THE EIGHT SIGNS OF JOHN'S GOSPEL
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This is prominently brought forward in this seventh sign. We know from other sources of the love that existed
between the Lord and the family at Bethany. In this chapter before us, we are told, `Now Jesus loved Martha, and
her sister, and Lazarus'; but instead of continuing, `Therefore as soon as He heard of Lazarus' sickness, He hastened
to his bedside and healed him', we read the following strange sequence, `When He had heard therefore that he was
sick, He abode two days still in the same place where He was'. All through those days one prayer was uppermost in
the sisters' mind and heart. `If only the Lord would come'. Separately, each sister utters her heart's burden when
she did meet the Lord. `Lord, if Thou hadst been here, my brother had not died' (11:21,32). Those `two days' may
have a variety of individual interpretations, but most know something of their anxiety and despair. Dispensationally
too Israel will say:
`After two days He will revive us: in the third day He will raise us up, and we shall live in His sight' (Hos. 6:2).
There is an ever widening circle of influence exhibited in the development of the sign. Starting from the centre
of all, we have the glory of God, and the extreme circumference reaches to `the people that stand by'. This may be
the better seen as follows:
(1)
The glory of God (11:4).
(2)
The glorifying of the Son of God (11:4).
(3)
The faith of the disciples (11:15).
(4)
The faith of Martha (11:25-27,40).
(5)
The people that stood by (11:42).
(6)
Many of the Jews (11:45).
When Martha met the Lord, she said:
`Lord, if Thou hadst been here, my brother had not died. But I know, that even now, whatsoever Thou wilt ask
of God, God will give it Thee' (John 11:21,22).
Vaguely Martha seemed to feel that even now, in some strange way, she need not abandon hope. When the Lord
put her unshaped thoughts before her in the simple words, `Thy brother shall rise again', Martha's faith recoiled, as
it were, for she said, `I know that he shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day'. This was not, however, the
secret hope that had prompted her first words. The Lord recalls her mind from the `last day' to Himself, and the
present. Knowing something of the feeling of human helplessness in the presence of death, we can in some small
degree appreciate the majesty and the triumph of the Lord's reply to Martha:
`I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and
whosoever liveth and believeth in Me shall never die. Believest thou this?' (John 11:25,26).
The Gospel of John contains a wondrous series of statements made by Christ characterised by the expression `I
am'. In Himself the Lord Jesus is the great `I AM'.
`Before Abraham was, I AM' (8:58).
`I AM; be not afraid' (6:20).
To the woman of Samaria the Lord revealed himself:
`I that speak unto you AM' (4:26)
To the Jews the Lord said:
`If ye believe not that I AM' ye shall die in your sins' (8:24).
`When ye have lifted up the Son of man, then shall ye know that I AM' (8:28).
At the time of the betrayal, the Lord again refers to this great title (13:19); and in the garden of Gethsemane the
mere utterance of the words caused those who were about to take Him to fall backwards (18:5,6).
To His people this great title takes more concrete form. There are seven avenues of blessing through which the
believer draws upon the Saviour as the great I AM: