NOTES for Joh 5:25-47

“The hour is coming, and is now here”—in John's Gospel we hear these words when the Lord speaks about His mission on earth. The first Christians often understood the promises of the Lord Jesus as a description of the soon-coming Day of the Lord, the end of this world, when after the universal resurrection of the body He would judge the living and the dead. But if this event belongs to the future, whether near or distant, then first, it is unclear what it means to say that the hour “is now here”; and second, words about the future may be important as a promise of our resurrection, but not as a description of what is really happening now. Yet the Gospel is a very concrete book. It was written so that we might have life now, not merely become frightened of the future Judgment and start behaving well. If this is so, then acquittal at the judgment of the Son of Man and the eternal life of the Father are already at work, already taking place in the life of one who has believed His words, and His voice is already now bringing to life “those who are in the tombs.”