Jesus' Power over Death
Published by Stanley Pouw in 2013 · 2 June 2013
Let us look at Luke 7:11-17, where we read this wonderful story of Jesus raising a man from the dead. Jesus Christ is probably the most well-known person in the literate civilizations of the world. But knowing who He really is, is not known by everyone. There are many diverse opinions concerning who Jesus Christ really is.
There are the Muslims who think that He was simply a human prophet. Or the Mormons who believe that He is a created being, the spirit brother of Adam and Lucifer and you could go on and on with other opinions. But the truth is that Jesus is God, fully man and fully God. And that is the core, the heart and the foundation of the Christian faith.
That is also the testimony of Scripture. And before we look at Luke 7, just read John 1:18, "No man has seen God at any time." There are people who have had a limited view of God. Moses saw the glory of God. With Adam the presence of God was manifested to him in the Garden. There have been times when God disclosed Himself in a limited sense. But no one has ever seen God fully, because God said, "No man can see Me and live."
So nobody has seen God but the best view is the view of God brought to us by His only begotten Son, the One who is of the same essence as God. Jesus explains God, Jesus reveals God. So when you look at Jesus, you are seeing God. That is why He Himself said, "If you have seen Me, you have seen the Father."
And as Luke unfolds the history of Jesus Christ, he continually demonstrates to us that there is no other explanation for Jesus Christ then that He is God. The angelic revelation indicated that the child would be coming down from heaven, that He would be Emmanuel, God with us. The virgin conception of Mary indicated that this child was God. Luke in building this case that Jesus is God, comes now to His power over life and death.
Luke 7:11-17 says, “Now it happened, the day after, that He went into a city called Nain; and many of His disciples went with Him, and a large crowd. 12 And when He came near the gate of the city, behold, a dead man was being carried out, the only son of his mother; and she was a widow. And a large crowd from the city was with her. 13 When the Lord saw her, He had compassion on her and said to her, “Do not weep.”
14 Then He came and touched the open coffin, and those who carried him stood still. And He said, “Young man, I say to you, arise.” 15 So he who was dead sat up and began to speak. And He presented him to his mother. 16 Then fear came upon all, and they glorified God, saying, “A great prophet has risen up among us”; and, “God has visited His people.” 17 And this report about Him went throughout all Judea and the entire surrounding region.”
Jesus' deity is evident because He raises a dead man from the dead. We are going to see more evidences that Jesus is God. First we are going to see some implied evidences before we see an explicit demonstration of divine power. Verse 11, “Now it happened, the day after," that is soon after the healing recorded in the prior passage. Remember that Jesus healed the slave of the centurion? And then "He went to a city called Nain, and many of His disciples went with Him, and a large crowd."
Why did He decide to go to Nain? Nain is about 20 miles from Capernaum, a full day's walk. It was a small and insignificant town. And it still exists today with the same name. Two hundred people live there. What is going on there is that makes Jesus determined to go to Nain and to drag His entourage with Him for a whole day's journey?
Now this introduces us to this idea of divine purpose. God never acts without a fixed goal and a fixed purpose. There are no unexpected coincidences. Everything within the plan of God is settled and brought to pass. He has perfect intentions for everything He thinks, everything He says and every act. His mission is clear, His objective is clear, His strategy is clear, His plan and His purpose will come to pass.
In Jeremiah 29:11, God says, "I know the thoughts that I have toward you." In other words, there are no random thoughts in God's mind. He also says in Isaiah 55:11, "My word which goes forth from My mouth shall not return to Me empty, without accomplishing what I desire, without succeeding in the matter for which I sent it."
And that is the way it is with Jesus. In John 4:4 He says, "I have to go through Samaria." Because there is a well there and there will be a woman there at the moment we get there, for an encounter that has been planned from eternity past by God. In Luke 9:51, "It came about when the days were approaching for His ascension; He resolutely set His face to go to Jerusalem." He knew when He was going to die, when He was going to rise and when He was going to heaven.
This is evidence of His deity. He knows the future. He knows the divine purpose. He works on a timetable. A number of times He said, "My hour has not yet come." In Luke 13:33 it says, "Nevertheless I must journey on today and tomorrow and the next day for it cannot be that a prophet should perish outside of Jerusalem."
