“Truly, truly, I say to you, an hour is coming, and is now here, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live. For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself. And he has given him authority to execute judgment, because he is the Son of Man. Do not marvel at this, for an hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice and come out, those who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment. I can do nothing on my own. As I hear, I judge, and my judgment is just, because I seek not my own will but the will of him who sent me. If I alone bear witness about myself, my testimony is not true. There is another who bears witness about me, and I know that the testimony that he bears about me is true.”

• Equal as the Way, the Truth and the Life

1. Life From the Son of God

Genesis 2:16-17,

“And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, ‘You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.’”

In the beginning, man was made and placed in the garden, in a protective sanctuary where he could know peace and walk with God. Being a servant made in God’s image and not a slave without free will, we chose rebellion against God – we embraced sin and with it the sting of death. Since the fall, man has carried the stain of sin and endured a measure of separation from God. There were those who sought Him, men like Noah, Abraham, Issac and Jacob who heeded the instructions of the Lord. But though these men were called righteous, they were not without sin. Through the Law that He gave to Moses, God provided structure and guidance to His people, but the law was often defied and set aside as the nation of Israel ebbed and flowed back and forth between devotion to God and lawlessness. God, full of justice and righteous wrath, but also of love and compassion for the world made provision and took action that man could not to bridge the gap between Himself and His creation.

James 1:12-15,

“Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him. Let no one say when he is tempted, ‘I am being tempted by God,’ for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one. But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death.”

This passage from James shows a summary of man’s entire history, suffering in the flesh, never being tempted by God, by worldly things and playing host to sinful desires that draw us toward death and away from the crown of life. This speaks not just to death in the flesh, but to the deeper, spiritual destruction that the path of sin leads to – the death that leads to a profound and irreconcilable separation from God. This is the gap that the Father bridged through the Son.

“Truly, truly, I say to you, an hour is coming, and is now here, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live.”

Picking up in John 5, with the ruling Jews now seeking His life, we see Jesus continue to explain His relationship to the father and the authority by which He comes. There’s a phrase we see here that He used in His conversation with the Samaritan woman at the well. In John 4:23 Jesus tells her,

“But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him.”

In telling her this, Jesus removed the ceremony and social posturing that caused to much animosity and tension (and honestly, open hatred), between Jews and Samaritans. A time has come where it’s not about your lineage or geography, God seeks those whose hearts are truly seeking Him. Now we see Jesus elaborating on the same principle to the Jews, “an hour is coming, and is now here, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live.” We see Biblical examples of Jesus’s literal, physical resurrection power, but this speaks to so much more – to life in the Spirit.

1 Corinthians 15:50,

“I tell you this, brothers: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.”

Jesus’s authority, His mission is not geared toward a temporal, earthly kingdom, but toward redeeming man kind and fulfilling the covenant of an eternal kingdom. The life that Jesus gives to those who truly hear His voice, the voice of God, grants life beyond the flesh and to the soul.

“For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself.”

After Peter confesses Jesus as the Christ, Jesus doesn’t reply with, “good job buddy, you sure are smart, nice work figuring that out.” In Matthew 16:17 Jesus tells him,

“… “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven.”

To hear the voice of the Son is to hear the voice and the truth of the Father, to receive His Word and to be pulled from death in your flesh into being alive in your spirit. This again speaks to the power and equality of the Son through the Father, as life can only truly come from God.

2. Judgement from the Son of Man

“And he has given him authority to execute judgment, because he is the Son of Man.”

We saw last week in verse 22 that along with the authority to grant life, Jesus holds the power to judge. We know from John 3:17 that He has not come into the world to condemn it, however as He continues to elaborate and grant insight into the nature of His relationship to the Father, Jesus uses a title that gives insight to His position and authority as judge.

Daniel 7:13-14,

“I saw in the night visions, and behold, with the clouds of heaven there came one like a son of man, and he came to the Ancient of Days and was presented before him. And to him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him; his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom one that shall not be destroyed.”

God uses “son of man” to address the prophet Ezekiel multiple times, however this is just addressing him as a human, a descendant of Adam. Daniel’s vision is of someone divine, someone with an appearance like a man, but who comes on the clouds and is presented before the Ancient of Days, God the Father. This individual is found blameless before God, which we know through the fact that in presenting himself before God, he is granted everlasting dominion over an eternal kingdom. Moses promised in Deuteronomy 18 that God would one day raise up a prophet like him, and while there were many prophets and even more sons of man, there is only one called The Prophet and only one called The Son of Man, and that individual is Jesus. Daniel’s vision lines up with John’s from Revelation. John even uses the Son of Man title to describe the enormity of what he’s seeing in Revelation 1:12-16,

“Then I turned to see the voice that was speaking to me, and on turning I saw seven golden lampstands, and in the midst of the lampstands one like a son of man, clothed with a long robe and with a golden sash around his chest. The hairs of his head were white, like white wool, like snow. His eyes were like a flame of fire, his feet were like burnished bronze, refined in a furnace, and his voice was like the roar of many waters. In his right hand he held seven stars, from his mouth came a sharp two-edged sword, and this face was like the sun shining in full strength.”

