He said these things, and after that, he said to them, “Our friend, Lazarus, has fallen asleep, but I am going so that I may awake him out of sleep.”
The disciples therefore said, “Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will recover.”
Now Jesus had spoken of his death, but they thought that he spoke of taking rest in sleep. So Jesus said to them plainly then, “Lazarus is dead. I am glad for your sakes that I was not there, so that you may believe. Nevertheless, let’s go to him.”
Thomas therefore, who is called Didymus, said to his fellow disciples, “Let’s go also, that we may die with him.”
So when Jesus came, he found that he had been in the tomb four days already. Now Bethany was near Jerusalem, about fifteen stadia away. Many of the Jews had joined the women around Martha and Mary, to console them concerning their brother. Then when Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him, but Mary stayed in the house. Therefore Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you would have been here, my brother wouldn’t have died. Even now I know that whatever you ask of God, God will give you.” Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.”
Martha said to him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.”
Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will still live, even if he dies. Whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?”
She said to him, “Yes, Lord. I have come to believe that you are the Christ, God’s Son, he who comes into the world.”
When she had said this, she went away and called Mary, her sister, secretly, saying, “The Teacher is here and is calling you.”
When she heard this, she arose quickly and went to him. Now Jesus had not yet come into the village, but was in the place where Martha met him. Then the Jews who were with her in the house and were consoling her, when they saw Mary, that she rose up quickly and went out, followed her, saying, “She is going to the tomb to weep there.” Therefore when Mary came to where Jesus was and saw him, she fell down at his feet, saying to him, “Lord, if you would have been here, my brother wouldn’t have died.”
When Jesus therefore saw her weeping, and the Jews weeping who came with her, he groaned in the spirit, and was troubled, and said, “Where have you laid him?” They told him, “Lord, come and see.”
Jesus wept.
The Jews therefore said, “See how much affection he had for him!” Some of them said, “Couldn’t this man, who opened the eyes of him who was blind, have also kept this man from dying?”
Jesus therefore, again groaning in himself, came to the tomb. Now it was a cave, and a stone lay against it. Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” Martha, the sister of him who was dead, said to him, “Lord, by this time there is a stench, for he has been dead four days.”
Jesus said to her, “Didn’t I tell you that if you believed, you would see God’s glory?”
So they took away the stone from the place where the dead man was lying. Jesus lifted up his eyes, and said, “Father, I thank you that you listened to me. I know that you always listen to me, but because of the multitude standing around I said this, that they may believe that you sent me.” When he had said this, he cried with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!”
He who was dead came out, bound hand and foot with wrappings, and his face was wrapped around with a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Free him, and let him go.”
John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain On vv11, 12, 14, 15, 16, 18, 19, 20, 21, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 31, 32, 33, 36, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44 11. Our friend Lazarus sleepeth. Having formerly asserted that…
11. Our friend Lazarus sleepeth. Having formerly asserted that the disease was not deadly, that his disciples may not be too much distressed at seeing what they did not expect, he now informs them also that Lazarus is dead, and excites a hope of his resurrection. It is a proof of amazing ignorance, that they believe that Christ spoke about sleep; for, though it is a metaphorical form of expression, still it is so frequent and common in Scripture, that it ought to have been familiarly known to all the Jews.
John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv11, 19, 23, 33 The Jews used a milder kind of speech, and…
The Jews used a milder kind of speech, and called death a sleep, whereupon in other languages the place of burial where the dead are laid, waiting for the resurrection, is called a sleeping place.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv11–44 11 These things said he: and after that he…
11 These things said he: and after that he saith unto them, Our friend Lazarus sleepeth; but I go, that I may awake him out of sleep.
Ver. 11. Lazarus sleepeth] The saints are said to die in Christ, to sleep in Jesus, Rev 14:13; 1Th 4:14. The Greeks call their churchyards dormitories, sleeping places (κοιμητηρια). The Germans call them God’s Acre, because their bodies are sown there to be raised again. The Hebrews Bethchajim, the house of the living.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 33, 34, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44 There is such an analogy between death and sleep,…
There is such an analogy between death and sleep, that there is nothing more ordinary than to express death by sleep in Scripture, Deu 31:16; 2Sa 7:12; 1Ki 1:21; 2Ki 20:21; Job 7:21; 14:12; Dan 12:2, and in a multitude of other texts, both in the Old Testament and in the New; so as it was evident our Saviour meant he was dead, which he knew as he was God, though as yet he had received no relation of it from the friends of the deceased.
But I go (saith our Saviour) to raise him up again from the dead, which he calls awaking him; pursuing the former metaphor, where he had compared death to a sleep.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
William Burkitt 1703 · Public Domain On vv11, 12, 17, 23, 27, 33, 38 Observe here, 1. Our Saviour, coming near to Bethany,…
Observe here, 1. Our Saviour, coming near to Bethany, tells his disciples that Lazarus sleepeth; that is plainly, he was dead. This shews his omnisciency, and that he was truly God: for he had received no advice of his death from any person, but as God he knew that he was deceased.
Observe, 2. The sweet title given both to death and Lazarus; death is called a sleep, Lazarus is tiles a friend: yet Christ says, not my friend, but our friend Lazarus sleepeth; intimating that gracious familiarity and mutual friendship which was betwixt himself and all his members.
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Learn hence, 1. That all true believers are Christ’s friends.
2. That the friends of Christ must die as well as others.
3. That their death is but a sleep, Our friend Lazarus sleepeth. It followeth, but I go, that I may awake him out of sleep.
Observe, Christ says not, We will go and awake him, but I will go, and I will awake him. The disciples who were companions in the way, must not be partners in the work; witnesses they may be, actors they cannot be; none can awake Lazarus, but the Maker of Lazarus. Who can command the soul to come down and meet the body; and who can command the body to rise up and meet the soul, but that God that created both soul and body?
Lord! it is our comfort against the dread and terror of death, that our resurrection depends upon thy almighty power. I will go, that I may awake him out of sleep.
William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain On vv17, 33 The matter being determined, that Christ will go to…
The matter being determined, that Christ will go to Judea, and his disciples with him, they address themselves to their journey; in this journey some circumstances happened which the other evangelists record, as the healing of the blind man at Jericho, and the conversion of Zaccheus. We must not reckon ourselves out of our way, while we are in the way of doing good; nor be so intent upon one good office as to neglect another.
At length, he comes near to Bethany, which is said to be about fifteen furlongs from Jerusalem, about two measured miles, Joh 11:18. Notice is taken of this, that this miracle was in effect wrought in Jerusalem, and so was put to her score. Christ's miracles in Galilee were more numerous, but those in or near Jerusalem were more illustrious; there he healed one that had been diseased thirty-eight years, another that had been blind from his birth, and raised one that had been dead four days. To Bethany Christ came, and observe,
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I. What posture he found his friends there in. When he had been last with them it is probable that he left them well, in health and joy; but when we part from our friends (though Christ knew) we know not what changes may affect us or them before we meet again.
1. He found his friend Lazarus in the grave, Joh 11:17. When he came near the town, probably by the burying-place belonging to the town, he was told by the neighbours, or some persons whom he met, that Lazarus had been four days buried. Some think that Lazarus died the same day that the messenger came to Jesus with the tidings of his sickness, and so reckon two days for his abode in the same place and two days for his journey. I rather think that Lazarus died at the very instant that Jesus, "Our friend sleepeth, he is now newly fallen asleep;" and that the time between his death and burial (which among the Jews was but short), with the four days of his lying in the grave, was taken up in this journey; for Christ travelled publicly, as appears by his passing through Jericho, and his abode at Zaccheus's house took up some time. Promised salvations, though they always come surely, yet often come slowly.
2. He found his friends that survived in grief. Martha and Mary were almost swallowed up with sorrow for the death of their brother, which is intimated where it is said that many of the Jews came to Martha and Mary to comfort them. Note, (1.) Ordinarily, where death is there are mourners, especially when those that were agreeable and amiable to their relations, and serviceable to their generation, are taken away. The house where death is called the house of mourning, Ecc 7:2. When man goes to his long home the mourners go about the streets (Ecc 12:5), or rather sit alone, and keep silence. Here was Martha's house, a house where the fear of God was, and on which his blessing rested, yet made a house of mourning. Grace will keep sorrow from the heart (Joh 14:1), not from the house. (2.) Where there are mourners there ought to be comforters. It is a duty we owe to those that are in sorrow to mourn with them, and to comfort them; and our mourning with them will be some comfort to them. When we are under the present impressions of grief, we are apt to forget those things which would minister comfort to us, and therefore have need of remembrancers. It is a mercy to have remembrancers when we are in sorrow, and our duty to be remembrancers to those who are in sorrow. The Jewish doctors laid great stress upon this, obliging their disciples to make conscience of comforting the mourners after the burial of the dead. They comforted them concerning their brother, that is, by speaking to them of him, not only of the good name he left behind, but of the happy state he was gone to. When godly relations and friends are taken from us, whatever occasion we have to be afflicted concerning ourselves, who are left behind and miss them, we have reason to be comforted concerning those who are gone before us to a happiness where they have no need of us. This visit which the Jews made to Martha and Mary is an evidence that they were persons of distinction, and made a figure; as also that they behaved obligingly to all; so that though they were followers of Christ, yet those who had no respect for him were civil to them. There was also a providence in it, that so many Jews, Jewish ladies it is probable, should come together, just at this time, to comfort the mourners, that they might be unexceptionable witnesses of the miracle, and see what miserable comforters they were, in comparison with Christ. Christ did not usually send for witnesses to his miracles, and yet had none been by but relations this would have been excepted against; therefore God's counsel so ordered it that these should come together accidentally, to bear their testimony to it, that infidelity might stop her mouth.
II. What passed between him and his surviving friends at this interview. When Christ defers his visits for a time they are thereby made the more acceptable, much the more welcome; so it was here. His departures endear his returns, and his absence teaches us how to value his presence. We have here,
1. The interview between Christ and Martha.
(1.) We are told that she went and met him, Joh 11:20. [1.] It should seem that Martha was earnestly expecting Christ's arrival, and enquiring for it. Either she had sent out messengers, to bring her tidings of his first approach, or she had often asked, Saw you him whom my soul loveth? so that the first who discovered him ran to her with the welcome news. However it was, she heard of his coming before he arrived. She had waited long, and often asked, Is he come? and could hear no tidings of him; but long-looked-for came at last. At the end the vision will speak, and not lie. [2.] Martha, when the good news was brought that Jesus was coming, threw all aside, and went and met him, in token of a most affectionate welcome. She waived all ceremony and compliment to the Jews who came to visit her, and hastened to go and meet Jesus. Note, When God by his grace or providence is coming towards us in ways of mercy and comfort, we should go forth by faith, hope, and prayer to meet him. Some suggest that Martha went out of the town to meet Jesus, to let him know that there were several Jews in the house, who were no friends to him, that if he pleased he might keep out of the way of them. [3.] When Martha went to meet Jesus, Mary sat still in the house. Some think she did not hear the tidings, being in her drawing-room, receiving visits of condolence, while Martha who was busied in the household-affairs had early notice of it. Perhaps Martha would not tell her sister that Christ was coming, being ambitious of the honour of receiving him first. Sancta est prudentia clam fratribus clam parentibus ad Christum esse conferre - Holy prudence conducts us to Christ, while brethren and parents know not what we are doing. - Maldonat. in locum. Others think she did hear that Christ was come, but was so overwhelmed with sorrow that she did not care to stir, choosing rather to indulge her sorrow, and to sit poring upon her affliction, and saying, I do well to mourn. Comparing this story with that in Luk 10:38, etc., we may observe the different tempers of these two sisters, and the temptations and advantages of each. Martha's natural temper was active and busy; she loved to be here and there, and at the end of every thing; and this had been a snare to her when by it she was not only careful and cumbered about many things, but hindered from the exercises of devotion: but now in a day of affliction this active temper did her a kindness, kept the grief from her heart, and made her forward to meet Christ, and so she received comfort from him the sooner. On the other hand, Mary's natural temper was contemplative and reserved. This had been formerly an advantage to her, when it placed her Christ's feet, to hear his word, and enabled her there to attend upon him without those distractions with which Martha was cumbered; but now in the day of affliction that same temper proved a snare to her, made her less able to grapple with her grief, and disposed her to melancholy: But Mary sat still in the house. See here how much it will be our wisdom carefully to watch against the temptations, and improve the advantages, of our natural temper.
(2.) Here is fully related the discourse between Christ and Martha.
[1.] Martha's address to Christ, Joh 11:21, Joh 11:22.
First, She complains of Christ's long absence and delay. She said it, not only with grief for the death of her brother, but with some resentment of the seeming unkindness of the Master: Lord if you hadst been here, my brother had not died. Here is, 1. Some evidence of faith. She believed Christ's power, that, though her brother's sickness was very grievous, yet he could have cured it, and so have prevented his death. She believed his pity, that if he had but seen Lazarus in his extreme illness, and his dear relations all in tears about him, he would have had compassion, and have prevented so sad a breach, for his compassions fail not. But, 2. Here are sad instances of unbelief. Her faith was true, but weak as a bruised reed, for she limits the power of Christ, in saying, If thou hadst been here; whereas she ought to have known that Christ could cure at a distance, and that his gracious operations were not limited to his bodily presence. She reflects likewise upon the wisdom and kindness of Christ, that he did not hasten to them when they sent for him, as if he had not timed his business well, and now might as well have staid away, and not have come at all, as to come too late; and, as for any help now, she can scarcely entertain the thought of it.
Secondly, Yet she corrects and comforts herself with the thoughts of the prevailing interest Christ had in heaven; at least, she blames herself for blaming her Master, and for suggesting that he comes too late: for I know that even now, desperate as the case is, whatsoever thou wilt ask of God, God will give it to thee. Observe, 1. How willing her hope was. Though she had not courage to ask of Jesus that he should raise him to life again, there having been no precedent as yet of any one raised to life that had been so long dead, yet, like a modest petitioner, she humbly recommends the case to the wise and compassionate consideration of the Lord Jesus. When we know not what in particular to ask or expect, let us in general refer ourselves to God, let him do as seemeth him good. Judicii tui est, non praesumptionis meae - I leave it to thy judgment, not to my presumption. - Aug. in locum. When we know not what to pray for, it is our comfort that the great Intercessor knows what to ask for us, and is always heard. 2. How weak her faith was. She should have said, "Lord, thou canst do whatsoever thou wilt;" but she only says, "Thou canst obtain whatsoever thou prayest for." She had forgotten that the Son had life in himself, that he wrought miracles by his own power. Yet both these considerations must be taken in for the encouragement of our faith and hope, and neither excluded: the dominion Christ has on earth and his interest and intercession in heaven. He has in the one hand the golden sceptre, and in the other the golden censer; his power is always predominant, his intercession always prevalent.
[2.] The comfortable word which Christ gave to Martha, in an answer to her pathetic address (Joh 11:23): Jesus saith unto her, Thy brother shall rise again. Martha, in her complaint, looked back, reflecting with regret that Christ was not there, for then, thinks she, my brother had been now alive. We are apt, in such cases, to add to our own trouble, by fancying what might have been. "If such a method had been taken, such a physician employed, my friend had not died;" which is more than we know: but what good does this do? When God's will is done, our business is to submit to him. Christ directs Martha, and us in her, to look forward, and to think what shall be, for that is a certainty, and yields sure comfort: Thy brother shall rise again. First, This was true of Lazarus in a sense peculiar to him: he was now presently to be raised; but Christ speaks of it in general as a thing to be done, not which he himself would do, so humbly did our Lord Jesus speak of what he did. He also expresses it ambiguously, leaving her uncertain at first whether he would raise him presently or not till the last day, that he might try her faith and patience. Secondly, It is applicable to all the saints, and their resurrection at the last day. Note, It is a matter of comfort to us, when we have buried our godly friends and relations, to think that they shall rise again. As the soul at death is not lost, but gone before, so the body is not lost, but laid up. Think you hear Christ saying, "Thy parent, thy child, thy yoke-fellow, shall rise again; these dry bones shall live."
[3.] The faith which Martha mixed with this word, and the unbelief mixed with this faith, Joh 11:24.
First, She accounts it a faithful saying that he shall rise again at the last day. Though the doctrine of the resurrection was to have its full proof from Christ's resurrection, yet, as it was already revealed, she firmly believed it, Act 24:15. 1. That there shall be a last day, with which all the days of time shall be numbered and finished. 2. That there shall be a general resurrection at that day, when the earth and sea shall give up their dead. 3. That there shall be a particular resurrection of each one: "I know that I shall rise again, and this and the other relation that was dear to me." As bone shall return to his bone in that day, so friend to his friend.
Secondly, Yet she seems to think this saying not so well worthy of all acceptation as really it was: "I know he shall rise again at the last day; but what are we the better for that now?" As if the comforts of the resurrection to eternal life were not worth speaking of, or yielded not satisfaction sufficient to balance her affliction. See our weakness and folly, that we suffer present sensible things to make a deeper impression upon us, both of grief and joy, than those things which are the objects of faith. I know that he shall rise again at the last day; and is not this enough? She seems to think it is not. Thus, by our discontent under present crosses, we greatly undervalue our future hopes, and put a slight upon them, as if not worth regarding.
[4.] The further instruction and encouragement which Jesus Christ gave her; for he will not quench the smoking flax nor break the bruised reed. He said to her, I am the resurrection and the life, Joh 11:25, Joh 11:26. Two things Christ possesses her with the belief of, in reference to the present distress; and they are the things which our faith should fasten upon in the like cases.
First, The power of Christ, his sovereign power: I am the resurrection and the life, the fountain of life, and the head and author of the resurrection. Martha believed that at his prayer God would give any thing, but he would have her know that by his word he could work anything. Martha believed a resurrection at the last day; Christ tells her that he had that power lodged in his own hand, that the dead were to hear his voice (Joh 5:25), whence it was easy to infer, He that could raise a world of men that had been dead many ages could doubtless raise one man that had been dead but four days. Note, It is an unspeakable comfort to all good Christians that Jesus Christ is the resurrection and the life, and will be so to them. Resurrection is a return to life; Christ is the author of that return, and of that life to which it is a return. We look for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come, and Christ is both; the author and principle of both, and the ground of our hope of both.
Secondly, The promises of the new covenant, which give us further ground of hope that we shall live. Observe,
a. To whom these promises are made - to those that believe in Jesus Christ, to those that consent to, and confide in, Jesus Christ as the only Mediator of reconciliation and communion between God and man, that receive the record God has given in his word concerning his Son, sincerely comply with it, and answer all the great intentions of it. The condition of the latter promise is thus expressed: Whosoever liveth and believeth in me, which may be understood, either, (a.) Of natural life: Whosoever lives in this world, whether he be Jew or Gentile, wherever he lives, if he believe in Christ, he shall live by him. Yet it limits the time: Whoever during life, while he is here in this state of probation, believes in me, shall be happy in me, but after death it will be too late. Whoever lives and believes, that is, lives by faith (Gal 2:20), has a faith that influences his conversation. Or, (b.) Of spiritual life: He that lives and believes is he that by faith is born again to a heavenly and divine life, to whom to live is Christ - that makes Christ the life of his soul.
b. What the promises are (Joh 11:25): Though he die, yet shall he live, nay, he shall never die, Joh 11:26. Man consists of body and soul, and provision is made for the happiness of both.
