“Signs Pointing to Deity”
John 5:16-47
“Most assuredly, 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.” [John 5:25]
John 14-15 records two more signs pointing to deity. Jesus healed a nobleman’s son from afar [some thirty miles away]; and a man who was paralyzed for 38 years at the Pool of Bethesda.
In these signs Jesus equated Himself with God. “Therefore the Jews sought all the more to kill Him, because He not only broke the Sabbath, but also said that God was His Father, making Himself equal to God.” [Jn. 5:18] Notice that the Lord followed up His signs with teaching. His miracles ratified His message, and His message was that He is God.
In John 15 Jesus asserted His power over life and death, and His power as Judge, qualities of deity. The religious leaders no doubt knew what He was claiming and therefore stepped up their plans to destroy Him.
Our passage this morning has much to say about life after death, judgment, and the resurrection. Jesus taught that the spirit and soul are eternal, but our bodies are temporal. There will be, however, a new body, a resurrected body made for heaven and designed to be in the very presence of God.
The resurrected body will be an eternal body, it will never decay. At the Rapture, those in Christ will receive resurrected bodies to dwell with the Lord forever.
At the Great White Throne Judgment those who are not in Christ will receive eternal bodies to be condemned to Gehenna [the Lake of Fire]. You want to be in the first group!
And how does one get into that first group? You must humble yourself and believe in the name of Jesus Christ. Jesus made it remarkably simple for you and me.
“The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.” [Jn. 6:29] Jesus did the work on the Cross of Calvary some two thousand years ago. Our part is to by faith believe.
