Reactions to the Resurrection of Lazarus
John 11:45-57
Turn in your Bibles to John chapter 11. Now chapter 11 deals with the resurrection of Lazarus, as you know. We've been dealing with it for several weeks now. But as we come to our subject for this morning, which is verse 45 to 57, we come to the effects of the resurrection of Lazarus. What were the results? What did it cause in the area in which it happened? And we'll see all of these effects. And as we look at them we're going to see that same kind of response that we've seen all through John's gospel, that same kind of reaction that is so predictable.
Do you remember that in the very beginning of the gospel, John said about Jesus these words, "He came unto His own and His own received Him not"? Now, that became the pattern for the book, the constant rejection of Christ on the part of most people, on the part of all Israel with few exceptions. After ministering and doing miracles for about three years, the end of it all is the faith of a very, very few and the hatred of the rest. And exactly what John said came to pass. Jesus Christ who was the God‑man, the lover of all men, the gentle healer, the bread of life, the living water, the resurrection and the life, the good tender shepherd was finally rejected. He was hated. He was despised and ultimately, as we shall see in a few weeks, He was nailed to a cross. But before that universal humiliation reached its climax on the cross, before the shame of the cross was allowed to take place, God who is always jealous for the Son's glory, designed that Christ should do one great dynamic climactic miracle in the face of all the rejection. And that miracle was the resurrection of Lazarus from the dead. An astounding dynamic unbelievable expression of power that reversed the death process and made that man four‑days dead alive.
Now, that miracle was what I call a miracle of defiance because it was done specifically in the face of rejection of Israel with the purpose of causing them to see that even if they rejected Him He was sti11 who He claimed to be and still able to express that kind of power. It's defiant on the part of God as if to say you believe what you want, you conclude what you want, it doesn't really matter, I'll prove it again, Jesus is God and He has almighty power.
And so, it was a miracle, first of all, as we have seen then, to give glory to God and the Son. It was a miracle to elevate them in the face of rejection. As a secondary purpose, it brought faith to the hearts of the disciples, didn't it? Jesus had said earlier and I think it's verse ... oh, let's see ... 15 that He was glad about the opportunity for the miracle in order that the faith of the disciples might be built up. So it was a secondary thing not only to manifest His glory defiantly in the face of rejection, but also to reveal to the disciples who He was and strengthen their faith which could easily wane in the face of rejection. And as a third purpose, sublimated to the other two, it had a dynamic effect on unbelievers and made believers out of them, as we shall see.
Now, as we look at the effects of this miracle, we're going to see the division of all of these people who take different views of this miracle. And it becomes a very, very interesting division because it presents to us a formula for reaction for all times, even today. Men today react to Jesus Christ categorically in the same way that these people do to the resurrection of Lazarus by Christ. A couple of details before we look at that.
Now, Jesus returns back to Jerusalem, Judea, particularly Bethany just a few miles out of Jerusalem because He knows Lazarus is dead. He has been beyond Jordan because they're after Him, they want to kill Him. He's been out there to protect Himself from being killed. He knows His time isn't ready yet. So, finally, He moves toward Jerusalem and He knows He's taking His life in His hands. Then He performs a miracle that is so public and so dynamic that it can't be overlooked. It's got to become the topic of conversation. I mean, you know, how many days does your neighbor come and say, "Hey, you know, Lazarus, he died four days ago?" "Yeah." "He's alive. I saw him the other day, doing real well." That will rattle your cage.
So, It's a very outstanding miracle and it's a miracle that, you know ... you know it's going to go like wild fire. Everybody is going to know ... public miracle. And He knew that there would be those who would believe on Him because of it, but He also knew that it would just throw incendiary spark to the fire that was already burning in the hearts of the Pharisees and the ones who hated Him. So, He knows what He's doing.
It's kind or interesting and paradoxical that nobody ever denies the miracle. Not even the ones who were the murderers, not even the haters of Christ, they don't deny the miracle. How you going to deny that kind of a miracle, right? How you going to deny it? You can't say it didn't happen. Everybody knows the guy was dead, you can't deny it. So you know what they do? They just say, 'Don't confuse us with the facts; we know He's not the Son of God. It doesn't matter if He raised the dead, don't tell me those things. That only confuses my unbelief."
So, even though, you know, to deny the miracle would be ridiculous, right? They don't deny the miracle. They deny the Christ which is more ridiculous. And so, as we approach this, we don't even have a discussion of the miracle. It's not even in here. Nobody even brings it up. The key to the whole understanding of the reactions Is In verse 40, I want you look at that. We'll bounce off that verse and see some other things. If you don't have a Bible, there's one in the pew rack maybe near you, you can use.
