The Light is the Life; John 11:1-44
This chapter, along with chapter 12 which is a sort of comment and consequence of chapter 11, go together as the climax of the section of John which stems from back in chapter six all the way through as we have seen this continual conflict between Jesus and the religious leaders. The religious leaders have been continuously antagonistic to Jesus and we have seen that antagonism increase. From back in chapter five when they determined that they would kill Jesus after He healed the man at the pool of Bethesda on a Sabbath, up through the resuscitation of Lazarus in chapter eleven, this animosity has increased. We need to see how John is using that and he is going to pull all of this together for us as a final indictment of the nation and the religious leaders. After chapter twelve we enter into the last week of Jesus' ministry on the earth prior to the crucifixion.
We have to go back and see how John is developing his thematic structure. It is fascinating to see how John starts off with something in the very first chapter where he talks about Jesus, that "in Him was life." That means in Jesus before He became a man, in His eternal deity, life exists in Him as a person, not as some abstract principle. As finite creatures we cannot fully understand God. We can understand all that God has all that God has revealed to us about Himself but that is different from saying that we can fully understand God. There is much more to God than simply what is revealed and we will spend eternity learning about that. So in His person He is life and in His person as that person we as believers now have a personal relationship He is light, and that light shines continuously in the world as part of the eternal infinite God who is infinite (His incomprehensibility) and on the other side that He is personal. He is transcendent, which means that He transcends the creation, He is beyond the universe, He is more than what can be encapsulated within the universe, He is outside all space and time. He is imminent, which means that he is continually present to all of His creation so that at every point in the universe God is fully and totally present. In His imminence God is continually personal, which means that He is continually present to us as a person. There is not an abstract principle above and beyond God when there was nothing before Genesis 1:1, when there was no heavens and no earth, no space-time continuum. There was a person who existed who existed in one essence and three persons.
God is intimately involved in everything that is going on in all of our lives as believers and He is continuously revealing Himself to mankind throughout history, and we saw that in John chapter one. Then in John chapter three as John developed this theme of light he says in verse 19: "This is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world..." The word he uses is krisis [krisij] for judgment, and it indicates a judgment, that there is a decision, a consequence to this breaking in of light in history, that man cannot simply remain neutral, that fallen man has no position of neutrality. Throughout human history God is breaking into history, His revelation of Himself is continually available to every human being through the creation (Romans 1), that His attributes are continuously seen, knowledge about Him is available to every human being and His existence is even within every human being. So because of this judgment every single person is forced to make a decision for or against God and at the age of accountability people come to realise this truth that God exists and they have to make a decision about whether or not they want to know more about this God or they reject Him. Then they can be negative and be extremely religious. On the other hand there are people who seem to exemplify tremendous animosity to God and hatred to God's people and the church to the point of being like Saul of Tarsus where they are on a crusade to destroy Christianity. And yet they were truly positive to God at God-consciousness and will eventually hear the gospel and respond positively, as did the apostle Paul. So overt activity may have nothing at all to do with what is really going on in the core thinking of the heart, the kardia, of an individual. In the process of the revelation of light we see this decision that must be made, and John has been focusing on this all through this section. In fact, Jesus has said twice, "I am the Light of the world," and from chapter seven on this light ministry becomes a major theme of the Lord Jesus Christ.
We don't escape it when we come to John chapter eleven. In verse 9 Jesus will answer an objection from the disciples and says: "Are there not twelve hours in the day? If anyone walks in the day, he does not stumble, because he sees the light of this world." Although Jesus is talking at one level figuratively there is also a deeper level to what He is saying because He is the Light of the world and he is talking to the disciples about staying with the plan of God and being consistent in their walk with Him. So even in this episode about the resuscitation of Lazarus we will see that even this is exemplifying the message of Jesus being the Light of the world, and this will be the final straw that breaks the camel's back, so to speak, in the resistance of the Pharisees and sets them on their final course of action to see that Jesus is executed. We see throughout the development of the theme of light and how that light not only draws those who are positive to Christ but it also drives away those who are negative because it reveals all of their evil, all of their arrogance, all of their religiosity, and in the exposure of the light we see all of their evil deeds manifested and it floats to the top like scum on a pond. The other things that we see is that their religiosity has promoted an atmosphere of incredible fear in Jerusalem. Legalism always promotes fear and hostility.
