NOTES for Joh 5:25-47

Today's reading helps us better understand the essence of Jesus' conflict with that part of the Synagogue which rejected and condemned Him. He Himself speaks of this quite clearly: the chief problem of His opponents is that they never knew the real, living God (vv. 37-38). At first glance, such a statement can appear strange, since both supporters and opponents of Jesus were, for the most part, deeply religious people, familiar with Scripture and, at least in words, awaiting the Messiah and the Kingdom. Yet religion, as we can see, had turned for them from a means into an end in itself. The Savior characterizes this situation in one short phrase: you seek glory from one another, and not from God (v. 44).

Every religion is the work of human hands. Of course, the revelation given by God often needs a religious covering in order to be preserved and handed on to coming generations, but its role here is purely auxiliary; religiosity as such has no relation to revelation. Yet, like every human work, religion gives broad scope for creative self-expression, since such different forms of culture as science, art, and ascetic practice are united in it. And, like every human work, religion can capture a person completely. More than that, as nothing else can, it can influence the formation of the value system both of individuals and of entire communities.

It is no surprise that every religion, and especially one such as Judaism, whose foundation is a centuries-old tradition connected with revelation given by God, sooner or later closes itself within its own boundaries and becomes self-sufficient. Then its followers have to make special efforts to break through their religiosity toward God. But Jesus' opponents, as we can see, were not at all inclined toward such efforts. On the contrary, all their strength was directed toward maintaining the religious covering which, in principle, was supposed to protect the revelation once received from God, but in reality had long since ceased to fulfill that function. It is not by chance that Jesus says that the Torah itself, given through Moses, will become their judgment (v. 45): for keeping faithfulness to the Torah means keeping faithfulness to God and to the One whom He sends, not to religious tradition as such, even if that tradition owed its origin to the Torah (vv. 46-47).

And the point is not that the Lord is offended by those who do not receive Him: in general He cares little for glory or fame (v. 41). The point is that the time of Judgment is already near, and He wants everyone to enter the Kingdom (v. 34). For Judgment places everyone before the choice between life and death. And no religion can help anyone here. Only the One who brought the Kingdom into the world can help.

An implicit reference in the book of Prophet Daniel is contained in these Christ's words (Dan 7:13-14). The idea of God's judgment was in no way strange to Jesus’ listeners, and this judgment was announced by all the prophets. And the fact that the Judge in this judgment will be the Messiah, the Christ, some of the names the "Son of man" uses, was also accepted by all. But farther - only questions. Who will be the Messiah? How will this judgment be like? And when it will be (preferably, “till the cows come home”)? Here Jesus comes with the answers to these questions, but how it is difficult to accept His answers! Firstly, He is the Messiah, the King of Israel - poor, misunderstood, humbled and, finally, killed. Secondly, the judgment is already "now". And thirdly, this judgment is just, that is why nobody can be justified by this judgment; but Jesus Christ came not to condemn, but to save, - and in this is His power and the will of the Father that sent Him. As far as all this is above all human expectations and representations - so, it is today too.

Jesus has just spoken of His inseparable unity with the Father, yet now He declares that He seeks the will of the Father who sent Him and can do nothing of His own accord. Here is another apparent contradiction, revealing the mystery of the Son's self-abasement, the mystery of His union with human nature. Having become human, He voluntarily placed Himself in obedience to the Father and went through earthly life as any of us does. In doing so, however, He enabled us human beings to see how one can walk through life, what a person free from sin could be like.

Jesus accepts and confirms John the Baptist's testimony about Him; His words about John are full of respect. At the same time, however, Christ points out the limitations of those who wanted to rejoice around John for a little while but drew none of the necessary conclusions from his ministry. As we know, remarkable spiritual ascetics who lead people to the truth quite often become dear to their disciples and followers for their own sake, regardless of where they called them to go. It would be unjust to attribute to them a desire to create an atmosphere of adulation and idol worship around themselves: they are not to blame for it. Great is the human weakness that prevents us from keeping a proper measure even in what is good in itself. But saints and spiritual ascetics came not in their own name, but in God's Name. We should not forget Him, especially while honoring His faithful servants.

