John 5:22-23

“ For also the Father judgeth no man; but he hath committed all power of judging unto the Son, 23, to the end that all may honor the Son as they honor the Father. He that honoreth not the Son honoreth not the Father who sent him. ”

Two particles connect John 5:22 with the preceding: γάρ, for, and οὐδέ (translated by also), which literally signifies: and no more. The meaning is, therefore: “For the Father no more judges any one (no more than He raises from the dead, when once He has committed to the Son the charge and power of raising from the dead,” John 5:21). The for presents the second fact (the passing over of judgment to the Son) as the explanation of the first (the passing over of the power to raise from the dead). Indeed, to make alive is to absolve, to refuse to make alive is to condemn.

The power of making alive those whom one wills implies, therefore, the dignity of a judge. Meyer understands judge here, as in chap. 3, in the sense of condemn. But in John 5:21, the question is expressly of making alive, saving, and not of the opposite; and the expression τὴν κρίσιν πᾶσαν, judgment in all its forms (John 5:22), shows that the term judge should be taken in the most general sense. H. Meyer (Discourses of the Fourth Gospel, p. 36) is shocked because this term is taken in John 5:22 in the spiritual sense (present moral judgment), in John 5:29 in the external sense (the final judgment), and finally in John 5:30 in a sense purely subjective (the individual judgment of Jesus), and hence he concludes that the tenor of the discourse has not been, in this case, exactly reproduced. But in John 5:22 the question is of judgment in the most general sense, without definite application (all judgment). It is only in the following cycle, John 5:24-29, that the meaning of this term is precisely stated, and that it is taken, first, in the spiritual sense, then, in the external sense. Everything is, therefore, correct in the progress of the thought.