This week is the fifth I AM statement; I am the Resurrection and the life. This is found in John 11:25, but to understand this better it would be wise to know what is happening. This begins in verse 17 with Jesus arriving 4 days after the death of Lazarus.
In the Jewish culture funerals, the mourners, the spices, and the procession still lingered. This was a popular family in the small town of Bethany, so Lazarus’s funeral was a major event. But none of the Lord’s followers, not the disciples and not the sisters, yet understood how Jesus is our life, as he was to Martha.
The custom was for the bereaved to remain seated in the house and for the guests to come and sit in silence and periodically support the grieving parties with sympathetic tears and moans. We should not forget that it was the brother, the obvious wage-earner of that home who had died. The loss was an intense one.
In verse 21 through 24, Martha and Jesus have a conversation. Martha recited the standard Old Testament view of the resurrection, not practicing the promises Jesus had taught so often. She knew about the resurrection of the widow’s son and Jairus’s daughter, but somehow, she never made the connection that the Lord could do the same for her brother.
Martha, Mary, and all these Jewish mourners responded in human fashion to death and sorrow, defeat and abandonment. According to their words, Jesus should have been there to prevent Lazarus’s death. If he were really God, he would have prevented physical death because that is God’s job. They treated death as the end of life, as the final defeat, a sign that God had deserted them. The presence of death meant the absence of God.
Martha could never have accepted the view of the Sadducees that denied the resurrection; she sided with the more conservative Pharisaic view that prevailed among the common people. Martha had no more hope than she had before Jesus arrived on the scene. But that was about to change—dramatically.
Jesus told her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Anyone who believes in me will live, even after dying. Everyone who lives in me and believes in me will never ever die. Do you believe this, Martha? John 11:25-26
This is the wonderful promise almost every Christian has memorized, a passage used at Christian funerals for nearly two thousand years. It forms the key to the chapter, but what does it mean? Jesus said, He who believes in me will live, even though he dies. Does that mean spiritual life beyond the grave as many interpreters have suggested? The context seems to demand an emphasis on physical death and physical life, in other words, bodily resurrection. Verse 26 seems to indicate that whoever is still alive and believing at the time of the Lord’s return will never die.
Martha did not grasp the entirety of this theology, but nevertheless placed her foothold of faith directly in Jesus’ affirmation of his messiahship. She was not completely without faith. She still believed that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of God, and that he might still be able to do something, although she did not really know what. She understood only two categories of life: physical life on earth and some future life at a resurrection. In her mind, Lazarus had neither of those at the moment. She did not think there was anything Jesus could do about his death.
The key to the chapter and a foundation stone of the doctrine of resurrection and the afterlife appears in these verses. This is another one of the Lord’s seven “I Am” statements in this Gospel. Jesus said future resurrection was impossible without him. Martha (as well as Lazarus) had no hope without him in the picture. He also said that real life (life that extends beyond death) is possible only through him. A person attains it no other way. This life is both spiritual (will live, even though he dies) and eternal (will never die), and it comes only to those who believe in Jesus.
Martha’s affirmation of Jesus in verse 27 fits directly into the Johannine pattern. She affirmed that Jesus is the Messiah and therefore the Son of God, and also that he was sent into the world by the Father, a fact he had been arguing in public for more than three years.
The title “Son of God” was first applied to Jesus by the angel Gabriel in his announcement to the Virgin Mary. Explaining that her conception would be by the Holy Spirit, he said that, “the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God” (Luke 1:35). John the Baptist, after witnessing the descent of the Holy Spirit on Jesus at his baptism by John, said, “I testify that this is the Son of God” (John 1:34). This was also the confession of Nathanael (John 1:49); of Martha, the sister of Lazarus and Mary (John 11:27); and of Peter, spokesman for the disciples (Matthew 16:15-16). When the earthquake occurred at Jesus’ crucifixion, the centurion and soldiers who carried out the execution “were terrified, and exclaimed, Surely he was the Son of God” (John 27:54; Mark 15:39; Luke 23:47).
It appears to the casual reader that Martha had climbed on board theologically and would no longer have any question about what Jesus could do. Yet a few minutes later she heard Jesus call for the removal of the stone and objected, “But, Lord . . . by this time there is a bad odor, for he has been there four days” (John 11:39). So again, Martha reminds us of ourselves, a willingness to verbally proclaim biblical truth without applying it in our lives.
This story should also serve as a significant warning even to evangelicals who may be able to mouth all the correct theological statements about Jesus but actually have failed to bring words and life together. It is not enough to make statements about Jesus. If a person would make a statement similar to Martha’s in some churches, the tendency would be to baptize such a person and to accept him or her into membership. But we must all be warned that verbal confessions and life commitments are not always partners with each other.
These verses, 25 and 26, are certainly among the most important verses in the Bible. We memorize them and urge our children to grasp their meaning. Will people rise again “at the last day” as Martha believed? Indeed they will, but not in the sense or for the reason that she implied. The coming of Jesus brought a new order to things, and the old expectations have passed away because the Resurrection and Life himself walked the earth.
We cannot miss the close connection between life and faith in these verses. The Greek word here is anastasis and its verb form is anhistemi, words that literally mean “to stand up again.” In the Septuagint the word describes Elijah bringing back the son of the widow at Zarephath (1 Kings 17) and also the physical acceptance of Enoch into heaven (Genesis 5:24). But anastasis is not a common word in this Gospel, occurring only in 5:29 and twice here. Anhistemi occurs only in 6:39-40,44,54 apart from this chapter.
Jesus calls Himself the resurrection; for restoration from death to life precedes the state of life. But the whole human race is plunged in death. No man will possess life unless he is first risen from the dead. Jesus teaches that He is the beginning of life. Afterwards He adds that the continuity of life is also the work of His grace. Faith (pistis) and life (zoe) are common Johannine terms, and the New Testament links both of those concepts with resurrection.
What we see in this chapter is a small precursor of what John will show us toward the end of his book, the resurrection of Jesus Christ. It may be important for us to recognize once again that Lazarus did not gain immortality through this miracle. We have no idea how much longer he lived, but eventually he died. Of those who have participated in earth-bound humanity, only Jesus enjoys eternal immortality, a gift Lazarus will celebrate along with us some day. Paul made sure Timothy understood this distinction when he wrote of Jesus, “God, the blessed and only Ruler, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone is immortal and who lives in unapproachable light, whom no one has seen or can see. To him be honor and might forever. Amen” (1 Timothy 6:15).