John 5:29Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

Why did He not wish to say, “and they will live”? Because all will come forth, but not all will live.

Indeed, when He said above, “And those who hear will live,” He wanted us to understand, through hearing the voice of the Son of God, the eternal and blessed life.

Not all who come forth from the tombs will obtain that life. In the mention of tombs, and in the words about those coming forth from tombs, we see the resurrection of bodies with complete clarity.

All will hear His voice and come forth. Where, then, is the judgment, if all hear and all come forth? Here everything seems confused. Nothing here is clear to me.

It is plain that You received authority to judge because You are the Son of Man. Behold, You will be present at the judgment, and bodies will rise.

Say something about the judgment itself, that is, about the division between the evil and the good. Hear what follows: “Those who have done good, to the resurrection of life; and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of condemnation.”

Above, when He spoke of the resurrection of minds and souls, did He not make a division? “All who hear will live,” because through obedience they will live.

But when they rise and come forth from the tombs, not all will go into eternal life. Those who have done good will go there. Those who have done evil will go to condemnation.

Here He set judgment in relation to punishment. There will be a separation, but not such as now exists.

Even now we are separated, not by place, but by character, attachments, desires, faith, hope, and love. Yes, we now live together with the unrighteous, but not all have one life.

We are divided invisibly. We are separated from one another invisibly, like grain on the threshing floor, not like grain in the barn.

On the threshing floor the grain is both separated and mixed. It is separated when threshed, yet mixed with chaff because it has not yet been winnowed.

Only then, at the end of the world, will there be an open separation, both in character and in manner of life, in the life of the mind and of the body.

Those who have done good will go to live with the Angels of God. Those who have done evil will go to be tormented with the devil and his angels (cf. Mt 25:41).

The form of a servant will pass away. He showed Himself in that form in order to carry out the judgment.

After the judgment He will depart from here, bearing with Him the body of which He is the Head, and He will deliver the Kingdom to God (cf. 1 Cor 15:24).

Then the form of God will be openly seen. The unrighteous could not see it, and for their sight the form of a servant was needed.

He says elsewhere in this way: “And these will go away into eternal punishment,” speaking of those on the left, “but the righteous into eternal life” (Mt 25:46).

Of this life He says elsewhere: “This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ Whom You have sent” (Jn 17:3).

Then He Who, being in the form of God, did not consider equality with God a thing to be grasped, will show Himself (Phil 2:6).

Then He will show Himself as He promised to show Himself to those who honor Him: “He who loves Me keeps My commandments.”

“And he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and manifest Myself to him” (Jn 14:21).

He was near those with whom He was speaking. But they saw the form of a servant, and did not see the form of God.

They had been brought on the beast to the inn for healing (cf. Lk 10:30-35). Once healed, they saw, for He said, “I will manifest Myself to him.”

In what way does He manifest Himself as equal to the Father? As He once said to Philip: “He who has seen Me has seen the Father” (cf. Jn 14:9).

This is judgment, that punishment of which He said a little earlier: “He who believes in Me has passed from death into life and does not come into judgment” (Jn 5:24).

“They will come forth.” And where? To judgment: those who have done good, to the resurrection of life; those who have done evil, to the resurrection of condemnation.

And do You do this alone, since the Father has given all judgment to the Son and judges no one? “Yes,” He says, “I do it.”

But how do You do it? “I can do nothing of Myself. As I hear, I judge; and My judgment is righteous” (Jn 5:30).

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).

When He spoke also of the spiritual quickening of the dead by faith in Christ, He did not say "all the dead," but simply "the dead." For in the moral sense not all the dead will live, but only those who believe. At the time of the universal resurrection and judgment, however, all who have ever lived will rise without exception and undergo the last judgment. The holy Apostle Paul unfolds the teaching on the universal resurrection in considerable detail in 1 Cor 15:1 and following. "Those who have done good to the resurrection of life": those who justified their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ by good works (cf. Theophylact) will rise into life, or for life, that is, eternal life. Those who have done evil will rise for condemnation (cf. Mt 25:31 and following).

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).

Dead works are all those which, though not contrary to the commandments in outward form, are done without any thought of God and eternal salvation, for some motive of self-love. God is life. Only that in which there is a share of Him is truly alive. Thus whoever has only dead and death-dealing works goes straight on, and on the last day will come forth to the condemnation of death. But whoever has all living works goes on, and on the last day will come forth to receive eternal life.

The first of these moments is the appearance on earth of God incarnate and His preaching, which raises men to new life. Then comes the resurrection in earthly life of the bodies of many departed saints at the great moment of redemption (Mt 27:52). Then comes the spiritual resurrection of those in "the prison of spirits" (1 Pet 3:19), the rebirth to spiritual life of the members of the Christian Church, and the life of the soul beyond the grave after the death of the body. Finally comes the rising from the dead, in bodies, of men of all ages and lands, so that they may stand before the great and dread judgment seat of Christ (Mt 25:31; Acts 17:31; Rom 2, and many others). All these different kinds of resurrection are embraced in the Lord's words in verses 25-29 of this chapter. Cf. St. John Chrysostom on John the Theologian, Homily 39, at the end of section 3. They are the fulfillment of what the Lord of old commanded the prophet Isaiah to say: "Arise, shine, O Jerusalem, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you!... and nations shall come from darkness to your light" (Isa 60:1-3). The Apostle expresses this same thing majestically when he cries: "Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give you light!" (Eph 5:14). Looking further into the Lord's words, "those who have done good will come forth to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment," we see that judgment is only for evil hearts and unbelievers. Comparing this place with the words, "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" (above, v. 24), and also with Jn 3:18-20: "He who believes in Him is not condemned, but he who does not believe is condemned already... for everyone who does evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works be exposed, because they are evil," we see that faith alone in the Son of God saves. For only the man reborn by this faith can do works pleasing to God, works not of hypocrisy but of true love. Ready for eternal life, he goes "to the resurrection of life" and "shall not come into judgment." To the "resurrection of judgment" rise "those who have done evil." They "do evil" because they hate the light and do not come to the light, for this light will expose the wickedness of their hearts. Thus judgment is for the evil, for those who "have shown no mercy" (Jas 2:13), and for those who have rejected the mercies of God. For those who truly believe and do the will of the heavenly Father (Mt 7:21), there is eternal life, the Kingdom of heaven.