The Bread of Life, John 6: 1-15

This miracle of the feeding of the five thousand is probably one of the best known miracles in the Bible.  Perhaps that’s because it is the only miracle that is presented in all four gospels. And as such it is perhaps difficult to provide new insight that hasn’t already been presented elsewhere at some point in the past.  But that’s not really my job anyway.  A pastor’s job is not to try to find out new information, or a new perspective and show everyone how smart he is because he has something different.  But the pastor’s job is just to present the old, old story - to a new audience.  So I probably won’t have anything new to say this morning, but I do hope that God will provide the impetus of the Holy Spirit through the Word, so that it will come home to you in a practical way.

The danger of familiarity is that we can lose sight of the practicality and the purpose, and think we already know the answers. It’s like the little boy who was asked what his favorite Bible story was. He said, "I like the one where everyone loafs and fishes.”  He was familiar with the story, but he misunderstood the meaning.  Maybe some of you may have that kind of familiarity. I know I do.  I grew up in the church. Literally.  My dad was a pastor.  I was born while he was at Bible college.  I grew up attending church about 4 times a week.  Back in those days, they used to give you a little pin for attending Sunday School if you attended every Sunday during the year without missing one.  And each year thereafter you got another pin that hung off the bottom of the primary pin.  It was like a medal, that had a ribbon added every year that you were in attendance every Sunday.  By the time I was a teenager, I had about 13 little ribbons on my pin.  I was like a Sunday School hero.

But growing up in the church has it’s downside.  One was I knew all the songs in the hymnbook by heart.  But the downside was I learned them before I could read.  So in later years I discovered that some of the lyrics to songs were quite a bit different than what I thought they were. For instance, it was a few years before I realized it was “blessed assurance, Jesus is mine” and not “blessed insurance, Jesus is mine.” I had heard what I thought were the words, but turns out I was substituting another word that sounded like it, but had a different meaning.

Maybe that illustrates the difficulty in coming to familiar passages of scripture.  We think we know the words, but we may have missed the meaning.  So rather than give you some new geography insights, or historical insights, or even theological insights, I want to just focus on the purpose of the miracle this morning, and make sure that we all have the right message.

This is the fourth miracle that John presents in his gospel.  And yet at this point in Christ’s life, Jesus has been in public ministry about 2 years. So John leaves a lot out.  In fact, since the end of chapter five, it’s probably been at least 6 months to a year that has elapsed.  But the miracles that John does give us are strategically presented in order to illustrate his stated purpose found in the 20th chapter.  John 20:30-31 “Therefore many other signs Jesus also performed in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book;  but these have been written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing you may have life in His name.”

So that’s the purpose of this miracle.  It’s to teach us that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God.  And that if you believe in Him, receive Him, then you will have life though Him.  That is the summary of John’s opening thesis of chapter one where he sets forth the theology and doctrine of Christ whom he calls the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God.  And then he says that in Him was life, and the life was the light of men.

You should know by now the principle that I state almost every week - that every physical miracle presented in the gospel is  given to illustrate a spiritual principle.  And that is especially true of this event.  There have been many misinterpretations of this miracle over the centuries.  Not the least of which is that of a social gospel, the idea that this presents a template for what the church is to be about; feeding the hungry.  Or another favorite interpretation of Sunday school teachers,  that it teaches little boys that we need to share, and if we share, then we contribute to the accomplishment of the purpose for which Christ came; to make us nicer, more gentle, giving people, and to make the world a better place.

But the fact is, that Jesus took care of natural needs only as a means to take care of spiritual needs.  I have to be constantly reminded of this myself as I go through life.  I tend to focus on the physical, on the immediate, and I lose sight of the spiritual.  But what this miracle illustrates is that Jesus did not come to set up a physical kingdom on earth, where peace and goodwill would prevail.  That is exactly what He took great pains to avoid, as you can see in the last section of this passage.  Look at vs.15, “So Jesus, perceiving that they were intending to come and take Him by force to make Him king, withdrew again to the mountain by Himself alone.”  

Jesus didn’t come to set up a physical kingdom, where He would provide universal health care, and universal welfare.  People will vote for that kind of king.  But Jesus didn’t come to establish an earthly kingdom, or overthrow a political empire.  Jesus came to establish a spiritual kingdom.  So whatever He did in the physical, was designed to serve that purpose, and no other.  

And as Christians, we need to be reminded of that.  Christ always sought to expound the spiritual principle through the physical illustration, and not vice a versa.  So when Christ works in  our lives, it’s to promote spiritual growth, not physical growth.  There may be times when He works in the physical, but it’s to bring about a spiritual transformation.  It’s not just for physical comfort or success or profit, or just to make life more enjoyable.  That’s how we get the cart before the horse.

But the fact that Jesus is also compassionate towards our physical needs goes without saying.  These people were hungry and so Jesus is concerned about that and wants to provide for their needs.  But there is a big difference between God supplying our needs and supplying our wants.  Our wants never get satisfied.  And God will not serve our wants.  But He does promise to provide for our needs.  

The multitude may have been following Jesus for less than perfect reasons, but He was still compassionate towards them, and so He feeds them physically, but as a means of feeding them spiritually.  That’s what we really see going on here.  It says in Luke 9:11, that when Jesus saw the crowds following Him, “He began speaking to them about the kingdom of God and curing those who had need of healing.”  In effect, His miracles were designed to teach them that He was the source of all life, even the Son of God. That’s what it means to teach them about the nature of the kingdom of God. But as is often the case, the people were a little short sighted.  Most of them really only cared about the immediacy of the miracles and the signs that He was doing.  

But it shows the mercy and compassion of God towards sinners that Christ does not rebuke them, knowing their lack of spiritual insight.  But rather He continues to be gracious to sinners, in order to open their eyes to the truth.  Romans 2:4 says that the kindness of God is designed to lead us to repentance.  God is gracious and compassionate and kind, even towards sinners who are selfish, or motivated by self serving reasons.  Paul said in Titus 3:4 “But when the kindness of God our Savior and His love for mankind appeared,  He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit.”

  

So Jesus has already determined that He is going to feed the multitude, but He’s going to do it in such a way as to teach some important spiritual lessons.  And so He turns His attention first to His disciples.  That’s the first principle.  That if we are going to change the world, it starts with us that are saved.  It starts with the church.  God wants to include us in the building of the kingdom of God.  Why?  Because I believe that this is merely practice for what we will be doing in eternity when we rule and reign with Christ in His kingdom.  He wants to teach us and prepare us now for the day when we will be exalted to sit with Him on His throne in His kingdom. 

