Raising of Lazarus

Dr. Gurtner goes over the Raising of Lazarus in John 11. John often speaks with several levels of meaning; literal, spiritual, and symbolic. Here we see that sometimes we go through physical hardships for our spiritual and eternal wellbeing.

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Dan Gurtner

Professor of New Testament Studies

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Tyler Sanders

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Courtney Robenolt

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What is Conceptions and Misconceptions in Studying the Gospels?

Dr. Dan Gurtner takes on challenging passages and common misconceptions in the Gospels.

Tyler Sanders 0:03
This is Conceptions and Misconceptions in studying the Gospels with Dr. Dan Gurtner. I'm Tyler Sanders, and today we're looking at the raising of Lazarus in John 11. So let's reiterate the big point of this podcast. Dr. Gurtner, can you tell us a little bit about misconceptions in general in the gospels and then a little bit about this passage, how people maybe misunderstand it?

Dan Gurtner 0:25
Sure, with this passage, this is one that many of us are familiar with. And like many narratives in the gospels, we believe that they're historically accurate, but then beyond that, we sort of don't know what to do with them. We try to turn them into metaphors, or we try to pick out certain points of them. And sometimes we get the big picture and we miss the small points, or we pay attention to small details and we missed the big picture. But the real key, as we've seen before, is trying to understand what the author is trying to say to the original readers. And one of the challenges with the Gospel of John is that he's very unlike the other gospels. Matthew, Mark, and Luke are very similar to one another. In fact, they're called the Synoptic Gospels, which just really means 'seeing together' because they're are so similar. You can see them together, and they fit together very naturally.

Dan Gurtner 0:25
John is very different. He's very philosophical in nature. And you can get that pretty much right off the bat. But what does that mean in terms of how we interpret it? How we read it? And the big part of understanding John is understanding that frequently, he's speaking in two levels. One is a spiritual or metaphorical level. And another one is on the literal level. And he's doing so at the same time. And the best example of that is when Jesus speaks to Nicodemus. And when Jesus talks to Nicodemus at night, the whole thing is filled with symbolism. Now, it literally happened. But it's also filled with symbolism. The main symbolism there is that Jesus says to Nicodemus, you need to be born...and what's often translated, 'again', is really a word that can be translated, 'again or from above'. It can go either way. And Nicodemus, all he can hear is the literal 'again'. But Jesus means it in the 'from above' way. So there are two levels. And the misunderstanding humans, only understand the physical level. The spiritual Jesus always means the spiritual level.

Dan Gurtner 3:04
So we as readers are constantly sort of, in this ambiguity, trying to understand the spiritual sense of what Jesus is saying, and watching the literal people get tripped up, left and right. And every once in a while, like in his story of Jesus in the Raising of Lazarus, John will sort of come down out of the clouds and explain; Okay, when [Jesus] says, 'our friend Lazarus was asleep', [Jesus] actually meant [Lazarus] was physically dead. So [John] explains the metaphor. And those are helpful for us who are kinda like; Okay, does he mean he's really dead, or does he mean he's just taking a nap? No, he's dead. So that's really important to understand as we read the Gospel of John, because the other gospels don't do that quite so much.

Tyler Sanders 3:55
Right. Okay, well, maybe we should get into this text a little bit. So this is in John 11, right?

Dan Gurtner 4:01
Yeah. John 11. And it's a large text. And so we're gonna go through 44 verses. And we're used to thinking about John...in this story we're thinking about; okay, [Jesus] raises Lazarus. And what's important about this passage is that when he actually gets to Lazarus and raises Lazarus, that takes up a very small amount. Two verses out of 44. But the whole 44 verses are all about the raising of Lazarus. Now, this passage is sort of like going on a cross country drive where most of your time is spent on a long highway, but there are a few key turns that you have to take or you're gonna get lost. And if you don't pay attention to those key turns, you're gonna miss the point.

Tyler Sanders 5:06
Okay.

