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John 11:25–26
“I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die.”
Among the most well-known miracles of Jesus is His raising of Lazarus from the dead, which we read about in John 11:1–44. That miracle also served as the occasion on which our Savior gave one of His “I am” sayings: “I am the resurrection and the life” (vv. 25–26).
Our Lord’s statement that He is the resurrection and the life tells us several things. First, that Jesus is “the life” reveals that He is the source of all life. John made this clear in the opening chapter of his gospel by noting that all things were made through Jesus the Son of God and that the world receives life through Him (1:3–4). Not every living thing is granted new spiritual life in regeneration, and this new life comes to full bloom in our conversion and ultimately our complete renewal in our glorification. Only God’s elect, chosen before the foundation of the world, receive new spiritual life. Living creatures all enjoy biological life, however, and this life comes to them through the Son, who made all things according to the will of the Father and by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Not all people receive new spiritual life, but those who do also receive it from Jesus Christ. The Father, who has life in Himself, has granted the Son to have life in Himself, and the Son shares His life with us through faith by the work of the Holy Spirit (John 5:25–29; 6:63; 1 John 5:6–12). Jesus also is the life in the sense that He grants to His people eternal life, life that partakes in the present of the blessings of heaven, that is consummated in the resurrection, and that will never end. Thus, Jesus can say that those who believe in Him and die will yet live—they will enjoy blessed life beyond the grave. And He can say that those who believe in Him will never die—they will never experience the eternal death that is the suffering under God’s eternal wrath in hell (John 11:25–26). John Calvin comments, “Christ is the life; and he is so, because he never permits the life which he has once bestowed to be lost, but preserves it to the end.”
Jesus also tells us in today’s passage that He is the resurrection. Thus, He grants the resurrection of the body to us, but the significance of His statement goes beyond that. Texts such as 1 Corinthians 15 declare an inseparable and unbreakable connection between Christ’s resurrection and the resurrection of His people. This entails that His resurrection is our resurrection, that we will be raised because we participate by faith in His rising to new life.
Coram Deo Living before the face of God
Because the resurrection of Jesus is our resurrection, we can be sure that we will be raised from the dead. The empty tomb is a historical fact, one that proves that our Savior did rise again on the third day. That His resurrection is our resurrection also means that we have indestructible spiritual power from Him to resist temptation and fulfill God’s purposes for us. In Christ, we have everything we need to serve God faithfully.
For further study
- Genesis 2:7
- Psalm 54:4
- Romans 8:11
- Galatians 2:20
The bible in a year
- Psalms 62–64
- Romans 1