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Joh_5:26-27. The life denoted by the aforesaid ζήσουσιν , seeing the subjects of it were dead, must be something which is in process of being imparted to them,—a life which comes from the Son, the quickener. But He could not impart it if He had not in Himself a divine and independent fountain of life, like the Father, which the Father, the absolutely living One (Joh_6:57), gave Him when He sent Him into the world to accomplish His Messianic work; comp. Joh_10:36. The following ἔδωκεν (Joh_5:27) should itself have prevented the reference to the eternal generation (Augustine and many others, even Gess). Besides (therefore Joh_5:27), if only the ἀκούσαντες (comp. οὓς θέλει , Joh_5:21) are to live, and the other νεκροί not, the Son must have received from the Father the warrant and power of judging and of deciding who are to live and who not. This power is given Him by the Father because He is the Son of man; for in His incarnation, i.e. in the fact that the Son of God (incarnate) is a child of man (comp. Php_2:7; Gal_4:4; Rom_1:3; Rom_8:3), the essence of His nature as Redeemer consists, and this consequently is the reason in the history of redemption why the Father has equipped Him for the Messianic function of judgment. Had the Son of God not become a child of man, He could not have been the fulfiller of the Father’s decree of redemption, nor have been entrusted with judicial power. Luthardt (comp. Hofmann, Schriftbew. II. 1, p. 78) says incorrectly: “for God desired to judge the world by means of a man,” which is a thought much too vague for this passage, and is borrowed from Act_17:31. De Wette, with whom Brückner concurs (comp. also Reuss), more correctly says: “It denotes the Logos as a human manifestation,[213] and in this lies the reason why He judges, for the hidden God could not be judge.” But this negative and refined definition of the reason given, “because He is the Son of man,” can all the less appropriately be read between the lines, the more it savours of Philonic speculation, and the more current the view of the Deity as a Judge was among the Jews. So, following Augustine, Luther, Castalio, Jansen, and most others, B. Crusius (comp. also Wetstein, who adduces Heb_4:15): “because executing judgment requires direct operation upon mankind.”[214] Others (Grotius, Lampe, Kuinoel, Lücke, Olshausen, Maier, Bäumlein, Ewald, and most others, now also Tholuck): “ υἱὸς ἀνθρ . is He who is announced in Daniel 7 and in the book of Enoch as the Messiah” (see on Mat_8:20), where the thought has been set forth successively in various ways; Lücke (so also Baeumlein): “because He is the Messiah, and judgment essentially belongs to the work of the Messiah” (comp. Ewald). Tholuck comes nearest to the right sense: “because He is become man, i.e. is the Redeemer, but with this redemption itself the κρίσις also is given.” Hengstenberg: “as a reward for taking humanity upon Him.” Against the whole explanation from Dan_7:13, however, to which Beyschlag, Christol. p. 29, with his explanation of the ideal man (the personal standard of divine judgment), adheres, it is decisive that in the N. T. throughout, wherever “Son of man” is used to designate the Messiah, both words have the article: ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπον (in Joh_1:51; Joh_3:13-14; Joh_6:27; Joh_6:52; Joh_6:62; Joh_8:28; Joh_12:23; Joh_12:34; Joh_13:31): ΥἹῸς ἈΝΘΡΏΠΟΝ without the article[215] occurs in Rev_1:13; Rev_14:14, but it does not express the idea of the Messiah. Thus the prophecy in Daniel does not enter into consideration here; but “son of a human being” is correlative to “son of God” (of the Father, Joh_5:25-26), although it must frankly be acknowledged that the expression does not necessarily presuppose birth from a virgin.[216] The Peshito, Armenian version, Theophylact, Euthymius Zigabenus, Paulus, connect the words—rightly taking υἱὸς ἀνθρ . to mean man—with what follows: “Marvel not that He is a man.” This is not in keeping with the context, while τοῦτο witnesses for the ordinary connection.
ζωὴν ἔχειν ἐν ἑαυτῷ ] in Himself. “Est emphasis in hoc dicto: vitam habere in sese, i. e. alio modo quam creaturae, angeli et homines,” Melancthon. Comp. Joh_1:4, Joh_14:6.[217] The words καὶ νῦν ἐστιν are certainly decisive against Gess (Pers. Chr. p. 301), who ascribes the gift of life by the Father to the Son as referring only to His pre-existent glory and His state of exaltation, which he considers to have been “suspended” during the period of His earthly life. The prayer at the grave of Lazarus only proves that Christ exercised the power of life, which was bestowed upon Him as His own, in accordance with the Father’s will. See on Joh_5:21.
[213] Or the relative humanity of Him who is God’s Son. The expression is therefore different from: “because He is man.”
[214] Comp. also Baur in Hilgenfeld’s Zeitschr. f. wiss. Theol. 1860, p. 276 ff., and N. T. Theol. p. 79 ff.; Holtzmann in the same, 1865, p. 234 f. Akin to this interpretation is that of Weiss, p. 224: “so far as He is a son of man, and can in human form bring near to men the life-giving revelation of God.” Even thus, however, what is said to be the point of the reason given has to be supplied. This holds also against Godet, who confounds things that differ: “On one side judgment must proceed from the womb of humanity as an ‘hommage à Dieu,’ and on the other it is entrusted by God’s love as a purification of humanity to Him who voluntarily became man.” Groos (in the Stud. u. Krit. 1868, p. 260) substantially agrees with Beyschlag.
[215] Weizsäcker (Unters. üb. d. evang. Gesch. p. 431) cuts away this objection by the statement, without proof, that υἱὸς ἀνθρ . without the article belongs to the explanatory exposition of the fourth Gospel. Baeumlein and Beyschlag, to account for the absence of the article, content themselves with saying that υἱὸς ἀνθρ . is the predicate, and therefore (comp. Holtzmann) the point would turn on the meaning of the conception. But the formal and unchanging title, ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρ ., not agree with that; and, moreover, in this way the omission only of the first article, and not of the second ( τοῦ ), would be explained; υἱὸς ἀνθρώπου can only mean son of a man. Comp. Barnabas, Ep. xii. (Dressel.)
[216] He who is Son of God is son of a man—the latter κατὰ σάρκα , Joh_1:14; the former κατὰ πνεῦμα ἁγιωσύνης , Rom_9:5; Rom_1:3.
[217] Quite in opposition to the ἐν ἑαυτῷ , Weizsäcker, in the Jahrb. f. Deutsche Theol. 1857, p. 179, understands the possession of life as brought about “by transference or communication from the Father.” Chap. Joh_6:57 likewise indicates life as an essential possession, brought with Him (Joh_1:4) from His pre-existent state in His mission from the Father, and according to the Father’s will and appointment, Col_1:19; Col_2:10.