An Exegesis of John 5:19-26 - A Testimony to the Deity of Christ [Part 2]

 

Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life. (John 5:24)

Ἀμὴν ἀμὴν λέγω ὑμῖν ὅτι ὁ τὸν λόγον μου ἀκούων καὶ πιστεύων τῷ πέμψαντί με ἔχει ζωὴν αἰώνιον καὶ εἰς κρίσιν οὐκ ἔρχεται, ἀλλὰ μεταβέβηκεν ἐκ τοῦ θανάτου εἰς τὴν ζωήν

Jesus here teaches that it is His word which gives eternal life to those who believe on Him (cf. John 10:28). Once again, we have here another claim to deity made by our Lord. Notice what the prophet Isaiah says about the nature of God's salvation:

"I, I am the LORD, and besides me there is no savior." (Isaiah 43:11)

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. (John 5:25)

ἀμὴν ἀμὴν λέγω ὑμῖν ὅτι ἔρχεται ὥρα καὶ νῦν ἐστιν ὅτε οἱ νεκροὶ ἀκούσουσιν τῆς φωνῆς τοῦ υἱοῦ τοῦ θεοῦ καὶ οἱ ἀκούσαντες ζήσουσιν

The Lord Jesus is not only teaching about a future point in time, but also a present reality. 

"The reference here is not only to the dead in the great future. For the voice of the Son of God that calls the dead to life resounds now. Those who hear this voice will not just live in the future, therefore, but now already they will "pass out of death into life," delivered from the power of death by the voice that calls them to rise (cf. 1 Jn. 3:14)." (Ridderbos, 198)

"It is the voice of the Son of God (or his word: cf. v. 24; 6:63, 68; 11:43) that calls forth the dead, and those who hear (cf. notes on v. 24) will live. Such a voice, such a life-giving word, is nothing other than the voice of God (cf. Is. 55:3), whose vivifying power mediates the life-giving Spirit (cf. 3:3, 5; 7:37–39) even to dry bones (Ezk. 37)." (D.A. Carson, The Gospel According to John, pg. 256)

For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself. (John 5:26)

ὥσπερ γὰρ ὁ πατὴρ ἔχει ζωὴν ἐν ἑαυτῷ, οὕτως καὶ τῷ υἱῷ ἔδωκεν ζωὴν ἔχειν ἐν ἑαυτῷ

 

This is a text which teaches (or at least strongly alludes to) the doctrine of the Son's eternal generation from the Father. However, some modern scholars/commentators would disagree here. Many interpreters think that somehow "eternal life" is the reference here. On the one hand, the view that eternal generation is what is being spoken of here is not a "new" idea. Many early church fathers had this same view:

"For it is not, as with the creature so with the Son of God before the incarnation and before He took upon Him our flesh, the Only-begotten by whom all things were made; that He is one thing, and has another: but He is in such way as to be what He has. And this is said more plainly, if any one is fit to receive it, in that place where He says: For as the Father has life in Himself, so has He given to the Son to have life in Himself. For He did not give to Him, already existing and not having life, that He should have life in Himself; inasmuch as, in that He is, He is life. Therefore He gave to the Son to have life in Himself means, He begot the Son to be unchangeable life, which is life eternal." (Augustine, On the Trinity, 1.11.26)

"And, moreover, when He said, For as the Father has life in Himself, so has He given to the Son also to have life in Himself , He bore witness that life, to the fullest extent, is His gift from the living God. Now if the living Son was born from the living Father, that birth took place without a new nature coming into existence" (Hilary of Poitiers, De Trinitae, 7.27)

"Again, you say sometimes that Christ is God. Nay, but so call Him true God, as meaning, that you acknowledge Him to possess the fullness of the Father's Godhead — for there are gods, so called, alike in heaven or upon earth. The name "God, then, is not to be used as a mere manner of address and mention, but with the understanding that you affirm, of the Son, that same Godhead which the Father has, as it is written: For as the Father has life in Himself, so has He given to the Son also to have life in Himself; John 5:26 that is to say, He has given it to Him, as to His Son, through begetting Him — not by grace, as to one indigent." (Ambrose, Exposition of the Christian Faith, 3.16.133)

I think that the following comments from D.A. Carson provide us with a very airtight case for eternal generation as being taught by our Lord Jesus in this text:

"Some thought must be devoted to the ὥσπερ . . . οὕτως (“as . . . so”) construction in John 5:26. The comparison cannot be between two “givings,” as if the Father and the Son each gives “life in himself” to the other. Rather, the construction ensures that whatever “life in himself” means in the Father’s existence, it means the same thing in the Son’s existence. The parallel is so tight that it would be difficult to avoid suspicion of ditheism were it not for the assertion that the Father has given this to the Son. “This means that if we are to understand the kind of life that the Son has, we must look to the kind of life the Father has.” (D.A. Carson, "John 5:26: Crux Interpretum for Eternal Generation" in Retrieving Eternal Generation)

"To summarize, the context of 5:26 describes what God alone does, yet insists that the Son does it, too. This can be cast in universal terms (“whatever the Father does the Son also does,” 5:19, and thus can include things mentioned elsewhere, such as creation) or in the specifics of particular actions that only God can do (exercise final judgment; raise the dead on the last day). In such a context, the “life in himself” terminology of John 5:26 is likely referring to what is exclusively God’s: namely, what we call self-existent life, life that God has because he is God and dependent on no one and nothing, life that is his before creation. If such life is “granted” to the Son, the conclusion of Augustine—that this is an eternal grant—is the only one that makes sense of the text" (ibid.)