JOHN 12:1-51 Today we ll be looking at the continuation of the story of Lazarus. I want us also to be aware of the fact that chronologically we are in the last week of the earthly life of the Lord Jesus Christ. And as always, we have a lot to cover so let s get into our Scripture Verses 1-8 The raising of Lazarus was a type or a picture of the Christian life: 1) Lazarus was dead as we were dead in our trespasses and sins 2) Lazarus was loved by Jesus as we were loved by Jesus 3) Lazarus was called by Jesus from death to life just as we were made alive with Christ 4) Lazarus was loosed from his old grave clothes just as old things are passed away for us when we became Christians We saw all this last week and here we see a further step in this spiritual progression 5) Lazarus is having sweet fellowship with Jesus just as we do, and one day we will sit at the table and dine with Jesus at the Marriage Supper of the Lamb There s another step in this spiritual progression, and we ll see it in just a moment But first, let s look at this precious picture that John paints for us We know that Martha loved to serve and we know that Mary loved to learn. Martha was a worker. Mary was a worshiper. And here we don t see any criticism of Martha as we did back in Luke when the Lord Jesus said, Martha, Martha, you are worried and bothered about so many things; but Mary has chosen the good part, which shall not be taken away from her. And I believe the reason for that is that as we saw last week, Martha had been forced to examine her faith in the Lord Jesus. And her faith had been examined and strengthened but Martha still had a servant s heart. And here we see the two sisters in their same familiar roles, don t we? Martha serving again Mary sitting at the feet of Jesus The ointment with which Mary anointed the Lord s feet was very expensive, very costly equivalent to almost one year s wages. How much would that be today? How did Mary acquire it? We don t know. The important thing is that Mary gave her very best to her Lord. At some point, Mary must have bought this ointment in preparation for the death of the Lord Jesus. She seemed to be the only one who really believed that Jesus would die. But, then after Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, she not only believed that Jesus would be crucified, and buried, but that He would be raised from the dead! Page 1 of 8
And she realized that His body would not need the spices she had bought for Him. His body would not see corruption. So, if she were to anoint Him at all, she must anoint Him now! And that s exactly what she did!!! Mary had bought that ointment for His burial, but she gave it to Him a week before because she now believed in His resurrection! When we see the resurrection of the Lord Jesus in a couple of months, we ll not see this Mary at the tomb with spices with which to anoint Jesus she knows this very night at Bethany that His body will not need to be anointed! How did Mary have this kind of discernment? She had sat at the feet of Jesus. By the way, sitting at the feet is a Hebrew expression meaning learning. Mary had desired to learn all she could from Jesus. And I wonder if we have that desire today. We cannot literally sit at Jesus feet today. But, we can learn from Him. And the way we learn today is through this book. I want to ask you this. Are you spending time in this book? I want to tell you this if you re too busy to really get into God s Word each day, you re too busy! My prayer for this coming year is that you and I will be more and more like Mary and spend time at the feet of the Lord Jesus Christ by spending time in His Word. Let s think about Lazarus for a moment Verses 9 We have no idea how long Lazarus had lived in Bethany. He had probably lived there all his life. As far as we know, he had always been a decent, moral, law abiding, synagogue attending man. At some point in time, Lazarus had become a believer in Christ. At some point in time, his home had become a place where the Lord Jesus Christ felt loved and welcomed and honored. But, nobody in all that time had ever made the two mile trip out from Jerusalem to see him because he was a believer in Christ or because he had opened his home to the Lord. But, now they came Why? Because now Lazarus was a man who had been raised from the dead! He wasn t the same person he had been before. Now, he knew what it was to pass from death unto life. Now, he knew what it was to come to the absolute end of himself. And those close to him and those not so close to him heard about the change in him and so, they came to see him for themselves! Verses 10-11 Page 2 of 8
The testimony of Lazarus life was causing many to come to a saving knowledge of Jesus and his life was in danger because of it. We said there was one more step of progression of a Christian s life that we see paralleled in the life of Lazarus. 