Joh 11:25, 14:6, 19 | JFB | STEP | 25. Jesus said, I am the resurrection and the life —" The whole power to restore, impart, and maintain life, resides in Me." (See on ; ). What higher claim to supreme divinity than this grand saying can be conceived? he that believeth in me, though . . . dead . . . shall he live —that is, The believer's death shall be swallowed up in life, and his life shall never sink into death. As death comes by sin, it is His to dissolve it; and as life flows through His righteousness, it is His to communicate and eternally maintain it ( ). The temporary separation of soul and body is here regarded as not even interrupting, much less impairing, the new and everlasting life imparted by Jesus to His believing people. Believest thou this?

John 11:25

25. Jesus said, I am the resurrection and the life—"The whole power to restore, impart, and maintain life, resides in Me." (See on Joh 1:4; Joh 5:21). What higher claim to supreme divinity than this grand saying can be conceived?

he that believeth in me, though . . . dead . . . shall he live—that is, The believer's death shall be swallowed up in life, and his life shall never sink into death. As death comes by sin, it is His to dissolve it; and as life flows through His righteousness, it is His to communicate and eternally maintain it (Ro 5:21). The temporary separation of soul and body is here regarded as not even interrupting, much less impairing, the new and everlasting life imparted by Jesus to His believing people.

Believest thou this?—Canst thou take this in?

John 14:6

4-7. whither I go ye know . . . Thomas saith, Lord, we know not whither thou guest . . . Jesus saith, I am the way, &c.—By saying this, He meant rather to draw out their inquiries and reply to them. Christ is "THE WAY" to the Father—"no man cometh unto the Father but by Me"; He is "THE TRUTH" of all we find in the Father when we get to Him, "For in Him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily" (Col 2:9), and He is all "THE LIFE" that shall ever flow to us and bless us from the Godhead thus approached and thus manifested in Him—"this is the true God and eternal life" (1Jo 5:20).

John 14:19

19. world seeth—beholdeth.

me no more, but ye see—behold.

me—His bodily presence, being all the sight of Him which "the world" ever had, or was capable of, it "beheld Him no more" after His departure to the Father; but by the coming of the Spirit, the presence of Christ was not only continued to His spiritually enlightened disciples, but rendered far more efficacious and blissful than His bodily presence had been before the Spirit's coming.

because I live—not "shall live," only when raised from the dead; for it is His unextinguishable, divine life of which He speaks, in view of which His death and resurrection were but as shadows passing over the sun's glorious disk. (Compare Lu 24:5; Re 1:18, "the Living One"). And this grand saying Jesus uttered with death immediately in view. What a brightness does this throw over the next clause, "ye shall live also!" "Knowest thou not," said LUTHER to the King of Terrors, "that thou didst devour the Lord Christ, but wert obliged to give Him back, and wert devoured of Him? So thou must leave me undevoured because I abide in Him, and live and suffer for His name's sake. Men may hunt me out of the world—that I care not for—but I shall not on that account abide in death. I shall live with my Lord Christ, since I know and believe that He liveth!" (quoted in STIER).