And He just keeps accumulating this crowd of people who are drawn by His miracles. They don't have any clue why He's going to Nain. They don't have any sense of divine purpose. They're like us, they cannot tell the future, they can barely interpret the present. They have a hard time interpreting even the past. But Jesus knows the past perfectly; He knows the present perfectly and He knows the future perfectly. He knows exactly where He's going and why He is going there.
So here is Jesus moving toward Nain because it is in the plan of God to have an encounter there with a funeral procession. And the reality was that when Jesus left in the morning, the man has not died yet because the Jews never kept a body overnight. They didn't embalm it and decay sets in immediately. All they did was anoint the body externally and wrapped the body in cloth.
Secondly, divine providence. God not only has a purpose, but God can orchestrate all of the possibilities to bring about that purpose. Jesus was going to Nain to raise a dead man. How was Jesus going to control all of the issues, like the timing of the funeral, the service, the right place and the right moment to meet? Providence refers to God's superintending control over all human actions and events to cause His predetermined purpose.
That is one of the most amazing abilities of God. A miracle is easier to understand than that. A miracle is when God steps in, interrupts the natural and injects His supernatural power. Providence isn't that. Providence is God taking all the natural events and orchestrating them perfectly to cause His purpose. The complexity of that is absolutely awesome.
Verse 12, "And when He came near the gate of the city.” And so, perfect timing; He approaches the gate of the city. Nobody knows why He's going there, yet He does. It's all planned, "behold, a dead man was being carried out." Exact providential timing, God is in control of everything. The man dies at the right moment. They get him ready for the funeral at the right moment. They are on the way to the funeral.
"Behold," is the word in verse 12, "Wow," from a human viewpoint, this is a surprising event. From the viewpoint of Jesus, this is exactly on schedule. From the human side, it's a startling coincidence. However, there is no such thing as a coincidence in God's perspective. The Lord is just gracefully, purposefully taking a step at a time, arriving at exactly the moment when that procession comes out of town. Biblical history is filled with that kind of scheduling.
Out comes this wailing noisy crowd and this dead man was being carried out, it says in verse 12. The funeral was over. People were carrying the corpse that had been sprinkled on the outside, dusted with some powder and some herbs and then wrapped and laid on a flat stretcher. The word coffin appears here in the account in verse 14, but it's pretty clear that he wasn't in a coffin.
It was a stretcher. The body was laid upon and having been wrapped and a cloth placed over the top of it. Burial places are always outside of town. The grave was dug, as is common today, and stones were placed on the top so that people not go near it because you would become defiled. They would whitewash them, so the people could see and avoid them.
Now the dead man was the only son of his mother. If you didn't have a son, it was the end of the family line and heritage and history was so important. And the fact that this is an only son makes this even more of a sad scene. In the funeral procession, the family goes first, and in this case the mother alone is going ahead of the casket.
Not only is the future of her family gone, but the present is in jeopardy now because she has lost her protector and her support. That is the most sorrowful experience in Jewish society. And she had sympathy, it tells us in verse 12 because a sizeable crowd from the city was with her, the flute players, the cymbals, the wailing women, the friends and the rest of the townspeople, they were all there to try and help.
So divine purpose and divine providence meet to become divine compassion. And you see something in Jesus that is true of God, verse 13, "When Jesus the Lord saw her, He felt compassion for her." One thing is clear is the distinction of the God of Israel, the Creator, Redeemer God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the true and living God, is a God of compassion, right?
It is the nature of God to feel compassion. Lamentations 3:22-23 says, "The Lord's loving kindness indeed never ceases, His compassions never fail, they are new every morning, great is Thy faithfulness." He's the God of all comfort. In Mark 8:2 He said, "I feel compassion for the multitude. Because they've remained with me three days and have nothing to eat." It wasn't even a spiritual thing; He just felt pain inside because of their hunger. God cares.
And verse 14 it says, "He came up and touched the coffin, or the stretcher; and the bearers came to a halt." Let us set aside divine compassion for a moment, and move to a fourth point, divine purity. He touched the dead. Nothing defiled Him. He wasn't subject to any defilement, real or ritual. As it says in Hebrews 7:26, "He is holy, harmless, undefiled and separate from sinners.” Instead Jesus is the One that causes a dead body to come alive.
