{"commentary":{"id":"jamieson-fausset-brown","name":"Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary","website":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamieson-Fausset-Brown_Bible_Commentary","licenseUrl":"https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/","licenseNotes":null,"licenseNotice":null,"englishName":"Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary","language":"eng","textDirection":"rtl","sha256":"db3d4c8b3c1f32ef9d1430a57392e02bda3a17aac1f9bbe398461de021a3cb13","availableFormats":["json"],"listOfBooksApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/books.json","listOfProfilesApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/profiles.json","numberOfBooks":66,"totalNumberOfChapters":1187,"totalNumberOfVerses":17056,"totalNumberOfProfiles":0,"languageName":"English","languageEnglishName":"English"},"book":{"id":"JHN","commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","name":"John","commonName":"John","introduction":"THE author of the Fourth Gospel was the younger of the two sons of Zebedee, a fisherman on the Sea of Galilee, who resided at Bethsaida, where were born Peter and Andrew his brother, and Philip also. His mother's name was Salome, who, though not without her imperfections (Mat 20:20-28), was one of those dear and honored women who accompanied the Lord on one of His preaching circuits through Galilee, ministering to His bodily wants; who followed Him to the cross, and bought sweet spices to anoint Him after His burial, but, on bringing them to the grave, on the morning of the First Day of the week, found their loving services gloriously superseded by His resurrection ere they arrived. His father, Zebedee, appears to have been in good circumstances, owning a vessel of his own and having hired servants (Mar 1:20). Our Evangelist, whose occupation was that of a fisherman with his father, was beyond doubt a disciple of the Baptist, and one of the two who had the first interview with Jesus. He was called while engaged at his secular occupation (Mat 4:21-22), and again on a memorable occasion (Luk 5:1-11), and finally chosen as one of the Twelve Apostles (Mat 10:2). He was the youngest of the Twelve--the \"Benjamin,\" as DA COSTA calls him--and he and James his brother were named in the native tongue by Him who knew the heart, \"Boanerges,\" which the Evangelist Mark (Mar 3:17) explains to mean \"Sons of thunder\"; no doubt from their natural vehemence of character. They and Peter constituted that select triumvirate of whom see on Luk 9:28. But the highest honor bestowed on this disciple was his being admitted to the bosom place with his Lord at the table, as \"the disciple whom Jesus loved\" (Joh 13:23; Joh 20:2; Joh 21:7, Joh 20:24), and to have committed to him by the dying Redeemer the care of His mother (Joh 19:26-27). There can be no reasonable doubt that this distinction was due to a sympathy with His own spirit and mind on the part of John which the all-penetrating Eye of their common Master beheld in none of the rest; and although this was probably never seen either in his life or in his ministry by his fellow apostles, it is brought out wonderfully in his writings, which, in Christ-like spirituality, heavenliness, and love, surpass, we may freely say, all the other inspired writings.\n\nAfter the effusion of the Spirit on the day of Pentecost, we find him in constant but silent company with Peter, the great spokesman and actor in the infant Church until the accession of Paul. While his love to the Lord Jesus drew him spontaneously to the side of His eminent servant, and his chastened vehemence made him ready to stand courageously by him, and suffer with him, in all that his testimony to Jesus might cost him, his modest humility, as the youngest of all the apostles, made him an admiring listener and faithful supporter of his brother apostle rather than a speaker or separate actor. Ecclesiastical history is uniform in testifying that John went to Asia Minor; but it is next to certain that this could not have been till after the death both of Peter and Paul; that he resided at Ephesus, whence, as from a center, he superintended the churches of that region, paying them occasional visits; and that he long survived the other apostles. Whether the mother of Jesus died before this, or went with John to Ephesus, where she died and was buried, is not agreed. One or two anecdotes of his later days have been handed down by tradition, one at least bearing marks of reasonable probability. But it is not necessary to give them here. In the reign of Domitian (A.D. 81-96) he was banished to \"the isle that is called Patmos\" (a small rocky and then almost uninhabited island in the Ægean Sea), \"for the word of God and for the testimony of Jesus Christ\" (Rev 1:9). IRENÆUS and EUSEBIUS say that this took place about the end of Domitian's reign. That he was thrown into a cauldron of boiling oil, and miraculously delivered, is one of those legends which, though reported by TERTULLIAN and JEROME, is entitled to no credit. His return from exile took place during the brief but tolerant reign of Nerva; he died at Ephesus in the reign of Trajan [EUSEBIUS, Ecclesiastical History, 3.23], at an age above ninety, according to some; according to others, one hundred; and even one hundred twenty, according to others still. The intermediate number is generally regarded as probably the nearest to the truth.