By James Riley Strange, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of New Testament, Samford University
You’ll Never Die
John 11:25–27; 20:24–29
In our second in a series of lessons on some of Jesus’ difficult teachings we look at resurrection in the Gospel of John. Resurrection from the dead has been difficult for many Christians to accept almost since the beginning (see 1 Cor. 15:12–20).
John may have been writing to a group of believers that included Jews, Samaritans and Gentiles. Some Jews (for example, Martha in John 11:24; also Pharisees and Essenes) had a doctrine of resurrection, but Gentiles whose thinking was influenced by some branches of Greek philosophy may have had a hard time understanding how a body could revive and live forever.
Today some members of your class may also find the various ways Jesus talks about resurrection difficult to grasp.
Jesus promised that those who believe in Him will never die. (11:25–27)
The full passage is John 11:1–44. In it we encounter three ideas of resurrection. The first is “the resurrection on the last day” which Martha and Jesus talk about in verse 24. That was a common Jewish idea that has survived in both Judaism and Christianity.
The resurrection of Lazarus is a second type. This miraculous resuscitation was temporary and an act of compassion by a grieving Jesus. The third kind of resurrection is the new life Jesus offers His believers in verses 25 and 26.
One of the many “I am” sayings in John, “I am the resurrection and the life,” is Jesus’ claim that He Himself is God’s gift of a new existence. In verse 26 and the famous 3:16, Jesus says those who believe will not die.
But of course they will die as have all of Jesus’ followers up to the present. What Jesus is talking about is a new kind of life God grants believers. We may think of it as beginning after our body dies, but Jesus indicates that “eternal life” is activated by our faith. Our eternal life begins now.
Resurrection can be difficult to accept as reality. (20:24–25)
Read all of chapter 20. If Martha gives us an example of stalwart faith, Thomas shows us how Jesus deals with doubt in one of His followers. “I will not believe unless …” resonates for much of what we claim about Jesus can seem outlandish. We are no more likely than Thomas to rely on someone else’s claims about Jesus. We want our own encounter with the living Lord and that is what Jesus offers.
Jesus backed up His promise of eternal life by rising from the dead. (20:26–29)
Jesus responds to Thomas, not by scolding his lack of faith or by offering well-reasoned arguments or scriptural prooftexts. Instead Jesus offers Himself to Thomas in bodily form. Then he addresses both John’s original audience and us in 2019 Alabama: “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”
Class members who became Christians later in life might be able to share how they came to faith because they encountered the living Jesus. Those who have been in the church from the cradle may be able to tell how their encounters with that same Jesus kept them within the fold when they were tempted to leave.
Unlike Thomas, Jesus does not offer His resurrected body to us. Like Thomas, however, Jesus offers His living self, both to those who doubt and to those who believe. I think this explains the language, “I am the resurrection and the life.” Through the Holy Spirit (see John 14:25–31; 15:26–16:15), our living Lord and God lives with us. And because He does, we live a new, eternal life. Thanks be to God.
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