ANTITHESIS BETWEEN THE BELIEVING AND THE UNBELIEVING JEWS OF JUDEA AND JERUSALEM AT THE GRAVE OF LAZARUS. CHRIST, IN CONSEQUENCE OF HIS RAISING OF LAZARUS FROM THE DEAD, HIMSELF DEVOTED TO DEATH. SYMBOLISM OF DAY’S WORK AND OF SLEEP. THE RESURRECTION FROM THE DEAD.
Joh_11:1-57
A. Christ’s death-bringing journey to Bethany to raise His friend from the dead. Symbolism of day-life and night-life. Symbolism of sleep
(Joh_11:1-16.)
1Now [But] a certain man was sick, named Lazarus, of [from] Bethany, the town 2of Mary and her sister Martha. (It was that [the] Mary which [who afterwards] anointed the Lord with ointment, and wiped his feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was sick.) 3Therefore his sisters sent unto him, saying, Lord, behold he whom thou lovest is sick. 4When Jesus heard that, he said [And Jesus hearing it, said], This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God might [may] be glorified thereby.
5Now Jesus loved Martha, and her sister, and Lazarus. 6When he had heard therefore [When therefore he heard] that he was sick, he abode two days still in the same place where he was [he then remained in the place where he was, two days]. 7Then after that saith he [Then after this he saith] to his [the] disciples, Let 8us go into Judea again. His [The] disciples say unto him, Master, the Jews of late sought [just now were seeking,
íῦí ἐæÞôïõí
] to stone thee; and goest thou thither again? 9Jesus answered, Are there not twelve hours in the day? If any man 10walk in the day, he stumbleth not, because he seeth the light of this world. But if a man walk in the night, he stumbleth, because there is no light in him. 11These things said he: and after that [this] he saith unto them, our friend Lazarus sleepeth 12[hath fallen asleep]; but I go that I may awake him out of sleep. Then said his disciples [The disciples therefore said to him], Lord, if he sleep [hath fallen asleep] he shall do well [become whole, recover]. 13Howbeit Jesus spake [But Jesus had spoken] of his death: but they thought that he had spoken of taking of rest in sleep [he was speaking of the rest of sleep,
ðåñὶ ôῆò êïéìÞóåùò ôïῦ ὕðíïõ
]. 14Then [Then therefore,
ôüôå ïὖí
] said Jesus unto them plainly, Lazarus is dead. 15And I am glad for your sakes that I was not there, to the intent ye may believe; nevertheless let us go unto him. 16Then said Thomas, which [who] is called Didymus [i. e. twin child], unto his fellow-disciples, Let us also go, that we may die with him.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
In the raising of Lazarus from the dead, the most stupendous of the revivifying (quickening) miracles of Jesus, we see at once the ultimate occasion of His death, and the first foreshadowing of His resurrection. Bayle relates of Spinoza [the Jewish philosopher]: “On m’ a assuré qu ’il disait à ses amis, que s’il eût pu se persuader la résurrection de Lazare, il aurait brisé en piéces tout son système et aurait embrassé sans répugnance la foi ordinaire des chrétiens.” [Dict. art. Spinoza].
The special plea of modern criticism against the reality of this miracle is the silence of the Synoptists. This fact may be explained: 1. By the character of the Gospels, each one of which being a particular view of the life of Jesus, uses only such historical matter as suits its total; 2. by historical circumstances which made it seem advisable to the Synoptists, who wrote earlier, to omit from their records the history of the family of Bethany, probably in order to avoid attracting to it the attention of Jewish fanatics in Jerusalem (see Leben Jesu, II. 2, p. 1132); 3. by the preponderance of Galilean tradition in the Synoptists, which may well be connected with the fact that a great portion of this tradition was derived from narratives of the life of Jesus addressed by the earlier disciples of Galilee to the later disciples at Jerusalem. We have proof in the writings of the Synoptists that they were well aware of the frequent sojourn of Jesus at Jerusalem; Mat_23:37; Luk_10:38.
[The narrative is divided into three parts: (1) The preparation, which is ruled by the idea of death, 1–16; (2) The raising of Lazarus, or the triumph of life over death, 17–44; (3) The effect, (a) the positive effect: confirmation of the faith of the disciples, 45; (b) the negative effect: exciting the opposition of the Sanhedrin to deadly hatred, 47–57.—The miracle carries its own evidence to every fair and unprejudiced mind. But as the performance of it was a moral test to the Jews, so is its narrative to the readers and critics: a savor of life and a source of comfort to believers, a stumbling-block to unbelievers. There are four false theories, opposed to the true one: 1. The rationalistic view of a raising from a trance, in spite of the
ἤäç ὄ
̇
æåé
, Joh_11:39! (Paulus, Gabler, Ammon, Kern, Schweizer, modified by Gfrörer and Weisse). 2. The mythical hypothesis of an unconscious poem of the primitive Christian fancy. (Strauss, in his large “Life of Jesus,” while in his new Leben Jesu, p. 476 ff., he represents the historic Lazarus of John as a free fiction of the fourth Evangelist based upon the parabolic Lazarus of Luke.) 3. The theory of a conscious symbolical or allegorical representation of the death-conquering glory of Christ and His disciples. (Baur, Weizsäcker). 4. The infamous hypothesis of a down-right imposture or pious fraud, an intrigue of the family of Bethany, to which Jesus lent Himself as an instrument with the view to make an impression upon the unbelieving Jews. (Renan, Vie de Jésus, p. 359 f.). All these theories owe their origin to a disbelief in the supernatural. They neutralize each other and explain nothing at all. The only alternative is: historic truth, or dishonest fiction. The historic truth is abundantly attested by the simplicity, vivacity and circumstantiality of the narrative, the four days in the tomb (Joh_11:39), and the good sense and moral honesty—to say the very least—of Lazarus and his sisters, the Evangelist and Christ Himself.—P. S.]
Joh_11:1. But there was a certain man sick.—The
äÝ
indicates that Jesus’ stay in Peræa was terminated by the sickness and death of Lazarus.
Lazarus, from Bethany.—The designation of Lazarus: from Bethany [
Üðü
, like
ἐê
, denotes descent, or, as here, residence], as also the designation of Bethany as the town of Mary and Martha her sister (comp. Joh_1:44), presupposes the acquaintance of the readers with the family of Bethany, and places Mary, as the most prominent personality of the group, in the foreground. After her, mention is made of Martha, as her sister; after both, Bethany is designated; after Bethany, Lazarus.
