Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of John 11:25
Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live:
25. I am the resurrection, and the life ] He draws her from her selfish grief to Himself. There is no need for Him to pray as man to God ( Joh 11:22); He (and none else) is the Resurrection and the Life. There is no need to look forward to the last day; He is (not ‘will be’) the Resurrection and the Life. Comp. Joh 14:6; Col 3:4. In what follows, the first part shews how He is the Resurrection, the second how He is the Life. ‘He that believeth in Me, even if he shall have died (physically), shall live (eternally). And every one that liveth (physically) and believeth in Me, shall never die (eternally).’
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
I am the resurrection – I am the author or the cause of the resurrection. It so depends on my power and will, that it may be said that I am the resurrection itself. This is a most expressive way of saying that the whole doctrine of the resurrection came from him, and the whole power to effect it was his. In a similar manner he is said to be made of God unto us wisdom and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption, 1Co 1:30.
And the life – Joh 1:4. As the resurrection of all depends on him, he intimated that it was not indispensable that it should be deferred to the last day. He had power to do it now as well as then.
Though he were dead – Faith does not save from temporal death; but although the believer, as others, will die a temporal death, yet he will hereafter have life. Even if he dies, he shall hereafter live.
Shall he live – Shall be restored to life in the resurrection.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Verse 25. I am the resurrection, and the life] Thou sayest that thy brother shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day; but by whom shall he arise if not by ME, who am the author of the resurrection, and the source of life? And is it not as easy for me to raise him now as to raise him then? Thus our blessed Lord raises her hope, animates her faith, and teaches her that he was not a mere man, but the essential principle and author of existence.
Though he were dead] Every man who has believed or shall believe in me, though his believing shall not prevent him from dying a natural death, yet his body shall be re-animated, and he shall live with me in an eternal glory. And every one who is now dead, dead to God, dead in trespasses and sins, if he believe in me, trust on me as his sole Saviour, he shall live, shall be quickened by my Spirit, and live a life of faith, working by love.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Martha by her speech seemed not to have a true notion of Christ; she believed that there should be a general resurrection from the dead in the last day, by the mighty power of God, but she did not truly understand what influence Christ had upon this resurrection, that the raising of the dead should be the peculiar work of Christ, not without the Father, but as he was ordained by the Father to be the Judge of the quick and of the dead. Christ doth therefore here further instruct her, and tell her, he was
the resurrection; where (as is usual in Scripture) the effect is put for the cause:
I am the resurrection, is no more than, I am, and shall be, the principal cause of the resurrection: the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, Joh 5:28. He also adds, and the life; that is, the cause of life; both that life which the dead shall in the resurrection recover, and also that eternal life which shall follow. And whosoever looketh upon me in that notion, and committeth himself unto me, though he doth die, yet he shall rise again, and live eternally; and this power being in me, I am not tied to the last day, but have a power when I please to raise the dead. Our Saviour indeed hath more in his answer than respected the present case; but there was nothing more usual with him, than in his discourses to raise up the hearts of his people to higher things, as he doth in this place raise Martha beyond the thoughts of a resurrection of her brothers body to a natural life, to the thoughts of a spiritual and eternal life.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
25. Jesus said, I am theresurrection and the life“The whole power to restore,impart, and maintain life, resides in Me.” (See on Joh1:4; Joh 5:21). What higherclaim to supreme divinity than this grand saying can be conceived?
he that believeth in me,though . . . dead . . . shall he livethat is, The believer’sdeath shall be swallowed up in life, and his life shall never sinkinto death. As death comes by sin, it is His to dissolve it; and aslife flows through His righteousness, it is His to communicate andeternally maintain it (Ro 5:21).The temporary separation of soul and body is here regarded as noteven interrupting, much less impairing, the new and everlasting lifeimparted by Jesus to His believing people.
Believest thou this?Canstthou take this in?
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection and the life,…. Signifying, that he was able of himself to raise men from death to life, without asking it of his Father; and that he could do it now, as well as at the general resurrection; at which time Christ will be the efficient cause of it; and which will display both his omniscience and his omnipotence; as his resurrection is the earnest and pledge, and will be the model and exemplar of it. This is true of Christ, with regard to a spiritual resurrection, from a death of sin, to a life of grace; he is concerned both in the life itself, and in the resurrection to it: he is the meritorious and procuring cause of it; he died for his people, that they, being dead to sin, might live unto God, and unto righteousness: he is the author of it; he says unto them, when dead in sin, live; he speaks life into them: he commands it in them, and by his Spirit breathes into them the breath of spiritual life, and implants the principle of it in their souls; and he supports and maintains it by giving himself to them as the bread of life to feed upon, and by supplying them with grace continually; yea, he himself is their life; he lives in them, and their life is hid with him. It is owing to his resurrection, that they are begotten again to a lively hope, or are quickened, that has a virtual influence upon it; and it is not only the cause, but the exemplar of it. Saints, as they are planted together in the likeness of his death, so in the likeness of his resurrection: to which may be added, that it is his voice in the Gospel, attended with an almighty power, which is the means of quickening them, which they hear, and so live; and it is his image that is stamped upon them; and by his Spirit they are made to live, and to walk in newness of life.
He that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: believers in Christ die as well as others, though death is not a penal evil to them; its curse is removed, its sting is taken away, being satisfied for by Christ, and so becomes a blessing and privilege to them, and is desirable by them; but though they die, they shall live again; their dust is under the peculiar care of Christ; and they shall rise by virtue of union to him, and shall rise, first in the morning of the resurrection, and with peculiar privileges, or to the resurrection of life, and with the peculiar properties of incorruption, power, glory, and spirituality. So likewise such that have been dead in sin, and dead in law, under a sentence of condemnation, as all mankind are in Adam, and being in a natural and sinful estate, and as the chosen of God themselves are; yet being brought to believe in Christ, that is, to see the excellency and suitableness of him as a Saviour, and the necessity of salvation by him; to go out of themselves to him, disclaiming their own righteousness; venture their souls upon him, give up themselves to him, trust in him, and depend upon him for eternal life and salvation; these live spiritually; they appear to have a principle of life in them; they breathe after spiritual things; they see the Son of God, and behold his glory; they handle the word of life; they speak the language of Canaan, and walk by faith on Christ, as they have received him; they live a life of sanctification and justification; they are manifestly in Christ, and have him, an interest in him, and so must have life; they live comfortably; they live by faith on Christ, and his righteousness, and have communion with him here, and expect to have, and shall have eternal life hereafter.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
I am the resurrection and the life ( ). This reply is startling enough. They are not mere doctrines about future events, but present realities in Jesus himself. “The Resurrection is one manifestation of the Life: it is involved in the Life” (Westcott). Note the article with both and . Jesus had taught the future resurrection often (6:39), but here he means more, even that Lazarus is now alive.
Though he die ( ). “Even if he die,” condition (concession) of third class with () and the second aorist active subjunctive of (physical death, he means).
Yet shall he live (). Future middle of (spiritual life, of course).
Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament
I am the resurrection and the life. The words I am are very significant. Martha had stated the resurrection rather as a doctrine, a current tenet : Jesus states it as a fact, identified with His own person. He does not say, I raise the dead; I perform the resurrection, but I am the resurrection, In His own person, representing humanity, He exhibits man as immortal, but immortal only through union with Him.
The life. The life is the larger and inclusive idea. Resurrection is involved in life as an incident developed by the temporary and apparent triumph of death. All true life is in Christ. In Him is lodged everything that is essential to life, in its origin, its maintenance, and its consummation, and all this is conveyed to the believer in his union with Him. This life is not affected by death. “Every believer is in reality and forever sheltered from death. To die with full light, in the clear certainty of the life which is in Jesus, to die only to continue to live to Him, is no longer that fact which human language designates by the name of death. It is as though Jesus had said : In me death is certain to live, and the living is certain never to die” (Godet). On zwh, life, see on 1 4.
He were dead [] . The aorist denotes an event, not a condition. Hence, much better, Rev., though he die.
Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament
1) “Jesus said unto her,” (eipen auto ho lesous) “Jesus responded to her,” to give her a glimpse of what He intended to do for her and her home a few moments later.
2) “I am the resurrection, and the life: (ego eimi he anatasis kat he zoe) “I am (exist as) the resurrection, and the life;- Joh 6:40-44; Joh 12:25; Joh 12:50. She (Martha) had affirmed that she believed in His prayers to His Father and that He could ask and receive anything He asked of Him, Joh 11:22. But Jesus desired to make her understand that life, “future life,” as well as “present life,” existed in Him, Joh 1:4; Joh 3:36; 1Jn 5:12; Rev 1:18.
3) “He that believeth in me,” (ho pisteuon eis eme) “The one who believes in me,” who trusts in me for salvation, liberation, or release from death, from the eternal consequences of sin in him, Joh 8:24; Act 4:12; Act 10:43; Rom 1:16; Joh 8:32; Joh 8:36.
4) “Though he were dead, yet shall he live: (kan apothane zesetai) “Even though he should die, he shall live,” live again, beyond the experience of physical death, for all men must die, Ecc 9:5-6; Heb 9:27. For Jesus is the way, the way out of physical and spiritual death which is an alienating power away from God, Heb 2:9; Heb 2:15; Joh 14:6.
This sentiment is further affirmed Isa 26:19; Isa 38:16; 1Jn 1:2; Rom 4:17.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
25. I am the resurrection and the life. Christ first declares that he is the resurrection and the life, and then he explains, separately and distinctly, each clause of this sentence. His first statement is, that he is the resurrection, because the restoration from death to life naturally comes before the state of life. Now the whole human race is plunged in death; and, therefore, no man will be a partaker of life until he is risen from the dead. Thus Christ shows that he is the commencement of life, and he afterwards adds, that the continuance of life is also a work of his grace. That he is speaking about spiritual life, is plainly shown by the exposition which immediately follows,
He who believeth in me, though, he were dead, shall live. Why then is Christ the resurrection ? Because by his Spirit he regenerates the children of Adam, who had been alienated from God by sin, so that they begin to live a new life. On this subject, I have spoken more fully under Joh 5:21 and 24; (318) and Paul is an excellent interpreter of this passage, (Eph 2:5, and Eph 5:8.) Away now with those who idly talk that men are prepared for receiving the grace of God by the movement of nature. They might as well say that the dead walk. For that men live and breathe, and are endued with sense, understanding, and will, all this tends to their destruction, because there is no part or faculty of the soul that is not corrupted and turned aside from what is right. Thus it is that death everywhere holds dominion, for the death of the soul is nothing else than its being estranged and turned aside from God. (319) Accordingly, they who believe in Christ, though they were formerly dead, begin to live, because faith is a spiritual resurrection of the soul, and — so to speak — animates the soul itself that it may live to God; according to that passage,
The dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and they who hear shall live (Joh 5:25.)
