An Expository Study of John’s Gospel
CHAPTER 11
Scripture Reading: John 11 (KJV)
Introduction
In a number of ways, this is a special chapter. The raising of Lazarus was not mentioned by any of the other writers. Nothing said in this chapter is a duplicate of anything else. And yet, short of the death, burial and resurrection of the Lord, this is probably the most important chapter in the Gospel of John. It tells us of His last great and most public miracle. This chapter climaxes the Period of Conflict. The Lord had already raised two others from the dead. One was raised on one of the Lord’s travels. Word came to Him about the daughter of Jairus being ill and close to death. He went to the house, putting everyone out except Peter, James and John, and brought her back to life (Luke 8:41-56). The other was the widow of Nain. She was taking her only son to burial. The Lord encountered the group along the way. He inquired and raised him from the dead (Luke 7:11-15). But, the raising of Lazarus is unusual because the Lord turned this miracle to the advantage of His mission; to the glory of God; to the building of the faith of wavering disciples; to enhance the faith of Martha and Mary and to say nothing of what it would do to Lazarus, coming back from the grave. It would also help some of the believing Jews assembled as a result of the death of their brother. The Lord foresaw the entire occasion. Notice John 10:40, “And went away again beyond Jordan into the place where John at first baptized; and there he abode.” He had been in the area around Jerusalem before making His departure out of the city for a while. How did Mary and Martha know where He was? They must have stayed closely in touch with the Lord. How else would they have known where to send the messenger to inform Him that Lazarus, His dear friend, was ill. Yet, after the word came, the Lord deliberately stayed there two more days. Not because He did not care or was not concerned about the broken hearts of Mary and Martha. The Lord delayed His journey to Lazarus so a situation could develop which would give everyone a maximum:
1. Exposure to the power of God;
2. Opportunity for faith building;
3. Comfort; especially to those who would have been relieved only if He had arrived soon enough to heal Lazarus, before he died.
When the Lord arrives, Lazarus will have been dead four days. This was not true of the daughter of Jairus or the son of the widow of Nain. Some people may have thought that raising these two was not a miracle at all. They may have thought the Lord used resuscitation to revive them. This cannot be said of Lazarus. He is already in the tomb and his body is already decaying. When the Lord arrives, the scene is set for Him to do the culminating miracle of His ministry.
THE REVELATION OF THE SON OF GOD TO ISRAEL
11:1, 2 … “Now a certain man was sick, named Lazarus, of Bethany, the town of Mary and her sister Martha.” Evidently, when John wrote his account of the Gospel Lazarus was not widely known. So John identified him as the brother of Mary and Martha. Perhaps John’s account of the raising of Lazarus from the dead had never been put down in writing. Remember, John is writing his account of the Life of Christ later than the other three writers and they said nothing about Lazarus. Consequently, many people who would hear this message read would probably not have known that Lazarus was a dear and loyal friend of the Lord, along with his two sisters. So at the beginning of this part of John’s Gospel, he uses Mary and Martha to identify Lazarus. “(It was that Mary which anointed the Lord with ointment, and wiped his feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was sick.)” Mary was the one who had anointed the Lord’s feet and made a contribution to the Lord’s comfort, prior to His death. She was well known and could have been used by John to identify her lesser known brother. Up to now, she has not been mentioned in John’s account of the Gospel. At this time, the other three accounts of the Gospel were already being circulated, and Matthew, Mark and Luke wrote about Mary. John probably had access to their accounts and may have desired to fill in some voids that would have otherwise been unknown. At this point, John has Lazarus well identified.
11:3, 4 … “Therefore his sisters sent unto him, saying, Lord, behold, he whom thou lovest is sick.” What an interesting message. Lazarus is identified to the Lord only as, “he whom thou lovest.” “When Jesus heard that, he said, This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God might be glorified thereby.” The Lord did not mean that the sickness of Lazarus was not going to lead to his death, for he did die. The Lord meant that the ultimate purpose and value of the death of Lazarus was not the fact that he was going to be “buried as usual” in Judea. But, that the Lord is going to elevate the death of Lazarus to a place of prominence by what the Lord knows will soon happen.
11:5, 6 … “Now Jesus loved Martha, and her sister, and Lazarus. When he had heard therefore that he was sick, he abode two days still in the same place where he was.” Perhaps, if the Lord could have arrived before Lazarus died He might have gone on to comfort Mary and Martha, healing Lazarus. But, at the moment the message was given to the Lord, Lazarus was probably already dead. If so, the Lord would know and He saw, by His delay, a way of turning the occasion to the greater glory of God.
