The Dead Will Hear the Voice of the Son of God
Short answer: In John 5:25-29 Jesus makes a claim no mere teacher would dare to make. He says the hour is already here when the dead will hear his voice and those who hear will live, and he adds that an hour is coming when everyone in the tombs will hear his voice and come out. The first statement describes people who are spiritually dead being made alive the moment they believe, which is exactly what Ephesians 2:1-10 and Colossians 2:13-14 describe. The second statement describes the bodily resurrection at the last day, when the same voice that called Lazarus from the tomb will call every person out to face judgment or life. One voice, two resurrections, one speaker who holds the authority of God himself.
Why Jesus said the hour comes and now is
The setting matters. Jesus had just healed a man on the Sabbath, and the religious leaders were angry. In John 5:19-24 he answers them by describing an authority so complete that the Son does only what he sees the Father doing. Then in John 5:25 he makes a statement that sounds like a riddle. The hour comes, he says, and now is, when the dead will hear the Son of God’s voice, and those who hear will live. He refuses to place this event in a distant future only. Something decisive was already happening in his ministry, and it had to do with the dead hearing him.
The word dead does not automatically mean corpses in this Gospel. John uses physical imagery for spiritual realities throughout the book, calling himself the bread of life and the light of the world. So when Jesus speaks of the dead hearing his voice in the present tense, he is describing people who have no spiritual life responding to his call. The next verses make this plain, because he contrasts those who hear and live with those who remain under judgment. Jesus is announcing that the life he gives begins the moment a person hears and believes, not at the grave.
Notice the phrase those who hear will live. It is not those who hear will eventually be improved, or will be given a second chance, or will receive a moral upgrade. Hearing the Son’s voice produces life, in the same way that a command from God produced light in Genesis. This is why Jesus elsewhere says his sheep hear his voice, and why Paul can describe salvation as a call that raises the dead. The voice is not information to evaluate. It is power to obey or resist. Those who hear it live, and living is something only God can give to a corpse.
This present-tense resurrection is the ordinary way God saves anyone. It happens in a hospital room, at a kitchen table, in a prison cell, in a church pew, when a person who was deaf to God suddenly hears. Jesus says the hour for this has already arrived, which means we should not read John 5:25 as a prophecy about the end times. It is a claim about his ministry’s authority. The one speaking was at that moment doing what only God does, and he expected his listeners to notice.
Ephesians 2 says the same thing with different words
Paul’s testimony matches Jesus’ claim almost word for word. Ephesians 2:1-10 opens by saying you were made alive when you were dead in transgressions and sins. That is the identical paradox of a dead person becoming alive. Paul does not say that sinners were sick and needed a physician, though Jesus used that image elsewhere. He says they were dead. A dead person cannot contribute to his resurrection, cannot assist the physician, cannot prepare himself for life. The change Paul describes is entirely the work of God from beginning to end.
Paul goes on to say that this life is given together with Christ, that it is by grace and through faith, and that it is not of works so that no one can boast. These are the mechanics of the hearing Jesus described. Faith is the ear of the soul, and it is itself a gift, not a natural capacity of the corpse. When Paul says we are created in Christ Jesus for good works, he is not contradicting grace. He is describing what the raised person does now that he has been raised. Good works follow the resurrection; they do not cause it.
The location of Ephesians 2:1-10 in the letter is also instructive. Paul does not begin Ephesians with a reminder of how bad the readers used to be, as if guilt were the point. He places this teaching after a soaring description of God’s plan in Christ, so that the resurrection of the dead in sin becomes a reason for praise. That is what happens when someone hears the Son of God’s voice. They do not merely feel forgiven. They discover they have been brought from death into life, and the proper response is gratitude, not self-congratulation.
