Hearing His Voice

DEVOTION

THE GOSPEL OF JOHN

HEARING HIS VOICE

John 5:24-30

24 "I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life. 25 I tell you the truth, a time is coming and has now come when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live. 26 For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son to have life in himself. 27 And he has given him authority to judge because he is the Son of Man.

28 "Do not be amazed at this, for a time is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice 29 and come out — those who have done good will rise to live, and those who have done evil will rise to be condemned. 30 By myself I can do nothing; I judge only as I hear, and my judgment is just, for I seek not to please myself but him who sent me.

NIV

We have heard the voice of God, or rather we should say, we have heard the voice of Jesus and we believe in him who sent Jesus thus we have eternal life. What more do we need? Some would ask us how we heard the voice of God. Did he speak to us in an audible sound? How did we know it was God? There can be no mistake about what the Greek word translated as hear means. It is to hear with our own ears. Some would make the case this hearing implies to understand and thus it would be possible to hear the voice of God as we read the scripture. Although that is true, we do hear God when we read his word, Jesus is actually saying that we will hear his voice, the sound of his voice when he calls for us to come up to him and meet him in the air. This is when the dead will rise first and we who are still alive will be caught up in the air to meet our Lord. This is why Jesus said that a time is coming when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God. However, there is also this hearing his voice in order to cross over from death to life. When we believe in Jesus we make that journey across that great chasm from the city of darkness and death into the city of light and life. Yet what is still at the center of everything is this time we will come out of our graves because we hear the voice of Jesus calling us. This does not only apply to those who believe, but all mankind is going to hear the voice of Jesus and all the dead, every single person who has ever lived and died will hear the voice of Jesus and come out of their graves, whatever their grave consists of. We know Jesus was speaking in the terms the Jews of his time would understand and they buried dead people, in tombs, or caves cut out of the soft rock. The point is that all the dead, however, they were buried then and however dead bodies are deposed of today, everyone will hear His voice. The problem is what they did, and what we do, while we are living that will result in what happens after we all hear his voice. This doing good or doing evil bears some consideration. What consists of doing good and what does doing evil mean? The Greek word translated as good has so many applications it would almost require writing a book to explore every possible avenue it could be used. However, in general, it relates to excelling in any respect, distinguished, good. The question which begs to be asked is, what good can any of us do? When we are told that we are all sinners, that there is none righteous, no not one of us has any good within us at all. Jesus is not making the distinction between good deeds and bad deeds or living without any evil, but living with all goodness and all good deeds. He is showing the difference between those who hear his voice and cross over from death to life or accepting Him as their Lord and Savior which is good, and the evil is those who refuse to hear his voice and cross over but remain in the city of darkness and death. It is not about the sinless and the sinful, for we all have sinned, not a single person can say they are sinless, although we can say we have been freed from the penalty of sin. So because we have done good, accepted Jesus, we will rise to live. Those we refused, will also rise, but they have condemned themselves. We are so thankful our raising to live does not depend on our being sinless, or how many good deeds we have done, or on anything other than our faith in Jesus Christ. We have heard his voice.