JESUS, AND THE RAISING OF LAZARUS
John 11:38-45
Morning Meditation 5/23/17
Verse 38-45 says, “Jesus therefore again groaning in himself cometh to the grave. It was a cave, and a stone lay upon it. Jesus said, Take ye away the stone. Martha, the sister of him that was dead, saith unto him, Lord, by this time he stinketh: for he hath been dead four days. Jesus saith unto her, Said I not unto thee, that, if thou wouldest believe, thou shouldest see the glory of God? Then they took away the stone from the place where the dead was laid. And Jesus lifted up his eyes, and said, Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me. And I knew that thou hearest me always: but because of the people which stand by I said it, that they may believe that thou hast sent me. And when he thus had spoken, he cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth. And he that was dead came forth, bound hand and foot with graveclothes: and his face was bound about with a napkin. Jesus saith unto them, Loose him, and let him go. Then many of the Jews which came to Mary, and had seen the things which Jesus did, believed on him.”
Jesus proved Himself by mighty miracles. But the miracles that stand out above all the others are the ones where He exercised His power over death. A religion that cannot offer something good beyond this life is no real help. I have heard people say, “If Christianity were just for this life, I would still be a Christian.” It was a happy Christian who said that. Not every Christian is a happy Christian!!! What about the man in prison who spends his life there for being a Christian? I am thinking of Peter Vins, the father of Georgi Vins, who spent most of his life in a Russian prison and died there. All because he was a preacher of the gospel. You see the statement “I would be a Christian if it were only for this life” won’t fly with a man like that. He died because he believed in ETERNAL LIFE and that this life was a part of the plan of God for eternity, i.e., the eternity part outweighing the time part exceedingly.
Jesus raises Lazarus as a demonstration of His power over death. He said to Martha in verse 25, “I am the resurrection and the life.” Then He demonstrated it. There are three things about the event of His raising Lazarus from the dead that I want to call attention to in this meditation:
FIRST, JESUS TALKED TO HIS FATHER
The conversation (prayer) with His Father is recorded in verses 41-42: “Then they took away the stone from the place where the dead was laid. And Jesus lifted up his eyes, and said, Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me. And I knew that thou hearest me always: but because of the people which stand by I said it, that they may believe that thou hast sent me.” This is the prayer of faith.
This is the greatest demonstration of the prayer of faith that one will find in the Word of God. Jesus as a man came to live by faith (We are actually saved by HIS FAITH; Gal. 2:16). All that He did in this life was a response to the Father’s will. God created man in His image. The image of God is reflected like a mirror in the life of a believer by a faith response to His invisible presence. Adam reflected perfectly the invisible God until he sinned in unbelief. Jesus is God becoming man to function as a man as God created man to be. So that all He did and said was a faith response to all that the invisible God wanted to say or do at a particular time. Jesus did NOTHING without the Father. Jesus says in John 8:28: “Then said Jesus unto them, When ye have lifted up the Son of man, then shall ye know that I am he, and that I do nothing of myself; but as my Father hath taught me, I speak these things.”
What is faith? First, it is an intimate relationship with God. Jesus said, “Father,” like there was an intimate relationship between Him and One He called “Father.” Matthew 3:17 says, “And lo a voice from heaven, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” You see, the Father says, “my beloved Son,” with the same intimacy that Jesus says, “Father.” There is something going on between these TWO.
Let me give you an Old Testament passage that is revealing. Isaiah 50:4-5 says: “The Lord GOD hath given me the tongue of the learned, that I should know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary: he wakeneth morning by morning, he wakeneth mine ear to hear as the learned. The Lord GOD hath opened mine ear, and I was not rebellious, neither turned away back.” These two verses in Isaiah are speaking of Jesus in His relationship to JEHOVAH. If there is any doubt in your mind, turn there and read verse 6. This verse teaches that God the Father, got God the Son out of bed every morning a discipled Him. And that God the Son never once balked at anything the Father told Him to do.
Faith is an intimate relationship between Father and Son. Jesus, in the model prayer said in Matthew 6:9: “After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name.” The purpose of Christ in salvation was and is to bring the sinner back to God as a son to the Father. Every saved sinner is a Prodigal son who came home. Salvation is a New Birth that reconciles the sinner to God so that he can address God as “Father.” We as believers HAVE, and can MAINTAIN, an intimate relationship with our Father through Christ Jesus. Faith is an intimate relationship between the reconciled sinner and God..
Faith thanks God for the answer before the answer becomes a reality in the natural world. When I say reality, I am not suggesting that it is not real before it is seen. I am using this term because this is the way the natural man looks at reality. Jesus suggests this in John 5:17: “But Jesus answered them, My Father worketh hitherto, and I work.” The word “hitherto” translates “heos” meaning, “till, until” and “arti” meaning, “just now, this moment.” The suggestion is that “the Father is doing something right now you can’t see and I am going to make it visible so that you can see it.” Jesus had just healed a man of an infirmity who had been in that condition for 38 years. The Jews sought to kill Him because He did this on the sabbath. Then John 5:17 is the Lord’s response to their opposition. Jesus is saying, “The LAWGIVER is the One who granted healing to this man, He (the Father) did it on the sabbath, and I am simply the Instrument though which it was made real to this man’s experience.
The first thing Jesus did in the raising of Lazareth was to talk to the Father. Then,
SECOND, HE TALKED TO LAZARETH
This is brought out in verse 43 in three words: “Lazarus, come forth.” This is the word of faith. The word of faith speaks of the things that it wants in the past tense, i.e., “Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me.”
