A Growth In Faith

READ 25-27. Here is Martha’s declared faith. I want to make 3 points about this.

1. Jesus makes a great claim that He is the resurrection and the life. He didn’t say He gives the resurrection and life to man, but He IS the Resurrection and the Life. Of course Jesus DOES give the resurrection and life to believers but His point is not this fact. His point is far more important. Jesus declared that He is the very being and essence, the very power and energy of life.

This means that all life exists only by the will and power of Jesus. He is the Source of all life. There is nothing existing apart from His will. So if a dead person wishes to live, only Jesus can give him life. And if a living person doesn’t wish to die, only Jesus can keep him from dying.

2. The second point is Jesus’ great promise: believe, and two things happen:

a. He who believes in Me will live, even though he dies. What did Jesus mean? He lives in the other world, in heaven, in the spiritual dimension, in the very presence of God Himself. The believer who has passed from this world is not some place:

• In a semi-conscious state

• In a deep sleep, locked up in a compartment someplace.

• In space moving about and floating around on a fluffy cloud.

The believer is fully alive: he lives in heaven. Another world exists just like this world exists. It’s a world that exists now. It’s the spiritual world and dimension where God and Christ and angels and all those who have gone on before now live.

So when a person who has believed in Jesus dies, he goes to live in heaven, in the spiritual world and “Hallelujah” is the only word that can express the hope and joy that fills the soul of the true believer.

b. The second thing Jesus said was whoever lives and believed in me will never die.” What does that mean? The believer will never taste death, that is, never experience death. What do I mean by that? Quicker than the believer can blink an eye, he passes from this world into the next world. He is transported and transferred into heaven. The believer never loses a single moment of consciousness. One moment he is conscious and living in this world; the next moment he is conscious and present in the next world.

There is only one difference. He is immediately made perfect: transformed, made much more conscious and aware, more knowledgeable and alive than ever before.

But receiving eternal life is conditional: a person must believe. It is “who believes” and “whoever lives and believes” that lives and never dies. So Jesus asks Martha, “Do you believe this?” If a person believes Jesus, he never dies; he shall live forever.

3. The third and last point I want to make is about Martha’s great declaration. Martha believed, and she confessed and called Jesus “Lord.” She declared that she believed three things:

a. That Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah.

b. That Jesus is the Son of God

c. That Jesus is the One who was to be sent into the world by God.