This is truly a remarkable commendation of faith, that it conveys to us the life of Christ, and thus frees us from death.
(318) See pp. 200 and 204 of this volume.
(319) “ N’est autre chose qu’estre estrange et detourne de Dieu.”
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(25) I am the resurrection, and the life.She has spoken of the resurrection as a truth which she believes, and as an event in the far-off future, so remote from the present life indeed, as to be powerless to comfort her now. The two first words of His answer, expressed in the fulness of emphasis, teach her that the resurrection is to be thought of as His person, and that it is to be thought of as actually present. I,his words meanand none beside Me, am the Resurrection. I am the Resurrectiona. present life, and not simply a life in the remoteness of the last day. In the same sense in which He has declared Himself to be the Water of Life and the Bread of Life, supplying in Himself every need of spiritual thirst and spiritual hunger, He declares Himself to be the Resurrection, revealing in His own person all that men had ever thought and hoped of a future life, being Himself the power which shall raise them at the last day, and could therefore raise them now. This is because He is also the Life, and therefore every one in communion
He that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live.Better, though he have died . . . She thinks and speaks of Lazarus as dead. He asserts that in the true thought of the spiritual life the fact of physical death does not interrupt that life.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
25. I am resurrection life The due understanding of these two sublime verses requires an analysis of the two principal terms. Resurrection is the reunion of a conscious soul to a body by it vitalized. Thence results actual physical life compositely of soul and body. Yet life, as often used, especially in John’s Gospel, designates something over and above this. Certainly does this higher meaning exist when the life is conditioned, as here, upon faith. It is then a life upon life; THE life supereminently; the glorified, celestial Life, over and above a life consisting in mere conscious existence. When, therefore, Martha names the resurrection, Christ responds, I am not only the resurrection but I am more; I am the life. He is author not only of that mere life resulting from union of soul and body, but of the celestial life by which man is a glorified being. We then paraphrase the words thus: I am not only the physical resurrection, but I am the life celestial; he that believeth in me, though he (like Lazarus) should die, yet the life celestial survives; and he that (unlike Lazarus) is still alive, and is a believer in me, shall never experience any death of that celestial life. To be the resurrection is one thing; to be the life another.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
‘Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life, he who believes in me, though he may die, yet shall he live, and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?” ’
In her mind Martha was thinking of the last day. But Jesus now brings the idea of the resurrection much closer to home. He wants it to be known that it is not just a hope of something for the future but a certainty for the present. He who stands before her is both the lifegiver now, and the future raiser of the dead. The One Who embodies resurrection is here. It is now not just a far off hope, but something guaranteed by His presence. Because of Him, those who die as His will live again (Joh 5:28-29). Indeed they who know Him will never die, they will only sleep, for He is the resurrection, the One Who raises the dead, the One Who transforms the dead, the One Who makes immortal, and He is the life, the giver of life, the source of all life, the provider of eternal life, and they are His. By these words Jesus concentrated her attention on Himself. What did she really think about Him?
But these words were also the declaration to all who would hear, of the wonder of His glory. To all who believe He stands as the conqueror of death, as the giver of life, as the raiser of the dead. In Him death has lost its power to destroy. In Him all who are His will have a wonder-filled life that never ends (Joh 10:10). This is the promise of the resurrection of the righteous. And this is what the raising of Lazarus would foreshadow and illustrate.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Joh 11:25-26 . Jesus connects with her answer that which He intended to say, as fitted to draw her faith from her own interest to His person : I , no other than I, am the resurrection and the life , i.e . the personal power of both, the one who raises again, and who makes alive. Comp. Joh 14:6 ; Col 3:4 . The after the is its positive result (not its ground , as Luthardt and Ewald think), the eternal life, which, however, also presupposes the happy state of in Hades, in Paradise (Luk 16:22 ; Luk 23:43 ). In the course of what follows, Jesus tells who it is that experiences Him as this power of resurrection and life, [82] namely, . The thought is in both clauses the same; they form a parallelism with a positive and negative declaration concerning the same subject, which, however, in the second clause, is described not merely by again, but by , because this was the only way of making the significant antithetical reciprocal relationship complete. With a view to this end, dying denotes in the first clause physical death, whereas in the second clause it is used in the higher sense; whereas, vice vers, life is spoken of in the first clause in the higher sense, in the second in its physical sense. Whoso believeth in me, even if he shall have died (physically), will live (be a partaker of , uninterruptedly , as, prior to the resurrection, in Paradise, so, by means of the resurrection, eternally ); and every one who lives (is still alive in time) and believes in me, will assuredly not die for ever , i.e . he will not lose his life in eternity, Joh 8:51 , a promise which, though not excluding physical death in itself, does exclude it as the negation of the true and eternal , Joh 6:50 . Compare Rom 8:10 . In accordance herewith, neither can nor may be taken in the spiritual sense (Calvin and Olshausen): to apply ., however, to Lazarus, and to the sisters (Euth. Zigabenus, Theophylact), is inadmissible, simply because Lazarus was to be raised again solely to temporal life. Both are to be left in their generality.
On Bengel remarks ingeniously: “hoc versu 25 non adhibitum ad majora sermonem profert,” and on . : “applicatio per improvisam interrogationem valde pungens.”
[82] It is not merely that is carried out in what follows (Luthardt); for the life which Jesus ascribes to the believer, even in death, finds its completion precisely in the resurrection.
Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary
DISCOURSE: 1667
CHRIST THE RESURRECTION AND THE LIFE
Joh 11:25-26. Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this?
IN great and long continued afflictions, we are apt to entertain hard thoughts of God. But, whatever be his intention with respect to the ungodly, we are sure that he designs nothing but good to his own peculiar people, even when he appears most regardless of their supplications. There are two ends which he invariably proposes to himself in his dispensations towards them; namely, the brighter revelation of his own glory, and the fuller manifestation of it to their souls.
In the history before us we have an account of a heavy affliction that had befallen a family, through the death of one, to whom Jesus had shewn a very peculiar attachment. He had been solicited to come and help them; but he had delayed his visit till the sick person had been dead four days. This however, though liable to misconstruction, he had done intentionally, in order that he might manifest more fully to the disconsolate sisters his own power and glory. Accordingly, when they intimated their persuasion, that, if he would pray to God for the restoration of their brother to life, God would grant his request, he told them that he needed not beseech God to effect it; for that he himself was the resurrection and the life; and was able to impart either bodily or spiritual life to whomsoever he would.
In considering this most remarkable declaration, we shall notice,
I.
That part which relates to himself
Martha having, in conformity with the prevailing opinion of the Jews, expressed her expectation of a general resurrection at the last day, Jesus says to her,
I am the resurrection
[Our Lord, in his divine nature, possessed omnipotence necessarily, and of himself. In his mediatorial capacity he was invested with it by his Father, agreeably to the plan concerted in the divine counsels. To him who had undertaken to procure salvation for a fallen world, was delegated all power requisite for the full discharge of that office. The restoring of his people to a new and heavenly life after death, was essential to their complete salvation: this therefore was committed to him [Note: Joh 5:21; Joh 5:25-29.]; and he both declared he would execute this great work [Note: Joh 6:39-40.], and gave an earnest of its accomplishment in raising himself from the dead [Note: Joh 10:18. 1Co 15:20.].]
I am the life
[In this term our Lord proceeds further than in the former, and asserts, that as he is the author and first-fruits of the resurrection, so is he the very principle of life whereby his people live. This might indeed be collected from many figurative expressions of Scripture, which represent him as the fountain of life to all his people [Note: Joh 15:1. Eph 4:15-16.]: but we are not left to gather such an important truth from mere parables; it is asserted frequently in the plainest terms: he is a quickening spirit [Note: 1Co 15:45.], that liveth in us [Note: Joh 14:6; Joh 6:57 and Gal 2:20.], and is our very life [Note: Col 3:4.]. He is to the soul, what the soul is to the body; he pervades, animates, and invigorates all our spiritual faculties: by his secret energy our understanding is enabled to apprehend divine truth, and our will inclined to obey it: and, without him, the soul would be as dead as the body without the soul.]
Let us now prosecute our inquiries into,
II.
That which respects his people
There is a remarkable correspondence between the two latter, and the two former clauses of the text; the latter declaring the operation of the powers expressed in the former.
1.
As being the resurrection, he will raise the bodies of his people
[Judging of things according to our weak reason, we are ready to think that the restoration of bodies, which may have undergone so many changes, is impossible. But cannot He who formed the universe out of nothing, collect the atoms that constitute our identity, and reunite them to their kindred souls? He can, and will; yea, that very Jesus, who died upon the cross, has the keys of death and of hell [Note: Rev 1:18.], and will effect this by his own almighty power [Note: Php 3:21.].
This clause might further intimate, that by the first act of faith in him our souls should be made partakers of spiritual life. And this would accord with other passages of Scripture [Note: Joh 6:33; Joh 6:35; Joh 7:38; Joh 10:10.], and prepare us for the next clause, which, rising in a climax, delares the benefits that shall result from a continued life of faith upon him.]
2.
As being the life, he will preserve the souls of his people unto everlasting life
[The bodies of the saints must undergo the sentence denounced against sin [Note: Rom 8:10.]; (though death to them is scarcely worthy the name of death; it is rather a sleep, from which they shall be awakened at the morning of the resurrection [Note: ver. 11. Act 7:60. 1Th 4:14.],) but their souls shall never die: none shall prevail against them [Note: Isa 54:17.]; none shall pluck them out of Christs hands [Note: Joh 10:28.]; their life is hid in him beyond the reach of men or devils [Note: Col 3:3.]; the vital principle within them is an ever-living seed [Note: 1Pe 1:23.], an over-flowing fountain [Note: Joh 4:14.]: as long as Christ liveth, they shall live also [Note: Joh 14:19.]. The separation that will take place between their souls and bodies will only introduce them to a higher state of existence, which they shall enjoy until the day that their bodies shall be awakened from their slumbers, to participate and enhance their bliss.]
