I AM THE RESURRECTION AND THE LIFE.
John 11:23-26.
Jesus said, “Thy brother shall rise again” (John 11:23).
Martha believed already in “the resurrection at the last day” (John 11:24), but Jesus offered Himself in the here and now as “the Resurrection and the Life” (John 11:25).
As usual in the “I AM” sayings, Jesus is pointing to Himself with the name of God. “I AM” (in Hebrew, YHWH, the name of God) – is ‘I AM the One who was, and is, and is to come’ (cf. Revelation 1:8).
The title “The Resurrection AND the Life’ points to the future, certainly; but it also points to the past and the present.
As the Word of God, Jesus was there ‘in the beginning with God’ (cf. John 1:2). He was there when God created the world (cf. Genesis 1:3; John 1:3).
Jesus had been imparting life throughout His ministry through spiritual uplift (Nicodemus, the woman at the well, teaching the people); physical provision (wine at the wedding, bread and fish for the thousands); and physical healings (a dying boy, a man who had been paralysed for many years, a man born blind.)
Jesus had said, ‘I am come that they might have life, and have it more abundantly’ (cf. John 10:10). In other words, Jesus offers fulness of life – eternal life, indestructible life, resurrection life beginning in the here and now. When we begin to believe we have already commenced our ‘eternal’ life.
Jesus does not deny the reality of physical death: He says, “though he were dead” (John 11:25), confronting it. The righteous do die, but they have a hope which reaches beyond death. Neither should we mourn as the world mourns, who do not share in that hope (cf. 1 Thessalonians 4:13).
Yet, “he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: And whosever liveth and believeth on me shall never die. Believest thou this?” (John 11:25-26).
In other words, “he that believeth in me” is represented here by Lazarus, physically dead and lying in the grave. “Though he were dead” confronts the reality of that physical death.
When Christians do die, they remain united to Christ by faith - and death can only hold them for that short season until He calls them forth from the grave. Do you believe this?
