"19 So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, that the Son does likewise. 20 For the Father loves the Son and shows him all that he himself is doing. And greater works than these will he show him, so that you may marvel. 21 For as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whom he will. 22 The Father judges no one, but has given all judgement to the Son, 23 that all may honour the Son, just as they honour the Father. Whoever does not honour the Son does not honour the Father who sent him. 24 Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgement, 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. 27 And he has given him authority to execute judgement, 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 judgement."
John 5:19-29
We turn once more to John's gospel. In our last Note on this passage we spoke of the oneness of the Father and the Son in the fulfilling of the divine purposes. A very dramatic insight can be given into this if we take the words in 19b and place alongside them Paul's great statement in 2 Corinthians 5:19. If it is true that the Son does nothing but what He sees the Father do, we must take it that what Christ did on the cross once for all when He was crucified under Pontius Pilate was something that He saw in the heart of the Father before all worlds. This is a very wonderful thought. That Christ should see the principle of the cross in the heart of God, and that this should reveal to us what the heart of the Father is like, must surely write upon our souls something of the immensity of the gospel revelation. If this tells us anything, it tells us that the self-emptying of the Son expresses and reflects the self-emptying of the Father. This, then, has been the heart of the Christmas message we have been celebrating in these days. Great, indeed, is the mystery of godliness: Nor are the verses which follow (21ff) less expressive of the Christmas message, for the giving of life is what it is about. As Wesley sings, Christ was
Born to raise the sons of earth Born to give them second birth,
and this is the theme of our Lord's words here. In this connection, it is significant to see yet another 'Christmas' insight in a comparison of 25 with 28, where the immediate imparting of life in regeneration (cf. 'and now is', 25) is set over against the final bestowal of life on the resurrection day. This corresponds to the fact of the two comings of Christ, one as a Babe, the other as a King. We need both, to complete the picture.