11:7, 8 … “Then after that saith he to his disciples, Let us go into Judaea again.” This is after the two day wait. “His disciples say unto him, Master, the Jews of late sought to stone thee; and goest thou thither again?” In effect, they say, “Do you realize what you are doing? You have just fled from Jerusalem where they tried to stone you to death.” The answer Jesus gives them is revealing.
11:9, 10 … “Jesus answered, Are there not twelve hours in the day? If any man walk in the day, he stumbleth not, because he seeth the light of this world. But if a man walk in the night, he stumbleth, because there is no light in him.” Notice the Lord is not talking about sun-light, but the light in Him. He is saying that if a man walks in the light of: His ministry, His mission, His commission, and His destiny then he has nothing to fear because God is in charge of everything. We need to constantly be reminded that God is in charge of our destiny and if we are walking in the light of His will then we are walking in the light of His fellowship. “God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth” (1 John 1:5, 6). We cannot walk in darkness and be in the light of God’s fellowship. He is light. “But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin” (1 John 1:7). Jesus teaches that if we walk in the light then we need not worry about our lives because there is something dearer to us than our lives.
11:11, 12 … “These things said he: and after that he saith unto them, Our friend Lazarus sleepeth . . .” The term, “sleepeth,” (in other translations, “fallen asleep”), is used eighteen times in the New Testament. Fifteen of those times it refers unmistakably to physical death. Because we often speak of physical death as sleep, some people have the idea that the dead are unaware of what is going on in the world, but nothing could be farther from the truth. At night, when we sleep, it is our body sleeping not our spirit; it does not sleep, but stays alive and alert. In the grave, it is the body that sleeps, not the spirit. Solomon taught us, a long time ago, that at the moment of death the body returns to the earth and the spirit returns to God, who gave it. At death, the spirit does not go to heaven. At death, the spirit goes to one of two places, on its way to an eternal destiny, following the judgment. When death comes to one in the fellowship of God, his spirit goes to “Paradise” and there enjoys a wonderful period of time, waiting for the judgment. During this time, one will know that all is well, even though God’s final judgment has not yet been pronounced. God does not need a Judgment Day to know the outcome of our spirit after death. Those of us who end our earthly lives outside the fellowship of God will, at death, go to “Tartarus,” where God has kept those from Satan and the fallen angels onward, under a state of punishment, but not the eternal punishment, “Gehenna.” Those who die outside of God’s fellowship, going to “Tartarus,” will ultimately go to “Gehenna;” as those in “Paradise” will ultimately go to heaven. So because the Lord is walking in the light of His ministry, knowing that He has the favor of God, He can talk about Lazarus being asleep because He intends to wake him up. “But I go, that I may awake him out of sleep. Then said his disciples, Lord, if he sleep, he shall do well.” Falling asleep is usually the sign that a fever has broken and the sick person is recovering.
11:13-15 … “Howbeit Jesus spake of his death: but they thought that he had spoken of taking of rest in sleep.” Now Jesus speaks to them plainly. “Then said Jesus unto them plainly, Lazarus is dead. And I am glad for your sakes that I was not there, to the intent ye may believe; neverthless let us go unto him.” They already believe, but remember the Lord is preparing them for His own death and resurrection. What better example, as a way to comfort and assure them, than restoring Lazarus from a four day old death. The Lord is about to add another layer to their faith; hoping to remove their anxiety and uncertainty, to help them stand on a firmer foundation when His death comes.
11:16 … “Then said Thomas, which is called Didymus, unto his fellow-disciples, Let us also go, that we may die with him.” Pessimistic faith. Apparently, Thomas felt they were going to die, since they were heading into the jaws of death. But, Thomas felt they should be courageous and go. Thomas had courage, but it was not stable or based on confidence and faith. Thomas and the other disciples are not completely cured by the raising of Lazarus; though it does make a substantial contribution to that end.
11:17 … “Then when Jesus came, he found that he had lain in the grave four days already.” Lazarus had been in the tomb four days. The disciples and the Lord traveled two days, after waiting for two days. Lazarus was alive when the messengers left to tell the Lord, and he must have survived for a day or so, after the messengers left Martha and Mary, or he would have been in the grave more than four days. We can account for four days: two when the Lord tarried after receiving the news; and two while the Lord and disciples traveled to Bethany. Perhaps Lazarus survived for two days, if it took the messengers as long to reach Jesus as it did the Lord and disciples to reach Bethany, and if so that would mean the Lord waited two days in order to give Lazarus time to die before telling the disciples that he was dead. This is only speculation and you can do some logical calculations of your own.
