The Bible Study Hour

Guest (Male): The Apostle Paul wrote a letter to a discouraged church in Thessalonica, a church suffering persecution and a church that was perhaps questioning the promises of the gospel in light of the death of friends and family.

Welcome to the Bible Study Hour, the radio and internet broadcast with Dr. James Boice, and preparing you to think and act biblically. Paul's words to the Thessalonians have become an effective consolation to all who mourn, that God never allows sorrow without purpose and that they could look to the hope of the life that awaits through Jesus Christ our Lord. Listen as Dr. Boice reflects on Paul's words and Jesus' declaration of who and what he is: the resurrection and the life.

Dr. James Boice: Less than 100 years before Jesus Christ was born, a famous letter was written by a wealthy Roman, Servius Sulpicius, to Cicero the great orator on the occasion of the death of Cicero's beloved daughter, Tullia. The letter expresses deep sympathy for Cicero. Sulpicius reminds Cicero that his daughter had only experienced the common lot of mankind and had only passed away when the freedom of the Republic itself was failing. The letter is warm and moving, but yet it is missing something. In this very famous letter about death, there is nothing at all of a sure hope of life beyond the grave.

A century later, the Apostle Paul wrote to Christians who were in a situation similar to that of Cicero. They had become discouraged by the death of a number of their friends, but to them, Paul says, "I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning those who are asleep, that you sorrow not, even as others who have no hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also who sleep in Jesus will God bring with him. Wherefore, comfort one another with these words."

These letters, one from Sulpicius and one from Paul, present a remarkable contrast. They throw into sharp relief the new conception of the future life introduced by the Christian faith. The Greek philosopher Plato had written some compelling arguments for immortality, and Cicero was certainly aware of the arguments, but these were poor comfort in face of the cruel horror of death and the irrevocable loss of the one he loved. Paul moves in a new area of hope and confidence, and his words are effective consolation to all who suffer loss.

Where did these things come from? The answer is that they were brought into the world by Jesus Christ. Today, I should like to take you to a chapter of the Bible in which this new hope is unveiled for the first time. The chapter is John 11, and it's the context for one of the great "I am" sayings of John's gospel. Jesus says, "I am the resurrection and the life. He that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live, and whoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die."

Those are great words embodying a great promise, and they are set in the context of a very tender story. Mary, Martha, and Lazarus—two sisters and a brother—lived in Bethany of Judea, not far from the city of Jerusalem. Jesus knew the family well. According to Luke, Jesus had visited in their home on several occasions, and one time when he was teaching, Mary had sat at his feet to learn instead of preparing a meal, to the dismay of her older sister.

John indicates that Jesus made their home his home base during the final weeks of his ministry. Presumably, Jesus and his disciples set out from the home of Mary, Martha, and Lazarus each morning of his final week in Jerusalem prior to his crucifixion and returned there each evening at nightfall. It was on the last of these journeys, as Jesus deliberately tarried in the Garden of Gethsemane, that he was arrested. From all of these references, it's evident that the home of Mary, Martha, and Lazarus was a home to which Jesus loved to go. Jesus loved each member of the family, and they loved him.

Trouble came into this family, and Jesus was not there to help them. He had been there a few days previously, but he had gone away, telling them where he was going. While he was gone, Lazarus the brother took sick, and the sickness was serious enough for the sisters to send for Jesus. The messenger who bore the report told Jesus, "Lord, behold he whom thou lovest is sick."

There's a lesson at this point, and we should acknowledge it before we go further. Happy is the Christian who has learned to turn to Jesus first in time of sorrow. Unfortunately, Christians often turn to other things and miss the comfort that is rightfully theirs as God's children. Some turn in upon themselves. Something happens in their lives—a death, a suffering, or disappointment—and they withdraw into a private shell of mourning and contemplation. As a result, there is no victory.

Some turn to other people. There's a degree to which other people can help us in times of trouble, and their comfort is valuable. God has made men and women mutually dependent, and we do need to lean on others and learn from others. That's one reason why believers are placed together in a church and are given work by God to do jointly. But there's a limit to what other people can do for us, particularly in time of sorrow. There is a sense in which people will always disappoint us.

