Church: Reformed Baptist Church of Franconia | Text: John 11:23-27 | Date: January 27, 2019 | Speaker: Fred Zaspel

All right, this evening now we continue our studies on the subject of death and life after death, the afterlife, what it will be like, and what the scriptures have to teach about it. We have come some way in that. Just by way of quick review, we began showing that the scriptures teach that humanity is comprised of both body and soul. We are two-part beings, and when the body dies, the soul survives death into what we call the intermediate state. And that intermediate state is a bodiless existence for the lost in hell and for the redeemed in the presence of Christ. We’re not given lots of detail of that, but we are told very plainly that we will be in the presence of Christ. It will be better there than now, even though we will not be perfected yet; we’ll be without a body, and it’s a bit of an unnatural condition, but yet it calls it something better because we will be in the immediate presence of Christ in the intermediate state.

And now what we’ve been looking at is the doctrine of the resurrection, and I’ve spent some time with this. I hope I’m not over-laboring it, but because of some questions that were asked me about it that got me going in this, I wanted to lay the groundwork fully and show how the Bible presents this doctrine of the resurrection. So we’ve been a little bit meticulous going through, and we began by looking at the roots of the doctrine of the resurrection.

The Roots Of The Doctrine Of The Resurrection

We saw that in some sense, of course, it begins in Genesis 3:15 with the promise to defeat the tempter and the implicit promise with that that this problem that has been as a result of the tempter’s influence will be fixed and will be reversed. And we saw some hints of that in the Old Testament. We saw it coming to life in a wonderful way, I think, in the patriarchs where they believed that God would fulfill his promise in resurrection. That was Abraham with regard to Isaac. When God commanded Abraham to offer Isaac in sacrifice, then Abraham surmised—and Hebrews tells us this—that Abraham surmised that God would raise him from the dead because he’d made a promise. So the doctrine of resurrection, the hope of resurrection, is alive with the patriarchs.

That is evident also in the patriarchs’ desire and orders that their body be taken back to the promised land, believing again that God will fulfill his promise in resurrection. We saw some shadows, foreshadows of the resurrection, in the resuscitations of certain people in the Old Testament, the prophets like Elisha raising people from the dead. But then we finally come to the Psalms and the Prophets where we find the hope is very much alive and the promise is made explicitly that God will raise the dead. We find some interesting imagery of that in the book of Isaiah: the earth will give birth to the dead, where the earth, the tomb, becomes something like a womb to give birth now to the dead. The imagery there is graphic, but it is explicit then regarding this hope of resurrection.

And then we saw that both Jesus and Paul affirm that their doctrine, the shared belief in the resurrection, is grounded in the Old Testament. We’ve seen it in a couple of places. We don’t need to review all that. And then I think we saw last time, toward the very end, we saw the strange event at the crucifixion of Jesus when the graves were opened. And then at the resurrection, the dead came to life, Old Testament saints coming to life—something of an early sampling of what Christ would accomplish in his redemptive work.

We’re going to see a little bit more of that this evening. In fact, this evening what we’re going to do is, and then next week, show more of the ground of the resurrection hope for the righteous. Just why will the resurrection take place? On what ground will it happen? And what’s the reasoning behind it? Is it just a resurrection that’s going to happen? Is there some necessity to it? And we’re going to see how it is attached then to Jesus.

The Ground Of The Resurrection Hope For The Righteous

So we’ll begin then with John chapter 11. John chapter 11. Now, you’ll remember this passage, of course, the famous event of what transpires here. This is the resurrection of Lazarus. And, of course, that’s what the chapter is about. But as so many of these events in Jesus’ ministry, it is much more than just the resurrection of Lazarus. But, in fact, Jesus is using this as something of an illustration to teach us about the doctrine of the resurrection.

You’ll remember the background in the early verses of chapter 11. They sent word to Jesus to come because Lazarus was sick. Jesus delays, goes back, knows that Lazarus has already died, and goes back, obviously, with his intent to raise him. But of course, they don’t know that. And he meets Martha when he comes back, and she almost complains, “Lord, if you had been here, he wouldn’t have died,” which is a marvelous expression of faith on her part, understanding that he could have and would have intervened if he had been here. But she says in verse 22, “Even now, I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give you,” which evidently is some hope yet that Jesus will raise Lazarus from the dead, although it’s been four days.

Jesus said to her, verse 23, “Your brother will rise again.” Martha said to him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.” Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live. And everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?” She said to him, “Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who is coming into the world.”

Now in verse 23, we have Jesus’ own conviction regarding the coming resurrection: “Your brother will rise again.” This is something that was held in common with the Jews. It is a faith that Martha shared as well, and she responds in that way. “Yes, I know he will rise again,” verse 24. “I know he will rise again in the resurrection of the last day.” So this is a shared hope among the Jews at that time, and Jesus affirms it.