Colossians 2:13-14 adds the legal dimension. Paul writes that we were dead through trespasses and the uncircumcision of our flesh, and that God made us alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses. The resurrection of the dead and the cancellation of the debt belong together. If you have heard the Son’s voice, your sins are not merely overlooked; they are nailed to the cross. Life and forgiveness are one gift. This is the pastoral comfort of John 5:25. The voice that raises the dead also settles the account.
The Lazarus sign shows what that voice sounds like
John 11 gives us a visible demonstration of the spiritual resurrection Jesus described. Lazarus had been in the tomb four days. Martha objected that there would be a stench, and she was right. Jesus did not argue with her about the smell. He wept, then he called out in a loud voice, and the dead man came out. John 11:43-44 records the moment when Jesus cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come out. The command was heard by a corpse, and the corpse obeyed. That is exactly the pattern of John 5:25, applied to a body rather than a soul.
The raising of Lazarus is not a parable, and it is not merely a display of power. Jesus explicitly ties it to his own identity and to the faith of those standing nearby. He tells Martha that he is the resurrection and the life, and he asks whether she believes. Then he acts. The order matters. He does not raise Lazarus so that people will believe as a kind of spectacle, and he does not require Lazarus to cooperate. The voice does everything. Lazarus contributes nothing except a body to be raised, which is precisely the point Paul makes in Ephesians 2.
The sign also shows that the voice of the Son is personal. Jesus does not shout a general command for all the dead of Bethany to rise. He calls Lazarus by name. When Jesus says in John 5:28 that all who are in the tombs will hear his voice, the same personal knowledge is implied. The one who calls each star by name calls each person by name. Nobody is lost in the crowd at the resurrection. The voice that raised Lazarus knew him, and the voice that raises the spiritually dead knows you.
Finally, the Lazarus sign shows that hearing includes coming out. Jesus does not leave Lazarus in the tomb and call it a spiritual resurrection. He tells the bystanders to unbind him and let him go. Resurrection life is meant to be lived, not merely experienced privately. If the Son has made you alive, that life will show itself in how you walk, speak, and love. The power that raised Lazarus is not a distant doctrine. It is the power by which anyone who has heard the Son’s voice begins to move.
Ezekiel saw the valley of dry bones
Centuries before Christ, Ezekiel was shown a vision that uses the same language. Ezekiel 37:1-14 records that Yahveh’s hand was on the prophet and he was set down in the middle of a valley full of bones. The bones were very dry, which in the ancient world meant beyond any hope of recovery. Then God asked Ezekiel whether these bones could live. Ezekiel answered that only God knew. The prophet did not pronounce the bones hopeless, but he did not claim he could revive them either.
God then commanded Ezekiel to prophesy to the bones, and as he did, the bones came together, sinew and flesh covered them, and breath entered them. The point of the vision is stated plainly: God promises to open the graves of his people and bring them back to the land. This is both a promise of national restoration after exile and a picture of resurrection. It is why the imagery of dry bones has comforted grieving believers ever since. The God who can assemble a valley of scattered bones is not limited by a sealed tomb or a six-foot grave.
But notice how the vision happens. God does not simply decide silently to raise the bones. He tells the prophet to speak, and the speaking is the means by which life comes. That is the pattern of John 5:25. The dead hear a voice. The voice carries the power. In Ezekiel’s day the voice came through a prophet; in John’s Gospel the voice is the Son of God himself. The difference between the two is not the mechanism but the person. God has always raised the dead by his word, and now that word has become flesh and speaks with human lips.
The valley of dry bones also teaches patience about timing. Ezekiel prophesied, and the bones came together, but the breath did not come immediately; he had to prophesy again. God’s promises are certain, but they unfold according to his timetable. In John 5, Jesus says the hour comes and now is, and he also says an hour is coming. Both are true at once. The spiritually dead are being raised now, and the physically dead will be raised later. Believers live between those two hours, trusting the voice they have already heard.
