Joh 5:25-29 | JFB | STEP | 25-29. The hour cometh —in its whole fulness, at Pentecost. and now is —in its beginnings. the dead —the spiritually dead, as is clear from . Here He rises from the calmer phrase "hearing his word " ( ), to the grander expression, "hearing the voice of the Son of God, " to signify that as it finds men in a dead condition, so it carries with it a resurrection-power. shall live

John 5:25-29

25-29. The hour cometh—in its whole fulness, at Pentecost.

and now is—in its beginnings.

the dead—the spiritually dead, as is clear from Joh 5:28. Here He rises from the calmer phrase "hearing his word" (Joh 5:24), to the grander expression, "hearing the voice of the Son of God," to signify that as it finds men in a dead condition, so it carries with it a resurrection-power.

shall live—in the sense of Joh 5:24.

26. given to the Son, &c.—Does this refer to the essential life of the Son before all time (Joh 1:4) (as most of the Fathers, and OLSHAUSEN, STIER, ALFORD, &c., among the moderns), or to the purpose of God that this essential life should reside in the Person of the Incarnate Son, and be manifested thus to the world? [CALVIN, LUCKE, LUTHARDT, &c.] The question is as difficult as the subject is high. But as all that Christ says of His essential relation to the Father is intended to explain and exalt His mediatorial functions, so the one seems in our Lord's own mind and language mainly the starting-point of the other.

27. because he is the Son of man—This seems to confirm the last remark, that what Christ had properly in view was the indwelling of the Son's essential life in humanity as the great theater and medium of divine display, in both the great departments of His work—life-giving and judgment. The appointment of a Judge in our own nature is one of the most beautiful arrangements of divine wisdom in redemption.

28. Marvel not at this—this committal of all judgment to the Son of man.

for the hour is coming—He adds not in this case (as in Joh 5:25), "and now is," because this was not to be till the close of the whole dispensation of mercy.

29. resurrection of life—that is, to life everlasting (Mt 25:46).

of damnation—It would have been harsh to say "the resurrection of death," though that is meant, for sinners rise from death to death [BENGEL]. The resurrection of both classes is an exercise of sovereign authority; but in the one case it is an act of grace, in the other of justice. (Compare Da 12:2, from which the language is taken). How awfully grand are these unfoldings of His dignity and authority from the mouth of Christ Himself! And they are all in the third person; in what follows He resumes the first person.