How surpassing wonderful was the presence of the Son of God in this world. Men were able to see in Him the God about whom they had read in the Old Testament Scriptures, and about whom their fathers had told them. Before their very eyes God was manifested in His nature of love, and in His rich grace for sinners; and the words of Jesus conveyed to them, if they had ears to hear, the thoughts of God. It was an immense privilege to be in the company of Jesus, to see His works, and to hear His words, even as He said to the disciples, “For I tell you, that many prophets and kings have desired to see those things which ye see, and have not seen them; and to hear those things which ye see, and have not seen them; and to hear those things which ye hear, and have not heard them” (Luke 10:24). The disciples of this day are no less favoured, for we have by inspiration of the Holy Spirit the record of Jesus’ life on earth, the wondrous blessings secured by His death, and the testimony of the glory of Christ at God’s right hand.
“He that hears My word”
There were many who listened to the Son of God speaking on earth who did not hear His word. They heard Him speak with the hearing of nature, but they did not hear with the hearing of faith, for their ears had not been opened by God to receive the divine communications spoken by His Son. It is the same today. Men may read the Scriptures, or listen to the word of God spoken, without apprehending anything of the precious truth of God contained in the words written or spoken.
Hearing the word of the Son of God is not simply that we once heard on some particular occasion the truth of God, but rather it is an attitude of soul that characterises the true Christian. There was indeed a beginning to this hearing, when the soul first apprehended something of the divine truth that attracted the heart to Jesus. It was probably a word that brought peace to the conscience, but it formed a divine link in the soul with Jesus, the Son of God; and from that time on it has been the normal habit of the soul to hear the word of the Son of God.
The word of which Jesus speaks (John 5:24) in this Scripture is the spirit and scope of all that He communicated in His teaching, and which brought to men the revelation of God and all His thoughts. Jesus did not claim to be the originator of the word that He spoke, for He said to the disciples, “and the word which ye hear is not mine, but the Father’s which sent me” (John 14:24). He had come from the Father to tell out the wondrous grace of His heart, and to make known His Name to those He had given to the Son.
“...and believes on Him that sent Me”
Believing is another mark of the Christian, and as in the case of hearing, it is not simply that this refers to the believing on some special occasion, but rather to the constant attitude of the soul. A true Christian is marked by hearing the word of the Son of God, and by believing on the Father who sent the Son. The disciples of the Lord Jesus had no knowledge of the Father apart from what was revealed to them in the Person of the Son, and it is the same with ourselves.
The revelation of the Father has been perfect and complete, but we know the Father as seen in the Son, who said, “he that has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14:9). The Son was seen with the natural eye of men, but only faith discerned who He was in the glory of His Person; and only faith can discern in the Son the Father who sent Him. Faith discerns the relationship existing between the Father and the Son, and the wondrous love that moved the Father to send His only begotten Son to make Him known.
To believe on the Father who sent the Son is to apprehend the grace of the Father made known in the Son, and to discern the divine glory of the One in whom the Father is known, for none but the Son, who dwells in the bosom of the Father, could make Him known. It is this faith in the Father that has brought us into the divine circle in which are the divine relationships and affections revealed in the Son.
“...has everlasting life”
This is the third mark, given here, of a true Christian: he has everlasting life, a different kind of life from that which he inherited from Adam. The life derived from Adam, with all its relationships, affections, desires, aspirations, pursuits and attainments, will come to an end; but the life that belongs to the believer is eternal, it will never come to an end. Death brings to a close the natural life, but it cannot touch the eternal life, for it has no claim upon it.
The eternal life belongs to the realm of eternity, though it was brought into the time scene by the Son of God. In the Son, the eternal life was manifested on earth, but it is the life that “was with the Father.” Before the Son came to earth, the eternal life was with the Father in heaven, a life of divine relationships and affections, and it was seen in One whom the disciples saw with their eyes, heard with their ears, contemplated and handled. This heavenly life was seen in the Son, but it was also presented to men in the word that He spoke.