(a.) For the body; here is the promise of a blessed resurrection. Though the body be dead because of sin (there is no remedy but it will die), yet it shall live again. All the difficulties that attend the state of the dead are here overlooked, and made nothing of. Though the sentence of death was just, though the effects of death be dismal, though the bands of death be strong, though he be dead and buried, dead and putrefied, though the scattered dust be so mixed with common dust that no art of man can distinguish, much less separate them, put the case as strongly as you will on that side, yet we are sure that he shall live again: the body shall be raised a glorious body.
(b.) For the soul; here is the promise of a blessed immortality. He that liveth and believeth, who, being united to Christ by faith, lives spiritually by virtue of that union, he shall never die. That spiritual life shall never be extinguished, but perfected in eternal life. As the soul, being in its nature spiritual, is therefore immortal; so if by faith it live a spiritual life, consonant to its nature, its felicity shall be immortal too. It shall never die, shall never be otherwise than easy and happy, and there is not any intermission or interruption of its life, as there is of the life of the body. The mortality of the body shall at length be swallowed up of life; but the life of the soul, the believing soul, shall be immediately at death swallowed up of immortality. He shall not die, eis ton aiōna, for ever - Non morietur in aeternum; so Cyprian quotes it. The body shall not be for ever dead in the grave; it dies (like the two witnesses) but for a time, times, and the dividing of time; and when time shall be no more, and all the divisions of it shall be numbered and finished, a spirit of life from God shall enter into it. But this is not all; the souls shall not die that death which is for ever, shall not die eternally, Blessed and holy, that is, blessed and happy, is he that by faith has part in the first resurrection, has part in Christ, who is that resurrection; for on such the second death, which is a death for ever, shall have no power; see Joh 6:40. Christ asks her, "Believest thou this? Canst thou assent to it with application? Canst thou take my word for it?" Note, When we have read or heard the word of Christ, concerning the great things of the other world, we should seriously put it to ourselves, "Do we believe this, this truth in particular, this which is attended with so many difficulties, this which is suited to my case? Does my belief of it realize it to me, and give my soul an assurance of it, so that I can say not only this I believe, but thus I believe it?" Martha was doting upon her brother's being raised in this world; before Christ gave her hopes of this, he directed her thoughts to another life, another world: "No matter for that, but believest thou this that I tell thee concerning the future state?" The crosses and comforts of this present time would not make such an impression upon us as they do if we did but believe the things of eternity as we ought.
[5.] Martha's unfeigned assent yielded to what Christ said, Joh 11:27. We have here Martha's creed, the good confession she witnessed, the same with that for which Peter was commended (Mat 16:16, Mat 16:17), and it is the conclusion of the whole matter.
First, Here is the guide of her faith, and that is the word of Christ; without any alteration, exception, or proviso, she takes it entire as Christ had said it: Yea, Lord, whereby she subscribes to the truth of all and every part of that which Christ had promised, in his own sense: Even so. Faith is an echo to divine revelation, returns the same words, and resolves to abide by them: Yea, Lord, As the word did make it so I believe and take it, said queen Elizabeth.
Secondly, The ground of her faith, and that is the authority of Christ; she believes this because she believes that he who saith it is Christ. She has recourse to the foundation for the support of the superstructure. I believe, pepisteuka, "I have believed that thou art Christ, and therefore I do believe this." Observe here,
a. What she believed and confessed concerning Jesus; three things, all to the same effect: - (a.) That he was the Christ, or Messiah, promised and expected under this name and notion, the anointed one. (b.) That he was the Son of God; so the Messiah was called (Psa 2:7), not by office only, but by nature. (c.) That it was he who should come into the world, the ho erchomenos. That blessing of blessings which the church had for so many ages waited for as future, she embraced as present.
b. What she inferred hence, and what she alleged this for. If she admits this, that Jesus is the Christ, there is no difficulty in believing that he is the resurrection and the life; for if he be the Christ, then, (a.) He is the fountain of light and truth, and we may take all his sayings for faithful and divine, upon his own word. If he be the Christ, he is that prophet whom we are to hear in all things. (b.) He is the fountain of life and blessedness, and we may therefore depend upon his ability as well as upon his veracity. How shall bodies, turned to dust, live again? How shall souls, clogged and clouded as ours are, live for ever? We could not believe this, but that we believe him that undertakes it to be the Son of God, who has life in himself, and has it for us.
2. The interview between Christ and Mary the other sister. And here observe,
(1.) The notice which Martha gave her of Christ's coming (Joh 11:28): When she had so said, as one that needed to say no more, she went her way, easy in her mind, and called Mary her sister. [1.] Martha, having received instruction and comfort from Christ herself, called her sister to share with her. Time was when Martha would have drawn Mary from Christ, to come and help her in much serving (Luk 10:40); but, to make her amends for this, here she is industrious to draw her to Christ. [2.] She called her secretly, and whispered it in her ear, because there was company by, Jews, who were no friends to Christ. The saints are called into the fellowship of Jesus Christ by an invitation that is secret and distinguishing, given to them and not to others; they have meat to eat that the world knows not of, joy that a stranger does not intermeddle with. [3.] She called her by order from Christ; he bade her go call her sister. This call that is effectual, whoever brings it, is sent by Christ. The Master is come, and calleth for thee. First, She calls Christ the Master, didaskalos, a teaching master; by that title he was commonly called and known among them. Mr. George Herbert took pleasure in calling Christ, my Master. Secondly, She triumphs in his arrival: The Master is come. He whom we have long wished and waited for, he is come, he is come; this was the best cordial in the present distress. "Lazarus is gone, and our comfort in him is gone; but the Master is come, who is better than the dearest friend, and has that in him which will abundantly make up all our losses. He is come who is our teacher, who will teach us how to get good by our sorrow (Psa 94:12), who will teach, and so comfort." Thirdly, She invites her sister to go and meet him: "He calls for thee, enquires what is become of thee, and would have thee sent for." Note, When Christ our Master comes, he calls for us. He comes in his word and ordinances, calls us to them, calls us by them, calls us to himself. He calls for thee in particular, for thee by name (Psa 27:8); and, if he call thee, he will cure thee, he will comfort thee.
(2.) The haste which Mary made to Christ upon this notice given her (Joh 11:29): As soon as she heard this good news, that the Master was come, she arose quickly, and came to him. She little thought how near he was to her, for he is often nearer to them that mourn in Zion than they are aware of; but, when she knew how near he was, she started up, and in a transport of joy ran to meet him. The least intimation of Christ's gracious approaches is enough to a lively faith, which stands ready to take the hint, and answer the first call. When Christ was come, [1.] She did not consult the decorum of her mourning, but, forgetting ceremony, and the common usage in such cases, she ran through the town, to meet Christ. Let no nice punctilios of decency and honour deprive us at any time of opportunities of conversing with Christ. [2.] She did not consult her neighbours, the Jews that were with her, comforting her; she left them all, to come to him, and did not only not ask their advice, but not so much as ask their leave, or beg their pardon for her rudeness.
(3.) We are told (Joh 11:30) where she found the Master; he was not yet come into Bethany, but was at the town's end, in that place where Martha met him. See here, [1.] Christ's love to his work. He staid near the place where the grave was, that he might be ready to go to it. He would not go into the town, to refresh himself after the fatigue of his journey, till he had done the work he came to do; nor would he go into the town, lest it should look like ostentation, and a design to levy a crowd to be spectators of the miracle. [2.] Mary's love to Christ; still she loved much. Though Christ had seemed unkind in his delays, yet she could take nothing amiss from him. Let us go thus to Christ without the camp, Heb 13:13.
(4.) The misconstruction which the Jews that were with Mary made of her going away so hastily (Joh 11:31): They said, She goes to the grave, to weep there. Martha bore up better under this affliction than Mary did, who was a woman of a tender and sorrowful spirit; such was her natural temper. Those that are so have need to watch against melancholy, and ought to be pitied and helped. These comforters found that their formalities did her no service, but that she hardened herself in sorrow: and therefore concluded when she went out, and turned that way, it was to go to the grave and weep there. See, [1.] What often is the folly and fault of mourners; they contrive how to aggravate their own grief, and to make bad worse. We are apt in such cases to take a strange pleasure in our own pain, and to say, We do well to be passionate in our grief, even unto death; we are apt to fasten upon those things that aggravate the affliction, and what good does this do us, when it is our duty to reconcile ourselves to the will of God in it? Why should mourners go to the grave to weep there, when they sorrow not as those that have no hope? Affliction of itself is grievous; why should we make it more so? [2.] What is the wisdom and duty of comforters; and that is, to prevent as much as may be, in those who grieve inordinately, the revival of the sorrow, and to divert it. Those Jews that followed Mary were thereby led to Christ, and became the witnesses of one of his most glorious miracles. It is good cleaving to Christ's friends in their sorrows, for thereby we may come to know him better.
(5.) Mary's address to our Lord Jesus (Joh 11:32): She came, attended with her train of comforters, and fell down at his feet, as one overwhelmed with a passionate sorrow, and said with many tears (as appears Joh 11:33), Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died, as Martha said before, for they had often said it to one another. Now here, [1.] Her posture is very humble and submissive: She fell down at his feet, which was more than Martha did, who had a greater command of her passions. She fell down not as a sinking mourner, but fell down at his feet as a humble petitioner. This Mary had sat at Christ's feet to hear his word (Luk 10:39), and here we find her there on another errand. Note, Those that in a day of peace place themselves at Christ's feet, to receive instructions from him, may with comfort and confidence in a day of trouble cast themselves at his feet with hope to find favour with him. She fell at his feet, as one submitting to his will in what was done, and referring herself to his good-will in what was now to be done. When we are in affliction we must cast ourselves at Christ's feet in a penitent sorrow and self-abasement for sin, and a patient resignation of ourselves to the divine disposal. Mary's casting herself at Christ's feet was in token of the profound respect and veneration she had for him. Thus subjects were wont to give honour to their kings and princes; but, our Lord Jesus not appearing in secular glory as an earthly prince, those who by this posture of adoration gave honour to him certainly looked upon him as more than man, and intended hereby to give him divine honour. Mary hereby made profession of the Christian faith as truly as Martha did, and in effect said, I believe that thou art the Christ; bowing the knee to Christ, and confessing him with the tongue, are put together as equivalent, Rom 14:11; Phi 2:10, Phi 2:11. This she did in presence of the Jews that attended her, who, though friends to her and her family, yet were bitter enemies to Christ; yet in their sight she fell at Christ's feet, as one that was neither ashamed to own the veneration she had for Christ nor afraid of disobliging her friends and neighbours by it. Let them resent it as they pleased, she falls at his feet; and, if this be to be vile, she will be yet more vile; see Sol 8:1. We serve a Master of whom we have no reason to be ashamed, and whose acceptance of our services is sufficient to balance the reproach of men and all their revilings. [2.] Her address is very pathetic: Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died. Christ's delay was designed for the best, and proved so; yet both the sisters very indecently cast the same in his teeth, and in effect charge him with the death of their brother. This repeated challenge he might justly have resented, might have told them he had something else to do than to be at their beck and to attend them; he must come when his business would permit him: but not a word of this; he considered the circumstances of their affliction, and that losers think they may have leave to speak, and therefore overlooked the rudeness of this welcome, and gave us an example of mildness and meekness in such cases. Mary added no more, as Martha did; but it appears, by what follows, that what she fell short in words she made up in tears; she said less than Martha, but wept more; and tears of devout affection have a voice, a loud prevailing voice, in the ears of Christ; no rhetoric like this.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44 These things said he,.... In answer to his disciples,…
These things said he,.... In answer to his disciples, and made a pause.
And after that he saith unto them, our friend Lazarus sleepeth; meaning, that he was dead; in which sense the word is often used in the Old Testament, and in the common dialect of the Jews, and frequently in their writings; and especially it is so used of good men: and it is an observation of theirs (b), that
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"it is usual to say of the righteous, that there is no death in them, , "but sleep";''
See Gill on Mat 9:24, See Gill on Co1 15:18, See Gill on Co1 15:20, See Gill on Th1 4:13, See Gill on Th1 4:14;
but I go, that I may awake him out of sleep; that is, to raise him from the dead, for, the resurrection of the dead is expressed by awaking; see Psa 17:15; which for Christ to do, was as easy as to awake a man out of natural sleep: these words respecting Lazarus's sleeping and awaking, express both the omniscience and omnipotence of Christ; his omniscience, that he should know that Lazarus was dead; when at such a distance from him; and his omnipotence, that he could raise him from the dead; and yet his great modesty to signify it in, such covert language, though not difficult to be understood.
(b) Gloss in T. Hieros. Celaim in En Yaacob, fol. 4. 4.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv11, 16, 20, 22, 25, 32, 33, 35, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 43, 44 Our friend Lazarus sleepeth - This he spoke, just…
Our friend Lazarus sleepeth - This he spoke, just when he died. Sleepeth - Such is the death of good men in the language of heaven. But the disciples did not yet understand this language. And the slowness of our understanding makes the Scripture often descend to our barbarous manner of speaking.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv11, 12, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 30, 31, 33, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 43, 44 Verse 11. Lazarus sleepeth] It was very common among…
Verse 11. Lazarus sleepeth] It was very common among the Jews to express death by sleep; and the expression, falling asleep - sleeping with their fathers, &c., were in great use among them. The Hebrews probably used this form of speech to signify their belief in the immortality of the soul, and the resurrection of the body.
It is certain that our Lord received no intimation of Lazarus's death from any person, and that he knew it through that power by which he knows all things.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv11, 14, 17, 20, 23, 25, 26, 27, 28, 36, 38, 41, 44 Joh 11:11-13. These things said he — To silence…
Joh 11:11-13. These things said he — To silence their objections, and prepare their minds for what he yet concealed; and after that, as he perfectly knew what had passed at Bethany, though so many miles distant from it, he saith, Our friend Lazarus sleepeth — This, it is probable, he spoke just when he died. Sleepeth — Thus our Lord speaks, partly out of tenderness to his apostles, as being least shocking when he spoke of so dear a friend; and partly because the death of good men is only sleep, in the language of heaven. But the disciples did not yet understand this language. And the slowness of our understanding in divine things causes the Scripture often to descend to our barbarous manner of speaking. But I go that I may awake him out of sleep — Referring to that raising him from the dead, which he intended quickly to effect. Mr. Blackwall, in his Sacred Classics, (vol. 1. page 297,) mentions the manner of speaking used here by our Lord, as an instance of his great modesty, as he does not immediately say, “He is dead, and I go by my almighty power to burst the bonds of the sepulchre, and to command him back to life again;” but, avoiding all parade and ostentation, he chooses the most simple and humble expression that can be thought of. Then said his disciples — Not apprehending his meaning; Lord, if he sleep, he shall do well — Understanding his words in a literal sense, they replied that they took his sleeping as a symptom of his speedy recovery; and by so saying intimated that there was no need of their going into Judea on Lazarus’s account. Howbeit Jesus spake of his death — But the real meaning of what Jesus said was, that Lazarus was dead, though his words were such that the disciples understood him as speaking of natural sleep.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv11, 12, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 31, 33, 34, 35, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44 Lazarus sleepeth - Is dead. The word “sleep” is…
Lazarus sleepeth - Is dead. The word “sleep” is applied to death,
Because of the resemblance between them, as sleep is the “kinsman of death.” In this sense it is often used by pagan writers. However, in the Scriptures it is used to intimate that death will not be final: that there will be an awaking out of this sleep, or a resurrection. It is a beautiful and tender expression, removing all that is dreadful in death, and filling the mind with the idea of calm repose after a life of toil, with a reference to a future resurrection in increased vigor and renovated powers. In this sense it is applied in the Scriptures usually to the saints, 1Co 11:30; 1Co 15:51; 1Th 4:14; 1Th 5:10; Mat 9:24.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On vv11, 12, 15, 16, 18, 21, 23, 25, 27, 31, 33, 34, 35, 39, 41, 43, 44 Lazarus ... sleepeth. It is strange that the disciples…
Lazarus ... sleepeth. It is strange that the disciples could imagine that Christ spoke of an ordinary sleep, and that he would go two or three days’ journey to awake him. Nothing but the fear and concern they were under, would make them think so. (Witham)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures 1864 · Public Domain On v17 B. The raising of Lazarus. The trial and victory…
B. The raising of Lazarus. The trial and victory of faith at the open grave. The heart of Jesus. The glory of the God of Israel and the glory of Jesus united in a glorious work, for a sign for the Jews from Jerusalem
(Joh_11:17-44)
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17Then when Jesus came, he found that he had lain [been] in the grave four days already.17 18Now Bethany was nigh unto [near] Jerusalem, about fifteen furlongs 19off: And [But]18 many of the Jews came [had come, ἐληλύθεισαν] to Martha and Mary,19 to comfort them concerning their brother [the brother, π. τοῦ ἀδελφοῦ].20 20Then Martha, as soon as she heard that Jesus was coming, went and met him [when she heard that Jesus was coming, went to meet him]: but Mary sat still 21[omit still] in the house. Then said Martha unto Jesus, Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died.21 22But I know, that even now [And even now I know that]22 whatsoever thou wilt [mayest] ask of God, God will give it 23thee [will give to thee]. Jesus saith to her, Thy brother shall [will] rise again. 24Martha saith unto him, I know that he shall [will] rise again in the resurrection 25[of all] at the last day. Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead [should die], yet shall he [he will] 26live: And whosoever [every one that] liveth and believeth in me shall never die 27[lit: will not die for ever, οὐ μὴ ἀποθάνῃ εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα]. Believest thou this? She saith unto him, Yea, Lord: I believe [have believed, become a believer]23 that thou art the Christ, the Son of God, which should come [who cometh] into the world. 28And when she had so said [having said this] she went her way [away] and called Mary her sister secretly, saying, The Master is come [is here, πάρεστι], and calleth for (omit for] thee. 29As soon as she heard that [it], she arose quickly, and came24 unto him. 30Now Jesus was [had] not yet come into the town, but was [still] in that 31[the] place where Martha [had] met him. The Jews then [therefore] which [who] were with her in the house, and comforted [were comforting, παραμυθούμενοι] her, when they saw Mary, that she [saw that Mary] rose up hastily and went out, followed her, saying, She goeth unto the grave [thinking25 that she was going to the tomb] to weep there. 32Then when Mary was come where Jesus was, and saw him [Mary therefore, when she came … seeing him, or, as soon as she saw him], she fell down at his feet, saying unto him, Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died [comp. Joh_11:21-22]. 33When Jesus therefore saw her weeping, and the Jews also weeping which [who] came with her, he groaned [ἐνεβριμήσατο, was deeply and indignantly moved, stirred up26] in the [his] spirit, and was troubled [troubled himself, ἐτάραξεν ἑαυτόν], 34And said, Where have ye laid him? They say unto him, Lord, come and see.
