14  Jesus’ Power over Death  (Luke 7:11–17)

Soon afterwards He went to a city called Nain; and His disciples were going along with Him, accompanied by a large crowd. Now as He approached the gate of the city, a dead man was being carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow; and a sizeable crowd from the city was with her. When the Lord saw her, He felt compassion for her, and said to her, “Do not weep.” And He came up and touched the coffin; and the bearers came to a halt. And He said, “Young man, I say to you, arise!” The dead man sat up and began to speak. And Jesus gave him back to his mother. Fear gripped them all, and they began glorifying God, saying, “A great prophet has arisen among us!” and, “God has visited His people!” This report concerning Him went out all over Judea and in all the surrounding district. (7:11–17)

Without question, Jesus Christ is the most well-known person in human history. All the world’s major civilizations know something of Him; only isolated people groups and individuals are unaware of Him. But paradoxically, while Jesus is history’s most well-known figure, He is at the same time its least known. For while most are familiar with His name and some of the facts of His life and His influence through history, few understand who He truly is. Opinions concerning Jesus Christ are diverse, and wrong views about Him abound. Islam views Him as simply a prophet, who in fact did not die on the cross; in the Mormon pantheon Jesus is a created being, the spirit brother of Satan; to the Jehovah’s Witnesses He is Michael the archangel incarnate; blasphemous rock musicals portray Him as a countercultural hero, but just a man; pseudo-scholars reinvent Him as a cynical philosopher, social critic, politically correct sage, liberator of the oppressed, and misguided martyr. The list of errant views goes on ad infinitum, ad nauseam.

But while there are a myriad of satanically-spawned false views of Jesus, there is only one correct one revealed in Scripture. Peter articulated it when he declared, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” (Matt. 16:16), and Thomas affirmed it when he exclaimed, “My Lord and my God!” (John 20:28). Jesus Christ is God the Son, the second person of the Trinity incarnate, and for those who reject that truth there can be no salvation. As Jesus solemnly warned the scoffing, unbelieving Jews, “Unless you believe that I am He [God; cf. Ex. 3:14], you will die in your sins” (John 8:24; cf. v. 58; 5:18; 10:30–33). Those who preach a false Christ (2 Cor. 11:4) are cursed; devoted to eternal destruction in hell (1 Cor. 16:22; Gal. 1:8–9). The deity of the Lord Jesus Christ is the foundational truth of the Christian faith.

While “no one has seen God at any time” Jesus Christ, “the only begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him” (John 1:18). “Explained” translates a form of the verb exēgeomai, the source of the English word “exegesis” (the method and practice of interpreting Scripture). Only Jesus can interpret God to man, since “no one knows the Son except the Father; nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son wills to reveal Him” (Matt. 11:27). When even His disciples failed to grasp that truth, Jesus rebuked them for their obtuseness:

As noted in chapter 9 of this volume, as Luke unfolds the history of Jesus’ life and ministry, he (like the other gospel writers) continually demonstrates His deity and absolute equality of nature with God. This passage is one of many occasions when Jesus manifested His deity—this time by raising a young man from the dead. The passage reveals three implicit evidences of Christ’s deity, followed by one explicit and undeniable one, and concludes by reporting the response of those who witnessed the miracle.

DIVINE PURPOSE

Soon afterwards He went to a city called Nain; and His disciples were going along with Him, accompanied by a large crowd. (7:11)

The phrase soon afterwards points back to the healing of the centurion’s servant recorded in the previous passage (7:1–10). It is an indefinite time designation, but suggests an interval of a few days at most. Nain was a tiny village about twenty miles southwest of Capernaum, and six miles southeast of Jesus’ hometown of Nazareth. On the other side of the hill on which Nain stood was the village of Shunem, where Elisha raised a young boy from the dead (2 Kings 4:8–37). About three miles away was the village of Endor, where Saul visited a medium (1 Sam. 28:7–25). Jesus, along with His disciples and accompanied by a large crowd, made the full day’s journey from Capernaum to this small, nondescript town.

