And if you would, turn in your Bibles to the Gospel of John, in chapter 5. Gospel according to John, chapter 5, verses 18 to 30, will be our sermon text, and those are the verses that we will read in preparation for this morning's sermon. John chapter 5, and beginning in verse 18, Hear the Word of the Lord. For this reason, therefore, the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him, because he not only was breaking the Sabbath, but also was calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God. Therefore Jesus answered and was saying to them, Truly, truly, I say to you, the son can do nothing of himself unless it is something he sees the father doing. For whatever the father does, these things the son also does in like manner. For the Father loves the Son, and shows Him all things that He Himself is doing, and the Father will show Him greater works than these, so that you will marvel. For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son also gives life to whom He wishes. For not even the Father judges anyone, but He has given all judgment to the Son, so that all will honor the Son, even as they honor the Father. He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent Him. Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My words and believes Him who sent Me has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but is passed out of death into life. Truly, truly, I say to you, an hour is coming, and now is, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live. For just as the Father has life in Himself, even so He gave to the Son also to have life in Himself, and He gave Him authority to execute judgments, because He is the Son of Man. Do not marvel at this, for an hour is coming in which all who are in the tombs will hear His voice and will come forth, those who did the good deeds to a resurrection of life, those who committed the evil deeds to a resurrection of judgment. I can do nothing on my own initiative. As I hear, I judge. And my judgment is just because I do not seek my own will, but the will of Him who sent me. Thus ends the reading of God's holy word. Let's go to him and ask his blessing upon the word preached this morning. Father in heaven, once again, we pray that you would attend now to the preaching of your word. Would you send forth your light? Would you send forth your eternal son in the power of your spirit to shine on us this morning and to bless us both the preaching and the hearing for the glory and fame of your own name? Exalt your son in our midst this morning. We pray it in his name. Amen so John 5 18 to 30 we are in perhaps the One of the deepest, probably the deepest points in the gospel of John in terms of theological content here. And I just apologize in advance that you're going to need your thinking caps on today. You're going to need your theological thinking caps on today. Probably if I could go back, I might have picked a different text. I stayed with this one because obviously resurrection seems to be front and center in it. But I trust the Lord will show us good things from this text. And there's my preface. So in our last sermon, in our last sermon we saw that the controversy began between Jesus and the Jews. It started with a Sabbath violation and came to a climax in Jesus claiming equality with the Father. Remember that it was not forbidden to do a work of mercy on the Sabbath. It was not forbidden to do a work of necessity on the Sabbath. But instead, Jesus, instead of taking them to task on those things, Jesus does what? He proclaims his identity to them as the son of the father. Remember, he said, my father, my father is working. That was a major no-no for them. My father is working and I myself am working. We learned that in a sense, he was saying, we do the same work on the Sabbath because we are one. One in our work, as we'll see further demonstrated today, one in will. Jesus is one in his will, his life and power, even resurrection power. He is one with the father. And we'll see that the basis. This morning, the basis of the substantial unity of the father and the son is the father's eternal gift of unbounded life to the son. When I say substantial unity, I mean he's the same essence. He's of the same substance as the father. That will be the basis. The basis of the substantial unity will be the father's gift of unbounded life to him. And out of this unbounded divine life, the son wills, acts, and judges with the authority of God himself, because that's who he is. Verse 19, truly, truly, I say to you, We've come across truly, truly before. It means listen up, give careful attention, take what I'm about to say with you to the bank. The truth, as we'll learn later on in chapter 10, the truth himself is speaking to you. You can accept it and embrace it with great assurance and comfort. I think I mentioned earlier in an earlier sermon, basically this phrase implies that God is speaking. And he says, the son can do nothing of himself unless it is something he sees the father doing. For whatever the father does, these things the son also does in like manner. It is not that he will not act apart from the father or that he does not. It's not that he will not act apart from the father or that he does not. It is the fact that he cannot act apart from the father. And don't think of it as the son imitating the father here. The sameness of nature means the sameness of work. Listen to one commentator on this verse. He says, The union, therefore, is absolute. It