John 11:40-42

“ Jesus says to her, Did I not say to thee, that if thou believest thou shalt see the glory of God? 41. They took away the stone therefore. And Jesus lifted up his eyes and said, Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me. 42. As for myself, I knew indeed that thou dost always hear me; but I said it because of the multitude who surround me, that they may believe that thou didst send me. ”

Some interpreters refer the words: Did I not say...? to the conversation in John 11:23-27. And it is certainly, indeed, to the expressions: He who believes on me (John 11:27; John 11:26), and Believest thou this? (John 11:27) that our thoughts are turned by the words of Jesus: If thou believest...But the characteristic expression of our verse: the glory of God, is wanting in these declarations, while it constitutes the salient feature of the promise of John 11:4. It is therefore this last promise that Jesus especially recalls to Martha. He well knew that it had been reported to the two sisters by the messenger; it had formed the starting-point of the conversation of John 11:23-27, which was only its confirmation and development. The glory of God is here, exactly as in Romans 6:4, the splendid triumph of the omnipotence of God, in the service of His love, over death and corruption (John 11:39). This is the magnificent spectacle which Jesus promises to Martha, and which He sets in opposition to the painful impressions which she apprehends for the bystanders and herself, when once the stone shall have been taken away. There is no reproach in the words: Did I not say...? as if Martha were wanting in faith in speaking as she did. In the presence of the manifest signs of dissolution already commenced, Jesus exhorts her to a supreme act of faith, by giving her His promise as a support. She has already climbed the arduous slopes of the mountain; only one last summit to reach, and the spectacle of the glory of God, of life triumphant over death, will display itself to her eyes. Man would always see in order to believe; Martha is called to give an example of the opposite course: to believe in order to see. These words of Jesus do not imply that He makes the fulfillment of His promise depend, as Meyer, Weiss and others think, on Martha's faith. He is now decidedly pledged and cannot withdraw. What He subordinates to the supreme act of faith which He demands of her, is not the miracle, it is the joy which she will have from it (“ see the glory”). The bodily eye beholds only the external wonder; but the divine love putting itself at the service of man to triumph over death this is a spectacle which one beholds only with the eyes of the soul. It was the inner sense for beholding it which Jesus had endeavored to form in Martha in the conversation which He had just had with her; He must not lose, at the decisive moment, the fruit of this effort. The received reading: the stone from the place where the dead was laid, seems to be a paraphrase. The Alexandrian text reads briefly: the stone; see our translation. This reading, however, does not easily explain the origin of the other two. May not that of A K Π : the stone from the place where he was, be the primitive text? Its brevity (οὗ ἦν) explains, on one side, the Byzantine gloss, and, on the other, the omission, in the Alexandrian documents, of this explanatory clause. Jesus lifts his eyes: the visible heaven is for man the most eloquent witness of the invisible wealth and power of God. By penetrating with His look its infinite depths, Jesus seeks inwardly the face of the Father; what more human! it is indeed in reality the Word made flesh (comp. John 17:1). The miracle is already accomplished to the view of Jesus; this is the reason why He renders thanks as if for a thing which is done: Thou hadst heard me. He thus confirms the view pronounced by Martha with relation to His miracles (John 11:22); they are so many prayers heard. But what distinguishes His position from that of other divine messengers, who have accomplished similar works by the same means, is the perfect assurance of being heard, with which He addresses God. He draws freely, as Son, from the divine treasure. Besser admirably says: “No doubt, He performed all His miracles through faith, but through faith which was peculiar to Him, that of being the Son of God manifested in the flesh.”

If Jesus expresses His gratitude aloud, as He does here, it is not, as He Himself adds, because there is anything extraordinary in the conduct of the Father towards Him on this occasion. This act of thanksgiving is anything but an exclamation wrested from Him by surprise at an exceptional hearing of prayer; constantly heard by the Father, He thanks Him continually. That which, at this solemn moment, impels Him to give thanks to His Father aloud, is the sight of the people who surround Him. He has prepared His disciples and the two sisters, in the special conversations with them, to behold and understand the work which He is about to do. He desires also to dispose the people whom His Father has unexpectedly gathered around this tomb, to behold the glory of God, that is to say, to see in the miracle, not only a wonder, but a sign. Otherwise the astonishment which they experience would be barren; it could not result in faith. Here is the reason why Jesus expresses aloud, at this moment, the sentiment of filial thankfulness which incessantly fills His heart. Criticism has called this prayer “a prayer of ostentation” (Strauss, Weisse, Baur), and has found in this circumstance a ground for suspecting the authenticity of the narrative.

It has not grasped the meaning of the act. Jesus does not render thanks because of the people, but He expresses aloud His act of thanksgiving because of the people. The Jews had said of the healing of the man born blind: As an infraction of the Sabbath, this cannot be a divine work. By rendering thanks to God on this day in presence of all the people, even before performing the miracle, Jesus positively calls upon God to grant or to refuse Him His cooperation. In the face of such a prayer God must be recognized either as the guarantor of His mission or as the accomplice in His imposture. Comp. the test of Carmel in the life of Elijah, and the quite similar expression of Jesus Himself in Luke 5:22-24. If Lazarus rises and comes forth at the call of Jesus, it will be God who has displayed His arm; Jesus will be recognized as sent by Him. If not, truly let all His other miracles be attributed to Beelzebub, and let Him be declared an impostor! Such is the situation as Jesus' act of thanksgiving establishes it. It is interesting to compare this expression: Thou hast heard me, with the assertion of Reville, following Scholten and saying: “The fourth Gospel has no knowledge of Jesus praying as a man.” (Revue de theol ., 1865, iii., p. 316.)