Commentaries:
Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown
I am glad for your sakes I was not there—This certainly implies that if He had been present, Lazarus would not have died; not because He could not have resisted the importunities of the sisters, but because, in presence of the personal Life, death could not have reached His friend [LUTHARDT]. "It is beautifully congruous to the divine decorum that in presence of the Prince of Life no one is ever said to have died" [BENGEL].
that ye may believe—This is added to explain His "gladness" at not having been present. His friend's death, as such, could not have been to Him "joyous"; the sequel shows it was "grievous"; but for them it was safe (Philippians 3:1).
Our friend Lazarus sleepeth; but I go that I may wake him out of sleep—Illustrious title! "Our friend Lazarus." To Abraham only is it accorded in the Old Testament, and not till after his death, (II Chronicles 20:7; Isaiah 41:8), to which our attention is called in the New Testament (James 2:23). When Jesus came in the flesh, His forerunner applied this name, in a certain sense, to himself (John 3:29); and into the same fellowship the Lord's chosen disciples are declared to have come (John 15:13-15). "The phrase here employed, "our friend Lazarus," means more than "he whom Thou lovest" in John 11:3, for it implies that Christ's affection was reciprocated by Lazarus" [LAMPE]. Our Lord had been told only that Lazarus was "sick." But the change which his two days' delay had produced is here tenderly alluded to. Doubtless, His spirit was all the while with His dying, and now dead "friend." The symbol of "sleep" for death is common to all languages, and familiar to us in the Old Testament. In the New Testament, however, a higher meaning is put into it, in relation to believers in Jesus (see on I Thessalonians 4:14), a sense hinted at, and clearly, in Psalms 17:15 [LUTHARDT]; and the "awaking out of sleep" acquires a corresponding sense far transcending bare resuscitation.
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