John 19:7

The Jews answered him, “We have a law, and according to that law he ought to die because he has made himself the Son of God.”

The Jews have had their arguments with Jesus and they have lost them all, so this is their response.  They have been defeated on many fronts too.  When they challenged Him on Scripture, He answered their questions and they couldn’t reply logically to His.  Instead of humbling them, though, it only furthered their murderous rage.  Jesus has previously called them sons of the Devil.  He (the Devil) was a liar from the beginning and they are just like their wicked and duplicitous father.  Ah, how this rankled them!  “We’re sons of Moses,” they protested.  And yet they continued to lose debates to this penniless preacher from Galilee.  

And when men were brought before them who had previously been blind and now could see, they were – surprise, surprise – unmoved in their animosity towards Him.  How could a sinner open the eyes of the blind?  Even the uneducated and simple had that one figured out but the Pharisees could not.  So much worse was the open and public resurrection of Lazarus, who’d been dead for days.  Jesus arrives, in full view of his critics and enemies, walks to the sealed tomb, where death is undefeated, unchallenged, and final, and He simply calls forth His friend from the dead.  Imagine looking into the black tomb from outside.  The stone has been rolled away.  The light of day surrounds you.  Inside the tomb all is black and you can’t see anything but you know that is where the dead man is resting.  This crazy Galilean dares to call him out – here in public, in front of the grieving family.  Ah, the nerve of this man!  The bombast and narcissism.  He’s just tormenting the family one time more due to his own vanity.  This will assuredly cast him down.  This will assuredly be his end – when they have their hopes dashed against the impenetrable rock of death.  

Oh, but there is trepidation too.  The Pharisees probably watched in fear all the while hoping for Jesus to fail, to embarrass himself and prove that He’s a phony.  But all eyes remain fixed on the tomb.  All eyes heed the darkness; they watch the land of the dead from the light of the day and they wait, and they wonder.  

Lazarus walks out.  

He’s bound in death’s garments, wrapped in the wardrobe of the end of things.  Here he is.  Jesus has called him out of death and here he is.  He was dead and there he is.  This wasn’t another argument they couldn’t answer.  It wasn’t a babbling, nervous and overjoyed peasant presenting himself as healed before them.  This wasn’t a blind man who now had vision.  This was power!  A dead man was alive again.  Who can have such power that even death obeys?  

If nothing else, this alone should have caused the Pharisees to pause and reconsider their stance towards Jesus.  But unbelief isn’t an issue of logic – it’s an issue of moral rebellion.  Even in our day, unbelief is masked in scientific clothing – claiming to be too wise and educated to believe in such things as the Bible.  But these so-called atheists persist in believing the patently absurd – that something came from nothing, and not just something but all things.  There is no more crazy and uneducated a position than that, be sure.  The so-called “wise” of our day counter that something came from nothing over a very long period of time.  Yes! That’s it.  The reasoning is that if you wait long enough, somehow, someway, something will come from nothing.  Perhaps that’s what they think of  their logic too – that if they wait long enough, it will someday make sense.  

But these religious leaders here before Pilate, they are champions of self-deception.  Their response to such a miraculous and mind-bending scene isn’t to fall down at the feet of Jesus and worship.  No, no…they plotted to kill Jesus and Lazarus.  

Well.

So, this whole business of blasphemy is rather comical.  John, in his gospel, doesn’t call such things that Jesus did miracles.  He calls them signs.  Sure, Jesus argues logically with His opponents but it’s these signs that seal the deal.  How is it that learned men of the law could personally behold such power that Jesus wielded before their rapacious and deceitful eyes and not be moved an inch?  Instead of clamoring for His death they should have examined themselves because their understanding of things wasn’t holding up against the reality before them.  This is what sin does.  It’s a moral disorder starting from the premise that you yourself are good, or pretty good, or able to be improved enough, that you are the judge of the law.  Jesus is the end of the law of righteousness for all who believe.  His power over death proved it – first at Lazarus’ tomb and then by walking out of His own.