Sunday School Lesson: Life After Death

Purpose: To explore how Christ is Lord over life and death and what this means for our present and future life.

Scripture: John 11:1-44

Joh 11:1-44 ESV Now a certain man was ill, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. (2) It was Mary who anointed the Lord with ointment and wiped his feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was ill. (3) So the sisters sent to him, saying, "Lord, he whom you love is ill." (4) 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." (5) Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. (6) So, when he heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was. (7) Then after this he said to the disciples, "Let us go to Judea again." (8) The disciples said to him, "Rabbi, the Jews were just now seeking to stone you, and are you going there again?" (9) Jesus answered, "Are there not twelve hours in the day? If anyone walks in the day, he does not stumble, because he sees the light of this world. (10) But if anyone walks in the night, he stumbles, because the light is not in him." (11) After saying these things, he said to them, "Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I go to awaken him." (12) The disciples said to him, "Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will recover." (13) Now Jesus had spoken of his death, but they thought that he meant taking rest in sleep. (14) Then Jesus told them plainly, "Lazarus has died, (15) and for your sake I am glad that I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him." (16) So Thomas, called the Twin, said to his fellow disciples, "Let us also go, that we may die with him." (17) Now when Jesus came, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days. (18) Bethany was near Jerusalem, about two miles off, (19) and many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to console them concerning their brother. (20) So when Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him, but Mary remained seated in the house. (21) Martha said to Jesus, "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. (22) But even now I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give you." (23) Jesus said to her, "Your brother will rise again." (24) Martha said to him, "I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day."
(25) Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, (26) and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?" (27) She said to him, "Yes, Lord; I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who is coming into the world." (28) When she had said this, she went and called her sister Mary, saying in private, "The Teacher is here and is calling for you." (29) And when she heard it, she rose quickly and went to him. (30) Now Jesus had not yet come into the village, but was still in the place where Martha had met him. (31) 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. (32) 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." (33) 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. (34) And he said, "Where have you laid him?" They said to him, "Lord, come and see." (35) Jesus wept. (36) So the Jews said, "See how he loved him!" (37) But some of them said, "Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man also have kept this man from dying?" (38) Then Jesus, deeply moved again, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone lay against it.
(39) Jesus said, "Take away the stone." Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, "Lord, by this time there will be an odor, for he has been dead four days." (40) Jesus said to her, "Did I not tell you that if you believed you would see the glory of God?" (41) So they took away the stone. And Jesus lifted up his eyes and said, "Father, I thank you that you have heard me. (42) I knew that you always hear me, but I said this on account of the people standing around, that they may believe that you sent me." (43) When he had said these things, he cried out with a loud voice, "Lazarus, come out." (44) The man who had died came out, his hands and feet bound with linen strips, and his face wrapped with a cloth. Jesus said to them, "Unbind him, and let him go."

Do you believe in life after death?

What do you believe about life after death?

What were you taught as a child?

Have you beliefs changed over the years?

What do you believe is the nature of life after death?

What is heaven really like?

Hell?

Questions of life after death at some point in our life haunt all of us. We have all had friends or family who have become ill and we have all probably prayed that God would somehow intervene. We have all probably felt like responding the way Martha and Mary did in this passage:

“Lord, you could have done something about this. You still could…..if you would.”

Why did Jesus wait for Lazarus to die before coming to Bethany?

The raising of Lazarus was not Jesus’ last miracle, but it is the last one recorded by John. This particular miracle was probably chosen by John as the culmination of Jesus’ miracles for the simple fact that this is Jesus’ greatest miracle prior to the Cross. This particular miracle aroused the most response both from Jesus’ friends and his enemies. This miracle was the one, according to John, that pushed Jesus’ enemies from threats on His life to actual plots to take His life. This miracle also caused such a commotion among the people that when Jesus rode a donkey into Jerusalem a couple of weeks later He was met by crowds waving palm branches and singing “Hosanna!’


Let’s look at this miraculous raising of Lazarus and see what all the commotion was about…

The city of Bethany was located only a couple of miles from Jerusalem. This town was the location of the Mount of Olives. Bethany was not only the home of Mary, Martha, and Lazarus, but also Simon the Leper who is mentioned in both Mark and Matthew. The modern city at this location is called El-Aziriyah, “the place of Lazarus” in Arabic. A church has existed from at least the sixth century on the supposed site of Lazarus tomb here and still offers tours of the tomb.


Was this the first time that Jesus had brought someone dead back to life?

He had brought back the widow’s son at Nain (Luke 7:11-17) and the daughter of Jairus (Matthew 9:18-26, Mark 5:21-43. Luke 8:40-55).

What was different about this miracle?

One difference is that in both of those miracles, the raising took place immediately following the death. It could be said that those two were more reviving or resuscitating than resurrecting. Those two could have still been alive with just the appearance of death and Jesus may have revived them from a comatose state. Burial in those days in Palestine followed very soon after death because the climate caused rapid decomposition. Archeologists have found evidence that frequently people in those times and in that place were buried alive because of that necessary haste in burial. It could well be that in those two cases, Jesus made a diagnosis that actually saved two young people from a dreadful death of being buried alive.