And the warning that someone who comes in his own name will be accepted is still relevant. Often this is precisely why he is accepted: it is so easy to understand…

What, after all, is wrong with wanting to rejoice in the light of a lamp? The key words here are ‘for a little while.’ A lamp has an advantage over the sun in that we can turn it on and off whenever we wish. We cannot do that with the sun. Of course, John the Baptist, like all the prophets, was a rather inconvenient person because he spoke God’s words. But one could turn away from him, listen to some things and let others go in one ear and out the other… Jesus proves a far more inconvenient Man than John or any of the prophets, because He speaks with authority (Lk 4:32). His word enters the heart and becomes a fire there, either warming and healing or burning it up. Why, as Jesus says, do those who hear Him refuse to come to Him to have life? Because what He offers is not a little piece of life, but Life in all its fullness. We want to take just as much life as we need right now to feel comfortable. But when we look at Him and hear His voice, we realize that this will not work. He is the Light that illumines everything, lighting up the darkest corners of the soul. Precisely for this reason, it is impossible to remain indifferent to Him. We cannot choose ‘a little piece of Christ’s light.’ Either we accept Him and agree that our whole life should be in His light, or we choose darkness.

And indeed, we search the Scripture as the key to salvation. It seems like a thick instruction manual, and by following it we will finally gain eternity. It is enough simply to understand what is permitted and what is not, how to act in one or another situation, and everything will work out. But that is not what the book is about.

However people may try to reduce Revelation to Law, that is not the meaning. God reveals Himself; He comes, and it turns out that there are no rules. Even judgment for us consists in the fact that the Light has come into the world, and we begin to see that our deeds are evil. Scripture speaks of Jesus; we read what is written for only one reason: to know Him, understand Him, hear His voice. And, recognizing that the Bible speaks of nothing else, we must read precisely this way the centuries-long history of God's Revelation to people. A Revelation with which it is so difficult to agree, because it overturns our usual ideas about the structure of the world.

Christ's words that those who do not receive Him, who came in the name of the Father, the true God, will receive another are often interpreted to mean that all religions apart from Christian ones are from the devil. Since they do not receive Christ, so the argument goes, they have received "another," and this "other" can only be Christ's opponent. Yet Jesus Himself is not speaking at all about formally acknowledging or not acknowledging Him. Leading people after Himself is not an end in itself for Him. The goal is to lead them further, to the Father. But one can come there only through Him, with His help, by sharing in the fullness of His life.

It is not important to Him what people think about Him: He only wants everyone to be saved. But declarations alone are not enough for this. Spiritual work is needed. After all, He is not creating a new religion for which He is seeking adherents. His task is to make it so that the one who began his path into the Kingdom here will be able to complete it, reaching the end. And to come into the Kingdom, finding salvation there. The question of faithfulness to Christ is not religious or doctrinal. It is a question of faithfulness to God and His Kingdom.

Inner faithfulness most of all. "You do not believe Me because the word of God is not in you." Of course, this is not a matter of knowing sacred texts. "You have neither heard My Father nor seen Him." Here is the answer to all the questions. The matter is not where and when a person was born, what cultural and religious tradition he belongs to, or what sacred texts he has read. The only question is whether he has ever, at least once in his life, encountered the living God.

Not the descriptions of God that can be found in abundance in religious literature and sacred books, but God Himself. If he has, Christ was present there, whether or not the person experiencing the encounter knew of His presence. And if the encounter changed the life of the one who experienced it, if after it the person began to think seriously about spiritual life and the spiritual path, Christ will not abandon such a person. But if a person does not need spiritual life, if for him it is reduced to religious life, he will not see the Messiah.

Even if he is an observant Jew. Or a fully orthodox Orthodox Christian, Catholic, or Protestant. Correct concepts about God and about Christ do not yet guarantee real communion with God and with Christ. And knowledge of the correct texts, for example the Pentateuch of Moses, will then lead only to the author of those texts becoming a witness for the prosecution on the Day of Judgment. For whoever knew more will be asked more.

Speaking about the essence of His conflict with the Pharisees, Jesus puts their distrust of God first. It would appear to be a strange accusation, since the people in question are deeply religious, ready to do much for the sake of their religion, including, if necessary, sacrifice. Of course, there was often no small amount of harshness in this religiosity; readiness to die for one's faith often stood side by side with readiness to kill for that same faith. But after all, both were done in the name of God and faith!