All right, verse 40. Now here's the key thought. "Jesus saith unto her," Jesus talking to Martha, "Said I not unto thee that if thou wouldest believe thou shouldest see the glory of God?" Now you remember that I told you last time that that statement is the statement of principle. In other words, He's saying this, "If you want to see the most out of this miracle and see it in its true value, you've got to come to the miracle in the right frame of mind." Right? If you come to the miracle believing that it's going to manifest God's glory, then when it happens you're going to say, "Oh look, there's God's glory." If you come to the miracle preoccupied with a corpse, all you're going to see is a living corpse and you won't really reflect on the glory of God. If you come to the miracle blinded, totally unbelieving hardened heart, you're going to walk away, "And so I don't know what happened but obviously it didn't happen like it looked."
In other words, whatever attitude you bring to this event is going to color the decision that you make about what happened. And that's true about anybody. That's true of anything we experience. And what He's saying there in verse 40 is, "If you have the right attitude and an open heart of believing, then when you see the miracle you're going to come to the right conclusion."
In John 7:17, that classic verse, "If any man wills to do His will, he shall know of the doctrine." God reveals truth to those who are open to it, right? If your mind is closed, you haven't got a chance. And that's what you have here. You have some whose minds are open, some whose minds are closed, some whose minds are just rattling around. And we'll see what happens in every case. The open heart responds by believing, see. And they experience love and truth. The closed mind just walks away and says, I hate Him...I hate Him ... I hate Him worse than I ever hated Him." See, because there's no way to frame that event in the mind of unbelief.
Now, I want you to see specifically the effects on four groups. If you have a bulletin there's an outline in it, you can take some notes along the way if you're so desiring. That effects on four groups and this is just a way to outline the thing so you'll be able to kind of catalog it in your brain. First, the many...then the murderers, then the multitudes, then the Mary and Martha and Disciples, how it affected all of these.
The many believed on Him. The murderers had new fresh bitterness and more vigor to kill Him than ever. The multitudes just sort of stood around and watched Him. They were sort of spectators. And then Mary, Martha and Disciples had stronger faith. Their faith was built up. They were like the Christian who sees God do something wonderful and his faith is strengthened.
All right, so we have four groups and you'll see that there's division again. You have two of those groups on the believing side and two of those groups on the unbelieving side. It's always what Christ does. Every time Christ steps in a situation, He's divisive ... always. I mean, if you step in a situation and say, "Ladies and Gentlemen, this is true and this is false," then everybody who agrees with that is true and everybody agrees that that is false, that's that simple. Christ said, "I am the Son of God. I came to bring the message of salvation. I came here to reveal Myself and God to you. I am the one." If you believe, you're on that side. If you don't believe, you're on that side. Christ is divisive at that point. And Christ came to bring a sword to divide so that it might be clear cut as to man's attitude toward God.
All right, so division is again the theme as it is repeatedly in John and we'll see two sides ... which just polarizing automatically.
First of all, notice the many in verse 45. "Then many of the Jews who came to Mary and had seen the things which Jesus did believed on Him." Now, when Lazarus died, he was a pretty prominent guy and his sisters were well‑known, Martha and Mary. And so a lot of the Jews, and by the word Jew, John refers primarily to the leadership in Israel, the highbrow religious leadership, although it may have reference also to people, but primarily to the leadership, when they ... when Lazarus died, all these people came from Jerusalem to his funeral ... all these prominent Jews, leadership type Jews. They were there. They came to mourn the death of Lazarus.
You'll notice in verse 45 it says, "They came to Mary." And it doesn't mention Martha. It might be an interesting reason to that. The reason is that because evidently Mary was the really sorrowful one. She was the really disconsolate one. You go back into verse 31 and you see the Jews and they're in there comforting Mary, not Martha. Martha's hustling around, she's hostess, you know. She always picked the role of hostess‑‑got to get the stuff fixed and you know, get everybody settled and all of this and that. And at this point in verse 31, she's already run out to see Jesus and they're still there comforting Mary. Mary was the pensive one, the pessimistic, the kind of...the disconsolate one and so they were comforting her.
Then verse 32 talks more about it. In verse 33 when the group arrives to Jesus, Jesus sees Mary weeping and the Jews weeping with her. So evidently they had kind of comforted Mary. She needed more comfort than Martha did ... her faith being weaker, evidently, in terms of Lazarus.
