Bible Study series: John 11:17-27. Jesus teaches before he performs his miracle. Are we listening? Or do we only love the miracles?
Friendly greetings and a warm welcome to this Bible study! I write to learn, so let’s learn together how to apply these truths to our lives.
I also translate to learn. The translations are mine, unless otherwise noted. If you would like to see many others, please click here:
For the Greek text, click here:
At that link, I provide a lot more commentary.
In this post, links are provided for further study.
Let’s begin.
Scripture: John 11:17-27
17 Then when Jesus came, he found him already laid in the tomb for four days. 18 (Bethany was near Jerusalem about fifteen stadia.) 19 Many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to comfort them about their brother.
20 Then Martha, when she heard that Jesus was coming, met him. But Mary sat in the house. 21 Then Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. 22 But even now I know that whatever you ask God for, God will give it to you.” 23 Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.” 24 Martha said to him, “I know that he will rise again at the resurrection on the last day.” 25 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one believing in me, even if he dies, will live, 26 and everyone living and believing in me will never die. Do you believe this?” 27 She said to him, “Yes, Lord, I do believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, the one coming into the world.” (John 11:17-27)
Comments:
John establishes the scene in the first three verses. Lazarus was dead for four days and was in the tomb or literally “having” the tomb. Many of the Jews from the surrounding area came to show their sympathy for the two sisters. An historical tidbit first: A stadion (plural: stadia) was about 605 feet or 185m. So Bethany was about two miles or three kilometers from Jerusalem, on the road leading to Jericho (eastward).
Now let’s get not the deeper content, take the pericope (pronounced puh-RIH-koh-pea) or unit or section as a whole, instead of verse by verse.
Wow. The title of this pericope is rightly titled after Jesus’s pronouncement in v. 25. However, it could also be titled: “Martha’s Strong Trust” or “Martha’s Deep Faith.” She went out to meet Jesus. She believed in Jesus’s healing power, so she told him that if he had come earlier, Lazarus would not have died because Jesus would have healed him. Then her deep faith is revealed with her words. He can ask God for whatever he wants, and God would grant it to him. Even now Martha has a glimmer of faith that God through Jesus could work a miracle.
In contrast, why did Mary sit in the house when Martha went out to meet him? Yes, it was a custom to sit in the house to mourn, but then why did Martha get up and meet him? So back to my speculation: Was she upset with him for delaying? If so, that is a natural human response. She will say the same thing that Martha did, falling at his feet (v. 32), though her faith is not shown in the text. Was her faith weaker than Martha’s? Yes, it looks like it.
What does the term Christ or Messiah mean? The term means the Anointed One. In Hebrew it is Messiah, and in Greek it is Christ. It means that the Father through the Spirit equipped Jesus with his special calling and the fulness of power to preach and minister to people, healing their diseases and expelling demons (though demon expulsion is not mentioned in John’s Gospel). The Messiah / Christ ushered in the kingdom of God by kingdom preaching and kingdom works.
3. Titles of Jesus: The Son of David and the Messiah
After Martha’s profession of faith, he promises her that Lazarus will rise again. So we have an ambiguous future tense. Jesus means soon, and Martha believe it will happen at resurrection on the last day. So her faith which said that even now he can ask God for whatever he needs, God will answer, has now shifted to the resurrection on the last day.
Please see John 5:28-29.
John 5 (scroll down to vv. 28-29)
Now Jesus makes an important announcement, his revelation of who he is. This is the fifth of seven “I am” statements: I am door / gate. In Exod. 3:14, in the Septuagint (pronounced sep-too-ah-gent, a third to first century BC translation of the Hebrew Bible into Greek), the Greek reads: “the LORD says, ‘I AM WHO I AM.’” (egō eimi, pronounced eh-goh-ay-mee) is used in the phrasing (along with ho ōn). This is high Christology.