I’d like to back up just a second here and look back to a couple of references in the Gospel of John to show where Jesus has mentioned this before. Look at John chapter five. We saw this just briefly last time. Verse 28: “Do not marvel at this for an hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice and come out. Those who have done good to the resurrection of life and those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment.” And then if you’ll just turn the page to John 6, verses 35 and following, remember we saw it affirmed several times. Jesus says, verse 38, “I’ve come down from heaven not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day.”

So Jesus says there is a people that the Father has given me. That’s why I’ve come. I’ve come to save them. And he says then in verse 39, “I won’t lose any of them.” And then in fact, he affirms, “I will raise them up in the last day.” That is, the salvation that Jesus brings is a complete salvation. Those whom he has come to save will make it all the way, and in fact, he will raise them from the dead in the last day. In case you don’t get it, verse 40, he repeats it: “This is the will of my father, that everyone who looks at the son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.” You’ll see it again in verse 44: “No one can come to me except the father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up on the last day.” You’ll see it again in verse 54: “I will raise him up on the last day.”

So Jesus affirms the doctrine of the resurrection a little bit more in particular here. He’s saying that he is key to the resurrection. “I will raise them up in the last day.” Somehow or other, he is involved in this. And in fact, in John 5:21, Jesus makes that connection where he says, “As the father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the son gives life to whomever he will.”

All right then, now back to John 11, and we have these critical verses 25 and 26. Let’s look at them again. Jesus said to her, to Martha, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live. And everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?”

So now in verses 25 and 26, the first thing Jesus is doing is directing Martha’s focus from an abstract doctrine of the resurrection, an abstract hope—”Yes, I’ll believe that there’ll be a resurrection in the last day”—he’s directing her focus to him, to himself, who alone can affect the resurrection. So he says there’s no resurrection, there’s no eternal life apart from me. That’s the long and short of verses 25 and 26. But of course, there’s more to it than just that. But first thing he’s doing is drawing her attention. Yes, there will be a resurrection, but I am central to it.

All right, in what way? Well, let’s take the details first. Notice he says, “I am the resurrection and the life.” Two things. I am the resurrection and the life. The resurrection, obviously, is the resurrection of the body in the last day. Life is a complementary term, which is very familiar and very dominant in the Gospel of John. In the Gospel of John, we scarcely, almost never see the word save or salvation. But the word is eternal life. He’s come to give eternal life. But the eternal life is specifically the life of the resurrection. When the dead are raised, they will come into eternal life. To use the more technical terminology, it’s the life of the eschaton. So these are complementary terms. I am the resurrection, and I am the life—the life of the last day, the life of resurrection.

Now, keep in mind, and we’ve seen this many times before, but we have to see it again, that in Jesus’ teaching, the radical thing about eternal life is not just that he is the one who gives it. The radical thing about Jesus’ teaching of eternal life is that he gives eternal life, the life of the eschaton, the life of the end times, the life of the resurrection. He gives eternal life today, that now we have that life. And so very often in the Gospel of John, we find these two connected: not only resurrection and eternal life, which belong together, but the present possession of eternal life connected to the assurance of resurrection in the last day. Precisely because I already have eternal life, I will be raised from the dead.

I’ll give you just a sample of that. If you look at John chapter five, verse 24: “Truly I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who has sent me has,” present tense, “has eternal life. He does not come into judgment.” Why? Because he’s already passed from death unto life. Now the expectation is in the end there’ll be resurrection and judgment and we inherit eternal life in the end. And what Jesus is affirming here in verse 24 is that’s already happened. That in Jesus we’ve already passed the judgment and we’ve already entered into the eternal life. We have it now. So he does not come into judgment but is passed from death unto life. So the present possession of eternal life is associated with life of the last day.

Now notice verse 25: “Truly, truly I say to you an hour is coming and is now here when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live. For as the father has life in himself, so he has granted the son also to have life in himself.” So this day is coming when resurrection will happen. Already you have eternal life, verse 24, and now verse 25, that hour that you’re hoping for is already here. And he says the dead hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear live. That is, those who hear the voice of Christ have eternal life. So there’s the present realization. Remember, I’ve called this many times inaugurated eschatology. So it’s the end times, but it’s brought forward into present experience, not fully, but partially. It’s been inaugurated.

So that’s what he’s affirming in verse 25. But that doesn’t nullify the future hope of resurrection, the fullness of eternal life that will come later. And he says that, verse 27: “And he has given him authority to execute judgment because he’s the son of man. Do not marvel at this, for an hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice and come out, those who have done good to the resurrection of life and those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment.”

So, we have the present experience of eternal life now. The hour is coming and is now. And in the very next breath, the hour is still coming when those who are in the tombs will come out and resurrection will be full. So it’s important to see that we have resurrection and the complementary term eternal life. Resurrection and life. Eternal life, “life” is the shorthand expression for eternal life. Resurrection and life, and the present possession of eternal life is itself the promise and guarantee of the resurrection of the body still to come.