Jesus turns to Philip in vs.5 and says, “‘Where are we to buy bread, so that these may eat?’ This He was saying to test him, for He Himself knew what He was intending to do.”  Now understand something.  When it says that Jesus said this to test him, it doesn’t mean to trick him, or to embarrass him by asking him a question that he knew he would get wrong.  Jesus isn’t like our old high school teachers who liked to ask us questions when they knew we hadn’t done our homework.  The idea of testing is to prove something.  To prove that something works as it was designed to work.  David, you will remember, said about Saul’s armor that he had not tested it, or proven it.  That means he had not tried it out and knew that he could depend on it in a fight.  Jesus wants to prove or test Philip’s faith.  And maybe sometimes that means He has to stretch our faith.  He presents an obstacle, and gives us the leeway to tackle that obstacle, not to watch us fail, but to show us the way that He wants us to overcome it.  At the time, it may seem impossible, and we might not handle it right, but the divine purpose is to teach us to be overcomers, and that nothing is impossible with God, when it is God’s will. 

Philip though pulls out his calculator.  He is a practical guy.  Maybe he was an accountant in his old life.  But irregardless, he is practical.  He does the math, and says, “Listen Lord, if we had 200 days worth of wages, we couldn’t buy enough bread to give everyone here a snack.”  By the way, Matthew says in Matt.14:19, that there were 5000 men, not including women and children.  So there were probably 15000 people in attendance.  A denarius was a day’s wage for a Roman soldier, so we could estimate that equates to about $20,000 by today’s standards.  Philip says we don’t have nearly enough money to feed these people.  He was practical, but he was missing the point.

The point Jesus wanted to make was that it was impossible.  Not practical, nor possible, but impossible.  That’s the whole point of the gospel.  It’s impossible for us to be reconciled to Christ.  Our sins have created a chasm between us and God that cannot be jumped across. God gave us the law to show us that it was impossible to achieve God’s standard of righteousness. So God made the impossible possible through the impractical; holy, righteous God became sin for us, that we might be made righteous through Him.

Now in Mark’s gospel, chapter 6 we read that Jesus tells the disciples to go into the crowd and see if they could find some food. And when they come back Andrew reports that there is only one boy’s lunch, which is five barley loaves and two fish.  But that only further emphasizes the impossibility of the situation.  “What is that for so many people?”

Now a lot of commentators want to disparage the disciples for their lack of spiritual comprehension.  Personally, I cringe whenever I hear preachers disparage the disciples, as if to say if they were there, they would have had all spiritual discernment.  They wouldn’t have been like those knucklehead disciples who couldn’t see the forest for the trees.  But I prefer to think we should give the disciples the benefit of the doubt.  If Andrew didn’t have any faith, then I don’t think that he would have offered Jesus the boy’s lunch.  I think he would have looked at that lunch and said, “there is no need to bring this to Jesus.”  But I think there is a hint of a little faith here.  

And let me tell you some good news.  God can use a little faith.  I preached last Wednesday on Psalm 121, and I never got past the first verse which was “I will lift up mine eyes unto the mountains, from where comes my help?” And if you were there then you will remember that I used that as a pretext to go to Zechariah 4, where God tells Zerubbabel that the rebuilding of the temple will not be accomplished by might nor by power, but by the Spirit of the Lord.  And then the Lord goes on to say that he is not to despise the day of small things, but He will make this great mountain into a plain.  Now I don’t want to go off on another tangent on that passage, but the point that I want to make is that God doesn’t despise small things, and He can use small things to move impossible mountains.  Not by might, not by power, but by His Spirit.

In Matthew 17:20, there was a demon that the disciples could not cast out, and Jesus said to them, "Because of the littleness of your faith; for truly I say to you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it will move; and nothing will be impossible to you.”    The point is, a mustard seed is the smallest seed in the garden, and yet even faith of that small size, when it is faith in the right source, can move mountains.  And nothing will be impossible with God.  

Andrew had a little bit of faith. And the little boy had a little bit of lunch.  But it was still an impossible situation.  And Jesus wants to illustrate that even more.  So He says, “have the people sit down.”  It was a grassy knoll there, and the other gospels tell us that Jesus said to make the people sit in groups of 50 or 100.  I like that.  It shows Jesus had a sense of humor.  Tell 12 disciples to go into a crowd of 15000 people and get them to sit down in groups of 50 on the ground. That’s 300 blocks of 50 people.  That’s like a miracle in of itself to get that many people organized and quieted down and seated in rows.  I think that was another test of faith.  But the disciples didn’t object, they didn’t complain, and they got it done.  They had enough faith to be obedient, even when it didn’t make sense or they didn’t understand it or it wasn’t easy.

Listen, that’s an important principle.  When you are faced with an impossible situation, don’t start running around in circles like a chicken with it’s head cut off crying that the sky is falling.  Go to God with what little faith you have, trust God to deal with the impossibility, and then just do what He tells you to do.  Do what you know you are to do.  Let me put that in practical terms for you.  When your life is in chaos, don’t stop coming to church.  Find your place in the congregation, sit down, and put yourself under subjection to God in spite of the difficulty.  Be obedient to what God has already told you to do.  Don’t stop praying, don’t stop reading your Bible. Order your life under the authority of God and make yourself ready to trust in God’s providence.

So Jesus takes the food in His hands and blesses it and breaks it and gives it to the disciples to distribute to the crowd.  John doesn’t say that He gave it to the disciples, but the other gospels do.  Again and again, you see Jesus using the disciples.  But notice that He blesses the food, He gives thanks.  He is giving thanks to illustrate that God is providing the miracle of feeding the multitude.  Jesus isn’t doing this for His sake.  If He were hungry He would not have created food for Himself.  Satan tempted Him with that in the wilderness and Jesus rebuked him by saying, “man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.”  Jesus is doing this to glorify God, and to feed these people spiritually. 

By the way, I hope you are in the habit of blessing your food before you eat.  Jesus did it as an example to us, that we should give thanks in all things.  Give thanks when you have but a little and God will multiply His blessings unto you.  And don’t be ashamed to do it publicly as a testimony to others.  That’s what Jesus was doing.

So how did Jesus feed 15000 people from 5 loaves and two fish? Well, he obviously created food already cooked and ready to be eaten. That’s what they call in the military MRE’s.  Meals Ready to Eat.  But I bet you Jesus’ meal tasted a whole lot better than the military version.  Anyhow, the Bible doesn’t tell us exactly how the miracle happened.  But what it does tells us is the result of the miracle.  Everyone ate until they were full.  And the disciples gathered up 12 baskets of leftovers.  John 1 told us that Jesus made everything in creation.  So that is exactly what is being illustrated here.  Jesus is manufacturing fish and bread out of His hands, and giving to the disciples and they give it to the people.  

The how of the miracle is not as important as the why of the miracle.  One thing that was being taught was that someone greater than Moses was here. That is what they meant in  vs.14 which says, “Therefore when the people saw the sign which He had performed, they said, ‘This is truly the Prophet who is to come into the world.’”  What they are referring to is the prophecy made by Moses in Deut. 18:15  who said, ”The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your countrymen, you shall listen to him.”  Moses led the children of Israel out of Egypt and fed them with manna and quail for 40 years.  But of course, Moses didn’t feed them himself, God rained down manna from heaven.  Now they see Jesus, manufacturing bread and fish out of His hands to feed 15000 people.  The parallel was apparent.  This was the prophet that Moses spoke of.  This was the Messiah.  So their impulse was to make Him their king, thinking that He would overthrow their oppressors the same way that Moses did.

