We come now to the testimony which the Father renders to Jesus in answer to
His rejection. In this chapter the power of resurrection and of life in His
own Person are presented to faith.
[see note #40]
But here it is not simply that He is rejected: man is looked upon as dead,
and Israel also. For it is man in the person of Lazarus. This family was
blessed; it received the Lord into its bosom. Lazarus falls sick. All the
Lord's human affections would be naturally concerned. Martha and Mary feel
this; and they send Him word that he whom He loved was sick. But Jesus
stays where He is. He might have said the word, as in the case of the
centurion, and of the sick child at the beginning of this Gospel. But He
did not. He had manifested His power and His goodness in healing man as he
is found on earth, and delivering him from the enemy, and that in the midst
of Israel. But this was not His object here-far from it-or the limits of
what He was come to do. It was a question of bestowing life, or raising up
again that which was dead before God. This was the real state of Israel; it
was the state of man. Therefore He allows the condition of man under sin to
go on and manifest itself in all the intensity of its effects down here,
and permits the enemy to exercise his power to the end. Nothing remained
but the judgment of God; and death, in itself, convicted man of sin while
conducting him to judgment. The sick may be healed-there is no remedy for
death. All is over for man, as man here below. Nothing remains but the
judgment of God. It is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the
judgment. The Lord therefore does not heal in this instance. He allows the
evil to go on to the end-to death. That was the true place of man. Lazarus
once fallen asleep, He goes to awaken him. The disciples fear the Jews, and
with reason. But the Lord, having waited for His Father's will, does not
fear to accomplish it. It was day to Him.
In fact, whatever might be His love for the nation, He must needs let it
die (indeed it was dead), and wait for the time appointed by God to raise
it up again. If He must die Himself to accomplish it, He commits Himself to
His Father.
But let us follow out the depths of this doctrine. Death has come in; it
must take effect. Man is really in death before God; but God in grace comes
in. Two things are presented in our history. He might have healed. The
faith and hope of neither Martha, Mary, nor the Jews, went any farther.
Only Martha acknowledges that, as the Messiah, favoured of God, He would
obtain from Him whatsoever He asked. But He had not prevented the death of
Lazarus. He had done so many times, even for strangers, for whosoever
desired it. In the second place, Martha knew that her brother would rise
again at the last day; but true as it was, this truth availed nothing. Who
would answer for man, dead through judgment on sin? To rise again and
appear before God was not an answer to death come in by sin. The two things
were true. Christ had often delivered mortal man from his sufferings in
flesh, and there shall be a resurrection at the last day. But these things
were of no value in the presence of death. Christ was, however, there; and
He is, thanks be to God! the resurrection and the life. Man being dead,
resurrection comes first. But Jesus is the resurrection and the life in the
present power of a divine life. And observe that life, coming by
resurrection, delivers from all that death implies, and leaves it behind
[see note #41]
sin, death, all that belongs to the life that man has lost. Christ, having
died for our sins, has borne their punishment-has borne them. He has died.
All the power of the enemy, all its effect on mortal man, all the judgment
of God, He has borne it all, and has come up from it, in the power of a new
life in resurrection, which is imparted to us; so that we are in spirit
alive from among the dead, as He is alive from among the dead. Sin (as made
sin, and bearing our sins in His own body on the tree), death, Satan's
power, God's judgment, are all past through and left behind, and man is in
a wholly new state, in incorruption. It will be true of us, if we die (for
we shall not all die), as to the body, or, being changed, if we do not die.
But in the communication of His life who is risen from the dead, God has
quickened us with Him, having forgiven us all our trespasses.
Jesus here manifested His own divine power to this effect; the Son of God
was glorified in it, for we know He had not yet died for sin; but it was
this same power in Him that was manifested.
[see note #42]
The believer, even if he were dead, shall rise again; and the living who
believe in Him shall not die. Christ has overcome death; the power for this
was in His Person, and the Father bore Him witness of it. Are any that are
His alive when the Lord exercises this power? They will never die-death
exists no more in His presence. Have any died before He exercises it? They
shall live-death cannot subsist before Him. All the effect of sin upon man
is completely destroyed by resurrection, viewed as the power of life in
Christ. This refers of course to the saints, to whom life is communicated.
The same divine power is, of course, exercised as to the wicked; but it is
not the communication of life from Christ, nor being raised with Him, as is
evident.
[see note #43]
Christ exercised this power in obedience and in dependence on His Father,
because He was man, walking before God to do His will; but He is the
resurrection and the life. He has brought the power of divine life into the
midst of death; and death is annihilated by it, for in life death is no
more. Death was the end of natural life to sinful man. Resurrection is the
end of death, which has thus no longer anything in us. It is our advantage
that, having done all it could do, it is finished. We live in the life
[see note #44]
that put an end to it. We come out from all that could be connected with a
life that no longer exists. What a deliverance! Christ is this power. He
became this for us in its full display and exercise in His resurrection.
