John 5:19-29

So Jesus said to them, Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, that the Son does likewise. For the Father loves the Son and shows him all that he himself is doing. And greater works than these will he show him, so that you may marvel. For as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whom he will. The Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son, that all may honor the Son, just as they honor the Father. Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him. 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. “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. For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself. And he has given him authority to execute judgment, because he is the Son of Man. Do not marvel at this, for an hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice and come out, those who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment.

On the bulletin cover this morning is a little rendering of the tablets with the Ten Commandments, and the theme: Sin and Righteousness.

An important question in our discussion this morning: What are we going to do with our sins?

The Commandments demonstrate to us that we have them (sins). Our Old Testament lesson lays out some of them. The Commandments are presented to us with the understanding that we must not have sins, that we’re required to keep the Commandments without fail. God says, You shall therefore be holy, for I am holy (Leviticus 11:45). The Bible makes clear that no one will enter heaven with sins. So again, our question: What are we going to do with our sins? What’s going to happen about these sins that we have, that in order to enter heaven we cannot have?

Jesus highlights this problem in the Gospel lesson this morning. People of His time have been striving to be as holy as the scribes and Pharisees (Jewish leaders who presented themselves as holier than the rest). Jesus has told the people: that isn’t going to be good enough. Just being as good as them? No. And then He has demonstrated it by going to one of the Commandments that we might think easiest to look at and say, Well, at least I’ve followed that one—the one about not murdering anyone, and says that murdering doesn’t just mean ending someone’s life, it means being angry with him too. It means holding something against him. It means failing to love him according to God’s command. It means failing to want the best for him, and actively trying to bring it about. That’s all part of the commandment too. St. John speaks similarly: Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him (1 John 3:15).

According to that, then, and according to Jesus’ discussion in the Gospel lesson you have to look at every relationship you’ve ever had in this life, and say, have I ever resented someone and refused to forgive, refused to wish well of, refused to pray for them? Then I have been guilty of breaking the Fifth Commandment too. I’ve murdered in the true sense of that Commandment. That’s one of the sins that sticks to me, that I carry around with me, that puts me out of heaven were it to remain with me.

Jesus talks at the end of the text about those who have done evil rising to a resurrection of judgment. He means rising to have the record of wrongs committed against God’s Commandments brought out, and the just punishment rendered in light of it. That’s a resurrection of judgment.

And Jesus has only discussed one Commandment as an example. He uses that one to make the point that you have a righteousness problem, and very big one. There isn’t any hope if you’re thinking that trying to measure up to someone else who looks good is the answer. If that’s your answer you’re going to find yourself in a resurrection of judgment.

We’re back to our question again: What are we going to do with our sins? How’re we going to get them unstuck from us? How are we going to be the way people have to be in order to enter God’s kingdom of heaven? How’re we going to be completely free of any trace of sin?

There’s another thing happening in this text. Jesus is talking a lot about His relationship to the Father. He’s kind of responding to what had been said just before our text. It was that the Jews (certain ones anyway) were seeking to kill Jesus because He was calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God. That was abhorrent to them. He’d been trying to tell them they need Him in order to be right with God; they weren’t having it.

They weren’t having it because they felt pretty good about their position with God. They were comparing themselves to other people, and considering themselves to be measuring up quite well. They kind of saw themselves as the cream rising to the top. How could God refuse them in comparison to all the other people? So, who was this Jesus claiming they needed Him in order to be right with God?

That’s why Jesus is carefully linking Himself to the Father in our text. Jesus the Son isn’t someone who’s working independently; He’s working in perfect harmony with the Father—doing what the Father has shown Him, acting according to His will. We talk about Jesus’ perfect obedience; that’s being brought out in our text. The two are together—the Son and the Father; there’s no dividing them. There’s no having one without the other. Jesus has said it in our text: Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him. What these Jews think they want is the worst thing for them.

They live in a fantasy in which God accepts their sins (because they don’t have as many—they think— as other people). But no one enters heaven with sins—any amount of them. God doesn’t accept any sin.

So, again, we had that question: What are we going to do with our sins? We’ve done evil; so how are going to avoid this resurrection of judgment?

Jesus addresses it very clearly in our text: 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. Think for a moment about what that means. What Jesus means by His Word is everything about who He is, and about His purpose for being here. He is God’s Son, God Himself (He is equal with God, however distasteful that may have been for some of His hearers). And His purpose in coming, is that in Him, sinners be made righteous before God.

One of the things Jesus said one time that indicates this clearly is the passage familiar to people of all ages: For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life (John 3:16). That addresses the relationship of the Father and Son that Jesus has been discussing in our text. It discusses it even more directly. Not only are the two working together, but the Son’s purpose according to the Father’s will is to be the Savior of sinners. They’re saved by believing in Him—believing that this perfect Son has been punished in their place, so that their sins are removed from them.

That’s what it means when St. Paul writes in our epistle lesson: Don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? You are connected through Baptism—through the faith that’s yours in it, to what Christ has done.

Your punishment for sins has been carried out, and accepted by the Father. Remember: no one enters heaven with sins—any amount of them. God doesn’t accept any sin. The necessary punishment for sin was carried out upon God’s Son so that it didn’t have to be carried out upon you.

This had been the Father’s plan along, as expressed to Adam and Eve in the garden after they’d sinned (the promise of the One Who would crush the serpent’s head), and to Abraham (whose vast family would include One as a blessing to all people)—reiterated also to Isaac his son, and Jacob his grandson.

The answer to our question: What are we going to do with our sins?—is that God has already done it for us. You are not going to come out of the tomb to a resurrection of judgment because the judgment has already be carried out upon the One in Whom you trust for forgiveness and salvation, Jesus. You are going to come out of the tomb to the resurrection of life. Your sins have been removed from you. As far as God is concerned, you have, according to the words of our text, done good (it’s really Christ’s good that has been put upon you to remove your sins; but it works). Your sins have been unstuck from you. You’re forgiven of them. You do not come into judgment. You have passed from death to life. You will enter heaven without sins because Christ has removed them from you. The One Who has removed your sins invites you to the Table this morning to receive from Him along with bread and wine, what has removed your sins—His true body and blood. You come in repentance, determined to go and sin no more, and you receive it with joy and comfort in Christ’s holy Name. You receive Christ for the remission of your sins. God be praised. Amen.