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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadMatthew Poole Commentary - John 11:41 - 11:41
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The servants, or friends, about the grave, removeth the stone from the mouth of the cave, within which the dead corpse of Lazarus lay. Christ, before his thanksgiving to his Father, is said to have
lifted up his eyes; a posture often used in men’s addresses to God, Psa_121:1, and Psa_123:1, as an indication of their belief that heaven is God’s throne: though he filleth heaven and earth, yet heaven is his court, where he most gloriously showeth himself, the earth but his footstool. We read here of nothing that Christ had said before, yet he giveth thanks here to his Father that he had heard him. The meaning is, thou hast willed, or pleased to grant, those things which I desired. It is very hard to determine, whether Christ had used some audible words before this, upon this occasion, in prayer to his Father, which the evangelist could not or did not set down; or whether he only groaned in his spirit, as was said before, by those groans not only expressing his sorrow for Lazarus’s death, or rather sympathy with the afflictions of Mary and Martha, but also his desires to his Father, that he might be again restored to life; and his second groaning, Joh_11:38, was of that nature: which groanings in the saints God understandeth, knowing the mind of the Spirit, making intercession for the saints according to the will of God (as the apostle teacheth us, Rom_8:27); much more did the Father, who was one in nature, essence, and will with the Son, understand them in him. Nothing in these cases can be determined, much less can any conclude from hence, that there is no need of our using any words in our prayers; for although there be no simple, absolute necessity that we should use them in order to God’s knowledge of what we need, and would have; for he that searcheth the heart, knows what we need, and what we desire, Mat_6:8; yet there is a necessity for our words, in order to our obeying God’s command, Hos_14:2 Luk_11:2. There is a great deal of difference between God’s hearing of Christ, and hearing us: Christ and his Father have one essence, one nature, and will.