But that was not God’s purpose in doing the miracle.  Yes, it was to confirm that someone greater than Moses was here. The Messiah was here. The kingdom of God was at hand.  But not a physical kingdom, but a spiritual kingdom. Jesus told Pilate in John 18:36  "My kingdom is not of this world. If My kingdom were of this world, then My servants would be fighting so that I would not be handed over to the Jews; but as it is, My kingdom is not of this realm." 

So if Jesus did not come to establish a physical kingdom, then what was He coming to do? Jesus will say later in chapter 6 vs.35  "I am the bread of life; he who comes to Me will not hunger, and he who believes in Me will never thirst.” The real significance of the miracle is to illustrate that Jesus is the bread of life, the source of spiritual life. That is how He establishes a spiritual kingdom, by transferring sinners from the kingdom of darkness to the Kingdom of God through the forgiveness of their sins.  He is the bread of life that was given for us.

My wife is the baker around our house, I am not. But I do know that to make bread there are certain things you have to do. The grain that grows in the field must be cut down.  The grain must be crushed under the grinding stone to make flour. And then that flour is mixed with oil, and then baked in an oven. And all of that pictures the life and suffering of our Lord Jesus.  So when the Lord says, "I am the bread of God that comes down from heaven," or "I am the bread of life," we need to understand the process by which bread becomes bread. And Jesus becomes bread by virtue of the fact that he gives his life for us. So it is a lesson in the sufficiency of our Lord for salvation. In order for him to become bread He must be cut down and crushed, He had to be filled with the Spirit of God, and He also bear the punishment of God for sin -- the fire of God’s wrath on sin. He must be baked in the oven of God’s wrath, executing penalty upon Him  for our sins.

Isaiah 53 records the beautiful prophecy concerning Jesus doing just that.  It says “For He grew up before Him like a tender shoot, And like a root out of parched ground….Surely our griefs He Himself bore,And our sorrows He carried;Yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken,Smitten of God, and afflicted. But He was pierced through for our transgressions,He was crushed for our iniquities;The chastening for our well-being fell upon Him,And by His scourging we are healed.”

So the significance of the miracle was to show  the impossibility of man’s situation; that man was without hope, cut off from God, cut off from the source of life, and unable to accomplish his own deliverance.  There was no way to provide for what was lacking.  Spiritually speaking, we were starving, facing an impossible barrier, an impossible mountain that we could not overcome.  But God in His compassion and mercy sent Jesus to offer Himself as the bread of life, as our substitute, that by faith in Him, even a little faith, by believing in Him; believing what the Bible said about Him and what He was claiming to be, believing His teaching and His works, by even a little faith, we are able to partake of that bread and receive life.

Salvation, as I’ve said over and over again, is by repentance and faith.  Repentance is simply acknowledging your sin, your inability to attain the righteousness that God requires.  Repentance is coming face to face with the impossibility of your situation, and recognizing that Jesus is your only hope.  And then the second step is faith.  Your faith is just a willingness to believe that He is sufficient to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.  That He is God and the source of life eternal.  By simple faith and repentance you receive Him, just as the multitude ate of the meal and were satisfied, Jesus is the bread of life that satisfies forever.  You will never hunger for righteousness again.  Because Jesus is the source of spiritual life. 

Listen, there are a lot more applications that I could make from this miraculous event.  Most of which I’m sure you probably have heard before.  But what I want to express to you today above all else is that the gospel is for lost people.  It is for broken people.  The gospel is for destitute people, hopeless people.  Jesus did a lot of things in that miracle to emphasize the hopelessness of their situation.  I think He even planned it so that they would be far away from every source of food so that they would realize the hopelessness of the situation.  Jesus came to save sinners.  He came to seek and to save those that are lost.  He did not come to make good people better.  He came to make sinners righteous by the grace of God, because of the compassion of God towards man.  

And that primary application demands a response from you.  Have you received the bread of life?  Have you tasted and seen that the Lord is good?  Have you received the forgiveness of your sins and been clothed with the righteousness of Jesus Christ?  Listen, no amount of money could purchase the bread that was needed to feed that multitude.  Jesus gave it without charge, without cost, so that whoever would receive it might receive life, and be filled abundantly.

There is one other obvious application as well which must be made and that is the involvement of the disciples.  When Jesus had witnessed to the woman at Samaria in chapter 4, He sent the disciples away to buy food in town.  And when they came back, urging Him to eat, He told them that He had food to eat that they did not know about.  He said in vs. 54, “My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me and to accomplish His work.”

And that principle is laid out for us here in this passage through the disciples.  He wants them to do even as He did in Samaria.  He wants them to find spiritual food in feeding others.  And when they do that, they end up with 12 baskets left over. Twelve baskets for 12 disciples. That was the disciples’ spiritual food.  In doing the will of God, God provided more than enough for their own needs.  Each of them ended up with their own basket filled with provisions.  So for us that are Christians, our job is to be obedient, even as the disciples were, and feed His sheep.  And when we do that, we will find food for our souls, and life for our spirit.  

I want to close this service today by asking you once again, have you eaten of the bread of life? He was broken for you.  God loved you so much that He sent Jesus to be broken and bruised, to bear your sins upon the cross so that you might know the forgiveness of sins and receive eternal life.  Have your received Jesus as your Savior?  He says, “eat, drink, this is My body, which is broken for you.”  You can’t do anything to earn salvation, or buy it, or try to find it on your own.  But what you can do is come in faith to Christ as your Savior and the source of all life, and you will find spiritual life in Him.  Do it today.  It’s already bought and paid for by the blood of Jesus Christ, and He offers it to you as a free gift today.  Receive Him, eat the bread of life and live.

The claims and proofs of Christ, John 5:31-47

As we continue in this study of the fifth chapter of John, I would remind you of the claims that Jesus made concerning Himself in the second half of this chapter.  They really are amazing.  He claims to be the Son of God, equal with God, the One sent by the Father, the source of eternal life,  the one in perfect unity with the Father,  the judge of all the world, and that He would raise all the dead in the earth either to stand in judgment before Him, or that He would give them eternal life.  Now those are exceptional claims.  No man in history has ever made such outrageous claims.  

As I said last week, Jesus was either the Son of God as He claimed, or He was a lunatic and a blasphemer deserving of being locked up or executed. But there is no middle ground.  He could not be just a good teacher, or a good man, or just a prophet.  He was either God incarnate, or a complete fraud. Jesus doesn’t give us any other choice.

