J. C. Ryle John

CHAPTER XII
JOHN 12:1-11
Then, six days before the Passover, Jesus came to Bethany, where Lazarus lived, whom he had
raised from the dead. So they prepared a dinner for Jesus there. Martha was serving, and
Lazarus was among those present at the table with him. Then Mary took three quarters of a
pound of expensive aromatic oil from pure nard and anointed the feet of Jesus. She then wiped
his feet dry with her hair. (Now the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfumed oil.) But
Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples (the one who was going to betray him) said, "Why wasn’t this
oil sold for three hundred silver coins and the money given to the poor?" (Now Judas said this
not because he was concerned about the poor, but because he was a thief. As keeper of the
money box, he used to steal what was put into it.) So Jesus said, "Leave her alone. She has
kept it for the day of my burial. For you always have the poor with you, but you don’t always
have me."
Now the large crowd of Jewish people from Jerusalem learned that Jesus was there, and so
they came not only because of him but also to see Lazarus whom he had raised from the dead.
So the chief priests planned to kill Lazarus too, for on account of him many of the Jewish people
from Jerusalem were going away and believing in Jesus.
The chapter we have now begun finishes a most important division of John's Gospel. Our Lord's
public addresses to the unbelieving Jews of Jerusalem are here brought to an end. After this
chapter, John records nothing but what was said in private to the disciples.
We see, for one thing, in this passage, what abounding proofs exist of the truth of our Lord's
greatest miracles.
We read of a supper at Bethany, where Lazarus "sat at the table" among the guests--Lazarus,
who had been publicly raised from the dead, after lying four days in the grave. No one could
pretend to say that his resurrection was a mere optical delusion, and that the eyes of the
bystanders must have been deceived by a spirit or vision. Here was the very same Lazarus,
after several weeks, sitting among his fellow-men with a real material body, and eating and
drinking real material food. It is hard to understand what stronger evidence of a fact could be
supplied. He that is not convinced by such evidence as this may as well say that he is
determined to believe nothing at all.
It is a comfortable thought, that the very same proofs which exist about the resurrection of
Lazarus are the proofs which surround that still mightier fact, the resurrection of Christ from the
dead. Was Lazarus seen for several weeks by the people of Bethany, going in and coming out
among them? So was the Lord Jesus seen by His disciples. Did Lazarus take material food
before the eyes of his friends? So did the Lord Jesus eat and drink before His ascension. No
one, in his sober senses, who saw Jesus take "broiled fish," and eat it before several witnesses,
would doubt that He had a real body. (Luke 24:42.)
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