"I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live. And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die." (John 11:25-26)
Those who believe in Jesus “will not die forever,” unlike those who will.
They told Jesus, "Lord, behold, he whom You love is sick.” (John 11:3) They spoke of Lazarus of Bethany, a man beloved by the Master. For this man the covenant was confirmed, the Scripture being "fulfilled which says, ‘Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.’ (Genesis 15:6) And he was called the friend of God.'" (James 2:23) “When Jesus heard that, He said, ‘This sickness is not unto death,’ not to final privation of life at this time.” (Adam Clarke)— “but for the glory of God, that the Son of God may be glorified through it. Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. So, when He heard that he was sick, He stayed two more days in the place where He was.” (John 11:4-5) He wanted them to learn that He is the Christ, the Son of God, who is to come into the world and that He has the keys of life and death. “Therefore His staying two days longer in Bethabara was not through lack of affection for this distressed family, but merely that He might have a more favorable opportunity of proving to them how much He loved them.” (Adam Clarke)
Then Jesus tells them.... “John 11:11 "Our friend Lazarus sleeps, but I go that I may wake him up.” 12 Then His disciples said, “Lord, if he sleeps he will get well.” 13 However, Jesus spoke of his death, but they thought that He was speaking about taking rest in sleep. 14 Then Jesus said to them plainly, “Lazarus is dead. 15 And I am glad for your sakes that I was not there, that you may believe. Nevertheless let us go to him.”
Speaking of death as sleep, Jesus used “the language of heaven. But the disciples did not yet understand this language.” (John Wesley) Often death is referred to as “sleep" in the ancient Writings. "According to the Bible, the dead, whether Christian or non-Christian, good or evil, saved or lost, are neither suffering in 'hell', nor labouring in 'purgatory', nor rejoicing in 'heaven'. Rather, they have entirely ceased to function. Without consciousness, they await the resurrection of the dead at the return of the Christ, that is, Jesus, in the glory of God. To use a common biblical metaphor, they 'sleep the sleep of death' (Ps. 13:3)... There is no hope of further existence for us, unless God 'remembers' and 'awakens' us (Job 14:13-15). The astonishing thing is that, despite all the odds, this is exactly what He will do, at the day of resurrection, when 'many who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake' (Daniel 12:2)..."
(Chapter 3-- The Death State from "Life, Death and Destiny" By Warren Prestidge)
Then Thomas, who is called the twin, said to his fellow disciples, “Let us also go, that we may die with Him.” In understanding this statement, we must remember that the Jews sought to kill Jesus. Let us “‘die with Him’; with Jesus. Let us go with Him, [even] if it cost us our lives” (Justin Edwards), that we may also rise at the sound of His voice on Resurrection Morning.
“‘So when Jesus came, He found that he had already been in the tomb four days.’ (John 11:17) The dead corpse had been in the grave for four days. According to Torah, man is dust brought to life by the Spirit of God. He returns to dust at death, whereas the Spirit returns to God. However, it is speculated that bad theology made it into their thinking. "There is some evidence that the later Jewish rabbis believed that the spirit of a person who had died lingered over the corpse for three days or until decomposition of the body had begun. They believed that the spirit then abandoned the body because any hope of resuscitation was gone. They apparently felt that there was still hope that the person might revive during the first three days after death. Other scholars question whether this is what the Jews believed as early as this event. [Note: Carson, The Gospel . . ., p411.] In either case the fact that Jesus raised Lazarus after he had been dead for four days would have left no question that Jesus had truly raised the dead. Customarily the Jews buried a corpse the same day the person died due to the warm climate and the relatively rapid rate of decay it caused (cf. Acts 5:5-6; Acts 5:10).[Note: Edersheim, 2:315.]" (Dr. Thomas B. Constable)
"The faith of the sisters must needs be much shaken, to see their brother dead, though Christ had sent them word he should not die." (John Trapp) Mary sat in the house (20), perhaps again taking the better part-- waiting and trusting fully in Him. But Martha ran to meet Him and cried: “Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died.” (21)— And the Master gives here a lesson in theology. "The root of a happy religion is clear, distinct, well-defined knowledge of Jesus Christ... without clear knowledge of Christ in all His offices we cannot expect to be established in the faith, and steady in the time of need." (J. C. Ryle)— "But even now I know that whatever You ask of God, God will give You." (22) Jesus is Emmanuel-- God with us. “This is our comfort, that our Advocate is all in all with His Father, and may have what He will of Him." (Trapp)
