THE 8 MIRACLE-SIGNS IN JOHN . . . No.7
NO RESURRECTION LIFE John 11:1-16
Verse 47 refers back … This man does many SEMEION … miracle-signs
THE LAZARUS LESSON . . . A close-knit family — a brother and two sisters — that had a beautiful relationship with the Lord Jesus. He was very close them and loved each one very much. Lazarus (his name from the Hebrew, ELEAZAR means ‘God helps’) was a man with a good testimony and he came upon a weak time when he just didn’t see ‘God help him’. He found himself experiencing weakness which turned to sickness then to a desperate situation. Their only hope was to send for Jesus. The message gets through to Him (so don’t ever quit praying!).
Jesus was aware of Father’s will in every situation. Jesus always sought Father’s will in a matter, declares that ‘this weakness is not unto death, but for the glory of God . . .’ Because He knew, Jesus spoke it out with confidence. When one knows what God is doing or saying, one can move with assurance even though the action may not look good in the eyes of those who did not hear Father’s voice.
GOD’S TIMING — necessary with His teaching
Jesus now remains (2) days where He was — God’s timing versus our timing! - If we haven’t heard from God, it will look foolish but it is not. The disciples by this time would have been impatient to get going! Jesus said a comforting word, ‘Let us go . . . to the hard place’. He will never SEND you into a tough situation, He will be with you in it!
‘Judea’ . . . ‘Oh no Lord, not there! That was where they tried to stoneYou!’ Jesus was not afraid; He had died out to the preservation of the self-life and was walking in a divine relationship.
WALK IN THE ‘DAY’
Verse (9) is clarified when one understands that ‘to walk in the day’ means to walk and live in the revelation, wisdom and knowledge of God’s will; while to ‘walk in the night’ means to walk and exist with no understanding of what God is doing. Those that walk in the light do not stumble. Jesus, walking in the day, was therefore not concerned about any rock throwers; He would simply do His Father’s will. He was aware that Father had a lesson on ‘resurrection life’ for His disciples to learn. In verse (11) Jesus begins to unveil this teaching as He declares that ‘Lazarus sleeps’ (that was a word in the spirit and they missed it!). These words however were received into natural minds which produced a natural response, ‘If he sleeps, lets go and wake him up!’ (Oh how we have tried to wake up some sleepy Christians when what they needed was a vision of resurrection life!). Jesus patiently brought the spiritual word down to their reception-level. . . ‘Lazarus is dead . . .’ Then comes a shocker!!! ). . . ‘AND I AM GLAD’. Lazarus dies and Jesus is glad?
Jesus was glad for THEIR sakes that He was NOT there! Had He been with Lazarus by going immediately, Lazarus would have been healed and God’s priority teaching of His disciples would not have been carried out . . . and we today would not be getting the same lesson!
BELIEVE …
Jesus so wanted His disciples to BELIEVE! (v.15) Believe what ? (v.25) gives the answer; that Jesus IS THE RESURRECTION AND THE LIFE (that comes from it). Jesus was truly glad that His disciples (us) would learn this lesson. Initially Jesus said that He would be going to Lazarus . . . now He says in effect, ‘Let us go to him that is dead!’
THE REVELATION OF THOMAS
Thomas received a revelation of the lesson and voiced the response, ‘Let us go also that WE MAY DIE WITH HIM’. The ‘him’ of v.(15) is the same ‘him’ of v.(16) and refers to Lazarus. Thomas had insight — much loved Lazarus had died because Jesus didn’t go immediately to him — Jesus was glad FOR THEIR SAKES! Therefore what was going to happen in Judea was going to be mighty! Why go to Lazarus , the corpse? Why not aim to go to Mary and Martha who would need comforting? If Jesus was going to Lazarus, He had just one thing on His mind — RAISE HIM FROM THE DEAD! Yes!, that’s it! Oh to come into that state of not being influenced by the ‘world’ and then being raised from that death into a new dimension of life!
Yes, Yes, come guys, we need that release! Thomas’s mind exploded with the possibility. ‘Let us go that we may die with him’ . . . If we can die alongside Lazarus, then when Jesus raises Lazarus, we shall get raised up also. What a vision, what a challenge! Thomas saw that the source of resurrection life was Jesus. Thomas was beginning to walk in the day!
This often maligned disciple wanted to fully identify with death so that he might fully identify with resurrection life. (Because of the ‘us’ and the ‘him’ words of verse (15), I do not believe that Thomas was speaking in a forlorn way . . . ‘Let’s go to Judea with Jesus, that ‘hot-spot’, so when they try to stone Jesus, we can die too!).
THE MARTHA LESSON that Thomas also heard!
