We Live In An Age when people commonly refer to the “miracles” of modern medicine The discoveries of viral vaccinations, antibiotics, microsurgery, organ transplants and numerous other modern medical marvels have greatly lengthened the life span of mankind over the past century Yet for all this technology there is still one cure that no physician would ever attempt to accomplish and that is the revival of a corpse from the grave This is precisely what the greatest physician who ever lived achieved when he healed his beloved friend Lazarus and released him from the bonds of death after four days in the tomb No one before, or after, has ever performed such a miracle, and by this great feat the power and majesty of our Lord Jesus Christ has been established forever
Unique power
Solomon had written that no man hath the power over the spirit to retain the spirit, neither hath he power in the day of death (Eccl 8 8) The restoration of the living spirit into the dead Lazarus was the ultimate miracle that our Lord Jesus Christ performed It unequivocally demonstrated that he had completely vested in him the power of the Lord God of Israel It had been said of his cousin John the Baptist that he shall go before him in the spirit and power of Elias (Luke 1 17) If John the Baptist had in him the spirit and power of Elijah, even more wonderful deeds would come from the Lord Jesus Christ who would follow him
After Moses, Elijah and his successor, Elisha, were the most revered prophets in Jewish culture This is true to this very day At the Passover Seder, faithful Jews set an extra place at the table for Elijah By tradition, it is believed he will one day return to proclaim the Messiah and that this revelation will take the form of his joining at the Seder table with a very holy Jewish family It is therefore extremely intriguing to realize that Elijah and Elisha were the only two Old Testament prophets to restore life to a dead person
The miracle of Lazarus was not a mere accidental event, but was carefully orchestrated by Jesus Christ to demonstrate that he was the true spiritual heir of Elijah and Elisha Yea, even more so, because the manner in which he accomplished the restoration’ of Lazarus went far beyond what is recorded in the Old Testament record First let us look at the work of Elijah and Elisha, which served as a prophetic picture of the miracle that the Messiah would eventually perform as their spiritual successor
Elijah raises the Gentile widow’s son
Elijah had gone to Zarephath, a small Phoenician town which was about a mile from the Mediterranean coast almost midway on the road between Tyre and Sidon. The town was named after its chief business — the smelting of metals.
For a long period of time in the ancient world, the Phoenicians had a monopoly on the metallurgy of making strong, high quality, iron implements so essential both for agriculture (plows) as well as for the weapons and armor of warfare. Zarephath surely was not a pleasant place to live, any more than Pittsburgh or Birmingham must have been at the height of the Industrial Revolution. The smell of smoke, the heat of the hearth, and the choking dust from the ashes of the forge must have been everywhere. Yet it was there that the Lord sent Elijah to wait out the three and one-half years of sore famine which came upon the land of Palestine (I Kgs 17:9). It was to become the site of his most famous miracle. He abode with a widow woman and in the course of that sojourn a most horrible event occurred — the death of her only son. There was no hesitation whatsoever on the part of Elijah as to what he had to do; he immediately said: Give me thy son (I Kgs. 17:19).
There are some who would say that God doesn’t hear prayers by, or for, heathen. Surely the Jews at the time of Christ would have been completely offended if such a miracle had been performed on a Gentile and proclaimed as the work of the Messiah. There are some very pointed biblical passages which reveal God does indeed respond to those not in covenant relationship to Him. The most telling of all is the case of the centurion Cornelius, whose prayers were heard and the apostle Peter was sent to fulfill his yearnings. We should not discourage the prayers of others, especially our children, nor anyone else, for that matter, who is seeking to find the path that leads to eternal life. It is not for us to judge which prayers God will hear and which ones he will ignore. James, the brother of our Lord Jesus Christ, wrote that the effectual fervent prayer ofa righteous man availeth much (James 5:16). The key element here is not covenant relationship, whether it be circumcision or baptism, but rather the “righteousness” of a person in the eyes of God (not man) who knows the thoughts and intents of the heart.
The prophet Elijah was moved with compassion for the plight of this widow woman. He took her son up to his bedchamber. In the privacy of this room, we are told he stretched himself upon the child three times, and cried unto the Lord, and said, 0 Lord my God, I pray thee, let this child’s soul come into him again (I Kgs. 17:21). God answered this prayer on behalf of the Gentile woman: And Elijah took the child, and brought him down out of the chamber into the house, and delivered him unto his mother: and Elijah said, See, thy son liveth (v. 23).
Elisha’s similar miracle
The physical circumstances of the miracle of the restoration to life of the son of the Shunammite2 woman (II Kgs. 4:18-27) are remarkably similar. Elisha is called in haste (II Kgs. 4:24) so that neither at Zarephath nor at Shunem was there a possibility for any physical decay of the body. In the case of Elisha, again the boy is taken to the seclusion of a bedchamber and Elisha shut the door upon them twain (II Kgs 4 33) with no witnesses to the actual instance of revival other than the prophet himself, as was the case earlier with Elijah Finally it is recorded that he went up, and lay upon the child, and put his mouth upon his mouth, and his eyes upon his eyes, and his hands upon his hands and he stretched himself upon the child, and the flesh of the child waxed warm (v 34)
From the descriptions in the narrative some have dismissed the miracles of revival by Elijah and Elisha as a form of what we now call either mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, or even CPR While this is a possible explanation, the skeptic still has to explain how these holy men of old could possibly have known about modern methods of resuscitation unless the Lord God had revealed it to them! Either way, what these prophets performed in the case of the Shunammite child, or for the widow’s son at Zarephath, were surely great miracles Yet the Lord Jesus Christ was to perform even greater
The Lord’s deliberate delay
The circumstances of the death of Lazarus were arranged in a deliberate way to demonstrate the glory of God and the superior power and authority he had given to the Lord Jesus Christ On hearing of the sickness of Lazarus our Lord Jesus says This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God that the son of God might be glorified thereby (John 11 4).