35Jesus wept.
36, 37Then said the Jews, Behold how he loved him! And [But] some of them said, Could not this man, which [he who] opened the eyes of the blind [man, τοῦ τυφλοῦ, 38see chap. 9] have caused that even this man should not have died [die]? Jesus therefore again groaning in [deeply moved within] himself cometh to the grave 39[tomb]. It was a cave, and a stone lay upon it [against it]. Jesus. said [saith] Take ye [omit ye] away the stone. Martha, the sister of him that was dead,27 saith unto him, Lord, by this time he stinketh:28 for he hath been dead four days 40[he hath his four days]. Jesus saith unto her, Said I not [Did I not say] unto thee, that, if thou wouldest [omit wouldest] believe, thou shouldest [shall] see the glory of God?
41Then they took away the stone from the place where the dead was laid [omit from the place where the dead was laid].29 And Jesus lifted up his [the] eyes [to heaven, 42or upward, ἄνω] and said, Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me. And [Yet] I knew that thou hearest me always: but because of the people [for the sake of the multitude] which stand by [around] I said it, that they may [might] believe that thou hast sent [didst send] me. 43And when he thus had [had thus] spoken, he cried [out] with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth.
44And he that was dead [the dead man] came forth, bound hand and foot with graveclothes; and his face was bound about with a napkin. Jesus saith unto them, Loose him, and let him go.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
Joh_11:17. Four days already.—Jesus comes into the vicinity of the place and learns that Lazarus has already been buried four days. The journey from Peræa to Bethany is estimated at ten hours,—a day’s. journey. One day, therefore, is consumed by His journey, two days by His stay in Peræa after the receipt of the message, and still another day by the journey of the messenger. Hence it results that Lazarus, who, in conformity to the Jewish custom, was buried on the day of his death, died shortly after the departure of the messenger, or while he was preparing to depart. The first and last days enter into the computation as parts of days. And so, when Lazarus died, his sisters must have known, with perfect certainty, that their messenger had not yet reached the Lord, or, at all events, that Jesus could not so soon be with them. They could not, therefore, with the feeling common to humanity, attribute the death of Lazarus to any delay on the part of Jesus; on the contrary, it is far more probable that they reproached themselves with delay in despatching the messenger. But this very trait, like their timid message, finds its explanation in the condition of affairs; they were well aware of the peril involved in His coming. Be it also observed that plain-spoken Martha says: “If Thou hadst been here, my brother had not died,”—and not: “if Thou hadst come sooner.”
Joh_11:18. About fifteen furlongs (stadia) off [ὡς ἀπὸ σταδίων δεκαπέντε].—A stadium (ατάδιος and in the classics also στάδιον) a distance of 125 paces. The fifteen stadia about three-quarters of an hour [about two miles]. Ancient construction (Tholuck): Trajection of the preposition ἀπό, which relates to Jerusalem. In opposition to this, Winer, [p. 518]: The ἀπό designates the locality beyond the fifteen stadia, and is to be considered as referring to the stadia. The latter construction seems far-fetched.30 The short distance is mentioned in order to account for the presence in Bethany of so many Jews from Jerusalem. The use of the preterite (Bethany was) is to be explained by its connection with the historical narrative.
Joh_11:19. Many of the Jews,—i.e. not necessarily members of the Sanhedrin (Joh_11:46), but people of Pharisaic or Judaistic views. Possibly they wished to regain this family in the absence of Jesus, whose friendship for them may have been known. However, many of the kindred of the family may have been among these Jews and we have no grounds for representing all who came to condole with them as miserable comforters.
To Martha and Mary. Πρὸς τὰς περί M. κ. M. Properly, to the two sisters, with the persons about them. According to later Greek usage it might be indicative simply of the two sisters. “But the New Testament contains no instance of its use in this sense and there is here an especial decorum in the expression, since those who came to them were men. It reveals, moreover, an establishment of the better class.” (Meyer).31 But the more obvious and definite allusion is, probably, to the company of mourners and wailing women.
To comfort them.—The conventional condolences and consolations lasted seven days, according to 1Sa_31:13; 1Ch_10:12; Maimonides, De luctu, cap. xiii.; Lightfoot [pp. 107 sqq.], and others.
Joh_11:20. Then Martha, when she heard, etc.—She appears as mistress of the house and receives the message. She goes without delay to meet the Lord and does not first communicate the sews to Mary; Joh_11:28 also leads us to suppose that such was the case (Meyer in opposition to Tholuck).—But Mary sat in the (interior of the) house; “because, according to Geier, De luctu Hebr. [pp. 210 sqq.] and others, it was the custom to be seated in receiving condolences,” or “sitting was a part of the mourning rite with the Greeks and Hebrews.” But certainly not for this reason alone. The different conduct of the two sisters in our Gospel is in perfect accordance with the characters in Luk_10:38-42. [This agreement between two Gospels so widely different is no small proof of the historical character of the two sisters. Both loved our Lord, but Martha was more active, practical, demonstrative; Mary contemplative, pensive and quiet, but moved in the deep. Martha as soon as she hears of the Lord’s approach, hastens to Him. Mary does the same afterwards (Joh_11:29), but speaks less and feels more. We have a precise analogy in the difference between Peter and John.—P. S.]
Joh_11:21. Lord, if Thou hadst been here [εἰἦςὦδε, not the language of reproach, but of regret].—Meyer translates: If Thou wert here,—not abiding in distant Peræa. That would mean: if this were Thy constant place of abode. This would convey an excellent sense if Bethany had ever bean the permanent dwelling-place of Christ; this, however, was not the case.—My brother would not have died.—Strongly expressed: ἐτεθνήκει. [On the different readings see Text. Note 5.—P. S.]
Joh_11:22. And even now [καὶ νῦν without ἀλλά] I know that etc.—She still retains this assurance. She gives strong expression to her confidence: 1. Whatever Thou mayest ask God, 2. God will give it to Thee—in the original, the“give” [δώσει σοι] takes precedence of the rest—; 3. the name of God twice mentioned. Certainly an indirect expression of the boldest hope, to which she dares not verbally give utterance—a hope, namely, of the raising of the dead man. The sisters at Bethany were acquainted with the raising of the daughter of Jairus and of the youth at Nain. Martha also remembered the promise (Joh_11:4) contained in the message of Jesus (Tholuck, Meyer). Hence not simply: if Thou wilt implore consolation (Rosenmüller), or: that Lazarus may not be cast away (Euthymius), or only an assurance: nevertheless, I consider Thee a favorite of God (Paulus). We must not, however, convert this indefinite and sifting expression into a confident expectation of the raising of the dead man,—as results also from the words: whatever Thou mayest ask.
[This is the only place where αἰτεῖσθαι is used of Jesus as praying to God, instead of ἐρωτᾶν, παρακαλεῖν, προσεύχεσθαι, δει̇σθαι, comp. Luk_22:32; Joh_14:16; Joh_16:26; Joh_17:9; Joh_17:15; Joh_17:20. Bengel calls αἰτεῖσθαι, verbum minus dignum; it is certainly more human and implies a state of dependence and need. It is, however, as Meyer remarks, in keeping with the deep excitement of Martha and her as yet imperfect knowledge of the superhuman relation of Christ to the Father.—P. S.]
Joh_11:23. Thy brother will rise again.—A grand promise, though corresponding with the indefinite hope in being indefinitely worded; not: I will now raise him up. She might understand Him as referring to the general future resurrection. And besides, specific faith in the raising of the dead must issue from a general faith in their resurrection. It was an ambiguous expression, designed for the trial and development of her faith.32
Joh_11:24. I know that he will rise again, etc.—Her meaning is obvious: I acquiesce in that, but I hope for something more. Her words are expressive not merely of a sad resignation, but of an indirect query—she is feeling her way (De Wette).
Joh_11:25-26. I am the resurrection.—[This is evidently the central idea of this chapter: Christ the Resurrection of the dead, and the Life of the living. The following miracle is the practical proof of what He is in His own person and a pledge of what He will do on the last day. To Himself (ἐγώ), therefore, He first directs the weak faith of Martha; from the future resurrection and the dead brother she was to look to the present (εἰμί), ever-living and life-giving Saviour. The general resurrection of the dead is only a manifestation of the moral power of the person that stood before her. What sublimity and what comfort in this testimony of Christ concerning Himself! Who can measure the effect which it produces from day to day in countless chambers of mourning and before open graves all over the Christian world!—Resurrection is put first, in opposition to the present power of death which is to be overcome; Resurrection is Life itself in conflict with, and victory over, death, it is the Death of death, the triumph over decay and dissolution swallowing up mortality in life. (Luther has forcibly described the marvellous duel between Life and Death on the cross, in an Easter hymn, where the passage occurs: “Wie ein Tod den andern frass; Ein Spott aus dem Tod ist worden.”) Life comprehends spiritual as well as physical life, life eternal of body and soul. Christ is the Victor of death and the grave, because He is the Prince of life in this absolute sense. In the words following the first clause is an explanation and application of the term Resurrection, the second of the term Life. I am the Resurrection: he that believeth in Me, though he have died, will live (will be raised up again). I am the Life: whoever liveth and believeth in Me will never die (will live forever in unbroken life-union with Me, the Prince of life).—P. S.]
I [and no other], i.e., the future resurrection is not an impersonal fate that is to take place at some future time, but a personal effect proceeding from Me who am present with you. It is even now present and active in Me.—And the life.—Life in the absolute sense, in its power to awaken spirit and body. Hence, as well the principle of resurrection (Hunnius, Luthardt), as its essence and result (Meyer). As the vital principle of the resurrection, He exerts a purely quickening influence, which branches into two forms: a. He who believes on Him, if he have died [ἀποθάνῃ, past], shall live, shall continue to live, shall rise again; b. he who is still living, who through belief on Him becomes truly alive, shall never die, i.e. shall not become a prey to death and the sense of mortality.33 The life of Christ is the author of the resurrection in a two-fold sense; it is the root of the waking of the physically dead, because it is the power which effects the moral awakening,—the power which rouses into spiritual life. They that live in Him shall not die; and the dead are not dead, but live again. In both cases, undoubtedly, the saying has reference to the same believer; the two propositions do not resolve themselves, as ancient commentators declare, into the parallel: “for dead believers I am the resurrection, for living ones the remedium mortis.” It is true, however, that the two propositions indicate, after Euthymius and others, the two-fold point of view; whether one be already dead (Lazarus) or still living (Martha, Mary). In both cases, the spirituo-physical or whole life-agency of Christ is meant. The dead rise spiritually and corporeally to the new life of the resurrection. The living are not swallowed up in the death of the world either spiritually or bodily (inasmuch as they transport with them the germ or the concrete body of the resurrection).
Therefore we are not to attach a merely spiritual meaning to the two propositions, just because Jesus is speaking of faith,—as, for instance: he that believeth on Me shall rise again spiritually, and he that hath received life shall retain it for ever; which would, implicite, involve the idea of the resurrection (Calvin). Neither is the first sentence to be referred to the resurrection of the body and the second to that of the spirit (Lampe, Olshausen, Stier). Comp. Joh_6:51; Joh_8:56.34
Believest thou this?—Christ had said: Every one that liveth and believeth, and had thus laid down a general rule. Now comes the application of it to her. If she believes this, she believes on Him.
Joh_11:27. I have believed that Thou art the Christ, the Son of God.—It is apparent that Martha does not thoroughly comprehend the grand thoughts in the words of the Lord; she, however, takes for granted that He is designating Himself as the Raiser of believers from the dead, and perceives that this is involved in a belief on the Messiah. She therefore utters a joyful confession of her faith in Him,—Ἐγὼ πεπίστευκα, with emphasis. She does not believe this now for the first time; she has already become a believer, being convinced a. that He is the Christ, b. as the Christ the Son of God; she believes in the full sense of the term, not simply in accordance with the theocratic idea of belief (Meyer), although she has not yet attained to a developed Johannean knowledge; c. that cometh [ὁ ἐρχόμενος] into the world (Present), that is: Who is even now continually engaged in the unfolding of His Messianic glory and work. Observe the truthfulness of Martha, which will not permit her to repeat Christ’s expressions word for word, but moulds her confession into conformity with the measure of her faith. And yet this is enough. Confessions differing in outward form or expression may agree internally and in substance.
Joh_11:28. And when she had so said, she went away.—Martha knows enough for the moment. With womanly instinct (such as especially belongs to her practical nature) she does not enter upon a deeper investigation of the great thoughts of Jesus; sufficient for her is the practical thought, that He meets her boldest hopes with the assurance that the resurrection is not merely a distant resurrection-time, but rather a present resurrection power resident in His person.
And called Mary, her sister, secretly.35—On account of the Jews who were present. It appears that Mary was still sitting in the interior of the house, surrounded by the Jews. Therefore Martha called her secretly,—λαθρά, a word, no doubt, indicative of a whisper: therefore she simply said: the Master is here—which Mary well understood; and therefore: He calleth thee. She was to go out to Him. The prudence of Jesus, who remained standing outside, is met by the prudence of Martha; common fear, however, is not to be attributed to either. He must remove His disciples from the influence of the Jews; and they, by going out to Him, must make confession of their faith in Him. It was, moreover, the rule of the Lord to avoid making a parade of His miracles, though He did, on this occasion, finally welcome the eventual notice of the Jews. Remarkable consonance of human prudence and divine assurance. We must not suppose that Martha simply gathered the mandate: He calleth thee, from the expectations that Jesus excited in her own breast (Chrysostom, Tholuck [Brückner, Stier]); she tells of a behest of Jesus (Lücke, Meyer).36
Joh_11:29. As soon as she heard that.—Mary, as the more important personality, now steps into the fore-ground, although Martha, as we see from Joh_11:39, again makes one of the group.
Joh_11:30. Now Jesus was not yet, etc.—See note to Joh_11:28. Jesus might have been assured from the circumstances of the case, that there were Jews in the house of mourning; it was needless for Martha to apprise Him (after Meyer) of the fact.
Joh_11:31. The Jews… followed her, thinking that she was going to the tomb to weep there.—It was a custom much practised among the Jews and Greeks, to sit down and mourn by the graves of their dead (Wetstein, on this passage; Geier, De luctu Hebr.). They therefore went with her, doubtless regarding the scene of mourning which they expected to witness, as a ceremony that had to be performed in compliance with Oriental custom. Even in these points the false way of the ancient world, which gratified its feelings by a common lamentation over the dead, stands contrasted with the truth of life, which demands, solitude for its grief. Of course the too great isolation of mourners is to be guarded against as much as the other extreme.
Joh_11:32. Mary… fell down at His feet.—The first stroke of character which distinguishes her from Martha. The second is, that she says nothing further than: Lord, if Thou hadst been here, my brother had not died. While Martha added to these words: and even now I know, etc. (Joh_11:22), Mary bursts into tears. Martha may at first strike us as the one who possesses the greater joy in believing, but Mary is the more human and warm in her feelings, and there is more of devotion in the expression of her faith. Her kneeling posture and her tears are more eloquent than the words of Martha. The saying that both utter, constitutes a precious trait from life. They made this remark to each other over and over again at the death -bed of Lazarus: if He were here, etc. Bengel: “Ex quo colligi potest, hunc earum fuisse sermonem ante fratris obitum: utinam adesset Dominus Jesus!”
Joh_11:33. He was vehemently (indignantly, angrily) affected (stirred up) in (his) spirit and troubled himself [ἐνεβριμήσατο τῷ πνεύματι καὶ ἐτάραξεν ἐαυτόν.—Comp. Joh_11:38 ἐμβριμώμενος ἐν ἑαυτῷ, but also the weeping between, ἐδάκρυσεν, Joh_11:35. Note first of all the perfect participation of the Lord in our natural feelings and His sympathy with our sorrows (Heb_2:17; Heb_4:15), in opposition to the stoic apathy, yet at the same time His perfect control over passion and grief and its violent outbreak.—P. S.]—He was deeply perturbed inspirit. The ἐνεβριμήσατο τῷ πνεύματι (see Mat_9:30; Mar_1:43; Mar_14:5) makes the passage one of exceeding difficulty. The affection here depicted is explained in three ways: 1. as anger, 2. as grief, 3. as a general affection of the mind, in which there is a combination of different emotions.37
1. Of anger. “βριμάομαι with all its compounds has in the classics as well as in the fathers of the Church (and the Byzantines) the signification: to snort (of horses), to mutter (of Hecate), to express anger, to threaten angrily.”38 But again, anger is variously understood:
a. He was angry, in respect of His divine nature, with His human spirit (πνεῦμα) in its passionate emotion (πάθος). So Origen, Chrysostom [Cyril, Theophylact, Euthymius Zigab.], recently Merz [Alford]. This conception is doubly untenable: in the first place, it condemns the human sentiment of grief; and secondly, it creates a conflict in the consciousness of the Lord. [It is also inconsistent with the act of weeping, which follows, Joh_11:35, and with the parallel expression ἐν ἑαυτῷ—in Himself, Joh_11:38, which proves that τῷ πνεύματι cannot be the object, but must be the sphere of the emotion=in His spirit.—P. S.]39 Hilgenfeld and others fall upon the same interpretation, with a different conception of it, in imputing a gnostic Christology to this Gospel.
b. He was angry at the power of sin and death (Augustine, Erasmus and others, Luthardt).40 Not to be excluded, but too abstract by itself.
c. At the unbelief of the Jews [Erasmus, Scholten, Wordsworth], and also the sisters (Theodor of Mopsueste, Lampe [Kuinoel],Wichelhaus]). But the sisters were not unbelieving.
d. That He was unable to avert the death of Lazarus (De Wette). This would be impious and is contrary to the connection.
e. At the misconception of His enemies and the want of comprehension displayed by His friends (Brückner). There was, at the moment, no special occasion for such a feeling.
f. At the mingling of the hypocritical tears [crocodile tears] of the Jews with the true tears of Mary (Meyer). Against this, comp. Joh_11:45 [“Many of the Jews… believed in Him”].41
g. This description of anger has, in the interest of negative criticism, been caricatured by Strauss and others.