How was Lazarus’ raising different?

There is no parallel anywhere in Scripture for the raising of a man who had been dead for four days and whose body had already begun to putrefy.

Why did Jesus wait for Lazarus to die?

That was actually a trick question. If we look at the timeline, we see that Jesus did not wait for Lazarus to die. Lazarus was already dead when the messenger reached Jesus. Jesus was across the Jordan, at least a days walk from Bethany. Day 1 – the messenger was sent to Jesus. Day 2 – the messenger returns with the message in verse 4. Day 3 – Jesus and the disciples wait one more day. Day 4 – Jesus arrives in Bethany. So if Lazarus had been dead for four days, he had died on the very day the messenger left and was already dead when the messenger reached Jesus. Jesus knew this when he sent the return message to the sisters.

So why did Jesus wait at all? Why didn’t He return immediately to comfort the sisters?

He stated His reason for delay four times:

Joh 11:15 ESV …. so that you may believe…

Joh 11:25-26 ESV Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, (26) and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?"

Joh 11:40 ESV …, "Did I not tell you that if you believed you would see the glory of God?"

Joh 11:42 ESV I knew that you always hear me, but I said this on account of the people standing around, that they may believe that you sent me."


His delay was for the sole purpose of enlightening the witnesses.

Let’s picture the scene:

A usual Palestinian tomb was either a natural cave or was hewn out of rock. There would be shelves cut in the rock and on those shelves the bodies would be placed. There were usually eight shelves in a tomb. The bodies were wrapped in grave clothes, which were wrapped round and round the body and impregnated with spices which would embalm the body. These tombs had no door, but had a great circular stone which rolled in a groove across the entrance to seal the opening.

There is a reason for four days delay. It was a Jewish belief that the deceased person’s spirit hovered around a tomb for four days, hoping for an opportunity to re-enter the body. After four days, it was believed, the spirit permanently departed, never to return, for after four days of decomposition in the Palestinian climate, the face and the body were so badly decayed that it could no longer be recognized, even by the spirit of the person who had inhabited that body. After four days there was no way anyone could be convinced that Lazarus was still alive.

Have you ever felt like Martha must have felt? Have you ever felt like questioning God, yet having faith that God is good and whatever God does is right, that we really have no right to question God, regardless the circumstances we find ourselves in?

One of the most human, heart felt speeches in the Bible has to be when Martha said to Jesus:

Joh 11:21 ESV …… "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”
Do you think that she would have really liked to say: “Why didn’t you come immediately when you got our message?”

“Now it’s too late! Four days! Surely Lazarus’ spirit has left him!”


Yet no sooner had she spoken her near reproach, than there follows words of great faith:

Joh 11:22 ESV But even now I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give you."

These words show a faith that defied the facts of Lazarus’ death. And Jesus told her:

Joh 11:23 ESV ….. "Your brother will rise again."

There was a debate among the Jewish people at the time concerning life after death. In Old Testament times and in the writing of the Old Testament there is no indication of any real life after death. The Hebrews of the Old Testament believed that every soul, good and bad alike, went to Sheol. Sheol is not Hell, although sometimes it is mistranslated to mean hell. Sheol was not a place of torture and suffering. It was just the place of the dead, the land of shades. Every deceased soul went there and they all lived a shadowy, ghostly existence. After death, according to ancient Hebrew belief, came the land of silence, where human souls were separated from each other and from God.

Yet during the time between the Testaments a new belief in bodily physical resurrection was developed by the Jews. The major disagreement between the Pharisees and the Sadducees was on the issue of resurrection. The Pharisaic belief was in a general physical resurrection of all the dead during the end times. The martyrs of the Maccabeean revolt expected to get back from God even the parts of their bodies which were lost in battle. The Pharisaic belief eventually developed into the hope of a physical resurrection in exactly the form in which a man died, after which will come the judgment. This belief carried so far as to believe that a man would rise wearing exactly the same clothes in which he had been laid in his tomb. There were cases of dying Rabbis who gave minute and detailed instructions regarding the clothes in which they were to be buried.

The numerous statements that Jesus made throughout the Gospels concerning resurrection show that the Jewish beliefs of the time may be at least partially correct.

So Martha’s next statement to Jesus fit perfectly into the contemporary Jewish belief regarding resurrection:

Joh 11:24 ESV Martha said to him, "I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day."

How do the Jewish beliefs concerning resurrection compare to Christian beliefs?

What are our Christian beliefs concerning resurrection?

Will our resurrection be spiritual or physical?

When will our resurrection occur?

Where will we live after the resurrection?

What will be our state in the time between death and resurrection?

Joh 11:25-26 ESV Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, (26) and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?"

What did Jesus mean by that statement?

If I believe in Jesus, I will never suffer a physical death?

Jesus must not have been speaking strictly in a physical sense. It is just not true that those who believe in Him will never die. Christians experience a physical death just like everybody else. So what exactly did Jesus mean?

There is obviously more than a strictly physical meaning in this statement of Jesus. Can you think of any way that Christians are alive that is not true of non-Christians?