When we come to this passage we are going to see that this life-generating miracle, this resuscitation of the dead Lazarus, is going to exemplify for us this basic theme of light and darkness and that light is life. Because Jesus is light and because He is life He is going to give life to Lazarus. He is demonstrating that He is the source of life but it is this one area of life that man in their autonomy and fallen nature just continuously seek to try to control. We don't like the fact that we die. Death is the greatest threat to our autonomy because we know that our life is finite and we are going to die, and people live in denial of death and try to do so many things to try and avoid death. It is in this one area as Jesus gives life to Lazarus that he is going to show with this ultimate miracle that he is the Lord of life itself and this becomes the ultimate threat and calls forth and brings forth the greatest antagonism from those who have rejected the truth. And we see that if we look at the reaction section of the chapter from verse 47. The Pharisees get together and convene a council, literally the Sanhedrin, and they try to decide what they are going to do about this man because if He continues to do what he is doing the Romans are going to come along and send an army down to destroy them. So it is this miracle that establishes and sets up the context in which they make the final decision to make sure that he is arrested and destroyed.
Another thing that we are going to see in this passage is an understanding of Jesus in His personhood, as our high priest and His compassion with us. Jesus Christ is true humanity and undiminished deity united in one person forever. That means from the moment of the incarnation throughout the Millennial kingdom and on into eternity Jesus Christ is fully God and fully man. There never will be another time when Jesus Christ is not true humanity. In this true humanity He still has everything that makes Him a human, including tremendous compassion for us in our weaknesses. Hebrew 4:14 NASB "Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession.
John 11:1 NASB "Now a certain man was sick, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha." Bethany is what we would say is a suburb of Jerusalem, about 2 miles outside of Jerusalem. [12] "It was the Mary who anointed the Lord with ointment, and wiped His feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was sick." That event occurs in chapter twelve. He hasn't told us about that event yet but apparently he realises that his readers are fully aware. They know who Mary is, they know about what she did in anointing the Lord's feet, so he identifies this Mary with the woman who anoints the Lord's feet with her hair. In Luke 10:38 we hear the story about Mary and Martha, and it is Mary who is sitting at Jesus' feet when He is teaching; Martha is in doing the dishes. In that episode we get this view of Martha as not being as interested in doctrine as Mary is. But in this episode it is Martha who comes running out to the Lord and it is Mary who stays behind. So both sisters are very positive to doctrine and just because of the story in Luke 10 it doesn't mean that Martha is just a superficial person who doesn't care about doctrine. They both are concerned about doctrine and are very close to the Lord.
John 11:3 NASB "So the sisters sent {word} to Him, saying, 'Lord, behold, he whom You love is sick'." We don't often think about the fact that the Lord in His humanity had some very close personal friends who were involved with His ministry. Lazarus was one of His friends. Our Lord was not some reserved stoic figure who was untouched and uninvolved with those around Him. He was very close to those around Him and has deep personal relationships, not with everyone but with a few and Lazarus was one of those few. This was one of His very closest friends during the time that He was on the earth. So the sisters remind Him of this because they know that Jesus healed the sick in the past and that Jesus could heal him from far away or from the present.
In our prayers a lot of times we have a sub-text going that we really want God to do things our way and we are not ready to let the Lord do things His way. Throughout Jesus ministry and His life He always operated on a divine viewpoint agenda. He knew what God's plan was for His life and he wasn't going to be distracted by other people's concepts of what His ministry was supposed to be like. He was continuously being pressured by people to act and perform a certain way, but because He understood doctrine and looked at His life within the framework of doctrine and the plan of God he did not yield to that pressure that people put on Him to act a certain way. He refused to yield to that pressure from people to perform according to human viewpoint concepts of ministry.
Jesus has His own agenda and in spite of what people might think, in spite of overt circumstances, He loves Lazarus and he loves Mary and Martha, and He has a profound, deep, infinite love because He is undiminished deity. And because he loves them He waits two days before He does anything; it is because He loves them that He does what he loves, and the same thing is true about a pastor. The greatest way that a pastor can express his love for a congregation is to spend hours and hours and hours a week studying and thinking and teaching.
John 11:4 NASB "But when Jesus heard {this,} He said, 'This sickness is not to end in death, but for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified by it'." When He says the sickness is not unto death he knows that is going to happen. Jesus Christ is fully God, He is undiminished deity and he is still omniscient. He knows that there is a plan and a purpose for Lazarus' death. Then John reminds us in v. 5 of Jesus' relationship with the family.
John 11:5 NASB "Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. [6] So when He heard that he was sick, He then stayed two days {longer} in the place where He was." John is making a point here. Jesus is not doing what we think He ought to do, he is doing what he knows He should do to demonstrate what he wants. He is operating on the Father's plan.