Bethany on the Mount of Olives, distinct from the Bethany beyond Jordan, in the environs of which Jesus is now, probably, again abiding (see Joh_1:28), is distant three-quarters of an hour [about two miles] from Jerusalem, in a south-easterly direction, on the other [eastern] side of the Mount of Olives, over whose southern portion the road leads. From its situation on the declivity of the mountain, Simonis thus construes it:
áֵּéú òֲðִåָּä
, locus depressionis, Low Borough, Valley Borough; with more probability, however, Lightfoot, Reland and others hold that it derives its name from its date-palms:
áֵּéú äִéðֵé
, locus dactylorum, House of Dates, Date Borough (see the palm-entry, Matthew 21). In the history of the Passion, Bethany appears as a peaceful refuge for the Lord from hostile Jerusalem; Mat_21:17; Mat_26:6, etc.
[Bethany is never mentioned in the Old Testament or the Apocrypha, and is known to us only from the New Testament, but possesses an unusual charm as the place where more than in any other Jesus loved to dwell and to enjoy domestic life. There was a house of peace with three children of peace, where the Prince of Peace went in and out as a friend. There He received the hospitable attentions of busy Martha, and commended the contemplative Mary (Luk_10:38 ff.); there He performed His greatest miracle on their brother Lazarus, and proved Himself to be the Resurrection and the Life; there Mary anointed Him against the day of His burial; from Bethany He commenced His triumphant entry into Jerusalem; to Bethany He resorted for the rest of the night during the few days before His crucifixion; and near this village He loved so well, He ascended to heaven. At present it is a poor, wretched mountain hamlet of some twenty families, and is called, from Lazarus, El-Azarîyeh (by Robinson) or El-Lazarieh (according to Lord Lindsay and Stanley); the traditional sites of the house and tomb of Lazarus are still shown. Stanley and Grove give a very unfavorable account; but Bonar and Lindsay describe the situation of Bethany, as viewed from a distance, as “remarkably beautiful,” “the perfection of retirement and repose,” “of seclusion and lovely peace.” It is no doubt with Bethany as with Jerusalem and Palestine generally: it is a mere shadow of the past, a scene of desolation and death; yet not without traces of former glory, and not without hope of a future resurrection.—P. S.]
Joh_11:2. It was the Mary who (afterwards) anointed the Lord with ointment, etc.—John supposes the history of the anointing to be familiar through the evangelical tradition; and this trait shows the vividness and copiousness of that tradition and at the same time the historical character of this Gospel. In the next chapter he proceeds to relate the history of the anointing itself [as required by the course of his narrative]. The evangelist designs here to bring into view the friendly relation existing between Jesus and the brother and sisters of Bethany, in explanation of the following history. Comp. Com. on Matthew, chap. 26; Luke, chap. 10. Touching the vast difference between Mary of Bethany and the great sinner or Mary Magdalene, comp. the Art. Maria Magdalena in Herzog’s Real-Encyklopædia [vol. ix. p. 102 ff.]. On the character of the two sisters comp. the Com. on Luke, chap. 10. Hengstenberg’s romance founded upon the story of the family of Bethany, is well known.
[Hengstenberg devotes twenty-six pages of his Commentary on John (vol. ii. pp. 198–224) to prove that Lazarus of Bethany whom the Lord raised from the dead, is none other than the poor Lazarus of the parable, and that Mary of Bethany is the same with the unnamed sinner who washed the Saviour’s feet with her tears of repentance (Luk_7:36 ff.) and with Mary Magdalene (Luk_8:2). In the former he is original; in the latter he follows the tradition of the Latin church which identified the two or three Marys, down to recent times when it was rightly opposed by several Roman Catholic as well as Protestant divines. Out of the scattered hints of the Gospels Hengstenberg, with more ingenuity than sound judgment and good taste, weaves the following religious novel, which is worthy of a place in a Romish legendary. Mary, originally of Magdala, a village on the western coast of the lake of Galilee, near the city of Tiberias, led a disreputable life, but was converted to Christ, who expelled from her seven devils, i.e., her wild passions, and gave her rest and peace. She clung to Him with boundless devotion and followed Him on His journeys in Galilee (Luk_8:2) and to Judea. While the Lord labored in and around Jerusalem she resided at Bethany in the house or country-seat of her sister Martha, who had married a rich but low-minded Pharisee, Simon the Leper. Here she anointed the Lord and wiped His feet with the tears of repentance, six days before His passion (Luke 7, which is assumed to be the same with the scene described John 12.) Her brother Lazarus, after a similar life of dissipation and consequent poverty, resorted also to the protection of Martha and lived off the parsimonious charity of his brother-in-law. He is the beggar at the gate of “the rich man who was clothed in purple and fine linen and fared sumptuously every day” (Luk_16:19 ff.). He died, was buried, and carried to Abraham’s bosom, but was raised again by Christ, to which an allusion may be found in the parable (Joh_11:31, “though one rose from the dead”). Mary and Lazarus were so dearly loved by Him, not on account of their virtuous and lovely character, but as striking examples of the power of redeeming grace. They illustrate His saying that it is easier for publicans and sinners to enter the kingdom than for righteous Pharisees.—The grounds for this strange combination are the identity of names (Lazarus of the parable—the only name mentioned in any parable of the New Testament—and Lazarus of Bethany; Mary Magdalene and Mary of Bethany), and the similarity of the anointing scene related by Luke, Joh_7:36 ff., and the one described by John, Joh_12:3, as well as Matthew, Mat_22:3 ff.; and Mar_14:3. But the differences of locality (Magdala and Bethany), of time (the beginning and the close of Christ’s ministry), and of circumstances, in the anointing scenes, are sufficient to neutralize the superficial appearance of identity. Besides, there are strong arguments against Hengstenberg’s hypothesis. 1. Luke’s Gospel which is constructed on the chronological order (Luk_1:3), can not be charged with such a glaring chronological mistake, as to place the anointing of Christ in Bethany in the first year of Christ’s ministry, when according to Matthew, Mark and John it occurred only six days before His passion and had special reference to His near burial. 