Lazarus and the Hope of Physical and Spiritual Resurrection (John 11:1–45)

Johnathan Arnold preaches on the lectionary texts for the Fifth Sunday in Lent: Ezekiel 37:1–14 (the valley of dry bones); Psalm 130; Romans 8:6–11; John 11:1–45 (the raising of Lazarus).

Transcript

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He is the Christ, the Son of God, the resurrection and the life, the great I am. Indeed, he is the creator of the world who breathed the breath of life into man in the beginning, and he became a living soul. And Jesus is here to begin the recreation of the world.

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And it's one of the most famous and one of the most spectacular visions in the Bible. I didn't have the courage this morning to try to lead the little spiritual slash children's hymn, Dem Bones, them bones, dem bones, the toe bones connected to the footbone, right? Could have sang that with the kiddos. And it's a cute little song, but I don't think it was a cute little vision. Because Ezekiel was transported by the Spirit of God to what is essentially a mass grave in a desert valley filled with corpses that have rotted into skeletons and are very dry. In other words, they've been dead a long time. They're dusty and partially covered by sand. And the Spirit leads Ezekiel on a tour around the corpses. They walk through the grave and he says, Can these bones live? And Ezekiel said, Oh, no, you know, Lord. That's the best he can come up with. Oh, Lord, you know, you know what's possible. Wasn't exactly the most faith-filled response. It's probably a pretty horrific sight to see. But the point here is that Ezekiel was utterly powerless as a prophet to make skeletons come back to life. In his own strength, he could do nothing about the situation. You know, O Lord, I certainly don't. We are talking here about someone who had just died and needed to be resuscitated. We're talking about people who are long dead, far beyond human help. But then the Lord tells Ezekiel to simply speak to the bones. So he does. He commands them to live. And he hears a rattling. Bones that have been scattered begin coming back together, bone to its bone, tissue materialized. The text implies that as Ezekiel looked away for a moment or something, because when he looked up, all of a sudden there's flesh there. This is materialized, tissue, flesh, skin. And then at the Lord's command, Ezekiel speaks again, and the breath of the four winds comes together. And as God formed Adam from the dust of the ground and breathed into him the breath of life, the breath of life returns to the dusty bones, and they stand up on their own two feet. A mighty army stretched across the valley of living human beings. What an unbelievable thing to see and experience. And then God tells Ezekiel what this vision means. He said, The bones are the whole house of Israel. Israel had lamented that they were like bones dried up because of the suffering they faced in exile, but God saw an even deeper need. Israel had lost hope. God's people had lost hope that they would ever be in a better situation beyond their captivity. And in their hearts, they were even worse off, spiritually dead. In other words, their situation, physically and spiritually, was utterly beyond human help. But God gives this incredible object lesson, and he says, I will open your graves and raise you from your graves, O my people. I will put my spirit within you, and you shall live and shall know that I am the Lord. You see, when Jesus came to the grave of Lazarus, he came to demonstrate that this prophecy was about to begin to be fulfilled. Through his death on Good Friday and his resurrection on Easter Sunday, Jesus would provide resurrection and new spiritual life for all of his people. It would not just be something that happened to him, it would be something that secured the hopes of all Israel. And so Jesus begins with his friend, Lazarus, just a short time before his crucifixion and resurrection, to demonstrate in a powerful object lesson what God was about to do for all who would believe in his only begotten Son. John 11, verse 6 says that when Jesus heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was. And when Jesus finally got to Bethany, Lazarus has been dead for four days. In other words, Jesus intentionally waited until Lazarus was not only dead, but good and dead, far beyond the possibility of resuscitation, far beyond human help. He waited until Lazarus was as dead as the dry bones in Ezekiel's vision. But although Lazarus was dead, truly dead, Jesus tells his disciples he's just sleeping. And that he's going to go and wake him up. In other words, what is impossible for man, what is utterly beyond the realm of human help, is as easy for God as waking someone up from a nap. Jesus goes to the tomb and he tells them, take away the stone. It's a foreshadowing of how