John 5:21

Ver. 21. “ For, as the Father raiseth the dead and giveth them life, so doth the Son also make alive whom He will. ”

To raise the dead is a greater work than to heal an impotent man; hence the for. This work, as well as the particular miracles, is the reproduction of the Father's work. The great difficulty here is to determine whether, as the greater part of the interpreters seem to think (for many do not explain themselves sufficiently on this point), the work of resurrection ascribed to the Father is to be identified with that which the Son accomplishes, or whether it is specifically different, or, finally, whether they combine with one another by a process, the formula of which must be sought after.

According to the first explanation, the ζωοποιεῖν, give life, ascribed to the Father, would remain in a purely ideal state until the Son, yielding to the divine initiative, caused the design of the Father to pass into the earthly reality. Thus Luthardt says: “The work belongs to God, in so far as it proceeds from Him; to the Son, in so far as it is accomplished by Him in the world” (p. 444). Gess: “It is not that the resurrection of the dead was until now the work of the Father, to become now the work of the Son; the resurrection of the dead is not yet an accomplished fact. No more is it that one part of the dead are raised by the Father, another by the Son....But the Son is regarded as the organ by which the Father raises from the dead.” Baumlein : “The Son is the bearer and mediator of the Father's activity.” This sense is very good in itself; but does it really suit the expression: like as? Was this indeed the proper term to designate a single divine impulse, an initiative of a purely moral nature? Jesus, in expressing Himself thus, seems to be thinking, rather, of a real work which the Father accomplishes and to which His own corresponds.

According to the second sense, adopted by Reuss, we must ascribe the bodily resurrection to the Father and the resurrection in the spiritual sense, salvation, to the Son. Reuss finds the proof of this distinction in the οὓς θέλει, whom he wills, which indicates a selection and refers consequently to the moral domain only. This solution is untenable. How could John 5:28-29, which describe the consummation of the Son's work, be applied to the spiritual resurrection? Comp. likewise John 6:40; John 6:44, etc., where Jesus expressly ascribes to Himself, by an ἐγώ, I, several times repeated, the resurrection of the body a fact which entirely destroys the line of demarcation proposed by Reuss. Jesus seems to me rather to speak here of the divine action, at once creative, preservative and restorative, which is exercised from the beginning of things in the sphere of nature, and which has broken forth with a new power in the theocratic domain. Comp. Deuteronomy 32:39: “I kill and make alive, I wound and heal. ” 1 Samuel 2:6: “It is the Lord who killeth and maketh alive, who bringeth down to the grave and bringeth up from it.” To this work of moral and physical restoration, till now accomplished by God, Jesus now unites His own; He becomes the agent of it in the particular sphere in which He finds Himself at each moment; this sphere will extend itself ever more widely; His capacity, in Himself, for performing it will increase in the same measure, until this domain is the universe and the power of the Son is omnipotence (comp. Matthew 28:18).

The steps of this growth are the following: He begins to perform isolated miracles of corporeal and spiritual resurrection, samples of His great future work. From the time of His elevation to glory, He realizes, through the communication of the Holy Spirit, the moral resurrection of mankind. Finally, on His return, by the victory which He gains over the last enemy, death (1 Corinthians 15:26), He effects, in the physical domain, the resurrection of believers, and afterwards also the universal resurrection. At that moment only will the work of the Father have passed entirely into His hands. The work of the Son is not, therefore, different from that which the Father acccomplishes. Only the Son, made man, becomes the agent of it only by degrees. The present, makes alive, in the second member, is a present of competency. Comp. indeed John 5:25; John 5:28 (“the hour cometh that...”), which show that the reality is yet to come. Nevertheless, even now, the word of Christ possesses a life- giving force (the hour even now is, John 5:25). We may connect the object the dead with the first verb only (raiseth), and give to the second verb (ζωοποιεἴ, gives life), an absolute sense. But perhaps it is more natural to make the words, the dead, the object of both of the verbs (see Weiss). ᾿Εγείρειν, strictly to awake, refers to the passage from death to life; ζωοποιεῖν, to give life, to the full restoration of life, whether spiritual or bodily. Nothing forces us, with Reuss, to restrict the application of the word make alive, in the second member, to spiritual life The restriction: to whom he wills, undoubtedly indicates a selection. But will there not be a selection, also, in the bodily resurrection? In John 5:29, Jesus distinguishes, in fact, two bodily resurrections, one of life, the other of judgment. The first alone truly merits the name of making alive.

By saying: those whom he wills, Jesus does not contrast His will as Son with that of the Father. This meaning would require οὓς αὐτὸς θέλει. He contrasts those whom He feels Himself constrained to make alive (believers) with those on behalf of whom it is morally impossible for Him to accomplish this miracle. These words, therefore, are the transition to John 5:22, where it is said that the judgment, that is to say, the selection, is committed to Him. In effecting the selection which decides the eternal death and life of individuals, Jesus does not cease for an instant to have His eyes fixed upon the Father, and to conform Himself to His purpose. According to John 6:38; John 6:40, He discerns those who fulfill the divinely appointed condition: he that believeth; and immediately He applies to them the lifegiving power which the Father has given to Him, and which has now become His own. Might there not be in this οὓς θέλει, those whom he wills, an allusion to the spontaneity with which Jesus had offered healing to the impotent man, without being in any way solicited by him, choosing him freely among all the sick persons who surrounded the pool? Reuss finds, in these words: those whom he wills, a contradiction to the idea of the dependence of the Son's work as related to that of the Father. But the inward feeling which makes Jesus will in such or such a way, while forming itself in Him spontaneously, is none the less in accord with that of God. Jesus wills of His own will, as He loves of His own love. But this love and this will have the same objects and the same end as the love and will of the Father. Comp. the formula, in the Apostolic Epistles: “Grace and peace from God, and the Lord Jesus Christ.” Liberty is no more arbitrariness in Jesus, than in God. In the same sense it is ascribed to the Spirit (John 3:8 and 1 Corinthians 12:11), and to the God of nature (1 Corinthians 15:38). What Jesus meant to express here is not, therefore, as Calvin and formerly Reuss have supposed, the idea of predestination, it is the glorious competency which it pleases God to bestow upon Jesus for the accomplishment of the common work. He is a source of life like the Father, morally at first, and then, one day, corporeally. While affirming His voluntary dependence, Jesus allows a glimpse to be gained of the magnificence of His filial prerogative.