2. Of grief. In the passages, Mat_9:30; Mar_1:43, anger is out of the question. Tholuck: “This verb is equally comprehensive with the corresponding German ‘grimmen,’ i.e. originally, an inward convulsive emotion of anger, grief, etc. Hence Luther renders: Er ergrimmete, which he himself explains by σπλαγχνίζεται.”42 Yet Tholuck observes that the signification of grief is not supported by usage, but only by analogy.43 In favor of this view are—Nonnus, Buzer, Grotius and others, Lücke.44 Tholuck, in the early editions of his Commentary, and Ewald: an emotion of great strength, analogous to the στενάζειν τῷ πνεύματι of Jesus, Mar_7:34 (comp. Mar_8:12).45
3. A general affection of the spirit, in which different sentiments combine and alternate. 46This construction is supported: (1) by the choice of the expression, since the Evangelists are familiar with other terms for the definite emotion either of anger or of grief; (2) by the addition: τῷ πνεύματι. The nature of the spirit renders it impossible for any single psychical emotion to rule within it, the spirit is the all-embracing unity of the many-parted life of the soul.47 (3) By the psychological experience, that when the soul is in a state of intense excitement, it is seized at once by the most diverse emotions (see the quotation from Göthe’s Iphigenie: “Es wälzet sich ein Rad von Freud’ und Schmerz durch meine Seele”—“A wheel of joy and grief revolveth through my soul.”—Leben Jesu, p. 1125). (4) By the situation. The weeping of Mary could excite nought but the most heart-felt sympathy. But the tears of the better sort among the Jews were mingled with the tears of the unbelieving. A scene of human lamentation over death presented itself—sympathy in view of the power of death was aroused. Jesus had not to bar out this sympathy; still it was necessary that He should stand on His guard against it—and rouse Himself in indignation against it. Thus His emotion was converted into an ecstatic anticipation of victory. I had at first chosen the expression: Er schütterte sich—He convulsed—agitated Himself. It is significant of violent agitation. But the one upon which I finally settled seems preferable: Er regte sich tief auf, He stirred Himself up from the deep. He moved Himself in the spirit to such a degree that the disciples perceived His agitation in His bodily appearance,—hence: He convulsed Himself; He billowed up,—He surged up. A divine storm of the spirit [ein Gottesge witter des Geistes] passed through His breast, under which His human nature quaked. The fremere invariably arises out of the depths.
[It is not inconsistent with this interpretation of Dr. Lange, if we emphasize sin and death as the chief object of Christ’s mingled emotion and commotion. In this heart-rending scene of mourning: the grave of the departed friend, the broken hearts of the beloved sisters, and the tears of their sympathizers, Jesus saw a miniature photograph of the world of human suffering caused by the terrible curse of sin; all the graves and all the mourners passed in endless procession before His vision; He felt the combined misery and woe of the human family (“der Menschheit ganzer Jammer fasste Ihn an”); He was moved at once with holy indignation at sin which caused all this dreadful desolation, and with tender sympathy for the sufferers, which latter feeling found vent in tears.—And troubled (shook) himself, ἐτάραξεν ἑαυτόν. This is not quite the same with the passive form ἐταράχθη τῷ πνεύματι, which is used on a similar occasion, Joh_13:21, but it expresses the external manifestation of the inward commotion by a voluntary act. Hengstenberg (II. 261): “Jesus excites Himself for the energetic conflict with Death, the evil enemy of mankind.” Comp. Meyer, Luthardt, Godet, in loc. Augustine, Bengel and Wordsworth derive from the expression the inference that Christ’s affections were not passions, but voluntary emotions (voluntariæ commotiones), which He had entirely in His power, and that the emotion here spoken of was therefore orderly, rational, full of dignity and directed to proper ends.—P. S.]
Joh_11:34. Where have ye laid him?—Manifestly, the impulse to work the miracle is completed by what has been going on in His inner life.—Come and see.—The answerers—Martha and Mary.
Joh_11:35. Jesus wept [Ἐδάκρυσεν ὁ Ἰησ.].—Two little words: a whole verse, of infinite value. Significant and pertinent verse-division. On the way to the grave, Jesus weeps. After He has troubled Himself in spirit and has made good His stand against all sympathy with Jewish lamentations for the dead, He is at liberty to give Himself up to His fellow-feeling with the sisters; the tear follows His passion, as a summer rain succeeds the thunder-storm. The objection, that Jesus could not weep if He had a real presentiment of the miracle that He was about to perform, carries with it a doubt as to the compatibility of the divine and the human nature; it is also contradicted by human experience itself.48 Not only the succession of feelings, but likewise the truth and disinterestedness of feeling, are explained by a fact, in accordance with which the deepest grief may invade the mind when it is occupied with the anticipation of joy, and vice versâ; nay, more;—these opposite emotions may even succeed each other with the rapidity of lightning, like a “wheel of fire” in swift revolution. “Chrysologus supposed that Jesus wept for joy; Isodorus Pelus., because the raising of Lazarus would summon him from repose back to the unrest of life (this was the decision even of the Concilium Toletanum) etc. All these explanations of the fathers of the Church are utterly unnatural.” Heubner.
[This sentence is the shortest, and yet one of the most significant verses in the Bible. It stands by itself unconnected by any particle with what precedes or what follows. It describes what was seen, and intimates what was felt. Jesus knew that He would shortly raise Lazarus, but in true sympathy He opened His heart to the present grief which opened to Him a picture of the universal desolations of the king of terrors; and with a sympathizing heart, not with a heart of stone, He raised the friend to life again. He felt and acted like a man before He gave a proof of His divine power; so He slept just before He stilled the storm (Mat_8:24). But His grief was moderate. Δακρύειν signifies a gentle weeping, the expression of a calm and tender grief; it differs from κλαίειν, the crying and wailing of the sisters and their friends, Joh_11:33, which implies “not only the shedding of tears, but also every external expression of grief” (Robinson, sub. κλαίω). It is remarkable that the very Gospel which most clearly reveals the divinity of Christ, notices this truly human trait of His character. As far as we are informed, Jesus wept or shed tears on three occasions: tears of tender friendship and silent grief at the grave of Lazarus (ἐδάκρυσεν); tears of bitter sorrow and loud lamentation over unbelieving Jerusalem in view of the approaching judgment, Luk_19:41 (ἔκλαυσεν); and bloody tears of agony and sacerdotal intercession in Gethsemane when He bore the burden of the sins of all mankind and wrestled with the powers of darkness, Luk_22:44 (comp. Heb_5:7, μετὰ κραυγῆς ἰσχυρᾶς καὶ δακρύων). The eternal Son of God in tears! What a sublime contrast; what a proof of His true humanity, condescending love and tender sympathy. How near He is brought in His tears to every mourner. How far more natural, lovely and attractive is a weeping Saviour than a cold, heartless, unfeeling stoic!49 By His conduct at the grave He has sanctified tears of sympathy, provided only we sorrow not immoderately as those who have no hope (1Th_4:13). His tears over Jerusalem and in Gethsemane should call forth our tears of repentance and gratitude.—P. S.]
Joh_11:36-37. Behold how he loved him.—This even the Jews could see, without comprehending the full significance of His tears. It is certainly the intention of the evangelist to distinguish these kindly disposed Jews from the others who thus express themselves: Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man, etc. (Joh_11:37). According to Chrysostom and most of the ancients, as also Luthardt and Meyer, this speech has something of malice in it;50 according to Lücke, Tholuck and others, it is well meant. The idea of malice is supported by 1. the manifest intention to spread abroad an accusation against Jesus, to the effect that He was either unable (want of power) or unwilling (want of love) to avert this death; 2. the circumstance that their words occasion again the convulsive self-agitation of the Lord, and, so to speak, constrain Him to brace Himself anew in the spirit. 3. Here, as in Joh_11:46, John distinguishes the malicious Jews from those of the better sort by τινὲς δέ. [“John seldom uses δέ as a mere copula, but generally as but, see Joh_11:46; Joh_11:49; Joh_11:51.” Alford]. Hence arises the conjecture that they, starting from the assumption of the powerlessness of Jesus in this case, are desirous to cast a shadow of doubt even upon the healing of the blind man (Meyer). Still less is it to be expected that these citizens of Jerusalem should cite the previous raisings of the dead in Galilee (Strauss) rather than the healing of the blind man, which last was an event of recent occurrence in Jerusalem, still fresh in the memory of all,—an occasion of admiration to some, and to others of Pharisaical offence.51 Their words are the cause of fresh agitation on the part of the Lord, now, however, He is stirred not only in spirit but in Himself, i.e. the emotion is felt in the soul-life also.
Joh_11:38. To the tomb. It was a cave.—[An indication of the comparative Wealth of Lazarus and his sisters that they had a family vault, such as is here implied. The poor were buried in common places. The large concourse of mourners from Jerusalem, and the very costly ointment with which Mary anointed the feet of our Lord (12:3), lead to the same conclusion.—P. S.] On the Israelitish graves see Com. on Matt. chap. 27.52 On the grave of Lazarus, which is said still to exist, see the books of travel (Robinson, II. p. 310).53—And a stone lay upon [or against] it.—Ἐπέκειτο may mean: upon or before, according as the grave is to be conceived of as a perpendicular vault (such were entered by means of steps), or as a horizontal one. That the tradition makes it a perpendicular sepulchre is not conclusive proof that it was so; yet the expression ἄρατε τὸν λίθον, seems also to testify in favor of a perpendicular grave. In Mat_28:2 the term is ἀπεκύλιτε.54
Joh_11:39. Lord, by this time he stinketh [ἤδηὄζει].—The fearful reality of the grave, in which her brother has lain four days, disturbs the practical woman and shakes her faith. She thinks a scandal may result from the bursting forth of the odor of corruption,—especially in the presence of so many people from Jerusalem. For it follows from the reason she assigns for her remark, that she does not already perceive this odor: for he hath been dead four days. [Lit. he is now the fourth day (viz. as a dead man), τεταρταῖος quatriduanus, an adjective marking Succession of days, but used only proverbially, like δευτεραῖος, τριταῖος. δωδεκαταῖος.—P. S.]55 “It is a proverb in the Talmud and the Targum, that corruption sets in the third day after death” (Tholuck after Wetstein). As “the sister of the dead man” [ἡ ἀδελφὴ τοῦ τετελευκότος] she shudders at the thought of seeing her brother in a putrefying state, of witnessing the exposure of that countenance upon which corruption had already set its seal. We cannot, from the words of Martha, draw the inference that a previous embalming of the body by wrapping spices about it, had not taken place; the customary anointing might, however, have been deferred by the sisters, because, almost unconsciously to themselves, a spark of hope was smouldering within them, as they anxiously expected the coming of Jesus. Hence, likewise, Mary had saved the precious ointment of spikenard. There is no more foundation for the statement that at this particular moment Martha, influenced by the utterances of Jesus, Joh_11:23-26, had merged her hope of a special raising of Lazarus in a higher stretch of faith (Meyer), than there is ground for questioning the momentary tottering of her hope (Tholuck). This only can be said: she is so agitated by the fear lest her brother appear as a putrefying corpse, that she is unmindful for the instant of the duty of submission to the word of Christ, and delays the execution of His command.
Joh_11:40. Did I not tell thee?—Not only the words, Joh_11:25, but the whole of His sayings from Joh_11:4.—The glory of God appears at such time as He reveals Himself in His wonderworking might. Manifestly, therefore, they had faith in the words of Jesus as they took the stone away (41).
Joh_11:41. Jesus lifted up His eyes to heaven.—We have already adverted to the grand aim of this form of the miraculous healing of Jesus. The Jews in Jerusalem are to see in a great sign, not only the miraculous power of Jesus but also His connection with their God in the working of this miracle. Hence the unreserved outpouring of the prayer. But the prayer is a thanksgiving: I thank thee. He is confident of being heard, and this presupposes earlier prayers.56 So that when He says: I knew that thou hearest me always, an intimation is given us of an uninterrupted life of prayer, a continual union, in prayer, of the will of Jesus with the will of the Father—a union resulting in the continual working with Him of God’s omnipotence. Thus Christ accomplishes His miracles as the God-Man; not in pure divinity, or as a super-human God, without the Father (see Joh_5:19; Joh_5:26; Joh_6:6), nor in simple humanity amidst sporadic entreaties.57
At the same time this saying introduces the following utterance: but because of the multitude standing around, etc.—Those who, like Baur, have inferred from these words that the prayer of Jesus is debased to a mock-prayer have failed to comprehend the grand idea of it.58 In presence of the Jews of Jerusalem, Jesus calls upon their God as His Father, and is heard.59 Thus Moses, in pursuance of God’s instructions, produces his credentials as the ambassador of the God of Israel, before his nation and before Pharaoh (Exo_4:3 ff; Joh_7:9); and thus Elijah on Mount Carmel, before the priests of Baal and the backsliding people, petitions the God of Israel for the decisive sign from heaven which shall corroborate the truth of the Israelitish faith, 1Ki_18:36 ff. For this cause, the design of this prayer is so distinctly emphasized: that they might believe that Thou didst send Me.—That prayer may not have a reflexive reference to the hearers of it, is a tenet which finds prayer only in pantheistic moods; it would, if consistently acted upon, abolish the idea of motherly, ecclesiastical, judicial prayer (the oath), of prayer offered in performing miracles and of prayer generally.
Joh_11:43. Lazarus, come forth!—Properly: Lazarus, hither! forth! [δεῦρο ἔξω, without a verb, huc foras! Ici, dehors! The simple grandeur, brevity and force of this resurrection call corresponds with the mighty effect, and may be compared to the sublime passage in Genesis: Let there be light! And there was light. Cyril calls it θεοπρεπὲς καὶ βασιλικὸν κέλευσμα.—P. S.] According to Origen [and Chrysostom] the moment of awakening preceded the thanksgiving of Jesus and the call merely occasioned the forthcoming of the recipient of new life. But, manifestly, the loud call with a powerful voice and majestic utterance should itself be recognized as the moment of awakening.60
Joh_11:44. Bound hand and foot with grave-clothes.—Since the dead man was so wrapped up, even his face being covered, there happened, according to Basilius (θαύμαζε θαῦμα ἐν θαύματι), Chrysostom and many others, Lampe, Stier, a miracle within a miracle,—namely, that Lazarus was able to go forth in spite of his wrappings.61 Others, again, have assumed that he was wrapped about after the fashion of the Egyptians, his hands and feet being bandaged separately (Olshausen, De Wette). Lücke supposes him to have been wrapped from head to foot so closely that his freedom of motion was not impeded.62 From our passage the windings certainly seem to have been partial; whether they were applied in the Egyptian style or not. Such might also have been the idea of the sisters, particularly as the ceremonies of anointing and interment had not yet been completed. But it is obvious that the miracle of new life might be carried out in a miraculous walking, similar to somnambulism. And indeed it was necessary that the forthcomer should be disencumbered of his wrappings, in order that he might move with perfect freedom,—in accordance with the words of Jesus: Loose him and let him go.—i.e. go home independent of aid. We cannot adopt the inference of Grotius; he holds that Christ did not accompany him: ne quasi in triumphum ducere videretur.
[The terms ἄφετε ὑπάγειν, as Godet observes, have a triumphant tone, like the order to the cripple: “Take up thy bed and walk” (Joh_5:8). Trench: “St. John here breaks off the narrative of the miracle itself, leaving us to imagine their joy, who thus beyond all expectation received back their dead from the grave; a joy, which was well nigh theirs alone, among all the mourners of all times,
‘Who to the verge have followed those they love
And on the insuperable threshold stand,
With cherished names its speechless calm reprove,
And stretch in the abyss their ungrasped hand.’
He leaves this, and passes on to show us the historic significance of this miracle in the development of the Lord’s earthly history, the permitted link which it formed in the chain of those events, which were to end, according to the determinate decree and counsel of God, in the atoning death of the Son of God upon the cross.”—P. S.]
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
1. Christ the Resurrection and the Life, the principle of the future resurrection:
a. The foretokens of the principle: the miracles of transformation and the histories of raisings from the dead in the Old Testament, and the raisings of the dead effected by Jesus.
b. The appearance of the principle in the revivifying life and spiritual resurrection of Christ.
c. The operations of the principle until the first resurrection and until the general resurrection.
2. Faith in Christ, the Son of God, embraces the resurrection.
3. The mysterious, holy affections in the life of the Lord. The sensational life in the spirit or the innermost and highest emotion, within which all feelings revolve;—supreme compassion for the misery of men, supreme indignation at the unbelief of the world. The Lord’s bracing of Himself against all sympathy with ungodly sorrow, while at the same time fully sympathizing with the godly sorrow of men.
4. The raising of Lazarus.
Different interpretations: (1) Lazarus was apparently dead (Paulus, Ammon, Schweizer and others); (2) the account a myth (Strauss); either a misunderstanding of a conversation concerning the resurrection, held with the two women of Bethany on the occasion of the death of Lazarus (Weisse); or a remodelling of the story of the raising of the young man at Nain (Gfrörer); or a dogmatico-allegorical representation of the δόξα of Christ (Baur).63—At the grave of Lazarus modern skeptical criticism manifestly celebrates its own dissolution—every man tells a different story.
Omission of the history in the Synoptists: (1) The synoptists were not acquainted with it (Lücke and others). (2) It lay beyond the circle of their statements (Meyer). (3) It was omitted out of consideration for the family of Bethany (Herder, Schulthess, Olshausen, Lange, Leben Jesu, II. 2, p. 1133). Meyer assures us that this last explanation runs counter to the mind and spirit of that first age of Christianity (he should say rather: to the spiritual bravado of the Montanists and Circumcellians). Comp. Joh_12:10.
Instrumentalities of the miracle. a. The general one: Christ the resurrection and the life, the principle of raisings, quickenings, of the dead. b. The special one: Christ, now entertaining a presentiment of His own death and resurrection. It was necessary that Jerusalem and the Supreme Council should behold a sign of His glory beaming very near to them; this robbed them of all excuse c. The most special one: The faith of the sisters and of Lazarus, and the expectation of all,—especially of the dying man,—that Jesus would come and manifest His power and willingness to help; an expectation which Lazarus preserved in death, as Jesus Himself carried down to death His confidence in His own resurrection (see my Leben Jesu, II. 2, p. 327 and 1127 ff.).
The form of the miracle: A prayer for the hearing of the God of Israel, as a testimony to the Lord in the face of Jerusalem.
Its import: The crown of His raisings from the dead, the presage of His resurrection, the first flashing of His δόξα from the Mount of Olives over Jerusalem.
5. “As regards the moral application, there is no need for allegorical interpretation such as is found in Jerome, Augustine, Bourdaloue, H. Martin, etc. This allegorical interpretation is obviously without historical foundation; it is unnatural,—and to make Lazarus, the friend of Jesus, the type of a sinner utterly dead and even stinking,—is also unseemly.” Heubner.