We must not however fail to notice the description given of those to whom these promises are made
[Twice, in these few words, are these blessings limited to believers: not because our Lord disregards good works, or because they shall not be rewarded; but because we cannot do any good work unless we first receive strength from Christ by faith [Note: Joh 15:5.]; and because, if we obtained life by working, we should have whereof to glory before God: and God has decreed that no flesh shall glory in his presence, and that we shall glory only in the Lord [Note: Rom 3:27. Eph 2:8-9. 1Co 1:29-31.]. It must never be forgotten that God has caused all fulness to dwell in his Son, Jesus Christ [Note: Col 1:19.]; and that we must, by a continued exercise of faith, receive out of that fulness grace for grace [Note: Joh 1:16.]. It is by faith that we live [Note: Gal 3:11.], we stand [Note: 2Co 1:24.], we walk [Note: 2Co 5:7.], we are saved [Note: Gal 2:16.]: in a word, God has given us eternal life; but this life is in his Son: he therefore that hath the Son, hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God, hath not life [Note: 1Jn 5:11-12.].]
The pointed interrogation with which our Lord closed this address to Martha, directs us how to improve this subject: it suggests to us,
1.
That all persons, however eminent in their profession, or decided in their character, ought to examine themselves whether they be in the faith
[It was to one whom he knew to be an humble and faithful Disciple, that Jesus put this question: well therefore may we who are of more doubtful character, consider it as addressed to us; Believest thou this? Believest thou that Christ is the only fountain of life; and that there is no way of receiving life from him but by faith? And dost thou believe these things, not in a mere speculative manner (for that many do whose souls are dead before God) but in such a way as to reduce them to practice? The believing of this record forms the one line of distinction between those that shall be saved, and those that shall perish. If we truly receive it, we have already passed from death unto life [Note: Joh 5:24.]: if we do not receive it, we are yet dead in trespasses and sins: we have not life now; we cannot have life hereafter. A resurrection indeed we shall partake of; but it is a resurrection to damnation, and not a resurrection to life [Note: Joh 5:29.]: we shall live; but it will be a life justly denominated death, the second death [Note: Rev 20:14.]. Let us not then defer our inquiries into a subject which is of such infinite importance.]
2.
That the believing of this record is the most effectual antidote against the troubles of life or the fears of death
[If Martha had felt the full influence of these truths, she would have moderated her sorrows, under the persuasion that her loss was her brothers gain; and that, if her brother were not restored to life, she should soon meet him in a better world. Thus in every state the consideration of these truths will afford to us also unspeakable consolation: for if we believe in Christ, and have through him the possession of spiritual, and the prospect of eternal life, what cause can we have to complain; what cause to fear? The world will be divested of its allurements, and death of its terrors. Satisfied that all events are under the controul of our best Friend, we shall commit them cheerfully to his wise disposal; and looking forward to the day in which he will call us from our graves, we shall expect his summons with, composure at least, if not also with a holy impatience. Let us then live by faith in our divine Saviour, assured that he will keep us unto eternal life, and exalt us, both in body and soul, unto the everlasting enjoyment of his presence and glory [Note: In the place of the foregoing the following might be used:
In considering this most remarkable declaration, we shall notice,
I.
The affirmation
This relates,
1.
Partly to our Lord himself
[I am the Resurrection and the Life. These expressions doubtless refer in a measure to that power which our Lord possesses, and which at a future period he will surely exercise, to raise the dead. But it must principally be understood as declaring his power to restore the souls of men to spiritual and eternal life. This power he possesses essentially as God; and in his mediatorial office he has received it from the Father to be exercised for his chosen people. In them he will not only act, but live; himself being the very life of their souls, and performing in their souls every office which the soul itself performs in the body ]
2.
Partly to his believing people
[There is a remarkable correspondence between the two latter, and the two former clauses of the text; the latter declaring the operation of the power expressed in the former.
The souls that are dead he will restore to life. Only let a person who has hitherto been dead in trespasses and sins, believe in him, and immediately he shall pass from death to life, and be enabled to perform all the functions of a child of God
And one who by faith has been restored to life, shall, by the exercise of the same faith, be preserved even to the end: no enemy shall prevail against him, or separate him from the Redeemers love His body may die even as others: but his soul shall live for ever; and his body too be raised again to be partaker of its bliss.]
II.
The interrogation founded upon it
This may be understood as put to Martha,
1.
In a way of inquiry
[Even she might profitably examine whether her faith in him was genuine. And much more does a similar inquiry become us. Let it not be supposed that all who are called Christians possess this faith: in truth, but few possess it Yet is it that alone which will ensure to us eternal life.]
2.
In a way of reproof
[Her grief on this occasion, though natural, was, on the whole, carried to excess: and the question, thus put to her, might intimate, that her principles were not operative to a just extent. The proper office of faith was to compose her mind under all trials, and to elevate her above all the things of time and sense. Are any of you then greatly agitated, and sinking under the weight of your trials? Remember how unsuitable this is to your high calling: and beg of God that your faith and patience may have their proper work.]
3.
In a way of encouragement
[What can any person want, who has such a Saviour to go unto, and such privileges to enjoy? Surely in him there is all fulness for a supply of all our wants: and in our prospects of eternal life all other things should, as it were, be lost, like the stars before the rising sun. Brethren, behold your Saviour possessed of all power in heaven and in earth. Behold him engaged for you, and exercising all his powers for you. He is the Resurrection, that you may rise; the Life, that you may live. Through him you do live: through him you shall live. Nor need you be afraid of death: for to you it shall be the gate of heaven, the commencement of a glorious and everlasting life.]
N. B. The references in the former will afford suitable quotations for the illustration of this. And if it were a Funeral Discourse, the two latter heads might be profitably addressed to the surviving friends.].]
Fuente: Charles Simeon’s Horae Homileticae (Old and New Testaments)
25 Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live:
Ver. 25. He that believeth in me, though, &c. ] Oh the wonderful force of faith! Questionless (saith a reverend man, Mr S. Ward) justifying faith is not beneath miraculous in the sphere of its own activity, and where it hath warrant of God’s word, &c.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
25, 26. ] These words, as Stier observes, are the central point of the history; the great testimony to Himself , of which the subsequent miracle is the proof . The intention of the saying seems to have been, to awaken in Martha the faith that He could raise her brother from the dead, in its highest and proper form. This He does by announcing Himself ( , I, and no other ) as ‘THE RESURRECTION’ (q. d. that resurrection in the last day shall be only by my Power , and therefore I can raise now as well), and more than that, THE LIFE ITSELF: so that he that believeth in me (= Lazarus, in her mind ), even though he have died ( , past) shall live; and he that liveth (physically, ‘is not yet dead’) and believeth in me, shall never die: i.e. ‘faith in Me is the source of life , both here and hereafter; and those who have it, have Life, so that they shall NEVER DIE;’ physical death being overlooked and disregarded, in comparison with that which is really and only death . Compare 4Ma 7:19 . The must be (against Lampe, Olshausen, and Stier) taken of physical life , for it stands opposed to .
. is the subject of both clauses; in the former it is said that he ., : in the second, that he , . Olshausen’s remark, that and . in the second clause must both be physical, if one is , is wrong; the antithesis consisting, in both clauses, in the reciprocation of the two senses, physical and spiritual; and serving in the latter clause, as a key hereafter to the condition of Lazarus, when raised from the dead.
There can hardly be any reference in Joh 11:26 to the state of the living faithful at the Lord’s coming ( , , 1Co 15:51 ), for although the Apostle there, speaking of believers primarily and especially, uses the first person, the saying would be equally true of unbelievers, on whose bodies the change from to to will equally pass, and of whom the here would be equally true, whereas the saying is one setting forth an exclusive privilege of . . Besides, such an interpretation would set aside all reference to Lazarus, or to present circumstances.
Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament
Joh 11:25 . Nor does this faith satisfy Jesus, who at once replaces it by another in the words, . Resurrection and life are not future only, but present in His person; she is to trust not in a vague remote event but in His living person whom she knew, loved, and trusted. Apart from Him there was neither resurrection nor life. He carried with Him and possessed there and then as He spoke with her all the force that went to produce life and resurrection. Therefore (Joh 11:26 ), “He that believeth on me, even though he die, shall live; and every one who liveth and believeth on me shall never die”. Belief in Him or acceptance of Him as the source of true spiritual life, brings the man into vital union with Him, so that he lives with the life of Christ and possesses a life over which death has no power.
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson
John – Job
CHRIST’S QUESTION TO EACH
JOB’S QUESTION, JESUS’ ANSWER
Job 14:14
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.
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.
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.
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?’
Fuente: Expositions Of Holy Scripture by Alexander MacLaren
I am (emphatic). See note on Exo 3:14, and Compare Joh 8:58.
life. Greek zoe. App-170.
believeth. See App-150. These words refer to 1Th 4:16.
in. Greek. eis. App-104.
yet shall he live = shall live. Figure of speech Aposiopesis. App-6. The word “yet “is not in the Greek, and is unwarrantably introduced by both Authorized Version and Revised Version.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
25, 26.] These words, as Stier observes, are the central point of the history; the great testimony to Himself, of which the subsequent miracle is the proof. The intention of the saying seems to have been, to awaken in Martha the faith that He could raise her brother from the dead, in its highest and proper form. This He does by announcing Himself (, I, and no other ) as THE RESURRECTION (q. d.-that resurrection in the last day shall be only by my Power, and therefore I can raise now as well), and more than that, THE LIFE ITSELF: so that he that believeth in me (= Lazarus, in her mind), even though he have died (, past) shall live; and he that liveth (physically, is not yet dead) and believeth in me, shall never die: i.e. faith in Me is the source of life, both here and hereafter; and those who have it, have Life, so that they shall NEVER DIE; physical death being overlooked and disregarded, in comparison with that which is really and only death. Compare 4Ma 7:19. The must be (against Lampe, Olshausen, and Stier) taken of physical life, for it stands opposed to .