11:18, 19 … “Now Bethany was nigh unto Jerusalem, about fifteen furlongs off: And many of the Jews came to Martha and Mary, to comfort them concerning their brother.” The fact that a great number came to comfort Martha and Mary was a great tribute. Keep in mind; they were not believers in the Lord in any substantial way. This meant they could only give whatever comfort could be offered under Judaism, and, there was not much that could be offered. The Jews had little instruction about heaven. During the time the Jews lived under the Law given by God through Moses, they were undeveloped and immature spiritually. God dealt with them almost entirely in terms of this world. God said, in Malachi 3:10, “Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it.” There will not be any bareness of their bodies, their flocks, or their fields. God promised to bless them over and over again with temporal things. That was about all they could understand at that time, and they have not changed much up to this day. They are still known as people who like to gather money and exercise power based on money. This is one reason why there is not much said about heaven in the Old Testament. It took the coming of the Lord to give us spiritual truth based upon His own ministry and revelation.
11:20, 21 … “Then Martha, as soon as she heard that Jesus was coming, went and met him: but Mary sat still in the house.” These two women say essentially the same thing to the Lord, yet there is more difference in what they say than similarity. Mary stayed in the house and Martha went out to meet the Lord. “Then said Martha unto Jesus, Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died.” In the Greek, the word that comes last in a statement has great emphasis. So, the last word in Martha’s statement was “mine;” “this brother of mine.” She was aggressive and possessive; the authoritarian of the house. She took charge of things and is out with the Lord talking about her loss. Mary will not do this.
11:22 … “But I know, that even now, whatsoever thou wilt ask of God, God will give it thee.” This does not mean that she expected the resurrection of Lazarus. She knew that God would grant Him, according to the Lord’s request, some comfort for her; some token of His grace and loving favor. Soon we will see that she, like the Jews, did not expect a resurrection.
11:23-25 … “Jesus saith unto her, Thy brother shall rise again. Martha saith unto him, I know that he shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day.” She fully accepted the final day resurrection as an upcoming, certain event. But, she had no other intermediate expectations from the Lord. “Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live.” In other words, the faithful who physically die, in no way have their living with the Lord interrupted. Their physical body goes into rest, but the spirit remains with the Lord.
11:26-28 … “And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die.” This is probably a level of spiritual revelation that Martha could not apprehend, even though she had been taught a great deal by the Lord. On one occasion, Martha was in the kitchen preparing food, and Mary was sitting at the Lord’s feet listening to His inner truths. Mary might have understood better than Martha what the Lord meant in these verses. Today, the Lord says to us that if we live and believe on Him we shall never die. Our body will still encounter the slumber of sleep – physical death. But, our spirit will never die. “Believest thou this? She saith unto him, Yea, Lord: I believe that thou art the Christ, the Son of God, which should come into the world.” She understood the foundation truths and believed them. “And when she had so said, she went her way, and called Mary her sister secretly, saying, The Master is come, and calleth for thee.” He had not called for Martha. But, when she went out to meet Him on her own initiative, the Lord called for Mary. Mary, no doubt, was dearer to the Lord because she was more devoted to His person and ministry. There is no doubt that Martha was a loving friend and true disciple. But, she appears not to have been an insightful disciple like Mary. So now the Lord seeks words of comfort from Mary who is still in the house grieving.
11:29-34 … “As soon as she heard that, she arose quickly, and came unto him. Now Jesus was not yet come into the town, but was in that place where Martha met him. The Jews then which were with her in the house, and comforted her, when they saw Mary, that she rose up hastily and went out, followed her, saying, She goeth unto the grave to weep there.” They thought she was going outside to continue her grieving, like she had been doing in the house. “Then when Mary was come where Jesus was, and saw him, she fell down at his feet, saying unto him, Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died.” Same statement Martha made? No; the last word in Mary’s statement is, “brother.” In other words, Mary says to the Lord, “If You had been here, the one whom we love would not have died, my brother.” She was concerned about her relationship to him and not her dominance over him or anyone else in the household. The death of her brother caused Mary to feel a great personal loss. “When Jesus therefore saw her weeping, and the Jews also weeping which came with her, he groaned in the spirit, and was troubled. And said, Where have ye laid him?” “He groaned in the spirit” is a strange statement in the Greek. The words literally mean, “He snorted like a horse.” The Lord was exasperated. Not with Martha, Mary or Lazarus, but with the devil who is in charge of death. The Lord was exasperated because the devil had invaded this family. The Lord knew exactly what He was going to do, but that still did not keep Him from sharing the grief of Mary and Martha. “They said unto him, Lord, come and see.”