the stone would be rolled away on Easter morning. And just like Ezekiel, what does Jesus do? He speaks to the dead. His powerful word, the same word that created light, that brought the whole cosmic order into existence and ordered the chaos, spoke to that grave, and with a loud voice said, Lazarus, come out. And the breath of life returned to Lazarus, and the man who had died stood up and came out of the tomb, his hands and feet still bound with linen strips and his face wrapped with a cloth. And Jesus said to them, Unbind him and let him go. Which I think in John's symbolic world is also pointing to the fact that he's loose, he's freed, he's liberated, not only from his physical bonds, but from every bond of death and sin. God told Ezekiel that when he raised the house of Israel, they would know that he is the Lord. And already in this foreshadowing event, Jesus is declaring who he is. He is the Christ, the Son of God, the resurrection and the life. The great I am. Indeed, he is the creator of the world who breathed the breath of life into man in the beginning, and he became a living soul. And Jesus is here to begin the recreation of the world by his cross and resurrection. As Gregory of Nyssus says, with one single drop of blood, because of who he is, he recreates the world and he rises on the third day to begin the restoration of the whole creation. St. Augustine asks, if all things were made by him, why is anyone amazed that one was raised by him when so many are daily brought into the world by his power? In other words, it's God who gives life and who can give life a second time. He said it is a greater deed to create men and women than to raise them again from the dead. Yet he decided both to create and to raise again, to create all and to resurrect some. Brothers and sisters, what we need is a resurrection from two kinds of death, spiritual and physical. First of all, like the dry bones in Ezekiel's valley, we are all spiritually dead apart from the Spirit of God causing us to be born again. Paul reminds the believers in Ephesus, you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked. Jesus called the Pharisees, you remember, whitewashed tombs. It's like if you go to Arlington or some fancy cemetery, and there's these big, beautiful mausoleums with marble. But if you go inside, it's the same thing that's in a pauper's grave. It's just bones, rotted bones, dusty, dead. Right? And he says, that's what you are, you religious leaders. You look good on the outside, but inside you're spiritually dead. And whether or not we rem recognize it, that is all of us apart from God's grace. Spiritually dead, beyond human help, and all our religious activity, apart from the life-giving spirit, giving us faith and charity, it's just window dressing for our tomb. Because within we're dead. Just taking a skeleton to church won't make them live. Just going through the motions won't make someone live. Just doing good deeds won't make someone live. Those might be means of grace by which God can work, but only when God speaks his mighty, life-giving word and puts his spirit within us are we made spiritually alive. I'm going to do what I heard a preacher do this week. Someone say amen. It's the work of God. There's so many people in the evangelical church world and beyond who need to hear this message because they go to church, but they're dead inside. There's no life there because they've never truly grasped the gospel. There was a quote going around on social media and Facebook. I saw it several times. An old quote from Tim Keller has an excellent theology of revival, is almost exactly what I believe about revival. He said, revival occurs when those who think they already know the gospel discover they do not really, or at least fully, know it. Revival occurs when those who think they already know the gospel discover they do not really or fully know it. There's an awakening as people recognize that they're a whitewashed tomb, they're spiritually dead inside. They've never understood the depth of their spiritual poverty, they've never truly cast themselves upon the mercy of God and clung to the Christ of the cross and been born again. Because they've never realized that the gospel is a call for dead people to be made alive. It's a call for spiritually dead people to be resurrected. Paul reminded the Ephesians, when we were dead in sin, God made us alive together with Christ. By grace you have been saved and raised us up with him. I know sometimes we say, why don't we see miracles like we did in Bible times? And I have a lot of thoughts about that. We've explored some of that on Wednesday nights, and there's a lot that could be said. Those miracles of healing and physical miracles are amazing. But I'll tell you, if we saw somebody physically raised from the dead, we would just go crazy. I mean, we just go nuts to be the greatest thing that