And still Jesus speaks of the absence of love and trust toward God in His listeners. What is this: a feature of Pharisaic religiosity? If that were so, everything would be simpler, especially for us, who have nothing to do with the religion of the Pharisees. But the matter, as we can see, is not so simple. Jesus says directly that He is not the one judging the Pharisees who reject Him; rather, the Torah, whose violation they are trying to accuse Him of, judges them. And in reply He says that the Torah bears witness to Him.

Such a statement may seem strange: after all, in the Torah, unless one tries to interpret it with obvious stretches, nothing is said about the Messiah. But the Torah, on which Judaism is based, never fit completely within Judaism, just as it does not fit entirely within any religious framework. On the other hand, it was precisely the Torah, and above all, of course, the inner Torah about which the same Pharisees could not fail to know, that should have led Jesus' listeners beyond the limits of their own religion, opening to them something greater, if only they had been fully consistent in following the Torah.

But the whole trouble with every religion is that, at first stimulating a person toward spiritual life, at some point it inevitably begins to hinder him in that life, setting a certain spiritual ceiling and demanding from its adherents a compromise between its own requirements and what God calls the one walking the path of righteousness to do. And then a person has to choose between God and a religion that is so familiar and convenient. And Jesus sees that His listeners have made their choice in favor of their religion. And He says that the Torah, which points the way into the Kingdom, will from now on become for them not a support, but a judgment. As it does for everyone who rejects God and the Torah for the sake of anything at all, even for the sake of his own religion. Whatever that religion may be.

In Christ's words today, addressed to the Jews who do not believe in Him, there are several points that matter to us as well. First come the well-known words that the Old Testament Scriptures, through which the Jews thought they would find eternal life, bear witness to Christ. This gives us a key to understanding both the Old Testament as a whole and particular passages that are difficult to understand or accept. Moreover, Christ's call to examine the Scriptures as testimony about Him defines the purpose of the Bible's existence as a sacred book.

It is very important that the Law—the part of Scripture that goes back to Moses—is also testimony about Jesus Christ, not a set of rules necessary and sufficient for attaining eternal life. The Law, then, is concerned not only, and not so much, with what is permitted and what is forbidden as with what is worthy of the Son of God, who became incarnate for our sake, and what is unworthy of Him.

Most importantly, however, in today's reading the Lord speaks of why it can be so difficult for a person to believe Him. We usually think that first we will make sure, and then… somehow our life and our relationship with God will change. But the Lord says that love for God and trust in Him come first. One can demand proof of the existence of an invisible higher power, just as any of us is entitled to demand proof of the existence of an electromagnetic field. One can demand of Jesus of Nazareth signs that He shares in this higher power. But love and trust are possible only and exclusively in relation to a personal God. In this, Christ's words today continue the Old Testament and bring it the fullness of truth.

God is a person, and it is impossible to speak or think of Him in the third person. When we find ourselves having to call God 'He,' like the Jews surrounding Christ or people of later times, we lose something very important. If speaking in the third person about someone present beside us is not quite polite, then doing so about the omnipresent God is simply impossible. God is always 'You,' and only in this way can one accept the testimony about the Son of God and believe Him.

Speaking about His ministry, Jesus mentions both Judgment and the resurrection of the dead—everything that, in the minds of His listeners, was associated with the end of earthly history, the coming of the Messiah, and the advent of the messianic Kingdom. Yet He still does not call Himself the Messiah. Perhaps this was precisely what gave rise to many misunderstandings: while claiming messianic prerogatives, Jesus nevertheless did not proclaim Himself the Messiah, whereas according to the generally accepted religious ideas of the time, no ordinary person, not even a prophet, was permitted anything of the kind. Why, then, does He not try to resolve the misunderstandings simply by announcing His messiahship? Surely attitudes toward His words would then have been different, and there would accordingly have been fewer accusations, perhaps none at all. After all, Judgment and a special relationship with God were both expected of the Messiah, although of course this did not involve divine-human nature in the Christian sense. The problem, however, was that at the time both the Messiah and His tasks were viewed in the Jewish community through the prism of the tradition of militant messianism. Although this tradition had seemed to die out completely in the Hellenistic period, it received new life in the era of the Maccabean wars, which were regarded as the beginning of the messianic war during or soon after which the Messiah would appear. The Messiah was expected not only to declare Himself, but also to act, and to act in a very definite, expected way. Jesus had no intention whatsoever of acting in that way. His chief task during His short earthly ministry was to bring as many people as possible into the life of the Kingdom. His mission was to go about revealing the Kingdom wherever the Father directed Him and to create a community of those who had entered the Kingdom and were ready to devote themselves to bearing witness to it. For everyone else, including even the apostles, all this was merely a prelude to what they considered the main thing: preparation for the messianic uprising and the messianic war that was to end with the expulsion of the Romans and the establishment of a new “kingdom of the righteous.” Jesus constantly speaks of the same thing—the Kingdom and His true mission—without calling Himself the Messiah precisely so that no one will demand from Him what He could in no circumstances do because it was not part of His Father’s plans. This made matters far more difficult and brought the tragic outcome closer, but it made it possible to avoid misunderstandings that could have led to a serious spiritual temptation, the temptation that in AD 70 led to the destruction of the city and the Temple foretold by the Savior.

