John 5:27Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

Whoever is convinced that he will rise and then give account for his sins, even if he sees no other sign, will quickly turn through this conviction alone. He will strive to appease his Judge, "because He is the Son of Man. Do not marvel at this" (Jn 5:27-28). Paul of Samosata does not read this passage so. How does he read it? "He gave Him authority to execute judgment, because He is the Son of Man." But such a reading has no coherence. He did not receive judgment because He is man. Otherwise, what would prevent all men from being judges? Rather, He is Judge because He is the Son of the ineffable Essence. Therefore it must be read thus: "Because He is the Son of Man, do not marvel at this."

It must be known that Paul of Samosata, presenting the Lord as a mere man, read this passage thus: "and He gave Him authority to execute judgment also, because He is a son of man." Placing the punctuation there, he began another reading: "Do not marvel at this." Such a reading is wholly unreasonable. For the Father gave judgment to the Son not because He is the Son of Man, but because He is God. But he, unable to bear calling Christ God, called Him Son of Man and understood Him to be Judge not as God, but as son of man. We understand it as it is said.

Therefore, to divine authority and God-befitting splendor, He joined a word appropriate to humanity. He veils the weight of their anger, speaking somewhat more gently and weakly than was fitting: "For as the Father has life in Himself. So He has granted the Son to have life in Himself." He says: Do not marvel if, though I am now like you and appear as man, I promise one day to raise the dead and threaten to bring them to judgment. The Father has given Me power to give life, and He has given Me authority to judge. Since by these words He healed the unstable hearing of the Jews, He quickly and profitably turns His care to what follows. He immediately explains why He says of Himself that He has "received," setting forth His humanity as having nothing of itself in the words: "because He is the Son of Man." That the Only-begotten is by nature both life and does not receive life from another. But gives life just as the Father does, I consider unnecessary to discuss at present. We treated this at no small length at the beginning of the book, when interpreting the saying, "what came to be was life in Him" (Jn 1:3-4). If the Son has life in Himself as the Father also has it, then He has life essentially and not by participation. For in the Father life is essential. Better still, the Father is by nature Life-in-itself (αύτοζωη). Let those who hear the Son say that life was given Him by the Father not be troubled. This is like heat proceeding from fire saying: "As fire has warmth in itself, so it has given me also to have it in myself." Certainly this bestowal of properties is not understood as occurring through the recipient's participation, nor through some division of a part or cutting away from the giver. Rather, the movement (φορά) of the one sent proceeds, as it were, from essential unity with the one who sends. Therefore, since the Son has life in Himself as the Father has it, and since He is exactly what the Father is, how can the Son be created, when He who begot Him is not such?

"Because He is the Son of Man." Christ is both the Son of God and the Son of Man. "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God" (Jn 1:1-2).

See how He gave Him to have life in Himself. But since "the Word became flesh and dwelt among us" (Jn 1:14), He who became man from the Virgin Mary is the Son of Man.

Therefore, since He is the Son of Man, what did He receive? Authority to execute judgment. What judgment? The judgment at the end of the world. Then the resurrection of the dead will take place, but now of bodies.

God raises souls through Christ, the Son of God. God raises bodies through the same Christ, the Son of Man. "He gave Him authority." He would not have this authority if He had not received it, and He would be a man without authority.

But the same Son of God is the Son of Man. For, by the union of the Person, through the joining of the Son of Man to the Son of God, there came to be one Person.

The Son of God is the same Person as the Son of Man. What then must be distinguished according to what He possesses?

The Son of Man possesses a soul and a body. The Son of God, who is the Word of God, possesses man, as the soul possesses the body.

As the soul, possessing the body, does not form two persons but one man, so the Word, possessing man, does not form two persons, but one Christ.

What is man? A rational soul possessing a body. Who is Christ? The Word of God possessing man.

I see what I am saying, and who I am who say it, and to whom I am speaking. Now hear of the resurrection of bodies, and not from me, but from the Lord.

He will speak for the sake of those who have risen, having been lifted from death and joined to life. To what life? To the life that knows no death.

Why does it know no death? Because it knows no change. Why does it know no change? Because it is life itself in itself.

"And He has given Him authority to execute judgment also, because He is the Son of Man." What judgment? What kind of judgment? Do not marvel at this, for He said, "He has given Him authority to execute judgment also."