Now all of them had witnessed an astounding miracle, just devastating. And as a result of it, they had believed on Christ. That's what it says, "Many had seen the things which Jesus did, believed on Him." Now the whole key to everything, friends, is in the last few words of that verse. What are they? "On Him." Now faith in order to be meaningful must be placed on the right object, right? That's what it has to be. Not just believing in believing. There's a whole theological school now that's developing and their thesis is "faith in faith." Isn't that good? They have faith in faith. They believe in believing. And you'll say to people well, you know, this and that ... and they'll say, "Oh, I believe ... I believe." What do you believe? "Oh, I believe ... I'm a believer." A believer in what? "Well, I just believe. I believe in the ... in that God is in control ... I believe." Oh, that's real good.
You know something? Faith in nothing is nothing. It's zero, zilch, nothing. It doesn't mean anything to believe in believing. You know, I like it ... you've heard the song, "I believe for every drop of rain that falls a flower grows." Oh, in the first place, that's a lie. "I believe that somewhere in the darkest night a candle glows." Tremendous. "Every time I hear a newborn baby cry, or touch a leaf or see the sky, then I know why I believe." You believe what? Don't push me. "I believe." Well, goody‑goody. You see, that's the kind of attitude that a lot of people have ... I believe. You believe what? Usually when somebody comes to you and you ask them a question they say, "Well, I believe that's it's over there." That means they don't know. If you can't believe in something and on something, you're believing is ridiculous. Who cares whether you believe a candle glows? Who cares whether you believe a flower grows? That's irrelevant. God's not going to say to you someday, "Well, enter into My Kingdom because you believed the candle glowed." No, no ... that's so ludicrous it's inane.
No, no, no that's not the point. The point is at the end of verse 45 "they believed ... what? ... on Him." You see, faith is nothing unless it's placed in Jesus Christ. That's the whole point. Peter said, 'Neither is there salvation in any other, there is none other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved." If a man does not put his faith in Jesus Christ his faith is meaningless. And what cuts the ice is faith in Him. John 1:12, "But as many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on ... what? ... His name." Christ is definitive. There aren't options. You can't just believe any ole thing you want, that's ridiculous.
You know, it's amazing how people can affirm that God is propositional and static and God is a God of order and absolute precision in everything He does In His natural world and that the moral world is a free for all. You know, we fly to the moon and we fool around with all the sciences and we do it on the basis that scientific truth is static and it never changes. I mean, the guy in the laboratory who is pouring all the stuff in the thing, he is operating on the basis of the fact that it's not going to violate known truth. If it does, he'll blow the building to bits. The people who blast off into space, they count on the absolute Immutability and accuracy of scientific natural law. Now if God is a God of law and God is a God of order, He's not going to move over to the moral area and say, "Oh, just ... you know ... do whatever ... do your own thing." That's absurd.
A student at Valley State said to me after I spoke, he said, "I don't buy what you said." That's okay, it wasn't for sale. It was for nothing ... you know. He said, "I think that morality is only a matter of symbols and you give any meaning you want to the symbols." And this is a popular philosophy. And, you know, it's so ridiculous. What a philosophy. In other words, my ... what's meaningful to me is to, you know, shoot my wife and come over and stab your wife and cut up your little children and burn your house down ... that's what gives meaning to my symbols. Well, that's idiotic. You have a society where everybody does what they want and look what you get. God has propositional static revelation in terms of morality just as He does in the scientific world. And when you come to believe in something, you better believe in the accuracy of the statement of the Word of God that if you don't believe in Jesus Christ you're sentenced to hell forever.
You say, "Well, that's awful narrow." Yeah, well it's also true. If you'd like I'll make a big broad statement that's a lie. Now genuine faith is placed in an object, Christ is that object.
Now, another little thought about verse 45. Having said all of that, let me say this. The term "believed on Him" does not necessarily always mean genuine saving faith. It can. It doesn't have to. I can say I believe on Him and that expresses my true faith, doesn't it? Somebody else can come along and say, "Well, I believe on Him" and that may not be the same kind of believing that I'm believing. I mean, the devils believe and tremble, right? I mean, in John chapter 2 a lot of people saw His miracle and said, "Oh, we believe, we believe." And Jesus did not commit Himself unto them because He knew the character of their belief was not legitimate.
So, there's a sense in which it can be an honest genuine heart knowledge and there's another sense in which it can just be mental assent, right? Well, you have that, I think, clearly in chapter 8 where Christ shows the difference. In verse 30, "As He spoke these words many believed on Him." There's the same phrase. The many believed on Him. Same identical phrase you find in chapter 11, we just read it. Many believed on Him. "Then said Jesus to those Jews who believed on Him, if you continue in My Word, then are you My disciples."
