(21) The following verses (John 5:21-29) show what these greater works are. They are the Resurrection and the judgment; but these are regarded as spiritual as well as physical, as present as well as future. Once again the background of the thought is to be found in John 5:17. Resurrection and Judgment were the work of the Father--"My Father worketh hitherto;" but the manifestation in limits of space and time is the work of the Son--"and I work."

For as the Father raiseth up the dead, and quickeneth them.--The "them" after "quickeneth" is better omitted. The words are purposely general. Raising the dead and making alive are attributes of God. "He kills and He makes alive" (Deuteronomy 32:39). "He bringeth down to the underworld and bringeth up" (1Samuel 2:6; Tobit 13:2). "He has the power of life and death" (Wisdom Of Solomon 16:13). These the Son seeth the Father doing, and these also He doeth in like manner. He, too, has the power to quicken whom He will, and He useth that power. Deadened souls have felt it, and are living in the new-born life. There is in His word, for the man who hears it and believes it, a moral change which is nothing other than an actual passing out of death into life (John 5:24).

Verses 21-26. - Greater works:

(1) the resurrection of the dead. Verse 21. - For (γὰρ introduces an illustration, a proof of the previous assertion. viz. that the eternal love of the Son would issue in such new marvels) as the Father raiseth the dead, and quickeneth them; even so the Son quickeneth whom he will. This is the most exhaustive expression of the Father's love and revelation to the Son. This thing the Son sees, and this same thing he will do, whether these Jews attempt to put any arrest upon his will or not. The majority of commentators regard vers. 21-27 as descriptive of the moral and spiritual resurrection of dead souls, and hold that a transition is made in vers. 28, 29 to the resurrection of dead bodies and the final consummation. There are some, however, who regard the whole passage - even vers. 28, 29 - as referring, with the previous verses, to moral resurrection, although the words, "in their tombs" (μνημείοις) are there added to give distinctness and explicitness to that future resurrection; and though "now is" of ver. 25 is not there predicated or repeated. Others (with many of the older expositors) refer the entire passage to the final resurrection, which, however, is incompatible with ver. 20 and with the "now is" of ver. 25. Others, again, see in ver. 21, in ἐγείρει and ζωοποιεῖ,, the whole process of resurrection and renewal, both physical and moral, bodily and spiritual. They suppose that in ver. 25 Christ refers first to the spiritual renovation, to be affirmed and consummated in the universal resurrection and judgment of the last day. The generality of the terms ἐγείρει and ζωοποιει, attributed to the Father, makes it possible that the Lord was referring to the numerous events of uplifting from the pit, from the lowest sheol, which formed the staple religious nutrition of the Jewish race. The history of Divine revelation is one lengthened series of interpositions and deliverances, of resurrections of the people of Israel, and of the theocracy from bondage, exile, and spiritual and civil death, and of references to the wonderful transformations of saints and prophets and kings from the depths of despair to the light of life and Divine favour. Ezekiel (37) had likened the most memorable of these resurrections to the uprising of a huge army from a valley of vision, strown with the dry bones of both houses of Israel. "So also," says Jesus, "the Son quiekeneth." including under this term, it may be, the physical healing which is often the precursor and condition of spiritual awakening and moral health and vigour. The Son, the incarnate Logos, revealing himself on earth, both as Logos and Son of man, is now quickening after the same fashion whom he will. The will of Christ is in such entire harmony with the Father's will that there is no rivalry here. The will of the Son is in spontaneous accord with the Divine purpose of resurrection and quickening. He is already doing thus here on earth, as the great organ of the Father, that which makes his will the revelation of the Father. There is no arbitrary decree, such as Calvin found here, nor such as Roues insists upon. The emphasis is simply upon the subject of the verb θέλει; and we have in the expression a vindication of the nineteenth verse, "The Son doeth that which he sees the Father doing." His own θέλημα being the origin and revealed centre on earth of Divine manifestations.

5:17-23 The Divine power of the miracle proved Jesus to be the Son of God, and he declared that he worked with, and like unto his Father, as he saw good. These ancient enemies of Christ understood him, and became more violent, charging him not only with sabbath-breaking, but blasphemy, in calling God his own Father, and making himself equal with God. But all things now, and at the final judgment, are committed to the Son, purposely that all men might honour the Son, as they honour the Father; and every one who does not thus honour the Son, whatever he may think or pretend, does not honour the Father who sent him.For as the Father raiseth up the dead, and quickeneth them,.... Which may be understood either spiritually of raising dead sinners from the death of sin, to a life of grace and holiness; and the rather, because it is expressed in the present tense "raiseth", and not "hath raised"; or naturally of raising those that are dead in a corporeal sense, and quickening them, as the widow of Sarepta's son by Elijah, and the Shunamite's son by Elisha:

even so the Son quickeneth whom he will; both in a spiritual sense, being the resurrection and the life, or the author of the resurrection from a moral death to a spiritual life, whose voice, in the Gospel, the dead in sin hear, and live; and in a natural sense, as in the above instances of Jairus's daughter, the widow of Naim's son, and Lazarus; and in the general resurrection, when at his voice, and word of power, all that are in their graves shall come forth, some to everlasting life, and some to everlasting damnation; and all this as he wills: he quickens, in a spiritual sense, whom he pleases, even as many as the Father has given him; and he will raise up to everlasting life, at the last day, whom he pleases, even as many as were made his care and charge, whom he has redeemed by his blood; and called by his grace. Now as the quickening of the dead is an act of almighty power, and this being exercised by the Son in a sovereign way, as is by his Father, it shows his proper deity, and full equality with the Father. The resurrection of the dead is here expressed by "quickening", as it frequently is by the Jews, who often speak of , "the quickening the dead", for the resurrection; so the Targumist on Zechariah 3:8, "in the quickening of the dead", "I will quicken thee"; see the Jerusalem Targum on Genesis 29:26.