RP author Anthony T. Selvaggio has just had a book published about the Gospel of John. The author and the publisher (Reformation Heritage) have kindly permitted the Witness to print the following lengthy excerpts from the book.

Reading the Signs Of John’s Gospel

Imagine a world without signs. Without signs we wouldn’t know what a box of crackers costs at the grocery store. Without signs we could not navigate our way through a hospital to visit a sick friend. Without signs we might get lost when driving around in unfamiliar places. Every day of our lives, we rely on some form of sign.

Signs are also important in the Bible. Like the signs in our daily lives, signs in the Bible point to something beyond themselves. But what sets biblical signs apart from the signs of daily life is that biblical signs direct us to spiritual truths. When God provides a sign, He is using it to point people to an essential spiritual truth…

The Presence of Signs In the Gospel of John

While signs are recorded in various places in the New Testament, they take a prominent role in the Gospel of John. The Gospel of John is uniquely different from the synoptic gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke.

The uniqueness of the Gospel of John can be seen in what it leaves out in comparison to the subject matter of the synoptic gospels. Unlike the synoptic gospels, John’s Gospel lacks the nativity story, the temptation of Christ by Satan, the narrative parables, extensive teaching on the kingdom of God, the Sermon on the Mount, the Olivet discourse, and a detailed account of the Lord’s supper.

On the other hand, the Gospel of John contains much that is not found in the synoptic gospels. For example, the Gospel of John includes the “I am” sayings of Jesus, the farewell discourse, and the seven signs of Jesus. 1

The seven signs of Jesus play a prominent role in the structure of the Gospel of John. These signs exclusively appear in the first half of John. Here is a list of the seven signs and where they appear in the Gospel of John:

1. Turning Water into Wine (2:1-11)

2. Cleansing the Temple (2:12-17)

3. Healing the Nobleman’s Son (4:46-54)

4. Healing the Lame Man (5:1-15)

5. Feeding the Multitude (6:1-15)

6. Healing the Blind Man (chap. 9)

7. Raising Lazarus (chap. 11).

Because the signs are in the first half of John’s Gospel and play a significant theological and structural role in the Gospel, many scholars refer to this section of John’s Gospel as the “book of signs.”

John’s unique emphasis on the signs of Jesus makes us wonder what purpose these signs serve in his gospel. What is John trying to show us by using these seven signs? What spiritual truths should we learn from them? These questions can only be answered by examining the seven signs in the Gospel of John.

1Andreas J. Kostenberger, John: Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2004), 339.

The Seventh Sign: Five Views to a Death

Although Walt Disney produced animated films for children, the topics of those films were anything but childish. In the late 1930s, Disney began producing Bambi. The film is about a cute little fawn, but its ultimate theme is death.

Bambi was produced on the cusp of World War II, when death and violence were front-page news. In the film, animals come to view man as godlike because of his prowess as a predator. But at the end of the novel, Bambi’s dying father disavows him of this view of man by taking Bambi into the woods to see the corpse of a murdered poacher.

“Do you see Bambi…how he’s lying there dead, like one of us?” the old stag asks. “Listen, Bambi. He isn’t all-powerful as they say. Everything that lives and grows doesn’t come from him. He isn’t above us. He’s just the same as we are. He has the same fears, the same needs, and suffers in the same way. He can be killed like us, and then he lies helpless on the ground like all the rest of us, as you see him now.”

Bambi is silent until his father asks, “Do you understand me, Bambi?”

“I think so,” Bambi whispers.

“Then speak,” the old stag commands.

Bambi is inspired to say, “There is Another who is over us all, over us and over him.”

“Now I can go,” says the old stag.

Bambi teaches a poignant lesson about death.

Death is real, and no creature can prevail over it. But death does have a master. There is “Another” who reigns over all, even death.

John 11 also teaches us about death. Despite all efforts to allegorize and mythologize the story of Lazarus, it is about death. And the greatest lesson it offers us is that the One who reigns over all, even death, is Jesus.

In the raising of Lazarus, we see our Savior’s sovereignty over the last great enemy, death. We will examine five reactions to the death of Lazarus. We will also see how Jesus is revealed as the Christ, the Son of God, and how this particular sign reveals His glory.

