John 11:39

"Lord, already there is a stench because he has been dead four days." These words were spoken by the woman who doubted, but they also referred to the greatness of the miracle to be performed. Indeed, the more they knew that his body was putrefying …

Are you—as someone who has bestowed the kind of power on your apostles that can remove mountains—are you not able to roll away a small stone from the entrance of the cave? But he chose not to roll the stone away because the spectators did not believe. Otherwise, they might have been able to say that what he did relied on trickery and deceiving the eyes. They would say there had been an apparently dead man laid in the grave, and that [Jesus] wanted to make it look like he called and the other heard. And so now he leads them to the grave, so that after they have rolled away the stone, the foul smell might reach them and furnish them with testimony that the man was actually dead. And then, once they believe Lazarus has died, they will no longer doubt his resurrection. The Lord had already planned for this when he came. Notice what immediately follows. Martha approaches the stone and says, "Lord, by this time there will be an odor, for he has been dead for four days." But the ever-living one, who is fully conscious of his power, says, "I chose to learn this from you, [Martha]. In fact, repeat what you said about him, 'By this time he stinks.' Repeat it, proclaiming that his resurrection is real." His death was established several times in order that the fact of his resurrection might be established.… He commanded the Jews to roll away the stone with their own hands, reserving for himself the greatest sign so that they might be witnesses of the sign done by him.

In the case of Lazarus, which we may take as the most outstanding instance of a resurrection, the flesh lay prostrate in weakness, almost putrid in the dishonor of its decay. The flesh smelled of corruption, and yet it was as flesh that Lazarus rose again—with his soul, no doubt. But that soul was incorrupt. Nobody had wrapped it in its linen swathes. Nobody had deposited it in a grave. Nobody had yet perceived its "smell," nobody for four days had seen it "sown." Well, now, this entire condition, this whole end of Lazarus, is indeed what the flesh of all humanity is still experiencing, but no one's soul is experiencing it. That substance, therefore, to which the apostle's whole description clearly refers, of which he clearly speaks, must be both the natural (or animate) body when it is sown and the spiritual body when it is raised again.

It is usual to refuse to believe in the possibility of great deeds, and to be somewhat reluctant to admire is a feeling which naturally is consequent upon things beyond our experience. It seems to me that even the good Martha suffered this; for the excessive greatness of the event took from her the sure confidence of faith, and the strangeness of the hope bewilders her proper reason. And it is nothing astonishing if she who had confessed her faith is again overtaken by littleness of faith through the excessive greatness of the marvellous deed. And either solely out of honour to Christ she said: By this time he stinketh; that He might not be disgusted by the bad smell of the corpse: or she says this as if from shame. For the relatives of the dead hasten, before the body becomes ill-smelling, to bury it down in the earth, out of consideration for the living, and deeming it a dishonour to the dead that it should become an object of loathing to any.

"He saith, Take ye away the stone." Why did not He when at a distance summon Lazarus, and place him before their eyes? Or rather, why did He not cause him to arise while the stone yet lay on the grave? For He who was able by His voice to move a corpse, and to show it again endowed with life, would much more by that same voice have been able to move a stone; He who empowered by His voice one bound and entangled in the grave-clothes to walk, would much more have been able to move a stone; why then did He not so? In order to make them witnesses of the miracle; that they might not say as they did in the case of the blind man, "It is he," "It is not he." For their hands and their coming to the tomb testified that it was indeed he.

If they had not come, they might have deemed that they saw a vision, or one man in place of another. But now the coming to the place, the raising the stone, the charge given them to loose the dead man bound in grave-clothes from his bands; the fact that the friends who bore him from the tomb, knew from the grave-clothes that it was he; that his sisters were not left behind; that one of them said, "He now stinketh, for he hath been dead four days"; all these things, I say, were sufficient to silence the ill-disposed, as they were made witnesses of the miracle. On this account He biddeth them take away the stone from the tomb, to show that He raiseth the man. On this account also He asketh, "Where have ye laid him?" that they who said, "Come and see," and who conducted Him, might not be able to say that He had raised another person; that their voice and their hands might bear witness, (their voice by saying, "Come and see," their hands by lifting the stone, and loosing the grave-clothes,) as well as their eyes and ears, (the one by hearing His voice, the other by seeing Lazarus come forth,) and their smell also by perceiving the ill-odor, for Martha said, "He now stinketh, for he hath been dead four days."

(Hom. lxiii. 2) But why did He not raise him without taking away the stone? Could not He who moved a dead body by His voice, much more have moved a stone? He purposely did not do so, in order that the miracle might take place in the sight of all; to give no room for saying, as they had said in the case of the blind man, This is not he. Now they might go into the grave, and feel and see that this was the man. (Hom. lxiii. 2) Thus every thing tends to stop the months of the unbelieving. Their hands take away the stone, their ears hear Christ's voice, their eyes see Lazarus come forth, they perceive the smell of the dead body.

"Take away the stone," the Lord says in order to make them witnesses of the miracle, so that they could not, as before concerning the man born blind, say: "It is he; it is not he" (John 9:9). For being present at the very spot …

Jesus said: Take away the stone. And because Martha was concerned about the Lord with respect to sensible and corporeal things: therefore: Martha, the sister of him who had died, said to him: Lord, he already stinks: therefore it should not be opened: for he …

A cave is a hollow in a rock. It is called a monument, because it reminds us of the dead. Jesus said, Take ye away the stone. (non occ. [Nic.]) Or, these are not words of despair, but of wonder.

