"Verily, verily, I say unto you, An hour cometh and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and they that heard shall live." John 5:2525Verily, verily, I say unto you, The hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God: and they that hear shall live. (John 5:25).
THE rejection of Jesus gave occasion to display the higher glory of His person, and the deeper truth and wider grace of which He was full. The light, and He was the true Light, made manifest the uttermost evil in man, who was not sick and powerless only, but dead; not Gentiles alone but Jews also. The Messiah was, if received, to forgive all the iniquities of Israel, and to heal all their diseases, to redeem their life from the pit, and crown them with loving-kindness and tender mercies. Such will be the fruit of His government on earth; and a signal witness of it He gave in imparting instant strength to the man so impotent that he could not avail himself of the water when troubled by an angel.
The Jew, who could not deny the power of God in grace, pleaded a violated Sabbath; the Lord answered, My Father worketh hitherto, and I work. Sin and misery made the sabbath to be no sabbath. For man's real rest the Godhead must work, the Father and the Son. This is the truth which the Jew rejected, seeking even to kill Him. Thereon Jesus sets us out His divine glory, but veiled in manhood and that subjection to the Father which is inseparable from it and its perfection. To the unbelieving Jew, as to every unbeliever, this is blasphemy; to the believer it is life eternal. Hence in verse 25 He reveals a wondrous hour come. Let us hear Him.
“Verily, verily, I say to you, An hour cometh and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and they that heard shall live.”
Not that individual souls had not looked to Him since man fell. Such were quickened by His grace, here one and there another, from Abel and one must hope Adam, till our Lord came. But now it is an hour definitely thus characterized; because the Son of God had come, and if rejected as Messiah, here to bestow on faith a blessing incomparably beyond any dispensational or governmental favor. In communion with the Father He quickens whom He will, for He is equally divine. If despised because He deigned in love to become man that He might die for sinners and save them, He alone is the Son of man to whom all judgment is given; and He will judge at the last day all that dishonor Him now.
This is the hour when above all others He is quickening souls. And what is the state of those whom He quickens? Not merely sin-sick, however desperately ailing. He pronounces on the case. They are "the dead;" not "all that are in the tombs," of whom He speaks in verse 28, but consequently (for there is no other meaning) the spiritually dead, the "dead in their offenses and their sins;" so the apostle Paul too describes them in Eph. 2:1-51And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins; 2Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience: 3Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others. 4But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, 5Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;) (Ephesians 2:1‑5), children of wrath by nature.
What more true, or more terrible? Both our Lord and His servant imply it to be the state of mankind equally and universally. What can religious ordinances avail? How can institutions, however important and precious, vanquish death? Who can quicken but God? Here too it is not merely death physical but spiritual; as there is a life given by the Son in communion with the Father, which is superior to death (as physical life is not), and abides in its own nature of everlasting blessedness, till we know as we are known in heavenly glory, Hearing unto life is in a moment; and so they that heard shall live. But such hearing abides; for they know His voice, and follow Him.
Alas I my reader, if you have not believed unto life eternal, that dreadful spiritual death is yours now. Human efforts are vain: what can bishops or presbyters do for such a case? What could priests, if there were mediating priests? We know from scripture that Christianity has none such, and that they are simply impostors. Aaron never pretended to give spiritual life; and Christ acts as the Great Priest only for those that are alive from the dead who need not life, but His intercession for their weakness, and His sympathy in their sorrows.
But you are dead toward God, whilst you live naturally. Nothing can meet your need, but a divine operation, and through it a wholly new life. Blessed be God it is in the Son; and the Son came here, true man though immeasurably more, that He might impart it to man, dead as he was and is, that he might live forever to God. If the Lord divulges a truth so overwhelming as your death in sins, He proclaims the truth of unending and ever blessed joy, in that He is the giver of life eternal to everyone that hears His own word and believes God the Father who sent Him, as we saw in verse 24.
Here is an equivalent. It is an hour now, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and they that heard shall live. Faith is ever by a report, but the report by God's word. Such pre-eminently is the voice of Jesus, the Son of God. Man's word may have weight in human things, and he was given of God to have dominion over the lower creation. But man is dead in his sins. It is the Son of God who quickens whom He will; and He quickens none but those that hear His voice. For thus only can they honor Him to life eternal, and escape the awful alternative of hearing His voice by-and-by to everlasting judgment.
O hear Him, my fellow-sinner; hear Him, and live, forever. The hour of quickening has gone on for near two thousand years. It will close soon, as surely as it then shone for the blessing of all that believe what God says to you in His Son. You justly feel that no insult is more intolerable than doubting a man's word. But if we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater. He witnesses concerning His Son, and eternal life in Him for every believer. Why should you die the second death, unutterable woe in the lake of fire, your resurrection for this awful and endless purpose? Listen not to skeptical traitors who dare to subject God's word to a human court of research.
Do not say that it is too hard, or unjust. What sentence can be too hard for not believing God, or making Him a liar? This is what you do, as long as you persist in unbelief. How dare you call it unjust, if you are punished forever, because you neglect, despise, and dishonor the Son of God, who became man in order to become the only propitiation God could accept to save you from your sins, and His own judgment of you? It is the divine glory of His person, and the efficacy of His sacrifice, which account alike for the blessing of all that believe, and the solemn doom of those who defy the saving grace of God in His Son.
O submit to the righteousness of God, as well as rest on His love and His truth. Cease to believe the lie of Satan against the Father and the Son to your own everlasting destruction. Distrust yourself, confide in the God who reconciles us to Himself through Christ our Lord. In human nature, the first man is a total wreck; God's grace has intervened in the Second man to give the believer an imperishable and eternal life. Thus are we made partakers even now of a divine nature.