The dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God - So did Jairus's daughter, the widow's son, Lazarus.
He hath given to the Son - By eternal generation, to have life in himself - Absolute, independent.
Because he is the Son of man - He is appointed to judge mankind because he was made man.
The time is coming - When not two or three, but all shall rise.
The resurrection of life - That resurrection which leads to life everlasting.
I can do nothing of myself - It is impossible I should do any thing separately from my Father. As I hear - Of the Father, and see, so I judge and do; A because I am essentially united to him. See Joh 5:19.
If I testify of myself - That is, if I alone, (which indeed is impossible,) my testimony is not valid.
There is another - The Father, John 5:37, and I know that, even in your judgment, his testimony in beyond exception.
He bare testimony - That I am the Christ.
But I have no need to receive, &c. But these things - Concerning John, whom ye yourselves reverence, I say, that ye may be saved - So really and seriously did he will their salvation. Yet they were not saved. Most, if not all of them, died in their sins.
He was a burning and a shining light - Inwardly burning with love and zeal, outwardly shining in all holiness. And even ye were willing for a season - A short time only.
He hath testified of me - Namely at my baptism. I speak not of my supposed father Joseph. Ye are utter strangers to him of whom I speak.
Ye have not his word - All who believe have the word of the Father (the same with the word of the Son) abiding in them, that is, deeply ingrafted in their hearts.
Search the Scriptures - A plain command to all men. In them ye are assured ye have eternal life - Ye know they show you the way to eternal life. And these very Scriptures testify of me.
Yet ye will not come unto me - As they direct you.
I receive not honour from men - I need it not. I seek it not from you for my own sake.
But I know you - With this ray he pierces the hearts of the hearers. And this doubtless he spake with the tenderest compassion.
If another shall come - Any false Christ.
While ye receive honour - That is, while ye seek the praise of men rather than the praise of God. At the feast of pentecost, kept in commemoration of the giving the law from Mount Sinai, their sermons used to be full of the praises of the law, and of the people to whom it was given. How mortifying then must the following words of our Lord be to them, while they were thus exulting in Moses and his law!
There is one that accuseth you - By his writings.
He wrote of me - Every where; in all his writings; particularly Deut 18:15,18.
After these things - The history of between ten and eleven months is to be supplied here from the other evangelists. Mt 14:13; Mr 6:32; Lu 9:10.
Jesus went up - Before the people overtook him.
Jesus saith to Philip - Perhaps he had the care of providing victuals for the family of the apostles.
He retired to the mountain alone - Having ordered his disciples to cross over the lake.
Mt 14:22; Mr 6:45.
Who had stood on the other side - They were forced to stay a while, because there were then no other vessels; and they stayed the less unwillingly, because they saw that Jesus was not embarked.
Our Lord does not satisfy their curiosity, but corrects the wrong motive they had in seeking him: because ye did eat - Merely for temporal advantage. Hitherto Christ had been gathering hearers: he now begins to try their sincerity, by a figurative discourse concerning his passion, and the fruit of it, to be received by faith.
Labour not for the meat which perisheth - For bodily food: not for that only not chiefly: not at all, but in subordination to grace, faith, love, the meat which endureth to everlasting life. Labour, work for this; for everlasting life. So our Lord expressly commands, work for life, as well as from life: from a principle of faith and love. Him hath the Father sealed - By this very miracle, as well as by his whole testimony concerning him. See Joh 3:33. Sealing is a mark of the authenticity of a writing.
The works of God - Works pleasing to God.
This is the work of God - The work most pleasing to God, and the foundation of all others: that ye believe - He expresses it first properly, afterward figuratively.
What sign dost thou? - Amazing, after what they had just seen!
Our fathers ate manna - This sign Moses gave them. He gave them bread from heaven - From the lower sublunary heaven; to which Jesus opposes the highest heaven: in which sense he says seven times, John 6:32,33,38,50,58,62, that he himself came down from heaven.
Moses gave you not bread from heaven - It was not Moses who gave the manna to your fathers; but my Father who now giveth the true bread from heaven. Psa 78:24.
He that - giveth life to the world - Not (like the manna) to one people only: and that from generation to generation. Our Lord does not yet say, I am that bread; else the Jews would not have given him so respectful an answer, John 6:34.
Give us this bread - Meaning it still, in a literal sense: yet they seem now to be not far from believing.
I am the bread of life - Having and giving life: he that cometh - he that believeth - Equivalent expressions: shall never hunger, thirst - Shall be satisfied, happy, for ever.
I have told you - Namely, John 6:26.
All that the Father giveth me - All that feel themselves lost, and follow the drawings of the Father, he in a peculiar manner giveth to the Son: will come to me - By faith. And him that thus cometh to me, I will in nowise cast out - I will give him pardon, holiness, and heaven, if he endure to the end - to rejoice in his light.
Of all which he hath already given me - See Joh 17:6,12. If they endure to the end. But Judas did not.
Here is the sum of the three foregoing verses. This is the will of him that sent me - This is the whole of what I have said: this is the eternal, unchangeable will of God. Every one who truly believeth, shall have everlasting life. Every one that seeth and believeth - The Jews saw, and yet believed not. And I will raise him up - As this is the will of him that sent me, I will perform it effectually.
Christ having checked their murmuring, continues what he was saying, John 6:40. No man comes to me, unless my Father draw him - No man can believe in Christ, unless God give him power: he draws us first, by good desires. Not by compulsion, not by laying the will under any necessity; but by the strong and sweet, yet still resistible, motions of his heavenly grace.
Every man that hath heard - The secret voice of God, he, and he only believeth. Isa 54:13.
Not that any one - Must expect him to appear in a visible shape. He who is from or with God - In a more eminent manner than any creature.
Not die - Not spiritually; not eternally.