FROM days of old, long before Jesus arose, there was more than one, who had first died, and then returned from death unto life. Call to mind what happened in the house of the widow at Zarephath (1 Kings 17), when Elijah gave her back her child alive, and of what took place in the prophet chamber of Elisha, at the house of the Shunammite (2 Kings 4).
Think of Jairus, who received his daughter, of the widow of Nain, who received her son, of Mary and Martha who received their brother back from the dead, thanks to the word of power by the Savior Himself.
Even when Jesus died on Golgotha, graves at Jerusalem were opened, and departed saints returned unto life, and appeared to many.
All these however were no resurrections in that rich full sense, in which Jesus rose from the dead.
For all these it was a brief, a temporary return to this earthly life, presently to pay again the toll to death, and for a second time to be brought to that same deathbed, and to be carried out to that same grave, where once already their dead body had been laid to rest.
It was not so with Jesus.
He did not come back to this earthly life, but through the gate of this earthly life He entered upon the life of glory, and now dies nevermore, for after His resurrection death has no more power over Him.
In His death and resurrection Christ has conquered death itself; destroyed “him, who had the power of death”; for ever broken the bands of death.
Not Lazarus, Jesus is “the first fruit from the dead”. No one arose before him. All those who besides Him shall taste eternal life, come after Him.
“Christ the first fruits. Afterward they that are Christ’s. Everyone in his own order.”
The resurrections of Lazarus and the others truly had a rich, figurative significance, and there was connection between their temporary return to life and Jesus’ resurrection; but merely a connection of symbolic prophecy in facts and no connection in the least of equality.
This comes out in what Jesus said, when He went to raise Lazarus, and in all John eleven you become confused every time, when you do not observe this accurate connection.
Certainly Lazarus came forth, to die again, and yet Jesus weaves into His address the highly spiritual word: “I am the resurrection and the life, he that believeth in me, shall live, even though he were dead.” A word that surely did not refer to Lazarus, for then Mary also, and Martha, who believed in Jesus, should have had to return, after their death, to this earthly life. And yet it did stand related to Lazarus’ death, but in relation as figurative indication, as prophecy in the fact, as exhibition in limited measure of that selfsame power, which presently would shine forth altogether differently, first when Jesus Himself arose, and once in the quickening to glory of all His people.
That power is what here counts.
In Jesus’ resurrection a conflict between two universal powers, if we may so express ourselves, is settled.
In His rising Jesus brings to nought, him who had the power of death.
And in and behind that power of Christ worked the power of God Triune.
So witnesses to us the source of God’s holy revelation: There was here “the exceeding greatness of his power, according to the working of his mighty power, which he wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the dead” (Eph. 1:19, 20).
This was not so when Lazarus came to life for a while, but this was so when Jesus rose from the dead. And therefore you read nothing further of Lazarus, but according to the word of the apostle, the whole wheel of salvation turns itself around Jesus’ resurrection, as around its axle, both now and for ever.
From that resurrection is your faith (Eph. 1:19), from that resurrection your sanctification (Rom. 4:25)., from that resurrection your coming unto life (Eph. 2:1), from that resurrection your salvation (1 Peter 3:21), from that resurrection of Christ the glory that awaits you (1 Cor. 15).
Without that resurrection of Christ all prophecy and exhibition of salvation is vain.
Only by that resurrection is the seal put upon all parts of salvation, everything goes on from promise into fulfilment, from example and figure into reality.
And all this because only in Christ’s resurrection does your God show Himself to be truly God, God the Almighty, the Creator, and consequently Re-creator of heaven and earth.
And this too is no strange matter to God’s children, no miracle light on the horizon, which they look at from afar and wonder at, and which goes on outside themselves, for they carry about the effect of that selfsame all exceeding almightiness of God already here on earth in their own heart.
For that in the heart of a sinful man faith is alive, is not alone a grace, but a miracle that so far exceeds all things else, that the holy apostle literally declares: The power of God, which increated faith in you, is the same, equally great, all else excelling power of God’s almightiness, which He wrought in the rising of Jesus from the grave (See Eph. 1:19 and 20).