The Great Commentary of Cornelius a Lapide: S. John
He who honoureth not the Son , &c. Because by denying the Son he denies also the Father ; for father and son are correlative terms: and he who has not a son cannot be a father. With regard to God, he who denies that the Son is the Son of God, denies that God the Father is truly and properly the Father, and has begotten. Tacitly he asserts that He could not beget a consubstantial and co-equal Son. Moreover he denies the Father, because the Father sent the Son into the world, that by Him He might be honoured, in such a manner that He should be acknowledged to be the Father properly so called, and to have begotten a Son of the same substance with Himself, and to be adored with the same latria as Himself. He therefore who denies that the Son is God, denies that the Father begat God, which is the highest blasphemy of the Father. For he deprives the Father of that offspring which is His equal, and worthy of Himself, and instead of a Divine and uncreated offspring assigns to Him one that is created and mean. Wherefore he denies Him to be a proper and Divine Father.
Ver. 24. — Verily , verily , &c. See what has been said on iii. 3. Heareth, so as to believe and obey My word. Thus He subjoins, and believeth in Him that sent Me , and by consequence believeth in Me as His Son, sent by the Father into the world to save it. He saith not, and believeth in Me, but speaks with greater amplitude. For in saying, and believeth in Him that sent Me, He implies the mystery of the Trinity, and the Incarnation, which two things are the chief articles of the Faith, and chiefly necessary to salvation. For He who sent the Son is God the Father ; the Father and the Son together necessarily breathe the Holy Ghost. Lo, you have the whole Trinity.
Hath, i.e., by right, deservedly, and in hope. See on iii. 16.
Hath passed, i.e., certainly will pass (the perfect is used instead of the future because of the certainty of the thing, meaning, he will as certainly and infallibly pass as if he had already passed) from death, the temporal death of the body, unto life, eternal and blessed, in heaven. For although the reprobate who will be damned will also be raised again to life, that they may burn in hell, yet that life in hell is rather a continual death, than life. For, as St Austin saith, ( de Civ., lib . 6, c. 12), “There is no more complete and worse death, than where death dieth not.” For in hell there will be living death, and deathly life, that is, always dying, but never dead. Again He speaks yet more plainly. He who believeth and obeyeth God the Father, and the Son who is sent by Him, hath passed from the death of the soul, dead through sin, to the spiritual life of grace, that he may after the death of the body pass to the life of glory.
Ver. 25. — Verily, verily , &c. “Lest thou shouldst think that this is to come to pass after a very long time, He subjoins, and now is. For if He were only announcing things future, there might not unreasonably be doubt, but He saith that these things shall come to pass whilst He is still conversant upon earth.” So Chrysostom. For, as Theophylact says, “ He is speaking here of those three whom He was about to raise, the widow's son, the daughter of the ruler of the synagogue, and especially of Lazarus. For this last He was about to raise in Judea. And Christ is here speaking in Judea to Jews. This then is the signification of now is. Christ then rises from the spiritual resurrection of souls from sin to the life of grace, to the resurrection of those bodies which He was about to raise whilst He lived on earth. From this He rises to the full resurrection glory of the bodies which He will raise in the day of judgment. For from His power to raise souls from the death of sin to the life of grace, as from a thing greater and more difficult, Christ proves that He has power to raise the body, a thing less difficult. So Toletus, Jansen, and others. But S. Cyril and others think that the reference in this place is to the general resurrection, and they take the expression, and now is, to refer to the last judgment. For S. John (1st Epist. ii. 18) calls the whole time of the New Law the last hour, i.e., the last time, because this is the last stage of the world, and therefore all things which are done in it seem to be, as it were, present, and to be done in this present hour.
Some add that Christ is here speaking of the saints whom He raised when He Himself arose from the dead (S. Matt. xxvii. 52). The fullest meaning of the passage is to understand it of all whom Christ has raised, and will raise from the dead.