ever happened. We wouldn't be able to stop talking about it. But when someone gets spiritually resurrected, oh that's cool. I'm glad he's here. He got saved. Well, the angels are throwing a party in heaven because they recognize it's a greater miracle to make someone be spiritually resurrected than even physically resurrected. To be made together alive with Christ. It takes the same power, the same resurrection power. By grace you have been saved and raised up with him. And the raising of Lazarus assures us that the Lord is mighty to save when we cry out to him. We heard it in Psalm 130. Out of the depths I cry to you. Out of the depths of the tomb I wait for you, O Lord. If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand? But with you there is forgiveness that you may be feared. Friends, cry out to the Lord, for with him is plentiful redemption, and he will redeem Israel from all his iniquities. Amen. Glory to God. Second, the raising of Lazarus assures us that the Lord is mighty to save us from physical death. From physical death. When Jesus talked to Martha, Martha already believed in the resurrection on the last day. She said, I know he's going to be raised them. The Old Testament doesn't really say much about the resurrection of humanity. It's really in the later books that we begin to see that hope emerge. But there's several key verses anticipating this glorious hope that Martha would have probably anchored her hope in. Daniel says, Many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt. Job says, After my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God. Isaiah prophesies, your dead shall live, their bodies shall rise. You who dwell in the dust, awake and sing for joy. Do you catch that? You who dwell in the dust, awake and sing for joy. And then, of course, there's Ezekiel in the valley of dry bones. And so while Martha already believed in this future resurrection, Jesus made it clear that the hope of the resurrection of the body is secured by him. Jesus is the resurrection and the life. Paul explains in 1 Corinthians, you're going to hear it all through the Easter season. You know it's my favorite metaphor in the Bible. I probably said it a hundred times, but that Jesus is the first fruits of the resurrection harvest. When the first apple of the season is ripe and crisp, and you take a bite and it's good, the first tree plucked off the tree in the orchard, when it's harvest time, it assures you there's a great harvest to follow. Man, the apples are good this year. And the resurrection of Jesus from the dead is what guarantees that all who are in Christ will not stay dead, but will be raised to everlasting life on the last day. We heard it in Romans 8, our second lesson. If we are delivered from spiritual death in this life, we will also be delivered from physical death on the last day. If we are delivered from spiritual death in this life, we will also be delivered from physical death on the last day. Paul says, 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. Brothers and sisters, if the spirit of God dwells within us, then we will not remain dead any more than Lazarus remained dead or Jesus remained dead. Our bodies will sleep in the dust of the earth, but they will awake to everlasting life. Our skin will be destroyed, and all that will remain is dry bones. Yet in our flesh we shall yet see God. For Christ will transform our lowly bodies to be like his glorious body. And on that glorious morning, we will awake and sing for joy. Brothers and sisters, make sure your mind is set on the things of the Spirit and not of the things of the flesh. Because Paul says that's how we know we have the Spirit of God and that we have the hope of resurrection. That our minds have been changed and transformed by that spiritual new life that now we're fixed on the things of God. And brothers and sisters, don't put your hope in anything besides the power of God's word and spirit. Because the answer for our church ultimately, ultimately, yes, there's things we need to do. Yes, there's things we can do, and we can improve, I can improve in this way, or we want to offer our best to God. But ultimately, the only hope for our church to be have just a bright, shining future and to keep growing and going forward is for God to do what no man can do. The best sermon, the best service, the best music cannot do or accomplish anything of spiritual significance unless the power of God is in. So we must look to him for the salvation of our unsaved family members for our own spiritual needs. We need him to speak again to us. Come forth, come out of your sins, unbind him, set him free. Because in Christ alone is found the power of the move, the life of godless, righteousness, peace, and hope of everlasting life. Glory be to the Father and the Son and to the Holy Spirit.

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