John 5:24 Commentary and Bible Study

Christ now announces that a new age has dawned. Salvation has always been by faith in God, in the Old Testament also. Through the types and shadows of the ceremonial law God declared that he would make a way for sin to be purged away, but now there is full New Testament light, and he announces formerly the last age of the world, the Gospel Age. Note the singular ‘he that heareth my word’: that was inflammatory to begin with. ‘There is a new age,’ says Christ, ‘this is the Gospel Age, the age of grace. No Jew is saved by virtue of his being a Jew. This is a matter for individual faith and belief. ‘He who believes me and my word.’ So, the terms are explained from the very beginning. The sense is this: you hear the word of Christ - that there is a way of salvation, that he has suffered and died for sinners. You hear him say, ‘Come unto me all ye that labour and are heavy laden,’ you respond to him and at the same time you believe that the Father has sent him, because this is the context of belief in the Father - ‘and believeth on him that sent me’. ‘You believe in me and you believe in the Father who sent me into this world to be a representative for lost souls, and to suffer and to die, and to give life, and to purchase salvation.’ Such a person will not come into condemnation, rather salvation, and is passed from death to life.