|
JESUS’ SEVEN “I AM” SAYINGS IN JOHN |
|
| 1 | I Am the Bread of Life (6:35, 48) and Living Bread (6:51) |
| 2 | I Am the Light of the World (8:12) |
| 3 | I Am the Gate (10:7, 9) |
| 4 | I Am the Good Shepherd (10:11, 14) |
| 5 | I Am the Resurrection and the Life (11:25) |
| 6 | I Am the Way, the Truth, and the Life (14:6) |
| 7 | I am the True Vine (15:1, 5) |
| BTSB, p. 2163, slightly edited | |
Or Jesus may refer to the “I am he” passages in Is. 40-55, as he did at John 8:24. Here is a list (all NIV and emphasis added):
Who has done this and carried it through,
calling forth the generations from the beginning?
I, the Lord—with the first of them
and with the last—I am he.” (Is. 41:4)
10 “You are my witnesses,” declares the Lord,
“and my servant whom I have chosen,
so that you may know and believe me
and understand that I am he.
Before me no god was formed,
nor will there be one after me.
11 I, even I, am the Lord,
and apart from me there is no savior.
12 I have revealed and saved and proclaimed—
I, and not some foreign god among you.
You are my witnesses,” declares the Lord, “that I am God.
13 Yes, and from ancient days I am he.
No one can deliver out of my hand.
When I act, who can reverse it?” (Is. 43:10-13, see v. 25)
Even to your old age and gray hairs
I am he, I am he who will sustain you.
I have made you and I will carry you;
I will sustain you and I will rescue you. (Is. 46:4)
“Listen to me, Jacob,
Israel, whom I have called:
I am he;
I am the first and I am the last.
13 My own hand laid the foundations of the earth,
and my right hand spread out the heavens;
when I summon them,
they all stand up together. (Is. 48:12-13)
12 “I, even I, am he who comforts you.
Who are you that you fear mere mortals,
human beings who are but grass,
13 that you forget the Lord your Maker,
who stretches out the heavens
and who lays the foundations of the earth,
that you live in constant terror every day
because of the wrath of the oppressor,
who is bent on destruction? (Is. 51:12-13)
Whether Jesus is referring to these verses in the “I Am” statements or not, this is high Christology.
Mounce on this “I Am” statement: “We are nevertheless called on to see Jesus as possessing eternal life in such a way that to believe in him is to share with him the resurrected life of the new age. As Paul would put it, those who are ‘in Christ’ are one with him in the experience of a quality of life both divine and eternal (see, e.g., Ro 8:1; 1 Cor 15:22; 2Co 5:17; Eph 1:3)” (comment on vv. 25-26). He goes on to say that “living and believing” should be joined together as a unit so it could be translated as “living by faith.” (I add: “living by believing.”) When he believes in Jesus, we share in eternal life, which overcomes death. Carson: The first half of v. 26 “stipulates that the believer, the one who already enjoys resurrection life this side of death, will in some sense never die. … In anticipation of Jesus’ resurrection and the outpouring of the Spirit, there is the repeated promise that those who believe in him will immediately possess eternal life. ‘I tell you the truth, if anyone keeps my word, he will never see death (8:51; cf. 3:15, 16; 5:24). Ordinary mortal life ebbs away; the life that Jesus gives never ends. It is in that sense that whoever lives and believes in Jesus will never die” (comments on vv. 25-26).
Now let’s return to the interaction between the Lord and Martha. Jesus says that anyone who believes in him, though he dies, will live. Ambiguity. The believer will die to himself—pick up his cross and follow him—and when he dies a physical death, he will never die but always live because his soul / spirit will live on. The Greek literally reads: he will not—not!—die forever.
Jesus asks her the personal question. Do you believe this? She answers with her great statement of faith: She believes that he is the Christ / Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world.
Simon Peter says: the Messiah (1:41)
Nathanael says: the Son of God (1:49)
Philip says: “the one Moses wrote about” (1:45; 1:27, 30)
Martha says: the Messiah and Son of God, the sent one.
Martha had the deeper and fuller faith than the men had (Bruce and Mounce, comment on v. 27).