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The Anguish of Mary and Martha

Luke 10:38-42 shows us how different Jesus’ friends Mary and Martha were. For example, while Mary sat at the feet of Jesus listening to His teaching, Martha was busy preparing a meal. Mary was passive, sensitive, and emotional, while her sister, Martha, was active, practical, and proactive.

These personality differences emerged once again in John 11, after the sisters’ brother, Lazarus, died. Martha immediately reacted to the news that Jesus had arrived by rushing out to meet Him, whereas Mary stayed home (v. 20). Even though their initial responses were different, there is a striking similarity to the sisters’ reactions to the death of their brother, Lazarus; they were both in anguish over it. Martha said, “Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died” (Luke 10:21). Likewise, Mary said, “Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died” (v. 32).

Mary and Martha’s remarks to Jesus initially seem to criticize Jesus for failing to intervene in the sickness of their brother. But it would be a mistake to understand their remarks this way. What the sisters voiced here was their faith in Jesus. They were confessing that they believed Jesus could have reversed the illness of their brother and prevented his death. That showed tremendous faith. That faith, however, was limited.

While the sisters believed Jesus could prevent death, and Martha testified to the reality of the resurrection on the last day, they both lacked the understanding that Jesus has total sovereignty and mastery over death. Jesus corrected Martha’s limited understanding of His kingship by declaring, “I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live” (John 11:25, emphasis mine). Yet the sisters did not fully grasp the reality that Jesus could do more than prevent the onset of death. They thought all hope of restoring their brother was lost.

Anyone who has experienced the death of a loved one can empathize with Mary and Martha’s anguish. The death of a husband, sister, child, or other loved one leaves an indelible etching on the soul, like a wrinkle carved in an old man’s face. The wound of losing someone you care about to death never fully heals. We must also remember that while today’s society insulates us from the ugliness of death, the culture in which Mary and Martha lived afforded no such luxury. The sisters had watched their brother die. They most likely were involved in preparing him for burial. They had stared into the eyes of death and watched it gain victory over someone they loved. No wonder they viewed the death of Lazarus with such soul-wrenching anguish.

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The Absence of Lazarus

The response of Lazarus to his own death and resurrection can be quickly covered. Amazingly, Lazarus seems to have had no reaction to those events, at least none that was recorded for us in John 11. He is deafeningly silent.

I find Lazarus’s silence disappointing because I would love to know what he thought the moment after he emerged from the tomb and was freed from his burial clothes. Don’t you wonder too? Imagine his perspective on life and death after such an event. What could scare him after that?

In the 1920s, Eugene O’Neill wrote a play titled Lazarus Laughed in which Lazarus was filled with laughter after he was resurrected from the dead. In the play O’Neill responded to the charges of skeptics by declaring there was no death, only God’s laughter. But in the biblical text, Lazarus provides us with no commentary on the seventh sign. Lazarus is mum.

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The Antithesis in the Crowd

The raising of Lazarus divided the crowd of watchers like a wedge driven through a block of wood. There were two starkly different reactions in the crowd: belief and disbelief.

Part of the crowd recognized that Jesus was indeed the Resurrection and the Life, and they put their trust in Him. As John 11:45 says, “Many of the Jews which came to Mary, and had seen the things which Jesus did, believed on him.”

Others in the crowd, however, had an entirely different reaction. They rejected Jesus and “told [the Pharisees] what Jesus had done” (John 11:46). Instead of embracing Jesus as Lord and Savior, they foreshadowed the actions of Judas by betraying Him.

We should not be surprised by this antithesis in the crowd. This type of division is the necessary outcome of encountering Jesus. Whether Jesus is encountered as the incarnate Son of God performing a miraculous sign or in the Word proclaimed from the pulpit on the Lord’s Day, there are only two possible responses: either a person believes in Christ or rejects Him. As Simeon declares in Luke 2:34, “Behold, this child is set for the fall and rising again of many in Israel; and for a sign which shall be spoken against.”

Jesus cannot be ignored; we are either for Him or against Him.