What condition was Lazarus in when Jesus said, “Lazarus, come forth?” He was graveyard dead! I have seen many a person come by the casket and talk to their dead loved ones. I’m not criticizing people in this great moment of sorrow. However, if you want to say something to your loved ones where they will hear, you’d better do it while they are alert and alive! They will not understand a word you say after they die. Now with Jesus it was a different matter. The dead can and do hear His voice. Jesus had taught them in John 5:25: “Verily, verily, I say unto you, The hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God: and they that hear shall live.” Jesus demonstrated the power of the spoken word when it was an audible expression of what the Father was saying. Jesus did not act independently of the Father in raising Lazarus. It was the will of God. The Father said, “Son, this is where the power I have given you over death is to be demonstrated.” And Jesus, acting in faith-obedience to His Father, spoke to Lazarus, and death had to turn him loose!!! Someone hold my mules! Hallelujah!
The word of faith speaks in obedience to the Lordship of Christ concerning whatever is His will for the next step in our lives. When Jesus was teaching His disciples to walk by faith He said to them in Mark 11:23: “For verily I say unto you, That whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass; he shall have whatsoever he saith.” Note the words, “whosoever shall say unto this mountain.” The word “say” translates “epo” and means, “to speak, to say.” It is an aorist active subjunctive verb. The aorist tense represents action at a point of time. So this is an act of faith. The subjunctive mood refers to what is possible at a point of time. It does not mean that it will happen but it does mean that it is possible. The possibility is always there but it is not always God’s will to move the mountain. If we could use this promise indiscriminately, someone would move the Mt. of Olives and mess the Second Coming up!!! Jesus had just spoken to a fig tree. Jesus said in verse 14: “And Jesus answered and said unto it, “No man eat fruit of thee hereafter for ever. And his disciples heard it.” The word “said” translates “epo” and is an aorist active indicative verb. The aorist tense refers to the act of speaking on that occasion. He talked to a fig tree. It was the word of faith because the fig tree obeyed. Mark 11:20 says, “And in the morning, as they passed by, they saw the fig tree dried up from the roots.” Faith addresses the impossible without considering the impossibility. Faith is confident that it is God’s will, that He wants it done, and we are just the instruments He has to make it known in advance. So faith is willing to declare the will of God and speak to situations that makes us look like idiots to unbelievers, i.e., like Him talking to a tree or us talking to a mountain. Jesus exercised the word of faith and said, “Lazarus, come forth.”
Now it may not be God’s will to use us to raise the dead like in the case of Lazarus, but it is God’s will for us to exercise this kind of faith in what IS HIS WILL FOR OUR LIVES. And He has a will for all of us that will require this kind of faith. Then,
THIRD, JESUS TALKED TO HIS DISCIPLES
This is instruction in faith. One must be instructed before he can believe. Faith does not come up with what to believe. Faith believes what God brings up. When Jesus came to the scene of Lazareth’s death, it was after a deliberate delay. He said to Martha, “Thy brother shall rise again.” She said, “I know that he shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day.” Martha was a good theologian. She believed what Jesus had taught about the resurrection in the future. But she was having problems with reckoning with the FACT that Jesus IS the RESURRECTION AND THE LIFE. Jesus said to Martha in verse 25: “I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live.” The words “I am” translate “ego eimi” and is a present indicative verb. This is the same combination of that God used with Moses in the burning bush. It is the same that Jesus used when He said, “I am the true vine” in John 15:1. Jesus was/is the Resurrection and the life.
Martha was a true believer. She responded, “Yea, Lord: I believe that thou art the Christ, the Son of God, which should come into the world.” (See 1 John 5:1). But those of us who are true believers need instruction that we might grow in our confidence in his PRESENT POWER. Let me make a confession. I have no problem believing what the Bible says God has done in the past. I believe God spoke a perfect world into existence (Psa. 33:6,9). I have no problem with that. I belief that this present world is held together by Christ Himself (Col. 1:17). I have no problem with that. I believe that the future will happen exactly as is described literally in the prophecies of the New Testament including a literal interpretation of the Book of Revelation. I have no problem with that. My problem is what Martha’s was. She said in substance, “I believe what you said about the future but what does that have to do NOW WITH MY DEAD BROTHER IN THE TOMB.” I think Jesus must have sighed at the difficulty of developing faith beyond SAVING FAITH.
When Jesus came to the tomb, He said, “Take ye away the stone.” Martha’s response was, “Lord, by this time stinketh: for he had been dead four days” (vs 39). She just didn’t get His point when He said, “I am the resurrection.” Then Jesus said with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come forth.” This is the Word of faith, and dead Lazarus heard his voice, and came forth.
It is not easy to instruct saved people in the faith. But this is the way of the Lord.. We must be instructed by the Word of God. This is where we are to live, i..e., in the Word. We need to develop a faith in the “I AM” of Jesus. What is God doing in our lives today. God could die and some professing Christians would never miss Him! They have a form that they adhere to and it does not take a Living God for the form to stand. It is as dead as the dumb idols people worship. May God help us to begin to speak to the impossible without doubting so that we will be a witness to the unsaved that God is alive.
The prayer of faith brings one into the presence of God with certainty, the word of faith acts before it sees, and the instructions in the faith makes us willing to act in obedience to His revelation.
May the Lord bless these words to our hearts.
In Christ
Bro. White