The Christian who is spiritually mature, who has lived long with the Lord, known him, and known what he desires of his children, will turn to Jesus himself. He will find in him one who is truly a friend of the friendless and a father to the fatherless. He is the one who said, "Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest."

This is what these two women did. They turned to Jesus. They sent for him, and they waited for him to come. As they waited, Lazarus's condition grew worse. Expectation turned to eagerness, eagerness to anxiety, and anxiety to blank despair as their brother Lazarus died. All of this time, the source of their hope was absent. They didn't know that he'd received the news of the sickness, that he'd reacted calmly and had foretold that it would not lead to permanent death but would be an occasion by which the power of God would be known. They only knew that he had delayed in coming.

John says that after Jesus had received the message of Lazarus's sickness, he stayed where he was for two days. Many people have misunderstood the Bible at this point. It's been said on the basis of this text that Jesus delayed his return from the Jordan Valley to Bethany in order to let Lazarus die, believing that a resuscitation of a dead man would be a greater sign than the healing of a man who was only sick. But this is not the way it actually happened.

When Jesus returned to Bethany after the delay of two days, he was told that Lazarus had been dead four days. This could only have been possible if Lazarus had already died by the time the message of his sickness first reached Jesus. This means that Jesus knew of the death from the beginning and delayed his return for an entirely different purpose. Why then did Jesus delay a quick return to Bethany?

The only possible answer is that Jesus delayed his return in order that there might be no doubt that Lazarus was really dead and that there might be no cause for doubting the miracle. Jesus permitted a continuation of the sorrow of Mary and Martha in order also to permit a greater revelation of his glory. Jesus permitted the sorrow, but he knew that in his own proper time he would end it and bring great rejoicing.

This leads to the second application of the story to us because the principle involved is also true for us. No Christian who has lived any time at all with the Lord will say that life, even for a Christian, does not have sorrows. Christians lose loved ones, they endure sickness, they suffer rebuffs and persecutions, and they are disappointed in the love of friends and family. But the new thing for the Christian is not that he does not have sorrow, but that God knows about it, that he transforms it, and that he never permits it to come without a purpose.

Do you believe that? Is that true for you? It is if you are a Christian. God is not capricious; he's not weak or inefficient. God is the sovereign God, and he always acts in wisdom. He does not let things happen for no reason at all. If these things have happened to you, or if some of them have, you may know that God has a purpose in them and that he will end them one day and in a way that will honor him.

Every Christian has a right to ask what God's purpose is in his suffering. You have a right to ask it. You can come to God in prayer and ask to see why some things have happened. You may not see the answer immediately. You may not see the answer in its entirety; in order to do that, you'd have to be like God. You may not even see it in its entirety in this life.

If you ask, God will certainly show you a glimpse at least of his purposes, partially in this life and more perfectly in the life to come. You will be increasingly aware of his love. By this means, God will strengthen your faith and he will make you a source of strength for others. The story continues with Christ's return to Bethany. Jesus doesn't go right into the city since his life was in danger. Instead, he waits outside.

As he waits, Martha hears that he's come and goes to meet him. Mary waits in the home. In Martha and Mary, we have a contrast between two types of faith. Since we have these two types of faith today, it's worth exploring them a little. When Martha comes to Jesus, her words contain a very strange mixture of belief and doubt. She says, "Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died. But I know that even now, whatever thou wilt ask of God, God will give it thee." Later, she says of her brother, "I know that he shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day."

Martha says that she knows that anything Jesus will ask of God, God will grant, and yet she limits him to the place and the time. She said, "If thou hadst been here, my brother had not died," and she added, "I know that he shall rise again at the last day." Martha is a type of the predominantly intellectual believer. She's a strong character and her mind is critical; she believes what is reasonable. She does not profess more than she actually feels. Much of this is good. Christian faith is reasonable, and it invites our intellectual consent. Yet, there's a weakness in purely intellectual assent.

If the whole of our faith is sight, then our faith is limited by sight. There's no strength for crises that transcend our understanding. Such faith is always partially mixed with doubt. But then there is Mary. Her faith was not without reason; she'd taken time to learn from Jesus, but her faith consisted in something more. Mary comes to Jesus, and her lips say the same thing as the lips of Martha: "If thou hadst been here, my brother had not died." But practically every reader of the Gospel recognizes in an instant that there's a world of difference in the cry.

