Passing Out of Death

Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life. (John 5:24)

For some time now I have been learning that the concept of judgment is quite different than what is usually supposed by most people. I realize that this implies to many that I think I know better than everyone else or that maybe I am just stubborn and want to be unique and strike out to blaze some new trail just to distinguish myself from everyone else.

But this is not really the case, though I am certainly just as liable to fall into deceptions of pride like many others. Over the past few years I feel that I have been led to question all of the assumptions of religion that I have been handed and to begin to think through things for myself instead of just blindly accepting what others have taught me either directly or by implication. And as I have challenged assumption after assumption and the many religious words and clichés that circulate around today, I have found time after time that I live in a miasma of deceptions calculated to keeping me from perceiving the real truths about God and experiencing true spiritual growth as God intends for me to encounter.

There is great fear among people and particularly leaders who exert control over other people's thinking to allow people to explore the Word of God for themselves and to learn to listen directly to the Holy Spirit. When people are allowed to seek to know and discover truth for themselves outside the strict boundaries put around them by their leaders, the established system comes into great danger of losing much of its power and influence and even financial support as people begin to discover that truth is different and much broader and deeper than they were ever allowed to perceive while constricted within the narrow confines of typical religion.

In addition, people will begin to discover that God does not employ the use of force, fear, punishments and intimidations like most people are accustomed to believing. It will be seen more clearly that most of these techniques are really methods of religious systems and human institutions to keep the masses under their control instead of knowing the ways of God. In all of this the true God of heaven is misrepresented to the common person and His reputation is severely tarnished. In fact, what Satan has managed to pull off is to convince most people that God's character is more like Satan's than it is like what God claims He is like.

The issue of judgment and what that looks like and what it means and involves is one of the truths that has been seriously abused and distorted to manipulate people into blind servitude to abusive religious systems of control. God has been painted to be a harsh, arbitrary judge eagerly looking for excuses to 'get even' or to exclude from His presence anyone who strays too far out of line with His demands. On the other hand, other people are so disgusted with this dark view of God that they either reject the idea altogether that there even is a God or they paint Him as one who is totally permissive and so 'loving' that He would allow anything and everything to go unnoticed in the lives of all who are willing to say a few 'magic religious words' which will somehow give them a guaranteed ticket into paradise.

All of these distortions of truth come about partly because people are not willing to invest time and effort and humble themselves enough to listen personally to the voice of God to their souls and spend personal time in the Word of God. What is needed today is a massive revival of true Bible study – real study guided by the Author of that Word, not carefully controlled and predigested so-called 'Bible studies' that merely have people fill in the 'correct' answers to questions they may not even feel like asking.

We need to be willing to come into personal accountability to the authority of God in our own hearts and to spend significant time exposing ourselves to the only reliable document that can objectively expose the falsehood and lies about reality that permeate this planet. Instead of relying so much on religious people around us to learn truth and pass it on to us, we must be willing to allow the Spirit of God to personally expose our hearts and minds to truth and to transform us into His own image through that process.

The idea of judgment has become so perverted that sometimes I find it useful to simply lay aside all preconceived opinions for a time whenever I come to this teaching in the Word and to allow the Spirit to show me from the context what might have been overlooked either by others or by myself in my previous ideas of this word. I have already seen rather distinctly that the way God uses this term is radically different than the way our social systems utilize it. The way most people think of judgment usually is more along the lines of condemning people for doing bad things rather than the way heaven speaks of judgment. Most people tend to think of judgment as parallel to our desires of 'getting even' or accomplishing revenge. That is why in Romans we are told to leave vengeance in God's hands, partly because we have almost no idea of the way heaven perceives justice. (Romans 12:19)

I have been coming to see over a number of years how heaven's views of judgment are so different and yet so revealing about the true nature of God when understood properly. Instead of promoting the conflicting idea that judgment is condemnation, which directly contradicts the plain words of Jesus Himself to Nicodemus, I have been seeing that true judgment is more along the lines of simply exposing all that is hidden in the secret places of the heart. Judgment is bringing out into the open the hidden motives that people thought would never be seen or that maybe even they did not discern themselves. Judgment is really the ultimate simplification of everything back to its original intent and purpose, not an imposition from some arbitrary judge who forces His will on rebels and takes away their freedoms.

Modern beliefs about judgment and justice are so perverted that it is very dangerous to try to use our systems to understand heaven's ideas about judgment. Whenever I hear someone using our government methods of 'justice' to explain why God does things I begin to cringe, because using human inventions to understand how God operates is always fraught with extreme danger. It leaves far too much room to implicate selfish motives and methods in the ways of heaven because they sound so logical and normal to our way of thinking. But God's ways are not our ways and we must be extremely careful to allow God to define what His ways are instead of us trying to insinuate our assumptions onto His character.