. is the subject of both clauses; in the former it is said that he ., : in the second, that he , . Olshausens remark, that and . in the second clause must both be physical, if one is, is wrong; the antithesis consisting, in both clauses, in the reciprocation of the two senses, physical and spiritual; and serving in the latter clause, as a key hereafter to the condition of Lazarus, when raised from the dead.
There can hardly be any reference in Joh 11:26 to the state of the living faithful at the Lords coming ( , , 1Co 15:51),-for although the Apostle there, speaking of believers primarily and especially, uses the first person,-the saying would be equally true of unbelievers, on whose bodies the change from to to will equally pass, and of whom the here would be equally true,-whereas the saying is one setting forth an exclusive privilege of . . Besides, such an interpretation would set aside all reference to Lazarus, or to present circumstances.
Fuente: The Greek Testament
Joh 11:25. ) I, present, not limited to the future. Do not suppose, Martha, that you are being put off to the distant future. Death yields to Life, as darkness to Light, forthwith.- , the resurrection and the life) The former title is peculiarly suitable to this occasion; the latter is frequently used. The former is explained presently in this verse; the latter in Joh 11:26, Whosoever liveth, and believeth in Me, shall never die. I am the Resurrection of the dying, and the Life of the living. The former deals with the case of believers dying before the death of Christ; for instance, Lazarus. For there was none of his prey which death was not obliged to restore, in the presence of Christ: the daughter of Jairus, and the young man at Nain. And it is probable that all who at that time saw with faith Jesus Christ, and died before His death, were among those who rose again, as described in Mat 27:52-53, [After the crucifixion] the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints, which slept, arose, and came out of the graves after His resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many. The latter title treats of the case of believers falling asleep after the death of Christ. The death of Christ deprived death of its power. Before the death of Christ, the death of believers was death: after the death of Christ, the death of believers is not death: ch. Joh 5:24, He that-believeth-hath everlasting life-is passed from death unto life: Joh 8:51, If a man keep My saying, he shall never see death.-, shall live) even in body.
Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament
Joh 11:25
Joh 11:25
Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth on me, though he die, yet shall he live;-It is through Christ that all shall rise. He will call them forth from the grave. [He means that he is the power which will open every grave, that will give life to every sleeper, and will call them forth from the tomb to a new existence, that the life that endows men with eternal being is in him and proceeds from him. In the light of his own resurrection, he means that when he opens the tomb he does it for all men and that they may have won the victory over death.]
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
The Resurrection and the Life
Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth on me, though he die, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and believeth on me shall never die.Joh 11:25-26.
In order to appreciate the significance of these words, I am the resurrection, and the life, let us look at the conditions under which they were spoken.
The revelation was granted to Martha, the bereaved sister, whose cheerful round of domestic activities was suddenly arrested and her heart torn open to its depthsdepths hitherto perhaps unsoundedby the thunder-stroke of death. Our Lord uttered His greatest sayings often to very commonplace people. He spoke to Martha not as He might have spoken in an hour of serene communion with some elect and lofty spirit, but as to any of ourselves, to our common human heart chastened by bereavement, awed and awakened by the visitation of death.
Marthas grief was intensified by the fact that Lazarus was cut off in the midst of his days, his task unfinished, his goal unreached. Of all the perplexing problems of the grave this seemed one of the hardest. Why did it claim the man who had just come to the perfection of his powers and was abler than ever he was to perform his task? It was lonely to be without her brother, it was chilling to think of his loneliness; but these griefs came home with double poignancy when she thought that he had not lived out half his days, and might still have been with them.
Once more, it seemed an accident that he died. To Martha it seemed cruelso often He was with themthat Jesus should not be there when He was most needed. Oh, why did it happen that the Lord was not there? It might so easily have been otherwise; and the thought added to her grief.
But at last word was brought of a Visitor welcome above all others; Jesus who had been so strangely long in coming was in Bethany at last. Martha met Him with a cry that was half faith and half despairLord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died, and she was answered by the quiet words, Thy brother shall rise again. I think her heart must have been for the moment chilled. Was the Master then going to offer the mere conventional consolation that every visitor of these past days had offered, until she was more than weary of it? I know, she saidand you can hear an undertone of disappointment and rebellion in the wordsI know that he shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day.
She knew that her brother would rise again. But, like the Jews of her time, even like most Christians now, who inherit their resurrection doctrine more from the Jews than from Christ, Martha thought only of a grand and general resurrection-day far distant. Long ere that day she would be with her brother in the supposed place of expectant souls, waiting till the buried body should be raised and given back.
And then came the great words that have pealed through the ages, weighty with the Divine power which so soon sets its seal upon them, gentle with the human sympathy which meant them for healing to broken hearts: I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth on me, though he die, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and believeth on me shall never die.
A double consciousness spoke in these words: Our Lord knew that He was standing near the grave of a dead disciple: He felt perhaps even more vividly that He was standing in the midst of a dead world. He spoke these words with reference to the occasion He was then dealing with; yet there was a larger meaning in them, and the meaning that was for the moment was only a fragment of their infinite truth.
We are arrested by
I.The immediate Occasion of the Words.
II.Their eternal Application.
I
The Immediate Occasion
I am the resurrection, and the life.
1. The promise.Martha had expressed her faith in the common doctrine of the resurrection at the last day. Christ neither denies it nor assents to it, but passes over it as if it had little power to assuage the actual suffering of death. If it be true, it is a far-off event, ages hence, at the last day; it hardly touches the present fact of death. It has nothing definite, immediate, or specially consolatory in its character, being simply an affirmation of future existence. So little power had it that Martha did not think of it till led to it by Christs question. She doubtless shared the vague belief of the Jews, that her brother would ascend some time or other on angels wings into a place somewhere above the stars; but how could that comfort her? She could not bridge the gulf of time and space between herself and that event. She could get from it no assurance that her brother would ever be known by her; that the ties sundered by death would ever be joined again. There her brother lay in the tomb, dead, fast passing to corruption, soon to become as the dust of the earth, and there he would lie for ages, dead. She herself would soon die and lie beside him, and sleep the long sleep of utter forgetfulness. What comfort is there here for yearning human love that longs for nearness and response?
Martha regarded the resurrection in the last day not necessarily as a spiritual fact or as one having a spiritual bearing, but as a mere matter of destiny like birth and death, a distant mysterious event. Christ draws it near, takes it out of time, vitalizes it, puts it into the category of faith, and connects it with Himself.
(1) I am the resurrection, and the life. For belief in some future great event, Jesus substitutes belief in His own person. It is as if He had said to Martha, Your faith is not settled on its proper object; you are clinging to a doctrinal truth instead of leaning on a living person; you are thinking of an event, something in the distant future; you should think of me. I am the resurrection, and the life. It is not of the rising of the dead at the last day that you should think; that is indeed something to look forward to, but I am the resurrection in my own person; it is not apart from me. Christ draws her eyes away from one reality to another and a greaterfrom the grim fact of death to the greater fact of His own person and power and love; He confronts her with this dilemmashe must pronounce either death or Himself to be the greater reality!
There is a wide difference between belief in a doctrine and trust in a person. We can believe a doctrine but we cannot trust it. We can grasp it with our minds, but it makes no appeal to our hearts; like Martha, we may believe in the resurrection without believing in Him who is the resurrection and the life. This is a mistake we often make. We believe in the abstract doctrine and forget the living Person. Half our Christian faith is assent to various propositions instead of trust in a personal Redeemer, who is Himself the substance and explanation of them all. I, said Jesus, I am the resurrection, and the life.1 [Note: D. Fairweather, Bound in the Spirit, 304.]
(2) I am the resurrection, and the life. In turning Marthas attention to Himself, Jesus substitutes a present for a future object of trust, a living object for a dead. Martha can think only of that remote time when she and her brother will be reunited. Jesus says, I am the resurrection, and the life, here and now. In Me the dead live. It is not as if Lazarus had gone to nothingness. He has passed away indeed from you, but to Me he lives, for I am the life, and in Me the dead live.
The intention of our Lord was plainly to make an immediate comfort out of what is generally held to be a prospective joy. People commonly explain the passage still as belonging to a period which is yet to come. They understand it to mean that, when Christ shall appear again, there will be a resurrection, and that then the dead shall live. Doubtless this is in the words. But is this all? Is this the first and chief meaning? No, Christ was decidedly and definitely leading the womans mind away from what she felt would be to what then actually was. Martha saith unto him, I know that he shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day. Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth on me, though he die, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and believeth on me shall never die.
A gentleman stepping into a poor womans house saw framed and glazed upon the wall a French note for a thousand francs. He said to the old folks, How came you by this? They informed him that a poor French soldier had been taken in by them and nursed until he died, and when he was dying he had given them that little picture as a memorial of him. They thought it such a pretty souvenir that they had framed it, and there it was adorning the cottage wall. They were greatly surprised when they were told that it was worth a sum which would be quite a little fortune for them if they would but turn it into money. They had done as Martha did when she took the words, Thy brother shall rise again, and put round about them this handsome frame, in the resurrection at the last day.1 [Note: C. H. Spurgeon.]
(3) I am the resurrection, and the life. In some of the Old Testament psalms this idea is brought out with wonderful clearness, and through what we must call sheer faith. The Old Testament saints knew nothing of Him who is the resurrection and the life, and the grave was to most of them only a place of gloom; but occasionally we come across a Psalm like the sixteenth, where the writer protests against the idea of death separating him from God. Thou wilt not leave thy pious one to see the pit, he says; thou wilt not leave my soul in Sheol. He feels in his veins the new life God has given him, feels that he is in union with God, and that such a union must for ever abide uninterrupted even by death. So also taught Jesus. I am the resurrection, He said, and the life. He that believeth on me, though he die, yet shall he live, because he who is united to Me, he in whom I live, can never in any sense die, for I am the life. That which we call death will be his lot; but life, true life, life which is union with God, life in which Christ lives, is independent of death.