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
The raising of Lazarus as the most glorious of the revivifying miracles of Jesus: 1. In respect of the peculiar circumstances attending it in comparison with the previous raisings of the dead; 2. in respect of its intrinsic significance, as demonstrating that Christ is the Resurrection and the Life, or as a demonstration of His glory; 3. in respect of its decisive effects.—Or: the raising of Lazarus in respect of its essential features: 1. The introductory conversation; 2. the walk to the grave; 3. the prayer of thanksgiving; 4. the awakening call; 5. the appearance of the dead man; 6. the effect of his resurrection.—The arrival of Jesus on the fourth day after the burial of Lazarus. Or: Jesus, coming as a Saviour, never comes too late.—How the banished and fugitive Jesus from Peræa and those haughty scorners of Him, the Jews from Jerusalem, meet again at the grave of Lazarus.—The different kinds of condolence on the death of a member of a family: 1. The condolence of the world in general; 2. the ceremonious condolence of Pharisees; 3. the hearty condolence of relatives and friends; 4. the heavenly condolence of Christ.—Christ waiting before the village, or the divine power of Christ in His human weakness,—the type of the Christian life.—The greatest precaution combined with the most joyful anticipation of victory.—Martha and Mary at the grave of Lazarus. Comparison of the two, 1. At their first meeting with Jesus (Luk_10:38), 2. at the second here, 3. at the third in the history of the anointing.—The saying of both: Lord, if Thou hadst been here, etc.—The if of mourners in view of the dead. If this and that had happened: 1. In what degree sinful? As an expression of grief that will not be reconciled to the dispensation of God. 2. In what degree warranted? As an expression of pain investigating the causes of the suffering. 3. In what degree salutary? As an expression of humiliation before God on account of actual neglect.—The trial of faith imposed upon Martha.—The deliverance of Martha from petty household cares by means of the deep distress and mighty aid.—Christ the Resurrection and the Life: 1. What this means: a. the Life unto resurrection; b. the Resurrection unto life: 2. What this signifies to believers: a. to the dead; b. to the living.—Believest thou this?—The confession of Martha in reply to the question of Christ touching her faith.—How Martha here already subordinates herself to Mary, whom she before desired to tutor (she takes a still more subordinate position in the history of the anointing,—serving silently).—“The Master is here:” 1. The Master is here 2. and calleth thee.—The presageful visit to the grave, prelusive to the most presageful visit to the grave of Jesus.—The weeping of Mary and the weeping of the Jews: 1. In itself; the external similarity, the internal diversity; 2. in its signification: thus voices mingle in the songs of the sanctuary, tears in our houses, different spirits in the company of Jesus.—The twice-repeated convulsion of Jesus inspirit: 1. The occasion, 2. the mood, 3. the fruit.—The sensational life of Jesus.—The heart of Jesus in its full revelation: 1. In the full revelation of its love, 2. of its holiness, 3. of its divine power.—How the Lord Himself must guard His temper before His great work.—The moving and yet so salutary sight of the grave.—Our graves.—In their relation to the grave of Christ.—The temptation of Martha.—The prayer of thanksgiving and its signification: 1. In relation to the Lord: reliance on God; 2. with reference to the Jews: a miracle in fellowship with their God, as a testimony against them and to them; 3. in relation to the mourners: the divine consecration of their human joy.—The call of Christ three ghostly words, instinct with vital power: 1. The name, 2. to Christ, 3. forth.—The voice of Christ.—The infinitely significative and comprehensive nature of the human voice.—The unique heaven-tone (the peal of love and lightning-flash of life) in the voice of Christ.—The decidedness of Christ in all His vital traits,—even in His voice.—The appearance of the living man in the garments of the grave, a type of the new life of the Christian in the old vestments of death.—What is expressed by the words: “Loose him and let him go”: 1. How the adoring amazement of the chronicler is lost in silence; 2. how Christ gives Lazarus credit for full vital strength; 3. how He diverts attention from Himself to him who has been raised up.—The three evangelical stories of Bethany.
Starke: Canstein: Jesus comes soon enough because He always brings salvation with Him, though to us He often seems to come too late.—Hedinger: Everything is possible to the power of God: it quickens physically and spiritually those who have lain in the grave for an hour or for a thousand years,—who have sinned for a long or for a short time.—To comfort the mourning is a part of godliness.—Quesnel: We comfort one who has lost his brother by death, and have little or no compassion for him who has lost his God.—Osiander: See how faith wrestles and battles with unbelief!—God is rich above all who call on Him and can do infinitely more than we ask.—Bibl. Wirt.: The greatest consolation of Christians in all kinds of misery and so in peril of death, is the resurrection of the dead, 1Co_15:54; Heb_2:14.—He who believes not on Christ is dead ere he dies.
Joh_11:28. Ah, how fitting it is for one friend to call the other to Christ!—It is often better to preach Christ in secret than to proclaim Him publicly.
Joh_11:29. Hedinger: Love tarrieth not.
Joh_11:31. Zeisius: Those whose hearts are very heavy—and particularly those that are sorely tempted—should not be left alone.
Joh_11:32. Canstein: A believing knowledge of Jesus worketh holy reverence toward Him and deep humility.—The misery of men moves Jesus’ pity. We too, after His example, should pity the wretched.—Zeisius: We may weep and lament for them that are asleep in Jesus,—but with moderation; and we may comfort ourselves, on the other hand, with the future, joyful resurrection, 1Th_4:13; 1Th_4:18.
Joh_11:35. Thus He wept over Jerusalem (Luk_19:41) and in the garden of Gethsemane, Heb_5:7. He first gives a sign of His true humanity and then of His divinity.
Joh_11:41. Ibid.: Learn here from Jesus, when thou art about anything of importance, not to enter upon it without prayer.
Joh_11:43. Osiander: A testimony to the divine majesty of Christ.
Joh_11:45. Quesnel: It is good for us to visit pious people; sometimes our salvation depends thereon.—Gerlach: Jesus begins here, as He often does, with words purposely mysterious and sifting; they sound like a general consolation uttered in view of the future resurrection.—It was the grand aim of Jesus in many of His discourses to exhibit the unity of the spiritual and bodily resurrection; He therefore raised up the bodies of the dead.—The resurrection of the wicked is not a true resurrection, but the second death.—He calls the dead as He would a living man, as God calls that which is not as though it were, Rom_4:17.
Lisco, Joh_11:33 : The affections of believers have not the mastery over them; they are not passions.—Braune: Mourning has a good name in the Old Testament; Abraham, Isaac and Jacob mourned. And Paul writes (Rom_12:15): “Rejoice with them that do rejoice, and weep with them that weep.” Comp. Php_2:27.—From the God of all comfort cometh the gift of consolation.
Joh_11:27. In this belief is contained her all. Lest her defective conception should deprive her of the enjoyment of salvation.—Mary, Joh_11:32. Not another word,—only tears; they speak louder.—He was convulsed, etc. What a glorious glimpse of the great heart of Jesus John gives us here!—Scripture mentions eight persons who were raised from the dead: the son of the widow of Sarepta, by means of Elijah (1Ki_17:22), the son of the Shunamitess by Elisha (2Ki_4:35), a dead man who was cast into the grave of Elisha (2Ki_13:21), the young man of Nain (Luk_7:15), the daughter of Jairus (Mat_9:25), Lazarus, Tabitha by Peter (Act_9:40), Eutychus by Paul (Act_20:9).—Gossner, Joh_11:17. Yet He never fails to come.—No Christian dies.—It is true a child of God may outwardly suffer all manner of things,—but that is to be sick; that is not death.—Mary. She arose, not to go to the dead, but to Him who was her life.—Mary spoke in the same tone that her sister used. For it is customary for one thing to infect another. One man may discourage and dishearten another.—Another time He said on a similar occasion: Weep not! Namely, for the consolation of the widow of Nain. But here He weeps Himself. By His tears 1. He heals (hallows) ours, 2. He wipes them away.—The mighty voice of the Saviour a type of His almighty grace.
Heubner: The longer faith is obliged to wait, the stronger faith grows by waiting and trial,—the more glorious is the help afforded (Wichelhaus).
Joh_11:24. A general belief in a certain truth is indeed of no avail. This does not touch a man. It must become a faith personally applied to and personally concerning us.—“Believest thou this?” A proof-question for every one.—“The inner relationship of the heart to Jesus must remain a secret to the world, although we should freely confess Jesus” (Wichelhaus).—The Master calleth thee. It is a question of personal relationship.
Joh_11:29. Who may delay when Jesus calls him?—What divine strength human tears possess!
Joh_11:43. The voice that we now hear is the authoritative word of the Awakener of the Dead, who hath the keys of hell and of death.—Like a spirit Lazarus comes forth, that at the sight of him all may be seized with trembling and awe, as they think of the invisible world thus brought near to them.—The dead man vouchsafes no narrative to our ears. “He had nought to say in words of this earth” (Herder).—Schleiermacher: The Jews. Such sympathy in the common incidents of life as is manifested even by men who do not share our feelings in regard to the things which are most important and which we have most at heart, should not be condemned by us as devoid of sincerity.—The grief that locks itself up within itself is selfish, inasmuch as it separates a man from connection with his brethren.—That which can rise so high (to God), that which is capable of such communion with the universal fountain of life, is also removed beyond the power of death. If thou believe, thou shalt see the glory of God.
Mallet: Jesus’ wrath and tears.—Tears are not only the signs of love, interest, grief; they are also infallible signs of human impotence and weakness. Thus tears here reveal His holy love, but they conceal His might and glory.—She called the grave the place of corruption,—the Lord calls it the place of glory.—The Jews. There is a power in the rays of the sun. They wake the vital germ within the grain of corn and call a new, beautiful and manifold life into being. But the same sun-beam draws poisonous vapors out of bogs and morasses. It summons life from the one,—death from the other.
[Craven: From Origen: Joh_11:41. Then they took away the stone; Some delay had arisen; it is best to let nothing come between the commands of Jesus and doing them.—Jesus lifted up His eyes: We should pray after Christ’s pattern—lift up the eyes of our heart above present things in memory, in thought, in intention.——From Hilary: Joh_11:41-42. Christ’s prayer did not benefit Himself, but our faith; He did not want help, but we want instruction.——From Augustine: Joh_11:22. Martha does not say, Bring my brother to life again, but I know whatsoever Thou wilt ask, God will give it Thee—i.e., what Thou wilt do is for Thy judgment and not for my presumption to determine.
Joh_11:25. He that believeth in Me: Faith is the life of the soul.
Joh_11:34. Where have ye laid him? He knew, but He asked to try the faith of His people.
Joh_11:35. Jesus wept: Wherefore did He weep, but to teach men to weep?
Joh_11:39. Take ye away the stone: Mystically, Take away the burden of the law, proclaim grace. [?]——From Chrysostom: Joh_11:20; Joh_11:28. Martha does not take her sister with her because she would speak with Christ alone; when her hopes had been raised by Him she called Mary.
Joh_11:29. In her devotions to (trust in?) her Master, she had no time to think of her afflictions.
Joh_11:35-38. That He wept and groaned are mentioned to show the reality of His human nature.——From Bede: Joh_11:32-33. Mary did not say so much as Martha, she could not speak for weeping, (but her tears were as effective as the words of her sister.—E. R. C.)——From Alcuin: Joh_11:17. Our Lord delayed for four days that the resurrection of Lazarus might be the more glorious.
Joh_11:25. I am the Resurrection, because I am the Life.
Joh_11:26. Jesus knew that she believed, but sought a confession unto salvation.
Joh_11:35. Jesus wept because He was the fountain of pity.
Joh_11:43-44. Christ awakes, because His power it is which quickens inwardly; the disciples loose, because by the ministry they who are quickened are absolved, [?] (through the ministry they are delivered from the bondage of sin.—E. R. C.)——From Theophylact: Joh_11:28. The Master is come and calleth for thee: the presence of Christ in itself a call.
Joh_11:33-35. He groaned—wept: Jesus sometimes gave His human nature free vent, sometimes He restrained it: He acted thus—1. to prove that He is very man; 2. to teach us the due measure of joy and grief—the absence of sympathy and sorrow is brutal, the excess is womanly [better: heathenish.—P. S.]
Joh_11:43. He cried with a loud voice—the symbol of that trumpet which will sound at the general resurrection.—From Burkitt: Joh_11:21-38. Faith and infirmity mixed together: faith, in Martha’s firm persuasion of Christ’s power; infirmity, in her limiting Him as to place and time.
Joh_11:23. Christ’s meek answer to Martha’s passionate discourse.
Joh_11:30. The earnestness of Christ to finish His work—He went to the grave before entering the house.
Joh_11:35. Jesus wept partly from compassion, partly for example—1. from compassion, (1) to humanity debased by sin to death, (2) to Lazarus whom He was about to bring back to a sinful and suffering world, ((3) to the sorrowing sisters.—E. R. C.); 2. for example, to bring tears from us—(1) at the sight of others’ woes, (2) at the graves of our friends.
Joh_11:39. Take ye away the stone: Our hands must do their utmost before Christ will help.
Joh_11:43. Our Lord did not say Lazarus, revive, as to one dead; but Come forth, teaching us that they are alive to Him who are dead to us.——From M. Henry: Joh_11:17. When Jesus came: Promised salvations though they often come slowly, always come surely.
Joh_11:19. The home of Martha and Mary a house of mourning.—Grace will keep sorrow from the heart (Joh_14:1) not from the house.—Where there are mourners, there ought to be comforters.—They comforted them concerning their brother, speaking (probably), 1. of the good name he had left behind; 2. of the happy state to which he had gone.
Joh_11:20. The different temperaments of Martha and Mary, as manifested by their different conduct.
Joh_11:21. If Thou hadst been here: We are apt to add to our troubles by fancying what might have been.
Joh_11:22. When we know not what in particular to ask, let us in general refer ourselves to God. When we know not what to pray for, the Great Intercessor knows and is never refused.
Joh_11:23. The comforting answer of Jesus. Thy brother shall rise again, directing Martha’s thoughts forward to what shall be.
Joh_11:25-26. Note 1. The sovereign power of Christ, I am the Resurrection and the Life; 2. the promise of the new Covenant, (1) what it is, life (a) for the body, a blessed resurrection, (b) for the soul, a blessed immortality, (2) to whom made, believers in Him.
Joh_11:27. Martha’s Creed; observe 1. The guide of her faith, the word of Christ; 2. The ground of her faith, the authority of Christ; 3. The matter of her faith, that Christ was (1) The Christ—the anointed One, (2) The Son of God, (3) The One who should come, ὁ ἐρχόμενος.
Joh_11:29-31. The (gracious) haste of Mary; she did not consult 1. the decorum of her mourning, 2. her neighbours.
Joh_11:29-32. Mary’s abounding love for Christ; though He had seemed unkind in His delay she takes it not amiss.
Joh_11:31-33. The Jews who followed Mary led to Christ by the beholding of the miracle; it is good to cleave to Christ’s friends in their sorrows, for thereby we may come to know Him better.
Joh_11:33. The tears of Mary; the tears of devout affection have a loud, prevailing voice with Christ.—He was troubled, i.e., He troubled Himself; He was voluntary both in His passion and His compassion.
Joh_11:35. Jesus wept, showing that He was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.
Joh_11:39-40. Martha’s (momentary) distrust, and Christ’s gentle reproof and re-assurance.
Joh_11:41, The prayer of Christ teaches us in praying—1. to call God, Father; 2. in our prayers to praise Him.
Joh_11:42. The objects of His public thanksgiving—1. to obviate the (possible) objections of His enemies that He wrought miracles by charms or the power of Satan; 2. to corroborate the faith of His friends.
Joh_11:43. Loud voice—1. significant of the power put forth; 2. typical of other works of resurrection—(1) of the gospel call, (2) of the Archangel’s trumpet at the last day.
Joh_11:44. The miracle was wrought—1. speedily, 2. perfectly, 3. with the additional miracle, that Lazarus came forth though bound hand and foot.—From Scott: Joh_11:41. We cannot raise the spiritually dead, but we should remove the stones and the grave clothes.—From Stier: Joh_11:21. Lord, if Thou hadst been here; thus does man look back with if in all his heavy trials.
Joh_11:22. Martha at this point a heroine in faith, but only for a moment.
Joh_11:24. The implied dissatisfaction of the bereaved one with the mere promise of a resurrection at the last day—(“Half-faith always does what Martha here does.” Draeseke).
Joh_11:25. I am the Resurrection—1. because I am the Life; 2. as I am the Life—in the same most intrinsically true, and already prevailing, sense.
Joh_11:25-26. He that believeth in Me shall receive a life which death cannot invade. When the living bury His living nothing should be heard but resurrection joy.
Joh_11:33. He groaned in the spirit (ἐνεβριμήσατο τῷ πνεύματι); The sorrow of Jesus on account of sin, and His wrath against death.
Joh_11:44. Loose him: The relies of the (spiritual) grave are (in the case of the spiritually quickened) to be removed, by the Lord’s appointment, through the ministry of men—From Barnes: Joh_11:26. Believest thou this? The time of affliction a favorable period to try ourselves whether we have faith.
Joh_11:28. The Master: A title which Jesus claimed for Himself, Mat_23:8; Mat_23:10.
Joh_11:35. Jesus wept: Learn—1. that the most tender friendship is not inconsistent with the most pure religion; 2. that it is right to sympathize with the afflicted; 3. that sorrow at the death of friends is right; 4. the tenderness of the character of Jesus.
Joh_11:40 The glory of God: The power and goodness displayed in the resurrection.—From Melville: Joh_11:25. I am the Resurrection and the Life; Christ the cause and the origin of the unbelieving Jews: Christianity doth not bid us abate anything of our souls.—From Hall: Joh_11:28. Secretly for fear of the unbelieving Jews: Christianity doth not bid us abate anything of our wariness.—From A Plain Commentary (Oxf.): Joh_11:20. The blessedness of Martha in going forth to meet her Lord.
Joh_11:30. By His remaining without the town, the whole body of friends brought to Him (and to the beholding of the miracle.—E. R. C.)—From Hutcheson: Joh_11:24. Men believe great things that are far off, when their faith proves weak in a less matter of present trial—From Williams: Joh_11:33-41. God created man by a word, without effort; but recalls him to life not without many groans and tears and intercessions.—From Ryle: Joh_11:20-27. To know how much grace believers have, we must see them in trouble.
Joh_11:21. A strange mixture of emotions—1. reproachful passion; 2. love; 3. faith; 4. unbelief.
Joh_11:24. General faith is easier than particular.
Joh_11:31. Those who came to comfort, themselves blessed.
Joh_11:33-35. He saw weeping and He wept (as the consequence of His real humanity); He still retains His human nature
Joh_11:36. Behold how He loved him! Of all graces, love most arrests the attention and influences the opinion of the world.—Var. 40. Said I unto thee: The best believers need reminding of Christ’s sayings.—From Owen: Joh_11:25-26. He that believeth in Me, etc.: Our Lord’s commentary on the preceding words, I am the Resurrection and the Life.
Joh_11:41-42. The duty of public thanksgiving for gracious answers to prayer64—1. that God may be glorified by the, one benefited before others; 2. that others may be led to glorify Him.]
Footnotes:
[17]Joh_11:17.—[Tischendorf omits ἤδη (already), on the authrity of A.* D., etc.; but Alford, Westcott and Hort retain it with B. C.—P. S.]
[18]Joh_11:19.—Lachmann, Tischendorf, [Alford, Westcott and Hort] read: πολλοὶ δέ, instead of καὶ πολλοί, in accordance with important authorities. [א. B. C. D. L. X., etc.]