2. Luke, in introducing Mary of Bethany in Luk_10:39, gives no intimation that she was the unnamed sinner of John 7 or the Mary Magdalene whom he had already honorably mentioned inLuke _8:2; nor does John give any hint of such identity when he introduces Mary Magdalene in Luk_19:25. To explain this fact, Hengstenberg (p. 208) resorts to the far-fetched conjecture of intentional concealment of the identity from family considerations and apprehensions of abuse. 3. If Lazarus lived in miserable dependence on a mean brother-in-law, it would have been cruel to call him back from Paradise. 4. There is an intrinsic improbability, as urged already by Origen and Chrysostom, that Jesus should have selected for His special friendship persons whoso former lives were stained by gross impurity.—The view of Hengstenberg has been generally rejected by German commentators, but Bishop Wordsworth (on Luk_11:1), without mentioning his name, seems to adopt it as far as the identity of the Lazarus of the parable and the Lazarus of the miracle is concerned. He finds in the parable a prophecy of the miracle, in the latter a fulfilment of the former. Godet (II. 320) aptly says of Hengstenberg’s dissertation that it only proves the facility with which a man of learning and acumen can prove any thing he wants to prove.—But while we must utterly reject the identification of the two Lazaruses, it is quite possible that the Lazarus of John 11 was either a son or a brother-in-law of Simon the Pharisee. An article in Smith’s Dict. (vol. II., p. 1614) identifies him with the young and rich ruler who came to Jesus and was loved by Him, Matthew 19; Mark 10; Luk_18:8, but this conjecture is without proof and contrary to the chronological order of events. The traditions concerning the later life of Lazarus and his labors in Marseilles, where he is said to have founded a church and suffered martyrdom, are worthless. The ecclesiastical applications of the name of Lazarus (Knights of St. Lazarus, lazaretto, lazar-house, lazzarone) are derived from the Lazarus of the parable and connected with the etymology (Lazarus=
ìֹà òֵæֶø
, auxilio destitutus, no help, helpless, or better=
ìַòְæָø
, abridged from
àֶìְòָæָø
, Eliazar, Deus auxilium, the German Gotthilf). The Lazarists, a French Society of missionary priests, were named after Lazarus of Bethany (from the College of St. Lazarus in Paris which they acquired in 1632).—P. S.]
Joh_11:3. Lord, behold, he whom Thou lovest is sick.—If we read in these words the indirect expression of a positive entreaty that Jesus would come, possibly we overlook the situation of the parties. It is as evident to the sisters in Bethany as to the disciples that imminent peril of death threatens the Lord in Jerusalem and its surrounding country. We are not warranted in assuming that they rated the sickness of their brother higher than the deadly peril impending over Jesus. In fact, in their very appreciation of His danger we read the explanation of their tender message in its delicate historicalness. They give emphasis to their communication thus: whom Thou lovest; it is the expression of an ardent, heart-felt desire wherewith they inform Him of what may happen. [
ὅí öéëåῖò
is more solicitous of help than the mere name, and yet more modest, than “who loves Thee,” or the designation of “friend,” as the Lord in His condescending love calls Lazarus, Joh_11:11.—P. S.]
Joh_11:4. Jesus hearing it said [
åἶðåí
] This sickness, etc.—[Alford: “The only right understanding of this answer, and our Lord’s whole proceeding here is,—that He knew and foresaw all from the first,—as well the termination of Lazarus’s sickness and his being raised again, as the part which this miracle would bear in bringing about the close of His own ministry.”—P. S.] In the lack of
ἀðåêñßíáôï
(replied) there is no warrant for the assumption that these words did not form part of a message sent to the sisters, although they were addressed to the disciples also. It was, in reality, His prophetic utterance concerning the entire sickness.—Is not unto death [
ðñὸòèÜíáôïí
].—The expression was an ambiguous one and involved a trial of faith for the sisters. They might thus understand it: The sickness will not result in death, will not be fatal; and to this interpretation the rest of the sentence might seem to point: for the glory of God, etc. From these words it was possible to draw the inference that Jesus would at all events preserve Lazarus from death; perhaps by an exercise of healing power from afar. But this was not His meaning. The certainty and the necessity of the death of Lazarus were manifest to Him from the beginning; He foreknew also that He should raise him from the dead. In this sense, therefore, we are to understand His words: The end and aim of this sickness is not death, but the glorification of God by a raising of the dead, which shall also glorify the Son of God. Therein lay a trial of faith for the sisters (Brenz, Neander). A human instrumentality in order to the divine awakening of the dead was also thus ordained. The sick man and his sisters waited hopefully for the Lord even until the coming of death; then, if they would not be perplexed by the promise of Jesus (see Joh_11:40), on which their hopes were based, they must take refuge in the mysterious expression: to the glory of God. Not only does the text afford no ground for the supposition that a second message concerning the further progress of the malady was sent to the Lord, informing Him of the incorrectness of His favorable opinion (Paulus, Neander), but such a supposition is directly contrary to the text (see Joh_11:14).—That the Son of God may be glorified thereby.—This was the purpose of God. Not that God should be glorified by the glorification of Christ (Meyer), but that the glorifying of God through the miracle wrought in His name should also glorify the Son of God,—and this in a striking manner, in the presence of a great multitude and in the vicinity of Jerusalem. They who accused Him of working miracles by the power of Satan, should be witnesses to this astounding miracle, performed by Him after a solemn invocation of that God, whom they called their God and as the blasphemer of whom they denounced Him. It is noteworthy that after this fact He is no more charged with having a demon and working miracles by the assistance of Beelzebub. Christ’s prayer to God at the grave of Lazarus was, however, introduced by the sending of the man who was born blind to the pool of Siloam, that being the property of the temple and of the God of the temple.
