The Resurrection & the Life

Today on Renewing Your Mind. One of the reasons why the first century Christians were so willing to undergo martyrdom was because they were absolutely convinced of the resurrection and they were convinced that death was not the final dimension brings that kind of conviction those early Christians know that Jesus had told the truth today on Renewing Your Mind. Dr. RC scroll examines another declaration that Jesus made about himself. He said I am the resurrection and the life of the early writers believe that statement and believe that wholeheartedly their faith was anchored in the truth is RC no and we continue now with our study of the I am Jesus, and today were going to look at the very important declaration of Jesus made on the occasion of his visit to Bethany to the home of Lazarus and Mary and Martha after the death of Lazarus, in which occasion Jesus said I am the resurrection and the life and to set the context for that. Let's look if we may, at the 11th chapter of the book of John, where it begins telling us that Lazarus had become ill and so his sister sent a message to Jesus imploring him to come and help saying, behold, the one you love is sick. And when Jesus heard that his response was this this sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God that the son of God may be glorified through it and that of course would be a very encouraging response when Jesus declared that the illness of Lazarus was not on to death, but the purpose of it was to glorify God, our told in verse five Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus.

When he heard that he was sick, he stayed two more days in the place where he wants, which is jolting statement here in the text, because you would think that when Jesus gets this request and the news of the severity of the illness of Lazarus and right after John tells us how much he loved Lazarus you would've expected as the sisters of Lazarus certainly did that Jesus would come immediately, but instead he stayed two more days where he was and then after that he said to the disciples, let us go to Judea again at the Syverson rabbi. Lately the Jews sought to stone you, and you're going to go back there Jesus at all or not 12 hours in the day if anyone walks in the day.

He does not stumble because he sees the light of this world, but if one walks in the night, he stumbles because the light is not in him. These things he said after it had been said to them, our friend Lazarus sleeps, when I go I may wake him up and the disciple said, Lord, if he sleeps, then he will get well.

Jesus spoke of his death. They thought that he was speaking about simply taking rest in sleep. So Jesus said to them plainly, Lazarus is dead and I am glad for your sakes that I was not there, that you may believe. Nevertheless let us go to him. This is extremely cryptic language that Jesus is giving to his disciples when he said he's dead and I'm glad you weren't there. Why was he glad was he simply suggesting that he was glad they weren't there because they wouldn't have to have been witness to the demise of Lazarus or is a saying you haven't begun to see what I'm going to make manifest in the light, but he says let's go to him. Thomas is called the twin, said to his fellow disciples, let us also go the we may die with him there. Assuming Jesus comes back in the Judea at this point in his ministry. This close to Jerusalem. This close to the seat of the authority of those who were in opposition to Jesus that they were by going on this trip, risking their law since that's why the disciples didn't want Jesus to go because they fear for him and then when he said he's going, said let's go with him.

If he dies let us die beside him.

Course that attitude changed dramatically in just a few short days, but let's read them.

The record of what takes place when Jesus comes to the home of Lazarus, so Jesus came and he found it already been in the tomb for day now that minor detail in the narrative that Lazarus had been in the tomb for four days were significantly ancient Jew because the somatic people of that day many of them at least had this view that when a person died. The soul that departed from the body would come back and visit the body periodically for a couple of days after death but by the fourth day when it was obvious that the decay had set in to the corpse that at that time it was believed that the soul had abandoned the body once and for all, so it's not as though they believe that you weren't really dad in less you were dead for four days but the idea that it was impossible for any kind of revival to take place once the fourth. They began and so John gives us the detail that it was significant that Lazarus was not only dead, but he had been dead for four days and already the bodily corruption had set in. Now Bethany was near Jerusalem, about 2 miles away.

If you've ever been to Jerusalem, you know that between Jerusalem and the Mount of olives is a deep valley. There the Kidron and on the opposite slope of the Mount of olives is the town of Bethany and so from Bethany release from the top of the Mount of olives. You does look right across the ravine into the old city of Jerusalem and so it was really a short distance that could be walked easily and so we read that many of the Jews had joined the women around Martha and Mary, to comfort them concerning their brother and so a multitude of Jewish people had made the trek up the Mount of olives to Bethany to the home of Mary and Martha because obviously these people had a lot of friends in Jerusalem and must've been somewhat well-known in any case Martha soon as she heard that Jesus was coming, went and met him. Mary was sitting in the house. Martha said to Jesus, Lord, if you would been here, my brother would not have God so here is Martha, who was desperate for Jesus to come to rescue her brother from his illness and then when he died, her expectations were not met and she was not only upset by the death of her brother, but also upset by the failure obviously of geniuses to do for her what she had expected. And so she meets Jesus with a rebuke saying, Lord, if you have been here, my brother would not die.

