A Death for the People

This is the last installment of a five-week series on the raising of Lazarus. Catch up starting with part one here, and subscribe to get the next series in your inbox!

At this point, Lazarus has been raised from the dead. This is the climax of John 11, but it isn’t the end. In fact, we still get thirteen more verses before the chapter draws to a close! It isn’t enough that we know Lazarus rose – we also need to know why Jesus raised him.

What did Jesus accomplish? Yes, he brought comfort to a grieving sister. But through this miracle he did much more than that. All the way back in verse 4, when Jesus hears of Lazarus's illness, he says:

This illness does not lead to death. It is for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it. (ESV)

There are two ways his miracle accomplishes this. And one of them might surprise you.

The more obvious way in which God [the Father] and the Son are glorified is through the renown that comes to Jesus through this miracle. John calls the miracles he records "signs." After Jesus' own resurrection, John tells us the whole purpose of the book:

Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name. (John 20:30–31, ESV)

And so, we read in verse 45 – right after Lazarus rises – that many of the Judeans who had come to comfort Mary and Martha believed in him. More than that, we read in the next chapter that stories about this miracle follow Jesus all the way to Jerusalem:

The next day the large crowd that had come to the feast heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem. So they took branches of palm trees and went out to meet him, crying out, "Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, even the King of Israel!" [...] The crowd that had been with him when he called Lazarus out of the tomb and raised him from the dead continued to bear witness. The reason why the crowd went to meet him was that they heard he had done this sign. (John 12:12–13, 17–18, ESV)

And even more than that, because John wrote this story down, it reaches out through the ages, bringing glory to the Father and Son through the faith it continues to inspire even today.

But John focuses on a different way this miracle glorifies Jesus.

Over and over again, when John uses "glorification" in reference to Jesus, he is referring to Jesus' death. For example, in John 12, Jesus says:

The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. (John 12:23–24, ESV)

That's exactly what we see at the end of chapter 11. Word gets back to the Jewish leaders about the latest sign, and they hatch a plot to kill him. This miracle leads to Jesus' glorification – in that it signs his death warrant!

So the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered the council and said, "What are we to do? For this man performs many signs. If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation." But one of them, Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, said to them, "You know nothing at all. Nor do you understand that it is better for you that one man should die for the people, not that the whole nation should perish." He did not say this of his own accord, but being high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus would die for the nation, and not for the nation only, but also to gather into one the children of God who are scattered abroad. (47–52, ESV)

Leaders using a concern for the nation as a front for their own selfish ambitions. Isn't this a tale as old as time? Yet Caiaphas's prophecy unwittingly contains the very gospel these leaders don't understand. Jesus does have to die. That was his plan all along. And his death will be "for the nation." That is, for the Jewish nation. Not to save their national sovereignty (which the Romans will eventually take away), but to save the Old Covenant people of God from their sins. The author of Hebrews picks this up:

Therefore he is the mediator of a new covenant, so that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance, since a death has occurred that redeems them from the transgressions committed under the first covenant. (Hebrews 9:15, ESV)

Here – perhaps more than anywhere else in John – we see the technicalities of salvation on full display. Jesus dies "for" the people. On their behalf. So that they don't have to!

We also see the scope of the gospel on full display here. Jesus' death is also "to gather into one the children of God who are scattered abroad." In the Jewish mindset of the time, this means the Jewish people who were deported and exiled among the nations over the course of Israel's history. This was known as the "diaspora," or dispersion.

This language of dispersion begins to take on a new meaning in the New Testament. Earlier in John, Jesus says that he is going to a place where his audience cannot find him. In response, the confused crowd gives an unwitting foretaste of what's to come:

Where does this man intend to go that we will not find him? Does he intend to go to the Dispersion among the Greeks and teach the Greeks? (John 7:35, ESV)

Later on, Peter picks up this language when addressing the church in Asia Minor:

Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who are elect exiles of the Dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia. (1 Peter 1:1, ESV)

Just as the Israelites of old were scattered among the nations, so the gospel must go out to all nations, to draw in people from all nations, gathering them into one Church – the body of the glorified Lord Jesus.

This is the last installment of a five-week series on the raising of Lazarus. If you haven't already, you can catch up starting with part one. Subscribe with your email, or follow on Bluesky or the Fediverse to get the next series in a convenient place!