[19]Joh_11:19.—Lachmann [Alford, Westc. and H.], in accordance with B. C. L. [also Cod. Sin.] read: πρὸς τὴν M., etc. [The text. rec. and Tischend., ed. 8th, read πρὸζ τὰζ περὶ M., to those who were around Martha and Mary. The allusion seems to be to the custom of a company of comforters collecting themselves around mourners. The expression is foreign to the N. T. See Exeg.—P. S.]
[20]Joh_11:19.—Tischendorf omits αὐτῶν in accordance with the B. D. L. [So also Cod. Sin., Alford, Westc. & H.—P. S.]
[21]Joh_11:21.—Different placings of the words. Tischendorf: οὐκ ἄν ὁ ἀδελφός μου ἐτεθνήκει. [So formerly; but in his 8th crit. ed. 1869, Tischendorf gives—οὐκ ἄν ἀπέθανεν ὁ ἀδελφός μου. Ἀπέθ. is in accordance with Joh_11:32, supported by Cod. Sin. B. C.* D. K. L. X. II., etc., and is also adopted by Westcott & Hort; while Alford prefers ἐτεθνήκει, would have died.—P. S.].
[22]Joh_11:22.—Ἀλλά is wanting in B. C., etc. [The proper reading is καὶ νῦν, and is now preferred by Tischend. ἀλλα καὶ νῦν.—P. S.].
[23]Joh_11:27.—[πεπίστευκα is the proper reading adopted by all the critical editors; πιστεύω is poorly supported.—P. S.]
[24]Joh_11:29.—[Tischendorf, ed. 8th, reads ἐγείρεται and ἐρχεται, but Alford, Westcott and Hort retain the reading of the text. rec. ἠγέρθη and ἤρχετο, which is sustained by Cod. Sin. and B. The historical present is more lively, but may be an emendation.—P. S.]
[25]Joh_11:31.—[Δόξαντες is abundantly sustained by א. B. C.* D. L. X. Verss., and now generally adopted instead of the λέγοντες of the text. rec.—P. S.]
[26]Joh_11:33.—[It is perhaps impossible to find a precise equivalent in English for the Greek ἐμβριμάομαι in the sense in which it is used here and in Joh_11:38. See the Exeg., pp. 352 f.—P. S.]
[27]Joh_11:39.—Τετελευτηκότος established by A. B. C.* Sin., etc., against the τεθνηκότος of the Recepta.
[28]Joh_11:39.—[The Saxon stinketh for ὄζει is no doubt a repulsive term for a repulsive thing, but for this reason also more expressive than is offensive (Noyes, Conant and others) or similar modern substitutes.—P. S.]
[29]Joh_11:41.—In accordance with B. C.* Sin. and others, the sentence: οὗ ἧν ὁ τεθνηκὼς κείμενος must be omitted.
[30][Buttmann, N. T. Gr., p. 133, derives this peculiar position of ἀπό and πρό in indications of space and time from the influence of the Latin. Comp. Joh_12:1, πρὸ ἔξ ἡμερῶν τοῦ πάσχα 21:8; Rev_14:20.—P. S.]
[31][Alford almost verbally copies this note from Meyer. We have good reason to infer from several indications that the family of Bethany was “one of large hospitality and acquaintance.” Comp. Joh_12:3; Joh_12:5 and note.—P. S.]
[32][So also Meyer, and Alford who remarks that ἀναστήσεται is pedagogically used to lead on to the requisite faith in her mind, and doubts whether it could be used of a recall into human life. Hengstenberg refers the word mainly to the final resurrection, and subordinately to the translation to Paradise, which he includes in the first resurrection (Rev_20:5?); but Lazarus must have been already in Paradise (comp. to-day in Luk_23:43).—P. S.]
[33][The phrase οὐ μή—εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα, Joh_11:26, is in itself ambiguous and may mean either not forever, or never. The first and literal rendering would give a very plain sense: He that liveth (physically) and believelh in Me, will not die (physically) for ever, i.e. will be raised again. But in all other passages in which the same phrase occurs (Joh_4:14; Joh_8:51-52; Joh_10:28; Joh_13:8; 1Co_8:13), it is equivalent to never, like the Hebrew לֹא־לְעוֹלָם (Psa_55:22; Pro_10:30), with an emphasis on the negation: surely not, in no wise, by no means (see Winer, p. 407, on the force of the double negation in Greek). We must then suppose that Christ in Joh_11:26 either spoke of spiritual death, or overlooked physical death as a vanishing transition to real and eternal life.—P. S. ]
[34][Comp. Godet in loc. (II. 333), who justly says that it is impossible here to separate the moral and the physical sense in the words resurrection and life. I subjoin the remarks of Trench (Miracles, p. 322) on this glorious declaration: “l am the Resurrection and the Life; the true Life, the true Resurrection; the everlasting triumphs over death, they are in Me—no distant things, as thou spakest of now, to find place at the end of the world; no things separate or separable from Me, as thou spakest of lately, when thou desiredst that I should ask of another that which I possess evermore in Myself. In Me is victory over the grave, in Me is life eternal: by faith in Me that becomes yours which makes death not to be death, but only the transition to a higher life.”—P. S.]
[35][Alford: “Her calling her sister is characteristic of one who (Luk_10:40) had not been much habituated herself to listen to His instructions, but knew this to be the delight of Mary. Besides this, she evidently has hopes raised, though of a very faint and indefinite kind. προσδοκήσασά τι ἀγαθὸν ἀπὸ τῶν λόγως αὐτοῦ (Euthymius.”)—]
[36][So also correctly Alford and Godet.—P. S.]
[37][Lange translates: regte sich tief auf im Geiste, stirred Himelf up in His spirit; Noyes and Alford: was greatly moved in His spirit. The E. V. groaned in spirit, expresses more the feeling of grief and pain than of indignation and wrath (though Trench on Miracles, p. 325, strangely asserts the very reverse); comp. 2Co_5:4 : “We that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened.” Webster defines groaning: “to give forth a low, moaning sound, to utter a mournful voice, as in pain and sorrow,” and says nothing of anger. The E. V. translates the verb in four different ways: to charge straitly, Mat_9:30; Mar_1:43; to murmur, Mar_14:5; to groan, Joh_11:33; Joh_11:38.—P. S.]
[38][So the Vulgate: infremuit spiritu; Luther: Er ergrimmetc im Geiste, was wroth at, moved with indignation. βριμάομαι and ἐμβριμάομαι (from the root βρέμω, to rush, to roar, φριμάω, fremo, to roar, to bluster; comp. βρίμη, anger, βριμώ, The Angered, a name of Persephone or Hecate), when not used of uttering a sound (snorting, murmuring), always express an emotion of anger or indignation, and are equivalent to ὀργίζεσθαι and ἀπειλεῖν. Passow and Pape know no other meaning. Gumlich has abundantly proved it in the Studien und Kritiken for 1862, pp. 260–269. Sophocles, in his Lexicon of Byzantine Greek (Boston, 1870, p. 453), gives the meaning to be greatly moved, but without any authority except the two passages in John 11, which are under dispute. Meyer confidently asserts (p. 431): “Nie anders als vom heftigen Zorn (violent anger) wird βριμάομαι und ἐμβριμάομαι, wo es nicht das eigentliche Schnauben oder Brummen (Aesch. Sept. 461, Luc. Necym. 20) bezeichnet, bei Griechen, LXX. und im N. T. (Mat_9:30; Mar_1:43; Mar_14:5) gebraucht. S. Gumlich, p. 265 f.” Hengstenberg agrees: “Es ist längst festgestellt, dass ἐμβριμᾶσθαι keinen anderen Affect bezeichnen kann als den des heftigen Zornes.” Alford: “ἐμβριμάομαι can bear but one meaning, that of indignor (‘infremuit,’ Vulg.),—the expression of indignation and rebuke, not of sorrow.” Trench (p. 325): “It is nothing but the difficulty of finding a satisfactory object for the indignation of the Lord, which has caused so many modern commentators to desert this explanation, and make the word simply and merely an expression of grief and anguish of spirit. Lampe and Kuinoel defend the right explanation; and Lange (Theol. Studien und Kritiken, 1836, p. 714 sq.) has many beautiful remarks in an essay wherein he seeks to unite both meanings.” Godet: “Il est généralement reconnu, à cette heure, que le terme ἐμβοιμᾶσθαι (de βριμάζειν hennir, rugir) ne peut désigner qu’ un frémissement d’ indignation.” But all this does not yet settle the precise meaning in this verse. See below. The verb is generally transitive and constructed with the dative of the person or thing against which the angry feeling or rebuke is directed; but here and in Joh_11:38 it is used intransitively; πνεύματι being not the dat. obj., but the dat. instrum. or loci.—P. S.]
[39][The Greek interpreters usually take τῷ πνεύματι=τῷ πάθει (as dative of the object), but Cyril refers it (as instrumental dative) to the Holy Ghost or the divine nature of Christ, by which He indignantly rebuked His rising human sympathy. (ἐμβριμᾶται τῷ πνεύματι,τουτέστι τῇ δυνάμει τοῦ ἁγίου πνεύματος ἐπιπλήττει τρὸπον τινὰ τῇ ἰδίᾳ σαρκί.) In a milder form Dean Alford renews the Greek interpretation without its stoic repulsiveness. He thinks that Jesus, with the tears of sympathy already rising and overcoming His speech, checked them so as to be able to speak the words following. He considers this self-restraint as merely physical, requiring indeed an act of the will, and a self-troubling, but implying no deliberate disapproval of the rising emotion which immediately after is suffered to prevail. Webster and Wilkinson likewise explain ἐνεβριμήσατο of a violent repression of emotion. But this is clearly refuted by the explanatory ἐτάραξεν ἑαυτόν, and by the fact that Jesus did shed tears immediately afterwards. His effort at self-restraint then would have failed, which is incredible.—P. S.]
[40][According to Augustine, Cornelius a Lap., Olshausen, Trench and Gumlich, Christ was indignant at death as the wages of sin; according to Nic. Lyra, Melanchthon, Ebrard, Luthardt and Hengstenberg, at the power of death, the terrible foe of the human race, who dared here to confront and threaten his great Conqueror. Nic. Lyra: Fremitus Christi procedebat ex indignatione ejus contra diabolum, per cujus suggestionem mors intravit in mundum, quam erat cito debellaturus. To the same effect is Luthardt’s remark (II. p. 217): “Ueber den Tod und den der des Todes Gewal that, Seinen Gegner von Anfang an, ergrimmte Er, dass er lhm solches angerichtet, so in Seinen nädchsten Kreis gedrungen und so lhm Selbst wie drohend enigegengetreten war. Und das Ergrimmen Jesu ist wie ein Gegendrohen, das sich in der Autferweckung dann versinnbildlichte. Es sind gleichsam die ersten gegenseitigen Ankündigungen des letsten äussersten Kampfes.” Comp. my notes to Lange’s view below.—P. S.]
[41][Meyer urges the preceding words ὡς εἶδεν αὐτήν κλαίουσαυ—καὶ τοὺς Ἰονδαίους κλαίοντας, as indicating this contrast and cause of the indignation; but this is not applicable to the second use of the verb in Joh_11:38, although Joh_11:37 clearly shows that the indignation must have had some reference to the unbelief of the Jews.—P. S.]
[42][As now used, however, ergrimmen always signifies in German violent emotion of anger, indignation.—P. S.]
[43][Tholuck and Lücke refer to βριμάσσω, to shake with petulance, βράσσω, to ferment (intransitive), and to shake violently (transitive), also to the Hebrew זָעַף.—P. S.]
[44][Among American commentators, Owen takes this view: A deep feeling of grief, and not a rebuking of such a feeling.—P. S.]
[45][Ewald (Com. I. 323) translates: Er erbrauste im Geiste und erschütterte sich, and explains that Jesus, like a hero of old, like a Jacob, gathering up the deepest powers of his mind, went forth to the conflict and in the conflict burst out in tears. Comp. Ewald’s Life of Christ, p. 486.—P. S.]
[46][Dr. Lange has more fully demonstrated this comprehensive interpretation in a treatise on the words: ἐνεβριμήσατο τῷ πνεύματι , in his Miscellaneous Writings, vol. iv. pp. 194 ff. (originally published in the Theological Studies and Criticisms for 1836); comp. also his Leben Jesu, II. 2, p. 1125. Tholuck (7th edition) substantially adopts Lange’s interpretation: “We shall, then, include a feeling of horror also. etc. Hence we assume κινεῖσθαι to be the established philological signification, as one of the most ancient commentators, the translator of the Peshito has done.”]
[47][Meyer thinks that John might as well have written τῇ ψυχῇ (12:27); Godet (I. 329) distinguishes πνεῦμα. as the seat of religious, ψυχή as the seat of natural emotions. There is certainly a difference. Here and 13:21, when speaking of the treason of Judas, and Mar_8:12, Jesus was moved in the spirit; while when speaking of His approaching passion He says: “My soul is troubled,” Joh_12:27.—P. S.]
[48][Neander: “The sympathizing physician in the midst of a family drowned in grief—will not his tears flow with theirs, though he knows that he has the power of giving immediate relief?”—P. S.]
[49] [After the appearance of Christianity, the heathen notions about the rightfulness of human affections underwent a silent revolution, and the rigor of Stoicism was broken. Comp the beautiful passage in Juvenal, Sat. 15, quoted by Trench:
. …Molissima corda
Humano generi dare se natura fatetur,
Quæ lacrymas dedit: hæc nostri pars optima
sensüs.—P. S.]
[50][Alford and Godet take the same view. The second emotion of indignation (πάλιν ἐμβριμώμενος ἐν ἑαυτῷ, Joh_11:38) seems to have been provoked, partly at least, by this exhibition of unbelief, as the οὖν indicates.—P. S.]
[51][Trench, Alford and Godet rightly regard it as a mark of historical accuracy that these dwellers in Jerusalem should refer to a miracle performed there and still fresh in their memory rather than to the former raisings of the dead in distant Galilee, which they probably may have heard of, but naturally would not thoroughly credit on mere rumor. Says Trench: “A maker up of the narrative from later and insecure traditions would inevitably have fallen upon those miracles of a like kind, as arguments of the power of Jesus to have accomplished this.” Comp. the pointed remarks of Godet (II. 342) against Strauss.—P. S.]
[52][Also the art. Gräber in Winer’s R. W. B., art. Tomb in Smith’s B. D. (Hackett and Abbott’s ed., vol. iv. pp. 3277 ff.), Robinson, Researches, I. pp. 349 ff., and Capt. C. W. Wilson, Remains of Tombs in Palestine (in Quarterly Statement of the Palest. Exploration Soc, Lond. 1869). The Jewish sepulchres were out of town, away from the living, and either natural caverns or artificial, excavated by man’s labor from the rock, with recesses in the sides, wherein the bodies were laid, occasionally with chambers one above another, and closed by a door or a great stone to prevent the numerous jackals and beasts of prey from tearing the bodies. Many of these tombs still remain. Robinson, I. p. 352: “The numerous sepulchres which skirt the valleys on the north, east, and south of Jerusalem, exhibit for the most part one general mode of construction. A doorway in the perpendicular face of the rock, usually small and without ornament, leads to one or more small chambers excavated from the rock, and commonly upon the same level with the door. Very rarely are the chambers lower than the doors. The walls in general are plainly hewn; and there are occasionally, though not always, niches or resting-places for the dead bodies. In order to obtain a perpendicular face for the doorway, advantage was sometimes taken of a former quarry; or an angle was cut in the rock with a tomb in each face; or a square niche or area was hewn out in a ledge, and then tombs excavated in all three of its sides. All these expedients are seen particularly in the northern part of the valley of Jehoshaphat, and near the tombs of the Judges. Many of the doorways and fronts of the tombs along this valley are now broken away, leaving the whole of the interior exposed.”—P. S.]
[53][Robinson (vol. I. p. 432, Am. ed.) says: “The monks, as a matter of course, show the house of Mary and Martha, that of Simon the leper, and the sepulchre of Lazarus. The latter is a deep vault like a cellar, excavated in the lime-stone rock in the middle of the village, to which there is a descent by twenty-six steps. It is hardly necessary to remark, that there is not the slightest probability of its ever having been the tomb of Lazarus. The form is not that of the ancient sepulchres; nor does its position accord with the narrative of the New Testament, which implies that the tomb was not in the town.”—P. S.]
[54][Meyer leaves it undecided whether ἐπί here is to be rendered upon or against, before, the cave: “ἐπέκ. ἐπ’ αὐτῷ kann auch heissen: er lag davor, (vgl. Homer, Od. vi. 19: θύραι δ’ ἐπέκειντο), so dass ein horizontaler Eingang gedacht sein würde. Zu entscheiden ist nicht.”—P. S.]
[55][Olshausen, Luthardt and Trench agree with Lange that the words ἤδη ὄζει, which were spoken before the opening of the tomb, indicate only the conjecture of Martha, which was erroneous, and assume that He who sees the end from the beginning watched over the body of Lazarus in His providence that it should not hasten to corruption. But the fathers (e.g. Augustine: resuscitavit putenten), Calvin (alios Christus suscitavit sed nunc in putrido cadavere potentiam, suam exserit) Stier, Owen, Alford and Wordsworth take the judgment of Martha as a statement of a sensible fact, on the ground that the very act of death is the beginning of decomposition, and that there is no more monstrosity in the raising of a decaying corpse than in the restoration of the withered hand. Godet also is of this opinion: “II est plus naturel de voir dans ces mots I’ expression d’ un fait positif et dont elle a fait elle-même I’ experience.” As an expression of fact it has been turned to apologetic account against the hypothesis of a mere trance or swoon; but the miracle is sufficiently attested without this by the veracity of Christ and of John.—P. S.]
[56][So also Meyer and Alford. Others suppose that petition and thanksgiving coincided (Merz, Tholuck), still others that Jesus thanked in anticipation of the miracle as if it was already an accomplished fact (Godet, comp. Hengstenberg).—P. S.]
[57][Trench (p. 330): “The power (of working miracles) was most truly His own, not indeed in disconnection from the Father, for what He saw the Father do, that only He did; but in this, His oneness with the Father, there lay the uninterrupted power of doing these mighty works… . The thanks to God were an acknowledgment that the power was from God.”—P. S.]
[58][Baur calls the prayer a Scheingebet, Weisse a Schaugebet, conceived by the evangelist in the apologetic interest for the divinity of Christ (Strauss, Scholten). Such impious nonsense arises from utter ignorance of the singular intimacy between Christ and the Father, which is so often asserted in this Gospel (Joh_5:19-21; Joh_5:36-37; Joh_8:16; Joh_8:18; Joh_8:29; Joh_8:42; Joh_10:25; Joh_10:30; Joh_10:38) and illustrated on this occasion. By virtue of this intimacy He, the only Begotten, never addressed God as “our Father,” but as “My Father” or “Father” simply, and stood in constant communication with Him so that His prayers assumed, as it were, the character of reflection and mutual consultation, and were always answered.—P. S.]