Next, since the Son became man, what did the Father give Him? "And He has given Him authority to execute judgment also, because He is the Son of Man."

According to the fact that He is the Son of God, "as the Father has life in Himself, so He has granted the Son also to have life in Himself."

According to the fact that He is the Son of Man, He gave Him authority to execute judgment.

This is what I explained to you yesterday, beloved: at the Judgment they will see Him as man, but they will not see Him as God.

After the Judgment, those justified in the Judgment will see Him as God, but the ungodly will not see Him as God.

Because they will behold Him at the Judgment as man, and because He will come in the same form in which He ascended, He therefore said above, "The Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son" (Jn 5:22).

He repeats the same thing here when He says, "And He has given Him authority to execute judgment also, because He is the Son of Man."

You ask, as it were, "Why did He give Him authority to execute judgment? When did He not have that authority to execute Judgment?"

If "in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God," and if all things were made through Him (cf. Jn 1:1, 3), then did He not have authority to execute Judgment?

"But I say, 'He has given Him authority to execute judgment also,' according to the fact that He is the Son of Man. According to the fact that He is the Son of Man, He received authority to execute Judgment."

For according to the fact that He is the Son of God, He always had this authority. He who was crucified received it. He who was in death is now in life.

The Word of God was never in death, but always in life. Perhaps someone among us had already said concerning the resurrection, "Behold, we have risen."

"Those who hear Christ, who believe and have passed from death into life, will not come into judgment. The hour is coming, and now is, that he who hears the voice of the Son of God may live."

"He was dead, he heard, and behold, he has risen. What then is meant by the statement that the resurrection will take place later?"

Have pity on yourself. Do not hasten after that judgment, lest you fall with it. Certainly there is a resurrection which takes place now.

Unbelievers were dead. The unrighteous were dead. Having become righteous, they live. They pass from the death of unbelief into the life of faith.

But do not therefore think that there will later be no resurrection of the body. Believe also in the resurrection of the body that is to come.

Hear what follows after this resurrection, which takes place through faith, so that no one may think that it is the only one.

Let no one fall into the despair and error of those who corrupted the thoughts of others, saying that the resurrection had already taken place. The apostle says that they "overthrow the faith of some" (2 Tim 2:18).

I suppose they said something like this to them: "See, the Lord says, 'He who believes in Me has passed from death into life.'"

"The resurrection has already taken place in believers who were formerly unbelieving. How can one speak of another resurrection?"

Thanks be to the Lord our God. He supports the wavering, directs the perplexed, and strengthens the doubting.

Hear what follows, when you no longer have that by which you create for yourself the darkness of death. If you have believed, believe wholly.

You ask, "What does it mean to believe wholly?"

He has completed the discourse on the resurrection of souls. It remains to speak more definitely about the resurrection of bodies. "And He has given Him authority to execute judgment also."

He was given not only to raise souls through faith and wisdom, but also to execute Judgment. But why? "Because He is the Son of Man."

Therefore the Father performs through the Son of Man something that He does not perform according to His own essence, in which the Son is equal to Him. For example, He was born, was crucified, died, and rose.

None of these belongs to the Father. So it is also with the resurrection of bodies. The Father brings about the resurrection of souls from His own essence through the essence of the Son, in which the Son is equal to the Father.

For souls, not bodies, become partakers of that immutable light. But the Father brings about the resurrection of bodies through the Son of Man.

"And He has given Him authority to execute judgment also, because He is the Son of Man." This corresponds to what was said above: "For the Father judges no one" (Jn 5:22).

And to show that He said this about the resurrection of bodies, He continues, "Do not marvel at this, for the hour is coming," not "has now come," but "is coming."

"All who are in the tombs," and you heard enough about this yesterday, "will hear His voice and come forth" (Jn 5:28).

And behold, the time will come when, at the voice of the Son of God, all the dead will rise from their graves. For as the Father has life in Himself, so He has granted the Son to have life in Himself." "I have also spoken of judgment. Yes. When all rise from the dead, both good and evil, then the Son will leave the good, who received His word with faith, and will turn His judgment against the evil. Verse 24 says that they do not come into judgment. Again, the Son does not seize for Himself from the Father either the right of judgment or its execution. He has it according to His will. The Father gave Him authority to execute judgment because He is the Son of Man. He is that very Son of Man whom Daniel saw receiving from the Ancient of Days dominion, honor, and kingdom (Dan 7:13). And the Son will execute this judgment not according to His own arbitrariness, but according to righteousness, in harmony with the judgment of the Father. I have already said that He can do nothing of Himself and does not seek His own will, but the will of the Father who sent Him." There was no need to ask who this Son was. The Lord said that all this had been entrusted to Him: "I can do nothing... I do not seek My own will" (v. 30).

