The Gospel of John Lesson 13 (12-02-12) John 4:30-5:16

The Gospel of John (12-02-12)

Lesson 13 – John 5:17-29

In vs. 17 and onward Jesus and the religious leaders have a few words. In v. 17 Jesus calls God His Father. This is a pretty significant claim and one that if you cannot back it up can bring down on you some pretty significant charges and accompanying penalties. In v. 18 we see the Jews do just that listing the charges that they have so far against Him. It was one thing to heal on the Sabbath making the Jews angry with Him, angry enough to slay Him. But, calling yourself God’s Son, now the Jews were so angry they could not see straight.

God having a Son did not make sense to the Jews. To them God was One and their understanding of the Godhead having three distinct personalities was not on their radar at all. It at times must have also confused His disciples for they also were also Jewish and were taught from the OT Scriptures that God is One and Jesus claiming equality with God the Father was at least a difficult concept to grasp. This concept is often equally as difficult for us to grasp in our Christian culture even in our day. It can be and often is, confusing to many being only fully understood by accepting its reality by faith.

His disciples had come to accept Jesus’ claim by faith, for they had believed His message and testimony having walked with Him and having seen His works. But, as we will see, the religious leaders could never grasp what He was saying as He expounded the Truth to them especially in the following verses never mixing what they had heard with faith so that their understanding could be opened and the Truth be seen.

Jesus begins to expand and expound on not only His relationship with the Father, but also on who He is and what part is committed to Him to perform and execute in the Godhead. We saw at the beginning of this book that this same Jesus was given the descriptive name of the Word telling us that all things were created by Him, Jn. 1:3. Here in John chapter 5 we will see that He takes responsibility along with the Father for ‘life’, which was also stated in chapter 1 of John, and in v. 23 of this chapter it says that all judgment is committed to Him.

In v. 19 we see that the Son does nothing of Himself meaning that He does nothing on His own for His own glory. To do so would be an act of selfishness and pride which is sin. He was the perfect servant always obedient doing the will of the Father always following the Father’s example learning the Father’s ways always wanting to please the Father.

It says in v.20 that the Father loved the Son so much that He showed Him all things. In this verse Jesus was saying that the Father will show the Son works that the Son is to perform that will be even greater than what they just witnessed in the healing of the paralytic man. In John’s record he will share with us that this same Jesus not only healed the sick, but we will see Him walking on water, feeding five thousand plus with essentially nothing, raising the dead and it is recorded and demonstrated in the other Gospels that Jesus had command over the laws of nature calming the storm.

In verses 23 and 24 Jesus makes a statement that would definitely be offensive to these Jewish leaders saying that He is worthy of the same honor and respect that the Father was worthy of. However, He goes even a step further in making the statement that to just tolerate what they might perceived as arrogance of the Son demanding the same respect and worship as one would give the Father, that just tolerating what Jesus was saying was not good enough.

In v. 23 Jesus tells us that all men, including these Jewish religious leaders, should worship and honor the Son just as they would the Father. He in essence tells them straight forward that you cannot honor the Father if you do not have the same honor and respect for the Son. In rejecting the Son, which was what they were in essence doing, Jesus said it was equal to not knowing the Father at all who they were claiming to know and serve.

It is no different in our culture. Many claim to honor and believe in God claiming that there are many ways to God passing by and not acknowledging and giving honor to God’s Son Jesus. Here in Jn. 5:23 Jesus makes His claim clear as He will again in John chapter 10 that there is no other way to God than to come through the Son. Here in v. 23 He essentially says that it is impossible to honor the One True God if you reject Jesus which is what these religious leaders and many in our day do.

In v. 24 He goes on to say however that anyone that heard His words, whether in person as Jesus was speaking to them in this passage, or through the witness of this written account, and believes this record and account would not come under this judgment, but would be given and granted life eternal instead. He uses the description of those who were already dead on the road destine for God’s judgment now receiving Christ’ message being made alive eternally by passing by the judgment that was once theirs.

In vs. 25 through 29 Jesus reveals some of the details and events of the resurrection in which He will clearly have a part in. He tells them that the hour would come that the dead in the grave would hear His voice and come forth and live.

In these verses He is telling them of a future time when all the dead will hear His voice and come alive again. When this happens it is believed by many that the dead in Christ will rise at a different time than those that are spiritually dead having never believed, the one rising unto eternal life and the other it says clearly unto the resurrection of damnation. Other passages make this clear that there will be a resurrection of the unbeliever appearing before the Son in judgment having the sentence of eternal damnation and death passed upon them forever being separated from God in a place where they will receive eternal punishment. This is not a popular message in our day, and it was not a popular message in that day either. Jesus suffered a lot of persecution for saying such as this.

However, in v. 25 He says something else that we should not miss. It tells us that the hour of this resurrection when those that would hear His voice and would rise to life was coming referring to sometime in the distant future, but then again He goes on to say that this resurrection had also become present meaning that some would witness the raising of the dead shortly,… so pay attention.

We know that this became a reality being mentioned in the Gospels in several places seeing individuals like Lazarus who was dead being brought back to life. Matthew also records the resurrection of many saints coming out of the grave following Jesus’ resurrection.