Martha saith to him, I know that he will rise again at the resurrection in the last day. Some disappointment is revealed in this speech, such as we have all felt with the promise of an ultimate resurrection, when the grave has closed over some dear friend. We find small relief in the assurance. The old ties are snapped, the old ways are at an end. We shall go to the dead: he will not return to us. The last day is too far off to comfort us concerning our brother. That the answer of Martha is important as revealing belief in the resurrection at the last day; of which, however, it must be remembered those who had heard our Lord's own assertions about it could no longer have doubted (John 6:39, John 6:40, John 6:44, John 6:54; John 12:48). The teachings of Jesus in this Gospel with reference to eternal life made the promise of resurrection, the transfiguration of the physical life of man, a necessity, not a contradiction. The reply of Martha shows that she does not as yet grasp the whole truth. "The last day" may be far nearer in her thought than we now know it to have been, or them it is to us; still, however near, it would imply a complete transformation of all these sweet human relationships. She longed to have the home as it was before Lazarus died. It is, however, of very great interest that we have, on the part of a Jew, this profound expectation of resurrection and immortality. Jews, or at least Pharisees, had derived from Old Testament thought—from Genesis, and from Job, and from the Psalter, from the Books of Daniel and Ezekiel, and from the progress of human thought as evinced in 'Wisdom of Solomon'—a great belief in both. Martha reveals incidentally the new light which had been cast on the mystery of the grave by the words and acts of Jesus.
Jesus said to her, I am the Resurrection. Not merely that God will give me what I ask, but that I am in some sense already his gift to man of resurrection, inasmuch as I am that of Life. (So Luthardt and Godet, but not Meyer, who makes ζωή the positive result of ἀνάστασις.) By taking humanity into his Person, Christ reveals the permanence of human individuality, that is, of such individuality as is in union with himself. He associates (John 14:6) "the Life" which he gives with" the Way" and "the Truth," i.e. with the whole sum of human experience and of human meditation and speculation, i.e. with all the conduct of the will and the mind. He that believeth on me, though he die, yet shall he live. In these words he identifies the "life" with the transfiguration of the bodily life. The grand method of this blessed life is faith. The life which is the condition and ground of resurrection is the natural consequence of a faith which accepts Christ, and identifies itself with him. But "there are some who have believed, and have what you call died"—though they die, they shall live. In such cases, so-called "death" is veritable "life." The life of faith will survive the shock of death, and whosoever liveth, and believeth on me, shall never die—shall never taste of death (cf. John 6:51, John 8:51). This is no new teaching for the more thoughtful of his hearers. There are multitudes now believing (and therefore living) in him. They shall never die in the sense in which death has been hitherto regarded; they shall by no means die forever. Faith is eternal life: death is only a momentary shadow upon a life which is far better. Whether the corruption of the grave passes over the believer or not, he lives an eternal life, which has no element of death nor proclivity to death in it. So far the Lord is lifting Martha to a higher experience of life and a comparative in difference to death. Before he offers any further consolation, he probes to the quick her faith in him and in the eternal life. Believest thou this? τοῦτο; "Is this thy belief?" not τουτῷ; "Dost thou believe in my statement?" "Believest thou that the Resurrection which I am and which I give can thus transform for thee the whole meaning of death?" The fullness of life after death is assured in virtue of the resurrection which Christ could effect at any moment, and will eventually effect for all. This life of which Christ speaks may be the life which is the consequence of the resurrection ( ἀνὰστασις) of man effected in the Incarnation, or it may be the condition of "resurrection" and sufficient proof that, if a man receive it by faith, he is free' from all the curse of physical death, and assured of a perfect victory over it. So also the οὐ μὴ εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα may either mean "not forever," and thus the words may be taken to refer to the resurrection. "He will not forever die," i.e. death may supervene, but will be conquered; or οὐ μὴ may mean "never," "in no wise," and the "never die" may refer to spiritual death, overlooking physical death altogether. The whole narrative is a great parable of life through death.