Joh_11:5. Now Jesus loved Martha, and her sister, and Lazarus.—[and—and: happy family! Bengel.]—Reference of these words: 1. De Wette: Explanatory of Joh_11:3; John 2. Meyer: explanatory of the consoling assurance contained in Joh_11:4; John 3. Baumgarten-Crusius: preparatory to Joh_11:6. “Although He loved them all, He tarried.” Why is Martha here the prominent person and Mary simply designated as her sister? Martha stood in peculiar need of a still greater trial of faith, of purification from her petty cares; and in order to these results, death must be felt in all its terrors and deliverance in all its rapture. In this sense Jesus loved her. Thus the connection with Joh_11:6 might also be expressed by a “therefore,” etc. But since the evangelist has not specified this connection more positively, room is left for both conjectures (“although” and “therefore”). The expression
ἠãÜðá
, not
ἐößëåé
(as Joh_11:3), may not have been chosen solely “on account of the therewith mentioned sisters” (Meyer), but also on account of the loftily severe conduct of the love of Christ. [
ἀãáðᾶí
may be used of divine love, but
öéëåῖí
expresses human love and the personal relation of friendship. The relation of Jesus to the female sex exhibits a tenderness truly human with a purity and dignity truly divine. Comp. the remarks on p. 167.—P. S.]
Joh_11:6. When therefore he heard that he was sick, then (at that time), indeed, he remained two days.—
Ôüôå ìÝí
[tum quidem, omitted in the E. V.]. The
ìÝí
leads us to expect a
äÝ
after
ἔðåéôá
, which has, however, been omitted in order that the conclusion of the sentence might appear independently in all its significance. Explanation of the delay of Jesus:
1. In order to test the faith of the interested parties (Olshausen after the ancients). This motive cannot be rejected as “inhuman arbitrariness” (Meyer). It was undoubtedly influential, although not exclusively so.
2. Jesus was detained in Peræa by important business (Lücke [Neander, Tholuck] and others.) Here, without doubt, we have the grand motive and the foundation of the previously mentioned one, for it would have been an utter impossibility for Jesus to remain two days away from Bethany in inactivity. Meyer objects to this explanation on the ground that nothing of the kind is stated in the text. But it is implied everywhere that Jesus was never inactive and that He had days’ works, times (
êáéñïß
) and hours, appointed Him by God.
3. Meyer [and Alford]: The motive is indicated Joh_11:4 : the glorification of God through the miracle. This was undoubtedly a final and supreme motive, one, however, that never stands alone; it is invariably associated with concrete, moral motives. Assuming this to be the sole motive, the delay of two days was totally unnecessary, since Lazarus had already been dead a long time.
Bretschneider and his followers have based their arguments against the authenticity of the history itself upon this delay, which they did not comprehend. We must further beware of the false idea that Jesus first suffered Lazarus to die, and then went to raise him from the dead. As Lazarus had already lain in the grave four days, when Jesus arrived at Bethany, he would (assuming the distance to have been a day’s journey) have been two days in the grave, if Jesus had set out for Bethany immediately upon receiving the message. Hence He caused no fruitless waiting by the bedside of the sick man. The sisters had deferred sending the message to Jesus until Lazarus was at the point of death, because they knew the danger attending the return of the Saviour to Judea. So fine a historical trait cannot have been invented.
Two days.—On the great activity of Jesus in Peræa see the Com. on Matthew. He was to depart from a province in which there were many that believed on Him.
Joh_11:7. Let us go again into Judea (from Peræa), etc.—He does not say, to Bethany. To Judea, “to the land of unbelief and deadly enmity.” The
ðÜëéí
is doubtless indicative of the fact that Jesus had previously journeyed with the disciples from Peræa to Judea, to attend the feast of the consecration of the temple.
Joh_11:8. But just now the Jews were seeking to stone Thee.—Dissuading, in view of the obvious peril of death. In this connection the form of the message sent by the sisters is to be explained. These words, as well as Joh_11:16, prove that the disciples were not apprehensive as to their own safety merely, but that the Lord was the principal subject of their anxiety.
Joh_11:9. Are there not (fully) twelve hours, etc.?—“In Palestine, where the clays are of nearly equal duration, they are divided, the whole year through, into twelve hours.” Gerlach. Jesus probably uttered these words in the early morning, in view of the rising sun, just as the day was beginning; in like manner the words: I must work as long as it is day (Joh_9:4), were spoken in face of the setting sun. In the first place, this was not said to allay the apprehensions of the disciples on their own account (Chrysostom, Neander); it had reference to the life-journey of the Lord Himself: Christ employs, however, such general terms, that the words are applicable to the life-journey of the disciples also. Under the figure of the day, the idea of the life-day of the individual and of the day’s work appointed him is again presented, as in Joh_9:4 f. Here, however, the God-given, fully meted out day of life is the main point. If there the meaning be: I must work with speed, for My day draweth near its close—there is but little time remaining—the twelve hours will soon be over; so here the signification is: I can still work without peril of death,—I can still make the journey thither,—My twelve hours are not yet at an end. The determination of the day to twelve hours has led Grotius and others to this explanation: Are there not only twelve hours—contrary to the sense of the figure, which portions out the one day into twelve assured sections. Lyra and Luther have discerned in the twelve hours the image of the changing moods of men: “the hearts of the Jews are fickle.” This is at all events an import of minor weight and prominency. Entirely arbitrary and gratuitous is the interpretation of Augustine; according to him, the twelve hours are the twelve apostles, who must follow the Lord as the hours follow the sun.
But now arises the question, whether, by the twelve hours, Jesus intended to express simply His present safety from mortal peril, or whether He would intimate at the same time that, in the future, death was inevitably prepared for Him; that a time of suffering and death was impending, when He must desist from active work. That we are to understand Him as having reference to both facts, the subsequent sentence proves: but if any man walk in the night, etc. The one consideration does not exclude the other; on the contrary they form together a higher unity. To walk and to work as long as the assured day of life lasts, but after that, to rest, and not by wilful working in the night of suffering and death, to plunge into danger and ruin,—such is the teaching of the outward life-regimen, prescribed to us in the distinction of day and night.
But again, the expression, and particularly the “stumbling in the night” points to a still higher antithesis: as the day was made to symbolize the day of life, so the day of life becomes the symbol of duty and of heavenly light in divinely appointed duty; and the evening and night of life are an image of the darkness outside of duty. This was especially applicable to the disciples. Now, when the day of life was still assured to them, they would willingly have abstained from walking and working; but when the Saviour’s night of suffering arrived, then they desired to walk and to act. Judas walked, stumbled, and fell into bottomless perdition; Peter walked, and fell after the most perilous fashion. I walk in the day, and as long as the day lasts, in perfect security; take care that ye do not now desire prematurely to rest, and then, at an unseasonable time, when the night has come, to walk.