However, even now I know that whatever you ask of God, God will give you know I don't know that we have any reason to believe in light of the following words of the conversation that Martha was expecting Jesus to bring a resurrection to bear here on the one hand, she rebukes him and on the other hands as I know the whatever God wants were willing to accept them. Whatever you ask of God, God will give to you.

And so Jesus said to her dear brother will rise again.

The reason why I don't think that she was expecting Jesus to raise her brother from the dead is because of what she says next. Martha said him. I know that he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day. Yes, Lord, I believe in the future resurrection, and I know that at some point my brother will rise again and remember that not everybody in Israel believe in the future resurrection. The Pharisees did the Sadducees didn't. For example, among the leaders of the Jewish people.

But Martha did believe in the future resurrection and it's on this occasion and in that moment that Jesus pronounces the I am where she says to him, I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day. Jesus does not say I will be the one who will raise him in the last what he does say is I am the resurrection and the life.

Now this is an astonishing claim and declaration by Jesus and adjoins the other IMs that we've already examined where Jesus not only gives light to the world but he is the light of the world.

Not only does he help people through the door to everlasting life, he himself is the door now in the idiom of expression of the people in that day if something is so closely associated with the particular person, that person could then in terms of speech patterns we identified with whatever it is that was so closely associated we learn, for example, in John's epistle that God is love and what he is saying there idiomatic Lee is that God is so loving so closely connected with love that it could be said that he is very reality of which were speaking and so Jesus is so connected with the power over death and the power of eternal life. The power of resurrection that he is saying here to Martha. Not only do I have the power to raise people from the dead, and not only do I have the power to raise myself from the dead, but I am the resurrection now think about going back to antiquity. The question that was raised by Job if a man die, shall he live again. That question has been in the minds of every human being. Since death was first experienced on this point. In every culture and every tribe in every civilization we see people speculating about the question of death and the afterlife. The obvious question is when I die, is that the end is the whole of my existence summed up between the two points of birth and death, such as are marked on people's great or is there something else. Is there something more. Life is so precious to humans that there beats within every human heart a whole that somehow there will be victory over the gray you go and you look at the writings of the philosopher Plato in his discussions concerning the death of Socrates gives a philosophical argument for life after death there is an argument from analogy that is borrowed from the cyclical character of life and death that we see in the realm of nature. Wherefore grass to grow.

The seed must be planted and the seed has to die. But when the sea dies and rockets. The shell rots and then the seed germinates and new life emerges and so you see those analogies in nature, but all of that is speculative. The greatest hope that we have in the world for life after death is found in the historical resurrection of Christ which the New Testament sets before us, not as an isolated incident but as an event that is the first of a multitude of events similar to it that will at some point follow that he is raised from the dead for us so that we also will participate in that resurrection and that is at the core of the hope of the Christian faith.

And we know that in the early church. One of the reasons why the first century Christians were so willing to undergo martyrdom was because they were absolutely convinced of the resurrection and they were convinced that death was not the final dimension that now death.

Instead of being a victory for Satan over us that death had been defeated and now for the Christian death was simply a transition from life here to life in an even better environment and better situation and all that comes them not to an argument, but to a person where Jesus says, thinking about future resurrection. Listen Martha, I am in the way is already talked about being the author of so way that he came to make so way that kind of life, spiritual life, eternal life possible for his people. I came that you might have life and have it more abundantly. What Jesus expands on the statement here in this text I am the resurrection and the life. And he who believes in me, though he may die, he shall live. And then he goes on to say in the next breath. And whoever lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this. Now this sounds, at first blush is somewhat contradictory because the first thing he says is that if you believe on me, even if you die, you're going to live many years on this. If you believe in me, you will never die. So obviously what Jesus is saying is that those who are in him in faith, never die. In one sense, and yet in another sense, they still die yet continue to live and so the idea here is that those so way this eternal life that he comes to gift to his people begins in the soul. The moment faith is born in the heart and that so way life cannot be killed by Thanatos physical death cannot destroy the life that Christ puts in two believer.