Dan Gurtner 5:06
So what I mean by that is, there are some very important, small strategic words that John's going to use, that are going to be some turning points for us. So let's sort of follow along and let's read what John has to say. I'll make a couple of comments here and there to clarify what he's saying. So we're in John 11, beginning in verse one. And I'm reading from the ESV. "Now a certain man was ill, Lazarus, of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister, Martha." Now Bethany is less than two miles east of Jerusalem, and John's gonna actually say that a little bit later. "It was Mary, who anointed the Lord with ointment and wiped His feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was ill." Now, one thing, and I'm not going to stop at every verse, but one thing that's interesting about this is that so far in John's gospel, John hasn't told us that yet. He doesn't mention that until Chapter 12, but he presumes that the readers already know it. So it's kind of interesting. He makes a mention of this; Oh, this is the Mary I'm talking about, which I'll actually tell you about later. I know you haven't read it yet, but I'm going to tell you about this. So he presumes his readers know some of this story.

Dan Gurtner 6:40
Verse three. "So the sisters sent to him saying, 'Lord, he whom you love is ill.' But when Jesus heard it, he said, '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.'" So this is really important. And this is one of those intersections, one of those turns on the intersection that if you don't get it, you're gonna miss it. He says, 'this illness does not lead to death'. Now you and I know; wait a minute, it actually does lead to death. So is Jesus kind of missing something? No, obviously, what he means is, this ultimately isn't going to lead to death. Now, we know that ultimately, Lazarus, the poor guy is gonna have to die twice. So eventually, he's gonna die again. But what he means is, it's ultimately his death that's going to happen as a result of this illness, it's not going to last very long. That's what he means. But notice what he says about the illness. What is it about this illness in verse four?

Tyler Sanders 8:09
Well, it has a purpose.

Dan Gurtner 8:11
It has a purpose! Yes! "It is for the glory of God." So this illness of Lazarus is for the glory of God. What is the purpose of that, Jesus? "So that the Son of God might be glorified through it." What's the antecedent of it? The 'it' that it's glorified through is the illness. So it's not to say that every illness is for the glory of God, maybe it is maybe it isn't. Maybe the Son of God can be glorified through every illness, but at least with Lazarus, the goal of Lazarus's illness is the glory of God. That's one of these crossroad things.

Dan Gurtner 9:06
Verse five, "Now Jesus loved Martha, and her sister, and Lazarus." So, lest we as readers think; wow, Jesus is pretty selfish, he just wants himself to be glorified from poor Lazarus. No, he loves them. Now, what does he do? He loves them, verse five. "So when he heard that Lazarus was ill," now let's just pause there. What would you expect if he hears that Lazarus is ill, and then you see 'Jesus loved Mary and her sister and Lazarus'? So because [Jesus] heard [Lazarus] was ill and he loved them so much, so Jesus decided to...?

Tyler Sanders 9:56
To go. You think he's going to them immediately.

Dan Gurtner 9:58
To go. To get on his horse and he is gonna book it and he's gonna run. So when he heard that Lazarus was ill...so what John's telling us is the way that Jesus displayed his love for these people is that he didn't go. He didn't go. He stayed two days longer in the place where he was. That's amazing. This is what- these little things that get lost in the big narrative.

Dan Gurtner 10:32
Then verse seven, "After this, he said to the disciples, 'let us go to Judea again.'" Now you've read enough in the Gospel of John to know that John is all about time. 'My time has not yet come' and 'it's not my hour' and things like that. So you sort of get the sense that Jesus is almost sort of looking at his watch and says; 'okay, now's the time for us to go. Everything has transpired the way it's supposed to, so now it's okay to go.'

Dan Gurtner 11:05
And then verse eight, "The disciples said to him, 'Rabbi, the Jews were just now seeking to stone you.'" That's the previous context. "'And are you going there again?' Jesus answered, 'Are there not 12 hours in the day?'" And this is one of those two layers; the spiritual meaning and the literal meaning. "'And if anyone walks in the day, he does not stumble, because he sees the light of this world. But if anyone walks in the night, he stumbles, because the light is not in him.'" So on the literal level, Jesus is just saying, Hey, guys, it's daylight. So we can walk and we'll be able to see any rocks or stones or stakes, and we're not going to get tripped up. But John is also speaking on the spiritual and metaphorical level, and he's saying that it's safe to go, because he's going about the Father's will. And that's where he gives us this teaser when he says, 'because the light is not in him'. Light being in somebody. That's whether the Father is in him or not. So they go.