It’s no wonder really, that the Jews were skeptical of Christ’s claims.  Couple His claims with a lack of prestige or pedigree, and you can almost understand the animosity towards Jesus by the Jewish establishment.  But I say almost understand because in reality there were many accompanying signs which should have verified who He claimed to be.  The fact is, that the evidence for Him as the Messiah was overwhelming, but they choose not to believe in Him, because He did not fit into their template for how they wanted the Messiah to operate.  It’s almost as if God sent Jesus to be the Messiah, and they looked Him over pretty good, examined His resume, and said, “No thanks.  He’s not what we’re looking for right now.”  And so John says in vs.18, that the Jews were already conspiring to kill Him.  Not only did they not accept Him, but they believed the best way to get rid of Him was to murder Him.  Pretty amazing really.  They hated Him without cause.  Without proper justification.  They hated Him simply because He did not fit into their plans for self-aggrandizement. 

The first part of the chapter illustrates their attitude perfectly.  Jesus healed a paralyzed man who had been sick for 38 years and all they seemed to care about was that Jesus healed him on the Sabbath Day.  They really didn’t care about the sick man or the Sabbath Day.  They just wanted to exercise their power and position over Jesus and the traditions of the Sabbath served their purpose.  They really wanted Jesus to have to submit to them instead of them submitting to Christ.

That’s not just an exclusively first century bad attitude, by the way.  That’s a common 21st century bad attitude as well.  We still have people who want Christ to serve them, rather than to submit to serve Christ.  People may be willing to believe in Christ, but they want to limit Him to serving their agenda, to helping them achieve their goals, their happiness, their success.  Rather than understanding that the crux of the gospel is the cross of the gospel.  And as Jesus went to the cross for us, so we are to go to the cross for Jesus, sacrificing our world, our goals, our priorities for the sake of Christ.  So we have the same problem today that the religious Jews had in that day.  A convoluted, self serving sense of entitlement at the expense of Christ.

So Jesus made these outrageous claims, in effect saying that He was equal with God, and now in verses 31-47 He is going to present validation for His claims.  And to do so, to establish His deity, He is going to put forth five witnesses.  That was in keeping with the law, by the way.  The law said in Deuteronomy 19:15, that every word was to be corroborated by 2 or 3 witnesses.  In other words, in a court of law, in order to establish truth, there must be at least 2, or better yet 3 witnesses to validate one’s statement as truth.  So Jesus is upholding the law here and actually exceeding the requirements of the law. by offering multiple testimonies to His deity.

But I have to say as I have studied John’s writings over the years, I’ve often struggled with his writing style.  I get the sense sometimes that he is overlapping things or being repetitive in laying out certain principles.  And I have to admit sometimes I am almost frustrated by it.  I kind of want to move the pace along a little bit.  But as I was thinking about this style that he seems to have, I found myself comparing John’s writing style to something which is called in engineering terms, redundancy.  According to Wikipedia, in the field of engineering, redundancy is the duplication of critical components or functions of a system with the intention of increasing reliability of the system, usually in the form of a backup or fail-safe.  So redundancy is very important in engineering things like airplanes.  When you are 30,000 feet in the air in a tin can going 600 miles an hour, it is comforting to know that the essential hydraulics and components of the engine have redundant features.  So if one system should fail, there is at least one or two more that are designed to sustain the aircraft.  Redundancy may produce a more complicated system, but it generally produces a more reliable system.

And perhaps that is what John does with His gospel.  He takes the essential doctrines of the gospel, and overlaps principles or evidences or witnesses in such a way as to provide a fail safe salvation.  It provides for a faith that will prove to be reliable, no matter how great the stress that is placed upon it.  And that should be a comfort to us as we go forward in his gospel.  Sometimes as we study it, it may seem complicated, but I hope when you feel that way you will remember that the principle of redundancy is there for your safe keeping.

So John is going to be somewhat redundant in this passage in order to verify the claims of Christ, upon which we base our faith, and thus our salvation.  And so he records  several testimonies or witnesses of Christ.  And the first witness that Jesus mentions is that of His own testimony.  He gave witness of Himself as we read in vs.19-30. In them He makes the claims that we enumerated earlier which are all statements reserved for deity.  But Jesus says that they don’t accept them as true.  And so Jesus sets His own testimony aside, because He knows that they will not admit His testimony alone as legal proof.  However, of course we know that His testimony is true, just as we know His words are true, because the Spirit says amen in our hearts.  But these men who don’t know God, do not have the Spirit of God, and so they do not know the truth, nor recognize the truth.  They were blind to the truth, even as Paul said in 2 Cor. 4:3-4 “And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, in whose case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.”

I’ve noticed this phenomenon myself from time to time.  I can preach a truth until I’m blue in the face and not get any response but some sort of vague skepticism.  But then someone in the church hears another preacher say something similar, and they accept that as the truth.  I don’t know what to attribute that to.  I guess it’s just a natural skepticism on the part of man or inability to recognize truth as truth.

The second witness that Jesus presents is that of the Father.  In vs.32, Jesus says, "There is another who testifies of Me, and I know that the testimony which He gives about Me is true.”  Now He is going to go on in the next verse to the witness of John the Baptist.  But in vs.32, He is speaking of  His Father.  And he picks up this witness of the Father again in vs. 37, “And the Father who sent Me, He has testified of Me. You have neither heard His voice at any time nor seen His form.”

Now how did God bear witness of Jesus? Through multiple dispensations.  There were several instances at His birth when angels who are the messengers of God spoke concerning Him as being born of the Spirit of God, as the Son of God and as the Savior of the world. And God appointed a special star to shine out of heaven to guide the wise men to birth of the King of the Jews so that they could worship Him.  Then there was the Spirit of God in the form of a dove descending upon Him at His baptism in fulfillment of prophecy.  And there was the voice of God declaring “You are My beloved Son, in You I am well-pleased.” So God the Father bore witness of Christ’s deity.

The third witness Jesus brings forth was that of John the Baptist. Vs.33, "You have sent to John, and he has testified to the truth.”  Now John was an important witness, and yet Jesus says in the next verse that He did not receive the testimony of man.  What does He mean by that?  He means that God is self sufficient.  He does not need the testimony of man to validate Himself. Christ needs no letters of recommendation from man - He is able to establish His own credentials.  But He includes John’s testimony so that they might be saved.  So then, He brings up John not to prove Himself, but as a benefit for our salvation.  God has ordained that by the foolishness of preaching we are saved.  And God has chosen to use men to preach the gospel to other men, so that they might believe.  He includes John’s testimony for our sake, and not for His own.

He goes on to say that John was a lamp that was burning, and they were able to rejoice for a while in that light. They received for a while the ministry of John. It was a novelty in their minds, he was popular for a while.  But because they did not truly believe his testimony, they eventually grew tired of him.  But Christ says that His testimony was greater than the lamp of John, because He was the light.  John was a lamp in which the light was reflected.  But Jesus is the Light of the world, that sets ablaze the lamps of men. Jesus’ testimony is greater than John’s testimony even as the light is greater than the lamp.  But nevertheless, God uses lamps to draw men to Himself so that they might be saved.  God has designed you to be a lamp as well.  You are to reflect the light of Christ in your life that men might see your light and be drawn to Christ.  We are told not to hide our lamp under a bushel, but set it on a hill that men might see the light of salvation and the result of that salvation reflected in us.

