If this statement (25b) is understood as referring to the resurrection of souls, then the reason for it is this: the voice of the Son of God has a life-giving power, that voice by which he moves the hearts of the faithful interiorly by inspiration, or exteriorly by his preaching and that of others: “The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life” (below 6:64). And so he gives life to the dead when he justifies the wicked. And since hearing is the way to life, either of nature through obedience, namely, by repairing nature, or the hearing of faith by repairing life and justice, he therefore says, and those who hear it, by obedience as to the resurrection of the body, or by faith as to the resurrection of souls, will live, in the body in eternal life, and injustice in the life of grace.
LECTURE 5
26 “Indeed, just as the Father possesses life in himself, so he has given it to the Son to have life in himself. 27 And he [the Father] gave him the power to pass judgment, because he is the Son of Man. 28 Do not be surprised at this, since the hour is coming when all those buried in tombs will hear the voice of the Son of God. 29 And those who have done well will come forth to a resurrection of life; those who have done evil will come forth to a resurrection of judgment [i.e., condemnation]. 30 I cannot do anything of myself, but I judge only as I hear it; and my judgment is just, because I am not seeking my own will, but the will of him who sent me.”
781 Above, our Lord showed that he had the power to give life and to judge; and he explained each by its effect. Here he shows how each of these powers belongs to him. First, he shows this with respect to his life-giving power. Secondly, with respect to his power to judge (v 27).
782 So he says, first: I say that as the Father raises the dead, so I do also; and anyone who hears my word has eternal life. And I possess this because, just as the Father possesses life in himself, so he has given it to the Son to have life in himself.
Apropos of this, we should note that some who live do not have life in themselves: as Paul, “I am living by faith in the Son of God” (Gal 2:20); and again in the same place: “it is not I who now live, but Christ lives in me.” Thus he lived, yet not in himself, but in another through whom he lived: as a body lives, although it does not have life in itself, but in a soul through which it lives. So that has life in itself which has an essential, non-participated life, i.e., that which is itself life. Now in every genus of things, that which is something through its essence is the cause of those things that are it by participation, as fire is the cause of all things afire. And so, that which is life through its essence, is the cause and principle of all life in living things. Accordingly, if something is to be a principle of life, it must be life through its essence. And so our Lord fittingly shows that he is the principle of all life by saying that he has life in himself, i.e., through his essence, when he says: just as the Father possesses life in himself, i.e., as he is living through his essence, so does the Son. Therefore, as the Father is the cause of life, so also is his Son.
Further, he shows the equality of the Son to the Father when he says, as the Father possesses life in himself; and he shows their distinction when he says, he has given it to the Son . For the Father and the Son are equal in life; but they are distinct, because the Father gives, and the Son receives. However, we should not understand this to mean that the Son receives life from the Father as if the Son first existed without having life, as in lower things a first matter, already existing, receives a form, and as a subject receives accidents: because in the Son there is nothing that exists prior to the reception of life. For as Hilary says: “the Son has nothing unless it is begotten,” i.e., nothing but what he receives through his birth. And since the Father is life itself, the meaning of, he has given it to the Son to have life in himself, is that the Father produced the Son as living. As if one were to say: the mind gives life to the word, not as though the word existed and then receives life, but because the mind produces the word in the same life by which it lives.
783 According to Hilary, this passage destroys three heresies. First, that of the Arians, who said that the Son is inferior to the Father. They were forced by what was stated earlier, that is, “For whatever the Father does, the Son does likewise” (5:19), to say that the Son is equal to the Father in power; but they still denied that the Son is equal to the Father in nature. But now, this too is refuted by this statement, namely, just as the Father possesses life in himself, so he has given it to the Son to have life in himself. For since life pertains to the nature, if the Son has life in himself as does the Father, it is clear that he has in himself, by his very origin, a nature indivisible from and equal to that of the Father.
The second error is also Arian: their denial that the Son is coeternal with the Father, when they say that the Son began to exist in time. This is destroyed when he says, the Son has life in himself. For in all living things whose generation occurs in time, it is always possible to find something that at some time or other was not living. But in the Son, whatever is, is life itself. Consequently, he so received life itself that he has life in himself, so as always to have been living.
Thirdly, by saying, he has given, he destroys the error of Sabellius, who denied the distinction of persons. For if the Father gave life to the Son, it is obvious that the Father, who gave it, is other than the Son, who received it.
784 Then (v 27), he makes it clear that he has the power to judge. First, he reveals his judiciary power. Secondly, he gives a reason for what he has said (v 30). As to the first he does two things. First, he indicates the origin of his judiciary power. Secondly, he shows that his judgment is just (v 29).
785 With regard to the first, we should note that his statement, he [the Father] gave him the power, can be understood in two ways. One way is that of Augustine; the other is that of Chrysostom.
786 If we understand it as Chrysostom does, then this section is divided into two parts. First, he reveals the origin of his judiciary power. Secondly, he settles a difficulty (v 27b).
Chrysostom punctuates this section in the following way. He gave him the power to pass judgment. And then a new sentence begins: Because he is the Son of Man, do not be surprised at this. The reason for this punctuation is that Paul of Samosata, an early heretic, who like Photius said that Christ was only a man and took his origin from the Virgin, punctuated it as: He gave him the power to pass judgment because he is the Son of Man. And then he began a new sentence: Do not be surprised at this, since the hour is coming. It was as if he thought that it was necessary for judiciary power to be given to Christ because he is the Son of Man, that is, a mere man, who, of himself, cannot judge men. And so, if Christ is to judge others, he must be given the power to judge.
