11 11:1Now a certain man was ill, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. 2 11:2It was Mary who anointed the Lord with ointment and wiped his feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was ill. 3 11:3So the sisters sent to him, saying, “Lord, he whom you love is ill.” 4 11:4But when Jesus heard it he said, “This illness does not lead to death. It is for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.”
5 11:5Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. 6 11:6So, when he heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was. 7 11:7Then after this he said to the disciples, “Let us go to Judea again.” 8 11:8The disciples said to him, “Rabbi, the Jews were just now seeking to stone you, and are you going there again?” 9 11:9Jesus answered, “Are there not twelve hours in the day? If anyone walks in the day, he does not stumble, because he sees the light of this world. 10 11:10But if anyone walks in the night, he stumbles, because the light is not in him.” 11 11:11After saying these things, he said to them, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I go to awaken him.” 12 11:12The disciples said to him, “Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will recover.” 13 11:13Now Jesus had spoken of his death, but they thought that he meant taking rest in sleep. 14 11:14Then Jesus told them plainly, “Lazarus has died, 15 11:15and for your sake I am glad that I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him.” 16 11:16So Thomas, called the Twin, said to his fellow disciples, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.”
17 11:17Now when Jesus came, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days. 18 11:18Bethany was near Jerusalem, about two miles off, 19 11:19and many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to console them concerning their brother. 20 11:20So when Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him, but Mary remained seated in the house. 21 11:21Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. 22 11:22But even now I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give you.” 23 11:23Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.” 24 11:24Martha said to him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.” 25 11:25Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, 26 11:26and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?” 27 11:27She said to him, “Yes, Lord; I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who is coming into the world.”
28 11:28When she had said this, she went and called her sister Mary, saying in private, “The Teacher is here and is calling for you.” 29 11:29And when she heard it, she rose quickly and went to him. 30 11:30Now Jesus had not yet come into the village, but was still in the place where Martha had met him. 31 11:31When the Jews who were with her in the house, consoling her, saw Mary rise quickly and go out, they followed her, supposing that she was going to the tomb to weep there. 32 11:32Now when Mary came to where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet, saying to him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” 33 11:33When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in his spirit and greatly troubled. 34 11:34And he said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to him, “Lord, come and see.” 35 11:35Jesus wept. 36 11:36So the Jews said, “See how he loved him!” 37 11:37But some of them said, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man also have kept this man from dying?”
38 11:38Then Jesus, deeply moved again, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone lay against it. 39 11:39Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, “Lord, by this time there will be an odor, for he has been dead four days.” 40 11:40Jesus said to her, “Did I not tell you that if you believed you would see the glory of God?” 41 11:41So they took away the stone. And Jesus lifted up his eyes and said, “Father, I thank you that you have heard me. 42 11:42I knew that you always hear me, but I said this on account of the people standing around, that they may believe that you sent me.” 43 11:43When he had said these things, he cried out with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out.” 44 11:44The man who had died came out, his hands and feet bound with linen strips, and his face wrapped with a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Unbind him, and let him go.”
Death is the most fearful enemy we face. It is final. It hurts because we love people, and when they die we are robbed of their lives. The more someone has sacrificed for us, the more we love them. The more we have sacrificed for someone, the more dear they are to us. In John 11, Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead, showing his empathy with those who suffer the ravages of death, as well as his power to defeat it.
Often the turning points in John’s Gospel are marked not only by changes in time, place, and people involved but also by statements that people saw and heard Jesus or perceived that he was doing signs and therefore believed (cf. 1:49–51; 2:11, 23–25; 4:53–54; 10:40–42; 11:47–48; 12:18–19, 37, 42).
John seems to have carefully structured the narratives between the resurrection frame in chapters 5 and 11. At the time of the Passover in chapter 6, Jesus told his people that he would feed them the true manna from heaven. Then, at the Feast of Dedication in chapter 10, Jesus explained that he was the Good Shepherd. Within the shepherding narratives in chapters 6 and 10, chapters 7–9 present three episodes at the Feast of Tabernacles: Jesus claimed to fulfill the rock from which the water flowed (7:1–52); he claimed to fulfill the pillar of cloud and flame as the “light of the world” (8:12–59); and he gave sight to the blind (9:1–41).