[59][So also Godet: “En rendant grâces à Dieu devant tout le peuple avant de faire le miracle, Jésus met positivement Dieu en part dans l’ æuvre qui va se faire; cette æuvre devient par Ià celle de Dieu même. Jehovah, le Dieu d’ Israel, sera désormais le garant de sa mission,—ou le complice de son imposture.”—P. S.]
[60][So also Hilary (nullo intervallo vocis et vitæ), Meyer, Alford, Trench. So in the general resurrection the dead will come forth from their graves when they hear the quickening voice of the Son of Man, Joh_5:28-29; comp. the “shout,” 1Th_4:16; and “the last trump,” 1Co_15:52.—P. S.]
[61][Also Augustine: processit ille vinctus: non ergo pedibus propriis, sed virtute producentis.]
[62][So also Meyer, Trench, Owen, Alford is uncertain.—P. S.]
[63][Dr. Lange omits the disgraceful explanation of Renan, who here resorts to the theory of a downright imposture. See above, p. 339.—P. S.]
[64][Is not the address recorded in these verses simply a thanksgiving spoken in respect of a previously offered private prayer? Is it not probable that the prayer was being offered during the period of delay beyond Jordan, throughout the travel to Bethany, and in the groanings at the sepulcher?—E. R. C.]
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv11, 12, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 27, 28, 29, 31, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44 Our friend Lazarus sleepeth; but I go that I…
Our friend Lazarus sleepeth; but I go that I may wake him out of sleep--Illustrious title! "Our friend Lazarus." To Abraham only is it accorded in the Old Testament, and not till after his death, (Ch2 20:7; Isa 41:8), to which our attention is called in the New Testament (Jam 2:23). When Jesus came in the flesh, His forerunner applied this name, in a certain sense, to himself (Joh 3:29); and into the same fellowship the Lord's chosen disciples are declared to have come (Joh 15:13-15). "The phrase here employed, "our friend Lazarus," means more than "he whom Thou lovest" in Joh 11:3, for it implies that Christ's affection was reciprocated by Lazarus" [LAMPE]. Our Lord had been told only that Lazarus was "sick." But the change which his two days' delay had produced is here tenderly alluded to. Doubtless, His spirit was all the while with His dying, and now dead "friend." The symbol of "sleep" for death is common to all languages, and familiar to us in the Old Testament. In the New Testament, however, a higher meaning is put into it, in relation to believers in Jesus (see on Th1 4:14), a sense hinted at, and clearly, in Psa 17:15 [LUTHARDT]; and the "awaking out of sleep" acquires a corresponding sense far transcending bare resuscitation.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv11, 12, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 27, 28, 32, 33, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44 11. Our friend… sleepeth—Jesus now sees with the spirit-eye…
11. Our friend… sleepeth—Jesus now sees with the spirit-eye that Lazarus has expired, and knows the sorrows of the watching sisters. Pressed doubtless by sympathy, he announces the fact to his disciples, to whom, in common with himself, Lazarus was our friend. All nations and all men, impressed by the resemblance of a slumbering person to a corpse, think and speak of death as a sleep. Yet, in the Lord’s mouth, it is doubtless used to indicate the lesson that death, like sleep, awaits a waking. See note on Luk_8:52.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv11–44 11. and after that] and after this. These words…
11. and after that] and after this. These words indicate a pause in the narrative.
Our friend Lazarus sleepeth] Better, Lazarus our friend is fallen asleep, or, is gone to rest. Sleep as an image of death is common from the dawn of literature; but the Gospel has raised the expression from a figure to a fact. Comp. Mat_27:52; Act_7:50; Act_13:36; 1Co_7:39; 1Co_11:30; 1Co_15:6; 1Co_15:18; 1Th_4:13; 2Pe_3:4. The thoroughly Christian term ‘cemetery’ (= sleeping-place) in the sense of a place of repose for the dead comes from the same Greek root. The exact time of Lazarus’ death cannot be determined, for we do not know how long Christ took in reaching Bethany. Christ calls him ‘our friend,’ as claiming the sympathy of the disciples, who had shewn unwillingness to return to Judæa.
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that I may awake him] This shews that no messenger has come to announce the death. Christ sees the death as He foresees the resurrection: comp. Joh_11:4.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv11–44 (11) Our friend Lazarus sleepeth.—Better, Our friend Lazarus is…
(11) Our friend Lazarus sleepeth.—Better, Our friend Lazarus is fallen asleep. They had probably understood the words of Joh_11:4 to express that the illness was not mortal, and that Lazarus would recover. They have seen, therefore, no reason for facing the danger of Judæa (Joh_11:7-8). He now supplies that reason, and for the first time speaks of going to the family at Bethany.
His words “our friend” gently remind them that Lazarus was their friend as well as His, for they as well as He had probably been welcome guests in the well-known house.
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The fact of our Lord’s knowledge of the death of Lazarus is stated by St. John without any explanation. Prom his point of view it could need none. He who needed not that any should testify of man, because of His own self-knowledge of what was in man (Joh_2:25), needed not that any should testify of what had passed in the chamber of His friend.
For the idea of sleep as the image of death, comp. Notes on Joh_8:51, Mat_9:24, and 1Th_4:14. It is not unfrequent in other passages of both the Old and New Testaments, and, from the time of Homer downwards, poets have spoken of sleep and death as twin-sisters.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44 These things spake he, and probably many more words…
These things spake he, and probably many more words expository of the vast principle of service which he here propounded; and after this (for meta touto implies a break, during which the disciples pondered his words) he saith, Our friend Lazarus; implying that Lazarus was well known to the disciples, and that the Lord classes himself here, in wondrous condescension, with them. He elsewhere speaks of the twelve as his "friends". (Joh_15:14, Joh_15:15, where he made it a higher designation than douloi ; see also Luk_12:4) John the Baptist also calls himself "the Bridegroom"s friend". (Joh_3:29) Though Lazarus had passed into the region of the unknown and unseen, he was still" our friend." Hath fallen asleep. Meyer says that Jesus knew this by "spiritual far-seeing;" and Godet thinks that he knew it by supernatural process, and had known it all along. It does not require much beyond what we know to have occurred in thousands of instances, for our Lord to have perceived that his friend had died had, as he said, "fallen asleep," in that new sense in which Jesus was teaching men to look on death. But I go, that I may awake him out of sleep. (exupnisw is a late Greek word; of. Act_16:27) Wunsche says the Talmud often speaks of a rabbi"s death under the form of" sleep". ("Moed. K.," fol. 28, a; cf. Mat_9:24 1Th_4:14) Homer spoke of death and sleep as "twin sisters," Christ"s power and consciousness of power to awake Lazarus from sleep gives, however, to his use of the image a new meaning. It is not the eternal sleep of the Greek and Roman poets.
Sleeping and waking.
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Our Lord Jesus, in this metaphorical language, doubtless adopted a view of death which was familiar to his countrymen, because presented in the works of their inspired and their uninspired writers of seers and of sages. Yet, in adopting it, he imparted to it a tone and character peculiar to himself. On the other hand, what he says concerning the awakening is altogether original; herein he claims a power which is unprecedented and unparalleled.
I To THE CHRISTIAN DEATH IS SLEEP.
1. It is the close of the day of toil.
2. It is the hushing and silencing of the many harsh and jarring voices of care, of anxiety, of restlessness.
3. It is the soothing of sorrow and trouble.
4. It is looked for and welcome, when the due time comes.
II IT IS THE PREROGATIVE OF CHRIST TO AROUSE HIS PEOPLE FROM THE SLUMBER OF DEATH.
1. Our Lord awakens slumbering souls from the stupors of sin. The message of the gospel to such is, "Awake, thou that sleepest, arise from the dead, and he shall enlighten thee." This spiritual awakening is the pledge of the glorious and final awakening of the future unto the higher and immortal life.
2. As sleep is but for a season, so the sleep of death is appointed only as a temporary, a transitory experience.
3. The voice which woke Lazarus out of his sleep is the voice which summons from the slumber of death. Christ"s assumption of this power is an implicit claim to Divine authority. God"s omnipotence alone can create life, and alone can restore life when death has asserted its power and has done its work.
4. The awakening from death summons to an endless life of activity and holy service. Whilst the hours of slumber are hours of repose, the daylight which arouses the sleepers calls to the exertion of the powers of body and of mind. This law applies to the higher realm. When Christ awakens out of the slumber of death, it is to the happiness of conscious existence and to the energy of untiring effort. There is no reason to suppose that this brief earthly life is man"s only period of service. It is the discipline and preparation for endless ages of glad devotion alike to the praise and to the service of our glorious Redeemer. "If my immortal Savior lives, Then my immortal life is sure: His word a firm foundation gives; Here let me build and rest secure. T.
HOMILIES BY B. THOMAS Ver. 11. Three views of three vital subjects.
We have here
I A VIEW OF CHRISTIAN FRIENDSHIP.
1. It has Christ as its Center and Inspiration.
(1) He is its Author, its Model, and Inspirer. He is the only true Friend of humanity. In him all the elements of true friendship pre-eminently meet; and they are pure, elevating, and Divine.
(2) By union with him it is alone attainable. Apart from Christ there can be no true Christian friendship.
(3) Love is its leading feature. It has other features, such as sincerity, truth, fidelity, guilelessness, and constancy; but they are all the emanations of deep, high, broad, pure, and burning love.
2. It is common and mutual. "Our friend." Not "my" nor" your friend," but "our friend." The friend of Jesus and that of his disciples. The friendship is common and mutual. Friendship expects and deserves the same in return. It manifests itself specially to Christ and his followers, and generally to mankind for Christ"s sake. Many profess great friendship to Christ, who is personally absent and invisible, but act not as such to his followers, who are visible and present a proof of a lack of Christian friendship altogether, or a great scarcity of it. The true friend of Jesus is the friend of all his disciples.
3. It is a mark of a high Christian excellency. Our Lord wished to make an honorable mention of Lazarus, and speak of him in high but appropriate terms. He did so by calling him a friend. There are degrees of Christian excellence, and there are outer and inner circles of Christian fellowship. Christian friendship is one of the inner ones. Lazarus had attained to this. Every believer is a brother, but every brother is not a friend. This is a distinction attained but by a comparative few.
4. It is not altogether excepted by death. Lazarus, though a friend, yet died. Christian friendship does not prevent all actions of death. In spite of it, the change, with its pangs and pains and separation, is experienced. The law of dissolution is left by Christ to take its natural course, even with regard to most of his best friends.
5. Although not excepted by death, yet it triumphantly survives it. Lazarus was dead, still he was the friend of Jesus and of his disciples. "Our friend Lazarus." Death, so far from destroying Christian friendship, serves its highest interests, intensifies and purifies it. It burns in the pangs of dissolution, blazes even in the swelling river, and shines with increasing brightness through the intervening gloom.
II A CHRISTIAN VIEW OF DEATH. "Our friend Lazarus sleepeth.
1. W ith regard to his friends, Jesus has changed the name of death. It is not to be called any more death, but sleep. Christ not only changes human character, and the character of human events, but changes human language. In the Christian dictionary the word "death" is not found but as an explanation of the word "sleep." The worldly mind cannot understand this new language of Christianity. And even the disciples could not yet understand it. Christ had to speak to them in their own language, the language of the old world, and say, Lazarus is dead.
2. With regard to his friends, death is really transformed into sleep. Death to them is abolished. To his foes, death is death still, and will ever be so; but to his friends, all that makes it really death is taken away. They are too near him who is the Life for death to hurt them; if. acts as their friend, and lulls them into a quiet and happy sleep. Death is friendly to all the friends of Jesus.
3. This view of death is very consoling.
(1) In this view, departed pious friends are still in a conscious and a happy existence. They are neither annihilated nor lost, only asleep. Neither are they in a state of dormancy. Physical sleep is a state of unconsciousness, but the term as applied by Christ refers not to the state of the soul in relation to the spirit-life, but in relation to this life, with its trials, afflictions, and sin. In relation to these, it is asleep; but in relation to the spirit-life, it is awake and intensely and happily alive.
(2) In this view, death is necessary and refreshing. Physical sleep is a refreshing rest, and one of the essential conditions of life and health. We could not fully enjoy spiritual life without physical death. We cannot stand a hard day"s work without a good night"s rest. The sleep of death is a necessary and most refreshing preparation for the "weight of glory," and the pleasant enjoyments and duties of an eternal day.
(3) In this view, death is natural. Had man retained his primitive innocency, doubtless there would be some process of transit from this world tantamount to death, although not so called called perhaps "birth;" but it would be perfectly natural, timely, desirable, and beautiful, like the falling of a ripe apple from the tree. But sin has made this transit unnatural, painful, and filled it with horrors; but union with Christ makes it natural again. It becomes natural and even desirable in the degree this union approaches perfection. "Having a desire to depart." It is not death, but sleep.
(4) In this view, death is robbed of all its real terrors. We may be afraid of sleep in the day, when duty calls; but at night, after the day"s work is done, who is afraid of sleep? We are far more afraid to be awake. What parents are afraid in the bedroom at midnight, surrounded by their sleeping children? Christians" death is but sleep, and their graves are but beds in which they enjoy rest from their labors.
III THE RESURRECTION OF THE FRIENDS OF JESUS.
1. It will involve a Divine process. It will involve the exercise of Divine power. Divine power alone could restore Lazarus to life. All the power of men and angels would be insufficient. The same power which made man at first a living soul can alone reunite body and soul at last, after the great dissolution.
2. This Divine process will be performed by Christ. He raised Lazarus, and he shall raise all the dead at last. This is most becoming and essential, as the resurrection is a most vital part of his redemptive work.
3. A Divine process most easily performed by Jesus, and most natural and improving to them. When on his way to raise Lazarus, he spoke of his Divine process not as an exploit of power, but as an easy task; as easy as it would be for one of his disciples to" awake a friend out of his slumbers. "I go that I may awake him." The resurrection of his friends to Jesus will be a most easy process, and to them a most natural and refreshing experience. There will be no sudden shock, no painful consciousness of the pangs of death and the grief of separation; but the throbbing delight and gratitude of awaking after a sweet and a refreshing sleep. The Christian"s death being sleep, his resurrection will be an awaking out of it. How natural and delightful!
4. A process of Divine friendship. Not alone of power, but of friendship as well. "Our friend Lazarus sleepeth," etc. tie approached his grave as a Friend, and, as a Friend, called his friend back to life. The resurrection of the wicked will be an act of retributive justice, but that of the good of Christian friendship. Mutual friendship was an element in the resurrection of Lazarus, and will be at the resurrection of the last day.
LESSONS.
1. The death of Lazarus was an opportunity for Jesus to show his Tower and friendship. Our greatest miseries are his special occasions of mercy.
2. His sower and friendship manifested in the resurrection of Lazarus were only specimens. What he did to him he will do to all his friends.
3. If the friends of Jesus, we may venture to die. Death will be only sleep.
4. If so, we may venture to sleep. Jesus will awake us in due time. He cannot leave his friends to sleep long. It is worth while awaking a friend. We would leave a foe to sleep along, unless we awoke him to try to make a friend of him. His friends shall not sleep too long. He is on his way now to the resurrection.
5. It is worth while to sleep in order to be awakened by Jesus. How sweet his voice in the morning! But this cannot be experienced without the sleep. But the sleep would be intensely dismal but as an introduction to the glorious awaking.
6. The friends of Jesus at the general resurrection will be better off than Lazarus. Now he awoke to the old life; they to a new one. He awoke to experience, perhaps, trials untold, and weep over the grave of sisters, and pay with interest tears shed on his own; but they shall awake to weep no more. Lazarus left his grave and his grave-clothes to assume them again; but they shall forever leave the abode and garments of mortality and enter life eternal. B.T.
HOMILIES BY D. YOUNG Ver. 11. Death and sleep.
Here we have another instance of what is so frequent in John"s Gospel, Jesus using common words in special and unexpected meanings. The disciples did not understand Jesus how were they likely to do so? Their rejoinder was a very natural one. Why, then, should Jesus speak of the reality of death under the form of sleep?
I ALL DEATH WOULD BE PECULIARLY REPUGNANT TO JESUS. JESUS, we may take it, had in him a fullness and healthiness of natural life which would lie at the very antipodes of death. Many live on the verge of death, as it were, for a long time. They have just enough of the vital principle in them to keep the organism going. But Jesus, in his own natural life, was far away from death. He had no occasion to look upon it in the despairing, bewildered way which the common run of men must adopt. To have spoken of Lazarus as dead, without being forced so to speak, would have suggested thoughts to the disciples which he wished to be swallowed up in the inspiring discoveries of a new revelation.
II DEATH WAS TO GET A NEW AND SPECIAL MEANING. Contrast the way in which Jesus speaks of Lazarus here with the language he uses in Luk_9:60. Here he speaks of the dead Lazarus as only sleeping; there he speaks of living unbelievers in himself as being dead. This is the true death, to be lead to the reception of the heavenly Bread. Lazarus was dead, according to the manner in which men use that word; no one would have thought of putting food into that mouth. But so far as concerned the Bread that cometh down from heaven, Lazarus was not dead. The life that needs nourishing from heaven is more than the flesh and blood, which is only converted food. The flesh and blood may go, but the life remains. With regard to the unbelievers, however, Jesus reckoned them as dead, for the true Bread found them as indifferent to its nearness as a corpse would he to a loaf laid beside it. "Death" is a word that very reasonably has the most dreadful associations, and Jesus wished to make the most of it as reserved for the most dreadful state of things he knows. That a believer in Jesus should pass from the world of sense is dreadful, just as a paroxysm of physical pain is dreadful; but once the experience is over, all may be right. But that any one should remain out of living union with Jesus is far worse than any pain or deprivation belonging to physical death.
III SLEEP WAS TO GET A NEW AND SPECIAL MEANING. Human beings get separated from each other in sleep. No communication is possible between them that sleep and them that wake. But that very lapse of communication will make the communication fresher and-more active when the lapse is over. It is probable that Lazarus, returning to life, returned to a healthier and more vigorous life. Natural sleep comes after a period of labor, and as the result of exhaustion, and it is followed by fresh power and zest for work. But it is work of the same sort, and with the same faculties. When the Christian believer falls asleep, he falls to wake in an altogether new sort of morning, amid new scenes, and to engage in a new service, free from the toil and struggle and thwarting which belong to the service here. In the higher state of existence there will still be work, in a sense the work of faith; but the toil of love and the endurance of hope will Mike have vanished. Y.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On vv11, 14, 16, 17, 28, 32, 33, 35, 36, 38, 39, 40, 41, 43 Our friend Lazarus sleepeth
Joh_11:11-13
Our friend Lazarus sleepeth
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Sweet sleep
I.
We have A SWEET RELATIONSHIP DECLARED.
1. Our friend. Behold here wondrous condescension. Our Lord does not turn to His disciples and say Your friend sleepeth, but places Himself side by side with them in their affection and says Our friend. It seems to me to teach so sweetly the blessed fact that Jesus is one with His people. It is equal to saying, Do you love Him? so do I. Let us meditate upon the friendship Christ has to His children, and in doing so I would notice
1. It is a real one. There is too much of superficial friendship abroad; plenty of the lip, but little of the heart. This is an age of shams; and among them, most hideous of the lot, is that of miscalled friendship. In the love of a saint to his Saviour there is a blessed reality. Whoever else he may not love with all his heart, his Saviour he must.
