmonious with the Father’s, just as His love, which is ever coincident with the Father’s. Does that assertion imply His arbitrary pleasure, or make man’s will a cipher? No; for His will is guided by righteous love, and wills to quicken those who comply with His conditions. But the assertion does declare that His will to quicken is omnipotent, and that His voice can pierce ‘the dull, cold ear of death,’ and bring back the soul to the empty house of this tabernacle, or rouse the spirit ‘dead in trespasses.’
The other divine prerogative of judging is inseparable from that of revivifying, and in regard to it Christ’s claim is still higher, for He says that it is wholly vested in Him as Son. The idea of judgment here, like that of quickening, with which it is associated, is to be taken in its more general sense {‘all judgment’} , and therefore as including both the present judgment, for which Jesus said that He was come into the world, and which men pass on themselves by the very fact of their attitude to Him and His Gospel, and also the future final judgment, which manifests character and determines destiny. Both these has the Father given into the hands of the Son.
The purpose, so far as men are concerned, of the Son’s investiture, with these solemn prerogatives, is that He may receive universal divine honour. A narrower purpose was stated in Joh 5:20, where the persons seeing His works are only His then audience, and the effect sought to be produced is merely ‘marvel.’ But wonder is meant to lead on to recognition of the meaning of His power, and of the mystery of His person, and that, again, to rendering to Him precisely the same honour as is due to the Father. No more unmistakable demand for worship, no more emphatic assertion of divinity, can be made than lie in these words. To worship Christ does not intercept the honour due to God; to worship the Son is to worship the Father; and no man honours the Father who sent Him who does not honour the Son whom He has sent.
In Joh 5:24 - Joh 5:27 the two related prerogatives are presented in their spiritual aspect, while in the later verses of the chapter the resurrection and quickening of the literally dead are dealt with. Mark the significant new term introduced in Joh 5:24, ‘He that believeth.’ That spiritual resurrection from the death of sin and self is wrought on ‘whom He will,’ but He wills that it shall be wrought on them who believe. Similarly, in Joh 5:25, it is ‘they that hear’ who ‘shall live.’ It must be so, for there is no other way by which life from Him, who is the Life, can pass into and quicken us than by our opening our hearts by faith for its inflow. The mysteries of the Son’s divinity and of His imparted life are deep, but the condition of receiving that life is plain. If we will trust Jesus, we shall live; if not, we are dead. Trusting Him is trusting the Father that sent Him, and that Father becomes accessible to our trust when we ‘hear’ Christ’s ‘word.’
The effects of faith are immediate, and the poor present may be enriched and clothed in celestial light for each of us, if we will. For Jesus does not point first to the mysteries of the resurrection of the dead, and the tremendous solemnities of the final judgment, but to what we may each enter upon at any moment. The believing man ‘hath eternal life,’ and ‘cometh not into judgment.’ That life is not reserved to be entered on in the blessed future, but is a present possession. True, it will blossom into unexampled nobleness when it is transported into its native country, like some exotic in our colder climates if it were carried back to the tropics. But it is a present possession, and heaven is not different in kind from the Christian life on earth, but differs mainly in degree and in circumstances. And he that has the life here and now is, by its moulding of his outward life, preserved from the sins which would bring him into judgment, and the merciful judgment to which he is still subject is that for which his truest self longs. And that blessed condition carries in it the pledge that, at the last great day, which is to others a ‘day of wrath, a dreadful day,’ he whom Christ has quickened by His own indwelling life shall have ‘boldness before Him.’
Obviously, in these verses the present effects of faith are in view, since Jesus emphatically declares that the ‘hour now is’ when they can be realised. Once more He states in the strongest terms, and as the reason for the assurance that faith secures to us life, His possession of the two divine prerogatives of quickening and judging. What a paradox it is to say that it is ‘given’ to Him to have ‘life in Himself’! And when was that gift given? In the depths of eternity.
He ‘sits on no precarious throne, nor borrows leave to be,’ and hence He can impart life and lose none. Inseparably connected with that given, and yet self-inherent, life, is the capacity for executing judgment which belongs to Him as ‘a Son of man.’ It has been as ‘the Son’ of the Father that it has been considered, in the previous verses, as belonging to Him; but now it is as a true man that He is fitted to bear, and actually is clothed with, that judicial power. No doubt He is Judge of all, because by His incarnation and earthly life He presents to all the offer of eternal life, by their attitude to which offer men are judged. But the connection of thought seems rather to be that Christ’s Manhood, inextricably intertwined with His divinity, is equally needed with the latter to constitute Him our Judge. He ‘knoweth our frame,’ from the inside, as it were, and the participation in our nature which fits Him to ‘be a merciful and faithful High Priest’ also fits Him to be the Judge of mankind.
