Glorification

By Nathaniel Dandridge Pendleton
1941

Part IV
THE LAST JOURNEY

I. LAZARUS OF BETHANY

The so-called synoptic Gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, give in historic sequence, with varying details, an account of the Lord's last journey. They tell of His passing through Jericho on the way to Jerusalem. The incidents of this journey were significant of the states through which the Lord passed as He advanced to the crisis of His death and resurrection. Each incident recorded was an outer representation of some Divine transaction within Him. The same may be said of all the events of His life from the beginning; but at this time the end was near, and it was therefore more clearly indicated and so more definitely represented. While on this journey the Lord openly revealed to His disciples the near approach of His death, and they were deeply moved. Feeling that His kingdom was nigh, some of them pleaded for preferment. His disciples were at all times as a part of Himself and significant of inner verities in Him and also of the states of His church to be. Of this they, as men, had no knowledge, and could have none. These verities are but now, at His Second Coming, revealed.

The disciples knew that He was going to His death, and that in some way His kingdom was at hand. The incidents at Jericho, though seemingly irrelevant and casual, yet as to their inner meaning bespoke both the shadow of the cross and the Divine resurrection. From Jericho He led His disciples to Bethphage, near Bethany, in close proximity to Jerusalem. Bethany was the focal point from which the triumphal entry to Jerusalem was undertaken. All the Gospels agree on this, even that of John, which so often disregards the external historical sequences given in the other Gospels. All of them tell of His riding in royal state from Bethany to Jerusalem with the waving of palms and hosannas.

The journey to Bethany, as described in the synoptic Gospels was, as said, by way of Jericho. John does not mention Jericho. His account of the Lord's coming to Bethany is given in the eleventh chapter. It was undertaken in response to the call of Mary and Martha, the sisters of Lazarus, who was sick. At the time Jesus was abiding beyond Jordan, in the place where John first baptized. In answering this call He came to Bethany, which was the home of Lazarus. After raising Lazarus from the grave, and because of danger from the Jews, He went thence into a country near to the wilderness, of which little but the fact is recorded. Returning to Bethany some six days before the Passover, they there made Him a supper, and Lazarus was one of them that sat at table with Him. On the following day He made His royal entry into Jerusalem. John, with the other Gospel writers, describes this entry, but in that which precedes, his account is notably different. Yet there is an internal unity in all the Gospels. They tell of the successive phases of His glorification by differing accounts and varying events. But it is only the external accounts and the outer events that differ. The inner verities of the process unit. We have in the four of His Divine life is an entire Gospels, as it were, four outer aspects of the one Divine series, each aspect complete in itself but differing from the others as so many sides of a circle. With this in view the apparent historic inconsistencies in the outer representations suggest no invalidation.

In John the approach to Bethany, the point of departure for Jerusalem and the cross, was, spiritually speaking, made not by the opening of the eyes of the blind as at Jericho, but through the raising of Lazarus. Deeply viewed, the two incidents are of like significance. The miracle of Lazarus' resurrection was, however, more direct in its reference and more comprehensive. It looked through to the end of the last journey and pointed more obviously to the Lord's death and resurrection, and this in a unique way, as we shall see. To the Lord the raising of Lazarus was as a fore-enactment of the end of His life as a Man in the world.

This fore-representation was now possible because that end was near. At this time, therefore, His raising the dead Lazarus was of deep meaning and fundamental signification. By it the fullness of the Lord's power, not only to raise the dead but also Himself from death, became manifest. Because of this He said to Martha, on the occasion, "I am the resurrection and the life." (John 11: 25.)

We have the direct authority of the Writings for the statement that the raising of Lazarus was significant of the raising of a new church among the Gentiles. This new church was predicated of the Gentiles because of the spiritual necessity of freeing the Christian Church from the limiting environment of Jewish traditions and the Jewish materialistic temperament. That church was enlarged when it passed to other nations, and by that event it was set upon its way of world conquest. This conquest was effected primarily by the word concerning the Lord's resurrection. Nothing other could touch men so vitally. No other evangel could gain a more ready reception. It was the word of His resurrection that gave Christianity its power over the minds and hearts of men. To the afflicted and those of broken heart, to those who were failing in the struggle with life in this world His resurrection imparted a glorious anticipation. In raising Lazarus the Lord prefigured His own resurrection. Also by it He signified the founding of an eternal church in the living faith of life's renewal. These three, the raising of Lazarus, the Lord's resurrection and the founding of a new church unite in one - even as prophecy, its fulfillment and its result.

There is a comparison between this story of Lazarus and the fable concerning that other Lazarus, a poor beggar in the world who died and was carried into Abraham's bosom. It is shown in the Writings that there is an inner bond between the two stories, that they are identical in more than the name Lazarus. In both there is a resurrection, yet with a notable difference. Lazarus of Bethany was revived to bodily life in the world. The Lazarus of the fable was resurrected as to the spirit, to life in heaven. Both were significant of the raising up of a new church, the one in the world and the other in heaven. Also, both were significant of the Lord's resurrection; the one of His resurrection as to the body, and the other as to the spirit. For the Lord, unlike any man, rose with the whole body from death. This is the fundamental fact of the Scriptural record, and it is a fact reaffirmed by the Writings. His resurrection as to the body could only be represented in finite human type by a revival of life with one seemingly dead.