Death had not sundered Lazarus from Jesus; through resurrection it had brought him nearer in reverential love. It had not divided him from his sisters; it had made the ties of affection more strong and holy than they had ever been before. It had not quenched one faculty of his being; for to him every power of sight, and speech, and hearing would be more sacred and noble than they were in his former life. In one word Christ showed thisthat there was in him a life that rendered death only the gateway through which it rose into life more perfect, and holy, and free.
At an open-air service in Delhi, held in a Chamars (bootmakers) courtyard, another missionary and I had both spoken on faith as a condition of eternal life. When I had finished, a Chamar, who had been working away at his trade all the time, though evidently listening and thinking as well, remarked, How do you make out that Christians do not die? Those about here do; and as far as I see, peoples of all religions die. Why, even Brahmans die.
A student-evangelist was with us, and he gave this reply:Brother! (let Westerns note how friendly and familiar Eastern preachers are!) you know the Delhi Fort?
Of course he did! Every Delhi man is proud of that most striking feature of his city, with its high walls of red sandstone glistening in the sun, and its magnificent towering gateways which lead into the city.
Said the preacher, I want you to imagine for the moment that it has but one exit, the famous Lahore Gate.
In the old days, the great Emperor of India lived inside the Fort, in the Marble Palace, still to be seen, a palace of exquisite beauty and glittering splendour. When the Emperor came forth into the city, as for example he did every Friday to visit the Great Mosque for prayer, he came out at that Lahore Gate in all his glory, and crowds witnessed the Royal spectacle.
In the same Fort was the State Prison with its dungeons of horror, and in them lay the prisoners condemned to death, till the day of execution, when they too passed forth through that same Gate, and crowds witnessed their shame and despair.
This world in which we live is like that Fort, and for all of us there is the one exit, the Gate of Death.
They who accept Christ as their Saviour pass out as Kings and Priests to glory and honour, and they who accept Him not, go forth to dishonour and death.
Bravo! exclaimed the heathen listeners. Well answered.1 [Note: Stephen Sylvester Thomas.]
2. The fulfilment of the promise.Nowhere do we so come to the limit and end of our power as at the door of a vault; nowhere is the weakness of man so keenly felt. There is the clay, but who shall find the spirit that dwelt in it? Jesus has no such sense of weakness. Believing in the fatherly and undying love of the Eternal God, He knows that death cannot harm, still less destroy, the children of God.
God is not the God of dead beings but of living beings, for all live unto him. All do not live to us; to us the dead are dead, but to God the dead are living; all live unto Him; as He sees men there are none dead. In proof of this, witness the resurrection of Lazarus. What was that miracle? Merely this: God making the dead, but really living, Lazarus visible to us. To Christ Himself Lazarus was alive; to his sisters he was dead. Christ comforted them by showing them he was alive. He called the soul back to the old frame it had worn and so made Lazarus visible again. He had not been dead. Jesus spoke to him. He had a secret of communication which we have not, and having the secret He called back the soul to the old body, that He might for ever prove to us that our beloved dead are in reality alive. We have but lost the means of communication. Christ asked Lazarus to come forth and show himself that we might be assured of this truth. I am the resurrection, and the life.1 [Note: D. Fairweather.]
When the chemist has produced in his laboratory a certain desired and attested scientific result, when he has mastered the secret of some new process in nature and exhibited the product in a single sample, the problem is solved, the result is guaranteed. He may now set up his factory and invest his capital, and invite the co-operation of wealth and labour, and build up a vast collective industry with full assurance of faith upon the evidence gathered from his crucible, upon the security afforded by the laws of nature that what they have once allowed and yielded, they will always yield to the action of the same cause; and there lies in his hand the power to do a million times what he has actually effected once. The raising of Lazarus was a prompt and a majestic verification on the part of the Lord Jesus Christ of His claim to be the destined Raiser of the dead, a pledge and earnest of all that was to follow.2 [Note: G. G. Findlay, The Things Above, 149.]
II
The Eternal Application
The miraculous resurrection of Lazarus was simply a symbol of a far more important truth than the mere restoration of an earthly life conveys. It was a visual illustration of a fact which is too inward and subtle to come under the eye of observers at all. If, as indeed we are bound to do, we strive to set before ourselves with vivid particularity the various emotions which are crowded into the narrativethe bitter regret for help unbrought, the sudden awakening of vague hope, the mysterious grief of the Lord Himself, the awful suspense before the opened graveit must be that we may the better realize that Truth which calms and satisfies them all. The miracle is nothing more than a translation of an eternal lesson into an outward and intelligible form. The command of sovereign power, Lazarus come forth, is but one partial and transitory fulfilment of the absolute and unchanging gospel, I am the resurrection, and the life.
i. I am the Resurrection, and the Life
1. I am the resurrection, and the life.I am in point of time, and also in respect of essential being.
(1) In point of time.Christ does not think of immortality as we do. The thought of immortality is with Him involved in, and absorbed by, the idea of life. Life is a present thing and its continuance a matter of course. When life is full, and abundant, and glad, the present is enough, and past and future are unthought of. It is life, therefore, rather than immortality that Christ speaks of; a present not a future good; an expansion of the nature now, which necessarily carries with it the idea of permanence.
It is the devastating mistake of ages of imperfect faith that the emphasis and crisis of life is carried forward into the next world, robbing this of its dignity, disrobing this of its loftiest motives, cheapening by withholding from it its proper fruitions. There is no juster word used among men than probation, and none more perverted. Life is indeed probation, but the judgment that decides is in perpetual session; not for one moment is it adjourned; every hour it renders the awards that angels fulfil; daily and forever does the Christ of humanity judge according to the deeds done in this present life of humanity, and send to right or left hand destinies. There is no day of eternity more august than that which now is. There is nothing in the way of consequence to be awaited that is not now acting, no sweetness that may not now be tasted, no bitterness that is not now felt. What comes after will be but the increment of what now is, for even now we are in the eternal world. The Kingdom of heaven has come and is ever coming; its powers and processes, its rewards and punishments are to-day in full activity, mounting into ever higher expression, but never more real in one moment of time than in another.1 [Note: T. T. Munger, The Freedom of Faith, 285.]
In deserts of the Holy Land I strayed,
Where Christ once lived, but seems to live no more,
On Lebanon my lonely home I made,
I heard the wind among the cedars roar,
And saw, far off, the Great Seas solemn shore:
But tis a dreary wilderness, I said,
Now the prophetic spirit hence has fled:
Then, from a convent in the vale, I heard,
Slow-chanted forth, the everlasting Word,
Saying I am he that liveth, and was dead,
And lo! I am alive for evermore.
Then forth upon my pilgrimage I fare,
Resolved to find and praise Him everywhere.1 [Note: J. Gostick.]
(2) In essence.And so we come to the second chief thought suggested by the words: I am. The resurrection and the life are not simply through Christ but in Christ. I am, He saidnot I promise, or I bring, or I accomplishI am the resurrection, and the life. And when we fix our attention upon the words from this point of view, we see at once that they include deeper mysteries than we can at present fathom, that they open out glimpses of some more sublime form of being than we can at present apprehend, that they gather up in one final utterance to the world what had been said before darkly and partially of the union of the believer with his Lord and of the consequences which proceed from it. But though we can perhaps do no more, it is well that we should at least devoutly recognize that we do stand here in the face of a great mystery, which if indistinct from excess of glory, yet even now ennobles, consecrates, transfigures life; which does even now help us to feel where is the answer to difficulties which our own age has first been called to meet; which gives a vital reality to much of the language of Holy Scripture that we are tempted to treat as purely metaphorical.
Whenever the Lord says, I am, He speaks as ideal Man, as the Life, holding the power of Self-manifestation. What we see in Him is potentially in us, or we could not see it in Him. We may say we are what He is, because He is the representative of the true Man in every man. By His Incarnation this was brought into our consciousness. All are in Him by virtue of their Being, but He makes us aware of what we are. He who comes into this external relationship with us is He who is also the substance of our Being. He is the expression of the hidden Being of all, and the Promise also that each shall rise into the full consciousness of their Being, and be able to say, as did Jesus when on earth: I and the Father are One Thing.2 [Note: R. W. Corbet, Letters from a Mystic of the Present Day, 111.]
2. I am the resurrection.Christ is the Resurrection inasmuch as He rose again from the dead, and, further, because He has the power to raise us up also.
(1) Christ Himself died and rose again. He alone is the true pattern of the resurrection, the Firstborn, as St. Paul and St. John style Him, out of the dead. In this highest sense He not only effects but He is the Resurrection. He was this inwardly, in His own spirit and consciousness. Jesus described Himself, while on earth in mortal flesh, as the Son of man which is in heaven. His eye pierced the veils of sense. The Father was in Him and He in the Father. But outwardly, as well as inwardly, Christ is the pattern of our risen life. Dying a little while after He uttered these words, Jesus Christ appeared to His disciples an embodied resurrection, as if made man over again and more worthily, Firstborn of the sons of the resurrection. He was the same, yet mysteriously and loftily transformed.
We all know the effects of the Renaissance upon the modern world. Renaissance is re-birth, regeneration, resurrection if you like. The intellectual forces of the Middle Ages had spent themselves; the greater part of Europe was lying in a sleep which might almost be described as death. But when Constantinople was captured by the Turks, many Greek scholars who had been working there had to flee to the shores of Italy, bringing with them Homer and Sophocles, Aristotle and Plato, the forgotten science and art and scholarship of the ancient world. And almost at the same time a new world of unexplored territory was revealed by explorers like Cabot and Columbus. And the result was the awakening of Europe from its death-like sleep, and the stirring of a new life that is not exhausted yet. These men, exiled scholars and brave explorers, were the Renaissance; they were the resurrection and the life of European learning, because it was through them and their labours that the quickening came. Now, what these men did intellectually for Europe at one period, Christ came to do morally and spiritually for the world for all time.1 [Note: J. M. E. Ross, The Self-Portraiture of Jesus, 133.]
(2) But Christ not only died and rose again; He has the power, in the fullest sense of the word, to make us do likewise. Though he die, He says, yet shall he live.
Did not Christ then really die, and do we not all die, even if we believe in Him? In one sense Christ did die. He suffered this housing of the soul to be torn away, the tabernacle to be taken down, but He will not call it death. It does not touch the life; that flows on, an unbroken current, and rises into greater fulness. And so Christ says that those who believe in Him, and die in this sense, do not really die; though dead, they live.
