Jonesboro Heights Baptist Church

Sanford, North Carolina

Dr. Mark E. Gaskins
Senior Pastor
The Lord’s Day
January 23, 2011
www.jhbc.org © 2011

Now and Later

John 5:16-30

I don’t think I’ve ever eaten them, but I’ve seen them in the store—“Now and Later” candies.
They’re fruit-flavored and come with several individually wrapped pieces in each package.
Apparently they’re hard when you first put them in your mouth, but then soften up and become
soft and chewy, almost like taffy. In fact, that’s what it says on the label: “Hard and fruity
NOW, soft and chewy LATER.” And of course, with the individually wrapped multiple pieces,
you can eat some now and save some for later.
That’s a pretty good idea if you like candy, isn’t it?
But “now and later” applies to more things than candy, doesn’t it?
For instance, if you work hard and live frugally and save now, you’ll be much more likely to
be able to enjoy a more comfortable lifestyle later, right? Saving a small amount on a regular
basis as a young adult will grow into a much larger nest egg than saving a much larger amount
when you wait until you’re 50 to start!
And if you notice a small problem with your car, it’s often much less expensive to go ahead
and get it fixed now than to let the problem get worse and maybe do damage to other parts of the
car, costing you a small fortune later.
And what about eating properly and taking care of yourself physically now to help prevent
serious health problems later?
It applies in the spiritual realm as well.

Jesus and the Jewish leaders

In this story we’re looking at this morning in John 5, we see Jesus talking about spiritual
things in terms of now and later.
In 5:1-15, John tells us how Jesus healed a man at the pool called Bethesda who had been an
invalid for 38 years. He had been coming to the pool, hoping to be healed. Many sick and
disabled people would spend their time there, waiting for an angel of the Lord to stir the waters
from time to time. When that happened, the first one to get into the water would be healed.
Jesus saw the man lying there and asked him, “Do you want to get well?”1 He told Jesus that
he didn’t have anyone to help him into the water when it was stirred, so somebody else always
made it in before he did.
So Jesus told him, “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.” Immediately, the man was cured!
And he did exactly what Jesus told him to do—he picked up his mat and walked!

1
Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations are from the New International Version.
 There was only one problem. Jesus healed this man on the Sabbath day. So the Jewish
leaders, who no doubt had seen this man over and over at the pool, saw him walking around
carrying his mat. And instead of rejoicing that he was healed, they said, “It is the Sabbath; the
law forbids you to carry your mat” (5:10).
To which he replied, “The man who made me well said to me, ‘Pick up your mat and walk’”
(5:11).
They asked him who healed him, but at this point he didn’t know who Jesus was, and told
them that. But then Jesus found him again later and told him, “See, you are well again. Stop
sinning or something worse may happen to you” (5:14). Then the man went and told them that it
was Jesus who healed him.
So you know what happened next. They started persecuting Jesus. His response only
infuriated them more, because He told them, “My Father is working until now, and I Myself am
working” (5:17, NASB). So now they were even more determined to kill Him, because He was
not only breaking the Sabbath in their view, but He was also claiming equality with God by
“calling God His own Father” (5:18).
But they misunderstood what Jesus meant when He claimed equality with God. As Charles
Talbert points out in his commentary on John’s writings, while the Jews took Jesus’ declaration
of being God’s Son as a declaration of independence from God, Jesus was using the metaphor of
a son who is his father’s apprentice to show that He was doing the Father’s will and work, doing
what He saw the Father doing, doing things not on His own authority, but on the Father’s
authority. He wasn’t claiming to be independent of the Father. He was declaring that He was
totally dependent on Him.2
In doing this, Jesus declared that He was imitating the Father in two specific areas of eternal
significance: giving life and judging.
He told them in 5:21 (NASB):

“For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son also gives life
to whom He wishes.”

In other words, Jesus was doing the same thing the Father does—raising those who are
spiritually dead and giving them life.
But that’s not all. He went on to say in 5:22-23—

“Moreover, the Father judges no one, but has entrusted all judgment to the Son, that all
may honor the Son just as they honor the Father. He who does not honor the Son does
not honor the Father, who sent him.”

Not only has the Father given Jesus the authority to give life; He has also given Him the
responsibility to judge. So however one responds to the Son is how that person is responding to
the Father, because the Son is doing the Father’s work at the Father’s direction and under the
Father’s authority. It’s sort of like showing our attitude toward the law of the land by how we
treat officers of the law—so much so that when the police are needed, people will often say,
“Call the law!”

2
Charles Talbert, Reading John: A Literary and Theological Commentary on the Fourth Gospel and the
Johannine Epistles (New York: Crossroad, 1992), 124-125.

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 Jesus emphasizes the eternal consequences of how one responds to the Son when He says in
5:24 (NASB):

“Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has
eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life.”

