27 And he has given him authority to execute judgment, because he is the Son of Man. 28 Do not marvel at this, for an hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice 29 and come out, those who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment.
John 5:27-29
There are some who love to preach God’s judgment because they’re arrogant, and they think that they are more righteous than everyone else and all the Pagan heathens are gonna burn.
There is a helpful and right negative reaction to such a presentation of God’s judgment. But that leads some to be driven, not by faithful exposition of the Scriptures, but by sentimentalism or emotion. Judgment, they conclude, is bad, and its foreign to the gospels where we just see a Jesus who heals and helps.
The gentle and lowly Jesus is also Jesus the Judge of all. You don’t get one or the other.
The hour is coming, Jesus teaches, where the dead will be raised, and all will face judgement.
Those who have done good, those who have believed the words of the Son will rise to a resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment.
We confess in our service in the Apostles’ Creek: “From there he will come to judge the living and the dead… We believe in the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting.”
How you live this brief life echoes through eternity. Jesus teaches that resurrection and judgement await all of us.
This is not something you can preach pridefully if you grasp the weight of it. It’s something we must preach with fear and trembling. But hallelujah, the One who will judge us is the one who can save us!
You don’t believe me? Jesus asks. Allow me to introduce my witnesses.
He cites four in verses 30-47.
First, John the Baptist. He was a lamp that lit my path. But the testimony I have is greater than his.
Next, the very works that I’m doing, the works the Father has given me to accomplish bear witness that the Father has sent me.
The Father himself bears witness to me, but you do not hear his voice, because you do not listen to my message. His love does not abide in your heart. And his word, the one you memorize and study? It does not dwell in you.
If you really believed the words of Moses, your Bible, you would believe me. Because all that he wrote, and all the prophets wrote, it all points to me.
Do you believe the words of Jesus? Have you heard the words of Jesus and responded in faith? Do you live today in light of the fact that eternity looms for all of us? And how does this create in us a sense of gospel urgency?
As a church, we have invested a lot in our fellowship over the past couple of years. But as we get healthier, we must look outward.