Meyer admits only the former apprehension: “The working time appointed Me by God has not yet passed away; so long as this lasts, no man can prevail against Me; but when it has expired, I shall fall into the hands of My enemies, just as he who walks at night stumbles, because he is destitute of light” (and thus Apollinaris, Jansen [ Maldonatus, Corn. a Lapide ] and others). Tholuck apprehends in this the symbol of working as predominant over that of walking, with reference to the
ðåñéðáôåῖí
, which undoubtedly implies such an idea, because now the work of Jesus was a walking to Bethany; nevertheless, this is not the prevailing view; to warrant its adoption as such, another verb would be requisite. With the primary figure of the day of life, Lücke, after Melanchthon, has rightly connected the figure of the day of duty. Luthardt: “He who moves within the bounds of duty, does not stumble, makes no false steps, for the light of the world, i.e. the will of God, enlightens him; but he who walks, i.e. is active, outside of the limits of his vocation, will err in what he does, since not the will of God, but his own pleasure is his guide.” And still further, beyond even this second figure, has the spiritual interpretation of this saying been carried out. Chrysostom and others: The walking by day is that blameless conduct wherein one has nought to fear; Erasmus and others: It is fellowship with Christ; De Wette: It is a pure, guiltless, clear course of action;—the twelve hours being the ways and means of activity, the night, deficiency in wisdom and integrity. All these considerations, however, are included in a just perception of the antithesis of day and night.
The great law of physical life: the day-time for walking and working, the night-time for resting and sleeping, is a symbol of the law of moral life: during the whole day of life to fulfil with joyous and fearless activity the whole duty, and then, in the night of suffering and death, to submit calmly to God’s providence, and rest and cease from labor in Him. But this law of moral life is conditioned by that of religious life: to work in the day of the light of God and Christ; not in the night of self-will, whereby we should prepare for ourselves a fall into perdition. And thus this thought also is indicated: that a false prolongation of life by evasion of duty is the immediate preparation for a night, in which one must of necessity stumble and fall; while a resigned and passive demeanor in the divinely appointed night of death becomes a walking in a loftier sense, a going to the Father (Leben Jesu
,
ÉÉ
. 2, p. 1118). Still this is but the result of the ethical idea, not the immediate sense of the figure itself.
Twelve, brought forward with emphasis, signifying, objectively, life full-measured, rich, with its manifold appointments; subjectively, Christ’s joyful assurance of life.
If any man walk.—The living man a walker and worker, a pilgrim and workman of God.—In the day.—The present day a symbol of the day of life, which, together with its day’s task, is appointed to man.—He stumbleth not.—As men run against objects at night. He does not stumble upon an occasion of his death.—For he seeth.—The light shines upon him so that he avoids the stumbling blocks that obstruct his road even in the day-time. Thus, in a moral sense, man sees in the light of his calling the dangers which he can and should avoid, without being obliged to abandon his vocation.
But if any man walk in the night.—The exceptions to the law of physical life (nocturnal working and walking) do not here come under consideration. Such is the rule in the physical life:—a rule which obtains in a still greater degree in the moral life. A self-seeking excitement—tumultuous living—of life prepares for itself death in the twilight of suffering, and destruction in the night of death. As Jesus has no desire to walk=work in the night, this remark is intended especially for the disciples.—He stumbleth.—See the account of the disciples in the history of the Passion.—The light is not in him.—No day-light from heaven, no light in the eyes; this holds good both in a physical and in a symbolical sense. The weakening of the antithesis of day and night to tempus opportunum and inopportunum (Morus, Paulus, etc.) is not incorrect but altogether insufficient.
Joh_11:11. And after this.—After the tranquilizing words a pause.
Our friend Lazarus.—Thus Christ was acquainted with his sickness, with the hour of his death and the nature of it, by virtue of His divine-human consciousness. Our friend. An expression of hearty love and fellowship, in which they also do and should share. [Bengel notices the kind condescenion with which our Lord shares His friendship with the disciples. Only twice more does Christ call men by the endearing name of friends, viz., the apostles, Joh_15:14-15; Luk_12:4. Figuratively John the Baptist called himself a friend of Christ (Joh_3:29). Abraham is called a “friend of God” (Jam_2:23; comp. 2Ch_20:7; Isa_41:8), but more in the passive sense: the favorite of God.—P. S.]
Hath fallen asleep.—This expression is not selected simply in view of the approaching awakening. Comp. Mat_9:24; 1Th_4:13. It is the kinship of sleep and physical death, that Christ here proclaims. Sleep is the periodical death on earth; death is the final sleep for earth in the period of its present existence;—sleep is the concentration of outward life to the interior, in the nocturnal consciousness and vegetation of the body; death is the concentration and internalization of life in the transit of the soul to another state of existence.—But I go.—The confidence of the Lord in His mission.
[Bengel: “Death, in the language of heaven, is the sleep of the pious, but the disciples did not here understand His language. The freedom of the divine language is incomparable; but men’s dullness often degrades Scripture to our sadder mode of speaking. Comp. Mat_16:11.” The scriptural designation of death as a sleep from which the pious awakes in the glorious morning of eternity (Mat_9:24; Mat_27:52; Act_7:59; Act_13:36; 1Co_15:6; 1Th_4:13; Rev_14:13), furnishes no basis for the false doctrine of the sleep or unconscious condition of the soul from death till resurrection (psychopannychia), against which Calvin wrote his first theological treatise. The life union of the believer with Christ can not be suspended or lost in the darkness of unconsciousness; on the contrary, it passes through death to a higher degree of clearness and joy, being translated into the immediate presence of the Lord, although it does not attain to its perfect maturity till the time of the general resurrection, when the whole body of Christ, and consequently every member of it, will be fully grown.—P. S.]
Joh_11:12. He shall be restored (be saved).—i.e. recover by means of sleep as a health-bringing crisis. Their misapprehension of the Lord’s words and their application of them to bodily sleep have a psychological connection with their repugnance to the journey to Bethany. According to Bengel and Luthardt, they thought that the sleep had been produced by the agency of Jesus while yet absent (to which the
ðïñåýïìáé
is considered to refer); according to Ebrard, that a cure had already been effected by the same agency (after Joh_11:4). The text affords no ground for either assumption.—Of the rest of the sleep.—Of the rest of dream-life; i.e., of real sleep in antithesis to the sleep of death.