is not, for instance, as though the Son reveals the Father in certain particular ways or in certain remarkable actions, no moment of His life and no action of His, but is the expression of the life and action of the Father." And this is what's getting him into trouble. The interesting thing is that while this gets him into trouble, this is such a glorious and beautiful thing to us, is it not? The same time they're gonna be seeking to kill him, it is glory and beauty to us. In Jesus, you see none other than God walking and talking and acting amongst fallen image bearers. That's what's taking place here. When I go to check my credit score, it often tells me how much borrowing power you have. Does anybody here have credit karma, where they go and check their credit score? And it'll pull up and say, you have this much borrowing power. You have $53,000 of borrowing power today. Some would perhaps think that Jesus has unlimited borrowing power, maybe. He just has this endless fount that he can go and get it from the Father. But that's not even the case. He need not borrow anything because it is His by nature. He acts in a way and with a power and authority that is proper to Himself. Verse 20, For the Father loves the Son and shows Him all things that He Himself is doing, and the Father will show Him greater works than these, so that you will marvel. How does the Father love the Son? He loves Him, as we know, by communication or communion. He loves Him by sharing. This love that He has for Him is a disclosure of Himself to the Son. The lover doesn't hold anything back from the one loved, His inmost secrets, His plans, His will. The Father's love for the Son, as we learned in chapter 1, is His being face to face with Him in eternal fellowship. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was what? With God, face to face with God. No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father, He has what? Explained Him, because He is with Him intimately. And not only has He seen God, As John 1.18 says again, He has explained God because He is God from God. There are no secrets. All of the will and mind and life and goodness of God is shared in love between Father and Son and Holy Spirit. pertinent to the preceding arguments of the Jews coming after him. If the father loves the son in this intimate way, then it's impossible for the son to break Sabbath, right? It's impossible for him to break Sabbath if he's so loved. Impossible for him to do something displeasing to the father. The son who is loved by the father is explaining the father in those very works. Therefore, they must be pleasing to him. And something, therefore, necessarily must be off with the Jewish system, not with Jesus. And to the love of the Father again, brothers and sisters, when God the Father loves us, He does so by putting us face to face with His Son. Do you see that he does it by putting us face to face with his son that we might see the exact representation of the father's love in Jesus The one who is face to face with the son in eternity brings us face to face with that same son So that we would see the father's smiling face upon us So that we would know and believe his very will in love for us in the son again The father discloses his mind his will and his love to us We are let in on the deepest secrets of His counsels that were hidden, but are now revealed all by the Holy Spirit. God's love for His people is His determination to bring them into His own eternal fellowship. And He does this through Christ. The glory of God in the face of Christ. If you've seen me, He'll say later, you've seen the Father. Perhaps some of you have thought of that passage in Exodus 34 and thought, wow, what Moses saw must have been amazing. But listen, if by the spirits today you have seen the love of the Father for you in the beauty of Jesus' person and work, if you have seen that, then what Moses saw does not even compare with the glory that you've seen today. Does not even compare. To turn it around, Moses longed to see what you see, brothers and sisters. He longed to see what you see. What he saw was not even close." Where does the mercy, we know this because where does the mercy, loving kindness, grace, justice and so forth shine most brightly? It shines most brightly in Jesus Christ. The law came through Moses, grace and truth came through Jesus Christ in abundance. What a glorious gospel account this is. This is the gospel of the beloved disciple who reclined at Jesus' breast. You see that Jesus made things known to John that he didn't to the other disciples, which is why we have this rich and high and broad and deep account of the mystery and glory of Jesus' person and work, specifically in this passage, which helps us further understand why he is able to accomplish such a mighty salvation and why we can trust him for eternal life, which is the entire purpose of the letter. And the Father shows him all things he is doing. Again, Augustine, following a similar trajectory of thought that we did in verse 19, says the following. He says, the Father, therefore, does not show the Son what He does by doing it. The Father does not show the Son what He does by doing it, but by showing does it through the Son. By showing does it through the Son. The Son sees and the Father shows before a thing is made. And from the showing of the Father and the seeing of the Son, that is made which is made, made by the Father through the Son. But notice this objection he throws in there. He