John 11:36

Joh_11:36

Behold how He loved him

Christs love to man

This is seen

I.

IN HIS ORIGINAL ENGAGEMENT IN HIS FAVOUR. By covenanting to live with us, die for us, and take our happiness into His hands.

II. IN HIS ASSUMPTION OF HUMAN NATURE.

1. He passed by the higher nature of angels.

2. He took our nature with all its poverty and trial.

III. IN THE TENOR OF HIS LIFE AND CONVERSATION.

1. His inspiration was that of mercy. When His disciples would have called down fire from heaven He told them that that was not His spirit.

2. This mercy was not a sentiment which dwelt in imagination on miseries it was not prepared to relieve, but was a vigorous active principle. He went about doing good.

IV. IN THE SOURCES OF HIS JOY AND GRIEF. Nothing reveals the character so much as the action of the passions.

1. We have joy when our health, friends, temporal circumstances are good. Christs joys turned not on Himself, but were connected with the happiness of men.

2. His griefs, too, were not connected with His own poverty and trouble, but with our misery. Ye will not come unto Me.

V. IN THE CHARACTER OF HIS MINISTRY.

1. Its subject--salvation.

2. Its invitations, so tender and winning--Come unto Me.

3. Its very threatenings are only hedges thrown up against the way to danger.

VI. IN HIS DEATH.

1. He died for us, which is a proof of love in any case.

2. He died when He had no need to die.

3. He died as no other could die.

VII. IN HIS LEAVING THE WORLD.

1. This was expedient for us, not for Him.

2. He establishes the ministry of reconciliation as He leaves.

3. He now governs all things for our good. (A. Reed, D. D.)

Demonstration of Christs love

If the Jews exclaimed, Behold how He loved Lazarus! merely because they saw Him weeping at the tomb, with how much reason may we exclaim, Behold how He loved us when we see Him at Bethlehem, in Gethsemane, and on Calvary! Christs love is demonstrated

I. BY THE SACRIFICES IT MAKES. The greater the inconvenience to which our friends submit for us, the greater do we take their love to be. To what has not love impelled affectionate parents and devoted servants. But Jesus, Though He was rich, etc., He laid aside His glory and lived a life of labour, poverty, and contempt for us. Persons who had seen heaven only would be able to estimate this sacrifice

II. BY THE SUFFERINGS IT ENDURED. Self-love makes us unwilling to suffer. Here again we labour under a difficulty arising from ignorance. We can know little even of His physical sufferings, which were the smallest of His agonies. His mental pain wrung from Him great drops of blood, the occasion of which was the curse of the law He bore for us. Of this He said, If it be possible; this extorted the My God, etc. Greater love hath no man than this. Should we die for a friend we should but anticipate what would come sooner or later; but Christ was immortal: and although as averse to suffering as we consented to die in a most painful manner.

III. BY THE GIFTS IT BESTOWS. Tried by this Christs love is great beyond all comparison. He gives Himself, and all that He possesses--pardon, illumination, grace, comfort, heaven. Nor does He give what costs Him nothing. If we measure His gifts by what He gave for them they are inestimable.

IV. BY THE PROVOCATIONS IT OVERLOOKS. To love the kind and grateful is easy; but to persevere in doing good to the ungrateful and perverse, to forgive again and again is the triumph of love. The love of Christ transcends a fathers or mothers love for their ungrateful offspring. He came to a race which for four thousand years had been disobeying Him, and when He came He was persecuted, and so He has been ever since. Even His professed disciples treat Him with distrust, etc.; but He endures still the contradiction of sinners. Conclusion: Is the love of Christ so immeasurably great?

1. Then surely we ought to return it with a love which bears some proportion to His.

2. Those who have not loved Christ begin to love Him now. (E. Payson, D. D.)

Christ as a Friend

I. KNOWS ALL OUR CIRCUMSTANCES AND FEELINGS. Want of knowledge is a great impediment to friendship, and so is want of suitable expression. But Christ knows all, and needs no laboured utterances of ours.

II. HAS MANIFESTED SUPREME AFFECTION. No mother, sister, or lover can compare with Him. His love is neither impulsive, influenced by fancy, variable, selfish, or fastidious.

III. HAS HAD GREAT EXPERIENCE. He has always been in the world making friends. Abraham rejoiced to see His day; Jacob enjoyed His friendship; and He will continue to form new friendships as long as the world stands. Hence He knows how to treat different types of friends.