This verse is very intriguing because it describes a people who apparently do not even come into judgment, whatever that term means in the mind of Jesus. This statement of Jesus alone brings into serious question our normal assumptions about what is involved in judgment. That is why I want to allow the context here and the Spirit of God to unveil what can be learned about heaven's opinion about what judgment is instead of relying on human perversions of judgment that are all around me. This text is so full of deep meaning that I want to spend careful time allowing it to glow with truth that is so close to the surface here.

Recently I have pondered the significance in this verse of believing and hearing and having eternal life. It is the people who do this according to Jesus who will not come into judgment but have passed from death into life. That last phrase also adds a big clue to discovering what true judgment is all about. If judgment is not condemnation as many assume it is, then what does it really mean given this context and description?

This whole passage is filled with references to judgment that can be very revealing to an honest, open mind. Jesus refers repeatedly to this idea of judgment in relation to life and death and belief and resurrection. There is certainly vital truth to be learned about judgment here and I want to conform my own beliefs around what Jesus is trying to convey in these important words so what I can be part of that group of people who do not come into judgment but pass from death into life.

Challenging Assumptions

Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life. (John 5:24)

This verse has the capacity to expose and challenge a great deal of assumptions that Christians have about the meaning of some of the words used in religion. Depending on what you choose to believe about these words, your beliefs and assumptions about a great deal of other things will be strongly influenced by this text. And in turn, what you believe about other subjects will have a great bearing on how one perceives this text and the real message that Jesus is trying to convey.

I have highlighted some of the key words and phrases here that tend to be often misunderstood and that have challenged me for years to better comprehend and appreciate. I certainly do not claim to have all the answers right now, but neither will I deny that God has been leading me to explore and challenge my own assumptions and has used my study of His Word to redefine nearly all of the religious words and terms that are so easily tossed around without really stopping to see what they really mean.

In my opinion the person described here, as I wrote about previously, is the one that is also described in verse 21 as the one to whom Jesus wishes to give life. And this too brings us face to face with the very first assumption that we must be careful to examine. We tend to always think of the word life as describing our physical existence in the way in which we experience it in this fallen world. Or we might think of it in surreal terms when it comes to an eternal life that is has little or nothing to do with the kind of physical existence we now experience.

I believe that both of these approaches can be dangerous to assume. I believe that eternal life has far deeper meanings and takes on very different dimensions than the very limited sphere of existence that we presently know. But at the same time I don't believe that eternal life is totally disconnected from the kind of physical interactions and sensations and experiences that we currently are familiar with.

I don't believe it is necessary to have a full understanding of exactly what this term means fully. In fact, I believe that given our very limited mental and spiritual capacities to even comprehend reality as heaven experiences it, we cannot really know at this point. But we should be cognizant enough of the fact that there is far more to life than the physical experience that we now call life, and we should not become dogmatic and narrow in our views of what this term means as it is used in the Bible.

When the Bible talks about life and eternal life and even death, it very often is referring to a state of reality or condition different from most of our assumptions when we use those terms. When the disciples became confused after Jesus talked about death as a sleep, they were simply displaying the typical confusion that all of us share due to our severely limited perceptions of reality by growing up oblivious to the true reality that is normal outside of this world. Likewise, when Jesus talked about life and eternal life, many times He was referring to how heaven views these topics and using language from the other side of reality instead of using our confused language – which itself can often cause confusion if we fail to question our own assumptions about these terms like the disciples failed to do.

In my previous post I also noted the relationship between those who actually both hear and believe what Jesus is trying to convey to humanity about God. This too has a great deal of vital meaning and we need to really appreciate what these words truly mean if we want to be one of those to whom Jesus wishes to give life. It is not enough to just receive the physical kind of existence from God – we all have been given that in some measure, and once again everyone who has ever existed will receive it at least temporarily for the final period of judgment after the millenium. But just because people are given physical life even through the miraculous power of resurrection does not imply that they will have eternal life in any sense of the word.

This is connected to one of the most pernicious and pervasive errors of religion that has its deepest hold on many minds and hearts. To believe that sinners will be tortured forever in the flames of a physical burning hell as punishment for the sins they committed for a few years is one of the most damnable lies about God ever invented. This lie was crafted in the mind of God's worst enemy and reflects the character of Satan himself. Sadly it has taken root in nearly every religion on earth. But yet it is a lie nonetheless and it was first purported in the words of the serpent to Eve when he tempted her from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, “You will not really die.”