says, but you will say, I show my son what I wish him to make and he makes it. And I make it through him. True. But before you do anything, you show it to your son that he may do it from your example and you by him. But you speak to your son words. You speak to your son words, which are not yourself. Whereas the son himself is the word of the father. And could he speak by the word to the word? In other words, what he's saying is that the showing and seeing here describing this verse are eternal. Jesus words are demonstrating substantial unity with the father. They are of the same substance, and hence they act and will the same, as we've said, only distinguished, as we've just heard in Augustine, by their distinguished relation to each other, of son and father, of word and mind, if you will. And we'll show him greater works. He will show him greater works. What are these greater works? He's gonna raise Lazarus from the dead. He's gonna raise himself from the dead. Perhaps he's thinking all along of the resurrection, the spiritual resurrection that he's going to bring to countless individuals. But notice how Jesus is not the one marveling. It's emphatic, the you is emphatic. You will marvel. The emphasis on you marvel is not to be equated here with faith. Many have already marveled at his works, but only demonstrated an interest or marvel in his power to perform. Yet they have no interest in the way he might change and save them. You will marvel, and most of you will marvel in unbelief. Your marvel will not lead to adoration in faith, but anger and hatred. But on the other hand, some of you, I believe, will marvel, and by faith take hold of me." That's the declaration of his greater works. In verse 21, for just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son also gives life to whom He wishes. Now notice Jesus is speaking to monotheists, yes? And these are prerogatives that belong to God alone. Notice, for just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, these are prerogatives that belong to God alone. And the Scriptures teach this. Deuteronomy 32, 39, See now that I, I am He, and there is no God besides Me. It is I who put to death and give life. I have wounded, and it is I who heal. And there is no one who can deliver from My hand. First Samuel 2, 6, the Lord kills and makes alive. He brings down to Sheol and raises up. Second Kings 5, 7, when the king of Israel read the letter, he tore his clothes and said, am I God to kill and to make alive that this man is sending word to me to cure a man of leprosy? But consider now and see how he is seeking to quarrel against me, giving life Raising the dead are clearly in the Jewish mind only things that God does For just as the father gives life and raises the dead. They have no objection thus far so far so good So also the son does and now here's our Houston. We have a problem He has called God his own father and now he has claimed explicit and explicitly divine prerogative which the Jews no doubt have caught and And the life here that he talks about certainly has the idea of eschatological life, of future eternal life. And to raise to life at the last day, the next verses will bear that out for us. But what's being communicated in these verses is that the life dispensing and declaring judgment is a now reality. Even now, he is exercising this power. He is granting life and pronouncing judgment, not judgment in an ultimate sense, but having the authority to declare your spiritual status, your current spiritual bankruptcy. And He gives it to whom He wishes. The Son, just like the Father, is sovereign in dispensing life, both physical and spiritual. He can call the dead to life by His voice, like Lazarus, like Jairus' daughter. With His voice, He restores life like our last two healing accounts. And He can call the spiritually dead to life when and where He pleases. A divine prerogative later on, which will be ascribed to the Father. Which once again demonstrates both His divinity and His unity, His oneness with the Father. Such an often quoted evangelistic ploy. that has no scriptural basis is, hey, would you invite Jesus into your heart? Nowhere even close do we find this in scripture, brothers and sisters. The condemning wrath of God even now rests upon all unbelievers. Even now, you are commanded to believe. You are commanded to believe. You must believe. You must flee from the wrath to come. Because the wrath of God abides on you. It's repent and believe. You do not invite the sovereign Lord of the universe into your heart. You call upon Him. You plead for Him to bestow life upon you. Lord, I want to believe. Help my unbelief. Can you imagine somebody coming up to Him and asking Him to invite Jesus into his heart? No, give me a new heart. Give me a new heart, a heart to believe. The text says it's those who hear that live. In verse 25, Lord, let me be one who hears you. Children, this is how you should be praying. You should learn to pray this way. Pray the Lord would grant that you would hear in faith. Pray that He would give you a new heart in place of your heart of stone. Pray that He would grant you life that only He through the Father can give. And we know that it's only through the preaching of the Word of God. The primary means that He does this is through the preaching of the Word. That He calls His elect to Himself. This is how the Son is heard. He is heard today. And those who hear will live. Verses 22 to 23 follow the same logic again of verse 19. The Father