Martha, while loving Him and believing in Him, does not understand this;
and she calls Mary, feeling that her sister would better understand the
Lord. We will speak a little of these two presently. Mary, who waited for
the Lord's own calling her to Him, modestly though sorrowfully leaving the
initiative with Him, believing thus that the Lord had called her, goes to
Him directly. Jews and Martha and Mary all had seen miracles and healings
that had arrested the power of death. To this they all refer. But here life
had passed away. What now could help? If He had been there, His love and
power they could have counted on. Mary falls down at His feet weeping. On
the point of resurrection power she understood no more than Martha; but her
heart is melted under the sense of death in the presence of Him who had
life. It is an expression of need and sorrow rather than a complaint that
she utters. The Jews also weep: the power of death was on their hearts.
Jesus enters into it in sympathy. He was troubled in spirit. He sighs
before God, He weeps with man; but His tears turn into a groan, which was,
though inarticulate, the weight of death, felt in sympathy, and presented
to God by this groan of love which fully realised the truth; and that in
love to those who were suffering the ill that His groan expressed.
He bore death before God in His spirit as the misery of man-the yoke from
which man could not deliver himself, and He is heard. The need brings His
power into action. It was not His part now patiently to explain to Martha
what He was. He feels and acts upon the need to which Mary had given
expression, her heart being opened by the grace that was in Him.
Man may sympathise: it is the expression of his powerlessness. Jesus enters
into the affliction of mortal man, puts Himself under the burden of death
that weighs upon man (and that more thoroughly than man himself can do),
but He takes it away with its cause. He does more than take it away; He
brings in the power that is able to take it away. This is the glory of God.
When Christ is present, if we die, we do not die for death, but for life:
we die that we may live in the life of God, instead of in the life of man.
And wherefore? That the Son of God may be glorified. Death came in by sin;
and man is under the power of death. But this has only given room for our
possessing life according to the second Adam, the Son of God, and not
according to the first Adam, the sinful man. This is grace. God is
glorified in this work of grace, and it is the Son of God whose glory
shines brightly forth in this divine work.
And, observe, that this is not grace offered in testimony, it is the
exercise of the power of life. Corruption itself is no hindrance to God.
Why did Christ come? To bring the words of eternal life to dead man. Now
Mary fed upon those words. Martha served-cumbered her heart with many
things. She believed, she loved Jesus, she received Him into her house: the
Lord loved her. Mary listened to Him: this was what He came for; and He had
justified her in it. The good part which she had chosen should not be taken
from her.
When the Lord arrives, Martha goes of her own accord to meet Him. She
withdraws when Jesus speaks to her of the present power of life. We are ill
at ease when, although Christians, we feel unable to apprehend the meaning
of the Lord's words, or of what His people say to us. Martha felt that this
was rather Mary's part than hers. She goes away and calls her sister,
saying, that the Master (He who taught-observe this name that she gives
Him) was come, and called for her. It was her own conscience that was to
her the voice of Christ. Mary instantly arises and comes to Him. She
understood no more than Martha. Her heart pours out its need at the feet of
Jesus, where she had heard His words and learnt His love and grace; and
Jesus asks the way to the grave. To Martha, ever occupied with
circumstances, her brother stank already.
Afterwards (Martha served, and Lazarus was present), Mary anoints the Lord,
in the instinctive sense of what was going on; for they were consulting to
put Him to death. Her heart, taught by love to the Lord, felt the enmity of
the Jews; and her affection, stimulated by deep gratitude, expends on Him
the most costly thing she had. Those present blame her; Jesus again takes
her part. It might not be reasonable, but she had apprehended His position.
What a lesson! What a blessed family was this at Bethany, in which the
heart of Jesus found (as far as could be on earth) a relief that His love
accepted! With what love have we to do! Alas, with what hatred! for we see
in this Gospel the dreadful opposition between man and God.
There is an interesting point to be observed here before we pass on. The
Holy Ghost has recorded an incident, in which the momentary but guilty
unbelief of Thomas was covered by the Lord's grace. It was needful to
relate it; but the Holy Ghost has taken care to shew us, that Thomas loved
the Lord, and was ready, at heart, to die with Him. We have other instances
of the same kind. Paul says, "Take Mark, and bring him with thee; for he is
profitable to me for the ministry." Poor Mark! this was necessary on
account of what took place at Perga. Barnabas also has the same place in
the apostle's affection and remembrance. We are weak: God does not hide it
from us; but He throws the testimony of His grace over the feeblest of His
servants.
But to continue. Caiaphas, the chief of the Jews, as high priest, proposes
the death of Jesus, because He had restored Lazarus to life. And from that
day they conspire against Him. Jesus yields to it. He came to give His life
a ransom for many. He goes on to fulfil the work His love had undertaken,
in accordance with His Father's will, whatever might be the devices and the
malice of men. The work of life and Or death, of Satan and of God, were
face to face. But the counsels of God were being accomplished in grace,
whatever the means might be. Jesus devotes Himself to the work by which
they were to be fulfilled. Having shewn the power of resurrection and of
life in Himself, He is again, when the time comes, quietly in the place to
which His service led Him; but He no longer goes in the same manner as
before into the temple. He goes thither indeed; but the question between
God and man was morally settled already.
