24. We believe the connection with the preceding to be this. In speaking of the end God had in view in conferring the supreme judiciary power upon the God‐man, our Lord had noted parenthetically the effect of not honouring the Son (verse 23); here He adds what the effect of honouring Him is. *Amen, amen.* The repeated asseveration indicates the solemn importance of the declaration about to be made, namely, that he who accepts the teaching of Christ, and thereby the testimony of the Father testifying to Christ as His Son, has eternal life. We take “death” and “life” of this verse of the death of sin and the life of grace, and understand “has passed” in reference to the justification of the sinner. See 1 John iii. 14, and what we have said on i. 13. 25. Amen, amen dico vobis, 25. Amen, amen, I say unto quia venit hora, et nunc est, you, that the hour cometh and quando mortui audient vocem now is, when the dead shall Filii Dei: et qui audierint, hear the voice of the Son of vivent. God, and they that hear shall live. 25. Having stated parenthetically the effect of dishonouring and honouring Himself, Christ returns to the proof of His divine power. There is the same difference of opinion here regarding the life and death meant, as in verse 21. The words, *And now is*, favour the view that there is question of a spiritual resurrection that had already begun. *And they that hear, shall live.* These words, too, suggest that there is question of a spiritual resurrection, a resurrection in which all those that hear and believe are to share. 26. Sicut enim Pater habet 26. For as the Father hath vitam in semetipso: sic dedit life in himself; so he hath et Filio habere vitam in given to the Son also to have semetipso: life in himself: 26. For the Son is essential Life like the Father, and being in Himself the source of life can therefore impart it to others. 27. Et potestatem dedit ei 27. And he hath given him iudicium facere, quia Filius power to do judgment, because hominis est. he is the son of man. 27. The meaning is, that as it was ordained from all eternity, that the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity should become man, so it was ordained that He, as God‐man should judge all men without exception in the general judgment, and all who die after the incarnation, in the particular judgment. 28. Nolite mirari hoc, quia 28. Wonder not at this, for venit hora in qua omnes qui in the hour cometh wherein all monumentis sunt, audient vocem that are in the graves shall Filii Dei: hear the voice of the Son of God. 28. *This* at which they are not to wonder, is His power of raising the dead, _i.e._, the few whom He raised corporally during His public life, or, as we prefer, the many whom He raised spiritually; and His power of judging.