“I SAY TO YOU, ARISE!”
LUKE 7:11-17

I. Introduction
“What is truth?” It was Pilate who asked that question of Jesus on the night before the crucifixion. I suspect it was asked in a rather mocking tone. When Jesus was betrayed and arrested He was taken first to Annas. Annas was no longer the high priest but he still had great influence among the Jews. After Annas, Jesus was taken to Caiaphas, the ruling high priest at the time. Finally Jesus was taken to Pilate.
*John 18:33b-38 (beginning in the middle of v. 33)
33b Pilate…said to Him, “Are you the King of the Jews?”
34 Jesus answered, “Are you saying this on your own initiative, or did others tell you about Me?”
35 Pilate answered, “I am not a Jew, am I? Your own nation and the chief priests delivered You up to me; what have You done?”
36 Jesus answered, “My kingdom is not of this world. If My kingdom were of this world, then My servants would be fighting, that I might not be delivered up to the Jews; but as it is, My kingdom is not of this realm.”
37 Pilate therefore said to Him, “So You are a king?” Jesus answered, “You say correctly that I am a king. For this I have been born, and for this I have come into the world, to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears My voice.”
38 Pilate said to Him, “What is truth?”

What is truth? The world doesn’t seem to know. I did a little research this week on the subject of truth as the world sees it. The Encyclopedia Britannica defines truth like this:
“In philosophy, the property of statements, thoughts, or propositions that are said, in ordinary discourse, to agree with the facts or to state what is the case.
At least four major types of truth theory have been proposed: Correspondence theories, coherence theories, pragmatic theories, and deflationary theories. The latter group encompasses a wide variety of views, including the redundancy theory, the disquotation theory, and the prosentential theory.”

And that’s just the introduction to page after page of man-made philosophical gibberish about what truth is, isn’t, may be, may not be, etc., etc., ad infinitum, ad nauseum. I thought it might be interesting to look up just one of these “theories of truth” in order to get some idea as to what the mind of man has conceived. Here it is:
“According to the prosentential theory of truth, whenever a referring expression is joined to the truth predicate, the resulting statement contains no more content than the statement picked out by the referring expression. To assert that a state-ment is true is simply to assert or reassert that statement; it is not to ascribe the property of truth to that statement.
The prosentential theory is one kind of deflationary theory of truth. Like all deflationary theories, it provides an alternative to explanations of truth that ana-lyze truth in terms of reference, predicate satisfaction or a correspondence rela-tion.”

Somebody probably earned a PhD for that. “What is truth?” Pilate didn’t know, and all of their so-called brilliance notwithstanding, the philosophers of this age and the “PhDs” don’t know either. They study each other, they quote each other, they pat each other on their collective backs for their development of the latest theories and/or the modifications of old ones, but they don’t know.

However, you do. You know what truth is because you know Who truth is. Jesus said…
John 14:6a
6a “I am the way, and the truth, and the life…”

If we choose to embrace the philosophies of men we might ask, “Which truth theory shall we apply to Jesus’ statement that ‘He is the truth’?” But if we believe God and His Word, there is no need to wonder or vainly search for what Jesus actually meant when He said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life…” You already know. What Jesus actu-ally meant was, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life…” We know that Jesus meant everything He said, because everything He said was truth.
Psalm 119:160
160 …the sum of Your word is truth…

Theological liberals like to say condescending things like, “Certainly, the Bible contains truth.” No, the Bible doesn’t contain truth, the Bible IS truth!

I don’t know about you but I don’t want to live my life and stake my eternal future on a book that may have some truth in it. I don’t want to live my life and stake my eternal future on my own ability to ferret out the nuggets of truth that may reside somewhere in the pages of the Bible if only I can find them.

On the contrary, I want to live my life and stake my eternal future on revealed and abso-lute truth. While praying to His Father, Jesus said, “…Your word is truth (John 17:17).” That is good enough for me. That is what I believe. That is where I want to abide. What about you? Are you abiding in God’s Word, the Bible?
*John 8:31-32
31 Jesus therefore was saying to those Jews who had believed Him, “If you abide in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine;
32 and you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”

“What is truth?” Jesus is truth. He is God in human flesh. The deity of the Lord Jesus Christ is the foundational truth of Christianity. If you know Him you know truth, abso-lute truth. There are some who don’t believe it. There are some who choose to ignore it.
But despite all of man’s theories to the contrary, the truth cannot be dependent upon what people believe or are willing to acknowledge. If it were, Columbus would have sailed off the edge of a flat world.

In our study of Luke’s gospel we have seen example after example of the truth of Jesus’ deity. We’ve seen it in His authority, power, and control over evil, disease, nature, and sin. Now we will see Jesus’ authority, power, and control over life and death itself. Only God can do what Jesus does in Luke 7:11-17. “What is truth?” Jesus is!
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II. Review
Jesus ended His Sermon on the Plain with a parable about two builders. One built his house on sand. The other built his house on solid rock. The lesson begs the question: Upon what is your faith built? Is it on the rock of God in the person of Christ, or is it on the sand of someone or something else?