\n\nAs to the date of this Gospel, the arguments for its having been composed before the destruction of Jerusalem (though relied on by some superior critics) are of the slenderest nature; such as the expression in Joh 5:2, \"there is at Jerusalem, by the sheep-gate, a pool,\" &c.; there being no allusion to Peter's martyrdom as having occurred according to the prediction in Joh 21:18 --a thing too well known to require mention. That it was composed long after the destruction of Jerusalem, and after the decease of all the other apostles, is next to certain, though the precise time cannot be determined. Probably it was before his banishment, however; and if we date it between the years 90 and 94, we shall probably be close to the truth.\n\nAs to the readers for whom it was more immediately designed, that they were Gentiles we might naturally presume from the lateness of the date; but the multitude of explanations of things familiar to every Jew puts this beyond all question.\n\nNo doubt was ever thrown upon the genuineness and authenticity of this Gospel till about the close of the eighteenth century; nor were these embodied in any formal attack upon it till BRETSCHNEIDER, in 1820, issued his famous treatise [Probabilia], the conclusions of which he afterwards was candid enough to admit had been satisfactorily disproved. To advert to these would be as painful as unnecessary; consisting as they mostly do of assertions regarding the Discourses of our Lord recorded in this Gospel which are revolting to every spiritual mind. The Tubingen school did their best, on their peculiar mode of reasoning, to galvanize into fresh life this theory of the post-Joannean date of the Fourth Gospel; and some Unitarian critics still cling to it. But to use the striking language of VAN OOSTERZEE regarding similar speculations on the Third Gospel, \"Behold, the feet of them that shall carry it out dead are already at the door\" (Act 5:9). Is there one mind of the least elevation of spiritual discernment that does not see in this Gospel marks of historical truth and a surpassing glory such as none of the other Gospels possess, brightly as they too attest their own verity; and who will not be ready to say that if not historically true, and true just as it stands, it never could have been by mortal man composed or conceived?\n\nOf the peculiarities of this Gospel, we note here only two. The one is its reflective character. While the others are purely narrative, the Fourth Evangelist, \"pauses, as it were, at every turn,\" as DA COSTA says [Four Witnesses, p. 234], \"at one time to give a reason, at another to fix the attention, to deduce consequences, or make applications, or to give utterance to the language of praise.\" See Joh 2:20-21, Joh 2:23-25; Joh 4:1-2; Joh 7:37-39; Joh 11:12-13, Joh 11:49-52; Joh 21:18-19, Joh 21:22-23. The other peculiarity of this Gospel is its supplementary character. By this, in the present instance, we mean something more than the studiousness with which he omits many most important particulars in our Lord's history, for no conceivable reason but that they were already familiar as household words to all his readers, through the three preceding Gospels, and his substituting in place of these an immense quantity of the richest matter not found in the other Gospels. We refer here more particularly to the nature of the additions which distinguish this Gospel; particularly the notices of the different Passovers which occurred during our Lord's public ministry, and the record of His teaching at Jerusalem, without which it is not too much to say that we could have had but a most imperfect conception either of the duration of His ministry or of the plan of it. But another feature of these additions is quite as noticeable and not less important. \"We find,\" to use again the words of DA COSTA [Four Witnesses, pp. 238, 239], slightly abridged, \"only six of our Lord's miracles recorded in this Gospel, but these are all of the most remarkable kind, and surpass the rest in depth, specialty of application, and fulness of meaning. Of these six we find only one in the other three Gospels--the multiplication of the loaves. That miracle chiefly, it would seem, on account of the important instructions of which it furnished the occasion (John 6:1-71), is here recorded anew. The five other tokens of divine power are distinguished from among the many recorded in the three other Gospels by their furnishing a still higher display of power and command over the ordinary laws and course of nature. Thus we find recorded here the first of all the miracles that Jesus wrought--the changing of water into wine (Joh 2:1-11), the cure of the nobleman's son at a distance (Joh 4:43-54); of the numerous cures of the lame and the paralytic by the word of Jesus, only one--of the man impotent for thirty and eight years (Joh 5:1-9); of the many cures of the blind, one only--of the man born blind (Joh 9:1-12); the restoration of Lazarus, not from a deathbed, like Jairus' daughter, nor from a bier, like the widow of Nain's son, but from the grave, and after lying there four days, and there sinking into corruption (John 11:1-44); and lastly, after His resurrection, the miraculous draught of fishes on the Sea of Tiberias (Joh 21:5-11). But these are all recorded chiefly to give occasion for the record of those astonishing discourses and conversations, alike with friends and with foes, with His disciples and with the multitude which they drew forth.