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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.
1.
I AM the Bread of Life (6: 35).
2.
I AM the Light of the World (8: 12).
3.
I AM the Door of the Sheep (10: 7).
4.
I AM the Good Shepherd (10: 11).
5.
I AM the Resurrection and the Life (11: 25).
6.
I AM the True and Living Way (14: 6).
7.
I AM the True Vine (15: 1).
The Lord's title as revealed to Martha is twofold and refers to the two classes of
believers that must come under the beneficent effects of His mighty power.
To the dead believer, He is the Resurrection.
To the believer who is alive at His coming, He is the Life.
No words could indicate more clearly the Lord's consciousness of triumph than these;
yet what condescension! What lowly sympathy is exhibited in that smallest of verses,
"Jesus wept" (verse 35)! Though He is indeed a great High Priest, yet He is not
untouched with the feeling of our infirmities. When Martha interposed with the fact that
Lazarus had been dead four days, the Lord said, "Said I not unto thee, that if thou wouldst
believe, thou shouldest see the glory of God?"
Christ was raised by the "glory of the Father" (Rom. 6: 4). It is a great pity that some,
not seeing the close relationship between the "glory" and the "resurrection", render the
words of Eph. 1: 17, "the glorious Father". We must retain the rendering "The Father of
glory", seeing how closely it is connected with the exceeding greatness of the power
which He wrought in Christ when He raised Him from the dead. The Lord had already
said:--
"The hour is coming in which all that are in the graves shall hear His voice, and shall
come forth" (John 5: 28).
And here before the grave of Lazarus He gave a foretaste of that blessed day:--
"Lazarus, come forth! and the dead man came forth" (11: 43, 44).
The last sign given by the Lord before His sufferings is the sign of Israel's restoration.
Rom. 11: 15 says:--
"For if the casting away of them be the reconciling of the world, what shall the receiving of
them be, but life from the dead?"
Ezekiel's vision of the valley of dry bones also looks forward to that same blessed
day. Indeed there is no blessing that can be enjoyed in its fullness apart from
resurrection. The blessings of our pilgrimage are foretastes of coming glory. The life
that is life indeed is future.