Grace Bible Church
Basic Training in Doctrine
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Verse 25 is a dissertation on salvation, the principle being that eternal life comes through the Son.
“for the hour is coming” – this is a different hour. This isn’t the hour of salvation, this is the hour of resurrection.
In John 5:28 He is prophesizing the rapture, the resurrection of the Tribulational and Millenial saints as well as the resurrection of the unbelievers to the second death.
In time on earth we hear His voice, which is the gospel, and we respond by faith.
But from heaven at the rapture of the Church it is again hearing His voice for resurrection.
1 Thess 4:16
For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet of God; and the dead in Christ shall rise first.
John 10:3-4
“To him the doorkeeper opens, and the sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name, and leads them out. 4 “When he puts forth all his own, he goes before them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice.
The Pharisees are hearing the voice of the Son of God with regard to matters that pertain to this life, and as the Son of God speaks, everything He says is doctrine, everything He says presents the plan of God.
Therefore the tremendous effect in the power of His voice is given in the fact that Jesus Christ only has to speak and the Rapture begins.
Verse 29 – “And they shall come forth.” The Greek word is ekporeuomai [ek = from; poreuomai = go from one place to another] and it means to go out of one place and into another.
They should listen to the voice of the Son of God as He stands on the steps of the temple and declares to them the issues of eternal life. But they refuse to do so.
They will continue to reject His word and yet there is one time when they will obey the voice of the Son of God, for there will be a second resurrection.
There is one thing that man cannot do on his own, and that is divine good. Who can produce or do divine good? Only a person who is in the plan of God.
To produce divine good you have to first of all receive Christ as saviour, you have to be a child of God and born into the family of God.
Those who produce divine good are believers and they are involved in the first resurrection.
With regard to the second resurrection we have the verb prasso which means to practice, to establish or form a pattern of evil [rejecting the gift of Jesus Christ].
In other words, they all face the cross. But when the person who becomes a believer faces the cross, for the first time he sees divine good and he believes in Jesus Christ.
But the unbeliever who faces the cross goes on negative signals, and when he does he depends upon human good, which to God is evil.
This means that Christ must subordinate His deity to the will of the Father, ands the only way He can do that is to not use His attributes of deity independently – doctrine of Kenosis.
Kenosis: Jesus Christ refused to operate independently of the Father’s plan in His deity. He did not use the characteristics of His deity independently of the Father’s plan.
When Jesus says, “I am not able,” obviously He is referring to his humanity because His deity has unlimited ability – omnipotence.
How does He operate, then, in the incarnation? “As I hear, I obey” – He obeyed perfectly the will of the Father during the incarnation.
He is judging right now, but He is not judging because of what He feels about it, He is judging because the Father has said that those who reject the Son must come under judgment.
“Him who sent me” – apostello, which means to send on a special official delegation.
This is the impact of the message of Jesus Christ. The people who reject that salvation are going to be condemned; but He was sent officially into the world to save the world, not to condemn the world.
1 John 5:11-12
And the witness is this, that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He who has the Son has the life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have the life.
This means that Jesus Christ was judged on the cross and the Father has given Him the privilege of judging all who reject His judgment.