11:35 … “Jesus wept.” This is the same word for weeping found in v. 33, “and the Jews also weeping which came with her.” In the case of the Jews, they were wailing with great cries of anguish, but in the case of the Lord, He was weeping in harmony with their weeping. This is what we call empathy or sympathy, meaning suffering with. The Lord suffered with them. Yes, the Lord knew He would soon raise Lazarus from the dead, but before He did, He shared in their human suffering, giving them the comfort of His own person before giving them the comfort and strength of the resurrection yet to come.
11:36, 37 … “Then said the Jews, Behold how he loved him!” They appreciated the Lord’s sympathy with the sisters and how He identify with them in their loss. “And some of them said, Could not this man, which opened the eyes of the blind, have caused that even this man should not have died?” This is the way Mary felt. She knew how many people the Lord had healed. She felt that He could have kept Lazarus from dying, like some of the Jews, probably because this was as high in understanding that, up to this time, she had been able to grow. She did not expect the resurrection of Lazarus.
11:38, 39… “Jesus therefore again groaning in himself cometh to the grave.” The Lord is still grieving about what Satan is doing to the human family. “It was a cave, and a stone lay upon it. Jesus said, Take ye away the stone.” He had come to do what they could not do. However, He does not presume to simply command the stone to roll away. He wants them to share in this experience, too. When friends and loved ones are ill and we pray with them, we are asking God to do what we cannot do. But, the Lord also teaches us by example to do what we can for those who are suffering and grieving. In other words, there are times when we need to “take away the stone,” so to speak, leaving God to do what only He can do. “Martha, the sister of him that was dead, saith unto him, Lord, by this time he stinketh: for he hath been dead four days.” In other words, “Lord, why open the cave.” She did not expect a resurrection. Perhaps she thought the Lord simply wanted to view the body one more time. But, while we do not know exactly what she was thinking, we can be sure that she did think the Lord should open the cave.
11:40 … “Jesus saith unto her, Said I not unto thee, that, if thou wouldest believe, thou shouldest see the glory of God?” Notice how reversed this is from human thinking. Our motto is, “Seeing is believing.” The Lord's motto is, “Believing is seeing.” Only if we believe can we see the things God can and will do for us. Faith precedes the privilege of seeing. If we have to wait until we see, we will not be in Paradise. There are many things God will not reveal to us for our seeing, until we have already entered into an unqualified belief in Him.
11:41, 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.” The Lord does not want us to pray to be heard, but in the Lord’s case it is different. He wanted to focus their attention upon Himself as the Messenger from God, the Messiah, so those observing what He is about to do will be able to know that God had indeed heard Him, granting Him the power to resurrect the dead.
11:43, 44 … “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 grave clothes: and his face was bound about with a napkin.” The Lord’s body was prepared the same way. The body was wrapped from under the arms to the feet and made totally immobile. A napkin was then put around the face. Lazarus came out of the tomb hobbling, with both feet bound together. So, the Lord says, “Loose him, and let him go.” Again, the Lord wants humans to do something. They can cut him loose. The Lord does not need to strip off the burial wrappings, humans can do that. As people removed the stone, they could also take the burial wrappings off Lazarus.
11:45, 46 … “Then many of the Jews which came to Mary, and had seen the things which Jesus did, believed on him.” The Lord did build faith in many who had not previously believed. Many came because they loved Mary and Martha and wanted to comfort them, but they found a great deal more. “But some of them went their ways to the Pharisees, and told them what things Jesus had done.” There seems to be a spy in every crowd. Many knew that the Pharisees had said that if anyone knew where to find the Lord, let them know. The word was out and they wanted to take the Lord. A price was on His head. So, some who had seen this great miracle went away and told the Pharisees. Consider the parable of the rich man and Lazarus. The rich man had five brothers and begged Lazarus to go back and warn them (Luke 16:28). Abraham said, “They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them . . . if they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead” (Luke 16:29-31). The raising of Lazarus proves the truthfulness of what Abraham told the rich man. The people who went away and told the Pharisees were personally aware that Lazarus had been dead four days. Before their eyes, they witnessed the Lord call him forth from the grave. Yet, they still did not believe. If we are not disposed to believe then we will not believe and one coming back from the dead would not make a difference. Time after time, it was the Lord’s reaffirmation of Who He was, not His miracles that caused people to finally accept Him as the Son of God – Messiah, the Redeemer come to save the world. The Lord never trusted those who believed on Him only because of His miracles. This is not an adequate faith on which to build a relationship with the Lord.
