For as the Father raiseth up the dead, and quickeneth them; even so the Son quickeneth whom he will.
As the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so the Son gives life to whomever He chooses by His own will. He does nothing of Himself apart from the Father, but works in perfect harmony with Him, doing the same life-giving works in the same way and by the same power, and this declares Him to be one with the Father and equal with God. The Son has life and power in Himself to raise the dead bodily, so that all in the graves will hear His voice and come forth, those who have done good to the resurrection of life and those who have done evil to the resurrection of damnation. At Bethesda this life-giving claim was joined to making sufferers whole on the Sabbath, showing that His Sabbath healing belongs to the same sacred work as the Father's, for the Sabbath forbids toil for livelihood and worldly profit but never forbids works of mercy. That same power gives life not only to the body at the resurrection but to the soul dead in sin, as the Spirit breaks evil's dominion and through faith keeps the soul from sin, grounding the invitation to come directly to Him as the Burden-bearer for pardon and new life.
Meaning and Sabbath Setting
As the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so the Son gives life to whomever He chooses, by His own will. This is the Son's divine authority to raise the dead, equal in power to the Father's power to give life. The Son does nothing of Himself apart from the Father, but acts in harmony with Him and does the same life-giving works He sees the Father do, in the same way, by the same power, and with the same results, never working independently of Him or against His will.
At Bethesda this life-giving power was connected with making sufferers whole, for He longed to heal all the sufferers there. On the Sabbath He chose one helpless case, knowing that the healing would provoke opposition. That healing on the Sabbath belongs to the same sacred work as the Father's, with equal right to do a work equally sacred and of the same character, and it honors the holy Sabbath instead of breaking it.
God's work never ceases for a moment, and heaven's work never ceases for a moment, and men should never rest from doing good. That work is even greater on the Sabbath, when His people leave their usual employments for prayerful meditation and worship and ask more favors of Him, and He grants what is best with judicious wisdom. The Sabbath law forbids toil that gains a livelihood and labor for worldly pleasure or profit, but it does not forbid works of mercy and benevolence.
Giving life is a greater work than healing disease, greater than healing the sick, the lame, and the blind. His hearers would witness that greater work and marvel. Declared before the Jews in His true character, it answered the Sadducees who denied the bodily resurrection of the body, gave clear evidence of His authority, and left the rulers without excuse for rejecting the light that exposed their error.
Equal Divine Life-Giver
The verse declares the Son to be one with the Father and equal with the Father and with God, eternal God, divine and incarnate, the I AM, the Son of God, and central to true knowledge of God. It shows He has equal rights with God to do a work equally sacred and of the same character as the Father's, including raising the dead and giving life to whom He wills by His own will and authority. This life-giving work belongs to His equality with the Father and supports the honor due to Him, proving His divine sonship.
The Son has life and power in Himself to raise the dead, possessing divine life-giving authority in Himself as one of the Father's greatest works declaring His equality with the Creator. Through Him the life lost through sin is restored, the very life He laid down and took up again, and His power to give life includes granting immortality. He does whatever the Father does in the same way, by the same power, and with the same results.
Together with the next verses the verse places life-giving authority alongside judgment, for the Father judges no one but has committed all judgment to the Son. All must therefore honor the Son just as they honor the Father, and to dishonor or refuse to honor the Son is to dishonor and refuse to honor the Father who sent Him. This joining of authority to give life to whom He wills with authority to judge identifies Christ as divine, one with the Father, and incarnate.
The raising is bodily, for all who are in the graves will hear the Son's voice and come forth. Those who have done good will rise to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of damnation or condemnation.
Jesus Himself is the resurrection and the life and the author of the resurrection, with the right and power to give eternal life to whom He will. Faith in the resurrection at the last day is to be directed to Him personally. Though soon to die on the cross, He already stood as conqueror of the grave holding the keys of death.
His raising of Lazarus was both an immediate exercise of that life-giving power and a representation of the general resurrection of all the righteous at the last day. The saints raised at His own resurrection were its first-fruits, raised to everlasting life never again to experience death or sorrow, unlike those Jesus had raised during His ministry who were not so raised.