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.
The grave of Albrecht Drer, the great painter, is in the cemetery of his native city, Nuremberg. On his tombstone they have put the word Emigravithe has emigrated.
I do hear
From the revolving year
A voice which cries:
All dies;
Lo, how all dies! O seer,
And all things too arise:
All dies, and all is born;
But each resurgent morn, behold, more near the Perfect Morn.1 [Note: Francis Thompson, The Night of Forebeing.]
3. I am the life.There is more in our Lords words than a mere guarantee to His people of a life of some sort beyond the grave. To Christ and His Apostles, life is not a matter of mere duration; in their rich and inspiring conception the thought of quality is far more prominent than the thought of duration. God had created mankind for lifethe life that is life indeed. But man had, in a most real sense, chosen death instead of life, and had made of his world a sepulchre. And now into this world of death there came this Saviour sent down from God, trampling death in all its forms under foot from the beginning of His victorious career.
It marked a new epoch in the faith in immortality when the Son of Man stood in the midst of men and said: I am the resurrection, and the life; he that believeth on me, though he die, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and believeth on me shall never die. And did He not prove the mighty utterance? Whatever He touched received life. He touched dead eyes, and they saw. He touched dead ears, and they heard. He touched the fatal disease, and life sprang back into the distempered veins. He touched the dead body on the bier, and it awakened from the sleep of death. He went into the grave Himself, and with resurrection power left it empty on the third day.
ii. Whosoever liveth and believeth
Christ, being the life, promises that whosoever liveth shall never die.
1. Whosoever liveth.We must be alive in order to know what deathlessness is. We must begin to live as a soul, and not as an animal, if we want to be rid of the fear of death and the doubt of immortality. The way out of the doubts and fears which oppress us is not altogether by the gate of knowledge or of logic, but by the avenues of the spirit. To those who already share the Divine life the terrors of death are abolished. Its inevitable wrench to the spirit is mostly overcome, and its change no more than from life to life. If we are acquainted with our soul, if we have learned to live already with the immortal part of us, and to take pleasure in the things that minister to the life of that part of us, we shall not deem it such a lonesome, blank, and unbearable thing to go away with our own self, our real self, even out of this body into some other. But we must be something more than dead in trespasses and sins, something more than choked with the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches, before this thought can be realized in us. He whose real life consists not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth; he whose spirit is sustained and fed by streams of love; he who lives in faith on all the Divine things; he who works out his faith in pure conduct, exalted aims, unselfish purposes, affectionate service to others,that man does not die in death. Death only sets free for larger activity the soul which has already begun its undying developments.
To live is not to be gay or idle or restless. Frivolity, inactivity, and aimlessness seem equally remote from the true idea of living, I should say that we live only so far as we cultivate all our faculties, and improve all our advantages for Gods glory. The means of living will then be our own endowments, whether of talent or influence; the aim of living, the good of men; the motive of living, the love of God. I do not say that these ideas are to enter prominently into every detail of life, any more than that in every movement we must be distinctly conscious of the vital principle physically; but just as this must necessarily exist before we can take one step, so the whole groundwork of our inner life must be these feelings to which I have alluded.1 [Note: Life and Letters of Brooke Foss Westcott, i. 145.]
The Bishop of Caledonia had opened a Mission on the Skeena river, which he and his wife had carried on for a year. Then a Missionary and his wife were left in charge. And now let us hear the Bishops own words. He saysThey recoiled from the horrors of savage life, and to our great surprise, at the end of one year, suddenly appeared at my house on the coast en route to England. It was too late to find a clergyman to succeed him, and a long winters break would probably ruin the work and prospects. Before they had been in my house an hour, I had a volunteer. It was my wife. She said, Let me go, I will hold it together until you find somebody else. Do you mean it? I asked. Yes! Then wait till morning, and we will discuss it. Early in the morning, being pressed for an answer, I said Yes.
It was difficult to get a crew to face a November Skeena, which freezes in hummocks from end to end; but that same day, with a years provisions, we started. It was a dismal journey for both of us, camping and sleeping on the snow being the least of the discomforts. At the end of fifteen days we arrived, and packed the provisions in the little log house. I offered my crew an extra pound a-piece if they would delay their return but a single day, but nothing would induce them to wait, lest the river would freeze. So I left her behind among Indians and miners, the only white woman within one hundred and seventy miles, and the first to ascend the river. The isolation was complete. Events forced me to visit England, but I had returned before she knew that I had left the diocese, and travelled fourteen thousand miles. At the end of a year I had found an excellent man for the new Mission so that I was able to fetch away my wife. The miners said she was the best Missionary they ever had, and the Indians call her Mother to this day. It was a hard time. Her entire household consisted of two Indian schoolboys.
Foild by our fellow-men, depressd, outworn,
We leave the brutal world to take its way,
And Patience! in another life, we say,
The world shall be thrust down, and we up-borne.
And will not, then, the immortal armies scorn
The worlds poor, routed leavings? or will they,
Who faild under the heat of this lifes day,
Support the fervours of the heavenly morn?
No, no! the energy of life may be
Kept on after the grave, but not begun;
And he who flaggd not in the earthly strife,
From strength to strength advancingonly he,
His soul well-knit, and all his battles won,
Mounts, and that hardly, to eternal life.1 [Note: Matthew Arnold.]
2. He shall never die.The quality of this life has a direct bearing on its survival beyond the grave. When God so raises the soul of man to the level of His own holy and loving life, will He allow death to destroy His handiwork? Imagine an artist carving a statue. He has chosen rare and costly materials. He has provided delicate tools. He spends long years in bringing the work to perfection. Do you think that when his purpose is almost complete he will summon his servant and bid him break the work in pieces? Imagine a master training a servant. He is very thorough, very patient, very loving. He treats the servant as a son and not as a slave. And he is well repaid by the response the servant gives: the blunders are almost past; the faults are almost conquered; there is a co-operation of sympathy and of intelligence that is almost perfect. Do you think he will then cast his servant aside like some worn-out tool? Yet that is what happens if God trains the souls of men and bestows His best gifts upon them to make them His true children, and then refuses to dower them with immortality. Christ spends Himself, He gives Himself to raise men from spiritual death to spiritual life. Will He do the greater miracle and not do the less? Will He lose His own work when it is almost complete? It is unthinkable. There is deepest reason in His words, Because I live, ye shall live also; there is unanswerable logic in the contention that when Christ has made men sharers of His holiness, He will make them sharers of His immortality as well.
In Jesus Christ the believer has an enriched spiritual experience, a more intense consciousness of union with the Divine life. The sense of spiritual renewal in Christ is in many ways a new spiritual experience for the world. God has come nearer to men in the Son of Man. Already in union with Christ there is the experience of a spiritual resurrection, which must imply the fuller I resurrection of the complete life. For if any man be in Christ Jesus, he is a new creature. Old things have passed away. Behold, all things have become new. We already feel the life of Christ coursing even in our mortal body. It is not we that live, but Christ liveth in us. We are conscious of having risen with him, and we know that when Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall we also appear with Him in glory.
Be assured, come what come will,
What once lives never dieswhat here attains
To a beginning, has no end, still gains
And never loses aught.1 [Note: Browning, Parleyings with Certain People.]
3. He that believeth on meWhosoever believeth on me.Christ asks us to believe in Him, but not without first giving us a proof of His belief in us. I came that they may have life, He said. That life was His life; He felt it in Himself, felt its infinity. And as He came, He saw the men that He was coming to; He saw all that was base about them, saw how superficial and how shallow they were. He saw them filled with sin through the love of sin, and yet He said, I am coming to give Myself through the love of Me, to give them Myself deeper and deeper, little by little, until they shall have received Me perfectly. Look what a faith in the possibilities of human nature the Incarnation implied! The faith of Christ in manthat is what is written in the Incarnation. The faith of Christ in usthat is what is written in the visit of Christ to us, when, coming and standing directly across our path of wickedness and death, He says to us calmly and surely, I am come that you might have life, the life of holiness which is by love of Me.
Such life, now abundant and evermore abiding, Christ affords to all who believe on Him. But how is it that believing on Christ thus puts us beyond the reach and power of death? The entire truth that Christ had in mind was this: that faith in Himself, by its own law, works away from death towards life. For Christ is life; to believe on a person is to become like that person, or one with him. Hence, to believe on Christ the Life is to become a sharer with Him in whatever He is, therefore in His life. We are told that Christ could not be holden of death; faith in Him works towards the same freedom.
The assimilating power of faith, that is, the power of faith to make those who believe like that in which they believe, is a recognized principle. The whole nature follows the faith, and gravitates towards its object. A moulding process goes on; faith is the workman and the object of faith is the pattern. Starting within, down amongst the desires and affections, it works outward, till the external man becomes in form, feature, and expression like the absorbing object. We meet men every day in whose faces we see avarice, lust, or conceit, as plainly as if it were imprinted on their foreheads. They have so long thought and felt under the power of these qualities that they are made over into their image. A man who worships money comes to wear the likeness of a money-worshipper down to the tips of his fingers; his eyes and nose and the very posture of his figure bear witness to the transforming power of faith. The Hindu who worships Brahma sleeping on the stars in immovable calm gets to wear a fixed expression. The medival saints who spent days and nights in contemplation of the crucifix, came to show the very lineaments of the man of sorrows, as art had depicted them, and sometimes, it is said, the very marks of His torture in their own bodies. It is a principle wonderful in its method and power. We are all passing into the likeness of that in which we believe. There is no need that men should be labelled, or that they should make confession with their lips. Very early the faith hangs out a label, and soon the whole man becomes a confession of its truth. You have but to look, and you will see here a voluptuary, there a sluggard; here a miser, there a scholar; here a bigot, there a sceptic; here a thinker, there a fool; here a cruel, unjust man, there one kind, generous, true; here one base throughout, there one radiant with purity. It is wonderful, this power of faith, first moulding, then revealing. It is the power of love directed by will, which together makes up faith; and as it works out so it works within, shaping all things there in like manner. It is by this principle that Christ unites men to Himself.1 [Note: T. T. Munger, The Freedom of Faith, 281.]
Therefore to whom turn I but to Thee, the ineffable Name?