Dan Gurtner 12:21
And then verse 11, "After saying these things, he said to them, 'Our friend, Lazarus has fallen asleep.'" So he knows what's happened, so that time sequence has occurred. "'But I go to awaken him.' The disciples said to Him, 'Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will recover.' Now Jesus had spoken of his death, but they thought that he meant taking rest in sleep." Or natural sleep in translation. So here's where John, again comes out of the clouds a little bit and sort of speaks at our level and says, Okay, if you're having a hard time understanding the metaphor, let's explain it. "Then Jesus told them plainly, 'Lazarus has died.'" Now, here's another intersection, in the highway of this passage. "'And for your sake, I am glad that I was not there.'" Why on earth is it good for them, that poor Lazarus was allowed to die? Here's what he wants from them, "'So that you may believe.'" There's something that's going to occur there, that's going to cause them to believe. Why? Because remember, John's gospel, the whole thing, the answer key to John's gospel; "These things are written so that you might believe that Jesus is the Son of God, in that by believing you might have life in him." That's the answer key to the whole gospel of John. Then they go. But that's again, one of these- 'For your sake, I'm glad that I was not there. Because [otherwise] he wouldn't have died, you wouldn't have seen what I'm about to do., and it wouldn't have prompted your faith.'

Tyler Sanders 14:12
Yeah. And it's actually really great that John comes in and tells us a little bit about this metaphor, just to help reinforce...Jesus is telling us what's going to happen and why it's happening. But it is still kind of confounding in a way. You know, I totally understand why the disciples would have been like, confused and not totally understood this. So it's a great feature. I think, in this in this passage that we have John come in and say, like a little bit of this explanation, just to kind of reinforce this idea, like Jesus is saying something a little bit different than what it sounds like.

Dan Gurtner 14:48
Right. And it's also helpful for us as readers to see that, because John doesn't always do that. Sometimes he just lets us struggle with it. And it shows how important this passage is in the Gospel of John, that he's taking the extra time to say, 'Hey, don't miss this. I'm going to speak your language. I'm going to bring it down to your level,' so to speak, 'so that you don't miss this.'

Dan Gurtner 15:16
Verse 16, "So Thomas, called The Twin, said to his fellow disciples, 'Let us also go, that we may die with him.'" Now, what Thomas meant here, I have absolutely no idea. Like a lot of things that occur in the Gospel of John, he's probably speaking well beyond what he really understands at the time. So he's..."We may die with him", is he meaning 'we're gonna go die with Jesus', or 'we're gonna go die because Lazarus is gonna die', or...? Yeah.

Tyler Sanders 16:11
Yeah, that's a...yeah, that's an interesting line.

Dan Gurtner 16:13
That's puzzling. And I looked this one up and I... there is really no clear answer on this one. So, regardless, Thomas wants to go, and he's eager to go. So this is the same guy we know as Doubting Thomas later on, he's ready to go. And in some sense, he's willing to die, and Jesus has just explained that Lazarus is dead. So we know that the notion of purely metaphorical death is not the only category. So Thomas is kind of hardcore here. Regardless of what- we don't know, again, I'm confused, I don't know what else he means. But he's ready to follow Jesus, and go with him, and in some sense...'let's go too because we want to die with him'. Whoever 'him' is and whatever he's going to die for, he's eager to go with Jesus. So at least we get a few answers, even if the whole 'why' isn't clear.

Tyler Sanders 16:13
Yeah, there's something there for sure.

Dan Gurtner 17:37
Let's keep going. Verse 17. "Now, when Jesus came, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days." Bethany was near Jerusalem, about two miles off. "And many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to console them concerning their brother. So when Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him. But Mary remained seated in the house. Martha said to Jesus, 'Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.'" So she is affirming what Jesus said earlier. Remember when Jesus said, 'I'm glad I wasn't there, because if I had been there, he wouldn't have died and you wouldn't have faith.'? And [Martha] said; Yeah, that's true, if you had been here, he wouldn't have died. "'But even now I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give you.'" You could raise him. I know that. "Jesus said to her, 'Your brother will rise again.' Martha said to him, 'I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.' And Jesus said to her, 'I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live.'"

