Raising Lazarus For Glory (part 10)

If the judgment of which Jesus speaks is taken in the negative sense, which would be the falling of the wrath of the Creator God, then Jesus could be understood to be speaking of Himself, as Messiah, and therefore as the rightful and proper ruler of the world, being driven out to His death on a cross.  Wrathful judgment then, it could be suggested, comes on those that put to death the Creator God’s messiah.  Either way, whether positive judgment or negative judgment, the ruler of the world is being driven out and some type of judgment is going to come, because Jesus is connecting the judgment with His death and with the glorification of both Himself and the Father, as He says “And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to Myself” (12:32).  To this, the author adds an explanation that Jesus “said this to indicate clearly what kind of death He was going to die” (12:33).

This issue of “glory” is quite pronounced in the Gospel of John.  It would almost seem to be the crux of the author’s narrative.  It can be seen in the first chapter, where one finds that “the Word became flesh and took up residence among us.  We saw His glory---the glory of the One and only, full of grace and truth, Who came from the Father” (1:14).  In addition to this mention of glory, there is a steady stream of references to “light” throughout this Gospel, which can be safely taken as a sideways reference to “glory,” as the Creator God’s people, and therefore the one who came and stood as a representative for those people, were to be lights in the world for the purpose of their God’s glory. 

The next use of “glory” is to be found in the eighth chapter of the Gospel narrative, where Jesus says “If I glorify Myself, My glory is worthless.  The One Who glorified Me is My Father, about Whom you people say, ‘He is our God’.” (8:54)  These words are shown to have been uttered in response to a declaration by the people that they had Abraham as their father.  They gloried in this fact that demonstrated themselves to be the Creator God’s special people through physical descent.  Jesus mocks this as nothing more than self-glorification, demonstrating its kinship to idolatry, as the people glorify Abraham, and then themselves through Abraham, basically putting aside the covenant God that they claim as their own. 

What is to be noticed is that the issue of “glory” become quite a bit more pronounced once the reader reaches the story of Lazarus.  This story, of course, essentially begins with Jesus’ statement about the glory of the Creator God being shown through Lazarus sickness and death, and the raising that Jesus apparently already had in mind.  It has already been demonstrated that the Lazarus event becomes the catalyst to the rapid succession of events that brings about Jesus’ crucifixion and eventual Resurrection, but it also appears that the story of Lazarus, and his being raised, becomes the major turning point of the story, being that which serves to bring and advance the Creator God’s glory, which is intimately connected to Jesus’ crucifixion and Resurrection.  With what follows from what Jesus says about Himself and the death that He was going to die, and the multiple announcements about and references to glory to come, a rapid movement is made to the culmination of the narrative and to the crowning event of all of history, in which the glory of the Creator God will be fully manifest.