Section 9
swallow up death. Death may be a problem to us, but it is not a problem to Christ. He as res urrection can overcome death and swallow it up. However, when we come to applying Him as resurrection, we face the problem of human opinions. The problem in the local church life which keeps us from seeing the resurrection of Christ is our opinion.
If you read this chapter carefully, you will see that even the death of Lazarus was provided by God. In His sovereignty, God prepared the environment which allowed a Jesus follower to die. God's sovereignty provided such a death sit uation in order to unfold Christ's resurrection power. Without death there is no way to express resurrection. Resurrection needs death. How could resurrection be manifested without it? We need to praise the Lord for the death of Lazarus. If Martha and Mary had seen that resurrection can never be manifested without death, they would have praised the Lord when they saw their brother dying. They would have known that this death would manifest the Lord's resur rection. In such a case, there would have been no human opinion.
Surely the Lord knew that Lazarus was sick and He knew exactly how to handle the situation,