6) Lazarus was persecuted for Jesus sake and we re going to see in just a couple of weeks that Jesus will tell His followers that if they persecuted Him, they will persecute us as well. I believe in these three people we see a picture of the church. We see Lazarus, alive from the dead and in fellowship with the Lord Jesus Christ. We see Mary sitting at the feet of Jesus growing in grace and in the knowledge of Christ. And we see Martha serving exercising her gift of service. These are the three essentials in the church today: new life in Christ, worship and adoration, and service. So, that s a condensed story of Martha, Mary and Lazarus at the supper that Jesus ate with them six days before the Passover. But, there s something else I want us to see this morning Verses 12-19 I want us to notice something in connection with this passage of Scripture. Up until now, we can safely say that Jesus went out of His way to avoid notoriety Time and time again, He told those He had healed to tell no one Remember when some of his followers were going to take Him by force and make Him king He quietly withdrew to the mountain to be alone. And remember when His brothers urged Him to show Himself to the world He told them that His hour had not yet come. But here we see something very different, don t we? Jesus publicly rides into Jerusalem on a donkey and He allows the multitude to proclaim Him as king! In Luke we read that when the Pharisees asked Him to rebuke these folks, He said to them, I tell you, if these become silent, the stones will cry out! Why did our Lord send and get this donkey, as Luke records and make arrangements for this triumphal entry? Why did He permit them to proclaim Him as their king when in less than a week He would lay down His life as a sacrifice for sin? Page 3 of 8
Because the Scripture demanded it! Here, as always, we see Jesus Christ in submission to His Father s Word and will! Also, He rode into Jerusalem at the time of the Passover, when the roads would be filled with folks bringing their lambs for Passover, in order to show Himself as the Passover Lamb who would take away the sins of the world.! This was a very important date! This was a very important event! Those Jews who knew the Scripture should have had this date circled on their calendar! The Sanhedrin should have been counting down to this date! They should have known its special significance from all other days and dates and times and seasons on their religious calendar! You see, this day and date had been foretold 483 years before by the prophet, Daniel. In Daniel 9, we see the old prophet in Babylon, on his face before God confessing the sins of himself and his people. The angel, Gabriel, God s messenger, appeared before Daniel while Daniel was still praying. Gabriel brought to Daniel a profound message from God! Daniel 9:24-27 God gave a decree of 70 weeks for the Jewish people. What are these 70 weeks of Daniel? This was 70 sevens 70 weeks of years. One week = 7 years, or 490 years (70 x 7=490) had been decreed for the Jewish people divided into three unequal parts. 7x7 62 x 7. T. R. 1 x 7 Rebuilding of Years to the. 69 th CHURCH AGE Great Tribulation Jerusalem Cutting off of week? years (Daniel s 70 th week) the Messiah 7 7 s = 49 years rebuilding of Jerusalem (Nehemiah & Ezra) 62 7 s = 434 years to run until Messiah is cut off 483 years 7 years left 490-483 = 7 The last 7 years will come later. Because of the rejection of the Messiah by the Jews, we are now living in the church age, an age of undetermined number of years. The 70 th week of Daniel will be the 7 years known as the Great Tribulation. The triumphal entry took place in the 69 th week. The crucifixion took place in the 69 th week. Messiah was cut off in the 69 th week. Page 4 of 8
Because the Jews didn t accept Jesus as their Messiah, the 70 th week was postponed and God inserted the church age in between the 69 th and 70 th week. I said all that simply to say this Those learned, religious Jews surely knew this prophecy But they were more concerned With tradition With position With maintaining the status quo There is a big difference in having Scripture in our head, just a head full of facts and figures and geography and history and having Scripture in our heart! Thy Word have I hid in my heart Having God s Word only in our head doesn t generate faith and belief! Having God s Word in our head and our heart does! Verses 20-24 I don t know what Andrew and Philip were expecting when they first told Jesus that the Greeks had come to see Him. But I m certain they were not expecting the answer Jesus gave them. Maybe they expected Him to say, I m not seeing Greeks right now. After all, He had indicated on several occasions that the Gospel was to be taken first to the Jew. In Matthew 10:6, we read that Jesus told the disciples not to go to the Gentiles but to go the lost sheep of the house of Israel. But, what did He say? The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. How many times have we heard Him say, My hour has not yet come? And then in the very next verse He says, Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains by itself alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. I just want us to think for a moment about what Jesus meant by making this statement In one sense, within the context, I believe the Lord was saying that He would indeed be glorified for the door of salvation to be opened wider and wider to receive Greeks. The Jews had rejected Him. But, many, many Gentiles would accept Him. It glorifies the Lord for folks to be drawn to Him. It glorifies the Lord for folks to accept the salvation He offers. It glorifies the Lord for you and me to bring folks to Him, as Philip and Andrew brought these Greeks to Him. But, there is another sense in which the Lord is glorified and it is found in verse 24. The Lord Jesus has the cross in mind. It is only the crucified Christ dying in the place of sinners who saves. The example of Christ doesn t save. Jesus isn t saying to us that if we will only follow His example and try to live as He lived we will find happiness in this life and salvation in the world to come. Page 5 of 8