Dan Gurtner 19:13
So we've said before that the Gospels are all about Jesus. This is the Dionne Sine banner of this whole passage. So we call this 'the raising of Lazarus', we should call this 'Jesus is the resurrection and the life, whoever believes in him though he die, yet shall he live.' Because that's really what this is about. Lazarus is a prop in a story about Jesus raising people from the dead. So it's just we're kind of used to Jesus doing this kind of thing by now. But that is really the central point of this whole passage, in terms of the message to the reader and a message to the church.

Tyler Sanders 20:01
You know, what's interesting about it too, in this passage is like Martha kind of susses out that spiritual level of what Jesus is saying, but she doesn't get all of it. Like, she kind of understands whenever Jesus says, like, he will rise again. She's kind of like, well, I know there's like a spiritual level of rising again, that's gonna come later. And then he has one more step to explain even past that, like what you kind of understood, it's even deeper than that. I'm the ressurection.

Dan Gurtner 20:32
I think possibly she might even say, I know that he will rise again physically in the resurrection in the last day. So she might even be saying, Yeah, I know, there's gonna be a physical resurrection on the last day. So there is an eschatological resurrection. But Jesus is saying, that I am the embodiment of that eschatological resurrection and that kingdom that you're anticipating that's going to come in the future, at least part of it is standing right in front of you talking to you. So that's part of the New Testament theology tension of the 'already not yet', that's living like right there. So yes, yeah, the last day that he will be raised. But not all of it's just then, some of this is right now. And you're about to see evidence of it.

Tyler Sanders 21:25
Yeah. Which is another interesting point, I think, too, is that we've got here to like the climax, in a sense of what this is saying about Jesus. But we still haven't gotten to like the narrative climax in a way of the actual event happening.

Dan Gurtner 21:40
Yeah. "'Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and whoever lives and believes in me, shall never die. Do you believe this?'" Now, look at this statement in verses 25 and 26, what Jesus says about himself, and he says to her, Do you believe this? And she doesn't just say, yes. He gives the definition of the Christ....so it's sort of like whenever you have a test and somebody gives you a definition and you have to supply the term. Sometimes you have to give a term, sometimes a teacher will give you a word and you have to give the definition. Sometimes they give you the definition and you have to give the word. Jesus gave the definition and she gave the word. So he says, "I am the resurrection and the life whoever believes in me though he die, yet shall he live, and whoever lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?" She says, yeah, "I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of the living God who's come into the world." Well, that's not what he asked. He says; Do you believe this? She could just say yes. But she says; Yes, and I know what that means. That means that you are the Christ, the Son of the Living God, not only can you do these things, I know what that means about who you are and what you came here to do.

Tyler Sanders 23:17
Yeah.

Dan Gurtner 23:18
Wow!!

Tyler Sanders 23:19
Yeah. It's impressive.

Dan Gurtner 23:22
"When she had said this, she went and called her sister Mary, saying in private, 'The teacher is here, and is calling for you.' And when she heard it, she rose quickly and went to him. Now Jesus had not yet come into the village, but was still in a place where Martha had met him. When the Jews who were with her in the house, consoling her, saw Mary rise quickly and go out, they followed her, supposing that she was going to the tomb to weep there." So we kind of get suspicious because when we see Jews there, Jews are often the villains, especially Jewish leaders in John's Gospel. "Now, when Mary came to where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet, saying to him, 'Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.' When Jesus saw her weeping,..." and this is key to see how Jesus responds. "When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come with her, also weeping, he was deeply moved in his spirit and greatly troubled." What on earth is going on here?

Tyler Sanders 24:56
This is a tricky passage, I think because...

Dan Gurtner 24:59
It is.

Tyler Sanders 25:00
Because we know that Jesus already knows what has occurred and why it's happening. He's been telling people like there's an end to the... like there's kind of a spoiler in a sense. He knows how it's going to end, and he knows why it's happening, but still in this moment, he's very moved.

Dan Gurtner 25:22
Yeah. And notice the way John says this in verse 33. "He's deeply moved in his spirit and greatly troubled." Now troubled is sort of the key, this is a negative reaction. What is he reacting negatively to?

Tyler Sanders 25:41
I mean, it seems like it's related to them weeping.

Dan Gurtner 25:45
Yes, that's exactly it. So is he just heartless? Well, no, we don't want to say that. What's the difference between what they're doing and what Martha had done?