Martha had debated with Jesus as she made her comment; Mary fell at his feet, and her words were made in the context of total trust and confidence. This was the position that Mary loved best. She had sat at his feet when Martha was serving. She's found at his feet again in chapter 12 of John's gospel. Here she learned from him and she learned to know him personally. Mary was the one person that understood that Christ was going to the cross to die. In chapter 12, she anoints his feet with spikenard, and Jesus testifies that she did this against the day of his burial.

Mary had listened and Mary had learned, but she had gone beyond mere intellectual knowledge to know Jesus intimately and to love him. Out of that love and understanding and faith came the intuitive realization that for him, anything at all was possible. There's the faith that comes only intellectually, and there's the faith that throws itself totally upon Christ and learns directly from him, sometimes almost intuitively. We need the faith of Mary and Martha, but Mary's way is best. In addition to knowledge, there will be a strong and simple trust built upon an intimate knowledge of the one who is your Lord and your Master.

Jesus taught these women that he is the resurrection and the life. The statement is in John 11, verses 25 and 26, and it contains two thoughts. First, in Jesus, the resurrection is present because Jesus himself is life. Martha was thinking in terms of a resurrection at the end of time, a bodily resurrection. This was true, but Jesus taught that the real resurrection, the one that makes all the difference between real life and real death, is the resurrection that takes place in the individual when he comes face-to-face with himself. He is the resurrection. Where he is, there is life.

If you are a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, you have experienced this resurrection in your life. You were dead in trespasses and sins, and God brought forth life in you by his power as you came in contact with Christ. This is what Jesus meant when he said, "He that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live, and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die." Jesus meant that belief in himself results in a spiritual resurrection—what he elsewhere calls the new birth or entrance into everlasting life.

The one who has been made spiritually alive will also be made bodily alive at the final resurrection. The second great teaching in these verses is that the resurrection at the end of time is also a reality and is also related to one's relationship to Jesus. Jesus said, "He that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live. And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die." Do you believe in Christ? Do you have the assurance that his promise brings?

If so, you may take courage from the fact that Jesus came, not only to save your spirit and soul and to guide you in this life, but also to give you a new body that you might live with him forever, redeemed body, soul, and spirit, participating in the perfect fullness of the final resurrection. The story moves on to a dramatic conclusion. This is a foretaste, an illustration if you will, of what Christ was promising. Jesus came to the tomb. People were standing around to see what would happen. The stone is rolled away. Jesus speaks with authority: "Lazarus, come forth!"

Lazarus comes forth bound in the graveclothes. The second command is to the people that stand by: "Loose him and let him go." It's done; the graveclothes are removed, and Lazarus is again with his family. This is a proof of Christ's power over death certainly, but it's also something more. This is a picture of what God has done for us in Christ Jesus. Apart from him, we are dead in our sins. We are dead men living among dead men. But Christ's voice calls us, bringing life out of death. We hear him, we emerge from the tomb of a spiritually dead life, our graveclothes are loosened, and we are set forth to engage in profitable work for him.

Our Father, we thank you for the miracle of our spiritual resurrection, and we rejoice in that today. Help us to live as those who have been released from the death-grip of sin and teach us to praise you, the author of our resurrection and our life. For we pray in Jesus' name. Amen.

Guest (Male): You've been listening to a message from the Bible Study Hour, a radio and internet broadcast with Dr. James Boice. God uses the Bible Study Hour to encourage and equip people around the world. If you long to share the gospel and want to keep Dr. Boice's timeless messages available for this and future generations to enjoy, please consider supporting the Bible Study Hour. You can make a tax-deductible donation or become a monthly donor by visiting thebiblestudyhour.org or call us at 1-800-488-1888. You can also mail a gift to 600 Eden Road, Lancaster, Pennsylvania, 17601. As you contact us, we'd love to hear how Dr. Boice's teaching ministry has impacted your life. Be sure to let us know. Thank you for your prayers and gifts and for listening to the Bible Study Hour, preparing you to think and act biblically.