Did you notice how He says that? The one who hears and believes God has eternal life—he or
she has it now! The one who believes already has eternal life, won’t be condemned, and is no
longer dead but alive!
Jesus said that the hour was already here “when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of
God and those who hear will live” (5:25). And all this is true because the Father has given the
Son authority both to give life and to judge those who don’t believe. The Father has put the Son
in charge in matters of eternal life and judgment!
Susan Kimber from California tells of how she was growing tired of struggling with her
strong-willed 3-year-old son Thomas one day. So she looked him in the eye and asked him a
question she thought was sure to bring him in line. She said, “Thomas, who is in charge here?”
He didn’t miss a beat, and said, “Jesus is!”3
He was right, wasn’t he? Jesus is in charge, especially in matters of life and judgment!
But Jesus made it clear that this life and this judgment He was talking about and that we
already experience is not just about now, it’s about later as well.
He said in 5:28-29 (my translation):

“Do not marvel at this, for an hour is coming in which all who are in the graves will
hear His voice and come out—those who have practiced good to the resurrection of life,
and those who have practiced evil to the resurrection of judgment.”

He’s still talking about life and judgment, but now it’s about life and judgment beyond this
present age.
At the last day, when Christ returns in glory to bring the kingdom of God in its fullness, there
will be a resurrection. Jesus’ own resurrection was the beginning of this resurrection, and when
He comes in glory, the resurrection will be brought to completion as we are raised. Jesus says
here that those who have practiced good (not in terms of our own goodness or accomplishment,
but the good of trusting in Christ) will be raised to life, while those who have practiced evil (in
terms of not honoring and not trusting in the Son of God) will be raised to condemnation. In this
resurrection our salvation as whole persons will be brought to full completion as even our bodies
are redeemed as we receive a body like Christ’s resurrection body—a body fit for the eternal
realm, for new heavens and a new earth, a body that won’t be subject to disease or disability or
decline or death or decay. When we trust Christ, our spirits are raised, and we pass out of death
into life. At the last day, even our bodies will be raised! That’s part of what we have to look
forward to—later—the hope of resurrection and the life everlasting!

Now and later

And so we who trust Jesus Christ share in eternal life now through faith in Him, and we’ll
experience it later through the resurrection of life.

3
Susan C. Kimber, Brea, CA. Today's Christian Woman, “Heart to Heart.” Cited on preachingtoday.com.

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 And those who are not trusting Christ are under His judgment now because of their disbelief
(just as John 3:18 and 36 make clear), and will experience it later through the resurrection of
judgment.
Now and later. Life and judgment. Belief or unbelief. It’s just that simple. Jesus tells us
here that through faith in Him, we already share in eternal life now, and look forward to the
resurrection life later.

Roger William Thomas tells the story about a faithful follower of Jesus named Martha. All
the children at church called her Aunt Martie. Jim had been her pastor for about five years.
When she called Pastor Jim, it always brought a smile to his face. But this time when she
called, she sounded a bit different.
“Preacher, could you stop by this afternoon? I need to talk with you.”
Jim said, “Of course. I’ll be there around three. Is that okay?”
When Jim got there, they sat in her small living room. Everything was quiet. And then she
shared the news—her doctor had discovered a previously undetected tumor that was malignant.
She told Jim in a voice that was serious, yet calm, “He says I probably have six months to live.”
Jim told her, “I’m so sorry to . . .” But before he could finish, she cut him off.
“Don’t be. The Lord has been good. I’ve lived a long life. I’m ready to go. You know
that.”
He whispered and nodded, “I know.”
“But I do want to talk with you about my funeral,” she said. “I’ve been thinking about it, and
there are some things I know I want.”
So they talked about it for a while—about Martha’s favorite hymns, the Scripture passages
that had meant so much to her through the years, and many memories from the time Jim had
been her pastor.
When Jim thought they had covered just about everything, Martha looked at him with a
twinkle in her eye, and then told him, “One more thing, preacher. When they bury me, I want
my old Bible in one hand and a fork in the other.”
“A fork?” Jim had been a pastor for a good while, and thought he had heard about
everything. But this was a first, and it caught him by surprise. “Why do you want to be buried
with a fork?”
Martha explained, “I’ve been thinking about all of the church dinners and banquets that I
attended through the years. I couldn’t begin to count them all. But one thing sticks out in my
mind.
“At those really nice get-togethers, when the meal was almost finished, a server or maybe the
hostess would come by to collect the dirty dishes. I can hear the words now. Sometimes, at the
best ones, somebody would lean over my shoulder and whisper, ‘You can keep your fork.’ And
do you know what that meant? Dessert was coming!
“It didn’t mean a cup of Jell-O or pudding or even a dish of ice cream. You don’t need a fork
for that. It meant the good stuff, like chocolate cake or cherry pie! When they told me to keep
my fork, I knew the best was yet to come!
“That’s exactly what I want people to talk about at my funeral. Oh, they can talk about all
the good times we had together. That would be nice.
“But when they walk by my casket and look at my pretty blue dress, I want them to turn to
one another and say, ‘Why the fork?’
“And that’s what I want you to say. I want you to tell them that I kept my fork because the

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best is yet to come.”4

Life now, and life later. And the best is yet to come!

MEG

4
Roger William Thomas, “Keep Your Fork,” in A 3rd Serving of Chicken Soup for the Soul: 101 More Stories
to Open the Heart and Rekindle the Spirit; Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen, eds. (Deerfield Beach, FL:
Health Communications, Inc., 1996), 186-188.