Joh_11:14. Plainly: Lazarus is dead.—
Ðáῥῥçóßᾳ
, here, without circumlocution, Joh_11:10; Joh_11:24.
Joh_11:15. I am glad for your sakes.—He is glad that He was not there. This does not mean, glad that He was not there to see Lazarus die, because his death might have raised doubts in the minds of the disciples (Paulus; against this construction Bengel remarks, that none ever died in presence of the Prince of Life),—but glad because now the greater miracle of a raising of the dead should take the place of a healing of the sick. He rejoices—not at his death—but in anticipation of the sign from God.—That ye may believe.—[The subjective intent with regard to the disciples themselves; the objective intent being the glory of God, Joh_11:4.—P. S.] With reference to their still weak faith, and to the trials of faith which they are about to encounter. Meyer: “Every new step of faith is in measure a new believing.” Comp. Joh_2:11.—But let us depart.—The
ἀëëÜ
terminates the conversation in order to the departure, as Joh_14:31.
Joh_11:16. Then said Thomas.—
úְֹּàí = úֹּàîָà
[Aramaic] corresponding to the Greek
Äßäõìïò
[Didymus], twin. In the Gospels (Mat_10:3; Mar_3:18; Luk_6:15) he is mentioned in connection with Matthew, in the Acts (1:13) with Philip. He was probably a Galilean, as he is mentioned Joh_21:2 together with the Galilean fisher-apostles. Tradition has made him a veritable twin and bestowed the name of Lysia on his sister. In yet another relation he was pronounced a twin. According to Eusebius, H. E
.
É
. 13, 5, he was called Judas; he is also designated in the
Acta Thomæ, and has doubtless in this way been confounded with Judas, “the brother of Jesus.” Tradition assigns Antioch as his birth-place, states that as an apostle he preached Christianity among the Parthians and that he was buried at Edessa. According to later authority (as early, however, as Gregory of Nazianzen) he made an apostolic journey to India and there, after the latest tradition, suffered martyrdom. Apocryphal literature has appended his name to an Evangelium Thomæ and the Acta Thomæ.
His characteristics are vividly portrayed in the sayings preserved by St. John; thus here Joh_11:16; Joh_14:5; Joh_20:24 (21:2). In ecclesiastical tradition he is one-sidedly designated as skeptical, from his conduct in the moment of temptation. For various delineations of his character see the Art. Thomas in Winer. According to Winer, he had a bias towards the visible and comprehensible; he was, above all things, desirous of seeing clearly and was then rashly, even violently, decided. According to Tholuck, he united a mind inclining to doubt and despondency with intense acuteness of sensibility. From the passages cited it would appear that his doubting was the result of profound earnestness approaching to melancholy, and allied to a yearning after truth; hence, he became the critical spirit of the circle of apostles;—and hence, too, he displays the utmost decision in living in conformity to his convictions (see Leben Jesu
,
ÉÉ
. 2, p. 697; Com. on
Matthew, p. 183).
Joh_11:16. Let us also depart that we may die with Him.—With reference to Jesus [Meyer, Alford], not to Lazarus (Ewald, following Grotius). Thomas foresees, as he believes, that Jesus is going to His death and is ready to die with Him. Weak faith, strong love; an unequal relationship which is thus explained: a vigorous germ of faith, reflected in his not yet purified and glorified love to Jesus; a weak, dull development of faith, held in check by the carefulness of his hitherto empirical view of the world.
[It is the language of mingled melancholy, resignation and courage, controlled by love to Christ. It is in full accordance with the character of Thomas as it appears on other occasions, Joh_14:5; Joh_20:5 ff. He is ever inclined to take the dark view, but deeply attached to his Lord, and ready to die with and for Him. He represents the honest, earnest and noble skeptics, who do not hold fast to the Invisible as if they saw Him, who require tangible evidence before they believe, but who submit to the evidence when presented, and exclaim before the risen Saviour: My Lord and my God!—P. S.]
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
1. The raising of Lazarus, the death of the Lord. Christ as dying for the resurrection of the world.
2. The three dead-awakenings of Christ in their gradation: The child on its death-bed,—the youth on his bier,—the man in his grave; the awakening in the hushed circle of friends,—in presence of a funeral procession of acquaintances,—in the midst of the Jews.
3. How the opinion of Jesus concerning the sickness of Lazarus applies in a broader sense to every sickness, considered with reference to its final aim, and so in a peculiar sense to the sickness of the believer.
4. The love of the Lord to His friends is holy, and therefore manifoldly and inscrutably deep and mysterious in its manifestation, like the providence of God itself.
5. The delay and haste of Jesus.
6. Symbolism of day-life and night-life. The duty of the day is the day of the duty. This is applicable to the day of life as well as to the individual day.
7. Symbolism of sleep. Christ has changed death into sleep; but as the death of His people is sleep, so is the spiritual sleep of unbelievers death.
8. The noble and therefore open doubt of Thomas in antithesis to the wicked, secret and reserved doubting of Judas.
9. The mysterious rapport of spirit and life between the praying Christ in Peræa and the praying household in Bethany.
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
[Literature: On the raising of Lazarus see the numerous and valuable notes of Dr. Mallet on John, John 11, 12 in the “Bremer Post,” from the close of the year 1857 to the year 1859. Similarly John 11 Sermons on the eleventh chapter of St. John’s Gospel by Dr. Schroeder, Pastor at Elberfeld, 1853. As also the list of books in Heubner, p. 389. Historie von Lazaro, by Sutellius, Wittenberg, 1543; Joh. Arnd’s Lazarus redivivus, Jena 1620; Balthasar Muenter, Public Lectures on the discourses of Jesus, etc., ninth volume, 1793; Lilienthal, Predigten über die Auferweckung des Lazarus, 1764; Ewald, Lazarus, Berlin 1790; Herder, Homilies, No. 19; Seiler, Pastoral-Theologie
,
ÉÉ
. p. 93–101;
Hanstein, Erinnerungen an Jesu, vierte Fortsetzung; Wichelhaus, Weg zur Ruhe; Bourdaloue, Sermon, etc.; Massillion, Fournier, Bethanien, Berlin, 1837; Theremin, Predigten
,
ÉÉÉ
. no. 8; W.