\"\n\nOther illustrations of the peculiarities of this Gospel will occur, and other points connected with it be adverted to, in the course of the Commentary. \n\n\n\nNext: John Chapter 1\n\n","order":43,"numberOfChapters":21,"sha256":"2a03297b1e3a6f9e0b82a13c39c82e2202f9e979c173750344c480c63057d8a0","firstChapterNumber":1,"firstChapterApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/JHN/1.json","firstChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"JHN","chapter":1},"lastChapterNumber":21,"lastChapterApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/JHN/21.json","lastChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"JHN","chapter":21},"totalNumberOfVerses":680},"chapter":{"number":11,"content":[{"type":"verse","number":2,"content":["It was that Mary who anointed the Lord with ointment, &c.--This, though not recorded by our Evangelist till Joh 12:3, was so well known in the teaching of all the churches, according to our Lord's prediction (Mat 26:13), that it is here alluded to by anticipation, as the most natural way of identifying her; and she is first named, though the younger, as the more distinguished of the two. She \"anointed THE LORD,\" says the Evangelist--led doubtless to the use of this term here, as he was about to exhibit Him illustriously as the Lord of Life.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":3,"content":["his sisters sent unto him, saying, Lord, he whom thou lovest is sick--a most womanly appeal, yet how reverential, to the known affection of her Lord for the patient. (See Joh 11:5, Joh 11:11). \"Those whom Christ loves are no more exempt than others from their share of earthly trouble and anguish: rather are they bound over to it more surely\" [TRENCH].\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":4,"content":["When Jesus heard that, he said, This sickness is not unto death--to result in death. \n\nbut for the glory of God, that the Son of God may be glorified thereby--that is, by this glory of God. (See Greek.) Remarkable language this, which from creature lips would have been intolerable. It means that the glory of GOD manifested in the resurrection of dead Lazarus would be shown to be the glory, personally and immediately, of THE SON.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":5,"content":["Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus--what a picture!--one that in every age has attracted the admiration of the whole Christian Church. No wonder that those miserable skeptics who have carped at the ethical system of the Gospel, as not embracing private friendships in the list of its virtues, have been referred to the Saviour's peculiar regard for this family as a triumphant refutation, if such were needed.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":6,"content":["When he heard he was sick, he abode two days still . . . where he was--at least twenty-five miles off. Beyond all doubt this was just to let things come to their worst, in order to display His glory. But how trying, meantime, to the faith of his friends, and how unlike the way in which love to a dying friend usually shows itself, on which it is plain that Mary reckoned. But the ways of divine are not as the ways of human love. Often they are the reverse. When His people are sick, in body or spirit; when their case is waxing more and more desperate every day; when all hope of recovery is about to expire--just then and therefore it is that \"He abides two days still in the same place where He is.\" Can they still hope against hope? Often they do not; but \"this is their infirmity.\" For it is His chosen style of acting. We have been well taught it, and should not now have the lesson to learn. From the days of Moses was it given sublimely forth as the character of His grandest interpositions, that \"the Lord will judge His people and repent Himself for His servants\"--when He seeth that their power is gone (Deu 32:36).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":7,"content":["Let us go into Judea again--He was now in Perea, \"beyond Jordan.\"\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":8,"content":["His disciples say unto him, Master, the Jews of late sought, &c.--literally, \"were (just) now seeking\" \"to stone thee\" (Joh 10:31). \n\ngoest thou thither again?--to certain death, as Joh 11:16 shows they thought.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":9,"content":["Jesus answered, Are there not twelve hours in the day?--(See on Joh 9:4). Our Lord's day had now reached its eleventh hour, and having till now \"walked in the day,\" He would not mistime the remaining and more critical part of His work, which would be as fatal, He says, as omitting it altogether; for \"if a man (so He speaks, putting Himself under the same great law of duty as all other men--if a man) walk in the night, he stumbleth, because there is no light in him.\"\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":11,"content":["Our friend Lazarus sleepeth; but I go that I may wake him out of sleep--Illustrious title! \"Our friend Lazarus.