John mentions Mary’s anointing the feet of Jesus and wiping them with her hair (11:2). Since he will not narrate that event until 12:1–8, John seems to assume his audience would be familiar with that episode from the accounts of it in the other Gospels (Matt. 26:6–13; Mark 14:3–9).
For the first time in John’s Gospel, we read of Jesus’ loving people. Surprisingly, there is no mention of love in John 1:1–18. God loved the world (3:16). People loved darkness (3:19). The Father loves the Son (3:35; 5:20; 10:17). Those who have God as their Father love Jesus (8:42). Now in 11:3, however, Lazarus is identified as a man Jesus loves, and in verse 5 we are told, “Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus” (cf. v. 36).
Jesus responds to the news that Lazarus is ill (v. 4) in a manner reminiscent of his response to the question concerning the man born blind in 9:3. The similarity between these accounts suggests that all afflictions are “that the works of God might be displayed” (9:3)—indeed, that all deaths are “for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified” (11:4).
An objection could be raised to the assertion that all affliction and death serve these purposes. It could be claimed that the cases in chapters 9 and 11 are different, because Jesus gave the blind man sight and raised Lazarus from the dead. How can other afflictions display God’s works, how can other deaths glorify Jesus, when those suffering have been neither healed nor raised? One answer lies in the fact that the healing of the blind man signals the removal of blindness in the age to come. The raising of Lazarus placards the resurrection of the righteous for the eternal reign of Christ. As Paul wrote in Romans 8:24–25, “In this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.” God and Christ mean to be glorified through affliction, illness, and death.
What Jesus does in this episode seems calculated to teach his followers to wait and hope, to trust him as he lets them linger on the tenterhooks of life. Consider the connection between John 11:5 and verse 6: Jesus loved them, so when he heard, he waited; Jesus loved them, so he left them in the lurch. The sisters will each say that if Jesus had been there, Lazarus would not have died (vv. 21, 32), but Jesus has already explained himself in verse 4. Jesus is not going to leave those he loves in a lasting lurch, but he will leave them there for a time in order to lengthen the lasting glory he means to lavish upon them.
The wording of verses 6–7 is similar to that of 4:40, 43. In both accounts Jesus remains two days, after which he goes and raises up the sick. By referencing the attempt to stone Jesus at the Feast of Dedication in 11:8 (cf. 10:31), John places the raising of Lazarus between the Feast of Dedication in December and the Feast of Passover in March/April (cf. 11:54–55).
Jesus answers his disciples’ concern of his being in danger (v. 8) with a statement that there are twelve daylight hours in which a man can see clearly to walk, while those who walk in darkness stumble (vv. 9–10). This recalls what Jesus said in 9:4–5, where he asserted himself to be the “light of the world,” saying that he would be that light as long as he was in the world, and explaining that night was coming. Informed by 9:4–5, what Jesus says in 11:9–10 seems to mean that Jesus is confident that his opponents can do nothing to him until the “day” (the appointed time of his ministry) ends and the “night” (the time after the “light of the world” leaves the world) comes.
11:11–16 That We May Die with Him. In verses 11–13 we have yet another misunderstanding: Jesus says Lazarus has fallen asleep and that he is going to wake him. No one has told Jesus this, so clearly he is able to know things of which he has not been informed. The disciples’ response in verse 12 is explained in verse 13: they thought Jesus spoke of “the sleep of slumber” (AT), but in fact he had spoken of the death of Lazarus.
Jesus clarifies his meaning in verses 14–15, explaining that he is glad he was not there when Lazarus died because what he plans to do will benefit the disciples, giving them the opportunity to believe in response to what he will do. The words of Thomas in verse 16 (“Let us also go, that we may die with him”) seem pessimistic, but John likely meant for this to be heard by his audience as a suggestive, thought-provoking statement.
Thomas may mean that Jesus will surely be stoned (v. 8), so the disciples might as well go with Jesus to die with him. Or perhaps Thomas means that Lazarus has died, and going to the region of Jerusalem will result in the death of Jesus and the disciples, so they will all die with Lazarus. Either way, the statement takes on deeper implications in view of what Jesus will do in the rest of this passage and in the rest of the Gospel.
To die with Jesus is to rise with Jesus. If Thomas has the death of Jesus in view, then even if he is speaking pessimistically, the disciples are called to take up their crosses and follow Jesus (cf. Mark 8:34). If, on the other hand, Thomas has the death of Lazarus in view, then to die with Lazarus is to die with one who will be raised from the dead by Jesus. Thomas thus ironically makes a statement concerning the disciples’ being identified with Jesus and raised from the dead with him. The only way to have eternal life with Jesus is to be ready to die with him.
