From Death to Life

Lazarus was sick, very sick. He knew that, the people close to him certainly knew that. In fact his condition was terminal. 

But his death would result in new life, and the revelation of the glory of God.

John 11:41-44 - So they took away the stone. Then Jesus looked up and said, “Father, I thank you that you have heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I said this for the benefit of the people standing here, that they may believe that you sent me.”

When he had said this, Jesus called in a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!”  
The dead man came out, his hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen, and a cloth around his face. Jesus said to them, “Take off the grave clothes and let him go.”

I so love this tiny glimpse into the relationship between Jesus and the Father. It speaks of intimacy and understanding, of total trust, total reliance, and total unfathomable abundance.

"Father, I thank you that you have heard me."

Of course He had heard Him. The two are one, united in love and purpose.

John 5:16-21 - So, because Jesus was doing these things on the Sabbath, the Jewish leaders began to persecute him. In his defense Jesus said to them, “My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I too am working.” For this reason they tried all the more to kill him; not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God.

Jesus gave them this answer: “Very truly I tell you, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does. For the Father loves the Son and shows him all he does. Yes, and he will show him even greater works than these, so that you will be amazed. For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son gives life to whom he is pleased to give it."

"Father ..."

How does one even begin to convey the identification, the closeness of that one word? The sense of the passage is not that the the Son is 'unable' to do anything by himself, but rather that He wills not to. Oneness is the fundamental essence of who He is, despite the obvious distinction of the persons ... it is the essence of the Life of God and allows the Son to be totally caught up in the purposes of the Father without any sense of losing His identity. In fact this 'death to independent self' is actually the fulfillment of His identity. He cannot see Himself as other than One with the Father.


This is such a pivotal concept to the Gospel of God and it grieves me that it is so often swamped by the 'Jesus Only' obsession of much that passes for modern Christianity. 

The whole point of the incarnation was the revealing of the Father and of His love for those who are His.

After Jesus said this, he looked toward heaven and prayed:
“Father, the hour has come. Glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify you. For you granted him authority over all people that he might give eternal life to all those you have given him. Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. I have brought you glory on earth by finishing the work you gave me to do. And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began".    (John 17:1-5)

His first thought was that we might know the Father ... that the Son was given authority to give eternal life, and that life is encapsulated in the knowledge of the Father and the Son. This is the life that He calls us into, a life of intimate connection with the Father and the Son through the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit ...

For those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God. The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship. And by him we cry, “Abba, Father.” The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children.        (Romans 8:14-16)