John 5:28-29

“ Marvel not at this: for the hour is coming when all who are in the tombs shall hear his voice and shall come forth, 29, those who have done good, unto a resurrection of life, those who have done evil, unto a resurrection of judgment. ”

The Lord reaches here the more outward domain, both as to the resurrection (John 5:28), and as to the judgment (John 5:29). It is impossible, indeed, not to refer John 5:28 to the resurrection of the dead, in the proper sense.

1. The question is of a wholly future event; for Jesus purposely omits here the words: καὶ νῦν ἐστί, and now is, of John 5:25.

2. He does not merely say, the dead (as in John 5:25); He uses the expression: those who are in the tombs, an expression which must, of course, be taken in the strict sense.

3. No more does He say: those who shall hear (John 5:25), an expression which implies a selection between two classes, but: All those who are in the graves shall hear; that is to say, the whole number of the dead.

4. Finally, He does not speak, as previously, of a single result: life; but of two opposite results which that resurrection will have (John 5:29). Jesus rises, therefore, from the highest act of authority (ἐξουσία), the judgment, to the highest act of power (δύναμις), the resurrection of the body; and this is the way in which He reasons: “ Marvel not because I attribute to myself the right of judging (John 5:27), for behold the display of divine power which it shall one day be given me to make: to bring all mankind out of the grave.”

Lucke gives quite another turn to the thought of Jesus: “You will cease to be astonished that judgment is given to me, if you call to mind that as Son of man (as Messiah), it is I who accomplish the resurrection.” Jesus according to his view, makes His starting point, as from a thing well known and acknowledged, from an article of Jewish theology, according to which the Messiah is the one who is to raise mankind from the dead. But it is still doubtful whether, at the time of Jesus, the work of the resurrection was ascribed to the Messiah. Even the later Jewish theology shows itself very much divided on this point. Some ascribe this act to the omnipotent God, others to the Messiah (Eisenmenger, Entdeckt, Judenth. Th. II. pp. 897-899). This mechanical appeal to a Jewish doctrine is, moreover, little in accord with the ever original character of the testimony of Jesus. Finally, the meaning given by Lucke implies a false interpretation of the term son of man, John 5:27.

There is great force in the words: shall hear His voice. “This voice which sounds in your ears at this moment, will be the one that shall awake you from the sleep of death and cause you to come forth from the tomb. Marvel not, therefore, that I claim to possess both the authority to judge and the power to raise from the dead spiritually.” Thus the last convulsion of the physical world, the universal resurrection, will be the work of that same human will which shall have renewed the moral world that of the Son of Man. “ Since death came by man,” says St. Paul with precisely the same meaning, “ the resurrection of the dead comes also by man ” (1 Corinthians 15:21). No doubt, it might be said to Jesus: All these are only assertions on thy part. But we must not forget that behind these affirmations there was a fact namely, “ Arise and walk,” immediately followed by a result, which was at once the text of this discourse and its point of support. The twenty-ninth verse concludes this whole development by the idea of the final judgment, of which the resurrection of the body is the condition. To be judged, the dead must be revived in the fullness of their consciousness and of their personality, which implies their restoration to bodily existence. We must not translate: “Those who shall have done good, evil works,” but: “ the good, the evil works.” In these two expressions is declared, as Keil says, the total result of the life in good or evil. In the former of these expressions are included the moral sincerity which leads to faith (John 3:21), the act of faith itself, when the hour of calling for it has come, finally, all the fruits of sanctification which result from faith. The latter comprehends the natural inward depravity which alienates from faith, unbelief which voluntarily takes sides with sin against the light (John 3:19-20), finally, all the inevitable, immoral consequences of such a choice. On the use of the word ποιεῖν with ἀγαθά and πράσσειν with φαῦλα, see on John 3:20. The expression resurrection of life is explained by the opposite term: resurrection of judgment. The latter can only signify: resurrection leading to judgment; the former, only; resurrection introducing to the fullness of life, and that without any further necessity of a judgment in order to decide this favorable result. Luthardt and Weiss take the genitive ζωῆς, of life, as a limiting word of cause or quality: a resurrection which results from life (spiritual) already possessed (John 5:24-25), or which is appropriate to that life. But there are degrees in the development of life, and if this resurrection, on the one hand, presupposes life, it may also, on the other hand, have life as its result. Here also we must avoid translating κρίσις, with Osterwald, Arnaud, etc., by condemnation.

Reuss maintains that the spiritual resurrection is in this passage declared to be “greater and more important than the physical resurrection” (see on John 5:20); and in his attempt to make this idea accord with the: “ Marvel not,” of John 5:28, which implies the opposite, the following is the meaning which he gives to these words: “Marvel not that I speak to you, as I have just been doing, of a moral resurrection which must precede the physical resurrection. For you hold yourselves that the Messiah is to accomplish the latter; and this is in your eyes the more astonishing.” But these words in your eyes are an importation of the commentator, intended to justify his system, according to which he has been able to write respecting the fourth Gospel that line, in manifest contradiction to the reality (John 5:28-29): “The idea of a future and universal judgment is repudiated as something superfluous” (II., p. 559). Scholten, feeling the powerlessness of every exegetical expedient to reach the end which is pursued, that of causing every trace of the ordinary eschatology to disappear from our Gospel, declares John 5:28-29 to be unauthentic, which verses, nevertheless, are not wanting in any document. He reasons thus: the activity of Jesus extending, according to pseudo-John, only to men who are in this life..., John 5:28-29, must be interpolated.” Convenient method! When they do not find the Gospel such as they wish, they make it such! Hilgenfeld (Einl., p. 729), does not hesitate to affirm that our passage excludes all the Judaeo-Christian eschatology, the outward coming of Jesus, a first resurrection, etc. But even though our passage does not contain all the elements of the picture, it does not absolutely exclude any one of them. Much more, the glorious coming of the Messiah is implied in John 5:28, and the entire eschatological drama, which the Parousia is to inaugurate, is summed up in John 5:29, so far as relates to the final result, which alone is of importance here, the resurrection and the judgment as works of Jesus.

After this passage (John 5:19-29), the development of the idea of John 5:17: “My Father worketh until now and I also work,” is completely unfolded and Jesus returns to the starting-point.