will judge through the Son. Their work of judging is the same work. But why the emphasis though? Why say it as though the Father just passes it off? It's so that the Son would receive the same honor and glory and might that are His right by nature. It's provocative, I believe. That's what the language is communicating. The outward acts of the Trinity, as we know, are undivided. You notice how he goes from not even the father judges anyone to he who does not honor the son does not honor the father. So while he says he's the one that judges, yet at the end of the verse, he says, honoring me is the same as honoring the father. We have the same work, the same work of raising the dead, the same work of judgment, and the same honor is to bestowed upon us because we are one God. Verse 24, again, listen closely. God is speaking. God says, truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and does not come into judgment, but is passed out of death into life. Whoever hears what I came to declare about my person and work, which is really the word of the Father, whoever hears my message, And notice the unity, once again, of the object of faith. He says, whoever hears my word, whoever hears my word, and you would think he would say, and believes me, right? But it's whoever believes my word and believes Him who sent me. Again, there is no separation between the two. They are one God, one mind, one will, distinguished again by their peculiar properties. Who is the object of faith? Is it the Father or the Son? The answer is yes. Because why? You tell me. Because they are of one will, one power, and one authority. They are one God and one Lord, and one in their own unbounded life. The point of this unusual statement is, I believe, to provoke, as I've already mentioned, to provoke the fact that the Jews never really believed the Father. We'll get to this next time. They never really believe the father to begin with. They don't because as we'll learn, if they did believe the father, they would obviously believe his son. And they would obviously believe the scriptures and Moses who spoke and wrote about Jesus. And while the one who believes already possesses life, the judgment. is already here and now for the one not believing. The judgment is that unbelief in that darkness. To believe is at present, to have light and life eternal. It's not far off, but it's now, as we've mentioned in previous sermons. To have saving knowledge of God in Christ is to have eternal life right now and forever. You have life, you have eternal life now. It is a present state and you will not come under judgment later. That is a blessed hope, a blessed comfort for us. There is no greater privilege and blessing to possess this life. And nothing you should make more of an urgent matter if you do not possess it at this moment. Because as we've mentioned, you already stand under judgment and condemnation if you don't. Jesus did not come to condemn the world because the world already stood in condemnation. He came to the darkness, He came to His own. And His own did not receive Him. Unbelievers are now under the condemning wrath of God, and it will be pronounced and acted upon later with no escape. The judgment is already upon them. This is the trade with which we busy ourselves as Christians in gospel proclamation, brothers and sisters. The gates of heaven are swung open, and all who hear and believe the Father's will and love His Son will enter and have life. For those who don't, they are slammed shut. And one day, if unbelief persists, they will stay shut. Judgment and condemnation will remain. What will you do? This is the call. This is the call this morning. Again, what Jesus is saying is, I have power and authority to dispense with life and render judgment in and of myself. It will be clearly demonstrated that I am able to do this with the raising of Lazarus, but ultimately, as he's already predicted, when I raise myself up, the temple you destroy, I will raise it up and come victorious with the keys of death and Hades out of the grave, which will guarantee your final resurrection to life, which will guarantee my ability to raise you up on the last day. And it will also guarantee, again, judgment for unbelief. In verse 25, we're assured once again that the eschatological age is already broken in. That has come up several times in this gospel, the kingdom of God is broken in, as there is a new race with the woman at the well, a new land, heavenly Zion, a new temple, which is the church. New resurrected creatures. The time is now, even now when the dead will hear and live. That time is now today. And it is so because of verse 26, because he of himself is the same infinite source of life. He has life in and of himself, just as the father. He makes all things, sustains all things, and fills all things. Because why? Because He is the fountain of life Himself. He is identical with life and existence. Jesus is identical with life and existence. To exist for the Son is to live and to be the inexhaustible fountain of being, brothers and sisters. To exist for the eternal Son is to live and to be the inexhaustible fountain of being. He can and will render just judgments. He can and will give unending life and blessedness to his people because of this. If this is not the case, if it's not the case, think of the ramifications. Then how could he cash in on his promises he's already made? If he's not so united and one with this father in this unbounded life, then how can he