Yes Lord, I Believe: The Affirmation of Faith in John 11

Jesus told Martha [when Lazarus had died], “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?”

She said to him, “Yes, Lord; I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who is coming into the world.” (John 11:25-27)
___

FIRST, THE FACTS

Jesus is “the resurrection and the life.” It is in our union with him that we will experience a future resurrection of the body. We also have spiritual life now that continues even though the body dies — continuing through the resurrection of the body and on forever. If we have been made alive in union with Christ, we will never die. Jesus would raise up Lazarus (though he was only resuscitated), to foreshadow Christ’s resurrection and that future bodily resurrection of believers.

SECOND, A QUESTION

“Do you believe this?”

THIRD, AN AFFIRMATION OF FAITH

“Yes, Lord; I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who is coming into the world.”

The word “Christ” is the Greek way to say, “Messiah,” meaning, “the anointed one.” Prophets, priests and kings were anointed for their work in the Old Testament. Jesus is all of these, however, most of the uses of “Christ” refer to his kingship. To say that he is “the Son of God” is to indicate his divinity. In John 5:18, for instance, we see that the religious Jews believed that he claimed this. “This was why the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him, because not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God.” These Jews rejected his claim of divinity, which is claim asserted throughout the Bible.

What those religious Jews did not believe, Martha did believe. And she also believed that this Christ was “coming into the world,” that is, coming back into the world as King to raise the dead and begin his eternal Kingdom on the new earth.

We are called “believers” because we believe such things Jesus and his apostles and prophets taught us. He is the truth-teller and we “believe” him, and “believe in” him.
___

Believing Jesus was the aim of John’s gospel:
“…these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.”
‭‭John‬ ‭20‬:‭31‬ ‭