IV. HAS PASSED THROUGH GREAT AFFLICTIONS. In such a world as this an angel would be an unsuitable friend; there would be no minor key in his feelings, for what has he ever known of sorrow. We want a friend stricken of God and afflicted. Then we can tell each rising grief, knowing that He has felt it. In all points tempted as we are, and as Captain of our salvation made perfect through suffering, He has been wherever it must be our lot to go.

V. IS CONSTANT. Having loved His own, etc., He never gave up one friend for another. Those whom He loves once He loves forever. Amid the changes of life, and when we cease to move the affections once felt for us, the Saviour will love us as He did when we were young.

VI. IS KIND.

1. He never reproaches or upbraids. Who has not been subdued by the delicate methods of a true friend? His gentleness hath made me great.

2. We should have broken the heart of any other friend; but He is long suffering.

VII. IS ALWAYS WITH US. Some of our greatest trials are by separations. We land among strangers, but Christ is at our side.

VIII. CAN DO FOR US WHAT NO OTHER FRIEND CAN.

1. When the wisdom of friends fail He is the Wonderful,

Counsellor.

2. When our friends are dead He abides.

3. When friends are impotent, as at the hour of death and in the day of judgment, He is the hope of glory.

IX. IS EVER ACCESSIBLE. If we called on our best earthly friend as often as we call on Christ, he could not endure it. When we have stated our case to our friend we have to leave it; Christ permits us to state it over and over again. Conclusion:

1. Whoever may love us we cannot be truly happy with out the friendship of Christ.

2. We should be such friends to others as Christ is to us.

3. The greatest sin, which is not unpardonable, is ingratitude to Christ. (N. Adams.)

The tender love of Christ

He never flattered the friends who enjoyed His closest intimacy; but He made them feel His penetrating affection; See how He loved him was a testimony to the deep reality of a calm, unostentatious sorrow. (Knox Little.)

The love of Christ

Behold how He loved him. What? for shedding some few tears for him? Oh, how then did He love us for whom He shed the dearest and warmest blood in all His heart! (J. Trapp.)

The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Joh 11:36-37. Then said the Jews, Behold how he loved him — They seem to wonder he should have so strong an affection for one to whom he was not related, and with whom he had not had a long acquaintance, having spent most of his time in Galilee, at a great distance from Bethany. It becomes us, according to this example of Christ, to show our love to our friends, both living and dying. We must sorrow for our brethren that sleep in Jesus, as those that are full of love, though not void of hope; for though our tears profit not the dead, they embalm their memory. Christ’s tears, at the grave of Lazarus, were indications of his particular love to him; but he has given proofs, no less evident, of his love to all the saints, in that he died for them. Did these Jews, when they saw him shedding tears over the dead body of Lazarus, say, See how he loved him? How much more reason have we, for whom he laid down his life, to say, See how he loved us! And some said, Could not this man, &c. — “Some of them, however, interpreted this circumstance to his disadvantage; for, according to their mean way of judging, they fancied that he had suffered him to fall under the stroke of death for no other reason but want of power to rescue him. And, thinking the miracle, said to have been wrought on the blind man during the feast of tabernacles, at least as difficult as the curing of an acute distemper, they called the former in question, because the latter had been neglected. If, said they, he has really opened the eyes of the blind, might he not have preserved this man from death?” Thus, when he was dying, because he did not save himself and come down from the cross, they concluded he could not; not considering that divine power is always directed in its operations by divine wisdom, not merely according to his will, but according to the counsel of his will, wherein it becomes us to acquiesce. If Christ’s friends, whom he loves, die; if his church, which he loves, be persecuted and afflicted, we must not impute these things to any defect, either in his power or love, but conclude that he permits them to happen, because he sees it to be for the best that they should. Jesus soon showed these whisperers, by raising Lazarus from the dead, that he could have prevented his death, but therefore did not, because he would glorify himself the more by doing a greater work than curing his disorder. So hard, however, were the hearts of many of these Jews, that, not withstanding the great miracle which they were now about to see Jesus perform, they would persist in their infidelity still. And Jesus, who knew the discourses which they now held among themselves in private concerning him, being likewise fully acquainted with their obstinacy, and foreseeing the miseries in which their unbelief would involve them, was still more afflicted, and groaned again in himself as he went to the grave.

Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Joh_11:36-37. The Ἰουδαῖοι express themselves variously: those who were better disposed say, How must He have loved Lazarus whilst alive (imper.), if He thus weeps for him now that he is dead; those who were maliciously and wickedly disposed treat His tears as a welcome proof, not of His want of love (Luthardt), but of His inability, apart from which He must surely have been able to heal Lazarus of his sickness, even as He had healed the blind man of his blindness! In this way they at the same time threw doubt on the reality of the healing of the blind man (for they regard it as the majus in their conclusion ad minus), and suppose, moreover, that Jesus did not come sooner to Bethany because He was unable to save Lazarus; for the conclusion drawn by them implies that He had received information concerning the sickness. The malicious signification of the question in Joh_11:37 has been correctly recognised by Chrysostom, Nonnus (ἀντιάχησαν), Theophylact, Euth. Zigabenus, Erasmus, Calvin, Bengel, and most of the older commentators, as also by Luthardt, Lange, and Godet; some recent writers, however, as Lücke, De Wette, Tholuck, Maier, Brückner, Ewald, Gumlich, Hengstenberg, groundlessly reject this view, notwithstanding that the following words, πάλιν ἐμβριμ., rightly interpreted, find their explanation in these expressions of His opponents.

The circumstance of their appealing to the healing of the blind man, instead of to the awakenings from the dead, recorded by the Synoptics, is no argument against the reality of the latter miracles (Strauss); not even is this appeal less appropriate (De Wette), but it was, on the contrary, naturally suggested by their own most recent experience; it was also thoroughly appropriate, inasmuch as they were thinking, not of a raising from the dead, but simply of a healing of Lazarus, which was to have been effected by Jesus.

ἵνα] the thought is: be active, in order that. Comp. on Col_4:16.

καὶ οὗτος] like the blind man whom He healed. For the healing (the opposite of μὴ ἀποθανῇ) is the point of comparison.

Meyer — Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament — English translation by Peter Christie, edited by Frederick Crombie (T&T Clark, 1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Joh 11:36 . These tears evoked a very natural exclamation, Ἴδε πῶς ἐφίλει αὐτόν , “see how He loved him”.

The Expositor's Greek Testament, edited by W. Robertson Nicoll (1897–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Then said the Jews, Behold how he loved him!--We thank you, O ye visitors from Jerusalem, for this spontaneous testimony to the human tenderness of the Son of God.

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Verse 36. Behold how he loved him!] And when we see him pouring out his blood and life upon the cross for mankind, we may with exultation and joy cry out, Behold how he hath loved US!

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

36. Behold, how he loved him! The Evangelist John here describes to us two different opinions which were formed about Christ. As to the former, who said, Behold, how he loved him! though they think less highly of Christ than they ought to have done, since they ascribe to him nothing but what may belong to a man, yet they speak of him with greater candor and modesty than the latter, who maliciously slander him for not having hindered Lazarus from dying. For, though they applaud the power of Christ, of which the former said nothing, yet they do so, not without bringing against him some reproach. It is evident enough from their words, that the miracles which Christ had performed were not unknown to them; but so much the more base is their ingratitude, that they do not scruple to complain, because now, in a single instance, he abstained from working. Men have always been ungrateful to God in the same manner, and continue to be so. If he does not grant all our wishes, we immediately launch into complaints: “Since he has been accustomed to aid us hitherto, why does he now forsake and disappoint us?” There is here a twofold disease. First, though we rashly desire what is not expedient for us, yet we wish to subject God to the perverse desires of the flesh. Secondly, we are rude in our demands, and the ardor of impatience hurries us before the time.

John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.

(36) Then said the Jews—i.e., part of them. (See the next verse.) The term “Jews” is repeated with a frequency (Joh_11:31; Joh_11:33) which makes prominent their hostile position.

Behold how he loved him!—Or, more exactly, how He used to love him. The word used is the strong word for love which the sisters had themselves used in Joh_11:3. “How He must have loved him,” they think, “during his life, if He thus sheds tears for him after his death!”

