One of the most glorious truths is the real hope that God offers his people. It's a real, substantial hope of a future on a renewed earth, with renewed bodies, free of suffering, with God himself living among us.
Where might we look in the Bible to see this renewed-earth future promised?
Three weeks ago, I kicked us off with a look at 1 Corinthians 15, and then a look at 1 Thessalonians 4, before turning to Philippians 3 last week.
Today, it's time to turn to the teaching of Jesus as recorded in John chapter 5.
Jesus' Two Great Works
The background to John 5 is Jesus healing a man who had been paralysed for 38 years. Jesus healed him on the Sabbath, which drew criticism from the Jewish leadership. Rather than back off, or show how the Sabbath definition was never intended to prohibit acts of mercy, Jesus ups the stakes of the conversation.
"My Father is always at work to this very day, and I too am working." (John 5:17)
They fully understood what he was saying:
"For this reason they tried all the more to kill him; not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God." (John 5:18).
Jesus makes absolutely sure they know they're on the right track — he is, indeed, claiming equality with God. Everything the Father does, the Son does, and the Son only does what he sees the Father doing. And, in particular, these two great divine works are not the Father's alone but ones that the Son does, too:
"For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son gives life to whom he is pleased to give it. Moreover, the Father judges no one, but has entrusted all judgment to the Son, that all may honour the Son just as they honour the Father." (John 5:21-23)
Time and again in John's gospel Jesus will refer to these two great works — judging and giving life — as "his work".
Giving Life — Two Timeframes: #1 Here and Now
Jesus expounds both in John 5, but we're going to focus in on Jesus' work of life-giving. It turns out that Jesus does the Father's work of giving life on two timeframes.
First, there's the here and now:
"Very truly I tell you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be judged but has crossed over from death to life. Very truly I tell you, a time is coming and has now come when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live. For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself." (John 5:24-26)
Jesus could not be clearer that this is something that happens in the present day: "a time is coming and has now come". What will happen? "The dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live." The dead will hear Jesus' voice, in the here and now, and will come back to life.
What does he mean? He refers to the spiritually dead. Later, he goes on to raise Lazarus, and there are two other resurrection miracles in the other 3 gospels. However, remember that in John's gospel the miracles are called "signs". Jesus gave the dead their physical life back as a sign, to point to the spiritual life he came to bring. There are two clues within John that Jesus is speaking of spiritual life here.
The first is in this very passage: "Very truly I tell you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be judged but has crossed over from death to life." Death and life are realms. We are now in the realm of death. But, as we hear Jesus' word and believe it, believing the voice of the Father who sent Jesus, we are given the gift of eternal life, and we move from the realm of death to the realm of life. This fits with what Jesus said to Nicodemus in John 3:16-21: We are already in a state of being condemned; by believing in the Son we come instead to have eternal life (John 3:36).
The other place is John 17 where Jesus defines the eternal life he came to bring.
"Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent." (John 17:3)
We read John 5, and we wonder how it is that the dead can come back to life now, simply by hearing and believing the voice of Jesus. Then we read John 17, and we discover that "eternal life" is to know the God who made us, and his "sent one" Jesus Christ. Once we've discovered that, John 5 makes sense. The "dead" are those who do not have a personal relationship with God. By hearing Jesus' voice and believing the one who sent him, we come to have eternal life — we get to know Jesus and the one who sent him.
Giving Life — Two Timeframes: #2 The Last Day
There is a second timeframe for Jesus' great work of giving life.
"Do not be amazed at this, for a time is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice and come out – those who have done what is good will rise to live, and those who have done what is evil will rise to be condemned." (John 5:28-29)
This is not referring to the here and now. Jesus uses the same phrase, "a time is coming", but this time omits to add "and has now come". This is a future event. And here is what will happen.
"All who are in their graves will hear his voice and come out" (John 5:28)
People discussing this verse get very hung up on how literally we are to take this. Those discussions tend to revolve around how much physical grave spaces where people were buried will be the location at which they will be raised. That is a side-track from the main issue here. The main issue is that every human being who has ever lived and died will be brought back to life, and it will be the voice of Jesus that will rouse them.
That resurrection will not, however, be good news for all. This leads into Jesus' other great work, that of judging. "Those who have done what is good will rise to live, and those who have done what is evil will rise to be condemned.". We need to read this in the light of the rest of John's gospel, We've just heard that the one thing that must happen, if we are to live, is to hear Jesus' voice and believe the Father who sent him. In John 6:29, Jesus will say that the one work God requires of us is "to believe in the one he has sent".
There will, however, be two destinies. Some will rise to be condemned, and others will rise "to live". Life in all its fulness will begin that day for all who are raised.
An Actual Last Day
For our present discussion, the important thing to note is the timeframe. We will be raised to life on a day in the future when Jesus' voice will raise every person who has ever lived and died. It will be one glorious, global event. And, for those of us who know the person of Jesus in this life, it will be the beginning of the very best life imaginable, referred to by Jesus simply with the shorthand of "rise to live".
What a future God has indeed promised!
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