\" To Abraham only is it accorded in the Old Testament, and not till after his death, (Ch2 20:7; Isa 41:8), to which our attention is called in the New Testament (Jam 2:23). When Jesus came in the flesh, His forerunner applied this name, in a certain sense, to himself (Joh 3:29); and into the same fellowship the Lord's chosen disciples are declared to have come (Joh 15:13-15). \"The phrase here employed, \"our friend Lazarus,\" means more than \"he whom Thou lovest\" in Joh 11:3, for it implies that Christ's affection was reciprocated by Lazarus\" [LAMPE]. Our Lord had been told only that Lazarus was \"sick.\" But the change which his two days' delay had produced is here tenderly alluded to. Doubtless, His spirit was all the while with His dying, and now dead \"friend.\" The symbol of \"sleep\" for death is common to all languages, and familiar to us in the Old Testament. In the New Testament, however, a higher meaning is put into it, in relation to believers in Jesus (see on Th1 4:14), a sense hinted at, and clearly, in Psa 17:15 [LUTHARDT]; and the \"awaking out of sleep\" acquires a corresponding sense far transcending bare resuscitation.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":12,"content":["if he sleep, he shall do well--literally, \"be preserved\"; that is, recover. \"Why then go to Judea?\"\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":14,"content":["Then said Jesus unto them plainly, Lazarus is dead--Says BENGEL beautifully, \"Sleep is the death of the saints, in the language of heaven; but this language the disciples here understood not; incomparable is the generosity of the divine manner of discoursing, but such is the slowness of men's apprehension that Scripture often has to descend to the more miserable style of human discourse; compare Mat 16:11.\"\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":15,"content":["I am glad for your sakes I was not there--This certainly implies that if He had been present, Lazarus would not have died; not because He could not have resisted the importunities of the sisters, but because, in presence of the personal Life, death could not have reached His friend [LUTHARDT]. \"It is beautifully congruous to the divine decorum that in presence of the Prince of Life no one is ever said to have died\" [BENGEL]. \n\nthat ye may believe--This is added to explain His \"gladness\" at not having been present. His friend's death, as such, could not have been to Him \"joyous\"; the sequel shows it was \"grievous\"; but for them it was safe (Phi 3:1).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":16,"content":["Thomas, . . . called Didymus--or \"the twin.\" \n\nLet us also go, that we may die with him--lovely spirit, though tinged with some sadness, such as reappears at Joh 14:5, showing the tendency of this disciple to take the dark view of things. On a memorable occasion this tendency opened the door to downright, though but momentary, unbelief (Joh 20:25). Here, however, though alleged by many interpreters there is nothing of the sort. He perceives clearly how this journey to Judea will end, as respects his Master, and not only sees in it peril to themselves, as they all did, but feels as if he could not and cared not to survive his Master's sacrifice to the fury of His enemies. It was that kind of affection which, living only in the light of its Object, cannot contemplate, or has no heart for life, without it.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":17,"content":["when Jesus came, he found that he had lain in the grave four days--If he died on the day the tidings came of his illness--and was, according to the Jewish custom, buried the same day (see JAHN'S ArchÃ&brvbrology, and Joh 11:39; Act 5:5-6, Act 5:10) --and if Jesus, after two days' further stay in Perea, set out on the day following for Bethany, some ten hours' journey, that would make out the four days; the first and last being incomplete [MEYER].\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":18,"content":["Bethany was nigh Jerusalem, about fifteen furlongs--rather less than two miles; mentioned to explain the visits of sympathy noticed in the following words, which the proximity of the two places facilitated.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":19,"content":["many of the Jews came to Martha and Mary to comfort them--Thus were provided, in a most natural way, so many witnesses of the glorious miracle that was to follow, as to put the fact beyond possible question.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":20,"content":["Martha, as soon as she heard that Jesus was coming, went and met him--true to the energy and activity of her character, as seen in Luk 10:38-42. (See on Luk 10:38-42). \n\nbut Mary sat . . . in the house--equally true to her placid character. These undesigned touches not only charmingly illustrate the minute historic fidelity of both narratives, but their inner harmony.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":21,"content":["Then said Martha . . . Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died--As Mary afterwards said the same thing (Joh 11:32), it is plain they had made this very natural remark to each other, perhaps many times during these four sad days, and not without having their confidence in His love at times overclouded. Such trials of faith, however, are not peculiar to them.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":22,"content":["But I know that even now, &c.--Energetic characters are usually sanguine, the rainbow of hope peering through the drenching cloud. \n\nwhatsoever thou wilt ask of God, God will give it thee--that is \"even to the restoration of my dead brother to life,\" for that plainly is her meaning, as the sequel shows.