Luke 7 began with an example of faith built on a rock. We saw it in the person of a Roman centurion whose personal faith in Jesus opened the door to the miraculous healing of a young slave.
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III. Text
Now Jesus will go far beyond physical healing of the sick. Now He will raise the dead.
*Luke 7:11-17 (Please stand with me in honor of reading God’s Word.)
11 And it came about soon afterwards, that (Jesus) went to a city called Nain; and His disciples were going along with Him, accompanied by a large mul-tude.
12 Now as He approached the gate of the city, behold, a dead man was being carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow; and a sizable crowd from the city was with her.
13 And when the Lord saw her, He felt compassion for her, and He said to her, “Do not weep.”
14 And He came up and touched the coffin; and the bearers came to a halt. And He said, “Young man, I say to you, arise!”
15 And the dead man sat up, and began to speak. And Jesus gave him back to his mother.
16 And fear gripped them all, and they began glorifying God, saying, “A great prophet has arisen among us!” and, “God has visited His people!”
17 And this report concerning (Jesus) went out all over Judea, and in all the surrounding district.

Jesus demonstrates His deity in many ways, but here He does so by doing something He will do only two other times in the gospels. He will raise the little daughter of Jairus in Mark 5:41. Then later He will raise His friend Lazarus in John 11:43-44.
But this incident outside the gates of the city of Nain has great significance and is particu- larly powerful. It is the first time He raises someone from the dead. Many in the crowds that follow Him have seen miracles. Among other things they have seen a storm on the Sea of Galilee subdued, people healed of various illnesses and diseases, demons cast out, and thousands fed from a few scraps of food. But this is new. Some might say this is the ultimate miracle. The dead are dead, aren’t they? Who can raise the dead but God?
*Luke 7:11-12
11 And it came about soon afterwards, that (Jesus) went to a city called Nain; and His disciples were going along with Him, accompanied by a large mul-tude.
12 Now as He approached the gate of the city, behold, a dead man was being carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow; and a sizable crowd from the city was with her.

These verses set the stage for what is about to follow. They also attest to the truth of it by the vast numbers of people who will personally witness this astounding miracle. How many people will actually witness it? Well, we don’t know, but the number will be signi-ficant. In v. 11 we’re told that the twelve apostles are there “…accompanied by a large multitude.” Then v. 12 says the dead man’s mother, a certain number of pall-bearers, and “…a sizable crowd from the city…” are also present. So unbelievers will have a difficult time claiming that this never happened, won’t they?

Look again at v. 11. Nain is about twenty miles from Capernaum where Jesus healed the centurion’s slave. It’s likely that this miracle at Nain is no more than two or three days removed from that miracle. This timing is important. Jesus arrives at Nain at the exact moment God has so ordained.

People often think in terms of chance, luck, or coincidence. But the God of the Bible doesn’t deal in such things. Ask yourself this: Would a sovereign God, all-powerful, all-knowing, and everywhere-present, ever need to rely on chance, luck, or coincidence?
*Isaiah 46:9-10
9 “Remember the former things long past, for I am God and there is no other; I am God and there is no one like Me,
10 declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things which have not been done, saying, ‘My purpose will be established, and I will accomplish all My good pleasure…’”

Let there be no doubt. Jesus is here at this place and at this time to establish God’s pur- pose and to carry out His good pleasure. This widow’s son had just died for a divine pur-pose. His death would glorify God in ways no one there could yet imagine.

You may recall that, when Jesus first heard that His friend Lazarus was sick, the Lord deliberately waited and did not go to him until after he had died and was buried.
*John 11:3-4
3 (The sisters of Lazarus)…sent to (Jesus), saying, “Lord, behold, he whom You love is sick.”
4 But when Jesus heard it, He said, “This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son may be glorified by it.”

Do you see? When a Christian dies and passes out of this world it is ultimately for the “glory of God, that the Son may be glorified by it.” Of course we are not joyful at the funeral of a Christian in the same way we are joyful at the birth of a baby. But there is a great peace and a profound joy in the sure knowledge of the resurrection to come. Yes, we mourn, but we do not mourn as those without Christ.
1 Thessalonians 4:13
13 But we do not want you to be uninformed, brethren, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve, as do the rest who have no hope.

At the Rapture of the church Jesus will raise all Christians from the dead. When the dead in Christ shall rise, it will be for the glory of God.

Luke 7:12 tells us that Jesus arrives at Nain at just the right time to “wreck a funeral.” As at any funeral there is obviously sadness here. This woman has already lost her hus-band. Now she has lost her only son. He probably died that very day since the Jews buried their dead as quickly as possible. She is alone. Who will care for her? How will she survive? The crowds are there with her now, but what about when they go home? What about tomorrow? What about tonight? This woman’s situation is serious and her grief must be overwhelming.

There are few things in the OT as sad as the death of an only son. That grief was a sym-bol of what the whole nation of Israel would undergo when God’s judgment would fall on them. The Prophet Amos said, “…I will make it like a time of mourning for an only son, and the end of it will be like a bitter day (8:10).”

So you can picture the scene. You may even be able to relate to the bitter grief of this widow as she follows the coffin bearing her only son to the burial ground. This is the scene the Lord Jesus comes upon.
*Luke 7:13
13 And when the Lord saw her, He felt compassion for her, and He said to her, “Do not weep.”