The Lord again speaks about the judgment that awaits all human deeds. This was probably discussed more than once during Christ's earthly ministry, and all the evangelists in one way or another pass on what the Teacher said. Unlike the lengthy parable of the Last Judgment recorded by the evangelist Matthew, the evangelist John gives here a revelation about the authority that the Father has given to the Son.

The Lord says that the Heavenly Father has given Him authority to execute judgment because He is the Son of Man. On the one hand, this refers to the Messiah, whom Holy Scripture often calls the Son of Man, and so we may understand the Savior to mean that judgment has been given to Him because He is the Christ, the Savior and Redeemer of the world. On the other hand, let us remember the words of the apostle Paul: "Therefore He had to be made like His brethren in all things, so that He might become a merciful and faithful high priest before God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. For because He Himself suffered when tempted, He is able to help those who are tempted" (Heb 2:17-18).

John of Damascus says the same thing in the irmos of the resurrection canon in the first tone, addressing Christ with the words: "You alone know the weakness of human nature and, in compassion, took it upon Yourself; gird me with power from on high..." The Son, in the thought of the apostle Paul and of St. John, alone knows all our weakness, and therefore He is given the right to judge us: He Himself drank our cup to the bottom.

It is striking how differently we can perceive what we read, how differently we “hear.” Perception would seem to depend on the time of day, the reader’s physical condition (quite simply, whether or not one has had enough sleep), and the desire to receive information. Yet there is One in this world who can turn everything, including hindrances, to good (see Rom 8:28). In verse 24 Jesus speaks astonishing words. But even these words can be heard in different ways. Sometimes, by God’s grace, something flares up within us in response to what we have read. He grants this either when we ask for such hearing or when He Himself very much needs us to hear. This is probably the attentive listening and response to His word of which Jesus speaks—not something achieved by our human strength alone. It is no accident that He repeatedly said, “Let anyone with ears to hear listen!” (Matt 11:15). Who, then, does not have these ears? Yet only the Lord can open them. So let us ask God for the gift of hearing, so that the words “whoever hears My word” may apply to us.

We have now heard that Jesus called God His own Father, and that this meant He had declared Himself equal to Him. The Evangelist testified that Jesus spoke about Himself in this way before everyone, and he also testifies that for these words people sought to kill Him, accusing Him of blasphemy. 'Family' terminology is often understood simplistically, tempting many to liken the relationship between the Father and the Son to the relationships between parents and children in human families.

From the ancient Arians to today's Jehovah's Witnesses stretches a long succession of people who find it hard to imagine that the Son could be equal to the Father and one with Him. Human language is limited, but Christ makes it possible to see what is revealed beyond words. The heavenly Father has entrusted all judgment to the Son, who was sent into the world not to judge it but to save it (John 3:17). Here we will inevitably encounter one of the apparent contradictions if we imagine His judgment to be like human judgment. But perhaps we should liken His judgment to a test of strength, of the ability to receive the gift God wants to bestow on everyone—eternal life.

The eternal life God gives is not mere immortality: far from Him, that could amount to a wretched existence in a bad infinity. No, it is fullness of life, different in quality and not merely in quantity from anything one can imagine—a perfect life. The fact that it has already been given to those who have believed means that it is not a reward to be bestowed one day for exceptional merit, but a gift already offered to us all. We can receive it by turning to the Son and acknowledging Him as our Savior.