11:47, 48 … “Then gathered the chief priests and the Pharisees a council, and said, What do we? for this man doeth many miracles. If we let him thus alone, all men will believe on him: and the Romans shall come and take away both our place and nation.” These are hard-hearted people. They say, in effect, “He keeps on performing miracle after miracle. If He keeps this up everybody is going to believe on Him, and our power will erode.” Notice the order of how they are going to suffer: their place will be taken away and their nation might cease to be tolerated by Rome. They had only a vested interest in this whole affair and enjoyed their place of power and authority. They enjoyed being part of a nation that Rome allowed to continue with its own identity. They felt that if the Lord was left alone, He might convert the whole world and they might lose everything they cherished.
11:49, 50 … “And one of them, named Caiaphas, being the high priest that same year, said unto them, Ye know nothing at all, Nor consider that it is expedient for us, that one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation perish not.” Caiaphas was not aware of the significance of what he said. As high priest, he may have been granted inspiration to say this, because it is a true statement. We understand the true meaning of the statement: It was better for Jesus to die for the sins of the world, than for the whole world to die in sin. But Caiaphas meant: This one person troubles this whole nation and if we get rid of Him, all the trouble will go away. It is better for one man to die, bringing peace to our nation, than for more and more people to die and losing our power.
11:51-53 … “And this spake he not of himself: but being high priest that year, he prophesied that Jesus should die for that nation . . .” He did not have an insight into his own prophesy. “And not for that nation only, but that also he should gather together in one the children of God that were scattered abroad.” In chapter 10, the Lord, as the Good Shepherd, pointed out that He had other sheep not in the fold of the Jews and He wanted to bring them in. Caiaphas reaffirms this in his prophesy. “Then from that day forth they took counsel together for to put him to death.” The Lord’s death was now sealed.
11:54-57 … “Jesus therefore walked no more openly among the Jews; but went thence unto a country near to the wilderness, into a city called Ephraim . . .” The Lord came into the city, did what He had to do to fulfill His ministry, and departs. “And there continued with his disciples. And the Jews’ passover was nigh at hand: and many went out of the country up to Jerusalem before the passover, to purify themselves. Then sought they for Jesus, and spake among themselves, as they stood in the temple, What think ye, that he will not come to the feast? Now both the chief priests and the Pharisees had given a commandment, that, if any man knew where he were, he should shew it, that they might take him.” They have firmly settled on their commitment to destroy Jesus. From this point on, the Scribes and Pharisees, the Priests and Levites, have no concern for the welfare of the Lord. They are only concerned about His elimination. At this point in time, they have no idea that one of the Lord’s own disciples will be His worse enemy and will sell Him out.
Summary
V. 54 ended the Period of Conflict and began the Period of Crises. After the raising of Lazarus the hour had come for the Lord to make perhaps the most positive statement of His ministry: He was indeed the resurrection and the life; the author of life, Lord of the dead as well as the living. Except for the feeding of the five thousand, raising Lazarus was the Lord’s most public and certainly His most impacting miracle. The Lord waited until Lazarus had been dead long enough to begin decaying before bringing him back to life. The Lord brought him back from the dead because of the love He had for Mary, Martha and Lazarus, and especially for the opportunity to glorify God. When the Lord raised Lazarus, the tide of enmity against Him began to increase and the tide of faith and belief in Him began to intensify. The theme of John’s writing is the Gospel of Belief. It might also be called the Gospel of Separation, because, as John’s Gospel unfolds, those who believe Jesus are separated more and more from those who disbelieve, because of the eliminate of belief vs. disbelief. John does not tell us what happened when the Lord went to Ephraim to be with His disciples. Perhaps John was more concerned with telling us of the Lord’s return to Jerusalem, because when we pass chapter 12 and 13 we will enter into the Period of Conference with the twelve. In chapters 13, 14, 15 and 16 the Lord opens His heart to the twelve for the final time. Chapter 17 is the great High Priestly prayer that the Lord prayed in the presence of the twelve. John faithfully records the prayer so that we might know exactly how the Lord felt in His closing hours, with the beloved chosen ones. So, at the end of chapter 11, the Lord is in Ephraim visiting with the twelve and the Passover is approaching. In fact, at the first of chapter 12, when the Lord comes back to Bethany it is Sunday – six days until the Passover. The Lord then entered into the feast with the beloved family whose brother had been raised from the dead. Then, as revealed in chapter 12, the Lord makes His triumphal entry into Jerusalem being met by an unusual group.