So even if you go through physical death.

You don't die what's all behind this concept of resurrection is Christ's promise of the continuity of personal existence. The day that my body dies is not the day that I die. That is the day I become more conscious of reality than I've ever been, up until the point of my death in a very real sense, the ultimate life for which God has made us as living beings doesn't begin until we cross the veil. That's why the apostle Paul can say that he was torn between two alternatives expresses his ambivalence.

He says I desire to depart and be with Christ which is what her on the one hand, I have this deep desire to leave, but I also desire to stay with you, which is more needful. My work isn't done but I can't wait to go see him be with him where he is and so Jesus as he approaches his own best later on in the same book you know he tells his disciples that in my father's house remaining and I go to prepare a place for you. And if that were not so I would've told you. And now as he's comforting Martha is telling her what Martha were not just talking future resurrection here you're talking to the one who is the resurrection and the life and he says do you believe this, she said yes Lord, I believe that you are the Christ, the son of God was to come in the world.

So when she said the same. She went and called Mary her sister and said the teacher is, is calling for you.

And so then we have this conversation were Mary says, Lord, if you'd been here, my brother were not died the same lament that Martha had made Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who were with her weeping, and he groaned in his spirit and was troubled instead were ovulating and they said, Lord, come and see.

We read Jesus wept. And they said see how he loved some of them said, could not this man, who opened the eyes of the blind This man from behind Jesus groaning in himself came to the tomb was a cave and a stone lay against it in Jesus said, take away the stone.

Martha objects again when Martha said Ward. By this time there's a stench for he's been dead for four days. Jesus said, didn't I tell you that if you would believe you would see the glory of God. So they took away the stone from the place for the dead man was lying and Jesus lifted up his eyes on them and said father I thank you that you have heard me. I know that you always hear me because the people were standing by I said this, that they may believe that you sent me, and when he had said these things, he cried with a loud voice often hear this preached on in the church and Rachel saying Jesus cried with a loud voice/if it were true the text. What is it say when Jesus stood in front of this open tomb with the corpse of Lazarus inside.

He shouted into the tomb saying Lazarus come forth. I think it's important we pause for a moment on that because this is on God Almighty created the universe out of nothing.

He creates the world by the power of his divine call by his word he creates all that there is and so by his word Christ empowers a corpse to come back to life and as soon as Jesus cries in that loud voice and gives the imperative of God himself to the dead Lazarus. That heart began to beat and began to pump blood through his vessels brain waves began the rotting tissue became healed, strength entered back into him and Lazarus who had died came out bound hand and foot with grave clothes.

His face wrapped in a cloth, but he was alive.

And Jesus said to those their loose him and let him go and you love to sing the scene.

The power of Christ in the presence of death.

This is the same Christ appears to John on the island of Patmos in the first chapter of the book of Revelation, who identifies himself in this way when John sees him. John tells us that he fell at his feet as though dead with Christ laid his hand on him and said do not be afraid. I am the first and the last I am he who lives, and was dead, and behold I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of hell, one who is the resurrection and the life has the key to unlock the graph unlock the part of this so that we have nothing to fear from death because for the Christian.

It is a magnificent entrance to the supreme setting of human of the Christian faith. Without that Christianity simply empty moralism that is irrelevant. Modern man as long as there is life as long as there is best. There's no one in Christ was what a wonderful way to wrap up the week here on Renewing Your Mind. We been featuring Dr. RC's ProSeries knowing Christ.

The IM statements of Jesus we have learned what Christ meant when he said he is the bread of life.

The light of the world.

The door, the good Shepherd in the resurrection and the life.

There are eight messages in this series and we would like to send them to you on a single DVD when you contact us today with your donation of any amount you can make your request online@renewingyourmind.org or you can call us with your gift at 800-435-4343, when RC began this ministry 50 years ago. His goal was to see the historic Christian faith advanced around the world and because of your generous support. We are seeing that happen. Through the years we produced more than 500 teaching series published more than 500 books and a magazine that has more than 250,000 readers every month. In addition, our app is launched. Millions of times per year around the world.

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We will send you Dr.'s ProSeries knowing Christ our web address again is Renewing Your Mind.org or phone number is 800-435-4343 and next week we're going to take a look at the inspiration and inerrancy of Scripture and the teaching that will hear addresses the central question. Can we trust the Bible, we hope you'll join us.

Beginning Monday here on Renewing Your Mind