John 11:7 NASB "Then after this He said to the disciples, 'Let us go to Judea again.'" He has waited two days and continued His ministry. He is in Peraea which is the region across the Jordan; it is a good day's journey. But look at the response of the disciples. They also know Martha, Mary and Lazarus but they show no compassion whatsoever. They don't know what the agenda is and are just concerned with saving their own hides. John 11:8 NASB "The disciples said to Him, 'Rabbi, the Jews were just now seeking to stone You, and are You going there again?' [9] Jesus answered, 'Are there not twelve hours in the day? If anyone walks in the day, he does not stumble, because he sees the light of this world. [10] But if anyone walks in the night, he stumbles, because the light is not in him'." A surface meaning of this is that you really don't want to walk around at night in Israel. You can't see where you are going and you might slip on the rocks and break your leg or sprain your ankle, whatever it might be. But there is an analogy here. The analogy is that because he is the Light of the world we have illumination to God's plan, so "We know what God's plan is because I am here; I have revealed God's plan. And if we are walking in God's plan then we won't stumble. We are not going to stumble by going back, even if that means getting arrested and losing our life." That is the sub-text.
John 11:11 NASB "This He said, and after that He said to them, 'Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep; but I go, so that I may awaken him out of sleep'." The is phrase "fallen asleep" is a euphemism that is only applied to believers. Believers do not die, they fall asleep in the Scripture. Over and again whenever it talks about a believer dying it says they fall asleep. Why? Because it is not permanent. At the moment of faith alone in Christ alone we are given eternal life. That life continues at the moment of physical death. We are still fully alive; we are just absent from the physical body and face to face with the Lord, but we never die. The body goes into the grave but it will be resurrected and we will receive a new resurrection body at the Rapture. [12] "The disciples then said to Him, 'Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will recover'." Something must be understood about Jewish medicine at that time. According to the Jews sleep was one of the signs of recovery from illness and restoration to life. So that means if he is asleep he is going to pull out of it and recover. Then the Lord clarifies what he means. [13] Now Jesus had spoken of his death, but they thought that He was speaking of literal sleep.
John 11:16 NASB "Therefore Thomas, who is called Didymus, said to {his} fellow disciples, 'Let us also go, so that we may die with Him'." There is a heavy foreshadowing here because almost all the disciples are martyred.
John 11:17 NASB "So when Jesus came, He found that he had already been in the tomb four days. [18] Now Bethany was near Jerusalem, about two miles off;
John 11:20 NASB "Martha therefore, when she heard that Jesus was coming, went to meet Him, but Mary stayed at the house." Here she is the initiator, as opposed to Mary. [21] "Martha then said to Jesus, 'Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died.' Here she is simply expressing her faith in the Lord. It hasn't been shattered by the fact that he didn't show up. She said that if Jesus had been there Lazarus wouldn't have died, he could have healed him. That's all she is saying. [22] "Even now I know that whatever You ask of God, God will give You." Here we see the positive aspect to her faith. She knows that whatever God's will is that Jesus can fulfil it. But there is nothing in her frame of reference to give her an understanding that Jesus can go and call Lazarus out of the grave, especially after he had been there for four days. She thinks it is all over with.
John 11:23 NASB "Jesus said to her, 'Your brother will rise again'." He is virtually telling her that He is going to bring Lazarus out of the grave, but she doesn't comprehend that. That just goes right past her. [24] "Martha said to Him, I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day'." She is thinking totally in terms of eschatology. [25] "Jesus said to her, 'I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me will live even if he dies…" This is His last statement of ego eimi [e)gw e)imi]. Both objects apply. He is saying two things. In the person, His hypostatic union, He is life and He is the resurrection. "… he who believes in me…" Here He uses that same construction that is found throughout the Gospel. The verb is pisteuo [pisteuw] plus the preposition eis [e)ij]. This expresses the object of faith. So we are to believe something, which means to accept something as true. The only thing we can believe ultimately is a proposition. All belief has as its object something that is expressed propositionally. To express a proposition entails the intellect. Faith is an intellectual operation, cognitive function, it is not emotional. The proposition is that Jesus is the Christ the Son of God and that He died on the cross as a substitute for our sins. "…will live even if he dies." He will live eternally even if he dies physically because he is immediately absent from the body and face to face with the Lord and his soul, the real person, never goes to sleep and never ceases existence. [26] "and everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die. Do you believe this?" He immediately brings this home to her. [27] "She said to Him, 'Yes, Lord; I have believed that You are the Christ, the Son of God, {even} He who comes into the world'." The verb is a perfect active indicative which indicates that her belief was something that happened in the past with results that go on, and she is emphasising the present results of a past action. In the Gospel of John the object of faith is the proposition that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God. And if you believe that He is the predicted Messiah from the Old Testament, which includes within that whole framework that he would come to die as a substitute for the sins of the world, then you will have eternal life. That is all there is to it.
John 11:28 NASB "When she had said this, she went away and called Mary her sister, saying secretly, 'The Teacher is here and is calling for you'." Notice she called Him Teacher, she doesn't call Him Rabbi. On eof the important things to note about this entire episode is the significance that is brought out by the Holy Spirit of Jesus' relationship to Mary and Martha as women. As a Jewish common practice a rabbi would never talk to a woman. Jesus would talk to women which elevates them and shows that women are equally in the image of God with man.