Huelsemann, die Geschichte der Auferweckung des Lazarus, Leipzig, 1835. [Gumlich, in the Studien und Kritiken, 1862, pp. 65 ff., 248 ff.; Trench, Notes on the Miracles, pp. 312 ff. Sea also a large list of English sermons, lectures and practical treatises on John 11 in Darling’s Cyclopædia Bibliographica, vol. I., pp. 1115 ff.—P. S.]
The three sections from Joh_11:1-57 together, as a homiletical trilogy: 1. The journey of Jesus to Bethany to the grave of His dead friend, or the journey into peril of death, in order to the raising of the dead; 2. the miracle at Bethany, or the raising of the dead in the face of mortal enemies; 3. the message from Bethany, or the death-fate impending over the Lord in consequence of the message of the Prince of Life.—”`Now there was one sick,” or how the distress of His people draws the Lord unto them: 1. down from heaven into human misery; 2. over the Jordan into peril of death; 3. forever back from the rest of heaven into the conflict of earth; 4. in the future, from the throne of glory to the judgment-seat.
Our section, Joh_11:1-16. The pious household of the sick man.—The fellowship of a believing family: 1. a relationship of blood and spirit; 2. fellowship of suffering and triumph.—The imperishable glory and blessedness of the names of the just. How they shine eternally in the light of the love of Jesus.—“That the Son of God may be glorified thereby.” Or how Christ has always in the highest sense made a virtue of necessity: 1. Of oppression, deliverance; 2. of danger, a triumph; 3. of temptation, a victory; 4. of misery, redemption; 5. of death, a festival of resurrection.—Brothers and sisters after the flesh, as spiritually kindred in Scripture and history.—The message from Bethany: 1. How strong; 2. how tender.—Christ, the Master, over against His people; 1. They call and He tarries; 2. they dissuade and He goes.—Christ’s heavenly knowledge of the earthly circumstances of His people.—“Let us go again into Judea.” Or Christ returns in spite of His enemies.—The twelve hours of the day, or life-time and life’s duty in their indissoluble unity: 1. The certainty of life within the bounds of duty. The servant of God does not die until his work is performed. 2. The sacredness of duty within the bounds of life.—Day and night in relation to the life of duty; 1. Within, day; 2. without, night.—The order of the antithesis between day and night, an image of the antithesis between life-time and death. (Now—work, then—rest).—The inverters of this order, who pass their time in idleness now, shall then incur fearful pains.—Our friend Lazarus sleepeth. How this is applicable to every departed believer: our friend sleeps.—This also is true: the Awakener is already on the way.—The misunderstanding of the disciples.—“Let us go!” Or the same words in their two-fold meaning: 1. In the mouth of Christ; 2. in the mouth of Thomas.—The three expressions of doubt proceeding from Thomas and the victory of his faith. A. The expressions of doubt: 1. A doubt as to the victory of life; 2. a doubt as to the way to heaven (chap. 14); 3. a doubt as to the certainty of the resurrection (chap. 20). B. The victory of his faith. 1. Prepared by his ardent love to Jesus and to the brethren (chap. 11); 2. introduced by his longing desire for a higher disclosure (chap. 14); 3. decided by his joy at the manifestation of the Risen One (chap. 20.)
Starke: Majus: In distress and misery we should dispatch sighs and tears as our messengers to Christ, and remind Him of our covenant that we have made with Him.—Zeisius: Not to the physician of the body, as is the general custom, but to Christ, the omnipotent Physician of soul and body should the sick first of all resort. Psa_133:1.—Cramer: We pray well when we ground our petitions on the love of Christ, that is, on His love to us, not on ours to Him.—Hedinger: To be sick and to be a dear child of God go well together.—When we pray, we must not limit the Lord in respect to time and method.—Quesnel: God’s manner of regarding sickness and prayer for the sick often differs materially from that of praying relatives and friends. He is concerned for His honor and the eternal salvation of the sufferer, Rom_8:28; Php_1:20.—Hedinger: Help is oftentimes delayed, only that deliverance may be all the more glorious:—Quesnel: God sometimes denies us a small favor, that He may show us a greater one.—There is no believer who is not at times forced to cry out: O Lord, how long! Psalms 13; Mat_27:46.—Majus: Jesus does not forget His own, although it sometimes seems as if He did; before they are aware, He is with them.—When God calls a man to venture something, he must shun no danger.—They who seek to escape the cross are never at a loss for excuses.—Hedinger: Death a sleep, Isa_26:19; Isa_57:2.—The ways of the Lord, which apparently militate against faith, must often serve to strengthen it.—Ibid.: It is well, if thou be ready to go with Christ unto death.
Braune: In no narrative is the Lord’s fulness of love more clearly and richly revealed, and nowhere is the heart of the Redeemer more fully unveiled to us.
Joh_11:4. Honor, therefore, the Christian, and ye honor God; the two things are inseparably connected.
Joh_11:14. Jesus rejoiced when men wept; He may likewise be angry, when men are glad.
Gerlach: The dead man was not a stranger to Him, like the young man of Nain and the daughter of Jairus (although it is a question, whether these were essentially strangers to Him), but he believed on Him.—In all such cases Jesus proceeds in precisely the same manner as divine Providence, which generally affords relief in the most wonderful ways only when the utmost need is reached. Thus, forsooth, dares no human helper act, who holds not the issues in his power.—When God carries the torch before us and bids us follow, we may courageously advance, even though menaced on all sides by death.
Gossner: The Church of Jesus resembles this house, where Jesus stopped. It has Marys, clinging with ardent devotion to the Lord; it has Marthas, active and fruitful in good works; it has Lazaruses, sick or even dead (better: it has suffering and dying members), but who are healed and raised up by the word of Jesus.—Love and a cross; man cannot make the two rhyme, but it is thus that God always rhymes. Heubner: We can distinguish a three fold love in Jesus: 1. Towards all men; 2. towards believers on Him; 3. towards individuals; a peculiar friendship for them, as here for this family, and for John.—Happy the household, the hearts of whose members love to Jesus unites.—One of the three was sick; the others suffer with him.—The sickness of loved ones is a means of strengthening and intensifying the bonds of love.—“Lazarus, by his weakness and death, assists in the accomplishment of a greater and more glorious work than if he had personally preached in all the world.” (Sutellius.)—Before God all the discord of suffering humanity is already melted into harmony.—Habet Dominus suas horas et moras.—As sleep is the withdrawal of life inwards, for the gathering of new strength, so likewise is death, etc.