Jesus is fully man, but we can never forget that He is also fully God, co-equal in power and authority with the Father. We again see this manifested in Christ in Revelation 19:11-16,

“Then I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse! The one sitting on it is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he judges and makes war. His eyes are like a flame of fire, and on his head are many diadems, and he has a name written that no one knows but himself. He is clothed in a robe dipped in blood, and the name by which he is called is The Word of God. And the armies of heaven, arrayed in fine linen, white and pure, were following him on white horses. From his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron. He will tread the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty. On his robe and on his thigh he has a name written, King of kings and Lord of lords.”

Jesus holds the power over life and death, over judgement and redemption.

“Do not marvel at this, for an hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice and come out, those who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment.”

This claim to the authority of the Son of Man, tying back to Daniel’s prophecy would have indeed been shocking, but the people that Jesus addresses (and us through reading His words), are told not to marvel at this information. There is an hour coming – not one that has already arrived as with God seeking those to worship in spirit in truth, or for the dead to hear the voice of the Son and receive life, but one that approaches, where judgement will be brought against the sins of those who have rejected the Word of God.

Revelation 20:11-12,

“Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it. From his presence earth and sky fled away, and no place was found for them. And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Then another book was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged by what was written in the books, according to what they had done.”

What we see in this final judgement is not an overbearing display of wrath, but a perfectly distributed justice from on high – what we see is the honoring of the Truth.

3. The Testimony from the Truth

“I can do nothing on my own. As I hear, I judge, and my judgment is just, because I seek not my own will but the will of him who sent me.”

Jesus tells His disciples in John 14:6,

“… I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

His deity is confirmed through His ability to give life in flesh and Spirit as the Father does, it is confirmed in His authority to judge as the Father does, and it is confirmed in the shared testimony of the Father to the Son and the Son to the Father. In this, the Truth is manifested. All of Jesus’s teachings, His clarification on the spirit of the Law and His delivery of the truth to God’s people is for the singular purpose of glorifying the Father. There is no ulterior motive, no greed, no vanity – no sin muddling the delivery, only the will of the Father unfolding perfectly in His Son.

“If I alone bear witness about myself, my testimony is not true. There is another who bears witness about me, and I know that the testimony that he bears about me is true.”

The Law sets a precedent for validation through witnesses. Deuteronomy 19:15 says,

“A single witness shall not suffice against a person for any crime or for any wrong in connection with any offense that he has committed. Only on the evidence of two witnesses or of three witnesses shall a charge be established.”

In it we are also given precedent for establishing the validity of prophets. Deuteronomy 18:20-22 says,

“But the prophet who presumes to speak a word in my name that I have not commanded him to speak, or who speaks in the name of other gods, that same prophet shall die. And if you say in your heart, ‘How may we know the word that the LORD has not spoken?’— when a prophet speaks in the name of the LORD, if the word does not come to pass or come true, that is a word that the LORD has not spoken; the prophet has spoken it presumptuously. You need not be afraid of him.”

Jesus’s ministry is not about the miracles, but the miracles validate the blessing of God upon His ministry. His ministry is not just about teaching the Law, but glorifying God through truthfully teaching the lessons of His Law. Jesus does not testify or bear witness about Himself – God does. This is something that should have been apparent to the teachers of the Law, but in rejecting Jesus as the Christ, their blindness is revealed. It’s a quality they continue to display even after the resurrection and ascension. In Acts 5 we see the Apostles, who have been performing signs and wonders in the name of the Lord, are brought before the Sanhedrin, who are furious over their teachings and desire to kill them over their continued proclamation of Jesus resurrected. The council member Gamaliel cautions the Sanhedrin, reminding them of uprisings in the past that have come to nothing, but warning them in verse 38,

“So in the present case I tell you, keep away from these men and let them alone, for if this plan or this undertaking is of man, it will fail; but if it is of God, you will not be able to overthrow them. You might even be found opposing God!…”

While the council still beats the Apostles before releasing them, they don’t kill any of them – at least, not yet. Gamaliel’s observation was congruent with the Law. Jesus as the Son of God, the prophesied Son of Man, one with the Father and inheritor of the eternal kingdom is validated by God. His teaching, ministry, death, resurrection and ascension were all possible, not because He was an individual seeking His own ends, but the Son of God, sent by and pursuing the will of the Father. It is by this power that He grants life, through which he offers peace. It is by this authority that He holds the right to judge, and it is in this judgement that we see the perfect, just Truth He embodies.

Pastor Chris’s sermon: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9_4G0a7Ut14