God always acts with a fixed purpose, never whimsically, and there are no unexpected contingencies or coincidences for Him. The sovereign plan of God is settled, unchanging, and infallibly brought to fulfillment. In Isaiah 46:9–10 God declared, “I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is no one like Me, declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times things which have not been done, saying, ‘My purpose will be established, and I will accomplish all My good pleasure.’“ In Isaiah 55:11 He added, “My word … which goes forth from My mouth … will not return to Me empty, without accomplishing what I desire, and without succeeding in the matter for which I sent it.”

As God incarnate, Jesus also acted with unalterable resolve to accomplish divine purposes. On His way from Judea to Galilee, Jesus “had to pass through Samaria” (John 4:4). He had a divinely predetermined appointment with a Samaritan woman, whose sinful lifestyle He would expose, to whom He would reveal His messiahship, and through whose testimony of faith in Him would lead many in her village to believe in Him (vv. 5–42). He knew the divine timetable for His death, resurrection, and ascension, so “when the days were approaching for His ascension, He was determined to go to Jerusalem” (Luke 9:51). In Luke 13:33 He reaffirmed His determination to follow the divine timetable when He said, “Nevertheless I must journey on today and tomorrow and the next day; for it cannot be that a prophet would perish outside of Jerusalem.” Jesusknew precisely where and when His death was ordained in the plan of God to take place.

One of the blasphemous ideas espoused by some who falsely call themselves evangelicals is Open Theism. According to that view, God neither infallibly knows nor sovereignly plans the future. Jesus, however, not only knew the future, but acted to make certain that God’s purposes unfolded exactly as planned.

Circumstances that perhaps had not yet happened when Jesus and His entourage began the day’s journey from Capernaum to Nain would be in place to set up an amazing display of Jesus’ divine power. When they set out neither the apostles, the rest of Jesus’ disciples, nor the thrill seeking crowd knew why they were going to Nain, or what they would see when they got there. In fact, the young man may not yet have died, since Jewish custom dictated that the funeral and burial take place soon after death. But Jesus did know, and made this journey to an “off the beaten path” village because it was God’s plan that He encounter a funeral procession there.

DIVINE PROVIDENCE

Now as He approached the gate of the city, a dead man was being carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow; and a sizeable crowd from the city was with her. (7:12)

God’s superintending control over all human choices, actions, and events to effect His predetermined purposes is known as His providence. Unlike a miracle, when God supernaturally interrupts or suspends the natural course of events, His providence involves perfectly controlling natural events to infallibly bring about His purposes. Given the staggering complexities involved in coordinating even relatively simple events, God’s providence is in some ways even more awe inspiring than the miracles He performs.

God’s providential control over events flows directly from His sovereign authority, omnipotence, and omniscience. “The mind of man plans his way,” says Proverbs 16:9, “but the Lord directs his steps,” while verse 33 adds another illustration: “The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the Lord.” Proverbs 21:1 reveals that God’s providential control over human events extends to rulers: “The king’s heart is like channels of water in the hand of the Lord; He turns it wherever He wishes.” One example is Cyrus, ruler of the Persian empire:

Though God is not the author of evil (Hab. 1:13), even calamities are under His control, as the prophet Amos notes: “If a calamity occurs in a city has not the Lord done it?” (Amos 3:6). It was one such calamity, whose events God sovereignly ordained in keeping with His purposes, that is the subject of this passage.

Although a village the size of Nain probably would not have had a wall around it, Nain did have a gate. Located at the head of the main street, the gate served as a point of entrance for the city: It was also the place where people gathered to socialize, and where the elders met to adjudicate matters (cf. Deut. 25:7–10; Ruth 4:1–11; Isa. 29:21). In God’s providential timing, Jesus and His entourage approached the gate of the city after their journey from Capernaum just as a dead man was being carried out. The funeral was over, and the people were removing the corpse on a bier or stretcher to the burial site outside of town.

