John 11:11, commentary and pictures

Jesus told His disciples that Lazarus had died and that He was going to Bethany to raise him to life, though they first thought He meant natural rest in sleep. His words present death as an unconscious sleep in the grave in which the whole person rests and knows nothing until awakened. In calling Lazarus His friend and going to wake him, He showed tender sympathy for those He loves and for the bereaved. The raising that followed was His crowning miracle, giving convincing proof of His divine power and Sonship and leading many to believe while hardening those who had already rejected the light. Lazarus was restored only to mortal life and remained subject to death, pointing forward to Christ's return when His voice will call the dead in Christ from their tombs to immortal life.

Setting and Wording

Jesus spoke these words to His disciples after He had waited two days since hearing of Lazarus's sickness, when He announced that He would go again into Judea to Lazarus. In calling Lazarus our friend He showed His close friendship with Lazarus and with Mary and Martha. Their home at Bethany was a place where He often found rest from care and labor, welcome, and attentive listeners who could be taught freely. There Lazarus loved Him with sincere fervent love, and the whole household sympathized with Him against the enmity, injustice, and false charges of the Pharisees. By sleepeth He meant that Lazarus had died, and by I go, that I may awake him out of sleep He declared His intent to go to him to raise him to life by resurrection, as was shown when Lazarus came out of the tomb alive. He used sleep to describe death because He was going to awaken him. The disciples misunderstood sleep to mean natural rest in sleep that would do Lazarus good, so Jesus then told them plainly that Lazarus was dead. His delay in going was guided by divine wisdom and was God's plan that Lazarus should die and be laid in the tomb before He arrived. It was not from lack of interest or loss of interest in Lazarus and his family, for He loved the family and knew what was happening in the home at Bethany. Martha and Mary expected Him to arrive and heal their brother, and they grieved through his death and burial while longing for His comfort. Yet they trusted Him to do what was best and did not demand that He come at once to heal. He could not witness Lazarus's suffering without relieving it. He was glad He had not been present to keep Lazarus from dying, so that His disciples might believe. Some of them were questioning whether He was really the Christ because He had not saved Lazarus whom He loved.

Death as Sleep

Death is set forth as a sleep from which Christ awakens the dead, a figure in which the whole being slumbers in the grave until the Life-giver calls at the resurrection. The dead know nothing and have no conscious experience to recount, and Lazarus himself had no experience or account to relate of the time he was dead. When he was raised he became a living witness and testimony to divine power and to Sonship as the Son of God. For believing children the image explains their rest in death, with their life hidden with Christ in God until the last trumpet sounds. Then the righteous dead are raised to receive immortal life.

The sleep image means death is not a state of eternal conscious torment in misery. Nor are the dead communicating with the living, so apparent messages coming from dead friends are deceptive manifestations. In calling Lazarus our friend and in going to awaken him is seen tender sympathy for suffering friends who had not been forgotten. That sympathy is also seen in tears at the grave, felt for the bereaved, and in restoring the buried brother alive to Mary and Martha.

Power to Awaken

The promised awakening was Lazarus himself coming out of the tomb alive at Christ's word, the breaking of the sleep of death and the fulfillment of His mission to raise the dead. That power reached even a brother four days dead whose body had seen corruption, calling him forth from the grave by a word. In doing so He gave Mary and Martha back their buried brother, restoring him to his sisters and filling them with joy.

This raising was His crowning and greatest miracle, convincing evidence of divine power, divinity, Sonship and Messiahship. It revealed the Father through the works of the Son to believers and unbelievers alike, evidence that even Nicodemus could not dispute. Lazarus, who had nothing conscious to recount from death, became himself a living witness and living testimony to that divine power and Sonship.

The death was permitted and purposed to make it an occasion for undoubted proof of divine power and crowning evidence to the Jews that Jesus is the Son of God. By it He meant to unite His disciples to Himself in a faith that could not be broken and to convince all who could be convinced that He is the Saviour of the world. In raising Lazarus He knew He would pay the ransom for that life on the cross, and that each such rescue from death brought Him nearer to that humiliation and sacrifice.

By this crowning miracle many were led to believe in Jesus and glorified God, for it powerfully affected the people and demonstrated His character as Saviour and Lifegiver. It drew a large enthusiastic multitude to see Him shortly before His entry into Jerusalem. Those who had again and again rejected light would not yield even to this overwhelming evidence but remained hardened in unbelief, going to tell the priests and rulers what Jesus had done and arousing anew the hatred and jealousy of His bitterest enemies the Pharisees.

The awakening then granted, like His raising of the widow of Nain's son and the ruler's daughter during His ministry, was a temporary return to mortal life and not a clothing with immortality. After he was raised Lazarus was still subject to death and decay, unlike those who came forth at Christ's own resurrection to everlasting life. That temporary raising points forward to His return, when His voice will pierce the tombs and the dead in Christ will rise to immortal life and remain with the Lord.