Builder and maker, Thou, of houses not made with hands!
What, have fear of change from Thee who art ever the same?
Doubt that Thy power can fill the heart that Thy power expands?
There shall never be one lost good! What was, shall live as before;
The evil is null, is nought, is silence implying sound;
What was good, shall be good, with, for evil, so much good more;
On the earth the broken arcs; in the heaven, a perfect round.2 [Note: Browning, Abt Vogler.]
The Resurrection and the Life
Literature
Adams (J. C.), The Leisure of God, 129.
Alford (H.), Quebec Chapel Sermons, i. 285.
Atwool (H. C.), At His Feet, 107.
Bickersteth (C.), The Gospel of Incarnate Love, 172.
Brookfield (W. H.), Sermons, 117.
Brooks (P.), The More Abundant Life, 36.
Campbell (R. J.), The Song of Ages, 239.
Dawson (W. J.), The Evangelistic Note, 273.
Drummond (R. J.), Faiths Perplexities, 195.
Fairweather (D.), Bound in the Spirit, 295.
Findlay (G.), The Things Above, 141.
Horton (R. F.), The Teaching of Jesus, 267.
Hull (E. L.), Sermons at Kings Lynn, i. 1.
Ingram (A. F. W.), The Gospel in Action, 232.
Learmount (J.), Thirty Chats with Young Folks, 22.
Little (W. J. K.), Labour and Sorrow, 158.
McClelland (T. C.), The Mind of Christ, 133.
Maclaren (A.), Expositions: Esther, Job, etc., 43.
Maclaren (A.), Expositions: John ix.xiv., 81.
Manning (H. E.), Sermons, iv. 342, 356.
Munger (T. T.), The Freedom of Faith, 273.
New (C.), Sermons in Hastings, 169.
Ritchie (D. L.), Peace the Umpire, 54.
Ross (J. M. E.), The Self-Portraiture of Jesus, 123.
Snell (B. J.), Sermons on Immortality, 56.
Spurgeon (C. H.), Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, xxvi. (1880) No. 1568; xxx. (1884) No. 1799.
Thomas (J.), The Mysteries of Grace, 243.
Vaughan (J.), Sermons in Christ Church, Brighton, ii. 106.
Westcott (B. F.), The Revelation of the Father, 91.
Whiton (J. M.), Beyond the Shadow, 31.
Williams (T. Ll.), Thy Kingdom Come, 59.
Christian World Pulpit, xliii. 72 (Pierson); lxvii. 377 (Ingram).
Church of England Pulpit, xlv. 205, xlix. 15 (Headley); lvii. 210 (Hitchcock).
Clergymans Magazine, 3rd Ser., xiii. 291.
Fuente: The Great Texts of the Bible
I am: Joh 5:21, Joh 6:39, Joh 6:40, Joh 6:44, Rom 5:17-19, Rom 8:11, 1Co 15:20-26, 1Co 15:43-57, 2Co 4:14, Phi 3:10, Phi 3:20, Phi 3:21, 1Th 4:14, Rev 20:5, Rev 20:10-15, Rev 21:4
the life: Joh 1:4, Joh 5:26, Joh 6:35, Joh 14:6, Joh 14:19, Psa 36:9, Isa 38:16, Act 3:15, Rom 8:2, Col 3:3, Col 3:4, 1Jo 1:1, 1Jo 1:2, 1Jo 5:11, 1Jo 5:12, Rev 22:1, Rev 22:17
he that: Joh 3:36, Job 19:25-27, Isa 26:19, Luk 23:43, Rom 4:17, Rom 8:10, Rom 8:11, Rom 8:38, Rom 8:39, 1Co 15:18, 1Co 15:29, 2Co 5:1-8, Phi 1:23, 1Th 4:14, Heb 11:13-16
Reciprocal: Deu 30:20 – thy life 1Sa 2:6 – killeth Psa 22:29 – and none Psa 68:20 – unto Psa 72:15 – And he Psa 133:3 – even life Eze 37:3 – O Lord God Eze 47:9 – shall live Hos 14:7 – revive Mat 9:18 – come Mar 5:35 – thy daughter Mar 16:16 – that believeth and Luk 7:14 – Young Luk 8:50 – believe Luk 15:24 – this Luk 20:38 – for all Joh 2:19 – I will Joh 3:15 – whosoever Joh 5:19 – and Joh 5:28 – for Joh 5:40 – that Joh 6:27 – which the Joh 6:50 – that Joh 6:57 – even Joh 8:18 – one Joh 8:51 – If Joh 10:28 – I give Joh 11:44 – he that Joh 17:2 – give Act 2:28 – made Act 16:31 – Believe Act 17:28 – in him Act 26:23 – the first Rom 4:11 – father Rom 5:10 – we shall 1Co 6:14 – by 1Co 15:13 – General 1Co 15:21 – by man came also 1Co 15:45 – a quickening 2Co 5:14 – then Gal 3:22 – to Eph 2:1 – you Col 1:18 – the firstborn 2Ti 1:10 – who Heb 6:2 – resurrection Heb 7:8 – he liveth 1Pe 2:4 – a living 1Jo 4:9 – we Rev 20:12 – I saw
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
THE MOURNERS HOPE
I am the Resurrection, and the Life.
Joh 11:25
Our Church has chosen these words of comfort and of hope to be the very first to be sounded in the ears of Christian mourners as they bring some well-loved form to the churchyardthe garden of the dead. Before the lifeless body is committed to the ground and hidden from sight the souls of sorrowing survivors are strengthened for the bitter separation by the cheering promise of an Almighty Saviour.
I. The promise realised.On the fairest feast of the Christian Church the comforting promise was fully realised. Jesus Christ is risen to-day, and if Christ, the head of our race, has conquered death, we, too, the members, may be partakers in the glory of the Resurrection. In considering the mercies revealed to us at Easter we must not forget those wonderful events which took place before the actual rising from the grave; they usher in the Easter Feast and partake of Easter joys. After the resignation of His sinless soul, and its departure from His holy body, the invisible Spirit, invisible to mortal eyes, is ushered by attendant angels into Paradise. He descended into hell, the place of departed spirits, rendered by His Divine Presence a Paradise indeed to each redeemed and waiting soul. How these spirits must have been thrilled through and through with rapturous joy as they were told the glorious news of the completion of their redemption, the successful issue of that mighty contest between the New Adam and all that would defile and destroy human souls. While the living were sleeping upon earth the dead were alive to the joys and the glories of our coming Easter victory.
II. It is well for us to clasp firmly to our hearts the Catholic doctrine of the Resurrection of Jesus, for it is the earnest and pledge of our own. Let no difficulties of reason come in between us and the light. Why should it be thought a thing incredible with you that God should raise the dead? Why, indeed? Instead of hesitating one moment about its eternal truth, let us all receive it as a revelation and miracle of Divine love. The thought may come into our mindswhen will be this splendid fulfilment of the promise of Jesus, when this beautiful realisation of the Christians hope? When will take place the happy, thrilling reunion of all loving hearts, when they will be able to walk together in the light of God and love again in the beauty of fond affection? When in the perfection of glorified manhood shall we be able to live in the unbroken Communion of Saints? We cannot tell what year it will be, what day, what hour. We cannot tell how many generations shall first pass away, how many kings be buried or kingdoms be overthrown. But we know it will be when Jesus comes again in glorious majesty. Then the waiting in Paradise shall cease and give place to the thrilling joys of the Resurrection. You, doubtless, remember that in St. Pauls time the Thessalonians were very excited about the Coming of the Lord, and misunderstanding some of the Apostles expressions, imagined it would take place while they were yet alive; and they even went so far as to express their sorrow that some whom they had loved had not been permitted to live a little longer that they might participate in the joy and the glory of the Coming Lord. St. Paul writes unto them the true doctrine: But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not even as others which have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him.
III. When Jesus comes.We may reverently gather from Scripture some few events that must happen when Jesus comes again. The summons would pass through Paradise that the fullness of time has come, that Christ is about to take unto Himself His Almighty power and reign. The multitudes of ransomed souls would arise with untold rapture to form a part of His triumphant train. Oh! how glad would they be to be witnesses of His exaltation, to see Him crowned the Lord of all. The numberless choirs of angels would be ready with all their radiant brightness to escort their Creator and their King. The Second Coming in majesty and might they could at least better comprehend than His First Coming to sorrow and to death. The mysteries of the Incarnation were beyond them; but this would give them exultation without a limit. What would the redeemed among the living behold as they gazed upwards into the heavens? They would see Jesus, Whose glory no human tongue or pen could describethe army of angels, the army of light coming with the mighty King; they would hear the announcing trump, the voice of the Archangel, and the triumphant shout. And there would be something else to delight their hearts and fill up their rapture to the brim. They would see the blessed dead; those whom they had loved when upon the earth, after whom their spirits had longed as they often and often thought of them in the peace and rest of Paradise. May be before the eyes of the wondering quick would be wrought the mighty miracle of the Resurrection: The dead in Christ shall first arise. Before the holy living are summoned to take part in the ineffable manifestation of glory, the souls and bodies of those who are already dead shall be reunited. He has brought the cherished souls with Him not only to participate in the mighty rendering of homage to the King, but also that they themselves may be perfected. He has brought the happy spirits to earth that from the earth their bodies may be summoned; this is not the general Resurrection, but the first and special Resurrection of those who love the Lord Who redeemed them. Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first Resurrection; on such the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ.
IV. And as Jesus was the joy of the disembodied spirits in Paradise, so now is He the very power that raises their bodies from the grave.It is not only that He summons them to arise; but He is the living principle which rescues them from the power of death. He Himself is their life. I am the Resurrection and the Life, saith the Lord. Those who arise to glory have Him within them. His own words are: Whoso eateth My flesh and drinketh My blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day. Yes; all the blessed dead have fed upon Christ. All those who long for the Resurrection to glory must feed on Him. This holy food is still given for penitent sinners who are manfully fighting in the ranks of the Church militant, that they may be cleansed and purified ready for participation in the unspeakable joys of the Church triumphant.
Rev. W. E. Coghlan.
Illustrations
(1)Twas at the matin hour, early before the dawn,
The prison doors flew open, the bolts of death were drawn.