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The Anxiety of the Jewish Leaders

The Jewish leaders learned about the death and resurrection of Lazarus through the testimony of the crowd. Ironically, the disbelievers in the crowd served as witnesses to the mighty deeds of Jesus and unwittingly became heralds of Jesus’ power. They talked about Jesus to the Jewish leaders, but the leaders did not respond to the testimony with faith or praise. Rather, they responded with anxiety.

Jesus’ miraculous raising of Lazarus so filled the Pharisees with anxiety that they called together an emergency session of the Sanhedrin, their judicial body of religious leaders. Jesus’ action was so serious that it required the attention of the Jewish ruling council.

The Jewish leaders were also anxious because they thought Jesus would become so popular that insurrection and rebellion might follow, requiring the Romans to intervene. The Romans had given the Jews autonomy to rule their own people and to practice their own religion, but in return the Romans demanded that the Jewish authorities control their people and maintain peace in the streets.

The Jewish leaders also feared that this miraculous event, which happened near the time of Passover when Jerusalem was crowded with people, would incite the people to revolt and the Romans to retaliate by destroying the temple. They said, “If we let him thus alone, all men will believe on him: and the Romans shall come and take away both our place and nation” (John 11:48).

The Jewish leaders’ anxiety over their imagined rebellion of the masses led them to a pragmatic decision. Caiaphas the high priest said Jesus must die to save the nation from the peril of the Romans. He reasoned that it was “expedient” that “one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation perish not” (John 11:50). His argument convinced the Sanhedrin to look for a way to kill Jesus.

The anxiety and corresponding decisions of the Jewish leaders are ironic. They feared that Jesus would destroy their temple and their nation, so they conspired to kill Him. But the very death of Christ is what brought about the destruction of the temple and the Jewish nation. About 40 years after Jesus’ death, the Romans brought their wrath upon Jerusalem, destroying the temple and the nation of Israel. The other irony is that the Jewish leaders were correct in concluding that Jesus had to die to save the Jewish nation. Salvation for the Jews could only come by the atoning death of Jesus.

When the Jewish leaders learned that Jesus had raised Lazarus from the dead, they responded with anxiety, which in turn developed into a full-fledged conspiracy to kill Jesus. The One who gave life to Lazarus was summarily sentenced to death.

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The Righteous Anger of Jesus

When Jesus first learned of Lazarus’s illness, He responded by declaring that this sickness would not ultimately end in death. Rather, the sickness would be allowed to run its course “for the glory of God, that the Son of God might be glorified thereby” (John 11:4).

After declaring that this sickness would not result in Lazarus’s death, Jesus did nothing. He purposely delayed traveling to Bethany to see Lazarus. John 11:6 says Jesus and His disciples stayed right where they were for two days. The delay was not due to callousness or ambivalence toward Lazarus or his sisters. John 11:5 makes it clear that Jesus loved Martha, Mary, and Lazarus. So why did Jesus allow Lazarus and his sisters to suffer?

Jesus stayed put because the purpose of what would happen next transcended the lives of these three people. He said the raising of Lazarus was “for the glory of God, that the Son of God might be glorified thereby” (John 11:4). By waiting two more days, Jesus was making certain that Lazarus was considered dead by the Jewish crowd who would witness His sign.

The Jews believed a person could be revived within three days after death, so Jesus waited until the fourth day before traveling to Bethany. He wanted to make sure there would be no doubt about the miraculous raising of His friend. Just before Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, Martha testified about the impossibility of raising Lazarus after three days in the grave. When Jesus asked Martha to remove the stone from the tomb where Lazarus was buried, she responded, “Lord, by this time he stinketh: for he hath been dead four days” (John 11:39). Jesus waited till the fourth day so that He and His Father would truly be glorified. When Jesus finally came to Bethany and witnessed firsthand the mourning of Mary and Martha and the crowd around them, He likewise grieved. In John 11:35 we read, “Jesus wept.” Just as the divine omniscience and omnipotence of Jesus was evident in His declaration that Lazarus’s sickness would not ultimately result in death, the humanity of Jesus was evident in His tears. Jesus is the God-man, the Son of God incarnate. In His human nature, He understands all of our temptations and grief. He was made in every way like us, except without sin (Heb. 4:15). Accordingly, when Jesus saw the pain caused by death and witnessed the grief of His beloved friends, He mourned along with them. Jesus wept over the death of Lazarus.