John 11:30 NASB "Now Jesus had not yet come into the village, but was still in the place where Martha met Him." He waits outside thew village to have a private time with the sisters. [31] "Then the Jews who were with her in the house, and consoling her, when they saw that Mary got up quickly and went out, they followed her, supposing that she was going to the tomb to weep there. [32] Therefore, when Mary came where Jesus was, she saw Him, and fell at His feet, saying to Him, 'Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died'." She says the same thing that Martha says. She is expressing her faith, it is not a criticism. Then we see the compassion of the Lord for our circumstances. {33] "When Jesus therefore saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her {also} weeping, He was deeply moved in spirit and was troubled." This is fascinating. He is looking at Mary whom He loves and then the Jews who are hostile to Him and their weeping. He looks at both the believers and the unbelievers and he is deeply moved in spirit and troubled.
It says He was deeply moved in spirit." This is the Greek word embrimaomai [e)mbrimaomai] which means to groan, to be angry, to speak harshly, to rebuke. It is a very intense word, and the basic nuance here is that deep in His soul and spirit He is angry. This is a righteous anger about the whole scenario, not because they are weeping, not because of their emotion, but because of the misery and pain that they are experiencing because of sin. Sin is not normal; sin is not God's plan for the human race. At the time of death all of the grief that we experience is a reminder to us that this is not normal, it is abnormal, it is the penalty for sin. So death and grief is miserable to remind us of the misery of sin. And when Jesus looks out on the multitudes He sees the misery, the horrible circumstances that they are going through because of sin. He is angry because of sin. This is what is moving Him. This is not what he intended as the creator of the heavens and the earth. He is secondly, "troubled in spirit," which is the aorist active indicative of tarasso [tarassw], which means that He is deeply and powerfully troubled and moved. Because of this he weeps, v. 35.
John 11:34 NASB "and said, 'Where have you laid him?' They said to Him, 'Lord, come and see.' [35] Jesus wept." There is a distance between verse 33 and verse 35, but there is a connection in the syntax because of what happens when he sees everybody in verse 33. The word for weeping here is dakruo [dakruw] which means simply to weep, to cry. Jesus is standing there and tears begin to flow. He is so deeply moved at our sinfulness and the pain and the misery that is the consequence of man's condition in sin that He weeps. He is not grieving for Lazarus. In His omniscience he knows that in five minutes He is going to raise Lazarus. He hasn't been divorced from His relationship with Lazarus; there is no sense of loss here. Jesus is weeping because as God in His righteousness and His justice He has compassion for the fallen condition of the human race. He sees our pain and our misery and our suffering and He is not a high priest that is untouched but is deeply moved by the sin and the suffering in our lives.
The Jews completely misread that because they are spiritually dead. John 11:36 NASB "So the Jews were saying, 'See how He loved him!'" But notice how John continues: the light divides. There are some who respond directly and some who reject Him. [37] "But some of them said, 'Could not this man, who opened the eyes of the blind man, have kept this man also from dying?' [38] So Jesus, again being deeply moved within, came to the tomb. Now it was a cave, and a stone was lying against it. [39] Jesus said, 'Remove the stone.' Martha, the sister of the deceased, said to Him, 'Lord, by this time there will be a stench, for he has been {dead} four days'." Why is she saying that? There are a couple of reasons. We are not really sure from the text but one could be that she is concerned that the Lord will become ceremonially unclean by touching a dead person. The Jews believed that it was the fourth day when the soul finally left the body, and this was the fourth day. That is when corruption really begins and if you touched a dead body then you would be ceremonially unclean. So she is concerned about His person. She could also be concerned about the fact that because corruption had set in there was really nothing He could do about it.
John 11:40 NASB "Jesus said to her, 'Did I not say to you that if you believe, you will see the glory of God? [41] So they removed the stone. Then Jesus raised His eyes, and said, 'Father, I thank You that You have heard Me. [42] I knew that You always hear Me; but because of the people standing around I said it, so that they may believe that You sent Me.'" He doesn't do this just to get Lazarus back, there is a purpose to this. [43] "When He had said these things, He cried out with a loud voice, 'Lazarus, come forth.' [44] "The man who had died came forth, bound hand and foot with wrappings, and his face was wrapped around with a cloth. Jesus said to them, 'Unbind him, and let him go'." In the English the command is "Lazarus, come forth," but in Greek it is very precise: "Lazarus, come [now]." Then the Holy Spirit just closes the curtain and we don't see any more. But we see the response.
John 11:45 NASB "Therefore many of the Jews who came to Mary, and saw what He had done, believed in Him." So once again we see that there is this positive response to Jesus, but there is also the reaction of the darkness. [46] "But some of them went to the Pharisees and told them the things which Jesus had done." So we see in this that the truth of God's Word always divides and the gospel always drives people to a decision: to accept Christ or to reject Christ.