John 11:57

Now both the chief priests and the Pharisees had given a commandment, that, if any man knew where he were, he should shew it, that they might take him.

Now [both] the chief priests and the Pharisees. The word "both" [ kai (G2532)] should be excluded, as clearly not genuine.

Had given a commandment, that, if any man 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.

Remarks:

(1) We have already remarked, that as the resurrection of Lazarus and the opening of the eyes of the man born blind were the most wonderful of all our Lord's miracles, so it is precisely these two miracles which are recorded with the minutest detail, and which stand attested by evidence the most unassailable. One argument only has scepticism been able to urge against the credibility of these miracles-the entire silence of the First Three Evangelists regarding them. But even if we were unable to account for that silence, the positive evidence by which these miracles are attested can in no degree be affected by it. And then this silence of the First Three Evangelists embraces the whole Judaean ministry of our Lord, from the very beginning of it down to His final entry into Jerusalem. So that if this be any argument against the two miracles in question, it is an argument rather against the entire credibility of the Fourth Gospel-to which we have adverted in the Introduction. (2) If the resurrections from the dead were the most divine of all the miracles which our Lord performed, this resurrection of Lazarus was certainly the most divine of the three recorded in the Gospel History. On the great lesson which it teaches, even more gloriously than the other two, see the notes at Mark 5:21, Remark 5 at the close of that section. But

(3) The true nature of all these resurrections must be carefully observed. They were none of them a resurrection from the dead to "die no more." They were a mere reanimation of the mortal body, until in the course of nature they should die again, to sleep until the Trumpet shall sound, and with all other sleeping believers awake finally to resurrection-life.

(4) Did Jesus suffer the case of Lazarus to reach its lowest and most desperate stage before interposing, and his loving sisters to agonize and weep until their faith in His own power and love, which had done nothing all that time to arrest the hand of death and corruption, had been tried to the uttermost? What is this, but an illustration-the most signal, indeed, yet but one more illustration-of a feature observable in most of His miracles, where only after all other help was vain did He Himself step in? In so acting, is it necessary to say that He did but serve Himself Heir, so to speak, to God's own ancient style of procedure toward His people? (See Deuteronomy 32:36; Isaiah 59:16). And will not this help to assure us that "to the upright there ariseth light in the darkness"? (Psalms 112:4).

(5) We have seen in Christ's tears over impenitent Jerusalem the weeping Saviour: in Christ's tears over the grave of Lazarus we see the weeping Friend. And just as in the other case, though the tears which bedewed those cheeks at the sight of impenitence are now no more, He is not even in heaven, at the sight of similar impenitence, insensible to the feeling that drew them forth here below: so when some dear Lazarus has fallen asleep, and his Christian relatives and friends are weeping over his bier and at his grave, we are not to be chilled by the apprehension that Jesus in the heavens merely looks on and drops comfort into the wounded heart-Himself all void of sympathetic emotion-but are warranted to assure ourselves that His heart there is quite as tender and warm, and quite as quick in its sensibilities, as ever it showed itself to be here; or, in language that will come better home to us, that "we have not an High Priest that cannot," even now, "be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, but was in all points tried like as we are, yet without sin," and this on very purpose to acquire experimentally the capacity to identify Himself to perfection, in feeling as well as in understanding, with the whole circle of our trials. What rivers of divine consolation, O ye suffering disciples of the Lord Jesus, are there here opened up for you! Drink, then, yea, drink abundantly, O beloved!

(6) What a commentary is the determined and virulent resistance even of such evidence, by the ruling Jewish party, on those words of the Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus - "If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded though one rose from the dead!"