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The Gospel of John, Jesus' third sign, part 5

John 5:25 says,

²⁵ 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.

Christ is both the Son of God and the Son of Man. The difference has to do with His relationship. He is the Son of God by virtue of being begotten by God; He is the Son of Man through His mother, whose genealogy traces back to Adam.

Son of God; Son of Man

The Son of God raises the dead; the Son of Man exercises the dominion given to Adam in Genesis 1:26.

Adam himself was the original “son of God” (Luke 3:38), created in the image of God, but when he sinned, he could no longer reflect a clear image of God. Hence, he lost the full dominion mandate, and from that point on, his dominion mandate was diminished, because he himself had been sold as a slave to the earth.

By the laws of redemption, the earth became Adam’s redeemer, becoming responsible for the debt that Adam had incurred through his sin. The judgment, or “curse” of the law passed to the earth itself and, by extension, all who were under its dominion. So God said, “Cursed is the ground because of you,” or on account of your sin (Genesis 3:17).

Adam did not lose his authority entirely but was himself placed under a new master—the earth. Though he desired to exercise dominion righteously, he found himself under the authority of his new redeemer, who ruled by “the law of sin” (Romans 7:23, 25). This made it virtually impossible for Adam to exercise dominion properly, for as the Apostle Paul also discovered, that which he wanted to do, he could not do (Romans 7:19).

Christ, the Son of God and the Son of Man, was begotten by the Spirit, walked in righteousness, and was thus qualified to regain that all that had been lost. He Himself needed no redeemer, and so the earth had no authority over Him. Instead, He became the Redeemer of the earth, thus reversing the order of authority that had been imposed upon Adam.

Just as the earth had ruled by the law of sin, Christ rules by the law of God (Romans 7:22, 25). In the end, by redeeming the earth, He has the power to save all who had been under its dominion. Furthermore, He will succeed in His mission, for although many resist His love during the present age, in the end He has the right to rule all things, and so all things will be put under His feet (1 Corinthians 15:27, 28).

Sovereignty and Authority

The title, “Son of Man” first appears in Psalm 8:4-8,

⁴ What is man, that Thou dost take thought of him? And the son of man, that Thou dost care for him? ⁵ Yet Thou hast made him a little lower than God, and dost crown him with glory and majesty! ⁶ Thou dost make him to rule over the works of Thy hands; Thou hast put all things under His feet, ⁷ all sheep and oxen, and also the beasts of the field, ⁸ the birds of the heavens, and the fish of the sea, whatever passes through the paths of the sea.

God delegated authority (not sovereignty) to man, and for this reason, Christ had to come as a man in order to receive that authority. Though God Himself exercises sovereignty, He does not undermine the authority that He has delegated from the beginning. Man’s authority is as real as God’s sovereignty, because all authority originated with God (Romans 13:1).

Men have usually misunderstood the relationship between sovereignty and authority, giving rise to the disputes between God’s sovereignty and “free will.” Authority is not free will; authority is subject to sovereignty, whereas “free will” declares itself to be independent and to have the power to overrule God’s sovereignty—as if man has been given sovereignty over himself.

Fortunately, God did not give man sovereignty, and for this reason alone, God has the power to overrule man’s will and to save all of mankind.

The process of saving the world, however, is complex, because not everyone is being saved at the same time. In the present age, God is calling a few to be a blessing to the many. Then at the great judgment, the Son of God will raise the dead and summon them to the Great White Throne. This will be done by divine decree, and men will not be given a choice.

There every knee will bow and every tongue will profess Him as Lord (Philippians 2:10, 11). They will be judged according to their works (Revelation 20:12, 13), but they will not be lost or discarded. The age of judgment will end with the Creation Jubilee, wherein all sin-debt is cancelled, and every man may return to his lost inheritance (Leviticus 25:10, 41).

The Voice of the Son of God

Getting back to John 5:25, the apostle tells us that the Son of God raises the dead, whereas later, in verse 27, we read that the Son of Man judges the dead. Christ is both, but He exercises authority differently in each capacity. Raising the dead is not just a future event, for Jesus said “the hour is coming and now is.”

Raising the dead, then, is both “coming” and “now is.” Some teachers focus upon the future resurrection, others on the present, but the fact is that resurrection applies in both ways. We must understand both in order to get a complete picture.

The present resurrection applies to those who being called and saved during the present age in each generation. We see it in the rite of baptism, where believers profess Christ and express their faith in His blood that was shed at the cross. Such believers are crucified with Christ, so that they may also live to walk in newness of life (Romans 6:4). So John 5:24 says that these believers will not come into judgment, for they have “passed out of death into life.”

Those who do not hear in the present age will certainly hear His voice in the future when they are summoned to the Great White Throne for judgment. All of the dead will indeed be raised, but some are raised sooner than others.