All right, now back to John 11. So notice in verse 25, “I am the resurrection and the life,” both: the resurrection, one, and two, the life—the resurrection and the life. And now Jesus expounds on that in the rest of verse 25 and in verse 26. First of all, he expounds on the first statement, “I am the resurrection.” “Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live.” And the idea there is not just yet shall he exist, but yet shall he come to life. That’s obviously the sense of it. The same verb is used in John 5:25 of coming to life. And that’s clearly the idea here. So, “I am the resurrection, the life.” Now as to this matter of resurrection, whoever believes in me, though he die, he shall come to life; he will be raised. Those who believe in Jesus will be raised.

So verse 25a, “I’m the resurrection and the life.” Verse 25b, he answers the question of the resurrection. And now in verse 26, he expounds on the idea of “I am the life.” “Everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die.” That is, because we have eternal life now in Jesus, in a very important sense, we will never die. Now this expression in verse 26, “whoever lives and believes in me,” it can hardly mean “the one who is alive and believes in me.” That’s a little trifle. How can you believe if you’re not alive? The idea is whoever has eternal life, who has this life, that’s the sense of it. Whoever has this life believing in me shall never die. So I think that’s the best way to paraphrase it: whoever has eternal life and believes in me will never die.

So now he’s affirming that we have the eternal life, he’s already affirmed the resurrection, and now he affirms that if we have this eternal life, there’s a very important sense in which we will never die, even if the body dies. As this mortal life fades away, there’s a very important sense in which we will never die, but eternal life continues even after the passing of this mortal body. So he’s affirming the continued existence of the soul even after the death of the body, but he’s also affirming the final resurrection of the dead.

All right, I’m sorry if I’ve complicated that too much, but he is affirming both of these complementary terms: the resurrection and the life. And because we have eternal life now, we will pass through death safely and eventually be raised from the dead. All right, and then he says in verse 26, at the very end, he says to Martha, “Do you believe this?” Now he’s not asking simply if she believes in the final resurrection; she’s already affirmed that. What he’s asking is if she believes that it is only through faith in Jesus that this hope is realized. And she responds in verse 27, “Yes, Lord. I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God who is coming into the world,” implied, and who will raise the dead.

Now there’s just a little bit more here that we have to see because it is something that is picked up in the epistles that we’ll see, particularly in Romans and in 1 Corinthians. In verse 25, Jesus affirms something here that is just essential to the doctrine of the resurrection. He said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life.” That’s a strange way to talk. I am the resurrection and the life. He doesn’t simply say, “I’m the one who will raise the dead.” And he doesn’t say, “I’m the one who will give eternal life.” All of that’s true, but that’s not the way he says it.

Why does he say, “I am the resurrection and the life”? Well, you’ll see a parallel to this before we go any further. Look back to John 6. You’ll see in this bread of life discourse in John chapter 6 that Jesus says in verse 27 that he gives the bread from heaven, the spiritual bread that gives life. And then when you get to verse 35, he says he is himself the bread of life. I give the bread of life, but what I give is myself, and in me you have the life. So I think what he’s doing here in chapter 11 with the resurrection is the very same thing. He has accomplished the resurrection, and it’s found only in union with him.

We’ve talked here before many times about the doctrine of union with Christ, that of all of the saving benefits that Christ has achieved in his work, his death, and his resurrection—of all of those benefits that he has achieved, they are of no value to us whatever, until and unless we are in union with Jesus. That’s the same here that he’s emphasizing, that Jesus not only provides and effects the resurrection of the dead, but he is himself the resurrection of the dead. He himself has been raised from the dead, and we will enjoy that resurrection as we are united to him. And as we will see in the epistles, we will enjoy that resurrection precisely and only because we are united to him and therefore caught up with him in his resurrection.

All right, let’s look over quickly—already almost out of time—to Romans chapter 8. I think what I’ll do here is just make a few remarks and then we’ll come back to it next time.

Romans 8:10-11

Romans 8, verses 10 and 11: “If Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the spirit is life because of righteousness. If the spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his spirit who dwells in you.”

Now we have two, in these two verses, we have two if-then clauses. And that’s how he expounds, then, this doctrine of the resurrection. He’s speaking of the transforming effects of Christ, picking up on the flow of thought from chapters 6 and 7. And now he tells us that the indwelling of the Spirit is the means by which now we are transformed. And when he gets to verses 10 and 11, that includes even the resurrection of the body, and it is our possession of the Spirit, through whom we are united to Jesus, that we will experience the resurrection. This presence of the Spirit is himself the guarantee and the pledge of the fullness of God’s promises in the resurrection, that we will partake of Jesus’ resurrection in full in the last day.

And that is picked up then in verse 23, where Paul speaks of what we have now in the Spirit as the first fruits of the Spirit waiting for the adoption of sons, the redemption of our bodies. All right, I don’t have time to look at this in full this evening, so I think we’re going to have to call it a minute early. Any questions on John 11? I’m going to put off questions on Romans 8 until next time when we look at it more fully. All right, let’s stand together and be dismissed in prayer. Pastor Greg, would you pray for us, please?