The teaching concerning the resurrection of the Lord's body is most arcane. It can be understood only by a perceptive reconciliation of an apparent contradiction. The body which He had in the world was resurrected, and yet it was that body glorified. His Mary inheritance, as to its last residue, with all its implications, was dissipated in the tomb.

While no man save the Lord alone was ever raised from death as to the body, yet there is the record concerning Lazarus, and in it there is an apparent contradiction, in the Lord's own words. When He received the call from the sisters He said, "This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God might be glorified thereby." (John 11: 4.) And also, "Our friend Lazarus sleepeth, but I go that I may awake him out of his sleep. Then His disciples said, Lord, if he sleeps, he shall do well. Howbeit, Jesus spake of his death, but they thought that He had spoken of rest in sleep. Then Jesus said to them plainly, Lazarus is dead." (John 11:11 - 14.)

Lazarus as a man was no exception to the rule of life and death, and herein his sickness was not unto death. But in the Divine representation he was dead, even as the Lord died on the cross, and he was restored to natural life to signify the Lord's resurrection as to the body. Yet the Mary body died on the cross, nor was it restored. The Lord's resurrection body was not material or spacial, but was of the very Divine Substance, not suddenly given at the resurrection, but continuously derived throughout His life in the world. This, His Divine body, was born of God. Thus, while He was in the world, He was possessed of a body of outer material and a human inheritance from the mother stamped with the image of her race. This was also inwrought from within by the Divine Soul, so that more and more the mother-inheritance yielded as He was glorified. It cannot be so with any finite man whose soul is limited. Hence the bodies of men never rise from death.

Man's resurrection is only as to the spirit, while the Lord raised Himself into the life both of the world and of heaven and at the same time above the heavens into unity with the Father. His Divine Human thus became all-encompassing. It is spoken of as Divine Natural, Spiritual, and Celestial, and so, inclusive of all the degrees of human life. He is now the Divine Human, which term also presents a seeming contradiction. But it is only through a seeming contradiction that the entire living activity of the Lord can be expressed, and the planes of His presence and power be indicated. As to the lowest of these planes, He was the Divine Lazarus. His death on the cross was actual, but of Himself death was not a predicate. Yet all was put off which stood in the way of the ultimation of His Divine life. It was this Divine ultimate which made Him entire Man, and in this unlike any spirit. Therefore, we may not think of Him as raised only as to the spirit and as abiding on or above the spiritual plane of life only. Such a conception will not hold our thought centered upon the true Divine Human - the God-Man. It would lead to an abstract acknowledgment of the Infinite, in which case in our apprehension of Him we would be where men were before He came. His coming would be to us but a matter of historic significance, as a Divine happening which, having come to pass, has long since passed away, leaving man's relation to God as it was before. The Lord is still the Divine Man to us, and in Human He is present with men more ultimately than His of old. His Divine Human is now omnipresent. It is within and without, above and round about on every plane. Yet He can be seen only with the mind; that is, spiritually. He is present in the Holy Supper, yet there He is the subject of a spiritual eating only. For His Divine body is neither material nor spacial nor yet is it finitely spiritual, but totally Divine. If these words imply a contradiction, it is in order that the full truth may find expression and so be adapted to our limited comprehension. Through contrary statements' a higher truth may be conveyed; yet the truth is one. Seeming contraries are given to express Infinity. Only so may the Infinite be received and be acknowledged by finite minds. Celestial perception alone may reconcile where human words fail and natural ideas are inadequate.

We say that the Lord rose with the entire body which He had in the world, and yet to that body nothing material, nothing of matter pertained. His Divine ultimate began its derivation into the human frame even before birth. With His resurrection that ultimate became entire. This is called the body which He had in the world. Yet this, His resurrection body, is not visible to the material eyes of man. It is visible to man's spiritual eyes, but then always in accord with man's apperception of it. His Divine body in itself is beyond the vision of the angels; yet it is perceived by them through a veiling. Such is the teaching. This veiling accords with their state .of reception.

When His immediate disciples saw Him after His resurrection, they saw Him as He was wounded on the cross. In His Second Coming the wounds of the cross are no longer visible. Spiritual sight is quite in accord with the state of the mind, and the state of men's minds has greatly changed since the time of the first Advent. The greatest change came with the Second Coming, when the thought of a Son of God from eternity as a separate person vanished, and the unity of the Divine became supreme. Then also came a change with reference to the thought concerning the resurrection body. That body is now divested of all material. It is seen to be purely Divine and clearly glorified. It is apperceived as ultimate and over against all nature, and as the last, it is the lowest Divine boundary, enclosing all material. Spiritually we see His body as Truth, the Truth of all revelation, the Truth which as a body contains the Esse of life. This Truth our Lord was and ever more made Himself to be when He stood forth from the Father as the Son of God in the world. In uniting this Truth with the Divine Good, He made His body Divine Love in form. Thus we are commanded to think of it. For thus it is now revealed with the wounds of the cross and the injurious falsities which they signified removed from it. We think of His body as Divine Love in a Human form and of this Love as Life. Therefore we see all living things conspiring to a form which is at once Human and Divine.