Martha Average-Christian believed in the resurrection of the last day and that was good! Jesus was now teaching her that He was the resurrection so that she could get her mind off a future event and see that He, the Christ, was the resurrection and everything connected with LIFE. Resurrection is the start of a NEW LIFE . . . a new style of living by a new type of being . . . fully separated from any earthly influences. It is necessary to be fully dead (to this world) to receive it. ‘. . . four days have past and on the fifth day they arrive at the home of Lazarus. GRACE (5) for this hour is being released to those who believe that ‘HE IS’. The challenge - (v.26) Whosoever liveth and believeth in Me, shall never die! Do we believe that? — without any ‘buts’ tacked onto the answer!
THOMAS’S FURTHER PROGRESS
A small recap: Thomas had received the revelation that Jesus purposed to raise Lazarus and through the surrounding circumstances, he grasped why Jesus was glad when Lazarus died. It was for THEIR SAKES! What could they possibly gain other than also being raised from the dead? He next learned that resurrection WAS IN THE CHRIST and such an experience was greater than waiting for the ‘last day’. Now let us follow Thomas’s life from this point. He had his revelation confirmed when he saw Lazarus come out of the tomb as he received resurrection life. He helped to take the grave-clothes from Lazarus — those things associated with death which had him all bound up so that at first he , could not move freely in the new life he had received. Thomas believed that if he should die right then, Jesus would have raised him also.
THEREFORE IN HIS LIFE , THE FEAR OF DEATH HAD NO FURTHER HOLD ON HIM.
Let us follow Thomas in the account of John 20: 19 on . . . The disciples as a whole were assembled in an upper room FOR FEAR OF THE JEWS! They were frightened for their lives — BUT THOMAS was not with them. Why not?, we ask. He’s been with them all along. The simple answer: Thomas with his new revelation wasn’t afraid to die: so why act scared and hide in some upper room? Thomas had experienced resurrection in his understanding and was ‘at peace’ as he knew in his heart that resurrection WAS JESUS. What then was Thomas having a hard time believing when he caught up with the other disciples a week later? It wasn’t the resurrection for he knew that was for real, he had seen Lazarus. His difficulty was how he was to get INTO JESUS to experience a personal identity with HIM WHO WAS THE RESURRECTION. He was, I believe, wanting to experience (Galatians 2:20) ‘I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I but Christ liveth in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me’. Thomas wanted more than to KNOW JESUS WAS ALIVE and to SEE THE LORD, he wanted to be IN HIM . . . be fused with Him that raised the dead and who was the source of NEW LIFE. He wanted the life that came from contact/ union with the One who was dead and now alive. (Thomas must have been told about the previous upper room meeting with Jesus, else how did he know about the present gathering?) Such a cry and demonstration that came from Thomas brought a specific response from Jesus.
It was (8) days later, (8 being the number of A NEW BEGINNING or RESURRECTION LIFE) that Jesus, The Resurrection, came to Thomas who had declared that he WANTED TO TOUCH ( i.e. to be fully IDENTIFIED with Jesus) the nail prints of death and thrust his hand into the innermost being of Jesus. The word ‘thrust’ carries a decisive forceful action of purpose which in the natural could be likened to a boxer’s uppercut! — such a ‘thrust’ would have given great pain to Jesus and I am certain that Thomas had no such intention with his request!). Thomas was walking in the day and thus had a cry in his heart to KNOW HIM AND THE POWER OF HIS RESURRECTION . . . a cry to experience Him who was the resurrection — thus to REACH INTO THE HEART OF CHRIST. A deeper yearning rather than a senseless hurting of the Lord.
IN Christ, that he spoke with some ‘natural phrases’ in an be hid with Me and believe into knowing that for you to live is Me!’ At that time the ten disciples saw that Jesus was resurrected . . . alive; Thomas saw Jesus as THE RESURRECTION-LIFE THAT FOLLOWED. Thomas was the first to desire this life through revelation and not just by knowledge of the event. “Blessed (spiritually prosperous) are we who desire the same union with Him which would give a clear vision of that newness of life which He is; a truly real; personal awareness of Him and Who He is!”
The lessons of Lazarus and Martha eventually learned by all the disciples but it was Thomas who received that insight first. He had deep assurance that RESURRECTION LIFE was in Christ-Jesus and that it was God’s purpose for all His disciples including each one of today’s saints to ‘walk in the day’ with an expectation of the Christ life being their portion . . . His life in you in a continuous victory over death which is produced by sin. Hear His voice, grasp the revelation and BELIEVE into its realty. . . sign of the 153 great fish (see ‘re-think No.30)
All the (7) Miracle-Signs in John’s Gospel before the Cross depict areas in our lives where we are lacking. In exposing our lacks, Jesus wants to challenge us to press in to turn those negatives into possessions, so that we shall be fully equipped to meet the call of the 8th and all-encompassing and last Miracle. §
RAY & SHEILA KNIGHT
3417 ELLIOTT ROAD
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