Tom:
We are continuing with the gospel of John and we are looking at salvation verses from this important book.As Dave mentioned earlier, if you’ve not read the Bible before, this would be a place to start.Anyway, we are on John 5 and we are going to start at verse 25, but we are going to read more than that verse, and Dave, I really want to back it up to 24.So we will go 24 through probably—
Dave:
29
Tom:
29—(John:5:24-29 [24] Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life.
[25] Verily, 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.
[26] For as the Father hath life in himself; so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself;
[27] And hath given him authority to execute judgment also, because he is the Son of man.
[28] Marvel not at this: for the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice,
[29] And shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation.
See All...), “Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life.Verily, 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.For as the Father hath life in himself; so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself; And hath given him authority to execute judgment also, because he is the Son of man. Marvel not at this: for the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, And shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation.”Dave there are a lot of thoughts here and some—I mean we need scripture to interpret scripture here really.
Dave:
Well it’s fairly clear I think.Verse 24, those who believe in him pass from death unto life.
Tom:
Right, so they are dead in their trespasses and sin, they are not physically dead.
Dave:
That’s right, not physically dead and he carries on that thought in verse 25.“The hour is coming and now is,” so this is something that is current. Jesus is saying “when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God and they that hear shall live.”Obviously he is referring to what he just said.Dead people, dead in trespasses and sins can pass from death to life if they hear my voice Jesus says and believe on him that sent me.That is now and still happening to this day through the gospel.“For as the Father hath life in himself, so hath he given to the Son who hath life in himself.Hath given him authority to execute judgment also because he is the Son of man.”In other words, it’s because God became a man and lived as a man on this earth.You cannot complain against him now.He has faced everything.It says he was tested, not tempted, he was tested in everything that we are tested in.He has faced it and worse than we have.The hatred, the persecution, the misunderstanding, the false accusations, and everything that Satan could throw at him.If you will bow down and worship me I’ll give you all the kingdoms of the world and so forth.So he is the One, he is God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.This is God the Son who came to this earth and became a man. Therefore the judgment is committed to him because he is both God and man.Then he goes on and says, “Marvel not at this—“You think I don’t have the authority, you think I don’t know what I am talking about?Let me tell you something, the hour is coming (he doesn’t say now is), no this is a future hour.
Tom:
And this is not just 60 minutes, this is a time.
Dave:
That’s right.The hour is coming, yes, when he says the hour is coming and now is, that’s an hour that goes on.It means the present time.
Tom:
Right.
Dave:
And the time—you could say the time is coming.“…In the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice.”So there is a time coming when every person will be resurrected.Now we know that is not talking about the Rapture.Because at the Rapture it says the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a shout the voice of the archangel, the trump of God, the dead in Christ shall rise.That is all those who have their faith in Christ, when they die, their bodies were laid in the grave, their soul and spirit immediately went to be with Christ, he will bring with him the souls and spirits to be reunited with their resurrected bodies.So it’s not talking about that.At that time, it is only the dead in Christ who rise.Now the day is coming he says, this would be the last resurrection when every person who remains dead, their bodies are still in the grave.If they were Christians, if their faith was in Christ, they have been taken out of those graves.In fact, those who died for their faith in Christ during the Great Tribulation, killed by the Antichrist and his troops and so forth for their faith in Christ and they refused to take the mark of the beast, they refuse to bow down and worship his image—they have been resurrected as part of this first resurrection of all the saints.They’ve been resurrected at the end of the Great Tribulation just before the millennial reign of Christ.Now everyone else who remains in the grave, they are dead in trespasses and sins, there is no hope for them, the have rejected Christ, they have rejected the gospel, they have insisted on their own way without God and without Christ and they will be raised and then you read of that in Revelation 20 it says, “and I saw the dead small and great stand before God…” so these are all those who are spiritually dead and they are physically dead, now they are brought out of the graves to stand before the great white throne judgment and Christ will be there.
Tom:
Dave one part of this that I don’t understand is verse 29, “And shall come forth, they that have done good unto the resurrection of life.”How does do you reconcile that with what you’re saying?
Dave:
Okay well, yes I was concentrating on one aspect of this.“The hour is coming in which all that are in the graves,” okay we are going to have to take all that are in the graves— the hour is coming— There is a time coming—it’s going to happen in phases. At the Rapture, those who have faith in Christ will come forth.At the end of the Tribulation those who died for their faith, they come out and then finally everybody that is left.So all the graves are going to be cleared, Jesus is saying and those that have done good.Well what do you mean those that have done good?No one gets to heaven by good works.The good that they have done is to believe in Christ; to believe the gospel and that is—what does it say?To him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.So the righteousness that they have is through faith and then finally all the remains—all that remain in the grave, they are lost forever.So then they are brought forth to stand before the great white throne judgment.
Tom:
Dave this point of “they that have done good” certainly the scriptures teach over and over again that your good works will not merit you or any one else salvation.On the other hand, it does encourage us to and everyone to do good.And there are unbelievers, those who are lost, [and] those who are separated from God who do noble things. Certainly works with regard to helping people or committing their lives to causes that are—that we would call good.
Dave:
That’s not going to help them as far as their salvation is concerned.
Tom:
No.
Dave:
But Tom what it is talking about is here is—see “there is none that doeth good, no not one,” scripture said so we have to take all scripture together.And there is none that doeth good, no not one.”We’ve all gone out of the way, we’re all sinners.But for example, you have many scriptures where—let’s take Abraham for example.It says he believed God, this is Romans 4.“He believed God and his faith was counted for righteousness.”So the faith that he exercised in Christ that was counted as good credited to his account as though he had done good.He was a righteous man before God and that has to be what it’s talking about here.Those who have put their faith—he’s saying you hear my Word, you believe on him that sent me, you have everlasting life, you’re passed from death to life.So those who have by faith in Christ been credited with his righteousness (1 Corinthians 1), “Of God he is made unto us righteousness.”So he is my righteousness.It doesn’t mean those who have done some good deeds.Well how many good deeds?Now do your good deeds outweigh your bad? No.It’s clear from scripture this means those who have trusted Christ, His righteousness has been credited to their account as though they did it because they are crucified with Christ.They’ve died and accepted his death as their death.So that’s what everyone of us needs to be clear on.
Tom:
Right.Dave you make a good point.You need the full council of God.If you read a certain verse and it looks like there is a contradiction here, search out the scriptures because if there are contradictions, if there isn’t perfect harmony in God’s Word, then it’s not God’s Word.