The fourth witness then which is greater than the witness of John was the works of Christ. Vs. 36 "But the testimony which I have is greater than the testimony of John; for the works which the Father has given Me to accomplish--the very works that I do--testify about Me, that the Father has sent Me.”

Now we know that the Jews knew that Jesus did the works of God, by the testimony of one of their own and that was Nicodemus whom we were introduced to in chapter 3.  Remember Nicodemus said in 3:2, “Rabbi, we know that You have come from God as a teacher; for no one can do these signs that You do unless God is with him.”  They knew that He did miracles that only God could do, and so He had to be of God.  And yet they still planned to kill Him.  That’s why I said last week that I am convinced that the Jews knew that He was the Son of God, and yet they still wanted to kill Him because He did not fit into their religious paradigm which was designed to promote themselves.  That is a damning accusation, and as such it is more than enough justification for God’s judgment to fall upon Israel as it did in AD 70.

So the miracles and works that Jesus did were testimony to the fact that He was God incarnate. John the Baptist didn’t do any miracles.  Did you ever think of that?  God designed that John would simply preach the gospel of repentance.  The miracles Jesus did were evidence that He was the Son of God. The miracles that the apostles did were evidence that they were spokesmen for the Son of God, appointed for the foundation of the gospel.  Paul said in 2Cor. 12:12 “The signs of a true apostle were performed among you with all perseverance, by signs and wonders and miracles.”  Are there true apostles today?  I would say there is not.  They were specially commissioned men who had been with Christ that were given attesting miracles to show the veracity of the word of Christ that they were speaking.  

So then we might wonder if God is doing miracles today?  I would say a resounding yes.  But I would add the caveat that God does not work through apostles any more, and He has not appointed certain people to be healers.  He may heal as He sees fit, but the purpose of that healing is not to validate the word of God, nor to validate a person as a spokesman of God.  God has sufficiently done that through Christ, through the apostles and His word is established and verified and sealed as being true.  It does not need continual verification by miraculous means.  But yet God may still heal as He sees fit.  

I remember a service we had on the beach last summer, and afterwards a woman came up to me and said that she had recently been diagnosed with stage four cancer.  She was a believer, yet she wasn't coming to me for healing, but simply to ask for prayer and to let me know that she desired to live out her remaining days for the glory of God.  I prayed with her there on the beach, and I asked that God would grant her wish that her life would bring glory to God, and that if it was His will, that He would heal her.   Well, that lady’s name is Pat Nordstrom.  And I can tell you that today this woman is cancer free.  I don’t know how or claim to have anything to do with it.  I am not a healer.  Lot’s of people besides me I’m sure were praying for this lady.  But I will tell you that God healed this woman, and that all the glory goes to God.  And today she is very involved in a Christian ministry.  So God heals as He sees fit.  

But I also will tell you another story.  I was at a pastor’s conference a few years ago.  And a missionary from Africa spoke there and he began telling stories of an evangelistic campaign that he was a part of to many villages that had not had the gospel presented to them before.  And at one point of that ministry he said there was an entire village that accepted Jesus as their Savior.  And in this large conference in which were over 1000 pastors, I heard a few isolated “amens” sound out as he described the conversion of an entire village.  But as he continued his message he talked of another village in which they were baptizing people who had become saved.  And as the townspeople were standing beside the river, one of the women supposedly realized that her baby had died.  And the pastors  called the woman to come into the river, and when the baby touched the water, the baby supposedly came back to life.  And when the missionary reported this, the entire 1000 attendees stood to their feet and gave a standing ovation.  

Now I found the story skeptical to begin with.  But what I found even more ironic was that when an entire village was saved from eternal damnation, hardly a few grunts and amens emitted from the crowd.  But when one baby was supposedly brought back to life, all 1000 men jumped to their feet and applauded.  Now what is the greater miracle, I ask?  To give physical life to one child, or eternal life to an entire village?  What should we be excited about? A physical healing or a spiritual healing?  I would remind you of the two healings we have looked at so far in John, that Jesus made sure that they were spiritually healed and not just physically healed.  Christ always sought to expound the spiritual principle through the physical illustration, and not vice a versa. 

The fifth witness that Christ brings forth is the testimony of scripture. Vs. 38 "You do not have His word abiding in you, for you do not believe Him whom He sent. You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; it is these that testify about Me;  and you are unwilling to come to Me so that you may have life.”  What was amazing about this statement was that the Jews were the custodians of the scriptures.  They of all the people in the earth had been given the word of God and were supposed to be stewards of it.  Yet  though they physically possessed the scriptures, they did not spiritually possess it.  God wrote the law upon tablets of stone, but He desired to write it upon the tablets of the heart.  

That is speaking of salvation by the way. Jesus will say in the next chapter in John 6:63  "It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing; the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life.”  When the word of God is combined with the quickening power of the Spirit of God, then it brings about spiritual life.  Jesus gave a parable concerning the soils, and He said that the seed was the word of God and some fell on good soil and some fell on bad soil.  That soil which was good caused the seed to spring up into life, producing fruit, which was spiritual life.  These men were those who were illustrative of bad soil, on which the seed fell but did not remain.  So that Jesus says they didn’t have the word abiding in them.  And they didn’t have spiritual life because they did not receive Jesus whom God had sent.

Ironically, they searched the scriptures, they memorized the scriptures, they knew the scriptures backwards and forwards.  And because they knew them, they thought that they had eternal life.  They saw the rules and the laws and read ordinances between the lines and found symbolism in every syllable, and they thought that they could do the things of the law and find righteousness, thereby earning eternal life.  But they missed the point of all the scriptures.  The scriptures present Jesus Christ from Genesis to Malachi, and yet they did not see Him.  They saw only themselves as being more righteous and honorable and deserving than others, and so they missed the entire point of the scriptures.  So in vs.40 Jesus says that you missed out on eternal life, because you do not come to Him who is the source of eternal life.  He is not talking so much about ignorance, as about their will.  Their was ample evidence, but the problem was that they were not willing.  

I think that is true of all men that reject Christ.  It is not that there is not ample evidence of God that men and women become atheists. It is because they do not want to have this Man rule over them.  Men and women today champion independence as a virtue.  While that may be true of nations, it is fatal for individuals.  Our total salvation is dependent upon being dependent upon Christ.  That is one of the reasons we go to church by the way.  We go to church to declare publicly our dependence upon God.  Those that claim to believe in God and yet will not bow to depend upon God, and declare that dependence in the congregation must still be intractable in their independence from God.

Note that is what Jesus continually asserts He cannot nor will not do.  He is never independent from God.  What God does, He does.  What God says, He says.  They are unified, but never acting independent.  And by the way, that is the purpose of the Holy Spirit as well.  So many Christians today seem to think that the God of the Old Testament is a God of wrath, and that was replaced and done away with by Jesus Christ, who is the God of love.  And now that Christ has gone into heaven, He has given us the Holy Spirit, who is the God of experience.  So when some spiritual experience happens in the Christian realm, whether at church or a concert or crusade or whatever, they attribute such things to the Holy Spirit.  