God’s purpose in revealing the eternal life in His Son had in view its communication to men, but this awaited the death and resurrection of the Son. The eternal life was made available by His death, and is communicated by the Son from the place He has taken at God’s right hand. All this was before the mind of the Son when He spoke the memorable words we are considering, as also in the many other words spoken in John’s Gospel concerning eternal life.
It was a very blessed thing for the disciples to see the manifestation of the eternal life in the Son, and to hear the words of eternal life that bound their hearts to the Lord (John 6:68); but how much more wonderful for them, and for us, to possess the eternal life that the Son has made available for us by His death upon the cross. In John 6 we learn that it is by feeding upon the death of the Son of Man that we appropriate the eternal life (verse 54), but here we are taught that eternal life is the portion of those who hear the word of God’s Son and believe in the Father who sent Him.
“...and shall not come into judgment”
How rich is the divine grace that saves the Christian from the judgment of God. The Lord Jesus could speak of this as knowing that He was soon to bear the judgment that our sins merited. Those who remain without faith in the Father who sent the Son will come into judgment, and Jesus, in this chapter, tells us that all judgment has been committed to the Son, “that all men should honour the Son, even as they honour the Father” (John 5:22-23).
David has written, “Enter not into judgment with Thy servant for in Thy sight shall no man living be justified” (Psalm 143:2), and the writer of the first Psalm said, “Therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment” (Ps. 1:5). From these, and many other Scriptures of the Old Testament, we can see that the judgment of God was a very real thing to the saints of God; but it could not be known till the Son of God came that the saints would not stand before the throne of God in judgment.
The Son revealed, in our verse, that believers would not come into judgment, but does not speak at this juncture how this could be. Paul’s writings, in which the righteousness of God is considered, explain how God can “be just, and the justifier of him which believes in Jesus” (Rom. 3:26); and John tells us that love is “made perfect” in giving us boldness “in the day of judgment: because as He is, so are we in this world” (1 John 4:17). In righteousness and love God has set us free from judgment through Christ bearing the judgment of our sins on the tree.
“...but is passed from death unto life”
As having eternal life, the Christian is viewed as having been taken out of the realm of death and brought into the realm of life. This is how God takes account of His own, and it is our privilege to view ourselves in the same way. It is true that our natural life belongs to a realm where death holds sway, but God no longer takes account of us as in the old life before Him, but in the new and eternal life that has been given to us in Christ. It is also true that death can take from us the life that we received from Adam, but how good it is to see ourselves as in the life of the Son of God before the Father.
Christians are in an entirely new order of life, and this is the order that abides, it is eternal. Therefore when the Christian lays down the life he received from Adam, he still lives in the eternal life he received from Christ. It is because this is so that the Lord Jesus said, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, If a man keep my saying, he shall never see death” (John 8:51). There is no death in the realm of life into which God has brought us, and when the Christian leaves this world it is not to see death, but to see Jesus in the paradise of God.
The Lord Jesus spoke on the same line to Martha when her brother Lazarus had died. Martha looked to the resurrection “at the last day,” but the Lord Jesus showed her that faith could see all in Himself, for He said, “I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believes in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever lives and believes in me shall never die. Believest thou this?” (John 11:24–26).
No doubt this involves the raising of the dead and the changing of the living at the coming of the Lord to rapture His church to heaven, but it also tells us that faith does not view death as men view it, but that the Christian knows that he lives in a life that death cannot harm. Those who have left this world behind believing in the Son of God live with Him in the presence of God in the eternal life He has given them: and death is not the portion of believers who leave this world to go to Christ. This is not true to sight, but is blessedly true to faith. And is not this the reason the Lord said to Martha, “Believest thou this?” Sight sees death with all its ravages: faith sees Christ in the presence of God, and His own who have gone before with Him there.
R. 22.12.67