11:17–27 The Resurrection and the Life. Apparently Jesus was “across the Jordan . . . where John had been baptizing at first” (10:40; cf. 1:28) when Mary and Martha sent the message to him that Lazarus was sick (11:3). If Lazarus died the day the message was sent and Jesus waited two days after receiving the message, then when he arrived on the third day, Lazarus could have “already been in the tomb four days” (v. 17).
Unlike the “Bethany across the Jordan” where John was baptizing (1:28), the Bethany of Mary and Martha was but two miles from Jerusalem (11:18). The proximity of Jerusalem meant many mourners could make the trip (v. 19), and when Martha heard of the approach of Jesus, she left the crowd and went to him, Mary staying in the house (v. 20). Given the fact that Lazarus had likely died by the time the message that he was ill had made its way to Jesus, there may not be a reproach in Martha’s statement that if Jesus had been there, Lazarus would have lived (v. 21). In keeping with verse 22, Martha seems to be communicating her utter confidence that Jesus could have healed Lazarus. In view of her reaction in verse 39, however, verse 22 should not be taken to indicate that she expects Jesus to raise Lazarus right away.
Along these lines, when Jesus tells Martha that Lazarus will rise (v. 23), her response indicates that she expects Lazarus to be raised when everyone else will be raised, “on the last day” (v. 24). Jesus then speaks words that not only affirm a resurrection on the last day but also assert that he himself is the resurrection and the life (vv. 25–26).
What does it mean for Jesus to be the resurrection and the life? The other “I am” statements Jesus makes in John can help us understand this one. When Jesus called himself the “bread of life” (6:35), he presented himself as the fulfillment of the manna from heaven in the wilderness. Anticipating the way he would transfer to himself at the Last Supper the spiritual significance of the unleavened bread of Passover, Jesus asserted himself to be what God’s people would subsist on after the new exodus as they journeyed to the new heaven and new earth.
Similarly, when Jesus called himself the “light of the world” (8:12), he presented himself as the fulfillment of the pillar of fire and cloud that would lead God’s people to the Land of Promise. And when he baldly declared, “I am” (8:24, 28, 58), Jesus identified himself with the one who appeared to Moses at the burning bush to initiate the exodus from Egypt. In keeping with these fulfillments of OT pattern and prophecy, when Jesus called himself the “good shepherd” (10:11), he presented himself as the fulfillment of the prophesied new Moses, the new Davidic leader who would shepherd God’s flock.
The resurrection was also part of the prophesied picture of Israel’s restoration. Hosea 6:2 and Ezekiel 37 depict the return to the Land of Promise after the exile as resurrection from the dead. Jesus now asserts that he himself is the fulfillment of the promised resurrection from the dead. He has life in himself (John 1:4; 5:26), and as such he himself is the resurrection.
Believing in Jesus is the means by which people are joined to his resurrection life. To believe in Jesus is to be plugged into the life that guarantees resurrection. To believe in Jesus is to be united to the one who has life in himself, the one whom death cannot keep down. Those who believe in Jesus may experience physical death, but it will not be permanent, and those who believe will not undergo the second death (cf. Rev. 20:6). This is what Jesus means in John 11:26 when he says that those who believe in him will never die.
From what takes place in the rest of this narrative, we see that Martha did not comprehend all of these glories. Jesus asks her if she believes (v. 26), and she affirms that he is “the Christ, the Son of God, who is coming into the world” (v. 27). This affirmation means she believes Jesus to have been preexistent, to have been expected, to have descended from David, to be uniquely God’s Son. But from her reaction in verse 39 we see that she has not worked out all that Jesus meant in verses 25–26. Jesus has explained this in greater depth in 5:19–30, and he will illustrate his words in what he will go on to do.
11:28–37 The Weeping Christ. Taking Martha at her word in 11:28 would lead to the conclusion that John has not recorded every word that passed between Jesus and Martha, something to keep in mind as we read the Gospels. Whereas Martha left the crowd to go to Jesus in verse 20, when Mary rises from the house at Martha’s words, others intend to go with her (vv. 29–31). Martha and Mary spoke virtually the same words to Jesus (vv. 21, 32), but whereas Martha went to Jesus and spoke to him, John notes that Mary “fell at his feet” (v. 32). From what we see of these sisters here and elsewhere (cf. Luke 10:38–42), it appears that Martha was more expeditious and businesslike while Mary was more emotional and contemplative.
