Summary of passage: Jesus says to the Jewish leaders that whoever hears him and believes in God will have eternal life. A time will come when the dead will hear his voice and those who hear will live. He has the authority from God to judge. The dead who have done good will live. Those who have done evil will be condemned. Jesus can do nothing without God. He seeks to please the Father.
Questions:
9a) “he has crossed over from death to life.”
b) Part-personal Question. My answer: If you hear the Word and believe in God and thus Jesus. The results for the future is eternal life. My help is to do everything I do with a focus on eternity.
c) “Those who have done evil will rise to be condemned” Verse 29
10) Personal Question. My answer: I am encouraged by the promise of eternal life as it influences my everyday decisions and it’s as easy as hearing the Word and believing. All will be judged is an encouragement as well so I don’t have to worry about it.
Conclusions: Weak. That’s all I’ll say. Could have done more on resurrection here.
End Notes: Since God and Jesus are one, belief in one is belief in the other. Here, Jesus says hear me AND believe in God and have everlasting life and escape judgment from sin. Again, this is a radical idea to the Jewish people since Jesus is saying, “I am God.”
Again, radical ideas as Jesus says even the dead will hear his voice and have a chance to live forever with him.
Again, radical: Jesus says his life is uncreated, derived from no one. He has always been. This is known as aseity. He is claiming the same status as God where the Old Testament says life belongs to God and is his to give (Deut 30:20; Job 10:12, 33:4, Psalm 16:11, 27:1, 36:9).
All will live forever–the good and the bad. The saved and the condemned. All will receive a new body. This power is from God. Jesus is explaining further who he is and why he has come.
Judgement is based on what people have done in their lives (Romans 2:4-8; Rev 20:12). Salvation is a gift from God in response to faith and faith in Christ results in changed lives.
