“Most assuredly, I say to you, he who hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life.” John 5:24
After Jesus healed a man who had been lame for thirty-eight years (John 5:1-15), He established His equality with God before His enemies by claiming to be the Son of God (John 5:16-20). Now He establishes His equality with God the Father by claiming that HE IS THE SAVIOR (John 5:21-26). “For as the Father raises the dead and gives life to them, even so the Son gives life to whom He will.” (John 5:21). The Jews understood that only God has the power to give life. But now Jesus is claiming to have the same power as God the Father. Christ gives both physical life and everlasting life (cf. John 1:3-4, 12).
The claim of Jesus is that life belongs to Him. He only loans it to us for a while. This cuts right across the philosophy and the propaganda of our day! Much of our culture tells you that your life belongs to you, and you can do with it whatever you want; it is up to you to make of yourself whatever you desire. That is what is fed to us all the time. But that’s a lie! Your life is not yours. You did not invent it, you were given it by God. One of these days you will have to give it back to the Lord.
If this claim of Jesus is real, it clearly makes Him the most important Person in anybody’s life. If your very physical existence has come from Him, and your spiritual destiny is in His hands, then He is the most important Person you will ever have to deal with. More than that, He is the most important Person in all the universe.
“For the Father judges no one, but has committed all judgment to the Son.” (John 5:22). The Jews thought it was God alone who would judge the world, but Jesus claims that the Father has given Him that privilege. Why? “…That all should honor the Son just as they honor the Father. He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent Him.” (John 5:23). The Jews believed that only God was to be honored and worshiped.
Jesus claims the same right to be worshiped and honored that the Father has. This emphasizes the unity of the Father and the Son. What is done to One, is also done to the other because they are equals. This is why other religions fall short. They cannot truly honor God or worship Him apart from Jesus Christ. This is why Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Mormonism, Jehovah Witnesses, etc., all fall short because they do not worship and honor God through Jesus Christ. They may say Jesus was a god or a prophet or a good moral teacher, but they do not believe He is the one true God (I John 5:20). And by rejecting Jesus Christ as God, they are rejecting His Father because Christ is the perfect reflection of the Father.
You will remember when Jesus healed the lame man, He chose him out of all the others that were by the pool. And this is a reminder that it is Jesus who graciously gives everlasting life. And this is how it happens…
“Most assuredly, I say to you, he who hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life.” (John 5:24). To whom does Jesus give eternal life? To the man or woman, boy or girl who “hears His word and believes in Him who sent Him.” When one hears His Word and believes what He says, Jesus says he “has everlasting life.” That means right now, not after you die. How long is everlasting life? 10… 100… 1,000… 1 million years? No! It is forever!
Next, He guarantees that you “shall not come into judgment.” That’s a promise and God does not break His promises. A believer in Jesus Christ will not be judged for his or her sins in the future because Christ was already judged for our sins when He died on the cross in our place. Such a one has “passed from death into life.”That means death is behind him, not before him. It is past, not present or future.
During a war, a soldier was critically wounded and the doctors were about to operate. Just before they did, one physician told the man, “It’s only fair to tell you that you have one chance in one hundred of coming through this operation.” The soldier replied, “Let’s get on with the operation. If I come out of it on this side, the doctors will welcome me. Should I come out of it on the other side, my Savior will welcome me.” Do you have that kind of assurance? If you don’t know for sure you will go to heaven when you die, ask yourself, “Am I TRUSTING Christ alone right now to get me to heaven?”
John 5:24 affirms the equality of the Father and the Son. He who hears Jesus’s Word and believes in the Father who sent Christ, has everlasting life. To believe in the Father, you must hear and believe in Christ since the Father sent Jesus that people might believe in Him. To believe in the Father was to believe in Christ because Jesus is the perfect reflection of the Father. Believing in the Son is one way to honor Him (cf. John 5:23).
“Most assuredly, I say to you, the hour is coming, and now is, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God; and those who hear will live.” (John 5:25). Already the “hour” of which Jesus speaks is nearly 2,000 years long. During that time those who are spiritually “dead” will possess everlasting life the moment they “hear the voice of the Son of God” and believe. Non-Christians are dead people walking around. They lack God’s life – eternal life.
But, Jesus also says, the hour “now is,” that is, it was already happening. By those words He is referring to His own giving to individuals of the gift of eternal life. We have already seen this in John’s gospel. Jesus had given the gift of eternal life to the troubled religious leader named Nicodemus (John 3) and to the dissatisfied Samaritan woman at the well along with the people of her village (John 4).
So, it was already happening, “the hour is coming, and now is,” when the spiritually dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and “those who hear will live” forever. “For as the Father has life in Himself, so He has granted the Son to have life in Himself.” (John 5:26). As the Son of God, the One who is eternally with the Father, Jesus has always had this ability to give life to the spiritually dead. He has this life “in Himself.” He is the One who has always given eternal life, in the Old Testament as well as in the New Testament. He is our Savior.
Prayer: Lord Jesus, You are the most incredible Person in the universe. You are the perfect reflection of God the Father because You are equal with Him. Thank You for giving me physical life and life that never ends the moment I believed in You. I worship You my Lord and my God because You alone give life and You alone judge this world. Please forgive those who fail to worship You as God. I beg of You to send Your Holy Spirit to them to convict them of their sin since they do not believe in You. Convict them of their need for Your righteousness to enter the Kingdom of God. And convict them of the judgment that awaits them should they continue in unbelief toward You. In Jesus’s name. Amen.