25 Jesus said to her, “I am The Resurrection and The Life; the one believing in Me, even if he should die will live, 26 and everyone living and believing in Me never dies into the age. Do you believe this?” John 11:25-26 (translated from the NA28 Greek text)
In this post we will look at our Lord’s final and ultimate messianic sign. John also bluntly contrasted our Lord’s spectacular, uncontested miracle with the evil intent of the Jewish religious leaders who resolved to arrest Jesus and kill not only Him, but Lazarus whom our Lord raised from the dead. John also reveals their self-centered motivations for this later in John 11:45-57. In this post we will look at John 11:1-44.
1 Now a certain main was sick, Lazarus from Bethany, of the village of Mary and of Martha her sister. 2 It was Mary who was the one who anointed The Lord with ointment and wiped His feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was sick. 3 Therefore, the sisters sent to Him saying, “Lord, look, the one whom you love is sick. 4 ” Having heard this, Jesus said, “This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God that the Son may be glorified through it.” John 11:1-4 (translated from the NA28 Greek text)
Every time I read these verses I am reminded of John 9:1-41 in which our Lord is glorified by God as His works are manifested through the healing of a man born blind. Here, a man who is loved becomes ill it is feared that he is going to die. They send for our Lord to heal him, but what does He say? He says, “This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God that the Son may be glorified through it.” The way the Greek grammar is structured here it is clear that our Lord was saying that the end result of this sickness was not going to be Lazarus’ death.