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This sermon was preached on Sunday 6/05/2001 Am, by Kevin Matthews.
‘Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life. Verily, verily, I say unto you, The hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God: and they that hear shall live. For as the Father hath life in himself; so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself (Jn 5:24-26).’
In our day and age it is assumed by many Christians, including those who have the responsibility to rightly divide the Word of Truth, that man has the ability to chose spiritual life for Himself. Though the fall in the Garden of Eden rendered man spiritually dead, and unable to discern spiritual things, somehow the ability to choose spiritual life has been retained. How illogical such a thought is can be seen by contemplating the physically dead person who lies in the grave.
The physically dead person who lies in the grave has no ability to raise himself from the dead, he has no ability to even desire such a physical resurrection, and so he has no ability to choose physical life at all. He is physically dead, and that choice is outside the realm of what he is able to do.
So too the spiritually dead person is unable to perform any tasks that are true of the spiritually living, for those tasks are outside the realm of what he is able to do. Such a spiritually dead person may indeed go to church, attend Bible Studies, and even be baptised, for these things are physical things, yet the ability to choose life is something he does not have. The choosing of life is a spiritual thing, and as such it is something that a spiritually dead person is unable to achieve.
In our previous look at this passage in John, the subject of this week’s study was introduced to us as one of those proofs of divinity that would amaze the Jewish leaders. That the Son of God is the Giver of life is sure proof that He is God, for who else is able to do such God things as the giving of physical life, spiritual life, resurrected life, and also have the ability to raise Himself to life. These are God things and not man things, surely He must be God.
In the passage we are looking at this morning, this theme is developed further, and we see how the Son of God actually raises people to spiritual life. If man is to live spiritually, then it is God who must do the spiritual resurrecting, for man certainly cannot do it.
#1. Hearing the Word
The fact that the Son of God is the Giver of life is something that is often scoffed at by those who believe themselves able to choose life. It is often rejected out of hand, yet what does Jesus say to us, ‘Verily, verily, I say unto you (Jn 5:24).’
It is as though Jesus says, ‘listen to Me carefully, for I have something very important to say. This is a crucial point, and it is the truth of the matter that we are now discussing.’ Friends what we are considering is an important matter. So important is this matter that twice in these three verses Jesus repeats the, ‘Most assuredly, I say to you’ formula.
This tells us that He is in earnest about His subject, and that he wants us to truly understand the truth regarding it. In other words, he doesn’t want us to be confused by all the errors that are bandied about today. ‘Listen to Me,’ Jesus says, ‘for I tell you the truth about this matter.’ And friends, this is what we must surely do this morning, listen to Jesus and cast off all those false ideas. If you want to understand the truth regarding the Source of spiritual life, then you can do no better than listening to Jesus.
These are not the words of a mere man, but of the Son of God Himself. These are God’s Words, and surely He knows more about these God things than man does, so let us hear Him. Put aside all ideas of men, and let us hold fast to that which God Himself has revealed to us concerning these matters.
If all that men say and teach is contrary to the Word of God, and I am thinking especially of this area of spiritual life this morning, then ‘To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them (Is 8:20).’ Do not allow yourselves to be misled, if the interpretations and opinions of men are contrary to God’s Word, then get rid of them, and have nothing more to do with them. Stick to the Word of God!
Already we have seen in this chapter how Jesus healed the sick man by the Pool of Bethesda. Against his wish of being placed in the pool for healing, Jesus spoke to the man and he was healed of his affliction. That this preceded the current debate between Jesus and the Jewish leaders is not a coincidence, but an act of providence. The healing of the afflicted man serves to illustrate how Jesus raises the spiritually dead.
As Jesus healed the physically sick by His Word, so too He heals, in fact resurrects to new life, the spiritually dead. He speaks and life is given, for ‘He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life (5:24).’ The promise of eternal life is given to those who hear the Word of Jesus and who believe. Note that it is neither one nor the other, but both together. There is to be the hearing and the believing. These two things are not to be divorced, for if they are there is no eternal life for the sinner.
The Lord says receive life, and then the sinner believes. Think of Lazarus and how Jesus brought him back to life - so it is with the spiritually dead. ‘Sinner, come forth,’ and then there is life.
‘But,’ you say, ‘surely it is the act of believing that gives life to the dead?’ But how can what is dead give life to anything? Both are absolutely essential for eternal life. The exercise of faith must occur, yet without the giving of spiritual life, faith is impossible.
‘It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life (Jn 6:63).’
What we do is nothing in the work of spiritual resurrection. What counts is what God does, and what Jesus does is to speak, and new life is given through the work of the Spirit of God in the one being spoken to. Jesus speaks, and the Spirit brings life to the sinner, causing him/her to live. It is God who gives you life, not you yourself. You believe this morning Christian because Jesus has given you life, enabling you to believe.
‘Verily, verily, I say unto you, The hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God: and they that hear shall live (Jn 5:25).’
That time is now friends, and it continues while it is still today. The voice of Jesus goes out through the preaching of the Gospel to all who sit before the preacher. But not all hear in the manner so described, for not all live. Not all rise to new life through the gospel being preached, for it is more than a physical hearing that is involved, it is a spiritual hearing.
The Spirit takes the word preached and brings it to the ear of the heart, enabling the heart to hear and grants new life. When life comes, so does the ability to believe. The two go hand in hand as it were, and the sinner now able to hear, also believes. There is not one person who has been granted spiritual life who has not believed. ‘Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God.’
The sinner is commanded and entreated to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, a work that he is incapable of performing, yet the command is still given and the entreaty still pleaded. Why? Because life is given to the sinner as the Word of Jesus goes forth coupled with the power of the Holy Spirit, and then faith, that gift of God is able to be exercised. Come forth sinner, live, and believe.