2. In this friendship there are no secrets kept on either side. The old saying runs whisperers separate chief friends, but in close friendships nothing is hidden, so whispers have nothing to reveal. When Jesus says to anyone, My friend, He declares a friendship that ignores all secret keeping, for the secret of the Lord is with them that fear Him. If there be a secret sin in the heart, if a fall in the life, O bear me witness, saints of God, that there is no peace for us until, like the woman of old, we have told Him all. Heavy burdens roll off the soul, and sweet ease flows into it by telling Jesus everything.
3. Jesus shows His friendship by helping in time of need.
4. Moreover, if a person says to me, my friend, I naturally expect he will show his friendship by calling in to see me; and sweet are the love visits that Jesus pays His friends. That disciple knows but little of the sweets of the religion of Jesus who knows but seldom what it is to hear his Lords knock, and who but seldom sups with his beloved in closest fellowship.
5. Jesus is never ashamed of His friends. When once He has said My friend, He never retracts the sentence. There are many butterfly friends fluttering round us all, to be seen in the summer of prosperity, but conspicuous by their absence in the winter of adversity.
6. That the friendship of Jesus lasts forever. The sweeter the friendship the more terrible the blow, that severs it. But severed it must be at last.
II. A SOLEMN FACT SUGGESTED. Christs friends die.
1. The friendship of Christ does not exempt from death. This dread reaper spares none. Death asks not whether the shock of corn is ripe for glory, or is as yet green, and unprepared for the sickle. He asks not whether his victim is a child of God or one of the worlds devotees.
2. Christ permits His friends to die in order to make manifest how completely He has conquered death. Suppose that, instead of tasting death, all Christs friends were, like Enoch, translated into glory; might not death boast and say, Aha! they dare not meet me in the field! Their Lord is afraid to put His conquest to the test.
3. Another reason why the friends of Jesus die is that they may be brought into conformity with their Lord. It may seem strange to some of your ears; but I believe there are many here who would rather prefer to die than otherwise, in order that in everything they might be conformed to their Master.
III. WE HAVE IN THIS TEXT A VERY CHEERING DESCRIPTION. Our friend sleepeth. Not our friend is dead.
1. In sleep there is a rest from pain. There is rest from pain in death.
2. In sleep there is a rest from care.
3. Sleeping implies waking. (A. G. Brown.)
The friendship of Christ
I. JESUS IS THE FRIEND OF HIS PEOPLE. Human friendship is the choicest of earthly privileges. How much more the friendship of Christ! (Joh_16:14-15). Note the qualities of a true friend.
1. Amiableness, or having those properties which are calculated to attract the heart. We may be grateful to those we cannot esteem, and admire those we cannot love; but to make a friend there must be something lovely. This exists in Christ in the highest degree.
2. Power of wisdom to guide, of strength to support and defend; of riches to help. These all exist in their fulness in Christ.
3. Faithfulness to keep our secrets and to fulfil His promises.
4. Tenderness. Friendship is like a foreign plant which requires delicate treatment. It shrinks from whatever is rough and unfeeling, and cannot confide in rudeness.
5. Unchangeableness. Christ is not a summer friend, who, like the butterfly, flutters round us while the sun is shining, but retires when the sun has gone. He is a friend horn for adversity. He is the same today, etc.
II. THE SERVICES WHICH CHRIST DISCHARGES FOR HIS FRIENDS.
1. He sympathizes with them, as one of them sharing their sorrows.
2. He is their abiding companion.
3. He has paid their debts, ransomed their persons, reconciled them to God at the expense of His own life.
4. He has purchased for them an inheritance incorruptible, etc.
5. He has fitted up mansions as the eternal residences of the bodies and souls of His people.
III. TO THE FRIENDS OF CHRIST DEATH HAS CHANGED ITS NATURE. They cannot die, they only sleep. The emblem expresses
1. The composure of soul which the Lord gives to His people in the hour of death, Mark the perfect man, etc.
2. The temporary cessation of the powers of the body to recruit it for fresh service on the resurrection morn (Isa_26:19). (J. H. Stewart, M. A.)
The awakening Christ
Jesus awakes men out of the sleep of IGNORANCE, to give them intellectual life. His teaching
1. Awakes the power to think.
2. Strengthens the thinking powers.
3. Affords food for thought.
II. MORAL INSENSIBILITY, to give them spiritual life.
1. Men are dead in sin.
2. Christs call awakes the soul, and Christs power gives it life.
3. Christ supports, develops, and perfects this new life.
III. INDIFFERENCE, to give them a life of usefulness. (Weekly Pulpit.)
The Christian in life and in death
I. IN LIFE.
1. The friend of Jesus. Expressing ideas of
(1) Acquaintance.
(2) Endearment.
2. The friend of Jesus friends. Adding thoughts of
(1) Social intercourse.
(2) Loving brotherhood.
II. IN DEATH. Asleep.
1. Withdrawn from the ordinary activities of life, as the mind is during the hours of slumber.
2. Possessed of a real, though different existence, as the mind never ceases to be active during the hours of repose.
3. Certain to awake refreshed after the period of rest has terminated, as mind and body do when night is passed. (T. Whitelaw, D. D.)
Death as sleep
Estius well remarks, Sleeping, in the sense of dying, is only applied to men, because of the hope of the resurrection. We read no such thing of brutes. The use of the figure is so common in Scripture, that it is almost needless to give references (see Deu_31:16; Dan_12:2; Mat_27:52; Act_7:60; Act_13:36; 1Co_7:39; 1Co_11:30; 1Co_15:6-18; 1Th_4:13-14). But it is a striking fact that the figure is frequently used by great heathen writers, showing clearly that the traditions of a life after death existed even among the heathen. Homer, Sophocles, Virgil, Catullus, supply instances. However, the Christian believer is the only one who can truly regard death as sleep--that is, as a healthy, refreshing thing, which can do him no harm. Many among ourselves, perhaps, are not aware that the figure of speech exists among us in full force in the word cemetery, applied to burial ground. That word is drawn from the very Greek verb which our Lord uses here. It is literally a sleeping place. (Bishop Ryle.)
Death has the advantage of sleep
For sleep is only the parenthesis, while death is the period of our cares and trials. (M. Henry.)
A beautiful death
All Wales, when I was there, was filled with the story of the dying experiences of Frances Ridley Havergal. She got her feet wet standing on the ground preaching temperance and the gospel to a group of boys and men, went home with a chill, and congestion set in, and they told her she was very dangerously ill. I thought so, she said, but it is really too good to be true that I am going. Doctor, do you really think I am going? Yes. Today? Probably. She said: Beautiful, splendid to be so near the gate of heaven! Then, after a spasm of pain, she nestled down in the pillows and said, There, now; it is all over--blessed rest. Then she tried to sing, and she struck one glad note, high note of praise to Christ, but could sing only one word, He, and then all was still. She finished it in heaven. (T. De Witt Talmage, D. D.)
Sleep and death
The angel of sleep and the angel of death reclined at eventide on a hill overlooking the abodes of men. As night came on, one rose from his mossy couch and scattered some seeds of slumber. The zephyrs bore them away to human dwellings, and presently the sick man forgot his pain, the mourner his sorrow, the poor his cares. Oh, what joy, exclaimed the angel of sleep, thus to do good unseen! The other looked at him in sadness, and a tear gathered in his dark eye as he said: Alas, that I can have no thanks! Earth calls me its enemy and destroyer. Nay, my brother, answered sleep, in the morning men praise me as their friend, and will not the good in the resurrection morn praise and bless thee also as a benefactor? Are we not brothers and messengers of one Father?
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
B. W. Johnson 1891 · Public Domain On vv11, 19, 21, 23, 25, 26, 27, 28, 31, 33, 35, 36, 38, 39, 41, 43, 44 11–16. Our friend Lazarus sleepeth. Jesus before called death…
11–16. Our friend Lazarus sleepeth. Jesus before called death a sleep, because it was only a temporary slumber. Let us also go, that we may die with him. The Jews were so hostile when they left Jerusalem that they expect him to be put to death.
B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.
Alexander MacLaren 1905 · Public Domain On vv25, 27, 30, 43 John - Job
John - Job
CHRIST’S QUESTION TO EACH
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JOB’S QUESTION, JESUS’ ANSWER
Job 14:14. - Joh 11:25 - Joh 11:26.
Job’s question waited long for an answer. Weary centuries rolled away; but at last the doubting, almost despairing, cry put into the mouth of the man of sorrows of the Old Testament is answered by the Man of Sorrows of the New. The answer in words is this second text which may almost be supposed to allude to the ancient question. The answer, in fact, is the resurrection of Christ. Apart from this answer there is none.
So we may take these two texts to help us to grasp more clearly and feel more profoundly what the world owes to that great fact which we are naturally led to think of to-day.
I. The ancient and ever returning question.
The Book of Job is probably a late part of the Old Testament. It deals with problems which indicate some advance in religious thought. Solemn and magnificent, and for the most part sad; it is like a Titan struggling with large problems, and seldom attaining to positive conclusions in which the heart or the head can rest in peace. Here all Job’s mind is clouded with a doubt. He has just given utterance to an intense longing for a life beyond the grave. His abode in Sheol is thought of as in some sense a breach in the continuity of his consciousness, but even that would be tolerable, if only he could be sure that, after many days, God would remember him. Then that longing gives way before the torturing question of the text, which dashes aside the tremulous hope with its insistent interrogation. It is not denial, but it is a doubt which palsies hope. But though he has no certainty, he cannot part with the possibility, and so goes on to imagine how blessed it would be if his longing were fulfilled. He thinks that such a renewed life would be like the ‘release’ of a sentry who had long stood on guard; he thinks of it as his swift, joyous ‘answer’ to God’s summons, which would draw him out from the sad crowd of pale shadows and bring him back to warmth and reality. His hope takes a more daring flight still, and he thinks of God as yearning for His creature, as His creature yearns for Him, and having ‘a desire to the work of His hands,’ as if His heaven would be incomplete without His servant. But the rapture and the vision pass, and the rest of the chapter is all clouded over, and the devout hope loses its light. Once again it gathers brightness in the twenty-first chapter, where the possibility flashes out starlike, that ‘after my skin hath been thus destroyed, yet from my flesh shall I see God.’
These fluctuations of hope and doubt reveal to us the attitude of devout souls in Israel at a late era of the national life. And if they show us their high-water mark, we need not suppose that similar souls outside the Old Testament circle had solid certainty where these had but a variable hope. We know how large a development the doctrine of a future life had in Assyria and in Egypt, and I suppose we are entitled to say that men have always had the idea of a future. They have always had the thought, sometimes as a fear, sometimes as a hope, but never as a certainty. It has lacked not only certainty but distinctness. It has lacked solidity also, the power to hold its own and sustain itself against the weighty pressure of intrusive things seen and temporal.
But we need not go to the ends of the earth or to past generations for examples of a doubting, superficial hold of the truth that man lives through death and after it. We have only to look around us, and, alas! we have only to look within us. This age is asking the question again, and answering it in many tones, sometimes of indifferent disregard, sometimes flaunting a stark negative without reasoned foundation, sometimes with affirmatives with as little reason as these negatives. The modern world is caught in the rush and whirl of life, has its own sorrows to front, its own battles to fight, and large sections of it have never come as near an answer to Job’s question as Job did.
II. Christ’s all-sufficing answer.
He gave it there, by the grave of Lazarus, to that weeping sister, but He spoke these great words of calm assurance to all the world. One cannot but note the difference between His attitude in the presence of the great Mystery and that of all other teachers. How calmly, certainly, and confidently He speaks!
Mark that Jesus, even at that hour of agony, turns Martha’s thoughts to Himself. What He is is the all-important thing for her to know. If she understands Him, life and death will have no insoluble problems nor any hopelessness for her. ‘I am the Resurrection and the Life.’ She had risen in her grief to a lofty height in believing that ‘even now’-at this moment when help is vain and hope is dead-’whatsoever thou wilt ask of God, God will give it thee,’ but Jesus offers to her a loftier conception of Him when He lays a sovereign hand on resurrection and life, and discloses that both inhere in Him, and from Him flow to all who shall possess them. He claims to have in Himself the fountain of life, in all possible senses of the word, as well as in the special sense relevant at that sad hour. Further, He tells Martha that by faith in Him any and all may possess that life. And then He majestically goes on to declare that the life which He gives is immune from, and untouched by, death. The believer shall live though he dies, the living believer shall never die. It is clear that, in these two great statements, to die is used in two different meanings, referring in the former case to the physical fact, and in the latter carrying a heavier weight of significance, namely the pregnant sense which it usually has in this Gospel, of separation from God and consequently from the true life of the soul. Physical death is not the termination of human life. The grim fact touches only the surface life, and has nothing to do with the essential, personal being. He that believes on Jesus, and he only, truly lives, and his union with Jesus secures his possession of that eternal life, which victoriously persists through the apparent, superficial change which men call death. Nothing dies but the death which surrounds the faithful soul. For it to die is to live more fully, more triumphantly, more blessedly. So though the act of physical death remains, its whole character is changed. Hence the New Testament euphemisms for death are much more than euphemisms. Men christen it by names which drape its ugliness, because they fear it so much, but Faith can play with Leviathan, because it fears it not at all. Hence such names as ‘sleep,’ ‘exodus,’ are tokens of the victory won for all believers by Jesus. He will show Martha the hope for all His followers which begins to dawn even in the calling of her brother back from the grip of death. And He shows us the great truth that His being the ‘Life’ necessarily involved His being also the ‘Resurrection,’ for His life-communicating work could not be accomplished till His all-quickening vitality had flowed over into, and flooded with its own conquering tides, not only the spirit which believes but its humble companion, the soul, and its yet humbler, the body. A bodily life is essential to perfect manhood, and Jesus will not stay His hand till every believer is full-summed in all his powers, and is perfect in body, soul, and spirit, after the image of Him who redeemed Him.
III. The pledge for the truth of the answer.
The words of Jesus are only words. These precious words, spoken to that one weeping sister in a little Jewish village, and which have brought hope to millions ever since, are as baseless as all the other dreams and longings of the heart, unless Jesus confirms them by fact. If He did not rise from the dead, they are but another of the noble, exalted, but futile delusions of which the world has many others. If Christ be not risen, His words of consolation are swelling words of emptiness; His whole claims are ended, and the age-old question which Job asked is unanswered still, and will always remain unanswered. If Christ be not risen, the hopeless colloquy between Jehovah and the prophet sums up all that can be said of the future life: ‘Son of man, can these bones live?’ And I answered, ‘O Lord God, Thou knowest!’
But Christ’s resurrection is a fact which, taken in connection with His words while on earth, endorses these and establishes His claims to be the Declarer of the name of God, the Saviour of the world. It gives us demonstration of the continuity of life through and after death. Taken along with His ascension, which is but, so to speak, the prolongation of the point into a line, it declares that a glorified body and an abode in a heavenly home are waiting for all who by faith become here partakers in Jesus and are quickened by sharing in His life.
So in despite of sense and doubt and fear, notwithstanding teachers who, like the supercilious philosophers on Mars Hill, mock when they hear of a resurrection from the dead, we should rejoice in the great light which has shined into the region of the shadow of death, we should clasp His divine and most faithful answer to that old, despairing question, as the anchor of our souls, and lift up our hearts in thanksgiving in the triumphant challenge, ‘O death! where is thy sting? O grave! where is thy victory?’
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain On vv26–27 never die
never die
i.e. the "second death." Cf. Rev 2:1; Rev 20:6.
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On vv11, 17, 23, 28, 33, 38, 43 The announcement of the death of Lazarus:
The announcement of the death of Lazarus:
v. 11. These things said He; and after that He saith unto them, Our friend Lazarus sleepeth; but I go that I may awake him out of sleep.
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v. 12. Then said His disciples, Lord, if he sleep, he shall do well.
v. 13. Howbeit Jesus spoke of his death; but they thought that He had spoken of taking of rest in sleep.
v. 14. Then said Jesus unto them plainly, Lazarus is dead.
v. 15. And I am glad for your sakes that I was not there, to the intent ye may believe; nevertheless let us go unto him.
v. 16. Then said Thomas, which is called Didymus, unto his fellow-disciples, Let us also go that we may die with Him.
After quieting the fears of His disciples as to His own safety, Jesus thought the time fitting to make His important announcement. He told them that Lazarus, their friend, was lying asleep, was even now sound asleep. That is the Lord’s manner of speaking of death, as of a sleep. He knew of the death of Lazarus by His omniscience, and He wanted to impart this knowledge to the disciples in a form with which they should have been familiar from the Old Testament manner of speaking. It is a great comfort for the believers that the Lord Himself speaks of the death of His disciples as a falling asleep; it is a quiet and secure rest in the interval between this life and that of the Kingdom of Glory. Jesus also stated His intention of going to Bethany for the purpose of awaking Lazarus from his sleep, of bringing him back to this life for a season. But the disciples, with their usual denseness, did not understand the Lord’s speech, but thought only of physical sleep. Their immediate inference is that a quiet sleep in severe sickness usually points to a quick recovery, and that therefore they need not take the dangerous step of returning to Judea. Jesus therefore told them in plain, unmistakable words that Lazarus had died. He had permitted His friend to die. And Jesus was glad on their account that He had not been present in Bethany at the time of His friend’s dying. He had the purpose of strengthening their faith by a miracle which He intended to perform shortly, the greatest of all His miracles, in a manner of speaking. He wanted to start out for Bethany at once, in order to realize His object. It was at this point that Thomas, called Didymus (twin), showed His misunderstanding of the entire situation. He thought that Jesus was deliberately walking to His death, and he urged the other disciples to go along. He felt equal to the ordeal of going into death with his Master, for the love which he now felt for Him. The love of Christ puts divine courage into the heart of the most timid Christian.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv12, 15, 17, 21, 24, 27, 30, 33, 36, 38, 41, 43 General Information:
General Information:
In verse 13 there is a break in the story line as John comments on the disciples' misunderstanding about what Jesus meant when he said Lazarus was asleep. (See: Background Information)
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if he has fallen asleep
The disciples misunderstand Jesus to mean that Lazarus is resting and will recover.
Then Jesus said to them plainly
"So Jesus told them in words that they could understand"
translationWords
disciple
lord
asleep
Lazarus
die
rest
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv16, 17, 19, 21, 22, 24, 25, 26, 28, 33, 39 11:16 Thomas: See also 14:5; 20:24; 21:2; Mark 3:18.…
11:16 Thomas: See also 14:5; 20:24; 21:2; Mark 3:18. • Let’s go, too—and die: Thomas knew that previous visits to Judea had been dangerous (John 5:18; 10:31, 39). Traveling to Jerusalem now would probably mean death for Jesus (cp. 11:49-50).
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.