Folks, that is poppy cock.  That is borderline heresy.  The Trinity is One God.  There is one faith, and one baptism.  God is the same yesterday, today and forever.  And furthermore, listen to the unity of the Trinity as Jesus describes it in John 14 an 16. John 14:9-11 Jesus said to him, "Have I been so long with you, and yet you have not come to know Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; how can you say, 'Show us the Father'?  Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father is in Me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on My own initiative, but the Father abiding in Me does His works.  Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me; otherwise believe because of the works themselves.”  So everything Jesus did was mirrored in the Father.  He was the exact representation of the Father God.  

Now consider what Jesus says about the Holy Spirit in John 16:13-14  "But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth; for He will not speak on His own initiative, but whatever He hears, He will speak; and He will disclose to you what is to come. He will glorify Me, for He will take of Mine and will disclose it to you.”  So then, Jesus is the perfect representation of God the Father, and the Holy Spirit is the perfect representation of Jesus Christ, so that all three are One. One nature, One essence, and one voice, but separate in persons.

So in vs.41, Jesus says that He does not receive glory from men.  He does not need glory from men because He  receives glory from God.  But Jesus is rebuking them because they should have been glorifying Him, but they were not.  He says that they don’t glorify Him because they don’t have the love of God in them.  That means that they don’t love God.  Instead, they love the glory of men.  They love receiving honor from men.  That’s the condemnation of mankind, that they are lovers of self, and lovers of men, lovers of ungodliness, and rejecters of righteousness.  That is our nature.  We love darkness rather than light.  We love the adulation of men.  We love the glory of men.  And as such we dishonor God who made man for His glory.

That is why repentance is a constant staple in the diet of a Christian.  We must constantly be renouncing the pride which is such a part of the warp and woof of our lives that we hardly even recognize it.  It seems normal, and perhaps it is.  But normal means natural and therefore it is not spiritual.  That’s why God is opposed to the proud, but gives grace to the humble.  God hates pride.

So because men love the honor and glory of men more than God, then God will give them over to a deluding spirit.  Jesus says that they will receive those that come in their own name, that seek after their own glory, and in accepting those false prophets they condemn themselves.

Jesus says in vs. 44 "How can you believe, when you receive glory from one another and you do not seek the glory that is from the one and only God?”  Paul classified such men this way in 2Cor. 10:12 “For we are not bold to class or compare ourselves with some of those who commend themselves; but when they measure themselves by themselves and compare themselves with themselves, they are without understanding.”  

The point is that they used religion to compare themselves among themselves and even to commend themselves, and as such they did not seek to glorify God nor the glory of God.  And so they are unbelievers.  And as such they will deserve the judgment due them for rejecting Him.  Vs. 45  "Do not think that I will accuse you before the Father; the one who accuses you is Moses, in whom you have set your hope.”  The very scriptures in which they professed to know, will be the thing that accuses them and judges them.  

But, Jesus says in vs.46, if you truly believed Moses, you would have believed in Me, for He wrote about Me.  But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe My words?”

I think that Jesus is indicating there that the greatest witness of all is the Word of God.  Not the miracles, though God did use miracles.  Not some experience, though God may use experience.  But the great expression of God is the Word of God.  John says in chapter one vs one, that Jesus is the Word of God manifested in the flesh.  To reject the Word of God is to reject Jesus Christ.  To believe the Word of God is to believe in Jesus Christ. It is the testimony of God, the testimony of Jesus, and the testimony of the Spirit all in One.  That is a greater testimony than miraculous works, that is a greater testimony than John the Baptist, and it is a testimony that will endure forever.  1Peter 1:25 “BUT THE WORD OF THE LORD ENDURES FOREVER."And this is the word which was preached to you.”

I hope that you do not reject the testimony of God’s Word concerning His Son.  If you believe in Him, in all that He claimed to be, then you will receive life, and His word will abide in you, and you will be fruitful.  But if reject His Word, then you are rejecting the solemn testimony of God, the Son and the Holy Spirit, and as such you will enter into judgment.  And that judgment will be merciless.  Because you have rejected Mercy and lived independently.  

When I am judged, thank God I will not be judged independently.  I will be judged as dependent upon the righteousness of Jesus Christ.  Because I have trusted in Christ as my Savior, and my substitute.  2 Cor. 5:21 “God made Jesus who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”  When I come before God I will stand dependent upon Christ’s righteousness alone, and not my own.

You can either be found righteous in Him on that day, or you will stand alone in your independence, and have no answer when you are asked why you rejected the gift of God’s Son’s righteousness.  You want to remain in your sins and face that judgment?  That is your choice.  But I pray that you choose to come to Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the One equal with God, the One sent by the Father, the source of eternal life,  the One in perfect unity with the Father,  the Judge of all the world, and the One who will raise all the dead in the earth either to stand in judgment before Him, or choose Him, and believe in Him and be saved.

Christ’s declaration of deity, John 5: 16-30

This is difficult material.  It would be more gratifying perhaps to give a sermon that is more energizing, uplifting, or empowering rather than deep theology.  But if our faith is going to really and truly be those things, if our faith is going to have any power, or any energy, or any ability to lift us up out of darkness, then it has to be grounded in truth.  Jesus said in the previous chapter (4:23) that they that worship God must worship Him in spirit and in truth. He would later declare that He was the way, the truth and the life, and that no man comes to the Father except through Him. So foundational to our theology then, Jesus has to be God in the flesh, or our faith is in vain, and our worship is worthless.

Now that is the crux of the difficulty that Jesus has found Himself in after healing the man at the pool of Bethesda. By what authority did Jesus do  these things?  Jesus had told the paralyzed man to get up, take up his pallet and walk.  And so the man was immediately made well and obediently picked up his pallet and headed to the temple, presumably to give thanks to God for healing him.  But the Jewish religious leaders see him coming and say, “You aren’t allowed to carry your pallet because it’s the Sabbath day.” But he said, ““He who made me well was the one who said to me, ‘Pick up your pallet and walk.’”. Well of course they wanted to know who that was.  But he didn’t know who had healed him. However, later Jesus discloses Himself  to him in the temple and so afterwards he tells the Jews that it was Jesus who had healed him.

The Jews then, it says in vs.16, began plotting to persecute Jesus because He was doing these things on the Sabbath.  John reveals here by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit that the reason these religious leaders persecuted Jesus was that He was disrupting their religious system.  They had a system, and they had learned to manipulate that system to their advantage.  Jesus would later accuse them of being hypocrites, because, according to Matt. 23:4, "They tie up heavy burdens and lay them on men's shoulders, but they themselves are unwilling to move them with so much as a finger.”  

This is the thing about false religion or false doctrine that is so damning, and which I believe will justly bring the judgment of God upon it one day.  And that is that men find a way to manipulate religion to serve their own interests, while at the same time keeping the naive under bondage.  That’s why I get so angry over false teachers.  Because they are manipulating what should be liberating, in order to  feather their own nests, and at the expense of naive people. Jesus said you shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free.  But when it’s not truth, then it leaves people in captivity.  And so false teachers and false doctrine has to be exposed.

