John 11:1-44

1. The seventh sign: raising Lazarus 11:1-44

Jesus had presented Himself as the Water of Life, the Bread of Life, and the Light of Life. Now He revealed Himself as the resurrection and the life. This was the seventh and last of Jesus’ miraculous signs that John recorded, and it was the most powerful revelation of His true identity. [Note: See Edersheim, 2:308.] It shows Jesus’ authority over humankind’s greatest and last enemy: death. Some scholars view Jesus’ resurrection as one of His signs. Others prefer to view it as in a different class from the miracles that Jesus performed while He was living on the earth. I favor the second option.

"The claim of Jesus to be working in complete and conscious union with His Father led the Jews to attempt unsuccessfully to stone Him [John 10:31]. But it was His claim to bestow upon believers the gift of eternal life by raising them from spiritual death which led, according to the Johannine narrative, to His crucifixion [John 11:53]." [Note: Tasker., p. 137.]

"Physical death is the divine object lesson of what sin does in the spiritual realm. As physical death ends life and separates people, so spiritual death is the separation of people from God and the loss of life which is in God (John 1:4). Jesus has come so that people may live full lives (John 10:10)." [Note: Blum, p. 312.]