1544 Then when he says, Jesus said, Take away the stone, he gives Christ's order to remove the stone. One might ask: Since it is a greater thing to raise the dead than to remove a stone, why did not Christ also use his power …

Martha said this from weakness of faith, thinking it impossible that Christ could raise her brother, so long after death.

Jesus said, take ye away the stone,....

Four days - This proves that there could be no deception, for it could not have been a case of suspended animation. All these circumstances are mentioned to show that there was no imposture. Impostors do not mention minute circumstances like these. They deal in generals only. Every part of this narrative bears the marks of truth.

These verses record one of the greatest miracles the Lord Jesus Christ ever worked, and supply an unanswerable proof of His divinity. He whose voice could bring back from the grave one that had been four days dead, must indeed have been very God! The miracle itself is described in such simple language that no human comment can throw light upon it. But the sayings of our Lord on this occasion are peculiarly interesting, and demand special notice. We should mark, first, our Lord's words about the STONE which lay upon the grave of Lazarus.

THERE lay Lazarus in the grave, dead. His restoration to life was utterly hopeless upon any ordinary principles. Certainly Lazarus could not raise himself! His affectionate sisters could not, with all their weeping, give him a resurrection nor could the disciples call back the departed spirit and reanimate the decaying corpse. If was a hopeless case, for who could revive a dead man who had lain in the grave so long that he had begun to stink? This is a parallel case with that of every unconverted sinner in the world.

Jesus said, Take ye away the stone--spoken to the attendants of Martha and Mary; for it was a work of no little labor [GROTIUS]. According to the Talmudists, it was forbidden to open a grave after the stone was placed upon it.

These verses record one of the greatest miracles the Lord Jesus Christ ever worked, and supply an unanswerable proof of His divinity. He whose voice could bring back from the grave one that had been four days dead, must indeed have been very God! The miracle itself is described in such simple language that no human comment can throw light upon it. But the sayings of our Lord on this occasion are peculiarly interesting, and demand special notice. We should mark, first, our Lord's words about the STONE which lay upon the grave of Lazarus. We read that He said to those around Him, when he came to the place of burial, "Take you away the stone." Now why did our Lord say this? It was doubtless as easy for Him to command the stone to roll away untouched as to call a dead body from the tomb. But such was not His mode of proceeding. Here, as in other cases, He chose to give man something to do. Here, as elsewhere, He taught the great lesson that His almighty power was not meant to destroy man's responsibility. Even when He was ready and willing to raise the dead, He would not have man stand by altogether idle. Let us treasure up this in our memories. It involves a point of great importance. In doing spiritual good to others—in training up our children for heaven—in following after holiness in our own daily walk—in all these things it is undoubtedly true that we are weak and helpless. "Without Christ we can do nothing." But still we must remember that Christ expects us to do what we can. "Take you away the stone" is the daily command which He gives us. Let us beware that we do not stand still in idleness, under the pretense of humility. Let us daily try to do what we can, and in the trying Christ will meet us and grant His blessing. We should mark, secondly, the words which our Lord addressed to MARTHA, when she objected to the stone being removed from the grave.

THERE lay Lazarus in the grave, dead. His restoration to life was utterly hopeless upon any ordinary principles. Certainly Lazarus could not raise himself! His affectionate sisters could not, with all their weeping, give him a resurrection nor could the disciples call back the departed spirit and reanimate the decaying corpse. If was a hopeless case, for who could revive a dead man who had lain in the grave so long that he had begun to stink? This is a parallel case with that of every unconverted sinner in the world. He is dead in trespasses and sins—not a little sick or somewhat wounded, or in a swooning fit—but spiritual death reigns over him. The sinner never gives life to himself. The thing is inconceivable. There are persons who imagine that the natural will of man sometimes inclines towards good, but, alas, this flattering supposition is far from the fact. Jesus said, "You will not come unto Me, that you might have life." Neither will they come, now, any more than they did then! Until we see dead men raising themselves, we do not expect to meet with sinners who have spontaneously and without Divine assistance turned themselves towards righteousness. Neither can relatives or friends regenerate the soul in which they take an interest, nor can the most earnest ministers bestow the quickening spirit. Those whom God has blessed in other instances are yet quite powerless in any fresh case unless the same power shall again be put forth through them. Death is a terrible picture of our natural state, but it is by no means an exaggerated one. The whole world lies before us as a valley of dry bones, according to Ezekiel's vision, and if ever the dry bones are to live, it will not be through an energy innate within themselves nor through a power resident in the most zealous of men, nor through any might which even a Prophet could exert apart from God.

Take ye away the stone - He desired to convince all those who were at the place, and especially those who took away the stone, that Lazarus was not only dead, but that putrescency had already taken place, that it might not be afterwards said that Lazarus had only fallen into a lethargy; but that the greatness of the miracle might be fully evinced. He stinketh - The body is in a state of putrefaction. The Greek word οζω signifies simply to smell, whether the scent be good or bad; but the circumstances of the case sufficiently show that the latter is its meaning here. Our translators might have omitted the uncouth term in the common text; but they chose literally to follow the Anglo-Saxon, and it would be now useless to attempt any change, as the common reading would perpetually recur, and cause all attempts at mending to sound even worse than that in the text. For he hath been dead four days - Τεταρταιος γαρ εστι, This is the fourth day, i.e. since his interment. Christ himself was buried on the same day on which he was crucified, see Joh 19:42, and it is likely that Lazarus was buried also on the same day on which he died. See on Joh 11:17 (note).