So in vs.17, Jesus has presumably been cornered somewhere in the temple by the religious leaders, and accused of breaking the Sabbath.  And His response is to say, ““My Father is working until now, and I Myself am working.”  The Jews knew that, of course.  They knew that God’s work is to keep all things in existence, all things holding together, working together.  Nothing exists outside of the power of God. If God shut down the power by which He holds the world, then it would be destroyed.  God has to be working, or nothing works.  What causes the earth to stay in it’s orbit?  What keeps the sun in it’s course through the galaxy?  What keeps the atoms spinning by which all life exists?  It is the power of God. 

1Cor. 8:6  says, “yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom are all things and we exist for Him; and one Lord, Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we exist through Him.” So God is the Creator, through whom are all things, and yet He shares that responsibility with the Son, so that Jesus can say, God is working, and I too am working.  Specifically, He is working as Col. 1:15-17 declares: “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities--all things have been created through Him and for Him. He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.”  So Jesus says, “My Father is working until now, and I myself am working.”

But notice how that really infuriates the Jews.  Vs.18, “For this reason therefore the Jews were seeking all the more to kill Him, because He not only was breaking the Sabbath, but also was calling God His own Father, making Himself equal with God.”  Why does this infuriate them so?  Was it because they honored God so much?  Hardly.  It was because if He was the Son of God, then He was equal with God, and therefore He had the authority to over rule their religion by which they had established their livelihood and power base in Israel.  I believe there is evidence to support the idea that the Jews knew for certain by the time of the crucifixion, that Jesus was the Son of God.  And they knew the full implications of that title, as evidenced by this verse. It meant that He was equal with God.  For our western, modern minds the title Son of God seems to be a lessor title.  But in their minds, in a patriarchal society where all the rights and privileges of the father were passed on to the son, they understood the full implication; that He was making Himself equal with God.  And yet their response is to want to kill Him even more.

I mean, these aren’t “sincere, but sincerely wrong” kind of people here.  Their response to the paralyzed man being healed shows that clearly.  There is no interest in the man’s healing. There is no rejoicing that a man 38 years lying paralyzed has been restored fully to health.  They obviously could care less about that.  They are frothing at the mouth at Jesus in an insane desire to kill this man who could heal the sick.  The only reason for that kind of hatred is that they were demonic, steeped in apostate religion that took advantage of people, and they wanted to protect their position and lifestyle at all costs.  They could care less that people were being healed.  You will see that attitude evidenced by the Pharisees again and again in the gospels.

So Jesus is going to use this as an opportunity to authoritatively declare His unity with God, even though He knows it will be just more fuel for their hatred, and eventually be used against Him in order to put Him to death.  But in the process, we get one of the most comprehensive perspectives on the divinity of Christ, from Christ Himself.

So let’s just take Christ’s statements in order then and I’ll give a running commentary as needed.  In vs.19, Jesus declares His unity with the Father.  This is one of the greatest mysteries of the gospel.  How Jesus could be fully God and fully man in one bodily form.  It is a mystery that we cannot fully understand I think until we get to heaven.  But though we can’t understand it, we can believe it, and in fact we must believe it in order to be saved.  Saving faith is believing that Jesus was fully God in the flesh. John has already declared that in his opening prologue in chapter one.  Jesus was the Word, the Word was with God, and the Word was God, and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.  Unity and equality.

So Jesus says to that effect, “Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, unless it is something He sees the Father doing; for whatever the Father does, these things the Son also does in like manner.”  Now what Jesus is saying is that this is proof that I am God, because I do what the Father does explicitly.  I do the works of the Father.  Jesus says this over and over again in His ministry; that His works, and His words, are of the Father and therefore offer proof that He is in the Father and the Father is in Him.  John 14:10 "Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father is in Me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on My own initiative, but the Father abiding in Me does His works.”  

Incidentally, that is how we know we are children of God, is it not?  That we do the works of God. We are known by our fruit. Eph. 2:10, “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.”  Peter says that now that we are saved we are to follow in Christ’s footsteps, according to the pattern which He gave us through His own obedience. 

So as we study the gospel, we need to remember that the key to the unlocking all of the treasures of this gospel, is that we are to be to Christ all that He was to his Father, and that Christ is willing to be to us all that his Father was to Him. 

So Jesus is saying that He cannot, nor will not act independently of the Father. In some mysterious way, He was both separate, yet unified with the Father.  I would suggest that in Spirit He was unified, but the separation was in HIs flesh.  In HIs flesh He was a man, and yet He lived constantly, continuously in the Spirit in unison with the Father.  And that is how we are designed to live now that we are saved.  Though we are in the flesh, we walk by the Spirit and not according to the passions of the flesh.  We put to death the lusts of the flesh, that we might do the works of God through the Spirit. 

Now for us, it is never perfect while in this body, but progressive.  But in Christ it is an absolute unity, something that could only occur in the life of an individual who was equal with the Father. He speaks about the fact that “He can do nothing of himself, unless it is something He sees the Father doing; for whatever the Father does, these things the Son also does in like manner.” That’s an expression of absolute unity. Later on he will say even more clearly, “I and the Father are one.”  Meaning not simply one in will, but I and the Father are one in essence.” Literally, He says, we are one thing. So he’s talking about absolute unity only possible for those who are truly possessed of the same nature.

Hebrews 1:3 says that Jesus is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of His nature.” That is the basis for their unity, and that unity is the basis for Christ’s deity.  Now that perfect unity that Christ claimed an amazing thing for someone to profess.  C.S. Lewis said, “A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said wouldn’t be a great moral teacher. He’d either be a lunatic -- on the level with a man who says he’s a poached egg -- or else he’d be the devil of hell.”  And J. B. Phillips said something similar, “You must take your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God. But don’t let us come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He hasn’t left that open to us.”

Now then in vs.20, Jesus said, “For the Father loves the Son, and shows Him all things that He Himself is doing; and the Father will show Him greater works than these, so that you will marvel.” The word Jesus uses there for love is interesting.  Usually the word for love found in the NT is agape.  But this time the Greek word is phileo.  It’s the word we get brotherly love from.  It speaks of a familial love, the love of family.  Jesus loves His Father, and the Father loves HIs Son, and so the Father reveals all things that He is doing, so that the Son may do them.  They are united not only in nature, but in love.  This is perfect love. There is no independence, no contest, only a perfect mirror of activity because there is perfect love.

And note that He says that because the Father loves Him He will show Him even greater works than these.  There is a progressive nature to Christ’s ministry.  There is a progressive nature to the gospel and it’s revelation.  And there is a progressive nature to our revelation by sanctification as we are obedient to what God shows us, and we do it, then He will show us greater works than these.  And the same was true with Christ.  He learned obedience from the things which He suffered, and so God produced in Him ever more works, greater works, until the great work was finally accomplished in His resurrection.  

