Authority to Judge - John 5:19-29

Son of GodThese verses teach us how the Son can exercise divine judgment and generate resurrection life by his powerful word. It is because, like God, he has life-in-himself. God is self-existent; he is always ‘the living God’. Mere human beings are derived creatures; our life comes from God, and he can remove it as easily as he gave it. But to the Son, and to the Son alone, God has imparted life-in-himself. This cannot mean that the Son gained this authority only after the incarnation. The Prologue has already asserted of the pre-incarnate Word, ‘In him was life’ (1:4). The impartation of life-in-himself to the Son must be an act belonging to eternity, of a piece with the eternal Father/Son relationship, which is itself of a piece with the relationship between the Word and God, a relationship that existed ‘in the beginning’ (1:1). That is why the Son himself can be proclaimed as ‘the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us’ (1 Jn. 1:2). Son of ManIn this context, three strands come together. Jesus is the eschatological Son of Man who receives from the Father the prerogatives of Deity (Psalm 2), a kingdom that entails total dominion. At the same time, he belongs to humanity and has lived a human life. It is the combination of these features that makes him uniquely qualified to judge. Third, judgment in the Fourth Gospel is often linked with revelation (3:19, 8:16; 12:31; 16:8, 11). Judgment descends because men love darkness rather than light. Now ‘the Son of Man’ has already been used in revelatory contexts in this Gospel (1:51; 3:14–15). The entailment of rejected revelation is judgment.1.     The Great Marvel (vs. 19-23)2.     The Great Promise (vs 24)3.     The Great Culmination (vs 25-29)