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Joh_5:21. Jesus now specifies these μείζονα ἔργα , namely, the quickening of the dead, and judgment (Joh_5:21-30); ἔργα accordingly is a broader conception than miracle, which, however, is included in the category of the Messianic ἔργα . See especially Joh_5:36.
Joh_5:21. He speaks of the operation of His power in judging and raising the dead, first in an ethical sense down to Joh_5:27, and then, Joh_5:28-29, subjoins the actual and universal awakening of the dead as the completion of His entire life-giving and judicial work as the Messiah. Augustine anticipated this view (though illogically apprehending Joh_5:21 in a moral sense, and Joh_5:22 in a physical), and it is adopted among the older writers, especially by Rupertius, Calvin, Jansen, Calovius, Lampe, and more recently by Liicke, Tholuck, Olshausen, Maier, de Wette, Lange, Hilgenfeld, Lechler, Apost. Zeitalt. p. 225 f., Weiss, Godet. Others have extended the ethical interpretation even as far as Joh_5:28-29 (so Deysing in the Bibl. Brem. i. 6, Eckermann, Ammon, and many others; recently, Schweizer, B. Crusius, Reuss), which, however, is forbidden by the language and contents of Joh_5:28-29; see on Joh_5:28-29. Further, when Luthardt (comp. Tholuck on Joh_5:21-23, and Hengstenberg on Joh_5:21-24, also Brückner on Joh_5:21) understands ζωοποιεῖν generally of the impartation of life, he must take both kinds of quickening as the two sides of the ζωή , which appears quite irreconcilable with the right understanding of οὓς θέλει , and with the distinct separation between the present and the future (the latter from Joh_5:28 onwards). The ζωοποιεῖν of the Messiah during His temporal working concerns the morally dead, of whom He morally quickens whom He will; but at a future day, at the end of all things, He will call forth the physically dead from their graves, etc., Joh_5:28-29. The carrying out of the double meaning of ζωοποιεῖν onwards to Joh_5:28 (for Joh_5:28-29 even Luthardt himself takes as referring only to the final future) leads to confusion and forced interpretation (see on οἱ ἀκούσαντες , Joh_5:25). Further, most of the Fathers (Tertullian, Chrysostom and his followers, Nonnus, and others), most of the older expositors (Erasmus, Beza, Grotius, Bengel, and many others), and recently Schott in particular (Opusc. i. p. 197), Kuinoel, Baumeister (in the Würtemb. Stud. II. 1), Weizel (in the Stud. u. Krit. 1836, p. 636), Kaeuffer, de ζωῆς αἰων not. p. 115 ff., also Baeumlein and Ewald, have taken the entire passage Joh_5:21-29 in a literal sense, as referring to the resurrection and the final judgment. Against this it is decisive: (a) that ἵνα ὑμεῖς θαυμάζητε in Joh_5:20 represents the hearers as continuous witnesses of the works referred to, and these works, therefore, as successive developments which they will see along with others; (b) that οὓς θέλει is in keeping only with the ethical reference; (c) that ἵνα πάντες τιμῶσι , etc., Joh_5:23, expresses a continuing result, taking place in the present (in the αἰὼν οὗτος ), and as divinely intended; (d) that in Joh_5:24, ἐκ τοῦ θανάτου cannot be explained of physical death; (e) that in Joh_5:25, καὶ νῦν ἐστιν and οἱ ἀκούσαντες are compatible only with reference to spiritual awakening. To this may be added, (f) that Jesus, where He speaks (Joh_5:28-29) of the literally dead, very distinctly marks out the resurrection of these latter from that of the preceding as something greater and as still future, and designates the dead not merely with great definiteness as such ( πάντες οἱ ἐν τοῖς μνημείοις ), but also makes their ἀνάστασις ζωῆς conditional, not, as in Joh_5:24, upon faith, but, probably seeing that they for the most part would never have heard the gospel, upon having done good,—thus characteristically distinguishing this quickening of the dead from that spoken of immediately before.
ὥσπερ … ζωοποιεῖ ] The awakening and reviving of the dead is represented as the essential and peculiar business of the Father (Deu_32:39; 1Sa_2:6; Tob_13:2; Wis_16:13); accordingly the Present tense is used, because the statement is general. Comp. Rom_4:17. Observe, however, that Jesus here speaks of the awakening of the dead, which is peculiar to the Father, without making any distinction between the spiritual and literal dead; this separation first appears in the following reference to the Son. The awakening of both springs from the same divine source and basis of life.
ἐγείρει and ζωοποιεῖ we might expect in reverse order (as in Eph_2:5-6); but the ζωοποιεῖν is the key-note, which resounds through all that follows, and accordingly the matter is regarded in accordance with the popular view, so that the making alive begins with the awakening, which therefore appears as the immediate antecedent of the ζωοποιεῖν , and is not again specially named in the apodosis.
οὓς θέλει ] for He will not quicken others because they believe not (Joh_5:24); this, and not an absolute decree (Calvin, Reuss), is the moral condition of His self-determination, just as also His κρίσις (Joh_5:22) is in like manner morally determined. That this spiritual resurrection is independent of the descent fvom Abraham, is self-evident from the fact of its being spiritual; but this must not be taken as actually stated in the οὓς θέλει . Many, who take ζωοποιεῖ literally, resort to the historical accounts of the raising of individuals from the dead (Lazarus, etc.), for which few cases the οὓς θέλει is neither appropriate nor adequate. See, besides, Joh_5:25. Ewald takes God as the subject of θέλει , which is neither logical (on account of the καὶ , which places both subjects in the same line), nor possible according to the plain words, though it is self-evident that the Son acts only in the harmony of His will with that of the Father; comp. Joh_5:30; Joh_6:40.
ζωοποιεῖ ] ethically, of the spiritual quickening to the higher moral ζωή , instead of that moral death in which they were held captive when in the unconverted state of darkness and sin. See on Luk_15:24; Mat_4:16; Eph_5:14; Rom_6:13; Isa_26:19. Without this ζωοποίησις , their life would remain ethically a ζωὴ ἄβιος (Jacobs, ad Anthol. VII. p. 152), βίος ἀβίωτος (Xen. Mem. iv. 8. 8). The Present, for He does it now, and is occupied with this ζωοποιεῖν , that is, by means of His word, which is the life-giving call (Joh_5:24-25). The Future follows in Joh_5:28.