Romans 8 and the resurrection of the body
Romans 8:10-11 connects the resurrection of the spirit now to the resurrection of the body later. Paul writes that if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the spirit is alive because of righteousness. He is acknowledging an uncomfortable reality: believers still die. The body remains under the sentence of sin, and the grave is still real for Christians. Yet the inner person, made alive by Christ, is not waiting for the grave to be defeated before it begins to live.
Paul continues by saying the Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies. This is the future resurrection, and it is grounded in the past resurrection of Christ. The same Spirit is at work in both. If the Spirit raised Jesus, he can raise you. Paul does not treat this as wishful thinking. He treats it as the logical consequence of belonging to Christ. The resurrection of Jesus is not a one-time anomaly; it is the firstfruits of a harvest that includes everyone who hears his voice and believes.
This is why Christians can grieve with hope. The sorrow is real, because death is an enemy, but the grief is not despair. The body that is buried will be raised, and the voice that calls it will be the same voice that spoke to Lazarus outside Bethany. The believer who has already heard the Son’s voice in conversion can face the grave knowing that the second hearing, the one that raises the body, is certain. He has already heard it once. He will hear it again.
Romans 8 also reminds us that the resurrection hope is not only personal but cosmic. Paul goes on to describe creation groaning for redemption, waiting for the revealing of the children of God. The voice of the Son of God does not merely rescue individual souls from a doomed world. It inaugurates the renewal of all things. John 5:28-29 places the general resurrection inside that larger purpose. Everyone in the tombs will hear, and the world will not remain as it is. The dead will hear, and that hearing is the hinge on which history turns.
Two resurrections in one passage
John 5:28-29 shifts from the present tense to the future. Jesus says that an hour is coming in which all who are in the tombs will hear his voice and will come out, those who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment. This is the general resurrection, and it is comprehensive. Nobody is left in the grave by accident. The tombs will not hold anyone who is called. The voice that summoned Lazarus will summon everyone.
The phrase those who have done good and those who have done evil has troubled some readers, because it sounds like salvation by works. It is not. Throughout the Gospel of John, doing good is the fruit of believing, and doing evil is the fruit of rejecting the light. Jesus explains this a few verses earlier, where he says that those who have done good, that is, those who have responded to God, will rise to life. The resurrection reveals what a person’s life was oriented toward. Works are evidence, not the price of admission.
The two resurrections are not sequential in the way a simple timeline might suggest. One is happening now, in the call that brings dead sinners to faith, and one is coming at the last day, when the body is raised for judgment or life. The same voice accomplishes both. This should shape how we share the gospel. We do not argue people into life, and we do not manipulate them into a decision. We speak the words of Christ, trusting that his voice is powerful enough to raise the dead. The results belong to him.
This also guards against discouragement in ministry. If you have ever shared the gospel with someone unresponsive, you know the temptation to conclude that the person is beyond reach. Jesus says the dead will hear. That is not a description of a promising prospect or a likely candidate. It is a description of a corpse. If the voice can raise a corpse, it can raise the person across your table. Our job is to speak; his job is to call.
What it means to hear that voice today
Hearing the Son of God’s voice is not a mystical experience reserved for special Christians. It is what happens whenever a person encounters the word of Christ and responds in faith. Jesus says in John 5:24 that whoever hears his word and believes him who sent him has eternal life and does not come into judgment. That hearing is ordinary in its means and extraordinary in its effect. It takes place through Scripture read, preached, explained, and believed. The voice is not audible, but it is no less real.
This means the preaching and reading of Scripture are not warm-up acts before the real work. They are the real work. When the gospel is proclaimed, the voice of the Son of God is speaking, and the dead are hearing. That is why a sermon can seem dull to one person and earth-shaking to another. The difference is not the eloquence of the speaker. It is the power of the voice and the work of the Spirit opening ears. Paul’s question in Romans 10 is exactly this: how will they hear without someone preaching? The answer is that God sends preachers, and through them Christ calls his own.