Heightening the pathos of this funeral was the reality that the dead man was the only son of his mother (cf. 8:42; 9:38). Making the tragic loss even worse, she was a widow. Already bereft of her husband, she had with the death of her son lost her last means of support. His passing also marked the end of the family line. The death of an only son symbolized the epitome of grief in the Old Testament. Jeremiah 6:26 exhorted Israel to “mourn as for an only son, a lamentation most bitter.” In Amos 8:10 God warned of a coming judgment on Israel that would be “like a time of mourning for an only son, and the end of it will be like a bitter day” Zechariah 12:10 likens Israel’s future mourning over her rejection of Jesus Christ to that for the death of an only son:

This woman and her son’s bier were at the head of a sizeable crowd from the city that made up the funeral procession. It would have included the friends and loved ones of the bereaved family, others from the village, and the musicians and professional wailing women that were part of every Jewish burial. This saddest of all sad scenes in Jewish familylife set the stage for the Lord of heaven to reveal Himself in divine power.

DIVINE COMPASSION

When the Lord saw her, He felt compassion for her, and said to her, “Do not weep.” (7:13)

Surveying the sad, chaotic scene, the Lord’s heart went out to the widow and He felt compassion for her. Compassion translates a form of the verb splagchnizomai, which is related to a noun that describes the inner parts of the body Like the modern use of “heart” or “gut,” the inward parts of the body were viewed figuratively as the seat of the emotions due to the physical effects such emotions have on the body

One of the most perverse misinterpretations of Scripture is the idea that the God of the Old Testament is angry wrathful, and vengeful, while the Lord Jesus Christ is meek, compassionate, and loving. But the Old Testament reveals God’s compassion, grace, and mercy while in the New Testament Christ cleansed the temple (Matt. 21:12–13; John 2:13–17), warned of eternal damnation in hell (Matt. 5:22, 29, 30; 18:9; 23:33; 25:41; John 8:24), was angry at sin (Mark 3:5), and warned His hearers,

In contrast to the false deities of other religions, it is the nature of the true and living God to feel compassion for suffering sinners. Even after giving His law and judging the idolaters who made the golden calf, He told Moses, “I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show compassion on whom I will show compassion” (Ex. 33:19), and later described Himself as

According to Psalm 103:8, “The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in lovingkindness,” while Psalm 116:5 exults, “Gracious is the Lord, and righteous; yes, our God is compassionate” (cf. Deut. 4:31;2 Chron. 30:9; Neh.9:17, 31; Ps. 111:4; Lam.3:22; Joel 2:13; Jonah 4:2). God’s compassion caused Him to deliver His people when “He could bear the misery of Israel no longer” (Judg. 10:16);“He, being compassionate, forgave their iniquity and did not destroy them; and often He restrained His anger and did not arouse all His wrath”(Ps. 78:38).

The New Testament portrays the Lord Jesus Christ as a “merciful and faithful high priest” (Heb. 2:17). He was not “a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin” (Heb. 4:15). He repeatedly felt compassion for lost, suffering sinners (cf.Matt. 9:36; 14:14; 15:32; 20:34; Mark 1:41). It was His compassion that prompted the Lord, true to His nature as merciful, to comfort this devastated woman, and say to her reassuringly, “Do not weep.”

DIVINE POWER

And He came up and touched the coffin; and the bearers came to a halt. And He said, “Young man, I say to you, arise!” The dead man sat up and began to speak. And Jesus gave him back to his mother. (7:14–15)

Christ’s acting with divine purpose, providential arranging of contingencies to bring about God’s plan, and compassion for those who suffer all lead to the conclusion that He is God. His stunning display of power, however, directly demonstrates His deity.

That Jesus came up and touched the coffin reveals His power over sin. According to Numbers 19:11–22, anyone who touched a dead person or anything associated with that person became ceremonially unclean. But Jesus, as holy God incarnate, was not defiled by touching the dead man’s coffin (or stretcher); He remained “holy innocent, undefiled, separated from sinners and exalted above the heavens”(Heb. 7:26).

This incident also reveals Jesus’ power over people. Normally, attempting to halt a funeral procession and touching the corpse would have produced outrage, and the person who did so might even have been physically attacked by the angry mourners. But because of the Lord’s commanding, authoritative presence, the bearers came to a halt.

