Verily, verily, I say unto you, The hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God: and they that hear shall live.
All Commentaries on John 5:25 Go To John 5
Cornelius a Lapide
AD 1637
Verily, verify, &c. "Lest thou shouldst think that this is to come to pass after a very long time, He subjoins, and now is. For if He were only announcing things future, there might not unreasonably be doubt, but He saith that these things shall come to pass whilst He is still conversant upon earth." So Chrysostom. For, as Theophylact says, "He is speaking here of those three whom He was about to raise, the widow"s Song of Solomon , the daughter of the ruler of the synagogue, and especially of Lazarus. For this last He was about to raise in Judea. And Christ is here speaking in Judea to Jews. This then is the signification of now is. Christ then rises from the spiritual resurrection of souls from sin to the life of grace, to the resurrection of those bodies which He was about to raise whilst He lived on earth. From this He rises to the full resurrection glory of the bodies which He will raise in the day of judgment. For from His power to raise souls from the death of sin to the life of grace, as from a thing greater and more difficult, Christ proves that He has power to raise the body, a thing less difficult. So Toletus, Jansen, and others. But S. Cyril and others think that the reference in this place is to the general resurrection, and they take the expression, and now Isaiah , to refer to the last judgment. For S. John (1st Epist. ii18) calls the whole time of the New Law the last hour, i.e, the last time, because this is the last stage of the world, and therefore all things which are done in it seem to be, as it were, present, and to be done in this present hour.
Some add that Christ is here speaking of the saints whom He raised when He Himself arose from the dead (S. Matt. xxvii52). The fullest meaning of the passage is to understand it of all whom Christ has raised, and will raise from the dead.
And they that hear, i.e, who shall feel the force of the voice of Christ, or who shall obey Him, as bearing the voice of the Son of God, who calls the things which are not as though they were.
