This is my first draft of a lecture for this years ACBC conference. (Break Out 2) https://biblicalcounseling.com/about/events/2024-annual-conference/#speakers I always tinker with these things, so what I have here may change. This just the intro

Jesus often speaks in such a way that each statement presents more conflict and difficulty than the statement before. In John chapter 4, Jesus speaks with a woman about living water, but then he asks her to go and get her husband. Something she cannot do. A man offers to follow Jesus as soon as he can bury his parents. Jesus responds, “Let the dead bury their dead.” A young man asks how shall he inherit eternal life. Jesus tells him to sell all that he owns and give it to the poor. In John 6, Jesus ratchets up the difficulty. In the end, he tells the people that they must eat his flesh and drink his blood.

Jesus stacks up the difficulties until one could not possibly answer. The woman of John 4, the woman at the well, sees through his impossible command and realizes Jesus is a prophet. This knowledge led to her salvation. The crowds of John 6 find the statement that they must eat his flesh and drink his blood incomprehensible. Only his disciples stay. The 5th chapter of John is left unresolved.

Jesus heals a man beside the pools of water. This leads to a conflict which Jesus does not seek to settle–except as he would see fit. Our text follows a series of escalations. If we fail to see this text coming at the end of the escalation, we can easily fail to understand the difficulty of this statement.

We cannot possibly take the time to exegete this passage. But we can select a few moments in the escalation which will enable us to see how the difficulty increases as Jesus speaks with this crowd. It begins with Jesus healing a man on the Sabbath. Nothing beyond the man’s extraordinary need singles him out for this attention.

When asked why he has healed on the Sabbath, Jesus responds, “My Father is working until now, and I am working.” (5:17) This first move is difficult, but perhaps it can be made out as a figure of speech. At this point some of the crowd seek to kill him. But rather than seek to deescalate the crowd, he says, “for as to the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so the Son gives life to whom he will.” (5:21) He then claims that God has given him the power of judgment.

A man is standing before the crowd, a man. This man claims to have the power of judgment. This is baffling. But Jesus offers a way out.

²⁴ 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 (ESV) If you will believe him there will be a resolution to the seemingly impossible situation. The woman at the well is asked to bring her nonexistent husband to see Jesus. This leads to a recognition of sin and a reconciliation with Jesus. But no one in the crowd is willing to accept this offer.

Jesus returns to the crowd and sets before them a far more difficult problem. Jesus has not merely the power of Judgment. Perhaps a mere man could judge. There are human judges. But Jesus claims far more than just the right of being a judge. He next claims the power to bring about the resurrection.

You must put yourself in the crowd on that warm afternoon. About you stands a crowd of those people whom you know and trust. The people who will be in your shop tomorrow. The people who know you and your family and your parents and your grandparents as far back as you do. These people are who you are. To step outside of their agreement is nearly unimaginable. Would you give away your parents or your children because someone said something striking, there standing on the stairs of a public building?

Jesus now makes a statement far more difficult than any statement made heretofore.

25 “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 (ESV)

This man claims not merely the ability to raise someone from the dead, as remarkable as such a thing may be. He claims more than the power to heal a man who has been sick for 38 years. He claims more than the power to stop a storm or command a demon. He claims to be the one who will bring about the resurrection of the world. This man whom you are watching from the midst of a crowd claims to be God.

Soon Jesus seeks to evaporate whatever approval he could possibly have held with this crowd. He says that he was on interested in receiving their approval. He says he knows that they do not have the love of God. He then comes to the text we will consider.

Having made intellectual demands upon them, which they cannot possibly bear. Having told them that they do not have the love of God within them. He next tells them that they do not, and they cannot have faith. We know from elsewhere in the Bible that without faith no one can please God. (Heb. 11:6) the third chapter of John tells us that eternal life is given to those who believe.

Therefore, you must read this verse as Jesus escalating the difficulty for those who hear him. But this difficulty may land on us at this late date with the same intellectual trouble faced by his first hearers. Jesus is going to bring together two ideas which we do not normally consider in tandem.

And as we consider the difficulties presented by this verse, we may soon find that we could not easily separate us from the trouble which Jesus has created. We think ourselves to have surmounted the various hurdles which stumbled Jesus first hearers. We know Jesus is the son of God that judgment and resurrection have been committed unto him. We say we believe these things. But when we come to verse 44 of chapter 5, Jesus may rattle that security:

⁴⁴ How can you believe, when you receive glory from one another and do not seek the glory that comes from the only God? John 5:44 (ESV) 

Perhaps you intend to avoid the net which he has laid with his words by merely asserting I do seek glory from God. And well I hope you do. But before anyone is certain this first does not submit a problem for them, we should first consider what it means. And when we come to understand what it does in fact mean, we can begin to see how this verse should affect the way in which we bear one another’s burdens, pray with and for one another, weep and laugh with one another and give our lives for one another. For all these things we must do if we claim we can give biblical counsel to one another.

When a counselee sits before you, and seeks your help and lays out their trouble, you will most likely hope they think well of you. You want to be clever. You want to know how to respond. You want to be approved. You want to do what is right, and that is others think you do what is right. If it is not you, someone else in this room will have had such thoughts and hopes. It is easy to think the counselee is in danger of being self-centered. But you?