Joh 5:21, 26 | JFB | STEP | 21-23. raiseth the dead and quickeneth them —one act in two stages. This is His absolute prerogative as God. so the Son quickeneth them —that is, raiseth up and quickeneth. whom he will —not only doing the same divine act, but doing it as the result of His own will, even as the Father does it. This statement is of immense importance in relation to the miracles of Christ, distinguishing them from similar miracles of prophets and apostles, who as human instruments were employed to perform super-natural actions, while Christ did all as the Father's commissioned Servant indeed, but in the exercise of His own absolute right of action.

John 5:21

21-23. raiseth the dead and quickeneth them —one act in two stages. This is His absolute prerogative as God.

so the Son quickeneth them—that is, raiseth up and quickeneth.

whom he will—not only doing the same divine act, but doing it as the result of His own will, even as the Father does it. This statement is of immense importance in relation to the miracles of Christ, distinguishing them from similar miracles of prophets and apostles, who as human instruments were employed to perform super-natural actions, while Christ did all as the Father's commissioned Servant indeed, but in the exercise of His own absolute right of action.

John 5:26

26. given to the Son, &c.—Does this refer to the essential life of the Son before all time (Joh 1:4) (as most of the Fathers, and OLSHAUSEN, STIER, ALFORD, &c., among the moderns), or to the purpose of God that this essential life should reside in the Person of the Incarnate Son, and be manifested thus to the world? [CALVIN, LUCKE, LUTHARDT, &c.] The question is as difficult as the subject is high. But as all that Christ says of His essential relation to the Father is intended to explain and exalt His mediatorial functions, so the one seems in our Lord's own mind and language mainly the starting-point of the other.