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":23,"content":["Jesus saith unto her, Thy brother shall rise again--purposely expressing Himself in general terms, to draw her out.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":24,"content":["Martha said, . . . I know that he shall rise again . . . at the last day--\"But are we never to see him in life till then?\"\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":25,"content":["Jesus said, I am the resurrection and the life--\"The whole power to restore, impart, and maintain life, resides in Me.\" (See on Joh 1:4; Joh 5:21). What higher claim to supreme divinity than this grand saying can be conceived? \n\nhe that believeth in me, though . . . dead . . . shall he live--that is, The believer's death shall be swallowed up in life, and his life shall never sink into death. As death comes by sin, it is His to dissolve it; and as life flows through His righteousness, it is His to communicate and eternally maintain it (Rom 5:21). The temporary separation of soul and body is here regarded as not even interrupting, much less impairing, the new and everlasting life imparted by Jesus to His believing people. \n\nBelievest thou this?--Canst thou take this in?\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":27,"content":["Yea, . . . I believe that thou art the Christ, the Son of God, &c.--that is, And having such faith in Thee, I can believe all which that comprehends. While she had a glimmering perception that Resurrection, in every sense of the word, belonged to the Messianic office and Sonship of Jesus, she means, by this way of expressing herself, to cover much that she felt her ignorance of--as no doubt belonging to Him.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":28,"content":["The Master is come and calleth for thee--The narrative does not give us this interesting detail, but Martha's words do.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":29,"content":["As soon as she heard that, she arose quickly--affection for her Lord, assurance of His sympathy, and His hope of interposition, putting a spring into her distressed spirit.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":31,"content":["The Jews . . . followed her . . . to the grave--Thus casually were provided witnesses of the glorious miracle that followed, not prejudiced, certainly, in favor of Him who wrought it. \n\nto weep there--according to Jewish practice, for some days after burial. \n\nfell at his feet--more impassioned than her sister, though her words were fewer. (See on Joh 11:21).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":33,"content":["When Jesus . . . saw her weeping, and the Jews . . . weeping . . . he groaned in the spirit--the tears of Mary and her friends acting sympathetically upon Jesus, and drawing forth His emotions. What a vivid and beautiful outcoming of His \"real\" humanity! The word here rendered \"groaned\" does not mean \"sighed\" or \"grieved,\" but rather \"powerfully checked his emotion\"--made a visible effort to restrain those tears which were ready to gush from His eyes. \n\nand was troubled--rather, \"troubled himself\" (Margin); referring probably to this visible difficulty of repressing His emotions.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":34,"content":["Where have ye laid him? . . . Lord, come and see--Perhaps it was to retain composure enough to ask this question, and on receiving the answer to proceed with them to the spot, that He checked Himself.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":35,"content":["Jesus wept--This beautifully conveys the sublime brevity of the two original words; else \"shed tears\" might have better conveyed the difference between the word here used and that twice employed in Joh 11:33, and there properly rendered \"weeping,\" denoting the loud wail for the dead, while that of Jesus consisted of silent tears. Is it for nothing that the Evangelist, some sixty years after it occurred, holds up to all ages with such touching brevity the sublime spectacle of the Son of God in tears? What a seal of His perfect oneness with us in the most redeeming feature of our stricken humanity! But was there nothing in those tears beyond sorrow for human suffering and death? Could these effects move Him without suggesting the cause? Who can doubt that in His ear every feature of the scene proclaimed that stern law of the Kingdom, \"The wages of sin is death\" (Rom 6:23), and that this element in His visible emotion underlay all the rest?\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":36,"content":["Then said the Jews, Behold how he loved him!--We thank you, O ye visitors from Jerusalem, for this spontaneous testimony to the human tenderness of the Son of God.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":37,"content":["And--rather, \"But.\" \n\nsome . . . said, Could not this man, which opened the eyes of the blind, have caused that this man should not have died?--The former exclamation came from the better-feeling portion of the spectators; this betokens a measure of suspicion. It hardly goes the length of attesting the miracle on the blind man; but \"if (as everybody says) He did that, why could He not also have kept Lazarus alive?