Life Now and Forever (John 5:21-29)

In a few weeks we will be celebrating Christmas. One thing most people look forward to at this time of year is the exchanging of gifts. While our society can fall into an unhealthy consumerism when it comes to giving and receiving gifts, it’s important for us to remember that gifts can convey a deep care, concern and love for another person.

When you receive a gift from someone, what do you do with it? Sometimes gifts we receive can end up in the back of a dark cupboard or get re-gifted to another person if we don’t like them or we don’t have a purpose for them. However, when a gift reflects our interests or passions, we will usually put the gift that’s been given to us to good use in some way.

As we listened to this reading from John 5:21-29, something Jesus said might not sound quite right to us. He was describing what will happen when he returns to the world in glory at the end of time. Jesus said that the dead will hear his voice and will rise from their graves. He then continued, ‘Those who have done good will rise to experience eternal life, and those who have continued in evil will rise to experience judgment’ (v29 NLT).

This might sound strange to us because we believe that the good news of Scripture is we are saved by God’s grace through faith in Jesus, not by works of the law. Paul repeatedly points us to this message throughout his letters, including Romans 3:22, Ephesians 2:8, Galatians 3:24, Philippians 3:9, etc. John already pointed us to salvation by faith when Jesus talked with Nicodemus in chapter 3. He wrote, ‘everyone who believes in (Jesus) will not perish but have eternal life’ (3:16 NLT). The good news we believe and proclaim is that we are put right with God through faith in Jesus, not by what we do. To hear Jesus say in 5:29 that our eternity will depend on the good we do can sound like a contradiction to this good news.

Earlier in this passage Jesus talked about the authority the Father has given him to judge and to give life to whomever he wants. Jesus said, ‘I tell you the truth, those who listen to my message and believe in God who sent me have eternal life. They will never be condemned for their sins, but have already passed from death into life’ (v24). Jesus is clearly proclaiming that we are saved by faith. When we hear Jesus’ message of grace and love for us in his suffering, death and resurrection, the Holy Spirit gives us the faith to believe it is true and we receive eternal life through that faith. As Paul wrote in Romans 10:17, ‘faith comes from hearing, that is, hearing the Good News about Christ’ (NLT).

Jesus is telling us that through faith in him, we have already passed from death to life (v24). Paul said the same thing in Colossians 3:1 when he wrote, ‘Since you have been raised to new life with Christ, set your sights on the realities of heaven’ (NLT). Eternal life isn’t just something we look forward to when we die. It is something we participate in now. Because God gives us eternal life as a gift through faith in Jesus, it is something that we receive now, and that we grow into during our life in this world. Just like the gifts we receive at Christmas or our birthday, God has already gifted us with eternal life through faith in Jesus. Like all gifts, this life comes at a price. The price of God’s gift of life is paid in full for us through Jesus’ sinless life, his innocent death in our place, and his victorious resurrection from the dead. God gives us eternal life as a free gift because Jesus has done everything necessary to earn it for us. Like any gift, it becomes ours the moment it is given to us, and we receive it simply by believing God’s promise to us.

That’s why Jesus says ‘I assure you that the time is coming, indeed it’s here now, when the dead will hear my voice – the voice of the Son of God. And those who listen will live’ (v25). Jesus points us to the future as well as the present. When we hear his voice speak grace and truth to us, we enter into eternal life through faith in him now. Jesus also points us to the future when he says, ‘the time is coming when all the dead in their graves will hear the voice of God’s Son, and they will rise again’ (v28,29a NLT). Jesus is describing his return at the end of time when he will call all who have died from their graves to enter eternity with him.

John 5:21-29 challenges us to think about what we do with the gift of life we have through faith in Jesus. When we receive a birthday or Christmas gift, either we will put it to good use, or we will put it away and forget about it. It is the same with the gift of life God gives us in Jesus. The Bible consistently sees that what we believe and what we do, or our faith and our works, belong together like two sides of the same coin. Passages such as Galatians 5:6, James 2:17,18, Psalm 37:3 and others all teach us that what we believe shows in what we do. Jesus’ New Command to love one another the way that he loved us in John 13:34 assumes that we will believe in God’s love for us in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, and faith in his love will lead us to love others in the same way. This connection between what we believe and what we do led Martin Luther to write that that the whole Christian life consists of faith towards God and love or works towards our neighbours (LW 27:30).

Jesus says that ‘those who have done good will rise to experience eternal life’ (v29 NLT) at the end of time because when we believe in his saving love for us, it will show in the good we do. At this point we could ask what makes an action ‘good’ and moral philosophers have been discussing this for thousands of years. For today we can think about ‘good’ as works of Christ-like, sacrificial love for others. Ephesians 2:10 promises that God has already planned good for us to do in our lives. We can go through every day with open eyes looking for the good he has prepared for us to do. As we heard in Hebrews 10:24 last week, one of the main reasons for gathering as God’s people in worship is to ‘motivate one another to acts of love and good works’ (NLT). Doing good won’t earn a place in eternity for ever because we already have that through faith in Jesus. Instead, doing good gives people an experience of the goodness of God in us (1 Peter 2:12) and overcomes the evil around us (Romans 12:21).

Just like we will usually use a gift that’s given to us in some way, doing good for Jesus’ sake is the natural response to the gift of life Jesus gives to us through the gospel. He gifts us with eternal life, paid for in full by his life, death and resurrection for us. When Jesus returns in glory, what will he see we have done with the gift he has given to us? God give us the grace to use his gift of life in Christ to do good for others, not so we can earn our way into eternal life, but because God has already given us life now and forever through Jesus.

More to think about or discuss:

• What is something you would like for Christmas? What will you do with that gift if you receive it?
• Do you think of God’s gift of life more as something you will receive in eternity or something you have now? How might thinking of eternal life more as a gift we receive now shape the way you think about your life?
• What are some of the good things God has planned for you to do? How might keeping our eyes open for opportunities to do good shape the way you live your life?