---
title: John 5:29
url: https://jw-apologetics.app/verses/john-5-29/
markdown: https://jw-apologetics.app/verses/john-5-29.md
type: verse
perspective: Protestant (historic Nicene) response to Jehovah's Witness teaching
reference: John 5:29
testament: NT
section: Gospels
index: https://jw-apologetics.app/llms.txt
---

# John 5:29

## Text (Berean Standard Bible)

> and come out—those who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment.

## NWT Wording of the Key Phrase

- NWT (2013 revision): "and come out, those who did good things to a resurrection of life, and those who practiced vile things to a resurrection of judgment."

## JW Usage

The Watchtower teaches that the resurrection of the unrighteous is the beginning of an opportunity rather than the end of one — those raised during the thousand years will be judged on what they do after they come back, having finally been taught the truth. On that reading the "resurrection of judgment" here is a judgment still to be earned, not a verdict on a life already lived.

## Protestant Usage

Read the sentence's own tenses. Those who did good, and those who practised vile things — both descriptions are of completed lives, and both are the ground of the outcome. Whatever the resurrection of judgment is, Jesus grounds it in what people had already done. Then take the three texts that fix the window. Hebrews 9:27: it is appointed for men to die once, and after this a judgment. One death, one judgment, nothing in between. Luke 16:26: Jesus' own picture of the afterlife has a great chasm fixed, and Abraham says nobody can cross it — and when the rich man asks for a warning to be sent to his brothers, he is pointed back to Moses and the prophets, the message available in this life. 2 Corinthians 6:2: now is the day of salvation. Revelation 20:11-15, the passage most often cited for a second chance, is worth reading carefully with a Witness, because it is a courtroom and not a classroom. The dead are judged according to what they had done, and the question is whether a name is written. Nobody in the scene is being taught anything. Compare John 5:28, Luke 16:26, Revelation 20:5.

## Arguments Using This Verse

- [One Death, One Judgment — No Second Chance in the Millennium](https://jw-apologetics.app/arguments/postmortem-salvation-rebuttal.md) — Hebrews 9:27 / Luke 16:26 / 2 Corinthians 6:2 — postmortem evangelism rebutted [Eschatology]