Jesus The Resurrection and the Life

I am the resurrection and the life.  He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. John 11:25

This name is used only in John 11:25.   More than any other of the "I am" sayings, it resembles the used of the term "the Expiation" in 1 John 2:2, in that an activity or function is used as a designation.  Life is that which came into being in the Logos and was the light of men (1:3f), shining unconquered in the darkness (1:5).  The promise of Christ is that through Him, as "the Light of the World", men will have "the light of life" (8:12).  As the Father has life in Himself, so has He granted the Son also to have life in Himself. (5:26).  Since He is the Bread of Life, the believer has eternal life (6:47f), and the bread which He will give is "for the life of the world" (6:51).  He comes that men "may have life, and may have it abundantly" (10:10).  He is "the Door", and if any man enters by Him, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture (10:9).  Still more succinctly is this teaching summarized in 1 John 5:11, in the statement: "God gave us eternal life, and this life is in his Son".

With such teaching the power of Christ to raise the dead is naturally associated.  Four times in John 6 Jesus says of the believer, "I will raise him up at the last day" (vv 39, 40, 44, 54).  These phrases are often said to be interpolations.  This explanation is not necessary, unless we explain v 28f. in the same way, and regard a belief in resurrection "at the last day" as incompatible with that present and immediate emphasis which Jesus gives in this Gospel to the idea of rising from the dead.  In v 25-9 the two conceptions lie side by side.  In 25 Jesus declares that the hour is coming, and "now is", when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and that those who hear "will live", and in 28 He explicitly refers to "all who are in the tombs", who will hear His voice and "come forth", some to "the resurrection of life" and others "to the resurrection of judgment".  ...While v 25 may refer to the rising of the "spiritually dead", his extended treatment of the Raising of Lazarus (11:1-53) is enough to show that his theology includes the belief in bodily resurrection.  The really distinctive element in his teaching is the belief that, whether now or at the last day, resurrection is implicit in His person; and this belief has become the life center of the Christian Hope.  We no longer believe in life after death because of the nature and constitution of the soul or for any reason at all save belief in the Living God, who has revealed Himself in His Son raised from the dead, with whom, through faith, we may be abiding union.

These are the convictions which are embodied in the name, "the Resurrection and the Life".  This is essentially what Christ is. ...John has given permanent expression to the belief that Jesus comes to the world from the Beyond, even from God Himself.  ...Indelibly the name bears John's stamp, revealing his experience and the belief of the Church of his day, and its truth is countersigned by Christian experience throughout the centuries.

-excerpt was adapted from The Names of Jesus by Vincent Taylor pg 140-2

Jesus The Resurrection and the Life - Pt 2

I am the resurrection and the life.  He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. John 11:25

We find, in the occurrences of John 11, that it was during the bodily absence of the Lord from Lazarus that death had its power; so it is with us now. This family scene is a type of wonderful things to the church: in the absence of her Lord she feels the power of Satan and death - bodily death seizes on her members; but it shall not always be thus, for Christ shall visit His afflicted family, and when that occurs His very presence will be the power of life. Here is the great secret: Christ's presence gives spiritual life; and His bodily presence not only raises the dead bodies, but by that presence the further power of death is arrested and interrupted and put aside for ever, as regards His saints; and according as His presence is felt, so is the power of Satan and the power of death set aside. In His absence is grief, but when He comes, He shall put away both grief and its cause. ...

Christ communicates life and liberty to His people; therefore He says, "I am the life." Though there may be still occasion of death in the world, yet when Christ comes and exhibits Himself, His very presence, which before spiritually quickened the soul, will now be powerful to quicken the mortal body, and clothe it with a glorious immortality: "He that believeth on me, though he were dead, yet shall be live."  And He will resuscitate the bodies of those that are dead, and arrest the further progress of death: "He that liveth and believeth in me shall never die." The consequence of Christ's being present in spirit is now life and liberty: "Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty"; so, when present in person, all bondage, grief, or sorrow is vanished. He shows us now in spirit, what He will shortly do in person, when the whole power of Satan is set aside.

The moment Christ says, I am here, the power of death is gone; for where Jesus has quickened a soul by communicating His life, there His presence has removed us from all the results of Satan's power in the soul; the power of the prince of the air has been superseded by the power of the Prince of life: the believer shall be under no power of death as to its results, being translated into another position by the life-giving power of Christ. He that is quickened is quickened unto spiritual and everlasting life - now in spirit, then in person; it is an inseparable connection.

Jesus The Resurrection and the Life - Pt 3

I am the resurrection and the life.  He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. John 11:25

The power of bodily death will not be manifested in all: for we are told 1 Thessalonians that some shall be alive when the Lord comes: "For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up," etc. Also, in 1 Corinthians 15 it is positively said, "We shall not all sleep," for that some shall be alive at His coming; consequently they never can die, as He says Himself: "He that liveth and believeth in me shall never die." The presence of Christ naturally induces the absence of death: he that is dead when Christ comes shall be raised; and he that is alive shall be changed, thus unqualifiedly by His presence setting the power of death aside. The certainty of this resurrection is consequent upon the vital union of the believer with the Lord Jesus Christ, which, therefore, none can experience but such as are united to Him by a living faith. It is quite a distinct thing from the resurrection of those who shall be called out by the word of His power; His very presence vivifies the believer in virtue of his being made a partaker of the divine nature.

It is with this presence then that the believer has to do; it is for this he is looking. The child of God earnestly longs to enter into the perception of this power, which Christ has spent the travail of His soul to accomplish for him, in order that He may undo the very existence of Satan's power both in body and soul. He has triumphed over the power of Satan in the soul of every sinner who believes in Him - He shall triumph in their bodies also. "I am the resurrection," He says, as well as "the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live; and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die: believest thou this?" It is not simply saying, Men die, and then I raise them again; but the very power that wrought over them to death yields to His presence both spiritually and personally. Christ, as the first-fruits, rose to show the certainty of His people's resurrection; then they which are Christ's at His coming shall rise, when shall be fulfilled the saying that is written, "Death is swallowed up in victory." Here is what the enlightened soul is led to look for, the exercise of Christ's power over the utmost power of Satan. If the Spirit testifies within us of the energy of the life of Christ, in the conscious power of His quickening the soul, we have by that the certain evidence that our bodies must also be quickened.

These are the convictions which are embodied in the name, "the Resurrection and the Life".  This is essentially what Christ is. ...John has given permanent expression to the belief that Jesus comes to the world from the Beyond, even from God Himself.

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