The voice that reaches the dead.
The dispute between Jesus and the unwilling and unbelieving Jews was a dispute as to our Lord's authority, dignity, and power. The attitude of his enemies constrained the Lord to adopt language the boldest and most uncompromising with regard to himself and his offices. Thus it was that he was led in the course of this discussion to advance his claim of authority over such even as were spiritually dead.
I. THE STATE OF SPIRITUAL DEATH. I. Its cause is sin, wicked departure from the God of life.
2. Its tokens are—insensibility to spiritual realities, incapacity for spiritual exertion, and unfitness for spiritual society.
3. Its effects are apparent both here in this world, and hereafter in the future state of retribution.
II. THE SUMMONS OF THE SON OF GOD.
1. It is the summons of One who has life in himself; as is apparent from his power, several times exercised in the course of his ministry, to raise the dead, and even more strikingly from his own glorious resurrection.
2. It is conveyed in a voice in itself authoritative and Divine; and yet a voice of invitation and of promise.
III. THE RESPONSE OF HEARING AND REVERENT ATTENTION AND OBEDIENCE.
1. This is by no means universal, being rendered only by those who are awakened by the influences of the Holy Spirit to some susceptibility to the spiritually authoritative tones and language of the Son of God.
2. It is the hearing of the soul which our Lord requires as the condition of life. The Old Testament admonition and promise are appropriate in this connection: "Hear, and your soul shall live." The frequent invitation, or rather summons, addressed to the people by the Saviour should be borne in mind: "He that hath ears to hear, let him hear." Many listened to his discourses who never really heard him; and it is so now with His gospel.
IV. THE GIFT OF LIFE.
1. This life which is conferred by the Son of God is spiritual. In a subsequent part of the discourse, Jesus claims to be endowed with authority to raise the dead to the life of the future state; but here the life which is promised is of the spirit. "That which is born of the Spirit is spirit." The spiritual character of this life appears from the references to that with which it is in contrast: "You hath he quickened, who were dead through trespasses and sins."
2. It is dependent life, derived from the source of spiritual vitality. Of himself the Lord Jesus says, in the following verse, that he possessed life, as his own, "in himself," by the appointment of the Father. But Christians derive their new life from him, who came "that they might have life, and might have it more abundantly."
3. It is immortal life, in this being distinguished from that of the body. In the preceding verse Christ describes it as "eternal," by which we may understand that it consists in participation in the Divine nature and in the Divine immortality. Thus the new life in Christ is independent of that of the body, whose dissolution indeed is the occasion of its higher development and true perfection.—T.