Lazarus, come forth!

John 11: 43 – 44: And when he thus had spoken, he cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth. And he that was dead came forth, bound hand and foot with graveclothes: and his face was bound about with a napkin. Jesus saith unto them, Loose him, and let him go.

The resurrection of Lazarus from the grave has a tremendous connection to the first resurrection of the New Testament saints. Lazarus had lain dead four days before Jesus finally arrived at the tomb (John 11: 17). It was not that Jesus did not care about His friend, but was because Jesus had already seen in a vision shown Him of the Father the exact date when Lazarus would resurrect, which is why He purposefully delayed His coming. The four days that Lazarus had lain in the tomb represent the Day of the Lion, the Day of the Ox, the Day of the Man, and the Day of the Eagle, during which seven ages of saints slept in the grave, but on the fourth day, in the Eagle Age, Jesus came.

The purpose of Jesus’ coming was for a resurrection, but before He could fulfil that purpose and raise the sleeping saints (Lazarus), He first went to the living saints who were blood relation to the sleeping saints (Mary and Martha were Lazarus’ sisters). Jesus did not go to the Pharisees or the Sadducees, but went and met with those who were kinfolk, who were blood relation, who came from the same loins as the one who had died. Jesus had to reveal Himself as the Resurrection and the Life to them first (John 11: 25), and unite Himself with them so that they under His leadership and Headship could walk together to the place of the resurrection.

Mary and Martha had to unite with Jesus, then they could unite with one another, and when that unity existed among them, then they were united with the resurrected Lazarus. The only ones that are going in the Rapture in these last days are those who are blood relation to the sleeping saints. The Bride has to unite with Christ the Word first, and then She will unite together as a body of believers; and when that happens, then She will be united with the resurrected saints, so there is a deeper uniting taking place all the time.

Jesus went to Mary and Martha (the living saints) before the resurrection of Lazarus (the sleeping saints) took place. This is very important to know and to understand because in Revelation 10 when Christ descends to the earth in His second coming, He goes to the living Bride first before He resurrects the sleeping Bride. When Martha heard that Jesus had come, she immediately went out to meet Him (John 11: 20), but Mary stayed behind in the house still mourning the death of Lazarus and thinking that Jesus was not with them.

Whilst Mary was thinking these things, Martha returned to the house having had a revival and having received a new message, that “Jesus is here now!” Martha shared this good news with Mary (John 11: 28), and the news broke Mary out of her despair. Mary was a believer who was just as good as her sister Martha, but she just needed a little more time to shake off her church age thinking and realize that Jesus is here now. Martha’s message to Mary was this, “The Master is come, and calleth for thee!” Jesus used Martha to call for Mary, so Jesus in these last days is calling other believers by name through the ministry of His Bride. As Martha had a message to Mary, even so the Bride has a message, for She is a continuation of what the prophet brought to us.

For Lazarus to be resurrected, the stone that sealed the tomb (John 11: 38) firstly had to be rolled away (John 11: 41), and when the stone was rolled away, then Jesus could speak directly and call the dead back to life. This shows very plainly that for there to be a resurrection of the sleeping saints, the seven seals upon the Lamb’s Book of Life had to be torn away, so that the names in the Book could be revealed and called forth by name. Jesus was standing next to many other tombs at this time, so He had to be very specific when He spoke lest all the dead in the graves came to life. If Jesus had said, “Come forth!” then all the sleeping saints in Paradise would have resurrected. But instead Jesus said, “Lazarus, come forth!” because He was not thinking about all the dead at that time, but was thinking about the elected dead, the dead who were kinfolk, who were blood relation to the ones He gathers in His coming.

The resurrection of Lazarus happened not long before Jesus was crucified, and when Jesus hung on the cross and declared that His work was finished, then there was an earthquake and the resurrection of the Old Testament saints (Matthew 27: 51 – 53). In keeping with the sequential typology of Lazarus’ resurrection, the quickening of those from the grave when Jesus died is representative of the general resurrection in Revelation 20 where all of humanity is brought back to life for the Great White Throne of Judgment. Thus the order of events here is this: first, there is the resurrection of the sleeping saints who have been called by name (“Lazarus, come forth!”) because their names are written in the Lamb’s section of the Book of Life, and secondly, there is the general resurrection (“Come forth!”) where no specific name is given, and all who ever lived whose names are not written in the Lamb’s section of the Book are brought back to life in order to be judged.

In concluding this beautiful story we will look at John 12: 1 – 3: Then Jesus six days before the passover came to Bethany, where Lazarus was which had been dead, whom he raised from the dead. There they made him a supper; and Martha served: but Lazarus was one of them that sat at the table with him. Then took Mary a pound of ointment of spikenard, very costly, and anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped his feet with her hair: and the house was filled with the odour of the ointment. Here we see Lazarus, Martha, and Mary gathered at the supper table with Jesus for a wonderful family reunion immediately following Lazarus’ resurrection. This gathering of the living saints with the sleeping saints at the supper table with Jesus is a beautiful type of the Bride of all ages gathered with Christ at the Marriage Supper of the Lamb in Glory.