What we choose to believe about what God is like and how He views and treats sinners is at the very core of the controversy between Christ and Satan and permeates all of the lies about God that affects humanity in the our fallen state of sin. And it is this core issue of how we perceive God that Jesus came to address but that is still our greatest obstacle to understanding what reality really looks like. Unless we are willing to truly hear Jesus for ourselves, to immerse ourselves directly in His words and allow His Spirit to impress our hearts with the real truths behind those words deep inside, we will be in constant danger of continuing to live under deceptions of Satan that sound so plausible and that are so widely accepted by billions of people around us.

It is not enough to just hear the words of God. And it is not even enough to just believe superficially or even be able to quote at great length the words of Jesus and texts from the Bible to prove and vindicate our particular brand of religion. That is far from the kind of real belief that Jesus talked about when He was here on earth. The kind of belief that is referenced here and is indeed the main topic of this whole book of John, is a far deeper, richer, more encompassing kind of belief that is mainly rooted in the right brain emotional and heart consciousness and goes even deeper yet into the subconscious regions of our makeup.

But what most people label as belief is often just a very shallow type of belief that resides primarily in the intellectual arena of our mind. Or it may be a substitute for real belief that is founded on emotional highs that may be worked up during religious exercises that make us feel spiritual for a few hours. But neither of these kinds of belief is what the book of John is talking about as I have been seeing it in my study. I agree that it can involve both of these kinds of mental exercises, but if it does not go far deeper than that – in fact, if it does not originate from places far deeper than that in our psyche, then I am coming to realize that it may not in fact be the kind of saving belief that is necessary to prepare us to live with God for eternity.

But now I come to the most fascinating part of this verse and have already used up a great deal of time dwelling on the previous parts. I think I will defer exploring this last part for when I will have more time and space to really dig into it more thoroughly and look for exciting insights and life-transforming truths that I am sure to find. It is in the last sentence where Jesus talks about judgment and life and death and the many interesting links between all of these.

Wishful Thinking

For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son also gives life to whom He wishes.

Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life. (John 5:21,24)

I have had a question in the back of my mind for quite some time now about the phrase in verse 21 whom He wishes. I have touched on this previously as a distinction between what the Father does and what the Son does, but it still has a great deal more hidden beneath the surface that I want to uncover and appreciate.

As I sat meditating again on this passage this morning it started to emerge more clearly as I saw what seems to me to be a link between this and the people described in verse 24. Not everyone is going to receive the kind of life that the Son came to impart to this world – eternal life. And that is the difference that seems to be implied here between what the Father does and what the Son does if I am not mistaken. But I am sure that there is far more to be uncovered here than what is plain to me right now.

Part of my struggle to perceive what the real meaning is in these passages is my inability to be able to read in the original languages and catch the deeper nuances and potential implications that can be seen when that is available. When something is read in a translated language instead of the original, much of the meaning has to be deciphered more by inference sometimes than by clear statements. But even that has it hazards.

In these two verses I see a connection that links them more closely than what may first appear. What I see now in this second verse appears to answer the question I have had for a long time about just who it is that Jesus was referring to in the phrase to whom He wishes. It is people who actually hear, respond and choose to believe what Jesus came to reveal about what God is like.

As I have come to appreciate more fully the outlines of what is really going on in this great war in the universe, it has become easier to see how many things fit in more accurately into that bigger picture. As I have seen more clearly how in heaven the Father was accused of playing favoritism to the Son over Lucifer when it appeared to Lucifer that there was no distinguishable difference between himself and the Son, it makes more sense to see many statements of Jesus addressing those very accusations. And given that larger context, much of what Jesus is saying here, at least in my growing opinion, is as much being addressed directly to Satan (formerly Lucifer) as much as to the people around who were listening at that time.

The whole problem of sin all started in heaven with Lucifer when he began to agitate that the Father was not being fair or even-handed in His treatment of him in comparison to the privileges granted to the Son. Some believe, and I tend to gravitate that direction myself, that God created Lucifer in appearances so similar to Christ that Lucifer could not discern with his own capabilities of perception that the Son was any different than himself. In fact, it could well have appeared to the entire created universe of intelligent beings that the Son and Lucifer appeared to be something like twins. They at first thought so much alike, looked so much alike and both reflected God so perfectly that for all practical purposes and perceptions it could be assumed that they both indeed had the same origins and rank and capacities.