give you the spirit to cause you to be born again? How can he give you rivers of living water, welling up to eternal life? How can he raise you up again from death? Furthermore, if he is not as lofty, if he is not as described here, that is, if he is not God from God of the same substance as the father, equal in power and glory, then he cannot do any of these things. But He is such a One, and He can do these things. He can and He will do them for those who have fled to Him for life and refuge. And it says that the Father gives it. He gives it not of the incarnation, because in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. And because all things came into being through Him, in Him, in the Word, was life, i.e., life in Himself. In eternity, in him was life, not derived, not given at a point in time, but eternally given. So the father gave him, when? Eternally, which really isn't a when. He gave him eternally to have life in himself. And this is where we get the indispensable doctrine of eternal generation, which the heretics don't like. They despise. One of the phrases the Aryans didn't like in the Nicene Creed was homoousios, of the same substance as the father. They preferred homoousios, of like substance with the father. But a like substance is not deserving of our worship, which was one of the big questions of the day. Should we worship the son? And on what basis? Only one who is of the same substance as God ought to be worshiped. But there's one other point in the creed that perhaps perturbed them even more. And that is the statement that has some closeness to our text. The creed says, begotten of the father before all ages. And then at the end of that sentence, it says, begotten, not made. Begotten before all ages, begotten, not made. The Son is eternally begotten, not made. We affirm it because the scriptures teach it. We cannot say how He is eternally begotten or what it is, but we affirm that it is a mystery of the faith. And the problem for the Arians is that they wouldn't let the New Testament data disrupt their monotheism. That was the big thing. For them, God is unbegotten. We grant that. He's not derived from anything. He has life in and of Himself. But now we have to account for the New Testament data. They won't allow it. But while the early Christians understood that they must, they must account for the New Testament, that Jesus of Nazareth is the same God of the Old Testament, and His Father is the same God of the Scriptures, and the Spirit is the same God of the Scriptures, yet there are not three gods or three lords, but one God and one Lord. They became... Listen to this wonderful phrase, Trinitarian monotheists, which is what we are. And interestingly enough, much of their spade work for demonstrating the doctrine of the Trinity was done in what scriptures? The Old Testament or the New Testament? The Old Testament. But I digress. So the Son has unbounded life from the Father. And in verse 27, he says, he gave him authority to execute judgment because he is the son of man. And why this? Again, I think it's to evoke the heavenly figure of Daniel 7.14. To further probe the Jews to consider their own scriptures. Your scriptures point to the fact that such a one would come and be endowed with such authority. One who would not only judge, but would be given the dignity, honor, and worship that God alone is deserving. In verses 28 and 29, don't marvel at this. An hour comes where at my very voice all the dead will rise and come before me to give an account. My voice is the same word that all things came into being through. My voice still upholds all things. As I've just mentioned that my father is working and even I'm working. This same word will do all this. This is it. The event and the one whom we celebrate today like we ought to every Sunday. Every Sunday is a Resurrection Sunday, but we still recognize the importance and special occasion of this one. But the one who conquered the grave is the one who himself, from the Father, raises us up and all the elect from death and condemnation to eternal life. And at His second coming, to take on, to give us, to take on the likeness of His glorified body, and to dwell with Him for all eternity, in and of Himself, He is willing and able to do it, because His Father is willing and able, and He is none other than the eternal Word of the Father. God from God, equal in power and glory. God sent none other than God, as we've learned, to resurrect fallen image bearers. God sent none other than God to resurrect fallen image bearers. Only God could do it. He has done it, and he will finish it. That is our hope today. That is our glory. That is our anticipation. Please pray with me. Father in heaven, we thank you for your word. Thank you for this wonderful, rich, and deep passage. Lord, would you take all the good things from here that I've been able to proclaim this morning, and would you bless it to our hearts and minds? Give us to meditate and chew on these things throughout the week. And we pray even now, Lord Jesus, that you would come and usher in the consummation, that you would bring your elect by your powerful word, bringing them amongst our children, bring them amongst this city, amongst this state and throughout the world. Bring them to yourself. And until then, Lord, grant that we would walk In our weary pilgrim journey by faith in the power of your Holy Spirits, looking to Christ, the author and perfecter of our faith. We pray these things in his name. Amen.