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

36. Then said … loved him] Here, as in Joh_11:12; Joh_11:14; Joh_11:16-17; Joh_11:20-21; Joh_11:31-32; Joh_11:41; Joh_11:45; Joh_11:47; Joh_11:53; Joh_11:56, ‘then’ should rather be therefore, as rightly given in Joh_11:3; Joh_11:33; Joh_11:38; Joh_11:54 : it is S. John’s favourite particle in all these verses. Both the verbs here are imperfects; ‘kept saying,’ ‘used to love.’ What follows shews that this remark was not made by all the Jews. The word for ‘love’ is the more passionate word used in Joh_11:3 by the sisters, not the higher word used in Joh_11:5 by the Evangelist.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

36 Then said the Jews, Behold how he loved him!

Ver. 36. Behold how he loved him] What! for shedding some few tears for him? Oh, how then did he love us for whom he shed the dearest and warmest blood in all his heart! Ama amorem illius, &c., saith Bernard.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Love showeth itself, as in a complacence in the object beloved, while we enjoy it; so in a grief for it when we are deprived of it: the Jews therefore rightly concluded Christ’s kindness to Lazarus, from his human affection expressed at his death.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

36. Then said the Jews—In the wake of Mary (Joh_11:31) these Jews followed, as they supposed, to the tomb, when, lo! the mysterious One stood before them, the maiden kneeling at his feet! From his refuge beyond the Jordan this wonder-worker, who had so lately startled Jerusalem by his words and deeds, had come. His face was not as some had seen it, looking upon the stormy mob of the capital, placid and majestic, but instinct with indignant grief, the grief soon overpowering the ire and pouring forth in tears.

Behold how he loved him—was their word of wonder that this wonderful One could so love his fellow; thus evincing the impression of the divinity of Jesus, now made upon the minds of the people.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Vers. 36, 37. The Jews therefore said, Behold how he loved him! But some of them said, Could not this Man, who opened the eyes of the blind, have caused that this man also should not die? The effect upon the Ioudaioi differs here, as always; but if (polloi , ver. 45) many were favorably impressed, we may believe here that the polloi said one to another with genuine emotion, "Behold how he loved him!" (efilei , not hgapa ; amabat, not diligebat). Tears are often the expression of love as well as grief. Hengstenberg sees in the cry of the better class of these Jews, "How has he then let him die?" probably he could not have helped him if he would. In the language of the other Jews there was the suggestion of inability, and the ironical hint that the cure of the blind man, which had created so great a commotion, was only a delusion. Perhaps, too, a covert expectation of some further display of wonder-working power. Strauss regards it as unhistorical that the previous restorations from the dead should not be cited. But surely, when John wrote this Gospel, the story of the widow"s son and of Jairus"s daughter was known throughout the world. And if, in the middle of the second century, this Gospel had been written by a speculative theologian, who deliberately set himself to concoct such a narrative as this, with the view of completing the picture of the Vanquisher of Hades, he would most certainly have cited the Galilaean miracles. John, however, is merely recording his own experiences. These Jews at that time may never have heard of either Nain or the daughter of Jairus, and spoke merely of that which was within their own recollection and experience. As they stand here, these words are striking testimony to their historical validity. The Gospel which most unequivocally establishes the claim of our Lord to a Divine Personality or subsistence, is more explicit than any of them in asserting his pure humanity, and giving proofs of it.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

36, 37. Behold how he loved him! Some of the Jews were touched by the evidence of tender affection. Others, remembering the healing of the blind man right there at Jerusalem, asked if he could not have saved Lazarus from death.

B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.

loved

This refers to brotherly love or human love for a friend or family member.

Could not this man, who opened the eyes of a blind man, also have made this man not die?

This remark appears in the form of a question to express the Jews' surprise that Jesus did not heal Lazarus. AT: "He could heal a man who was blind, so he should have been able to heal this man so he would not have died!" or "Since he did not keep this man from dying, maybe he did not really heal the man who was born blind, as they say he did!" (See: Rhetorical Question)

opened the eyes

This is an idiom. AT: "healed the eyes" (See: Idiom)

translationWords

love

Lazarus

unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.

36. ἔλεγον … ἐφίλει. Imperfects of continued action. As naturally as the sisters (Joh 11:3) they use φιλεῖν rather than ἀγαπᾶν (Joh 11:5). For Ἴδε see on Joh 1:29.

Cambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge University Press, 1896; 21 vols, various authors incl. Carr, Maclear, Plummer, Farrar, Lumby, Moule, M. R. James, Simcox) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

36. The visitors from Jerusalem were impressed by the sight of Jesus weeping, and said to each other, “See, how He loved him,” how great a friend of Lazarus He was! Cf. vv. 3, 5, for ἐφίλει.

International Critical Commentary — older volumes (1896–1929), various authors — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Loved [εφιλει] . Not the word in ver. 5. See on 5 20, and compare Joh 20:2.

Marvin R. Vincent, Word Studies in the New Testament (1887–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.