There's another element of the divine which is divine authority. It says, "The bearers came to a halt." They just stopped. What was it about His person that just stopped everything? This again indicates that He is God. And He carries about Him a holy authority, He didn't even say "Stop," He just put His hand on them and said, "Woman, stop crying," and He stopped the procession.
What was it about His presence, His bearing, His authority? Well those are all implied indications, those are all attributes of God. God has authority. God is holy and undefiled. God is compassionate. God orchestrates providence. God determines His purposes. This is God. But that's implied. What is explicit is the last point, His divine power.
The middle of verse 14, "He said, 'Young man, I say to you, arise.'" Psalm 33:6 says, "By the word of the Lord the heavens were made and by the breath of His mouth all their hosts." He created the entire universe with His speech. So here is the Creator who created the entire universe now opens His mouth and says, "Young man, I say to you arise." The second He said that, life surged into the corpse. This is creative divine power, this is God.
In John 5:25 -29 it says, “Most assuredly, I say to you, the hour is coming, and now is, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God; and those who hear will live. 26 For as the Father has life in Himself, so He has granted the Son to have life in Himself, 27 and has given Him authority to execute judgment also, because He is the Son of Man. 28 Do not marvel at this; for the hour is coming in which all who are in the graves will hear His voice 29 and come forth—those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of condemnation.”
So God the Son has been given the responsibility to give life. Some day in the final end of the age, He will give life to the whole world. Every person who has ever lived and died in this world, He will resurrect. That time was just one resurrection; later it will be millions upon billions. He is the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End, the First and Last.
And by the way, do you notice here nobody asked Him to do this? Faith never is to be considered necessary for divine power to work. This is the lie of many faith healers is that the reason people don't get healed is that they don't have enough faith. Jesus heals here, no request and no faith is noted.
Verse 15, "So he who was dead sat up and began to speak." Jesus’ miracles are always instantaneous, complete and without rehabilitation, or process. He says, "Look, your mother needs you." That's why He did it. After this, both the mother and the son probably wanted Jesus to stay around so they could find out everything about Him and surely He gave them the good news of the gospel. But the initial deal here was that this was a broken-hearted mother and that made for a brokenhearted Jesus.
Well that takes us to the response, verse 16, "Then fear came upon all." Why were they afraid? Well, because they knew they were in the presence of God. When God's power is on display, they know God is present. So they were terrified because God was there and they knew God was holy and they knew they were not. That's the sinner's trauma.
They began to glorify God. Go to the end of verse 16, "and, “God has visited His people.” God is here." They've been praying that for a long time. There hadn't been a prophet for over 400 years. There hadn't been any miracles. There hadn't been any words from heaven. God had been silent for centuries.
And verse 17, "And this report about Him went throughout all Judea and the entire surrounding region.” They were right, God was visiting, but they didn't understand that God Himself was actually there in Christ. And in the consequence of that rejection is given in Acts 15:14, it says, "God visited the Gentiles to take out a people for His name."
When Israel didn't respond to the visit, God took out a people for His name, namely the church. You would have thought that the Israelites could not possibly forget all that Jesus did and say. But look at it again in the middle of verse 16, what they said, "A great prophet has arisen in us," Was Jesus just a great prophet? That's what the Moslems say. That's what the Mormons say. That's what the Jehovah's Witnesses say. No. He is the Son of God who came down from above for us.
In Matthew 16:13-16 Jesus said to the disciples, "Who do men say that I am? 14 And the disciples said, 'Well some say You are Elijah, some say You are Jeremiah, and a lot of people say You're one of the prophets.' 15 And He said, 'But who do you say I am?' 16 And Peter said, 'You are the Christ, the Son of the living God," That's the only right conclusion.
To say a prophet has risen within us is wrong. Christ the Son of God who is God has come into the world. That is the gospel, eternal life and resurrection for those who believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, the One who came from heaven to earth to die for our sins and rise again for our justification. There is salvation in no other name. Let us pray.