This is not His message. No man was ever saved by following Christ. We are saved through faith in what He has done on the cross. After that we can follow Him. Also, we are not saved by His teaching. Jesus didn t say that He could teach them the way to God and that if men and women would only follow that way, that teaching, they would find salvation. That is what teachers of the world religions have done. Jesus didn t say, I will show you the way. Jesus said, I am the way Verses 27-30 Can you just feel the inward suffering that Jesus was beginning to experience? Until now, the cross must have seemed a long way off. But now, Jesus knows that it is less that a week away! Verse 28 The prayer of our Lord was not that He be spared from the mockery of the trials scourgings crown of thorns heavy cross agony of crucifixion the anguish of separation or even the bitter experience of becoming sin for you and me. His prayer was that His Father s name might be glorified. Do we do that? When we are facing a real trial or we re in the midst of sadness and heartache Do we pray for deliverance OR Do we pray that the Father s name be glorified in the midst of our pain and suffering? The Father spoke from heaven not for the sake of His Son this time, but to strengthen the faith of the disciples, to remove all excuses from the unbelievers. Verses 32-33 The Cross is the Great Divide of humanity. On one side of the Cross we see a dying thief a man who died blaspheming a man who went out into a lost eternity. On the other side of the Cross we see a dying thief a man who died believing a man who went to be with Christ in paradise. The Cross divides the world. The Cross necessitates a choice because of what happened there! You re either on one side or the other Although salvation is a free gift we sometimes forget that we must ask for it. Page 6 of 8
From John 13 to John 17, we see Christ privately teaching His disciples, and we re going to see this in the weeks ahead. But, John seems unwilling to conclude this section of the Gospel without a few summarizing comments. Because of time, we re not going to cover the rest of this chapter in depth, but let me give you a little outline that you might do some homework on this afternoon after you take a nap! 1) Jesus analyzes the fact of Israel s unbelief verses 36-41. 2) Jesus acknowledges that some Jews did believe verses 42-43. 3) Jesus stresses His relationship with the Father; His identity as this world s light; the danger of unbelief; the nature of His teachings and the blessed result of responding to them verses 44-50. I just want to briefly touch on verses 36-41. At first glance we would say that the Jews in Jesus day could not believe because it had been foreordained that they fulfill the prophecy found in Isaiah 53. But I want us to know that they would not believe. And to see that, we need to understand that the Greek word that can be translated two different ways. It can mean in order that which would tend to put the blame for their unbelief upon God. But it can also mean so that or consequently. And if that is so, the verses may be translated, They believed not; consequently the saying of Isaiah was fulfilled. John s point is not that God made them disbelieve, but rather that we should not be surprised by their disbelief in that God had prophesied it even before it happened. Anyone who is away from God is away from God because of his or her own desires and decisions. Men and women departed from God in Adam, and they remain cut off from God because they prefer their own will to God s will and will not have Christ to be their Savior. Having said that, then we must look at verses 39-40 a quote from Isaiah 6 this time. Does this text teach us that God has blinded the eyes of some people so that they absolutely cannot see and understand the Gospel? NO! And let me tell you why we know this - This is not what the Word of God as a whole teaches. What does it teach? Does it teach that men are able to choose God, but that God singles out some, whose minds He closes, and who therefore cannot believe? No! The Word of God teaches that He is not willing for any to perish, but for all to come to repentance! - We must take this in context, and in this context John doesn t begin with the prophecy from Isaiah 6 he begins with the statement that even though Jesus did so many miracles, they still would not believe in Him. Page 7 of 8
- We must see that Jesus has just urged them not to reject the light, arguing that if they rejected the light, an even greater darkness would come upon them. This is not a darkness that causes unbelief, but a darkness that results from their unbelief. Unbelief is self-propagating it seeds itself. Galatians 6:3: God said His Spirit will not always strive with man. Proverbs 21:9: A man who hardens his neck after much reproof will Suddenly be cut off without remedy. And we are familiar with the apostle Paul s repeated phrase in Romans 1: and God gave them over I just wanted to cover this a little because I believe when we see passages like this we can become so confused. In all this there is a solemn affirmation of human responsibility and an even more solemn warning of what transpires when the light of God goes unheeded. Though we will never fully understand the sovereignty of God and the free will of man, I believe we can at least try. I m just so thankful that God has given us the grace to answer to the question, Who has believed our report? Oh, Father, we have believed it!! Page 8 of 8