Jesus continues to teach about His relationship to the Father in these verses. We ended yesterday with verse 24 but I want to go back and include it again with today’s verses.
Verses 24-26 read,
“Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life.
25 “Truly, truly, I say to you, an hour is coming, and is now here, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live. 26 For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself.”
Jesus is the only way to God and to Salvation. It is faith in Him, belief that He is who He says He is, (the Son of God), and submission to Him as Lord that allows a person to be saved, to pass from being one of the walking dead to being alive in Him. The Father is the source of life and He gave Jesus the authority to grant life where He will. He gave Jesus all judgment and He gave Him life.
Eternal life doesn’t begin the day our bodies die. Eternal life begins at the moment you demonstrate your faith by calling Jesus Lord. It begins when you hear His voice call you to life. But there is more to it. Jesus alludes to the Day of Judgment, His second coming. One day Jesus will return and all those who believed and died will rise up from the grave and meet Him in Heaven and immediately following all those who still live will be caught up and move from mortal life to eternal life in a moment. At that moment it will be too late for everyone else. They will see for themselves that Jesus is real, alive, and awesome. They will fall to their knees. But they will have to face judgment. There are no scales, no tallies, and no hoping they were good enough. They either were sealed with the Holy Spirit or they were not. Verses 27-29 put it like this,
“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.”
We do not know when that day will come. It might be this afternoon, tomorrow, ten years from now, or 156 years from now. But we do know it is coming. We read earlier that God loves people and wants the whole world to know Him and be saved. When Jesus comes, there will be no more hemming and hawing. When a person dies their earthly death, time to choose has ended. Do you love people like Jesus does? Do you love the Father so much you want what He wants? Is the Father’s will yours also?
The world is lost and doesn’t know it. People are searching for the truth and taking anything that sounds good to them instead. People need to see the truth of Jesus in you. One day He will be revealed to everyone as He returns to judge the earth. But right now He can be revealed in you.