Receiving Life by Faith
His power gives life both to the body at the resurrection and to the soul dead in trespasses and sins, for the Spirit breaks the dominion of evil and through faith keeps the soul from sin, so that those who receive the Spirit share even now in the power that will raise their bodies from the grave. It is truth of special interest that enlightens the mind and shows that men need to be reconverted before they can become righteous.
This life-giving power is for those who come directly to Him as the Burden-bearer instead of placing their burdens on others, believing He is able and willing to meet the circumstances of each case. Coming in contrition to the foot of the cross with faith in the merits of the crucified and risen Saviour and casting the helpless soul upon Him, the sinner repents and receives pardon and finds new life. To such He gives power and peace and joy and strength and courage.
He made this claim calmly and deliberately even while appearing as the humblest and lowliest of men in His deepest humiliation when the powers of darkness seemed triumphant. In so doing He identified Himself with God as the Life-giver who gives life as the Father gives life, affirming His royal character and His devotion to saving the lost race with tender love for the sinner.
Jesus alone is able to give life, so that to reject the Son is to reject the only One able to give life, and the Father and the Son must not be separated. Turning away from the Father and His law, or rejecting Christ, distorts their relationship and God's work. Those who put Him to death had forgotten their Creator and, made bold by supposed superiority, killed the very One who could give them life because they did not know God, thinking that persecuting the prophets and putting them to death was service to Him, while on the cross He was revealing the love of that unknown God. Christ died because the Father's law could not be changed to excuse humanity's fallen condition.
This oneness teaches that man is inseparably bound to his heavenly Parent and responsible to God who holds all destinies in His hands, appointed to do God's work and endowed with faculties and means for it. So long as man is faithful to that stewardship he may claim his Master's blessings and promises. But if when raised to sacred trust he becomes exalted in his own wisdom and power, takes affairs into his own hands, and separates from God, God will call him to account for unauthorized acts not worked in unison with his Commander, for the Son Himself does nothing of Himself apart from what He sees the Father do and never works independently of Him or against His will.
As the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so the Son gives life to whomever He chooses by His own will. He does nothing of Himself apart from the Father, but works in perfect harmony with Him, doing the same life-giving works in the same way and by the same power, and this declares Him to be one with the Father and equal with God. The Son has life and power in Himself to raise the dead bodily, so that all in the graves will hear His voice and come forth, those who have done good to the resurrection of life and those who have done evil to the resurrection of damnation. At Bethesda this life-giving claim was joined to making sufferers whole on the Sabbath, showing that His Sabbath healing belongs to the same sacred work as the Father's, for the Sabbath forbids toil for livelihood and worldly profit but never forbids works of mercy. That same power gives life not only to the body at the resurrection but to the soul dead in sin, as the Spirit breaks evil's dominion and through faith keeps the soul from sin, grounding the invitation to come directly to Him as the Burden-bearer for pardon and new life.
Meaning and Sabbath Setting
As the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so the Son gives life to whomever He chooses, by His own will. This is the Son's divine authority to raise the dead, equal in power to the Father's power to give life. The Son does nothing of Himself apart from the Father, but acts in harmony with Him and does the same life-giving works He sees the Father do, in the same way, by the same power, and with the same results, never working independently of Him or against His will.
At Bethesda this life-giving power was connected with making sufferers whole, for He longed to heal all the sufferers there. On the Sabbath He chose one helpless case, knowing that the healing would provoke opposition. That healing on the Sabbath belongs to the same sacred work as the Father's, with equal right to do a work equally sacred and of the same character, and it honors the holy Sabbath instead of breaking it.
God's work never ceases for a moment, and heaven's work never ceases for a moment, and men should never rest from doing good. That work is even greater on the Sabbath, when His people leave their usual employments for prayerful meditation and worship and ask more favors of Him, and He grants what is best with judicious wisdom. The Sabbath law forbids toil that gains a livelihood and labor for worldly pleasure or profit, but it does not forbid works of mercy and benevolence.