#2. Has Everlasting Life
What sort of life do these people have that hear the Word of Jesus and live? It is an ‘everlasting life’ that the passage before us says they have. It is a life that knows no end, continuing forever. But not only that, for it tells us that these people have this everlasting life now. There is no need to wait for this life as some future event, it is already a present possession for all those who believe.
Will you have this everlasting life in heaven, absolutely. Will you have this everlasting life when you physically die, assuredly. Do you have this everlasting life even now while you physically live, you most certainly do. We have already ‘passed from death unto life (5:24).’
This is something that has already happened brethren. If you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ this morning, it is because you have been granted life by Jesus, and have already begun to live. No longer are you spiritually dead, you are now spiritually alive and able to do all those spiritual things that you couldn’t do before as one who was spiritually dead. For ‘you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins; Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience: Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others. But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;) (Eph 2:1-5).’
We live now! Ours is a present salvation, for we have already entered into life and it will never, and can never be taken away from us. We may not yet be in the Celestial City, but we are already citizens of that city, with a mansion awaiting us. We live brethren, and we shall never die, though our physical bodies will. Spiritually we live forevermore. The future glorified life begins with the giving of spiritual life in regeneration.
What are the implications of all this then? One is that we ‘shall not come into condemnation (5:24).’ By being partakers of the first resurrection, which is to spiritual life, we are freed from the second death though we suffer the first. We will not face the place of everlasting punishment when we die physically, for we will be absent from the body, yet present with the Lord. When the second resurrection takes places, which is the resurrection of the body to its eternal state, we will not be cast out from God’s presence into eternal punishment.
Christ has stood in our place as a Substitute, gaining righteousness for us through His life, and suffering punishment in our stead by His death. There is no more for us to suffer, and so we have eternal life. We are unable to be condemned for our sin, for justice requires that we be accepted in the Beloved. It would be a miscarriage of justice if we were to be condemned, for the sentence for sin has already been served by our Substitute.
Yes we shall still appear before the judgment throne, but we shall not be condemned. ‘He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God (Jn 3:18).’ There is therefore no condemnation to those who believe in Christ, but the same cannot be said about those who do not believe, for these will perish. But for the Christian, there is life forevermore, and it has already begun.
Do you see what else this passage says? It says you have life forever. ‘Yes,’ you say, ‘you have already said that, and I see that that is what the text says, everlasting life.’ But I ask you; do you really see it? For it not only means a life that stretches into eternity, but a life that is continual even while here upon earth.
What do I mean? I mean that you will not one day be a Christian and the next day not. Once you have life, you always have it. There is no slipping in and out of grace, one day a Christian, the next day not. If that were the case, how would it be everlasting life, it would be an on-off sort of life and not everlasting. The whole Biblical logic of everlasting life would be shot.
You see, once you have spiritual life you cannot loose it. Even though you sin, and sometimes terribly, you will not loose spiritual life.
‘Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord (Rom 8:35,38,39).’
Once you have everlasting life, how can you loose it? It would have to cease being everlasting life for it to be lost. Brethren, if you believe in Christ you have the Kingdom, for you already have the Kingdom life.
#3. The Source of Everlasting Spiritual Life
How is it then that there is this everlasting life, and how is it possible? How is it that Jesus is able to give spiritual life to those who are spiritually dead? Is He God or something? What does the passage tell us?
‘For as the Father hath life in himself; so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself (5:26).’
Over the last couple of weeks we have considered the relationship and roles that exist within the Trinity, and especially that of functional subordination. Here again we have need to consider the relationship that exists within the Trinity, between the Father and the Son, in order to answer our question. The answer lies in what we call the eternal generation of the Son, for it is this that enables Jesus to raise the spiritually dead.
What do I mean by that? The Bible says that the ‘Father has life in Himself,’ for He is the self-existing, true and living God. He is eternal spiritual life, having always existed as such. Eternal spiritual life is what the Father is, there never being a time when He was not, and as such He is the Author and Source of all life.
Though we have concluded from our previous studies in John that Jesus is indeed God, and that there was never a time when He was not God, this passage says that the Father ‘has granted the Son to have life in Himself.’ Is this a contradiction? No it is not. What the text is speaking of here is the eternal generation of the Son, and it is the orthodox understanding of God regarding the eternal relationship between the Father and the Son.
This does not of course mean that the Son began to exist at some time in the past, when God brought Him into existence - no, we have seen that that is not the case. ‘In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God (Jn 1:1).’
What this passage is saying is that the Father is the grounds of the personal existence of the Son in an eternal sense. The Son is what He is because of the Father. In an eternal sense, the Father gives life to the Son, so that the Son continues to have self-existent life in Himself. This continuing process, if you can call it that, is essential to who God is - it is this, which makes God who He is.
Both the Father and the Son have the same Divine nature, and are equally God, yet this eternal generation is vital to who God is. Without the Father, the Son would not be, yet both are God. Here then is something of the mystery of God.
Because of this eternal life giving activity within the Trinity, one is called the Father and the other the Son. The words Father and Son help us to understand in some small way, what is basically impossible for us to understand, the eternal generation of the Son.
It is because the Father grants this self-existent life to the Son, that the Son has the ability to grant life to whom He will. You see, it is precisely because the Son is God that he has the ability to raise the spiritually dead to life.
‘And this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son (1 Jn 5:11).’
And so we have gone full circle. Giving life to the spiritually dead is a God thing, and only those who have self-existent life have the ability to grant spiritual life. This is the answer to how Jesus is able to give spiritual life to the spiritually dead. Yes, is a God thing, and Jesus is God.
You sinner, if you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life, have only done so because the Son has given you that life. Never forget it, and render to God the praise and thanks He so rightly deserves. Amen.
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