Schleiermacher: But two houses are mentioned in which Jesus was peculiarly at home; one was the house of Peter (Mat_8:14), when He began to dwell at Capernaum and as often as He abode there afterwards; the other is the house of Lazarus and his sisters at Bethany, in the vicinity of Jerusalem. (The third is doubtless the country-house of Gethsemane, the fourth the house in Jerusalem, where He kept the Passover; but a veil hangs over the respective families.)—We may be right in believing that He would not leave this region (Peræa) so suddenly, without saying farewell to those that believed on Him, leaving with them yet other sound words of doctrine and establishing more firmly their faith and love;—all this He must do before He could depart thence with a good conscience and tranquil heart.—From the raising of Lazarus they were to derive the hope that the promise, so frequently heard by them and so deeply graven on their hearts, should in like manner be fulfilled in the case of the Lord.
Schröder: The brother and sisters of Bethany; Lazarus, Martha, Mary. Was it not, perhaps, a step-ladder of spiritual life? Well, if we take Lazarus for the beginning, Martha may be our point of transit, but Mary ever our aim and end.
Joh_11:3-5. The love of the Lord a tabernacle of God among men. The outer court (Joh_11:3), the Holy Place (Joh_11:4), the Holy of Holies (Joh_11:5).
Joh_11:6-10. The way of Jesus: He acts in darkness, He walks in light.
Joh_11:11-13. The death of His friends a sleep. They fall asleep, they rest, they awake.
[Craven: From Augustine: Joh_11:4. This death , itself was not unto death, but to give occasion for a miracle; whereby men might be brought to believe in Christ, and so escape eternal death.
Joh_11:11-14. To our Lord, he was sleeping; to men, who could not raise him again, he was dead.—From Chrysostom: Joh_11:3. They sent, not went, partly—1. from their great faith in Him; 2. because their sorrow kept them at home.
Joh_11:5. We are instructed not to be sad if sickness falls upon good men, and friends of God.
Joh_11:9-10. The upright need fear no evil, the wicked only have cause for fear: Or, If any one seeth this world’s light, he is safe; much, more he who is with Me.—From Theophylact: Joh_11:15. I am glad for your sakes, for—1. had I been there I should have only cured a sick man; but 2. having been absent, I shall now raise a dead man.—From Brentius: Joh_11:3. The message is like all true prayer; it does not consist in much speaking and fine sentences.—From Lavater: Joh_11:6. Jesus proposed to help them in His own way, that is as God.—From M. Henry: Joh_11:2. Extraordinary acts of piety, will not only find acceptance with Christ, but will gain reputation in the church, Mat_26:13.
Joh_11:3. His sisters sent unto Him; though God knows all our wants, He would know them from us, and is honored by our laying them before Him.—He whom Thou lovest—not, he who loveth Thee; our greatest encouragements in prayer are fetched from God Himself, and from His grace.—Note 1. there are some followers of Jesus for whom He hath a special kindness, Joh_13:23; John 2. it is no new thing for those whom Christ loves to be sick; 3. it is a great comfort (blessing) when we are sick, to have those about us who will pray for us; 4. we have great encouragement in our prayers for the sick, if we have reason to believe that they are such as Christ loves.
Joh_11:4. The afflictions of saints are designed for the glory of God; The Son of God is glorified thereby, as His wisdom, power and goodness are glorified—1. in supporting the sufferers; 2. in relieving them; (3. in ordering their sorrows for their welfare. E. R. C.)
Joh_11:6. It is not said, He loved them, and yet He lingered; but, He loved them and therefore He lingered: He lovingly delayed—1. that He might try the sisters, and through trial, bless; 2. that He might have opportunity for doing more for Lazarus (and his sisters) than for any others.—God hath gracious intentions even in seeming delays, Isa_49:13-14; Isa_54:7-8.
Joh_11:7. When Christ knew they were brought to the last extremity (Joh_11:14) He said—Let us go into Judea; Christ will arise in favor of His people when the set time is come, and the worst time is commonly the set time—man’s extremity is God’s opportunity.—Let us go; Christ never brings His people into any peril without accompanying them in it.
Joh_11:7-8. Christ’s gracious purpose of revisiting persecuting Judea, and the wonder of the disciples thereat; His ways in passing by offences, are above our ways.
Joh_11:9-10. Christ shows—1. the comfort and satisfaction of walking in the path of duty; 2. the pain and peril of not walking in this path.—Christ ever walked in the day; and so shall we, if we follow His steps.
Joh_11:11. Our friend Lazarus sleepeth: see here how Christ calls—1. a believer, friend; 2. a believer’s death, sleep.—Note 1. there is a covenant of friendship between Christ and believers; 2. those whom Christ owns as His friends, all His disciples should take as theirs [our friend); 3. death does not break the bond of friendship.—A Christian when he dies does but sleep; he—1. rests from the labors of the day past; 2. is being refreshed for the next morning.
Joh_11:13. How carefully the evangelist corrects the mistake of the disciples; those who speak in an unknown tongue, or use similitudes, should learn to explain themselves.
Joh_11:14. Christ takes cognizance of the death of His saints, for it is precious in His sight,Psa_116:15.
Joh_11:15. Let us go unto him—not, unto his sisters; death, which separates from all other friends, cannot separate us from Christ.
Joh_11:16. Let us go that we may die with Him, i. e. with Christ (?); Thomas here—1. recognizes the danger of following Christ; 2. expresses a gracious readiness to die with Him; 3. manifests a zealous desire to bring his fellow disciples to a similar readiness.—From Burkitt: Joh_11:4. God is glorified when His Son is glorified.
Joh_11:9-10. Learn—1. Every man has his working time assigned him by God in this world; 2. whilst this time is unexpired he shall not be disabled (for the performance of the work given him.—E. R. C.). he shall not die; 3. every man has his night in which he must expect to stumble, i.e. to die.