Through this He is the source of life for others and gives life to whom He wills. As the Father gave the Son to be the source of life for the world, so He also gave Him authority of judgment, "because He is the Son of Man." For He is the Messiah, the Redeemer of the world. As He is to accomplish the redemption of the world, so He also has authority to judge the world.

Therefore He gives life to whom He wills, having become the source of life also according to His humanity. Together with this, authority to execute judgment was given Him by the Father (see note on Jn 5:22). For He, being the only-begotten Son of God, also became the Son of Man in the Incarnation. That is, He became the Messiah, Redeemer, and Savior of the world. With this, the authority of Judge of this world is inseparably joined (cf. Gregory the Theologian 3, 86-87).

There they are anticipated by the spiritual and moral resurrection of believers into new life, which lays the foundation for future eternal blessed life. They are also anticipated by the spiritual and moral judgment of which the Lord had spoken before, in His conversation with Nicodemus (Jn 3:18-19). Both this resurrection and this judgment are inseparably bound to the salvation of men, for which Jesus Christ came to earth: "Amen, amen, I say to you, he who hears My word and believes Him who sent Me has eternal life and shall not come into judgment. But has passed from death into life." He passes without being condemned for unbelief, so that at the last judgment the righteous pass without condemnation from temporal death to eternal life. The time of spiritual resurrection began with the coming of Christ the Savior into the world, and it will be completed by the future universal resurrection. Both resurrections have one foundation in Christ and are joined in His thought by an inseparable bond. "Amen, amen, I say to you, the hour is coming, and now is, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live. For as the Father has life in Himself, so He has granted the Son also to have life in Himself, and has given Him authority to execute judgment, because He is the Son of Man. Do not marvel at this; for the hour is coming in which all who are in the graves will hear the voice of the Son of God, and will come forth: those who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment." Such will be the universal resurrection of the dead. That the judgment also will be righteous, Jesus Christ again confirms by pointing to His equality with the Father: "I can do nothing of Myself. As I hear, I judge, and My judgment is righteous, because I do not seek My own will, but the will of the Father who sent Me." According to the interpretation of St. John Chrysostom, this means: "I judge as the Father Himself would judge. I have no will other than, or separate from, the Father. What the Father wills, I also will; and what I will, He also wills."

Some, including Chrysostom, join the words "Do not marvel at this" with the words "because He is the Son of Man." But the Evangelist's words do not allow such a connection, for then the word τουτου, "at this," would be superfluous. The object of wonder, as the ancients also understood it, including Origen, Nonnus, and Augustine, is the resurrecting power of the Son of Man. Carried away by the power of Jesus' words, the Pharisees and scribes forgot their indignation against Jesus and stood amazed at the unheard-of teaching. The Lord says: Do not marvel at what has been said. I repeat that the time will come when the dead will rise through the action of the Son of God, each to the lot prepared on earth. Authority has been given to the Son of Man, but the Son of God will restore all the dead to life by the power of the Godhead. The Son of God and Son of Man will accomplish the judgment over the universe. For He prepared every means of salvation for the human race, reconciled divine justice by His death, and sent abundant grace to men. Therefore He has the right to judge the universe in its faithfulness or betrayal toward the heavenly Father (Mt 25:35, 41).

He raises the dead on earth, and He accomplishes the resurrection of those morally dead on earth. He raises the dead after earthly death, brings them into eternal life, and promises in the future the general resurrection in the bodies of all men. "For the Lord has appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by the Man whom He has ordained, giving assurance to all by raising Him from the dead" (Acts 17:31). Judgment has been given to the Son, "because He is the Son of Man." O the greatness of goodness and mercy, which appoints as Judge Him who "bore our infirmities"! This is the Man ordained beforehand, risen from the dead, who will judge the universe because He is God. Yet He is also the Son of Man.