If the truths of John 11:33–36 were not recorded in Scripture, we could draw mistaken conclusions about Jesus. We could be tempted to think this whole scenario was a setup. We could coldly conclude that the events had been arranged for the glory of God (v. 4), that Jesus waited for Lazarus to die to increase dramatic tension (v. 6), that all of this was carefully stage-managed for Jesus to show off his power. There is a grain of truth in these statements, but insofar as they imply an unloving puppet-master using people, they are dead wrong.
Sometimes we are tempted to think that God does not care, that Jesus does not care. We could wrongly apply the knowledge of God’s sovereignty as follows: God has foreordained these events for our good, so we cannot let them bother us. We must stay above the flow, must be emotionally aloof, because everything is going to turn out for God’s glory. This way of thinking is a bad application of the knowledge of God to our own lives, and often we project our own coldness onto God himself, as if the fact that God has written the end of the story has made him emotionally uninterested in the plot or characters.
That is not at all how the Bible presents God. From the earliest pages we read that God is emotionally involved in the narrative of history and that he cares about his created beings (Gen. 6:6–7), and throughout the Bible we see the same thing. Here in John 11 we see that Jesus loved Martha, Mary, and Lazarus (v. 5). The fact that Jesus knows exactly what is going to happen does not keep him from reacting emotionally to the facts of death and pain. Jesus knows he is going to raise Lazarus from the dead (vv. 11, 23). That does not make him cold to the realities involved.
Sin is awful, and death is its terrible consequence. The woe and misery of death troubles Jesus (v. 33). He is no heartless judge, withdrawn from the pain people feel, clucking that they got what they deserved. John tells us that Jesus was “deeply moved” and “greatly troubled” and that he wept (vv. 33, 35). No one knows better than Jesus what is going to happen in this episode. No one is better at mourning with those who mourn than Jesus. Jesus loves people, so he weeps with them, and over them.
11:38–44 Lazarus, Come Forth. When Elijah and Elisha raised people from the dead (1 Kings 17:17–24; 2 Kings 4:18–37), Scripture indicates that only a short interval of time had passed between death and resurrection. Lazarus, by contrast, “has been dead four days” (John 11:39).
John again describes Jesus as “deeply moved” (v. 38) and then describes the tomb with a stone in front of it, a scene surely very familiar to John’s readers as they recalled the stone rolled in front of the tomb of Jesus (cf. Matt. 27:60). Both tombs will have their contents emptied.
Jesus gives the word for the stone to be removed (John 11:39), and again we see a misunderstanding. It appears from her reaction that Martha thinks Jesus wants only to weep over the body of Lazarus. When Jesus replies to Martha in verse 40, we get another indication that he has said more to her than John recorded (cf. vv. 21–27). Jesus has asserted that the illness of Lazarus was for God’s glory (v. 4), and now in verse 40 he reminds Martha that he told her that if she believed, she would see the glory of God. When Jesus speaks of God’s glory, he means that death will be overcome, a beloved brother and friend will be restored to life, and Jesus will be seen as one who loves and is able to help.
The relationship between Jesus and his people is not a sham enacted to give Jesus opportunities to show off. Jesus loves his people and weeps with them and for them (vv. 5, 33, 35, 38). Nor is the relationship between Jesus and the Father a bogus pretense. Jesus prays to the Father in verses 41–42, and his words do not reflect a mindless going-through-the-motions but rather afford a glimpse into a vital ongoing relationship. Jesus simply communicates aloud what is constantly passing between himself and the Father.
Jesus next commands Lazarus to “come out” (v. 43), and in doing so the voice through which the worlds were made, by which babies are knitted together in their mothers’ wombs, by which all things hold together, by which everyone will be judged, cries out words that will roll back the deepest, darkest curse we know: by his word he made the world, and by his word he undoes death.
Lazarus comes out, and Jesus gives the command: “Unbind him, and let him go” (v. 44).
1 Greek he; also verse 17
2 Greek Didymus
3 Greek fifteen stadia; a stadion was about 607 feet or 185 meters
4 Some manuscripts omit and the life
5 Or was indignant; also verse 38