Tyler Sanders 26:03
I guess we didn't really see that Martha was actually weeping, did we? She's asked the same question, essentially, right?

Dan Gurtner 26:11
What did Martha say? Martha says, "'Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.'" But then Martha continues. "'But even now I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give you.'"

Tyler Sanders 26:25
So she has hope still.

Dan Gurtner 26:27
She has hope. And that hope is found in Jesus. Mary expresses no hope. She says the same thing, actually I've just noticed that she says the same word. I haven't checked the Greek but she says the same words and instead all she does is weep. So she's not expressing hope, she's expressing lament and sadness. And the Jews around her are expressing the same thing. So the Jews around her expressing the same thing is kind of a little bit of a flag to say, there's something negative, and the fact that Jesus is troubled. So probably what's happening here is that they are expressing anguish and lament. They don't see hope. So Jesus's response is, he says, "Where have you laid him?" And they said to him, "Lord, come and see." So, "Jesus wept." And this doesn't come through in the English very clearly, but it's a slightly different kind of weeping. They are weeping in anguish and lament. He is shedding tears. In other words, I think what's happening is they feel hopeless at what they perceive to be the end of Lazarus and that's it. And Jesus is responding to what he perceives as their lack of faith. In other words, when Jesus weeps, I don't think Jesus is weeping at the death of Lazarus. He already knows what's gonna happen. In fact, he knew it happened whenever they started walking out, and he waited for it to happen. And he was glad that it was gonna happen for their sakes. So what's changed here? What has occurred here in the meantime, that causes this kind of response? It's their weeping.

Tyler Sanders 28:39
It's their weeping. And what that means.

Dan Gurtner 28:42
It's their weeping without hope. And it is a slightly different expression of weeping. And then the Jews misunderstand Jesus weeping, "See how he loved him." Those tears are not love, I don't think. I could be wrong here, but I think those those tears are slightly different. Typically, the kind of weeping that Mary and the Jews were doing are weeping of anguish and lament. The kind of weeping the Jesus is doing is just sort of remorse and tears. Slightly different term. But some of them said, verse 37, "'Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind also have kept this man from dying?'" So now the unbelief unfolds. Verse 38, "Then Jesus deeply moved..." and again, this is probably a negative response, "came to the tomb. It was a cave and a stone lay against it. Jesus said, 'Take away the stone.' Martha, the sister of the dead man said to him, 'Lord, by this time there is an odor, for he has been dead four days.' Jesus said to her, 'Did I not tell you that if you believed you would see the glory of God?'" So you're expecting decay and smell. I'm going to show you... and who's he talking to here?

Tyler Sanders 30:40
Martha, right?

Dan Gurtner 30:41
Martha. And who's the only one who expressed faith?

Tyler Sanders 30:46
Yeah, that's her.

Dan Gurtner 30:47
Martha. "'You would see the glory of God.' So they took away the stone. And Jesus lifted up his eyes." And here we get sort of, we're seeing the behind the scenes look, "Father, I thank you that you've heard me. I knew that you always hear me. But I said this on account of the people standing around." So this echoes back to the 'I'm glad for your sake that I wasn't there. ' This is for you, disciples. And for Martha. "'That they may believe that You sent Me.'" Verse 43, "When he had said these things, he cried out in a loud voice, 'Lazarus come out.' The man who had died came out-" again been dead four days. So there had been atrophy, there had been decay. His ears did not work. He didn't respond. He had-I mean try it with roadkill some time. You can yell, shout at it all you want, it is incapable of responding. "His hands and feet are bound with linen strips, and his face wrapped with a cloth. And Jesus said to them, 'Unbind him and let him go.'" So a display of the glory of God. And all of this is a display of the glory of God. But those intersections on this long highway, 44 verses, are absolutely crucial.

Tyler Sanders 32:12
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean, it more than just colors the passage, it really defines it, I think.

Dan Gurtner 32:23
It does.

Tyler Sanders 32:24
It's really the only way I think to answer that question that we keep coming back to each episode is like, what is this telling us about Jesus? Those intersections are how you get that answer, I think.