Twas at the matin hour, when prayers of saints are strong,
Where, two short days ago, He bore the spitting, wounds, and wrong,
From realms unseen, an unseen way th Almighty Saviour came,
And following on His silent steps an Angel armed in flame.
The stone is rolld away, the keepers fainting fall;
Satans and Pilates watchmenthe Day has scard them all.
(2) When we pull down a house for the purpose of rebuilding it or repairing its ruins, we warn the inhabitants out of it, lest they should be soiled with the dust and rubbish or offended with the noise, and for a time we provide some other place for them; but when we have newly trimmed and dressed the house, we bring them back to a better habitation. Thus God, when He overturneth our flesh, calleth out the soul for a little time, and lodgeth it with Himself in some corner of His kingdom; He repaireth the imperfections of our bodies against the Resurrection, and then having made them beautiful, glorious, and incorruptible, He doth put our souls back again into their purified mansions.
Fuente: Church Pulpit Commentary
6
It would be difficult to do justice to these verses without including them in one paragraph. In thought or subject matter they correspond with Rev 20:5-6. In the forepart of the chapter we are studying, Jesus spoke of the physical death of Lazarus in both figurative and literal language. In this paragraph the language is partially figurative, but Jesus is speaking of spiritual death and life. I am the resurrection means that Jesus is the giver of life. It is true of him in two senses; in him all mankind will be brought to life physically at the last day whether good or bad (chapter 5:28, 29; 1Co 15:22). But the spiritual death is that of men in sin, referred to by the words though he be dead. Such a person will be brought to spiritual life, saved from his past sins, if he will believe on Christ. After he has thus been made alive through belief in Christ (which includes primary obedience to the commands of the Gospel), he becomes one of the persons designated by the word liveth. But he must be faithful to the rest of the commands and so continue to show that he believeth, by a faithful life as a Christian. Such a person has the assurance that he shall never die. This death means the second one, when those who are not faithful to the end of life will be cast into the lake of fire prepared for the devil and his angels, which is the second death (Rev 20:14).
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live:
[I am the resurrection.] Be it so, O Jew (if you will, or it can be), that the little bone luz; in the backbone, is the seed and principle of your resurrection: as to us, our blessed Jesus, who hath raised himself from the dead, is the spring and principle of ours.
“Hadrian (whose bones may they be ground, and his name blotted out!) asked R. Joshua Ben Hananiah, ‘How doth a man revive again in the world to come?’ He answered and said, ‘From luz in the backbone.’ Saith he to him, ‘Demonstrate this to me.’ Then he took luz; a little bone out of the backbone, and put it in water, and it was not steeped: he put it into the fire, and it was not burnt: he brought it to the mill, and that could not grind it: he laid it on the anvil, and knocked it with a hammer, but the anvil was cleft, and the hammer broken,” etc. Why do ye not maul the Sadducees with this argument?
Fuente: Lightfoot Commentary Gospels
Joh 11:25-26. Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection and the life; he that believeth in me, though he have died, yet shall he live; And every one that liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this? The emphasis falls on the first two words, I, am. Marthas first expression of faith and hope had shown how imperfectly she knew Jesus Himself: to Himself alone His words now point. Her later words dwell on the resurrection in the remoter future: Jesus says, I AM the resurrection and the life. Alike in the future and in the present, life is unchangeably in Him (chap. Joh 1:4),and that the life which triumphs over death (resurrection), the life by which death is excluded and annulled. In other passages we read of Jesus as the Life, here only as the Resurrection: the latter thought is in truth contained in the former, and needs not distinct expression save in the presence of the apparent victory of death. It is possible that the meaning of our Lords words is that He is the resurrection and the life which follows the resurrection,in Him His people rise again, and, having risen, live for ever; but it is far more probable that this is only one part of the meaning. Because He is the Life, in the highest and absolute sense of this word, therefore He is the resurrection. He that believes in Him becomes one with Him: every one, therefore, that believes in Him possesses this victorious life. If he has died, yet life is his: if he still lives among men, this earthly life is but an emblem and a part of that all-embracing life which shall endure for ever in union with the Lord of life. In all this the law which limits mans life on earth is not forgotten, but a revelation is given to man which changes the meaning of death. As Godet beautifully says: Every believer is in reality and for ever sheltered from death. To die in full light, in the serene brightness of the life which is in Jesus, and to continue to live in Him, is no longer that which human language designates by the name of death. It is as if Jesus said: In me he who is dead is sure of life, and he who lives is sure never to die. The original, indeed, is much more expressive than we can well bring out in English, Shall never unto eternity die. To the question, Believest thou this? Martha answers (and the form of her answer is characteristic):
Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament
Joh 11:25. Jesus said, I am the resurrection The author and cause of the resurrection of the dead; and the life The source of life, natural, spiritual, and eternal; of the living, both in the present world and in the world to come. Martha believed that in answer to his prayer God would give any thing; but he would have her to know that by his power he could effect any thing. Martha believed a resurrection to take place at the last day; but Christ tells her he had now the power whereby it should be effected lodged in his hands: from whence it was easy to infer, that he who could raise the world of men that had been dead many ages, could, doubtless, raise one man that had been dead only a few days. Observe, reader, it ought to be a source of unspeakable comfort to us, that Christ is the resurrection and the life, and that he will be such to us, if we be his true disciples. A resurrection is a return to life, and Christ is the author of that return. We profess, in the Creed, to look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Let us remember, then, that Christ is the author and principle of both; and that our hope of both must be built on him. Jesus proceeds: He that believeth in me With a faith overcoming the world, (1Jn 5:4-5,) and purifying the heart; (Act 15:9;) though he were dead Or, though he should die, as is properly rendered; yet shall he live Not only shall his soul survive the death of his body, and continue immortal, but, ere long, his reanimated body shall be again united to that soul; and even at present I can loose the bonds of death, and though thy brother now is holden by them, I can recall him when I please. Observe well, reader, to whom this promise is made; namely, to them that believe in Christ Jesus, to them that consent to, and confide in him, as the only Mediator of reconciliation and of intercourse between God and man; that receive the record God has given in his word concerning his Son; who sincerely comply with it, and answer all the great and gracious intentions of it. Both the promise and the conditions are further explained in the next verse.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Vv. 25, 26. Jesus said to her, I am the resurrection and the life; he that believes on me, even though he were dead, yet shall he live; 26 and whosoever lives and believes on me shall never die; believest thou this?
Martha has just spoken of the resurrection as of a future event; Jesus sets in opposition to this event His person (, I; , I am), as being in reality the resurrection. Victory over death is not a physical fact; it is a moral work, a personal act; it is the doing of Jesus Himself (Joh 11:28-29 : Joh 6:39-40; Joh 6:44); and consequently He can accomplish it when he pleases, to-day even, if He wishes, as well as after the passing of ages. Jesus thus brings back the thought of Martha to Himself and gives to her faith its true object. He substitutes for adherence to dogmatic truth confidence in His person. This is what He had also done in chaps. 4 and 6, where, after some moments of conversation, He had substituted Himself for the abstract notions of living water and bread from heaven.
After having declared Himself to be the resurrection, Jesus proclaims Himself as the life. It might be supposed that He means to speak of the glorious and perfect life which follows the resurrection. But according to the explanation which follows (Joh 11:25-26), it is better to hold, with Luthardt, that Jesus passes from the outward resurrection to the more profound fact which is its spiritual condition. If He is the principle of the physical resurrection, it is because He is that of life in the most exalted sense of that word (Joh 11:26, Joh 6:51). The spiritual life which He communicates to His own is for them, if they are dead, the pledge of a return to corporeal life; and, on the other hand, while still living, they are raised by it above the passing accident of physical death. The first declaration applies to Lazarus and to the other believers who were already dead. In virtue of the new life which they have received by faith, they continue living, and consequently they may, at the moment when Jesus wills, be recalled to corporeal existence. The second declaration (Joh 11:26) applies to the two sisters and to all the believers who were still living; they remain sheltered from death; for to die in full light, in the serene brightness of the life which is in Jesus, and to continue to live in Him (Joh 11:25) is no more the fact which human language has designated by the name of death (see on Joh 6:50, Joh 8:51). Jesus means therefore: In me the dead lives, and the living does not die. The terms to die, in the first clause, and to live, in the second, are to be taken in the strict sense.
This saying, by carrying the thought of Martha from the momentary and corporeal fact of the resurrection to its spiritual and permanent principle, gives to the person of Christ its true place in the miracle, and to the miracle its true religious significance. The resurrection of her brother becomes for her as if an emanation of the life of Jesus Himself, a ray of His glory, and thus the means of uniting the soul of Martha to Him, the source of life. Reuss sees in this answer of Jesus a means of setting aside the popular idea of the corporeal resurrection, or at least of divesting it of all theological value. One must be singularly preoccupied by his own theory to draw from this reply a conclusion which is so foreign to the context and so contrary to the perfectly free and clear affirmation of Joh 5:28-29. Jesus thus returned to the subject from which Martha had turned aside, the resurrection of Lazarus. Before acting, He asks her further: Believest thou this?
Fuente: Godet Commentary (Luke, John, Romans and 1 Corinthians)
Jesus proceeded to make another of His "I am" claims. He meant that He would personally effect resurrection and provide eternal life (cf. Joh 5:21; Joh 5:25-29). He wanted Martha to think about the Person who would do the resurrecting rather than the event. Jesus raises people to life just as He satisfies people as bread and is, therefore, the essential element in resurrection. Without Him there is no resurrection or life. This was really a double claim. Jesus meant that He was the resurrection and He was the life. This is clear because He dealt with the two concepts of resurrection and life separately in the discussion that followed.
Whoever believes in Jesus will live spiritually and eternally even though he or she dies physically (cf. Joh 5:21). Jesus imparts eternal life to those who believe in Him. He is the life in the sense that He is its source and benefactor. Whereas He will effect resurrection for those who believe and die physically, He bestows eternal life and it begins for the believer before he or she dies physically.
"When you are sick, you want a doctor and not a medical book or a formula. When you are being sued, you want a lawyer and not a law book. Likewise, when you face your last enemy, death, you want the Savior and not a doctrine written in a book. In Jesus Christ, every doctrine is made personal (1Co 1:30)." [Note: Ibid., 1:336.]