After weeping, however, Jesus’ tears of sorrow changed to indignation and anger. As John 11:33 tells us, “He groaned in the spirit, and was troubled.”

The Greek word embrimaomai, translated here as “groaned,” is used in secular literature to refer to the snorting of animals. The Greek word etaraxen, translated as “troubled,” refers to inward agitation. The use of these two Greek words indicates an emotion greater than human grief. Andreas Kostenberger writes, “Jesus is shown here not so much to express empathy or grief as to bristle at this imminent encounter with and assault on death.”1 Jesus was filled with anger because He was standing in the presence of the great enemy, death. As Jesus approached the tomb of Lazarus, He was preparing Himself to battle an adversary. In his commentary on this passage, John Calvin describes Jesus as approaching the tomb of Lazarus like a “wrestler preparing for a contest.” Jesus was outraged by the presence of death and was preparing Himself to combat it. Like a horse that snorts prior to attacking an enemy, Jesus was readying Himself for the great battle at the tomb.

The enemy Jesus confronted at Lazarus’s tomb reigns over everyone born in Adam. Death is the consequence of sin. It is part of the “wages of sin,” Paul tells us in Romans 6:23. When Jesus, the second Adam, stood before the grave of Lazarus, He was preparing to battle this ancient and indefatigable enemy.

But while death is master of all born in Adam, it had no mastery over Jesus the divine Son of God. Jesus was sovereign over this enemy. So, like a general barking orders to a subordinate, Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Lazarus, come forth” (John 11:43). Death had no choice, for it had to obey Jesus’ command. By the force of His command, Jesus released Lazarus from the cords of death. Like Moses who cried to Pharaoh, “Let my people go,” Jesus commanded death to let go of Lazarus, and death had no choice but to give up. Jesus was the undisputed champion over death.

The raising of Lazarus was only a prelude to Jesus’ battle against all the forces of evil. While this seventh sign was the greatest of Jesus’ seven signs, it pales in comparison to Jesus’ victory over death at the cross. The seventh sign points forward to Jesus’ death and resurrection. It also signals the day on which Jesus will bring all His people forth from the grave (1 Cor. 15:22). Jesus is the Resurrection and the Life!

A Final View

Is Your Name Lazarus?

We have considered five reactions to the death and resurrection of Lazarus. Mary and Martha reacted in anguish over the loss of their brother. Lazarus was silent. The crowd who witnessed the event was divided; some believed in Jesus while others betrayed him. The Jewish religious leaders reacted with anxiety. Finally, Jesus grieved, then became angry as He moved forward to conquer death. Clearly, these were five very different reactions to the same event.

But there is one more witness to these events.

You, the reader of John’s Gospel, are part of John’s audience. John wrote his Gospel so that people like you may believe that Jesus is the Son of God (John 20:31). John is trying to convince you, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, about the miraculous signs of Jesus. So you, too, are a spectator to the death and resurrection of Lazarus.

Your reaction to those events is of the utmost importance. What is your view of life and death? What is your view of Jesus? Do you believe Jesus is the Son of God? Do you recognize His sovereignty over the grave? Do you believe that He has won the victory over death? Do you see His glory?

Your view of the death and resurrection of Lazarus has eternal significance. Like all the signs of Jesus, this sign was given to open your eyes to the reality that you are dead in your trespasses and sins. You need Jesus to raise you from spiritual death. In a spiritual and metaphorical sense, you are Lazarus!

The question that you must ask is whether you are still in the tomb of sin and death or are living the resurrected life. In a poem titled “The Convert,” G.K. Chesterton writes:

The sages have a hundred maps to give

That trace their crawling cosmos like a tree,

They rattle reason out through many a sieve

That stores the sand and lets the gold go free:

And all these things are less than dust to me

Because my name is Lazarus and I live.

As Bambi discovered, “There is Another who is over us all.” The One who rules over death is Jesus. Is your name Lazarus? Do you live?