Dan Gurtner 32:38
Yeah, and it also addresses a number of things for us in the church. In that, it is for the glory of God, but it is also for the sake of those who are standing about. It is for the disciples' sake. That they are beneficiaries of seeing this, meaning that they may believe. Jesus understands that it is to their benefit, that they see this miracle, and that it triggers in them a saving faith in who Jesus is. And that Jesus loved Lazarus and Martha and Mary. And it wasn't out of apathy that he permitted Lazarus to die. It was in his economy and his assessment, it was an investment in the faith of other people. So we balance, why did Jesus let poor Lazarus just die, to go through this? Jesus allowed that to happen because he perceived that there was a better outcome.

Tyler Sanders 34:05
Yeah, it was an act of love, really.

Dan Gurtner 34:08
It was an act of love. And it's hard to see that sometimes the eternal well being of somebody is more valuable than sometimes the physical well being of somebody. I talked about this in chapel a couple of weeks ago, when we looked at First Peter, when Peter talks about this, 'though now for a little while, you have gone through trials of various kinds, that God is working out the eternal outcome of your faith.' Because "He values your faith as more precious than gold that perishes, though it is refined by fire." Meaning that we go through hardships and sometimes they're hard and physical and painful hardships. Because God does have an intent. And sometimes He allows us to go through hard, physical things because He cares about the outcome of our soul. And that's a good thing. It doesn't mean He cares less about our physical well being, it's a statement of how much He cares about our eternal good.

Tyler Sanders 35:23
Yeah. I mean, that's a lot to chew on. But I think that's a really powerful example in scripture of the complexity of God's love. And I think too, just like of that tension of the 'not yet and already', that sometimes the 'not yet' can still feel and actually be very painful, because we're not very good at seeing the next thing.

Dan Gurtner 35:59
And we, as readers get to see the next thing. Lazarus had no idea. Martha, who is really the spiritual hero of this whole, I mean other than Jesus, is really the spiritual hero of the whole thing, she had no idea. But she had faith. But she knew what Jesus could do. And she knew exactly who he was. And that was sufficient for her. And in that sense, she's really held out as the model. There's also the presumption in John, that Jesus, and this has to do with John's Christology, Jesus has a prerogative to do things in people's lives that he doesn't pause to ask permission. He doesn't apologize for. He is God incarnate. And when you see statements in John's gospel, like "Before Abraham was, I AM." And you understand that Jesus is claiming, and John is presenting Jesus as, the I AM of the Old Testament. And you look at the supremacy and the glory in the majesty of Yahweh, the I AM in the Old Testament, and you just for a moments' sake, plug that into the narrative of the Gospel of John, what seems to be somewhat audacious for a human being that Jesus does. You know, who does Jesus think he is? Thinking he can just wait for Lazarus to die and then do what he...Well, he's Yahweh. He doesn't think he's anybody, He knows who He is. And he entirely has the prerogative to do that. It makes perfect sense. It makes perfect sense, when we realize that before Abraham, He was. And through him all things were made and without him nothing was made that has been made. That's why the prologue to John's Gospel is so important as a set of glasses through which to read the whole narrative. When you realize who Jesus is, every page that you turn to in this gospel, and everything you hear him say, and everything you see him do makes perfect sense, when you file that in the back of your mind and see him do what he does.

Tyler Sanders 38:35
I know there's probably a ton more things we can say about this. But that feels like such a great way to wrap up this whole passage. This has been a really fantastic episode.

Dan Gurtner 38:47
One final reminder, as we part for today. As we think about this Jesus who has done these things, and this is, again, this is obviously real history, this really happened. There's a metaphorical, spiritual level we talked about in John's gospel, this is no less than...this is still the Jesus that we pray to every day. This is still the Jesus that we teach at our Sunday Schools. This is still the Jesus that we worship when we sing our songs on Sunday mornings with our hands raised. Even though he is the lofted King of kings and Lord of lords, he is still the Lord of our hearts, and still the one who wants a relationship with us, and talks with us. He is both the king and the friend. And so I hope we can take some encouragement from that, from knowing that this One who did these things with Lazarus is our friend and companion and through His Spirit, lives within us.

Tyler Sanders 39:37
Dr. Gurtner, thank you so much for your time, and I'm looking forward to the next passage we're going to cover.

Dan Gurtner 39:43
My pleasure.