\" As to the restoration of the dead man to life, they never so much as thought of it. But this disposition to dictate to divine power, and almost to peril our confidence in it upon its doing our bidding, is not confined to men of no faith.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":38,"content":["Jesus again groaning in himself--that is, as at Joh 11:33, checked or repressed His rising feelings, in the former instance, of sorrow, here of righteous indignation at their unreasonable unbelief; (compare Mar 3:5) [WEBSTER and WILKINSON]. But here, too, struggling emotion was deeper, now that His eye was about to rest on the spot where lay, in the still horrors of death, His \"friend.\" \n\na cave--the cavity, natural or artificial, of a rock. This, with the number of condoling visitors from Jerusalem, and the costly ointment with which Mary afterwards anointed Jesus at Bethany, all go to show that the family was in good circumstances.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":39,"content":["Jesus said, Take ye away the stone--spoken to the attendants of Martha and Mary; for it was a work of no little labor [GROTIUS]. According to the Talmudists, it was forbidden to open a grave after the stone was placed upon it. Besides other dangers, they were apprehensive of legal impurity by contact with the dead. Hence they avoided coming nearer a grave than four cubits [MAIMONIDES in LAMPE]. But He who touched the leper, and the bier of the widow of Nain's son, rises here also above these Judaic memorials of evils, every one of which He had come to roll away. Observe here what our Lord did Himself, and what He made others do. As Elijah himself repaired the altar on Carmel, arranged the wood, cut the victim, and placed the pieces on the fuel, but made the by-standers fill the surrounding trench with water, that no suspicion might arise of fire having been secretly applied to the pile (Kg1 18:30-35); so our Lord would let the most skeptical see that, without laying a hand on the stone that covered His friend, He could recall him to life. But what could be done by human hand He orders to be done, reserving only to Himself what transcended the ability of all creatures. \n\nMartha, the sister of . . . the dead--and as such the proper guardian of the precious remains; the relationship being here mentioned to account for her venturing gently to remonstrate against their exposure, in a state of decomposition, to eyes that had loved him so tenderly in life. \n\nLord, by this time he stinketh, for he hath been dead four days--(See on Joh 11:17). It is wrong to suppose from this (as LAMPE and others do) that, like the by-standers, she had not thought of his restoration to life. But the glimmerings of hope which she cherished from the first (Joh 11:22), and which had been brightened by what Jesus said to her (Joh 11:23-27), had suffered a momentary eclipse on the proposal to expose the now sightless corpse. To such fluctuations all real faith is subject in dark hours. (See, for example, the case of Job).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":40,"content":["Jesus saith unto her, Said I not unto thee, that if thou wouldest believe, thou shouldest see the glory of God?--He had not said those very words, but this was the scope of all that He had uttered to her about His life-giving power (Joh 11:23, Joh 11:25-26); a gentle yet emphatic and most instructive rebuke: \"Why doth the restoration of life, even to a decomposing corpse, seem hopeless in the presence of the Resurrection and the Life? Hast thou yet to learn that 'if thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth?'\" (Mar 9:23).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":41,"content":["Jesus lifted up his eyes--an expression marking His calm solemnity. (Compare Joh 17:1). \n\nFather, I thank thee that thou hast heard me--rather, \"heardest Me,\" referring to a specific prayer offered by Him, probably on intelligence of the case reaching Him (Joh 11:3-4); for His living and loving oneness with the Father was maintained and manifested in the flesh, not merely by the spontaneous and uninterrupted outgoing of Each to Each in spirit, but by specific actings of faith and exercises of prayer about each successive case as it emerged. He prayed (says LUTHARDT well) not for what He wanted, but for the manifestation of what He had; and having the bright consciousness of the answer in the felt liberty to ask it, and the assurance that it was at hand, He gives thanks for this with a grand simplicity before performing the act.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":42,"content":["And--rather, \"Yet.\" \n\nI knew that thou hearest me always, but because of the people that stand by I said it, that they might believe that thou hast sent me--Instead of praying now, He simply gives thanks for answer to prayer offered ere He left Perea, and adds that His doing even this, in the audience of the people, was not from any doubt of the prevalency of His prayers in any case, but to show the people that He did nothing without His Father, but all by direct communication with Him.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":43,"content":["and when he had thus spoken, he cried with a loud voice--On one other occasion only did He this--on the cross. His last utterance was a \"loud cry\" (Mat 27:50). \"He shall not cry,\" said the prophet, nor, in His ministry, did He. What a sublime contrast is this \"loud cry\" to the magical \"whisperings\" and \"mutterings\" of which we read in Isa 8:19; Isa 29:4 (as GROTIUS remarks)! It is second only to the grandeur of that voice which shall raise all the dead (Joh 5:28-29; Th1 4:16).