by Pastor Glenn Layne

March 2, 2003
(John 5:19-30)

Eternity Makes All the Difference: Part 4
Eternity in the Balance

Who is "the Greatest"?

Muhammad Ali said, "I am the greatest": low self-esteem never an issue! Compared to Mike Tyson, he had lots of class, and truly was the greatest boxer of the 20th century.

Arnold Palmer: named the greatest athlete of the 20th century by the Sporting News (an interesting choice).

Elvis Presley: "the King", an undeniable talent, last seen in Lansing, Michigan. Or was the Greenville, North Carolina?

Michael Jordan: His "Heirness" transformed basketball.

Mark McGuire: 1998 70 home runs making him the greatest one-season homerun hitter in history.

Henry Aaron: the most homeruns over a lifetime: 755.

Tiger Woods: still early in his career but already considered by many the greatest golfer of all time.

Bill Gates: the richest man in the world-and the world's most famous nerd!

But it's obvious that all these "greats" are nothing compared to the greatest of all. How would you determine the greatest?

I think you would need to meet certain key criteria:

The greatest would have:

• Unique authority and power
  
• Would not be bound by time and space
  
• Would in a sense straddle both the present and eternity

In the person of Jesus, the early church encountered someone that they could only say of Him: JESUS IS LORD!

They were convinced that He is the greatest.

These last four weeks we have been looking at issues about eternity:

Heaven: it is real and wonderful!
Hell: the bad news (it's terrible!) and the good news (you don't have to go there!)
Rewards: God promises rich rewards for those who seek Him, and serve Him, and sacrifice for His cause

This has required looking at a lot of passages all over the Bible.

Today, though, I want to bring it all together by looking at a single passage, a powerful passage in John's gospel, in which Jesus opens the curtain on His own connection to eternity, as well as the vital role He plays as the One who opens eternal life to all who believe.

Jesus, You're in Big Trouble Now! John 5:17-18

John 5 opens with a healing-the healing of a lame man at the Bethesda pool, a little place tucked away in the northeast corner of the city of Jerusalem. Not only was the man healed, but also he was healed on the Sabbath. If you know the legalistic Pharisees that were at large in Jesus' day, you know that the healing didn't impress them nearly as much at the fact that it happened on the Sabbath distressed them. In his book, How Firm a Foundation, Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein says that in Judaism the Sabbath commands are equal in value all the other commands of the Torah, the OT law. That was the attitude back in that time as well. Jesus, in healing the man, was a lawbreaker!

But in Judaism, the Rabbis were observed that-

• God is "allowed" to work on the Sabbath (He brings birth, death, rain, etc.)
  
• Further, God can't break the Sabbath! (He owns all, therefore cannot walk beyond so far beyond his home!)
  
• So it was agreed: God (the Father) can and does work on the Sabbath.
  
• Now you see how inflammatory was Jesus words: "Father's working; so am I!"

John 5:17: Jesus said to them, "My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I, too, am working."

Notice He does not say, "Because the Father is working, I work too." It's more than that: First, He called God "My Father"-indicating a unique relationship; second, there is no "because"; His listeners were correct when they reacted the way they did:

Vs. 18:

For this reason the Jews tried all the harder to kill him; not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God.

Folks, you cannot have a rational discussion of eternity-of heaven and hell and rewards and life beyond this life-without bringing Jesus to the center of the conversation.

There follows, in John 5, one of the great blocks of teaching of Jesus about Himself and His connection with eternity past, present and future. We are going to concentrate on just John 5:19-30.

Jesus is the Lord of Life and Eternity, 5:19-23

• The Son does what the Father does-in completeness (19)

Jesus gave them this answer: "I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does.

Jesus does not say that He "imitates" the Father. What He does say is that He is so intimately connected to the Father that the same things the Father does, He does.

Jesus is saying some outrageous things here-and it will just get worst. Either this guy's nuts-or He's the Lord of Glory.

• Because the Father loves the Son, the Son will do "greater things" (20) (Greater than what? See 5:1-15)

For the Father loves the Son and shows him all he does. Yes, to your amazement he will show him even greater things than these.

What are the "greater things"? Remember when interpreting Scripture, context is king. The leaders were just frosted when Jesus had healed a man on the Sabbath. Jesus throws it back at them, and says, in effect, "You know how we say that God can work on the Sabbath? Well, guess what-I DO!" Now He says, "OK, look out, you think healing a guy was a big deal? You ain't seen nothin yet!"

• The "greater things" are the changed lives of believers-when a little of eternity bursts into the present (21)

For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son gives life to whom he is pleased to give it.