Jesus tells her— "Your brother will rise again." (John 11:23) "As the same divine hand that buried Moses, that locked up this treasure and kept the key of it, brought it forth afterwards glorious in the transfiguration. The body that was hidden in the valley of Moab appeared again in the hill of Tabor." (John Trapp) Martha should have accepted this as assurance that Jesus would raise Lazarus [now- for He had promised them that Lazarus' sickness was not unto death]... But she... limited what he said to what she supposed he meant. Martha then said to Him, 'I know that he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.' Although, in context, a limitation of the power of Jesus, this statement of Martha is one of tremendous hope and consolation. The intimacy of that family with the Lord gives great weight to her confidence of the resurrection at the last day. She associated the resurrection with the 'last day,' as conspicuously taught by Jesus; and in this instance of Martha's knowledge, it certainly exceeds that of exegetes who deny that John's Gospel has any teachings of the 'last' things." (Burton Coffman)
Jesus said to her: “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live." (John 11:25)
When preaching this verse at funerals, many preachers preach that the saint are, in fact, in Heaven proper at that very moment. But in fact, the sleep of death is allowed in these verses. "I am the resurrection..." "It so depends on My power and will, that it may be said that I am the resurrection itself. This is a most expressive way of saying that the whole doctrine of the resurrection came from Him, and the whole power to effect it was His...- 'and the life' - ... As the resurrection of all depends on Him, He intimated that it was not indispensable that it should be deferred to the last day. He had power to do it now as well as then. ‘He who believes in Me, though he may die…’ - Faith does not save from temporal death; but although the believer, as others, will die a temporal death," (Barnes) —'yet he shall live.' that is, via the resurrection.
Job speaks of this very event. And the "assertion is based, not on any supposed immortal part of human nature, but on faith in God’s ultimate justice: 'For I know that my Redeemer lives, and that at the last he will stand upon the earth;and after my skin has been thus destroyed,then in my flesh I shall see God…' (Job 19:25-26).Again, it is precisely because the Bible’s approach to death is so uncompromisingly realistic, that the faith in resurrection which ultimately emerges is so compelling." (Chapter 3-- The Death State from "Life, Death and Destiny" By Warren Prestidge)
" And whoever lives and believes in me will never die.” (11:26)
And whoever lives again by way of this resurrection, who had died trusting in Jesus for salvation, these will never die. "Did Jesus say that believers would never ever die, indicating that even when their bodies die, they will live on with him in glory? You might have heard that, but what if he meant something different, promising that we would be spared the fate of disappearing into death forever?... He’s talking about the life of immortality after the resurrection." (Glenn Peoples)
Morever, Never Die is literally: οὐ μὴ (will not) ἀποθάνῃ (die) εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα (unto the age, or just “forever”). Peoples makes the case that the word οὐ μὴ (ou mē) often translated “never” might be better translated “not” in some contexts. "The concept of a thing 'never' happening is not usually expressed by using the phrase 'to the age' (εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα). That is not how those words normally function (exceptions exist, but are, well, exceptional). The phrase εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα is used elsewhere in the New Testament and we can compare the meaning in those cases with this case. Adding εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα invites us to think that it’s not simply dying that believers in Christ will never do. 'Whoever lives and believes in me will not'…. what? They 'will not die forever.' 'Dying forever' is a potential outcome. As I have gone to some lengths to show in many places, dying forever is, according to the New Testament, what will happen to those who are finally lost." (“You will never die”: What did Jesus mean? by Glenn Peoples)
"Do you believe this?”(26b) - all of these sayings of Mine. "Every Divine communication challenges the heart to which it is made." (A.W. Pink) And Martha answers in faith,
“Yes, Lord, I believe that You are the Christ, the Son of God, who is to come into the world.”
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