But this, according to Chrysostom, cannot stand, because it is not at all in agreement with what is stated. For if it is because he is a man that he receives judiciary power, then for the same reason, since it would belong to every man to have judiciary power in virtue of his human nature, it would not belong to Christ any more than to other men. So we should not understand it this way. Rather, we should say that because Christ is the ineffable Son of God, he is on that account also judge. And this is what he says: The Father not only gave him the power to give life, but also he gave him the power, through eternal generation, to pass judgment, just as he gave him, through eternal generation, to have life in himself: “He is the one appointed by God to be the judge of the living and of the dead,” as we read in Acts (10:42).
He settles a difficulty when he says, Do not be surprised at this. First, he mentions the difficulty. Secondly, he clears it up.
787 The difficulty arose in the minds of the Jews and they were surprised because while they thought that Christ was no more than a man, he was saying things about himself that surpassed man and even the angels. So he says, Do not be surprised at this, that is, that I have said that the Son gives life to the dead and has the power to judge precisely because he is the Son of Man. They were surprised because, although they thought he was only a man, they saw that he accomplished divine effects: “What kind of man is this, for the sea and winds obey him?” (Mt 8:27). And he gives a reason why they should not be surprised, which is, because he who is the Son of Man is the Son of God. Although, as Chrysostom says, it is not said explicitly that the Son of Man is the Son of God, our Lord lays down the premises from which this statement necessarily follows: just as we notice that those who use syllogisms in their teaching do not express their main conclusion, but only that from which it follows with necessity. So our Lord does not say that he is the Son of God, but that the Son of Man is such that at his voice all the dead will rise. From this it necessarily follows that he is the Son of God: for it is a proper effect of God to raise the dead. Thus he says, Do not be surprised at this, since the hour is coming when all those buried in tombs will hear the voice of the Son of God. But he does not say of this hour, as he said above, “and is now here” (5:25). Again, here he says, all, which he did not say above: because at the first resurrection he raised only some, as Lazarus, the widow’s son and the young girl; but at the future resurrection, at the time of judgment, all will hear the voice of the Son of God, and will rise. “I will open your graves, and lead you out of your tombs” (Ez 37:12).
788 Augustine punctuates this passage in the following way. And he gave him the power to pass judgment because he is the Son of Man. And then a new sentence follows: Do not be surprised at this. In this interpretation there are two parts. The first concerns the power to judge granted to the Son of Man. In the second, the granting of an even greater power is made clear, at Do not be surprised at this.
789 As to the first we should note that, according to the mind of Augustine, he spoke above of the resurrection of souls, which is accomplished through the Son of God, but here he is speaking of the resurrection of bodies, which is accomplished through the Son of Man. And because the general resurrection of bodies will take place at the time of judgment, he mentions the judgment first, in saying, And he [the Father] gave him, i.e., Christ, the power to pass Judgment, and this, because he is the Son of Man, i.e., according to his human nature. Thus it is also after the resurrection that he says in Matthew (28:18): “All power has been given to me, in heaven and on earth.”
There are three reasons why judiciary power has been given to Christ as man. First, in order that he might be seen by all: for it is necessary that a judge be seen by all who are to be judged. Now both the good and the wicked will be judged. And the good will see Christ in his divinity and in his humanity; while the wicked will not be able to see him in his divinity, because this vision is the happiness of the saints and is seen only by the pure in heart: “Happy are the pure in heart, for they will see God” (Mt 5:8). And so, in order that Christ can be seen at the judgment not only by the good, but also by the wicked, he will judge in human form: “Every eye will see him, and all who pierced him” (Rv 1:7).
Secondly, the power to judge was given to Christ as man because by the self-abasement of his passion he merited the glory of an exaltation. Thus, just as he who died arose, so that [human] form which was judged, will judge, and he who stood before a human judge will preside at the judgment of men. He who was falsely found guilty will condemn the truly guilty, as Augustine remarks in his work, The Sayings of the Lord. “Your cause has been judged as that of the wicked; but cause and judgment you will recover” (Jb 36:17).
Thirdly, Christ as man was given judiciary power to suggest the compassion of the judge. For it is very terrifying for a man to be judged by God: “It is a terrible thing to fall into the hands of the living God” (Heb 10:31); but it produces confidence for a man to have another man as his judge. Accordingly, so you can experience the compassion of your judge, you will have a man as judge: “We do not have a high priest who cannot have compassion on our weakness” (Heb 4:15).
Thus, he gave him , Christ, the power to pass judgment because he is the Son of Man.
790 Do not be surprised at this, for he has given him a greater power, that is, the power to raise the dead. Thus he says, since the hour is coming, that is, the last hour at the end of the world: “The time has come, the day of slaughter is near” (Ez 7:7), when all those buried in tombs will hear the voice of the Son of God. Above he did not say “all,” because there he was speaking of the spiritual resurrection, in which all did not rise at his first coming, for we read: “All do not have faith” (2 Thes 3:2). But here he is speaking of the resurrection of the body, and all will rise in this way, as we read in 1 Corinthians (15:20). He adds, those buried in tombs, which he had not mentioned above, because only bodies, not souls, are in tombs, and it is the resurrection of bodies that will then take place.
All those buried in tombs will hear the voice of the Son of God. This voice will be a sense perceptible sign of the Son of God, at whose sound all will be raised: “The Lord will come with the cry of the archangel and with the trumpet of God” (1 Thes 4:15); we find the same in 1 Corinthians (15:52) and in Matthew (25:6): “There was a cry at midnight.” This voice will derive its power from the divinity of Christ: “He will make his voice a powerful voice,” as the Psalm (67:34) says.