That crowning and culminating and climactic event of all of history, of course, would be the crucifixion and Resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth; and Lazarus’ raising is the seminal event that stirs the pot, roils the people, irritates the Jewish leaders, creates the tension, causes issues that had been seething under the service to boil over, and drives Jesus’ pre-Resurrection life and mission towards its grand conclusion. Based on Jesus’ ongoing response to that which He knew awaited Him, we can most assuredly say that raising Lazarus was for the purpose of glory. So how did Jesus feel about what was coming? How did He respond to the events as they took place?
At the “last supper” we read that “When Judas had gone out,” for the purpose of completing his promised handing-over of Jesus to the authorities, “Jesus said, ‘Now the Son of Man is glorified, and God is glorified in Him. If God is glorified in Him, God will also glorify Him in Himself, and He will glorify Him right away’.” (John 13:31-32) Here, He spoke of His death in terms of God’s glory. As Jesus goes on to speak to His disciples in the dramatic moments that follow, we hear Him say, “And I will do whatever you ask in My Name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son” (14:13). He spoke of His ongoing presence with and through His disciples---obviously speaking of the strengthening, performing work of “the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, Whom the Father will send in My Name” (14:26a)---in terms of God’s glory.
The record of Jesus’ “farewell discourse” to His disciples is quite lengthy, spanning three chapters here in the Gospel. Upon its conclusion, “He looked upward to heaven and said, ‘Father, the time has come. Glorify Your Son, so that Your Son may glorify You’.” (17:1b) He looked to His pending death, while faithfully looking forward to His deliverance from the coming grave, speaking of the Resurrection and its power that was going to be unleashed into the world in order to accomplish God’s purposes and plans for His fallen creation, and spoke of it in terms of God’s glory. In full expectation of the life to come through His Resurrection, where He will be shown forth as the Son of God in power (Romans 1:4) for all the world to see, Jesus continues speaking to the Father, saying, “just as You have given Him authority over all humanity, so that He may give eternal life to everyone You have given Him. Now this is eternal life---that they know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, Whom you sent” (17:2-3).
It is this knowing of God---and knowing of God in Christ---which will happen through the work of the Spirit that will be sent into the world, that is the manifestation of eternal life. This eternal life is not static, but is shared with the knower so that it may flow through the knower into the world, so that God’s faithfulness might be known and shown, through Christ. This eternal life that is the sharing of the power of the Resurrection with all who believe, is the power of God that operates in the world through the preaching of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, to redeem and deliver a cursed and exiled humanity, along with a creation that was cursed through humanity’s fall. To this, Jesus adds, “I glorified You on earth by completing the work You gave Me to do. And now, Father, glorify Me at Your side with the glory I had with You before the world was created” (17:4-5). Here, He spoke of His work in terms of God’s glory, and He spoke of His own glorification in terms of God’s glory. In the final use of “glory” in what has come to be called Jesus’ “high-priestly prayer”, as He , presumably, looks past the grave to the new world and new age of His established and eternal kingdom that will come into existence at His Resurrection, Jesus goes on to say, “Father, I want those You have given Me to be with me where I am, so that they can see My glory that You gave Me before the creation of the world” (17:24).
Finally, after His Resurrection, as Jesus appears in Galilee to His disciples, dining with them and taking the opportunity to restore one that was heartbroken because of his denial of his Lord, Jesus speaks to that restored one and says, “I tell you the solemn truth, when you were young, you tied your clothes around you and went wherever you wanted, but when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and others will tie you up and bring you where you do not want to go” (21:18). The author informs us that “Jesus said this to indicate clearly by what kind of death Peter was going to glorify God” (21:19a). This is the first and only time in this Gospel that the glory of God is attached to anybody but Jesus or the Father. Of course, the glory is indirectly associated with Jesus because Peter was only going to experience his martyrdom because of the message of the Gospel of Jesus that he was going to preach. He would only preach that message because of his union with Christ, having been cemented into that trusting allegiance, for life or death, through the infusion of faith from God, by the Spirit, made possible by the Resurrection. Yes, we can say that God is glorified by His martyrs---His witnesses---in life or in death. God is glorified when the Gospel is preached, and people hear a testifying witness that Jesus is King and Lord of all. Before one is ever able to preach that message, for God’s glory, it must be heard, and in a way that has the appearance of that which happened to Lazarus (though altogether different) there must be a raising from death to new life.
Though Jesus’ communication to Peter is in reference to the death that he himself will suffer at the hands of those who oppose the message of the Christ, through it, Jesus also communicates a truth concerning God’s ways. For His glory, because He is a faithful God that redeems His chosen ones to Himself for His purpose of carrying out His work through the Spirit that will animate their lives, God takes us from our path of doing whatever we want, He stretches out our hands to Him, binds us to Himself, and brings us, in some cases, to places that we may never have wanted to go. He does this, raising us up for His purposes, so as to give us a life that will glorify Him.
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