And they that hear , i.e., who shall feel the force of the voice of Christ, or who shall obey Him, as hearing the voice of the Son of God, who calls the things which are not as though they were.
Ver. 26. — For as the Father , &c. To have life in Himself signifies three things. 1. To have life from Himself and from His own Essence, and from no other source. For the Essence of God is life, and His life is His Essence. God therefore essentially, and by His Essence, is essential, uncreated, and infinite life. 2. That God has life in Himself is that He is the fountain of all life, of angels, men, and animals. As Euthymius says, To have life in Himself means that after the manner of a living fountain He is the Author of life, according to the words, “ With Thee is the well of life ” (Ps. xxxvi. 10). 3. Which follows from the two previous meanings, to have life in Himself means to have life in His own power, to be the Lord of life to all things living, so that He according to His own good pleasure gives them life, preserves it, and takes it away. This makes plain the unity of Essence, i.e., of Deity, in the Father and the Son. For if the Son had a different Essence from the Father, then He would have life in another, that is to say, in the Father, who gave Him life. But now He hath life in Himself, i.e., in His own Divine Essence, which He hath altogether in common with the Father. So S. Chrysostom. “ Behold,” he says, “ how they differ not in any respect whatsoever, save that the one is the Father, and the other the Son.”
So hath He given also, &c. In that He is the Son of God, and that according to the three ways just spoken of. As S. Augustine says, “that His life might not have need of life, that He should not be understood to have life by way of participation : for if He had life by way of participation, He might, by losing the participation, become without life. Such doctrine concerning the Son accept not, think not, believe not. The Father therefore continues as life, the Son also continues as life. The Father is life in Himself, not from the Son : the Son is life in Himself, but from the Father.”
Ver. 27 . — And hath given , &c. Because Christ as God hath life in Himself, from hence, in that He is man, He hath power to judge all men. The word because must here be taken specifically, and means inasmuch as. But it may be taken even more expressively in a reduplicative and causative sense, as giving the express reason why God gave Christ judicial authority. That reason is because Christ is the Son of Man, i.e., because He deigned to become Incarnate . As though it were said, “God hath willed to judge men by a man, that judgment might take place in a congruous manner, that is, after a sensible and human manner, that as He Himself saved the world by the man Christ, so He would also judge it by the same, by that man, I say, who is God, who took human life, and laid it down for man’s salvation.”
Wherefore it is that He by this great emptying of Himself, by which He willed to become man, merited this exaltation of judicial power, that He who was the Saviour of all should be the Judge of all. So Maldonatus and others. S. Augustine gives also a twofold reason. The first is, “ that those who are to be judged might see their Judge. For those who shall be judged will be both good and bad. It was right that in the judgment the form of a servant should be shown both to the good and the bad, but the form of God should be reserved for the good only.” The second reason is, “because the Judge shall have that form in which He stood before His judge. That form which was judged shall judge: unrighteously was it judged, but righteously shall it judge.”
Ver. 28 . — Marvel not , &c. ... the hour, i.e., the time of the Evangelical Law, which is the last, and in the end of which shall be the resurrection of the dead, and the final judgment.
In their graves; those who are dead and buried, including also the unburied dead. For as S. Augustine says, “ By those who are buried in ordinary course, He signified also those who do not receive ordinary burial.”
The voice of the Son of God: this shall be the sound of the archangel's, probably Michael's trumpet, Arise, ye dead, come to judgment. This shall be accompanied by the sound of the trumpets and voices of other angels. The sound is spoken of as the voice of God, because by His command, through the ministry of angels, an effect shall be produced on the air which shall resound throughout the whole world, and be effectual as at least a moral instrument to raise the dead. For it is not necessary to attribute to this trumpet any physical power of raising the dead.
Ver. 29 . — They that have done good, &c. . . . shall proceed, Greek ἐκπορεύσονται, i.e., shall go forth , out of their tombs and their graves, towards the Valley of Jehoshaphat, where the universal judgment shall take place.