One reason that I am coming to believe this is because of what Jesus later did by coming to this earth to appear as a human. When Jesus showed up as a baby who looked totally like other babies and grew up in a poor home where He had to struggle and work and suffer right along with every other average person, the effect of that camouflage so to speak was that it became extremely difficult if not impossible for humans to discern that this man was actually God and not just a man like everyone else. In fact, this is seen in Jesus' words to Peter when Peter had just confessed that Jesus was the Son of God, He made it plain that Peter had not received that idea on his own but had received it from an outside Source, viz., a revelation from God Himself.

Given that pattern of how God chose to relate to His created beings on the human level, it stands to reason that He may well have related to angels using the very same technique even before any angels had ever fallen out of favor with God. God seems very much to be into wanting to relate to His children as much as possible on their level more than as just a superior. He somehow must have created us, and maybe the angels as well, with a desire to relate more closely to other beings that are very similar in nature and appearance to themselves better than beings of a different breed or status.

If that is true – and I don't see much evidence to refute that at this point – then it could be entirely possible that Jesus chose at some point to take on a form very much like an angel so that angels could relate to Him more intimately just as He chose later to become a human so that humans could relate to Him and to the Father more intimately. Jesus really is the great liaison between all of His intelligent created beings and the Father God who is over all.

Of course, this does not come without its risks. Just as Jesus was largely misunderstood and not appreciated for who He really was by humans when He was here on this earth, it also implies the same possibility that Lucifer himself had previously fallen into the same problem when he assumed that Jesus was not that much different than himself as he and Jesus worked together to cover the throne of God at the center of the universe. Lucifer's original job was to hover over the throne of the Almighty as a covering cherub as well as to know God more intimately than all the other created beings. He was then to convey to those other beings the real truth about what God was like and explain His will in ways they might better understand.

Both Jesus and Lucifer were positioned to reflect the true glory and essence of what and who God is to the rest of the universe. That is why the fall of Lucifer was so spectacularly devastating and had such widespread impact all throughout the universe because he had such immense credibility as a legitimate interpreter of what others should believe about God.

The final showdown and the core issue of the whole great war between Christ and Satan is the tension between what Lucifer claims is the real truth about God and what Jesus claims is the real truth about God. Humans are not the only intelligent beings aligning themselves with one side or the other. Every created intelligent being all throughout the universe is compelled to choose which side they are going to believe and how they are going to align themselves in regards to the accusations against the Father. There is no middle ground; everyone ultimately has to decide if their picture of God is going to be like what Jesus came to reveal in His life of humility, compassion, love and selfless service, or if the myriads of lies about God might have some validity that Satan has been spreading throughout the universe since long before this world was even created.

Even the issue of how to interpret these words of Jesus here are strongly influenced by our preconceived ideas about what God is really like. It is so easy to impose on these words the common assumption that God is in some regards at least a little bit arbitrary. Whenever that belief is present it is very easy to think that maybe Jesus just picks certain people to be saved and chooses to have others be lost. This kind of thinking fosters doubts about God's fairness deep in the heart even if those doubts are never allowed to surface because they might sound conflictive with religious propriety. But it is what our heart really believes about God far more than what our minds and words claim to believe that determines which side of this controversy we are going to emerge on in the end. And it is assumptions about God that are exposed when we come to statements such as this that can be viewed from more than one perspective. What we choose to believe about how God feels about us too often reflects our preconceived notions and the culture around us.

What has been emerging more and more clearly to me over the past few years is that God absolutely is not arbitrary despite all the assumed evidence to the contrary. Jesus is not here referring to some sort of fatalistic determinism arbitrarily imposed by God on humans as to who can be saved and who is to be damned. Far from that, this passage I believe is revealing that those whom Jesus wishes to save are simply those who respond to the real truth about God that He came to reveal to this world, in fact to the entire universe. All who chose to listen and respond and believe the representation of God in the life of Jesus in contradiction to the many lies about God the enemy has implanted in our hearts, those are the ones who align themselves on the side of Christ and that enables Him to give them the kind of eternal life that can only be found through a response of faith that takes hold of the real truth about God.

In this last verse I see Jesus expanding much more fully the real truth about those who enter into the wishful thinking of Jesus described in verse 21. Anyone who chooses to change their opinions about how God feels about them and what He is really like based on what Jesus revealed about Him will enter into eternal life. They will also bypass the public exposure called judgment that will embarrass and shame all who refuse to accept Jesus' version of what God is really like and instead cling to their traditions and assumptions about God that are more familiar and widely believed by most everyone around them.