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain On v18 his Father
his Father
(Greek - βιβλαρίδιον," his own Father). The Jews understood perfectly that Jesus was claiming to be God. Cf. Joh 10:33.
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On vv17, 21 The Relation between the Father and the Son.
The Relation between the Father and the Son.
Jesus gives the Jews an answer:
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v. 17. But Jesus answered them, My Father worketh hitherto, and I work.
v. 18. Therefore the Jews sought the more to kill Him, because He not only had broken the Sabbath, but said also that God was His Father, making Himself equal with God.
v. 19. Then answered Jesus and said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, The Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He seeth the Father do; for what things soever He doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise.
v. 20. For the Father loveth the Son, and showeth Him all things that Himself doeth; and He will show Him greater works than these, that ye may marvel.
The hostile attitude of the Jews and their murderous thoughts were not unknown to Jesus, and He takes occasion to justify Himself, and incidentally to try to convince them of His authority and power. He tells them that His Father is at work, performing the work which He knows is necessary; God never stops working. And even so He, Christ Himself, is working. Jesus here plainly affirms that He is the Son of God, He places Himself on the same level with God. The Son is just as great, just as divine as the Father. And the entire work of the Father is, at the same time, and in the same way, the work of the Son. In this work there is no Sabbath rest. Without ceasing, without rest, the Son preserves and rules the world. Even in the state of humiliation, He is tending to this work. The miracle of healing the sick man was an exhibition of this creative power, it was evidence of the fact that He, with the Father, has the entire world and all its laws in His power and can do and create whatever He desires. "How long would the sun, the moon, and the entire heaven have its course, which had its progress so definitely so many thousand years, also, that the sun at a certain time and in certain places annually rises and sets, if God who created them, would not daily preserve them? God the Father, through His Word, has begun and perfected the creation of all beings, and preserves them to this day through the same, and continues so long in the work which He creates until He no longer wants it to be. Therefore Christ says, Joh 5:17: My Father worketh hitherto, and I work. For just as we, without our assistance and ability, are created by Him, even so we by ourselves cannot be preserved. Therefore, just as heaven, earth, sun, moon, stars, human beings, and everything that lives was created in the beginning through the Word, even so they all are ruled and preserved through it in a miraculous manner. " The Jews caught the import of Christ’s statement at once: If He was the Son of God, He certainly must be equal to God. Here, in the opinion of the Jews, were two crimes that merited death: breaking the Sabbath and blasphemy. They refused to accept His testimony, though this had been substantiated by the miracle; they hated Him for this plain statement; they were all the more determined to kill Him. Note: The enemies of Christ at all times argue in the same way. The testimony concerning Jesus, the Son of God, the Savior of the world, strikes their conscience and makes them furious. They cannot gainsay the truth, and that is unbearable to them. Their own conscience condemns them. And to drown out these unpleasant influences, they become all the more rabid in their persecution of the Gospel, both in word and deed
But Jesus, upon this occasion, continued His statement, His testimony concerning Himself. Solemnly He declares to the Jews that the Son can do nothing of Himself, except what He sees the Father doing. That is the result of the relation between Father and Son. The essence of the Son is out of the Father; His is not an independent essence. The persons of the God-head are not separate from each other, each doing His own individual work. In that which He does and performs, the Son is joined with the Father. And again: Whatever the Father does, the Son does likewise, at the same time, in the same manner. There is not only perfect sympathy, there is complete oneness between the two. And this relation is made still closer by the fact that the Father loves the Son and shows Him all that He Himself does. The power of either is absolute, and yet their work and will is one. This creative power finds its expression in the work of Jesus on earth. The Father, through the Son, will do greater works than those which have been done up to the present time, to the great surprise and wonder of the Jews. The mere healing of a sick man would seem insignificant in comparison with the miracles which are yet to be revealed.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv19, 21 Connecting Statement:
Connecting Statement:
Jesus continues speaking to the Jewish leaders.
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Truly, truly
See how you translated this in John 1:51.
you will be amazed
"you will be surprised" or "you will be shocked"
whatever the Father is doing, the Son does these things also. For the Father loves the Son
Jesus, as the Son of God, followed and obeyed his Father's leadership on earth, because Jesus knew the Father loved him. (See: Translating Son and Father)
Son ... Father
These are important titles that describe the relationship between Jesus and God. (See: Translating Son and Father)
loves
The kind of love that comes from God is focused on the good of others, even when it does not benefit oneself. God himself is love and is the source of true love.
translationWords
amen
Son of God
God the Father
works
love
amazed
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv17, 19, 21, 22, 23 5:17 My Father is always working, and so am…
5:17 My Father is always working, and so am I: Although work was prohibited on the Sabbath, even rabbis agreed that God worked on the Sabbath in giving life (births) and in taking life (deaths). The heart of Jesus’ defense was to compare himself to God; the Jewish leaders objected to this claim of divine privilege.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.