John 5:19-29

ADDITIONAL NOTES BY THE AMERICAN EDITOR.

XXVIII.

Vv. 19-29.

1. The reference in John 5:19 ff., to the union between the Son and the Father is to the complete union in working, which is founded upon love, and upon the immediate seeing of what the Father does which is connected with this love, and to that subordination in love, with respect to His earthly work, which necessarily appertains to Him as fulfilling the commission of the Father. No subordination beyond this is necessarily indicated by the words.

2. The answer which Jesus makes to the Jews is, therefore, not a denial of His equality with God, but an affirmation that, in His work alluded to, what He claims for Himself is only in harmony with God's plan and is in the union and subordination of love to Him.

3. The thought is especially turned to the great work of the Son in reference to man. There seems to be no ground for doubting that the word ζωοποιεῖ, as used at the end of John 5:21, refers to spiritual life, and that it is this subject which is spoken of in John 5:24-27. The thought is thus connected with that in John 3:17 f., though the development of it is not the same, but is determined by the circumstances of the case. The words “and now is” of John 5:25, and the addition of the words “in the tombs,” “come forth,” and “resurrection of life,” etc., in John 5:28-29, which are not found in the earlier verses, can hardly be explained except as we hold that there is a turn of thought towards the future judgment at John 5:28, which has not been referred to until that point.

4. The use of the word judgment in this passage John 5:24-27, as also John 5:28-29, is kindred to that in John 3:17 ff. The same reasons, substantially, may be urged for giving the sense of condemnatory judgment to the word, as were presented in the note on the former passage. The manifest reference to the final judgment in John 5:28-29, taken in connection with the general representation of the judgment in the New Testament, makes this distinction between favorable and unfavorable judgment altogether probable here.

5. The judgment alluded to in the earlier verses is, as it were, anticipatory of that mentioned in the later ones. This use of the word belongs in connection with the general idea presented in this Gospel, and brought out in this passage, that the eternal life begins in the soul when the man believes, and is not only a future possession to be hoped for, but a present one already realized. The judgment, in this sense, is a thing already accomplished, both on the favorable and unfavorable side. When the spiritually dead hear the voice of the Son of God, they pass out of death into life; when the physically dead hear His voice, they also pass into life, but the latter passing into life is only the consummation of what is designated by the former. The decision is really made in the act of believing. The life moves forward from the moment of that act, and the last step in the process is only like all the others a step in a progressive development. The same is true, on the other side, of the one who does not believe.

6. The words υἱὸς ἀνθρώπου, being without the article, are best taken as indicative of quality, rather than as equivalent to the same words with the article. At the same time, they do not exclude the Messianic idea. To the Son is given the authority to execute judgment because, as the Son of man, He is a son of man. This relationship which He has in nature to those who are to be judged is the ground on which, in the great plan of salvation, He is made the judge, and the question of life and death is made dependent on belief in Him. The qualitative character of the expression υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρ., including at the same time a certain reference to the title-character which belongs to the words when the article is added this is, not improbably, the combined idea which is to be found in the two other cases in the New Testament, which are similar to this; comp. Revelation 1:13; Revelation 14:14. But in those passages, the influence of the words in Dan 7:13 may be more direct and manifest, and accordingly the explanation given here is less strongly indicated.

7. Weiss holds, with respect to the last words of John 5:29, that the resurrection of those who have done evil is only for the purpose of the condemnatory judgment, and that thus, both here and elsewhere in the New Testament, no resurrection of the evil-doers, in the proper sense of the term, is spoken of that the term as applied to them is to be understood only, as it were, κατ᾿ ἀντίφρασιν. The doctrine of the resurrection of the unbelieving and evil portion of mankind is set forth, indeed, only in a few passages in the New Testament, and in these only in a general way. It seems, however, to be stated distinctly in Acts 24:15, apparently also in this place, and possibly in 1 Corinthians 15:22. Passages such as Philippians 3:11; Luke 20:35 may be explained without involving an opposite doctrine. That the resurrection should be mainly referred to as connected with the righteous, is not strange, for it was for them the consummation of the blessedness of that life to which the New Testament writers would turn the thoughts and hopes of men.