by Peter Ditzel
Most of you are familiar with the account in John 11 of Jesus raising His friend Lazarus to life. It was an inspiring demonstration of Jesus’ power over life and death, proving that He worked His miracles by the power and authority of God. But if we focus only on the physical circumstances of Lazarus’ resurrection itself—seeing it as an isolated miracle—without also understanding what it pictures and without considering the events that led up to it, we are missing some important lessons. Lazarus comes from the Hebrew name Eleazar and means “whom God helps.” As we will see, Lazarus is typical of those whom God helps, the elect whom He loves. In this article, I want to cover twelve lessons we can learn from the account of Lazarus from the time of his illness to the time after his resurrection.