In contrast to the hasty actions of Elijah and Elisha, Jesus consciously tarried two days longer before setting out for Judea The journey to the home of Martha and Mary presumably took at least two additional days since Lazarus was in the grave four days by the time Jesus and the disciples arrived in Bethany.
The disciples apparently didn’t appreciate the significance of what was happening, because their own skepticism came out very clearly Lord if he sleep, he shall do well (v 12) Jesus has to tell them as plainly as possible Lazarus is dead/ (v 14).
It is one of the great ironies of the gospel record that Jesus predicted the Jews would not believe in him even if one rose from the dead (Luke 16 31).
This testimony, given in the parable of the “Rich man and Lazarus,” was surely in anticipation of the miracle that was to be performed on his friend at Bethany (and, of course, eventually of his own resurrection) We also feel certain that the choice of the name of Lazarus in the parable was not a mere coincidence, but a direct reference to what was to actually happen to the brother of Martha and Mary’ The fact Lazarus experienced the corruption of the grave is stated beyond the shadow of a doubt (John 11 39) There could be no question here of revival of an “apparently” dead person by some form of resuscitation.
Words of faith and insight
The element of faith, such an integral part of all the miracles Jesus performed, is revealed here when both sisters said Lord if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died (Martha in v 21 and repeated by Mary v 32) Jesus responded to their faith with the declaration: Thy brother will rise again (v. 23).
Martha’s reply provides us with a remarkable insight into the great faith of this woman. It also provides us with one of the most precise proofs in the scriptures concerning the nature of eternal life: I know that he shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day (v. 24). If Mary believed in an immortal soul ascending to some heavenly abode upon death, then she would never have uttered such words! If her incisive comment was wrong, surely Jesus would have corrected her and offered consolation with the assurance her brother’s so called immortal soul was now in heaven. The teaching of the scriptures here is plain and simple; Martha believed her brother was unconscious in the grave and would remain so until he was restored to life by being reconstituted in the resurrection at the last day. This profound belief in the resurrection is one that runs entirely counter to the heaven-going theology which developed later in the Christian church due to the infusion of pagan philosophy.
Jesus wept
This miracle was certainly not one done in the privacy of a bedchamber, but was witnessed by a large multitude of people, faithful as well as skeptics included. The story pauses for a moment to express the most poignant (and shortest) verse in scripture: Jesus wept (John 11:35).
The Jews thought his sorrow was over remorse for his dead friend and some commentators have thought likewise, but I don’t think the context bears this out. Even before Jesus came to Bethany, he knew Larazus would be raised from the dead and that God would be glorified in him. I doubt, therefore, his sorrow was for Lazarus. Rather, it is more logical to presume, but not dogmatically so, that Jesus wept over the unbelief of his lost sheep; verses 37 and 38 would seem to bolster this suggestion. On the other hand, these Jews probably believed in the miracles of Elijah and Elisha, even though they were done without the presence of the requisite “two or three” witnesses. Nevertheless they appear to be completely untouched by what they witnessed with their own eyes as Jesus called forth Lazarus from the tomb.
Lazarus came forth
The sight of Lazarus stumbling out of the tomb still wrapped in grave cloth must have been absolutely stunning. The wording in the Authorized Version says that Lazarus was bound hand and foot with graveclothes and his face bound with a napkin (v. 44). The two words “bound” here in this verse are from the same Greek root, deo, meaning literally “to bind.”
We should not imagine Lazarus as merely having a loose napkin placed on him, but rather his body was completely enwrapped in linen cloth. The custom was to use linen gauze several inches wide, and very long, and then to bind this round and round the body something in the fashion as we might enwrap an Ace bandage. In this case a separate wrapping was also about the head. The important point is that there was no mistaking that Lazarus was dead. The grave wrapping alone would have smothered him to death even if he had been mistakenly buried and later somehow revived in the tomb! The details are very clear and I believe have been put in the narrative so that even to this day there would be no reason to doubt the miracle Given the certainty of the miracle, the response of the Jewish multitude which witnessed the event is truly startling Many believed, but some went to the Pharisees and with the chief priest, Caiaphas, they took counsel together for to put him to death (v 53)
People of hard hearts
Some cntics have scoffed at the resurrection of Christ and wonder out loud why he only showed himself to a relatively small number of faithful, ranging, of course, up to 500 at one time (I Cor 15) Such critics presume that if he had shown himself to those who had crucified him, including Pharisees, Sadducees, and Romans alike, they would have been persuaded and the world spared two thousand years of misery and pain However, the outcome of this miracle proves otherwise There was no massive change of heart of the leaders of Israel to the greatest miracle ever performed There was no overwhelming outcry by the witnessing multitude to have him recognized as Messiah Though the record says many were convinced, there is no historical record to prove they did much about it In all probability if Jesus had shown himself to the skeptics after his resurrection, they would have only sought to kill him again and finish the job The bottom line is that faith would have been left out of the equation and God performs miracles to confirm the faith of the faithful, not to persuade the skeptic and the blasphemer!
In these latter days we look forward to an even greater miracle to come, the resurrection of faithful believers throughout all ages The wonderful hope of being reunited with our loved ones who have fallen asleep in Jesus comforts our sorrows Regardless of what lies ahead for us, whether we are to sleep in the grave or live to see his return, we will someday hear the words that our Lord Jesus Christ loudly proclaimed at the tomb at Bethany come forth (v 43).
The Origin of the Organic World – Part One