The Christ and Messiah are synonyms, and both mean “Anointed One.” Christ is Greek, while Messiah is Hebrew. John calls him Christ here because of his Greek speaking readers, but he also says “Messiah” twice (1:42; 4:25).
3. Titles of Jesus: The Son of David and the Messiah
Son of God seems to be equal to Messiah here, but in John’s Gospel, Jesus is the Logos made flesh and tabernacled among his own people, according to the Prologue (John 1:1-18). Jesus is the only begotten and unique Son of God. See v. 4 for more comments.
Recall that the “world,” kosmos (pronounced koss-moss) in Greek, could refer to the physical universe (17:5; 21:25). Or it could refer to humanity as a group. What we call humanity or humankind is, in John, the world. This is why God invades the kosmos. “The ‘world’ is the place or realm where God is at work, the place that is the main focus of God’s attention. God’s saving light invades the dark world. Jesus came to the dark world to save as many as those who believe in him and in his name. In sum, “it appears that the personification of the ‘world’ in John is the portrait of a class of people.” It is the dimension of a relational encounter between God and people (Klink, comment on 1:10, pp. 100-01).
Finally, Martha’s faith. It has to go more deeply than head or academic knowledge. It has to go into the heart and lead some to entrust herself entirely to the Lord. Bruce calls it a “settled attitude of soul” (comment on v. 27).
“life”: this is more than mere existence. This is life of the next age, that age, which has broken into this age or right now. In other words, eternal life happens now, but we must be careful not to believe that everything in the new age, in everlasting life, is happening now. This is called over-realized eschatology (study of ends times and new ages). Not every new-age blessing becomes realized or accomplished right now. But let’s not remain negative. We get some benefits of the next age or new age right now. We get some benefits of eternal life, right now.
5 The Kingdom of God: Already Here, But Not Yet Fully
Let’s look at life by the book—by the prominent Greek lexicon.
It is the noun zoē (pronounced zoh-ay, and girls are named after it, e.g. Zoey). BDAG, a thick Greek lexicon, says that it has two senses, depending on the context: a physical life (e.g. life and breath) and a transcendent life. By physical life the editors mean the period from birth to death, human activity, a way or manner of living, a period of usefulness, earning a living. By transcendent life the lexicographers mean these four elements: first, God himself is life and offers us everlasting life. Second, Christ is life, who received life from God, and now we can receive life from Christ. Third, it is new life of holiness and righteousness and grace. God’s life filling us through Christ changes our behavior. Fourth, zoē means life in the age to come, or eschatological life. So our new life now will continue into the next age, which God fully and finally ushers in when Christ returns. We will never experience mere existence or death, but we will be fully and eternally alive in God.
Clearly, John means the fourth definition.
When Jesus said he was the Resurrection and the Life, he was signifying that he is the Source and Giver of eternal life. The moment the believer is born again, he passes from death to life. He experiences a resurrection of sorts. When he dies at the end of his earth-life, his body dies, but his spirit lives on. We have eternal life now, at our death, at the end of this earth-bound life, our graduation into heaven, and finally at our future bodily resurrection. Eternal life is a gift of God which his Son offers to anyone who wants it. It begins with his being born again, and it remains forever with the believer, on the condition that he remains in Christ.
What Happens between Your Death and Final Resurrection?
Ten Biblical Truths about Your New Body
11. Do I Really Know Jesus? He Was Resurrected from the Dead
12. Do I Really Know Jesus? What Was His Resurrected Body Like?
13. Do I Really Know Jesus? His Resurrection Changes Everything
GrowApp for John 11:17-27
1. Describe Martha’s faith. What is your faith like? How can it grow more strongly?
RELATED
14. Similarities among John’s Gospel and the Synoptic Gospels
12. Eyewitness Testimony in John’s Gospel
4. Church Fathers and John’s Gospel
3. Archaeology and John’s Gospel
SOURCES
For the bibliography, click on this link and scroll down to the very bottom:
Dr. Jim's Essential Bible Teaching 