In other words, your initial assent to believing does not necessarily mean you've totally committed your life, see. Ah, I'm sure there are, you know, millions of people who would not deny that Jesus is the Son of God. But they don't know Him. So, the phrase "believed on Him" may mean genuine salvation, it may mean only mental assent. Now the question we want to know is what does it mean in chapter 11 verse 45? I believe it means genuine salvation. I believe it means that for several reasons. First of all, I believe it means that because of what it says in verse 52 that the purpose of this whole miracle which led to the death of Christ was that He would gather together in one the children of God that were scattered abroad. Prior to that He had talked about His saving the nation. I believe the whole point of His death obviously was salvation and I believe that part and parcel of the miracle of Lazarus was to bring about salvation in the hearts and lives of some of God's chosen children. Also, the fact of verse 48 where the Jews say, "If we don't get rid of this guy, everybody's going to believe on Him." Evidently they were convinced of the genuineness of the faith of these people.
Also, back in verse 4, the same chapter, Jesus made the statement that the sickness of Lazarus was for the glory of God that the Son of God might be glorified. And evidently when these people believed, that gave Him greatest glory. So, I believe from those verses that this is genuine faith.
Secondly, I believe it's genuine faith because I think it's in contrast to the rest of the reaction in the chapter which is the reaction of unbelief. And I think you have a division. Whenever Christ presented Himself, there was a division. And if the rest of the chapter deals with unbelief then this part would deal with honest belief to show that dichotomy. And I'm also inclined to believe that it's genuine faith because of the convincing nature of the miracle itself. If a man's heart was open to any kind of believing and that miracle happened, it must have been convincing. So, many believed.
Now may I hasten to say that the many is only many of the ones at the funeral, not many of Israel. They were just a handful of people, but many of the ones who were there. That takes care of the many who believed. Now remember, believing is not believing in nothing, It's believing in Christ. What do you mean believing in Christ? Believing that He's the Son of God, right? That He's God in human flesh, that He came into the world and died on a cross, that He rose again the third day, that He ascended to the Father, that He can come into your life, forgive your sins and cleanse your life. That's believing in Christ and nothing short of that.
All right, the second group we meet are the murderers. And we meet them beginning in verse 46 and they think that the whole incident of Lazarus is nothing but a catalyst to hurry up the execution of Jesus. And here's the contrast. Verse 46, "But some of them went their way to the Pharisees and told them what things Jesus had done."
Now, these are the stool pigeons in the group. They came to the miracle in unbelief. They went away in unbelief. They didn't even bother to find out what the deal was and how you explain it. They ran to the Pharisees and, of course, they knew how much the Pharisees hated Jesus already. They ran to the Pharisees, "Boy, you guys are in trouble. He's done one now." And told them what He had done.
Now, some people, some commentators have given to these a pure motive. And they say they went in all honesty to try to testify to the Pharisees. I don't think that's the case. The reason I don't think it's the case is because there's no ... nothing's ever said of these people after verse 46 and had they been believers they would have likely been quizzed like the blind beggar was in chapter 9. Also, the fact that this is part of the section which talks about all of the hatred and animosity and murder leads me to believe that these guys were the opposite of the believing ones. This is the division again. The many believed, but some went and told the Pharisees. And they reported that Jesus had done this and boy, if you guys think you're in trouble now, you better check again because Jesus really did one now and the people are going to come after Him. They're going to follow Him when they hear about that miracle. So, I believe they came with at least a sinister intention...to tell the Pharisees knowing how much the Pharisees hated Jesus anyway, to show them their bitterness and to activate the Pharisees in some way against Jesus. And it worked ... it worked.
But isn't that predictably the result of the hard heart, the callous soul? You can show them all the truth of God there is and they don't respond to it. They just can't ... there ... there is no capacity in unbelief for perceiving truth. Did you get that? There is no capacity in unbelief for perceiving truth. Did you ever just talk to somebody and you got something you want to convince them of and they will not believe it and as long as they won't believe it you can't communicate it? They don't see it because they won't see it. Just that simple.
So, they went to that grave with blockheads, solid rock, unbelieving, unmoved and that's just exactly how they walked away. And you want to know something wonderful about unbelief? it doesn't even bother to rationalize ... doesn't need to, it doesn't believe. It doesn't have to go in and say, "Well, let's see. I know how that whole thing happened. Let's see...he did this and this and this..." It doesn't...these guys are so steeped in unbelief they don't even bother to rationalize. They just walk off and don't even worry about the miracle. And so this is the reaction of a hard heart. And this is the depths of unbelief. I mean, anybody that could stand by a grave an watch a guy walk out of there who had been four‑days dead and have grave clothes hanging all over him and see a bunch of people unwrap him and he walks off living and not believe ... friends, that's unbelief. And that shows you the depth of unbelief and that also shows you why no man comes unt