Luke’s use of the word “Lord” here is significant and bears an explanation. Up until now he has used the word numerous times, but always in reporting what others have said or in speaking of others addressing Jesus directly. This is the first time Luke uses the word to describe Jesus. The word is important. It tells us who Jesus really is. The Greek is “Kúrios.” It’s the Greek equivalent of the Hebrew “Adonai.” As the women who are in Marj’s Wednesday Bible Study already know, God has many names.
The three most significant names of God in the OT are “Yahweh,” “Elohim,” and “Ado-nai.” “Yahweh” is God’s “personal name.” It is translated “I AM WHO I AM.” He uses it of Himself at creation. It has no Greek equivalent but Jesus applied it directly to Himself in John’s gospel.
*John 8:58
58 Jesus said to (the scribes and the Pharisees), “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was born, I am.”

“Elohim” is the plural form of the word “God.” The Greek equivalent is “Thēŏs.” It suggests the Trinity. With regard to Jesus, the NT uses the word repeatedly, but probably nowhere more plainly and obviously than in the opening words of John’s gospel.
*John 1:1-2
1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
2 He was in the beginning with God.

In Luke 7:13 Jesus is called Lord, “Kúrios,” the Greek equivalent of the Hebrew “Ado-nai,” which speaks of God’s supremacy, mastery, and absolute authority over every aspect of His creation. Every part and every aspect of creation will ultimately submit to Him. This is even true of death itself, as the Lord is about to demonstrate. What did Paul say to the church at Philippi?
Philippians 2:10-11
10 …at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those who are in heaven, and on earth, and under the earth,
11 and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, (Kúrios) to the glory of God the Father.

“Compassion” in Luke 7:13 is translated from the Greek word “splagchnizŏmai.” It means a strong yearning from deep within one’s being. Here it speaks of Jesus’ inner-most attitude about those whom He loves. This is reflective of His very nature. In this verse we are afforded a look at His love, His concern, and His compassion for all of the suffering and death that is so much a part of this sin-cursed and fallen world.

It is good to remember that every funeral is the result of the fall of man. God did not create Adam and Eve to die. In fact, He didn’t create anything to die. Death is the effect-tive and inevitable result of sin. Just as it is God’s right to judge sin and punish sinners, so too, it is His right to have compassion on sinners and forgive their sin.
Exodus 33:19b
19b “I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show compassion on whom I will show compassion.”

A sovereign God will do as He pleases. In the case of this grieving widow, He chooses to comfort her because He has compassion for her circumstances. He hates sin.
He hates what sin does. In this miracle, He will set aside the inevitable result of sin.

Please understand that this is not solely about the death of one individual and the sorrow it evokes. This man’s death is symbolic of all death. Jesus is the one who conquers it. Conquering death and the sin from which it comes is why He came into this world. All of us are dead in our sins. And the dead remain dead unless Christ steps in and does something about it. In this world we are dead, but in Christ we are alive.
Ephesians 2:1, 4-6
1 And you were dead in your trespasses and sins…
4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us,
5 even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved),
6 and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places, in Christ Jesus…

This is yet another illustration of God’s sovereign choice in our salvation. Do you see it? He decides who will be saved, we don’t. Before He saves us we are dead. The dead do not help themselves because the dead cannot help themselves. Listen, the dead cannot even ask for help…and so they do not. When you received Christ it was because of His initiative and His calling, not yours.
Romans 3:10-11
10 “There is none righteous, not even one;
11 There is none who understands, there is none who seeks for God…”

So since we can’t save ourselves, God, in the person of Jesus Christ must do it for us. That is why the Apostle Paul says…
1 Timothy 1:15b
15b …Christ Jesus came into this world to save sinners…

The dead man here in Luke 7 can do nothing for himself. His widowed mother, in all her sorrow, can do nothing for him. His friends at the funeral can do nothing for him. But Jesus can…and He will! So in v. 13 He says to the grieving mother, “Do not weep.”
*Luke 7:14-15
14 And He came up and touched the coffin; and the bearers came to a halt. And He said, “Young man, I say to you, arise!”
15 And the dead man sat up, and began to speak. And Jesus gave him back to his mother.

Jesus touched the coffin! According to OT ceremonial law this act would defile a person and make him unclean. But God cannot be defiled or made unclean. In doing this Jesus breaks a religious law, but it has no effect on Him. Why would it? He’s the God of crea-tion, isn’t He? John tells us that, “…all things came into being by Him… (John 1:3).”
Paul tells us, “…by Him all things were created…” and, “all things have been created by Him and for Him (Philippians 1:16).” “…all things” includes life.
Genesis 2:7
7 Then the LORD God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.

He is the One who speaks in Luke 7:14 and says, “Young man, I say to you, arise!” This is life from death. And we marvel!
*John 5:28-29a (Jesus speaking)
28 “Do not marvel at this; for an hour is coming, in which all who are in the tombs shall hear His voice,
29a and shall come forth…”

When Jesus speaks the word, the dead will live again. This is an example of the power of the Word of God. It is a living Word. