May 3, 2021 John 5: 24
19 Jesus said to them, ‘Very truly, I tell you, the Son can do
nothing on his own, but only what he sees the Father doing; for whatever the
Father does, the Son does likewise. 20The Father loves the Son and shows him all that
he himself is doing; and he will show him greater works than these, so that you
will be astonished. 21Indeed, just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also
the Son gives life to whomsoever he wishes. 22The Father judges no one but has given all
judgment to the Son, 23so that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father. Anyone who
does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him. 24Very truly, I tell you, anyone who hears my
word and believes him who sent me has eternal life, and does not come under
judgment, but has passed from death to life. 25“Very truly, I tell you, the hour is coming,
and is now here, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those
who hear will live. 26For just as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son
also to have life in himself; 27and he has given him authority to execute judgment, because he is the
Son of Man.
Have
you heard of the three strikes rule? In
baseball, it means you are out. In the
criminal justice system, it meant you were hit with extra jail time as a
consequence of multiple infractions, in verse 24, it looks like a two strike
rule. “Very Truly I Tell You…” means pay
attention everyone! To hear the word of
Jesus and to believe God the Father, who sent Jesus, is to have eternal
life. What have we just read? The honor of the Son and the honor of the
Father are identified with each other, so blending Jesus and Father here, so
the pairing is to hear and believe.
Jesus
emphasizing the hearing of his word was a key consideration in our sermon Sunday,
from John 15. In that, Jesus is the
vine, we are the branches, we abide in one another at the hearing and believing
of Jesus’ word. That is a key term to be
considered when we are looking at the gospel, how the word of Jesus leads us
into belief and to eternal life.
Something
else to keep in mind when reading God’s Word is reading what is there, in the
order you find it. I opened with the ‘three
strike’ comparison, because on first reading, I thought I was looking at three
strikes, hearing the word of the Son, believing the Father who sent the Son,
and not coming under judgement. But not
coming under judgement develops what it means to have eternal life, it is not
in the steps to eternal life.
Why is
that even important? Because there is
that which we are called upon to do as human beings and there is that which God
is doing on our behalf. We listen and
believe, God does not bring us under judgement, in fact, it is by this work of
God that we are brought from death to life.
What do we, as humans, actually do in the process of gaining eternal
life (salvation)? Listen and
believe. There is an expression from the
time of the reformation, sola fide, only faith or only by faith. This means what this verse is telling us, to hear
and believe is how eternal life is received, is how judgement is lifted from us
and we come from death into life.
This
is opposed to a belief that there is something we, as humans, have to
accomplish, have to do ourselves that will somehow earn us God’s favor, earn us
the lifting of judgement that will allow us to pass from death to life. Notice how judgement is absolute. If judgement had not been lifted, we are
dead. Paul will develop this
understanding when he says that ‘the wages of sin is death’. But that is a step down the line of the
progress of revelation. For us, it is
all about the listening, the believing.
So
there is another bit that can cause confusion.
There is language in the bible about how God has chosen us from before
the creation of the world. There is
language about God doing what God will do and God not doing what God will not
do. It can make it sound like our involvement
in salvation is a passive act, because God has already done it all. Yet we are not passive but we are active in
our participation with God in hearing the word of Jesus and believing.
It is
necessary to understand that the power of God is the creative power of
everything. It is this creative power
that seems to have made the contradiction that God has put everything into
operation and that we have free will to operate in what God has created. It can seem that Adam and Eve broke out of
God’s creative power in their disobedience.
But that is not true. God’s
creative power of free will, to truly be free, included the option of the
created being to turn from God. Which is
what we did, which is why God put the whole Plan into operation from before the
creation of the world.
Try
not to let that expanse of thinking break the brain…
More
tomorrow.
Peace, Pastor Peter
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