But specifically these greater works that He speaks of are shown in vs.21-23, and they are the work of giving life, and the work of judgment.  Vs.21, “For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son also gives life to whom He wishes.”  Now what Jesus is talking about there is that the Son of God is able to give life to whomever He wishes.  Now He is not talking about just physical life to a dead person.  He will do that with Lazarus and others.  But He is talking primarily about giving life to spiritually dead people. 

And we know that to be true because He elaborates on that principle in vs.24, “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life. Truly, truly, I say to you, an hour is coming and now is, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live. For just as the Father has life in Himself, even so He gave to the Son also to have life in Himself.”   Now that is clearly talking about salvation.  The dead He speaks of are not those in the grave.  He will talk about them in a moment.  But for now He is talking about spiritually dead.  That He has the authority to give life to the dead, sight to the blind, ears to hear the word of God and that by hearing and believing in His word they might be saved.  He says that explicitly in vs.34, “I say these things so that you may be saved.”

Notice that salvation, eternal life comes through hearing the word of God.  This is such an important principle. Rom.10:17 says, “faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ.”  That’s why I put such an emphasis on preaching the word.  It’s not that I can’t find some nice stories to tell, or that we can’t find a Christian themed movie to watch, or listen to some Christian singers give a concert.  We could do all of those things, but we chose to preach the gospel because it is how God has ordained that men might be saved. 1Cor. 1:23-25  “but we preach Christ crucified, to Jews a stumbling block and to Gentiles foolishness,  but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.”  1Cor. 1:18, 21 “For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God. ... 21 For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe.” So we are saved by hearing the word of God.

Now what does it mean to be saved?  Simply speaking, to be saved from judgment.  From the wrath of God against sin.  And that is the next work that God has given Christ.  The work of judgment. Vs. 22, “For not even the Father judges anyone, but He has given all judgment to the Son,so that all will honor the Son even as they honor the Father. He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent Him. Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life.”  

So Christ has the authority as the Son of God to give life to whom He wills, and that life results in deliverance from judgment.  He has the authority to deliver from judgment because He also is the judge of the world. Christ has been given the authority as the Son of Man to  judge the whole world.  Vs.27 “and He gave Him authority to execute judgment, because He is the Son of Man.” That is an interesting distinction of titles.  Many times Jesus calls Himself the Son of Man because it is a title of humility, but also because it is a Messianic title. In the Old Testament it is used almost exclusively in the book of Ezekiel. It is a title used in conjunction with the judgment that was coming upon Israel for their rebellion.  But I also think that in this case, it may be that Jesus switches from Son of God to Son of Man because as Son of God He is our Redeemer; only God could redeem mankind by His substitutionary death.  But as the Son of Man He is qualified to be our judge, because He suffered in the flesh as we did, yet without sin.  He knows our frame, He knows our weaknesses.  Because He too was in the flesh, and so He is intimately acquainted with man and thus able to judge man justly.  He says that in vs.30, “My judgment is just, because I do not seek My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me.” His judgment is just, because He is righteous and lived righteously while in the flesh.

But what about that judgment that Jesus will render?  Jesus describes it in vs. 28 "Do not marvel at this; for an hour is coming, in which all who are in the tombs will hear His voice, and will come forth; those who did the good deeds to a resurrection of life, those who committed the evil deeds to a resurrection of judgment.”  Now notice the difference between this verse and vs.25.  Vs.25 says the hour is coming and now is when the dead will hear the voice of God and be saved.  That’s speaking of the spiritually dead. In the present time.  The time that now is.  

But vs. 28 speaks of the time to come.  An hour is coming.  It isn’t here now.  It’s in the future, when all who are in the tombs will hear His voice and come forth.  The tomb or the grave speaks of physical death.  They are not literally in the tombs, of course.  Their bodies are there, and as such they represent the person who lived in that body.  But the spirits of men are either in Hades or in Paradise.  Either of which I believe is taught clearly is in the heart of the earth.  Jesus gave a very clear description of it in Luke 16.  Between Hades and Paradise there is a great gulf fixed, Jesus said, which no man can cross.  I believe this is where Jesus went for three days upon His death, as He told the believing thief on the cross, “Today you will be with Me in Paradise.”  And Paul, speaking in Ephesians about the resurrection of Jesus said, Eph. 4:9  (Now this expression, "He ascended," what does it mean except that He also had descended into the lower parts of the earth?”  And Peter, in 1Pe 3:18-20 says, “For Christ also died for sins once for all, the just for the unjust, so that He might bring us to God, having been put to death in the flesh, (He was laid in the tomb) but made alive in the spirit;  in which also He went and made proclamation to the spirits now in prison,  who once were disobedient, when the patience of God kept waiting in the days of Noah, during the construction of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through the water.” He is speaking of the demonic angels in hell, in prison who were disobedient to God’s restrictions upon His creation, when the sons of God went into the daughters of men in Genesis 6.  

Now I don’t say all of that to start a eschatological debate with anyone.  But I say it to illustrate that the tomb or the grave speaks of the abode of the dead which was Hades.  And Jesus says that one day everyone will hear His voice and come out of the tombs.  Everyone.  Christians and non Christians will be raised from the dead and will either go into the resurrection of life, or the resurrection of  judgment under the supreme Judge of the earth, King Jesus. 

Rev. 20:4-6 speaks of the resurrection of life, the resurrection from Paradise of the souls that are saved; “Then I saw thrones, and they sat on them, and judgment was given to them. And I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded because of their testimony of Jesus and because of the word of God, and those who had not worshiped the beast or his image, and had not received the mark on their forehead and on their hand; and they came to life and reigned with Christ for a thousand years.  The rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were completed. This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is the one who has a part in the first resurrection; over these the second death has no power, but they will be priests of God and of Christ and will reign with Him for a thousand years.” 

And then it speaks of the second resurrection, which is called in this place the second death, which refers to those that are spiritually dead in Hades; Rev 20:11-14 “Then I saw a great white throne and Him who sat upon it, from whose presence earth and heaven fled away, and no place was found for them.  And I saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne, and books were opened; and another book was opened, which is the book of life; and the dead were judged from the things which were written in the books, according to their deeds.  And the sea gave up the dead which were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead which were in them; and they were judged, every one of them according to their deeds.  Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire.”

And then finally in vs.30, Jesus basically recaps His unity and authority with God. "I can do nothing on My own initiative. As I hear, I judge; and My judgment is just, because I do not seek My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me.”  It’s amazing how Jesus can state authoritatively His unity with God, His authority as God to be the judge of the whole earth, the source of life for those who believe in Him, and at the same time express so eloquently His humility.  And so once again Jesus expresses through His nature how we are to be unified to Him.  

The best commentary on scripture is scripture.  And so upon that note I will close by reading Phil. 2:5-11 “Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus,  who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped,  but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men.  Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.  For this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus EVERY KNEE WILL BOW, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth,  and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”  

May God give you the grace to walk after the example of Jesus Christ, the Son of Man, the Son of God, the King of Kings, and the Lord of Lords.  Amen.