This is the "greater thing": taking people who are dead on the inside, dead-dead spiritually, dead morally, dead motivationally, dead inspirationally, dead ethically, dead inside and out-and giving them life. This is a power, an authority shared by the by the Father and the Son. And Jesus gives life to whoever He wishes. This is a power only God has.

• So, all judgement is given to the Son, that all may honor Him (22-23)

22Moreover, the Father judges no one, but has entrusted all judgment to the Son, 23that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father. He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father, who sent him.

Imagine this now: as a Jewish listener in Jesus' day, you have always envisioned a judgement day when you would stand before God. But Jesus says, "Yes, you will stand before God to be judged. And I, the Son, am the One you will stand before!"

There is a purpose: that all may honor the Son as they honor the Father. Jesus says, "He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father, who sent him."

This is where the Christian faith has to part company with Judaism, Islam, Unitarianism, and really ever other religion on the face of the earth. Biblical Christianity insists that the only way you can connect with God is through Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Jesus says that the only way you can connect up to eternity with God is through Him. If you don't honor the Son, you're not honoring the Father.

Jesus is claiming nothing less than to be the Lord of life and eternity.

He also says that He gives life to the spiritually dead.

Today, Jesus Gives Life to the Spiritually Dead, 5:24-27

• He has already said that He "raises the dead" in verse 21.
  
• The fullness of that occurs in two stages: a present stage and a future stage.
  
• Stage One: the present resurrection is spiritual
  
• In stage one, we respond to the grace of God by faith and the net result of that real faith is assurance of eternal life now-that the issue is settled! Look carefully at verses 24-25:

24"I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life. 25I tell you the truth, a time is coming and has now come when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live.

These two verses parallel one another. A spiritually dead person hears Jesus' word (or His voice); that person believes; they receive eternal life; they have in fact "crossed over from death to life." That person "will not be condemned"; instead they "live."

To "cross over"; that makes me think of a bridge. It is literally the bridge from death (slow, spiritual death) to life (that starts now and lasts forever).

• Crossing the bridge from death (Ephesians 2:1) to life (John 1:4)

Ephesians 2:1:

As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins…

Not assume-room-temperature dead, but spiritually dead…

John 1:4:

In him was life, and that life was the light of men.

Not born at the hospital life, but real spiritual life.

In sum: when you accept Jesus, when you believe in that life-transforming way, you begin then to breath the air of eternity and to drink from the wells of heaven. Not that you have it in its fullness, but what you have in Jesus is real and will never pass away.

• Can there be a more urgent message for followers of Jesus? Any more urgent message that to show people how to escape the matrix of death and darkness and to cross over into the circle of joy and life? This, folks, is what evangelism is all about.
  
• What Jesus is doing here is exercising the kind of authority given to the Son of Man, the Messiah, as described in Old Testament prophecy.

In vs. 26-27, He says,

26For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son to have life in himself. 27And he has given him authority to judge because he is the Son of Man.

This is based on this key prophecy of Daniel 7:13-14:

13"In my vision at night I looked, and there before me was one like a Son of Man, coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the Ancient of Days and was led into his presence. 14He was given authority, glory and sovereign power; all peoples, nations and men of every language worshiped him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed.

Put the world on notice: He has been given all authority, glory and power; tell the nations that His kingdom is the everlasting kingdom-it will not pass away, and you cannot destroy it.

Nero tried; Nero died!
Muhammad tried to conquer it; it was a fool's errand.
Stalin and Mao and Castro tried to wipe it out; they failed.
Bin Ladin says he will destroy it, while he hides in moldy caves; he will fall as well!

Listen: You don't mess with Jesus. He's the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords, and He's the Master of Eternity.

One day, Jesus will call forth all to resurrection and judgment, 28-30

28"Do not be amazed at this, for a time is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice 29and come out--those who have done good will rise to live, and those who have done evil will rise to be condemned. 30By myself I can do nothing; I judge only as I hear, and my judgment is just, for I seek not to please myself but him who sent me.

• Stage Two: now we go beyond the spiritual, and beyond the present to That Day to come.
  
• Now it's "those in their graves" who hear the voice of Jesus: now we have the physical resurrection from the physical dead; then they will come out of those graves, raised from the dead.
  
• Jesus, the Lord of the Living and the Dead

And on that day…

All will know that He is Lord. All!

And what about you?

Do you know Him?

Have you sensed the voice of Jesus calling you from the realm of death to the circle of life?

By the power of His cross, He took the full force of death into Himself and He beat it. He took the full blow of sin and darkness and absorbed it into Himself.

He calls you to believe. To cross the bridge-a bridge made from the cross He died on.

Cross that bridge today. Now. Right now!

© Copyright 2003, Pastor Glenn Layne, www.templecitybaptist.org