The Authority of the Son of Man

John 5:26, 27 continues,

²⁶ For just as the Father has life in Himself, even so He gave to the Son also to have life in Himself; ²⁷ and He gave Him authority to execute judgment, because He is the Son of Man.

John stated earlier in John 1:4, “In Him was life, and the life was the light of men.” When life speaks, it creates the light of truth and reality. Jesus Christ is the Logos, the word spoken at the beginning of creation, which created that first light. Jesus said that the Father has life in Himself, and the Son therefore also has life in Himself. “He gave” presents a scenario where the life of the Son is derived from the life of the Father. It is replicated.

In all of this, the two remain distinct, but yet the Son, as a derivative of the Father, remains subject to the Father. The Father is “the God,” and the Son is “God” (John 1:1). But in Christ’s capacity as the Son of Man, He has been given “authority to execute judgment.” All things have been put under His feet. The highest authority has been delegated to Him, according to the plan from the beginning to give man dominion.

It is for this very reason that evil spirits seek to inhabit human bodies. As spirits, they have no real authority in the earth except as they may be able to usurp the authority of an earthly body. Yet when we know who we are and are bold enough in that knowledge to exercise our God-given authority, we are empowered to cast out those usurping spirits and to restore the rule of the Son of Man over creation.

The Resurrection of All the Dead

Jesus then spoke of the future resurrection in John 5:28, 29,

²⁸ Do not marvel at this; for an hour is coming in which all who are in the tombs will hear His voice, ²⁹ 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.

There are two future resurrections (as of the time of this writing). Revelation 20:4, 5, 6 speaks of the “first resurrection,” which is limited to a few who are called to “reign with Him for a thousand years.” These we call the overcomers to distinguish them from the rest of the believers. But in the passage above, Jesus passes over the first resurrection and speaks of the general resurrection at the Great White Throne judgment.

There we find that both believers and unbelievers will be raised. In other words, not all believers will be raised in the first resurrection. There are many believers who are not overcomers who will be part of “the rest of the dead” who are not raised before the thousand-year reign of Christ in the great Sabbath millennium (Revelation 20:5).

At the second resurrection in the sequence, the believers will be given “a resurrection of life,” in that they will be given immortality at that time. The unbelievers will be given “a resurrection of judgment,” for Revelation 20:14 and 15 says that they will undergo “the lake of fire.” Fire is the biblical metaphor for the judgment of the “fiery law” (Deuteronomy 33:2 KJV).

In Daniel 7:10 it is pictured as “a river of fire” flowing out from the fiery throne (Daniel 7:9). A throne is an ancient symbol of law by which a monarch rules; hence, the fire is His judgment or verdict through His exercise of judicial authority. The fire was never meant to be understood as a literal fire, for the law prescribes restitution for most sins. It is only if a man has sinned by burning someone else that he himself might be burned (Exodus 21:23-25). Even then, such burning is not unending, as is so often taught in Christian circles.

Just Judgment is Limited

The law of God sets forth the definitions of true justice that proceed out of the divine nature. God is love, and all judgment meets that standard. Loves’ purpose is to use judgment to correct and restore sinners. The New Covenant is based on the promises of God to save all mankind, and so His judgments are subordinate to those promises and work toward that end.

Each individual being judged will be issued a debt note based upon his “evil deeds,” as Jesus said. In the end, no unbeliever will have the means to pay his or her debt, and so the law says that they must be “sold” (Exodus 22:3) to a redeemer. The redeemers will be those who had already been raised earlier in the first resurrection, for as perfected saints in the body of Christ, they will qualify as redeemers under their Redeemer.

As redeemers, they will have authority to rule over those who lacked the resources to pay for their sins. They will also be responsible to teach them righteousness, for Isaiah 26:9 says, “for when the earth experiences Your judgments, the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness.” The redeemers will teach them by personal example, for as perfected saints, they will manifest the love of God to all who are under their authority. This is the verdict of the “river of fire” in Daniel 7:10. This “river” then settles down as a “lake” during the age of judgment, as men bow their knees to Christ and as they learn the ways of righteousness.

The law of Jubilee limits all judgment through the mercy and grace of God. In this case, I believe that this law, applied on a creation level, comes after 49,000 years of Adamic history. We are completing the first 6,000 years of this history. The next millennium will be the great Sabbath on a creation level. The Great White Throne will summon the dead at the start of the 8^th millennium. The Age of Judgment will last another “six weeks” (i.e., 42,000 years). By that time, all sinners will have learned the ways of righteousness and will be released by the grace of God. They will then return to their lost inheritance (immortal life), “that God may be all in all” 1 Corinthians 15:28).