But most significant, Jesus demonstrated His power over death. As the creator (John 1:3) whose spoken word called the universe into existence (Ps. 33:6, 9), He merely said, “Young man, I say to you, arise!” (cf. 8:54–55; John 11:43). At that moment life surged into thedead man’s body—just as it will for all the dead on that day when “all who are in the tombs will hear His voice, and will come forth; those who did the good deeds to a resurrection of life, those who committed the evil deeds to a resurrection of judgment”(John 5:28–29).

It should be noted that since no one asked Jesus to raise the dead man, this miracle was not contingent on anyone’s faith. Faith is not a prerequisite for God’s power to operate; God sovereignly activates His power in accordance with His will. Some of Jesus’ healings involved faith, others did not. But to view human faith as the operative principle instead of God’s sovereign will is an egregious, even blasphemous error. Faith was always present in salvation, but not all miracles.

At Jesus’ command the dead man sat up and began to speak. As was always the case, Jesus healed instantly and completely. There was no prolonged period of post-resurrection therapy for this man. He was immediately restored to full strength, and Jesus gave him back to his mother.

THE RESPONSE

Fear gripped them all, and they began glorifying God, saying, “A great prophet has arisen among us!” and, “God has visited His people!” This report concerning Him went out all over Judea and in all the surrounding district. (7:16–17)

Needless to say, the raising of the dead man brought an abrupt, unexpected, and shocking end to the funeral. Fear (phobos; the source of the English word “phobia”) gripped … all who had witnessed it. They were traumatized, overwhelmed with terror at the manifestation of God’s presence and power (cf. Ex. 3:6; Judg. 13:20–22; Isa. 6:5; Ezek. 1:28; Matt. 17:1–6; Mark 4:41; Rev. 1:17). In response, they began glorifying God (cf.2:13–14, 20; 5:26; 13:13; 17:18; 18:43), and affirming that God had visited His people. In the Old Testament, that phrase refers to God’s coming to help His people (Ruth 1:6; 1 Sam. 2:21; Ps. 106:4; Zech. 10:3; cf. Luke 1:68, 78).The people of Israel had been longing for such a visitation for four centuries, during which time God had been silent. Now they realized that God had indeed visited them, for only the creator can give life to the dead.

The point of the miracle was to comfort this brokenhearted woman, not to garner publicity for Jesus. Nevertheless this report (that God had visited His people) concerning Him went out far (all over Judea; representing here the entire land of Israel) and near (all the surrounding district around Nain).

But the sad reality is that they missed the point that God was actually present in the person of Jesus Christ. To them, He was nothing more than a great prophet who had arisen among them, like Elijah and Elisha, both of whom raised a dead person by the power of God (1 Kings 17:17–24; 2 Kings 4:18–36). Unlike the resurrections performed by Jesus, however, those resurrections were not a result of the prophets’ own power, but came in answer to the prophets’ prayers (1 Kings 17:20–22; 2 Kings 4:33). They failed to see the truth that Jesus was the ultimate prophet of whom Moses spoke in Deuteronomy 18:15–18—the Messiah, God in human flesh.

At the close of His earthly ministry, Jesus lamented the opportunity Israel had missed by failing to recognize who He truly is:

As a result of Israel’s rejection, God took “from among the Gentiles a people for His name” (Acts 15:14), while Israel remains largely spiritually blind (Rom. 10:1–3; 2 Cor. 3:15).

In contrast to those who witnessed the resurrection at Nain that day, Martha, Lazarus’s sister, understood the implication of her brother’s imminent resurrection. After Jesus declared, “I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me will live even if he dies, and everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die” He asked her, “Do you believe this?” (John 11:25–26). Martha affirmed her conviction that He was indeed the Messiah: “Yes, Lord; I have believed that You are the Christ, the Son of God, even He who comes into the world”(v.27).

That alone is the correct view of Jesus Christ, that He is God the Son, the second person of the Trinity incarnate, who came to earth “to give His life a ransom for many” (Matt. 20:28) and “save His people from their sins” (Matt. 1:21), who “was delivered over because of our transgressions, and was raised because of our justification” (Rom. 4:25). Those who reject that truth will die in their sins (John 8:24), for “there is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12).