One possible meaning of this statement is that Jesus was thinking of the death of sin. We are all, prior to coming to Christ, dead in sin. Our sins create in us a hardness of heart that is equal to spiritual death. Sinners may become so selfish that they are dead to the needs of others. They may become so insensitive that they are dead to the feelings of others. They may become so involved in a sinful lifestyle that they are dead to honesty and integrity. Their lives may become so hopeless that the best way to describe it is spiritual death. No matter the situation, faith in Jesus can bring about a resurrection. There have been millions of just such resurrections.

There is also the resurrection to come. The life to come. As I said earlier, Jesus mentioned the end-time resurrection many times in the Gospels. This was just a theological theory to the Jews who believed in resurrection. To Jesus it seemed to be common knowledge. Jesus brought into the world the certainty that our physical death is not the end. We all die. But in the most real sense, we are not on our way to death, but on our way to life.

How does this happen?

It happens through the One who is “the resurrection and the life”. Jesus’ own resurrection is the cornerstone of all redemption.

So what kind of bodies will we have in our resurrection?

Where will we live?

Was the raising of Lazarus the same as the resurrection we are promised as Christians?

What is the difference between resurrection and resuscitation?

This event with Lazarus is more accurately described as a resuscitation. The same could be said of the widow’s son and Jairus’ daughter. Resuscitation is the act of restoring on who was dead, or very near death, back to life. This life is the same life that one previously had. EMT’s and doctors perform resuscitations every day.

Unlike resuscitation, resurrection is being given, and receiving, a totally new life. Resurrection is not being restored to the old life that one previously had. Resurrection is being “born again.” A resurrected sinner does not return to the previous sinful life. Physical resurrection means beginning a new life, perhaps in an entirely new form.

The only example we have (so far) of a physical resurrection is Jesus Himself. Mary Magdalene (John 20:11-18), the two apostles on the road to Emmaus (Luke 21:13-35), even Peter and the others fishing on the Sea of Galilee (John 21:1-14) did not immediately recognize the resurrected Jesus. Thomas didn’t recognize Jesus until placing his hand on Jesus’ wounds (John 20:25-28). But when each and every one of them finally recognized Him there was no doubt that He was the Savior.

Thomas:

Joh 20:28 ESV Thomas answered him, "My Lord and my God!"

Jesus was not resuscitated to the life he had prior to the crucifixion. He was resurrected to a new and different life.

Those resuscitated, like Lazarus, the widow’s son, and Jairus’ daughter, will yet again die a physical death. Once resurrected, we will, like Jesus, never die again. The resurrected will be given a new life, a life everlasting.

The physical resurrection of Jesus is the cornerstone of redemption, both for mankind and for the earth itself. Without Christ’s resurrection and what it means – an eternal future for fully restored human beings dwelling on a fully restored Earth – there is no Christianity.


1Co 15:17-22 ESV And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. (18) Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. (19) If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied. (20) But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. (21) For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. (22) For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.

Jesus spoke too many times of a physical resurrection for His only meaning to be spiritual. There is absolutely a spiritual resurrection for all believers. There will also absolutely be a physical resurrection for all believers. We will have bodies; whether the same bodies we now inhabit remains to be seen, but we will have bodies. Without bodies, we wouldn’t be resurrected. Our body is as much a part of us as our spirit. The essence of humanity is not just spirit. Humans are only human when their spirit is joined with their body. Our bodies are not just a house for our spirit.

Where will we live in our resurrection bodies?

2Pe 3:13 ESV But according to his promise we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.

Rev 21:1-3 ESV Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. (2) And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. (3) And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God.

We will live on the New Earth. The New Earth will still be Earth, just like our resurrection bodies will still be our bodies. But just like our new bodies, the New Earth will also be changed.

Are Christian’s immortal or just promised resurrection? And what is the difference?


Resurrection is not immortality. Immortality would mean that our spirits could exist without bodies and that when we die a physical death we don’t really die. This belief would mean that when our bodies die, our spirits are set free but still live.



The Christian faith rejects completely the notion of immortality. When we die, we die. Every part of us. Body, spirit, soul. We truly, entirely cease to be. But through the resurrection power of Jesus Christ, we will not be left for eternity in an earthly grave. In the end, not even the death of all of the component parts of human life can separate us from the love of God.

Rom 8:38-39 ESV For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, (39) nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

The Christian faith is confident that when we are resurrected all of our parts will be resurrected, not just our spirit and soul, but also our bodies. Our bodies may not be exactly the same, but our bodies they will be. In the Apostles’ Creed we do not confess to mere belief in resurrection. Instead, we boldly confess to believe in the “resurrection of the body”.

What does “the resurrection and the life” mean to us today?

It means everything. It matters more than anything else that Jesus is the resurrection and the life for everyone who is dead in sin and dead to God today. Jesus resuscitated Lazarus those many years ago because he loved him. Jesus is the “resurrection and the life” today just as he was then. And Jesus loves us with the same love that He had for Lazarus. And that is all that really matters.