If you have heard that voice and believed, you have already experienced the first resurrection. The person you were apart from Christ was dead, and you are now alive. That is not a metaphor for self-improvement. It is a genuine change of nature brought about by God. It means that your current struggles with sin are not the struggles of a corpse trying to revive itself. They are the struggles of a living person learning to walk. Christ has already called you out of the tomb. The rest of your life is about learning to live in the light.
If you have not yet heard and believed, the invitation stands. The voice that said Lazarus, come out is still speaking through the gospel. You do not need to clean yourself up first, because a dead person cannot clean himself up. You need to hear. Christ does not turn away anyone who comes to him, and he is able to raise the dead. The same authority that will call every tomb to open at the last day is at work now, calling dead sinners to life. Hearing is the one thing needful, and the voice is speaking still.
Biblical fidelity check
John 5:25-29 establishes that Jesus possesses the divine authority to give life and to judge. It does not establish that everyone will eventually be saved. Jesus explicitly mentions a resurrection of judgment alongside the resurrection of life, so the passage allows for two different outcomes. It does not establish a timeline in which the spiritual resurrection stops and the physical resurrection begins at a date we can calculate. Jesus says the hour now is and the hour is coming, holding both together. And it does not establish that the spiritually dead can prepare themselves for the call, because a corpse cannot prepare for anything; the call itself creates the capacity to respond.
A common misreading treats the valley of dry bones in Ezekiel 37 and the tombs in John 5 as if they describe only national or political restoration. Ezekiel’s vision certainly addressed exiles returning to their land, and it is right to honor that setting. But the imagery goes beyond politics, and Jesus applies the same language to resurrection from the grave. Another misreading turns the present resurrection into a mere psychological shift, as if Jesus were saying people feel better about themselves. That empties the word dead of its force. Paul says the Ephesians were dead in sins, and God made them alive. That is a claim about reality, not mood.
Other passages that speak to John 5:25-29
Several passages fill out this theme. Romans 10 explains that faith comes by hearing, which is why the voice of Christ still reaches the dead through preaching, and it is worth studying alongside this text (Romans 10 Bible Study: How Will They Hear?). Ezekiel 36 promises a new heart and God’s Spirit, which is the inner side of the resurrection Jesus announces (Ezekiel 36:24–28 Prophecy: Cleansing, a New Heart, and God’s Spirit). First John 1 speaks of fellowship with the one who is life, helping us understand what it means to walk in the light after being raised (What Does 1 John 1:1 Mean? Context, Theology, and Application). And the hardening of Pharaoh shows that not everyone who hears responds, which is a sober warning not to presume on the voice of God (Did God harden Pharaoh’s heart against his will? A Biblical Guide).
Frequently asked questions
Does John 5:25 refer to spiritual resurrection or physical resurrection?
John 5:25 refers to spiritual resurrection, while John 5:28-29 refers to physical resurrection. In verse 25 Jesus says the hour now is, meaning dead sinners are already hearing his voice and being made alive through faith. Ephesians 2:1-10 describes the same event, calling believers people who were dead in sins and were made alive with Christ. The later verses use the future tense about those in the tombs, which points to the bodily resurrection at the last day. One voice, two resurrections.
If the dead cannot respond, how can they hear the voice of the Son of God?
They hear because the voice of Christ creates the very capacity it commands. Lazarus was four days dead and could not cooperate, yet he came out when Jesus called. God’s word is not information offered to the living; it is power that raises the dead. This is why Paul says salvation is by grace through faith, and even faith is a gift rather than a work. The dead do not prepare themselves to hear. They hear because the Son speaks, and hearing produces life.
Does John 5:29 teach that we are saved by good works?
No. John 5:29 speaks of those who have done good rising to life and those who have done evil rising to judgment, but in John’s Gospel doing good flows from believing and doing evil flows from rejecting the light. Jesus says elsewhere that the work of God is to believe in the one he sent. The resurrection does not reward moral achievement; it reveals what a life was oriented toward. Good works are the fruit of life in Christ, never the price of it.