Giving life is a greater work than healing disease, greater than healing the sick, the lame, and the blind. His hearers would witness that greater work and marvel. Declared before the Jews in His true character, it answered the Sadducees who denied the bodily resurrection of the body, gave clear evidence of His authority, and left the rulers without excuse for rejecting the light that exposed their error.
Equal Divine Life-Giver
The verse declares the Son to be one with the Father and equal with the Father and with God, eternal God, divine and incarnate, the I AM, the Son of God, and central to true knowledge of God. It shows He has equal rights with God to do a work equally sacred and of the same character as the Father's, including raising the dead and giving life to whom He wills by His own will and authority. This life-giving work belongs to His equality with the Father and supports the honor due to Him, proving His divine sonship.
The Son has life and power in Himself to raise the dead, possessing divine life-giving authority in Himself as one of the Father's greatest works declaring His equality with the Creator. Through Him the life lost through sin is restored, the very life He laid down and took up again, and His power to give life includes granting immortality. He does whatever the Father does in the same way, by the same power, and with the same results.
Together with the next verses the verse places life-giving authority alongside judgment, for the Father judges no one but has committed all judgment to the Son. All must therefore honor the Son just as they honor the Father, and to dishonor or refuse to honor the Son is to dishonor and refuse to honor the Father who sent Him. This joining of authority to give life to whom He wills with authority to judge identifies Christ as divine, one with the Father, and incarnate.
The raising is bodily, for all who are in the graves will hear the Son's voice and come forth. Those who have done good will rise to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of damnation or condemnation.
Jesus Himself is the resurrection and the life and the author of the resurrection, with the right and power to give eternal life to whom He will. Faith in the resurrection at the last day is to be directed to Him personally. Though soon to die on the cross, He already stood as conqueror of the grave holding the keys of death.
His raising of Lazarus was both an immediate exercise of that life-giving power and a representation of the general resurrection of all the righteous at the last day. The saints raised at His own resurrection were its first-fruits, raised to everlasting life never again to experience death or sorrow, unlike those Jesus had raised during His ministry who were not so raised.
Receiving Life by Faith
His power gives life both to the body at the resurrection and to the soul dead in trespasses and sins, for the Spirit breaks the dominion of evil and through faith keeps the soul from sin, so that those who receive the Spirit share even now in the power that will raise their bodies from the grave. It is truth of special interest that enlightens the mind and shows that men need to be reconverted before they can become righteous.
This life-giving power is for those who come directly to Him as the Burden-bearer instead of placing their burdens on others, believing He is able and willing to meet the circumstances of each case. Coming in contrition to the foot of the cross with faith in the merits of the crucified and risen Saviour and casting the helpless soul upon Him, the sinner repents and receives pardon and finds new life. To such He gives power and peace and joy and strength and courage.
He made this claim calmly and deliberately even while appearing as the humblest and lowliest of men in His deepest humiliation when the powers of darkness seemed triumphant. In so doing He identified Himself with God as the Life-giver who gives life as the Father gives life, affirming His royal character and His devotion to saving the lost race with tender love for the sinner.
Jesus alone is able to give life, so that to reject the Son is to reject the only One able to give life, and the Father and the Son must not be separated. Turning away from the Father and His law, or rejecting Christ, distorts their relationship and God's work. Those who put Him to death had forgotten their Creator and, made bold by supposed superiority, killed the very One who could give them life because they did not know God, thinking that persecuting the prophets and putting them to death was service to Him, while on the cross He was revealing the love of that unknown God. Christ died because the Father's law could not be changed to excuse humanity's fallen condition.
This oneness teaches that man is inseparably bound to his heavenly Parent and responsible to God who holds all destinies in His hands, appointed to do God's work and endowed with faculties and means for it. So long as man is faithful to that stewardship he may claim his Master's blessings and promises. But if when raised to sacred trust he becomes exalted in his own wisdom and power, takes affairs into his own hands, and separates from God, God will call him to account for unauthorized acts not worked in unison with his Commander, for the Son Himself does nothing of Himself apart from what He sees the Father do and never works independently of Him or against His will.