For this reason, the Jews began to persecute Jesus and sought to kill Him, because He was doing these things on the Sabbath. But Jesus answered them, “My Father is working until now; and I, too, am working.

” For this very reason the Jews sought all the more to kill Him—not only because He was breaking the Sabbath, but also because He was saying that God was His Father, thereby making Himself equal with God. Jesus spoke again and said to them, “Truly, truly, I tell you, the Son can do nothing on His own; He does only what He sees the Father doing; and whatever the Father does, the Son does likewise. For the Father loves the Son and shows Him everything He does; and He will show Him greater works than these, so that you may marvel. Indeed, just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whom He will. The Father does not even judge anyone, but has entrusted all judgment to the Son, so 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 words and believes in the one who sent me has eternal life and will not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life. Truly, truly, I say to you, the hour is coming—and is now here—when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear it will live. For just as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son to have life in himself. And he has given him authority to judge, since he is the Son of Man.”^[1]

The true Word of God is like a double-edged sword. “For the Word of God is living and active, sharper than any double-edged sword: it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and intentions of the heart.”^[2] In order for God to cleanse us of all impurity, He must pierce our hearts, and this is a painful process, but it is all necessary because we must be cleansed. If there were no pain in our bodies to signal an infection, we would not be able to go to the doctor to treat that infection. It is the same with the pain caused by our sins; if we did not feel it, we could not be healed by the only Healer capable of treating the diseases of the soul—God. It is the Word of God that causes this pain within us.

The Lord Jesus says that the Father is still at work, and He, too, is at work. Both the Father’s work and the Son’s work have a single purpose: the salvation of lost humanity. God wants every sinful person to be able to reach heaven through the forgiveness of sins. We, as human beings, are born with a sinful nature. In this material universe, two types of beings have been created: those who have never fallen into sin and those who have fallen into sin. We belong to the second category. The Apostle James therefore says in his epistle that “this wisdom does not come from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic”^[3], because humans inherit the devil’s nature due to the fact that Adam and Eve fell into sin. Our minds will not help us find God; rather, we must seek Him with our hearts and souls. This requires God’s work in our lives. The Father has been working together with the Son for more than two thousand years. God’s year of mercy has lasted more than two thousand years, but a time will come when the Lord will cease to work for the salvation of mankind. The history of salvation has a beginning, but it will also have an end, and we are drawing ever closer to the end of that time. We are on the very edge of the time limit of this age of mercy that the Lord Jesus spoke of when He came to earth as a man. He said, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He has anointed Me to preach the Gospel to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind; to set the oppressed free, and to proclaim the Lord’s year of favor.”^[4]

After this year of mercy to which the Lord Jesus refers, a day of judgment and wrath will follow. God is a God of mercy; therefore, He grants a year for mercy and a day for judgment. There are two thousand years of grace for the salvation of human souls, and there will be seven years of judgment on earth—during the Great Tribulation—in which all those who refused to be reconciled with God during the year of mercy will remain. The Lord Jesus comes with the solution so that every person may have life. He is not speaking of physical life, which will one day come to an end, but of the spiritual life into which He wants to bring us after we leave this earth.

Spiritually speaking, the world is divided into two categories: the spiritually alive and the spiritually dead (those who are dead to God). Those who are alive to God live each day in communion with Him; they have a living relationship with the Lord, and this speaks volumes about the condition of these people. Those who are far from God have nothing to do with Him; instead, they spend their entire lives living for themselves and storing up treasures on earth. These people do not pray, do not read the Bible, and have no connection with God. These are the hallmarks of a spiritually dead person. We must not turn our way of life into a mere formality, drawing near to the Lord only on Sundays and believing that this alone constitutes a relationship with Him.

A spiritually dead person does not receive God’s words, does not read the Bible, and does not keep the Lord’s laws. A spiritually alive person feeds on the Word of God. The spiritually dead person does not feel hungry, but the spiritually alive person needs nourishment to live and grow. Scripture says of one of the churches in Sardis that they were dead to God and that they were merely called a living church in name only.

A spiritually dead person cannot walk; therefore, he cannot proclaim the Gospel. If we call ourselves Christians, we must walk in the ways of Christ. This is what the Apostle Paul did, and this is what we who wish to follow the Lord must do as well.

The good news is that the Lord Jesus came to give life to those who desire it. “Truly, truly, I say to you, the hour is coming—and is now here—when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear it will live.”^[5] Today is that hour, when any person who is spiritually dead can receive life if they heed the Lord’s words, if they open their ears to receive the words of life. The Son of God gave His life on a cross so that we might have life. “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is of no avail; the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.”^[6]

The person who does not accept God’s words will be lost because of his own choice, since he refused to receive life from the hands of the Lord Jesus. The person who lives in sin cannot have a relationship with God, but if that person acknowledges his condition and asks God to change his heart and life, he will rise from his sins, and the Lord will give him the strength to live a life in close relationship with Him.

“You were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit now at work in those who disobey.”^[7] These are spiritually dead people, who seek only the things of this earth—what they will eat, what they will wear.

 “We too were all once among them, when we lived according to the desires of our earthly nature, when we followed the will of our earthly nature and our own thoughts, and by nature were children of wrath, just like the rest.”^[8] Without God in our lives, we live according to the will of our sinful nature; we are subject to wrath and enslaved by countless sins from which we cannot free ourselves. 

“But God, who is rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved).” He raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in his kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved, through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God. It is not by works, so that no one may boast.”^[9]

In order to obtain spiritual life, we need do nothing more than confess our sins before God and believe that He will forgive us and deliver us from all that is evil in our lives. Only God’s mercy can lift us up, but we must desire this. We have God’s Word—that is, the Bible—at our disposal, by which we can judge our way of life and discover where we stand spiritually. No one will be able to say on the Day of Judgment that they did not know how to live in a way that would be acceptable to God, because the Bible is full of teachings about how we are to live on earth.

The Lord Jesus wants us to rise from the graves in which we lie, but only those who are willing to hear His voice will rise at His Word. Those who do not share in this resurrection on earth will be judged on the day when all their deeds are brought to light before the One who sees into the depths of our hearts. We must not deceive ourselves, but rather ask for God’s mercy to escape His judgment.

 “Do not be amazed at this; for the hour is coming when all who are in the graves will hear His voice and come out—those who have done good will rise to life, and those who have done evil will rise to judgment.”^[10] Here, the Lord Jesus refers to the day when He will be the Judge of all who have done both good and evil. Those who have done good will be raised on the day of the Lord’s coming to rapture His Church, which has served Him even while on earth, and after a thousand years, the dead who have not accepted God’s offer of salvation will be raised; they will be severely judged and punished, being condemned to eternal death, which is hell.

Whoever does not receive the Lord Jesus as Lord and Savior serves the devil, for there is no middle ground. There are only two camps: the camp of those who are children of God, and the camp of those who are children of disobedience and do the works of their father, who is Satan.

Let us make the right decision that can bring us eternal life and save us from condemnation and from the hell that was prepared for the devil and his fallen angels.

^[1] John 5:16–26.

^[2] Hebrews 4:12.

^[3] James 3:15.

^[4] Luke 4:18, 19.

^[5] John 5:25.

^[6] John 6:63.

^[7] Ephesians 2:1–2.

^[8] Ephesians 2:3.

^[9] Ephesians 2:4–9.

^[10] John 5:28, 29.