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":44,"content":["Jesus saith unto them, Loose him and let him go--Jesus will no more do this Himself than roll away the stone. The one was the necessary preparation for resurrection, the other the necessary sequel to it. THE LIFE-GIVING ACT ALONE HE RESERVES TO HIMSELF. So in the quickening of the dead to spiritual life, human instrumentality is employed first to prepare the way, and then to turn it to account.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":45,"content":["many . . . which . . . had seen . . . believed . . . But some . . . went . . . to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done--the two classes which continually reappear in the Gospel history; nor is there ever any great work of God which does not produce both. \"It is remarkable that on each of the three occasions on which our Lord raised the dead, a large number of persons was assembled. In two instances, the resurrection of the widow's son and of Lazarus, these were all witnesses of the miracle; in the third (of Jairus' daughter) they were necessarily cognizant of it. Yet this important circumstance is in each case only incidentally noticed by the historians, not put forward or appealed to as a proof of their veracity. In regard to this miracle, we observe a greater degree of preparation, both in the provident arrangement of events, and in our Lord's actions and words than in any other. The preceding miracle (cure of the man born blind) is distinguished from all others by the open and formal investigation of its facts. And both these miracles, the most public and best attested of all, are related by John, who wrote long after the other Evangelists\" [WEBSTER and WILKINSON].\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":47,"content":["What do we? for this man doeth many miracles--\"While we trifle, 'this man,' by His 'many miracles,' will carry all before Him; the popular enthusiasm will bring on a revolution, which will precipitate the Romans upon us, and our all will go down in one common ruin.\" What a testimony to the reality of our Lord's miracles, and their resistless effect, from His bitterest enemies!\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":51,"content":["Caiaphas . . . prophesied that Jesus should die for that nation--He meant nothing more than that the way to prevent the apprehended ruin of the nation was to make a sacrifice of the Disturber of their peace. But in giving utterance to this suggestion of political expediency, he was so guided as to give forth a divine prediction of deep significance; and God so ordered it that it should come from the lips of the high priest for that memorable year, the recognized head of God's visible people, whose ancient office, symbolized by the Urim and Thummim, was to decide in the last resort, all vital questions as the oracle of the divine will.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":52,"content":["and not for that nation only, &c.--These are the Evangelist's words, not Caiaphas'.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":53,"content":["they took council together to put him to death--Caiaphas but expressed what the party was secretly wishing, but afraid to propose. \n\nJesus . . . walked no more openly among the Jews--How could He, unless He had wished to die before His time? \n\nnear to the wilderness--of Judea. \n\na city called Ephraim--between Jerusalem and Jericho.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":55,"content":["passover . . . at hand . . . many went . . . up . . . before the passover, to purify themselves--from any legal uncleanness which would have disqualified them from keeping the feast. This is mentioned to introduce the graphic statement which follows.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":56,"content":["sought they for Jesus, and spake among themselves, as they stood in the temple--giving forth the various conjectures and speculations about the probability of His coming to the feast. \n\nthat he will not come--The form of this question implies the opinion that He would come.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":57,"content":["chief priests and the Pharisees had given a commandment that if any knew where he were, he should show it, that they might take him--This is mentioned to account for the conjectures whether He would come, in spite of this determination to seize Him.\n\n\n\n\nNext: John Chapter 12\n\n"]}],"introduction":"LAZARUS RAISED FROM THE DEAD--THE CONSEQUENCES OF THIS. (John 11:1-46)\n\nof Bethany--at the east side of Mount Olivet. \n\nthe town of Mary and her sister Martha--thus distinguishing it from the other Bethany, \"beyond Jordan.\" (See on Joh 1:28; Joh 10:40).\n\n"},"thisChapterLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/JHN/11.json","thisChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"JHN","chapter":11},"nextChapterApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/JHN/12.json","nextChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"JHN","chapter":12},"previousChapterApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/JHN/10.json","previousChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"JHN","chapter":10},"numberOfVerses":46}