Teaching on Resurrection
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When Jesus tells Martha that her brother will rise again, she readily confirms her faith in the resurrection of the dead “at the last day” promised to those who believe in Christ. It is not clear from the text whether she is asking or even hoping for anything in the present moment. She believes that “even now” whatever Jesus asks of God will be given, and yet she shortly thereafter resists his request to have the tomb opened, not seeming to expect a miracle (v. 39). Jesus seizes the occasion to give her resurrection faith its true object. Resurrection is not simply a power he possesses, something he can do, now or at the Last Day; resurrection is who he is: “I AM the resurrection and the life.” Faith in the resurrection is quite simply faith in him: “He who believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and whoever lives and believes in me shall never die.”
...What did Martha and the others understand by Jesus’ claim that one who believes in him, “though he die, yet shall he live” and, at the same time, “will never die”? Standing outside the tomb where Lazarus’s dead body lay, this statement could have seemed a harsh judgment or a painful irony. From Martha’s response, it seems she did not take offense, but neither did she really understand what he was saying. Simply, she took it to mean that life after death was somehow tied to faith in his messianic authority. “Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Christ...”
If examined closely from a theological perspective, Jesus’ words here contain several precious precisions that complete the teaching on resurrection already developed in earlier chapters of John’s Gospel.
First, Jesus prefaces his claims about the resurrection of the dead by affirming that resurrection is relative to his Person: “I AM the resurrection and the life.” Not only is the power to resurrect one that he possesses innately; resurrection is who he is. The power to “give life to whom he will” (John 5:21) flows from and bears witness to the vitality of the “life in him” (see John 1:4). The life in him is intrinsically stronger than the separation of death because it is the absolutely indivisible life of a Divine Person. By the mystery of the Incarnation, the stronger-than-death life of the Son of God is present in a human soul and human flesh, but it can be manifested as stronger than death only by passing through death to life. For this reason, rather than lay claim to the glorious state that is his by nature and right, Christ freely accepted the condition of mortality and the humiliation of the tomb (Phil. 2:6-8), so that the life in him might become “resurrection” with all the realism of one returned from the grave.
It is because he is Resurrection that we too will rise; our resurrection is a share in his, for we are members of his body (Rom. 12:5; 1 Cor. 12:27; Eph. 5:23, 30). The close connection between resurrection and adherence to the Person of Christ was already underlined when Jesus spoke of himself as the Bread of Life. But in John 6, there was not yet any question of Jesus himself being raised from the dead. Now the promise becomes more explicit. We will be raised up at the Last Day because the one in whom we have believed and whose Body and Blood we have shared is resurrection.
Yet, there remains the enigmatic and apparently contradictory statement: “He who believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and whoever lives and believes in me shall never die.” How can the same believer live, despite dying, and yet never die? This apparent dichotomy reflects the distinction between resurrection of the body and immortality of the soul.
“He who believes in me, though he die,” will live—this points to the power of resurrection at work within us, despite bodily death. Faith in Christ does not exempt us from bodily death, but it assures us of a future resurrection of the body. In fact, there could be no resurrection without this death. The second statement—“and whoever lives and believes in me shall never die”—concerns the life already within us that is not subject to death: the life of the immortal soul. The soul itself does not die; it is simply separated from the body by death. But immortal life only truly becomes eternal life by the supernatural gift of grace; it is one thing to exist forever (as do both the blessed and the damned) and another to share in the very life of God. Ultimately, eternal life in its perfect expression will envelop both the soul and the risen body, and then we will be fully alive in God.
~Laura Bedingfeld (from: Arise: A 50-Day Journey into the Mystery of the Resurrection)
First, Jesus prefaces his claims about the resurrection of the dead by affirming that resurrection is relative to his Person: “I AM the resurrection and the life.” Not only is the power to resurrect one that he possesses innately; resurrection is who he is. The power to “give life to whom he will” (John 5:21) flows from and bears witness to the vitality of the “life in him” (see John 1:4). The life in him is intrinsically stronger than the separation of death because it is the absolutely indivisible life of a Divine Person. By the mystery of the Incarnation, the stronger-than-death life of the Son of God is present in a human soul and human flesh, but it can be manifested as stronger than death only by passing through death to life. For this reason, rather than lay claim to the glorious state that is his by nature and right, Christ freely accepted the condition of mortality and the humiliation of the tomb (Phil. 2:6-8), so that the life in him might become “resurrection” with all the realism of one returned from the grave.
It is because he is Resurrection that we too will rise; our resurrection is a share in his, for we are members of his body (Rom. 12:5; 1 Cor. 12:27; Eph. 5:23, 30). The close connection between resurrection and adherence to the Person of Christ was already underlined when Jesus spoke of himself as the Bread of Life. But in John 6, there was not yet any question of Jesus himself being raised from the dead. Now the promise becomes more explicit. We will be raised up at the Last Day because the one in whom we have believed and whose Body and Blood we have shared is resurrection.
Yet, there remains the enigmatic and apparently contradictory statement: “He who believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and whoever lives and believes in me shall never die.” How can the same believer live, despite dying, and yet never die? This apparent dichotomy reflects the distinction between resurrection of the body and immortality of the soul.
“He who believes in me, though he die,” will live—this points to the power of resurrection at work within us, despite bodily death. Faith in Christ does not exempt us from bodily death, but it assures us of a future resurrection of the body. In fact, there could be no resurrection without this death. The second statement—“and whoever lives and believes in me shall never die”—concerns the life already within us that is not subject to death: the life of the immortal soul. The soul itself does not die; it is simply separated from the body by death. But immortal life only truly becomes eternal life by the supernatural gift of grace; it is one thing to exist forever (as do both the blessed and the damned) and another to share in the very life of God. Ultimately, eternal life in its perfect expression will envelop both the soul and the risen body, and then we will be fully alive in God.
~Laura Bedingfeld (from: Arise: A 50-Day Journey into the Mystery of the Resurrection)
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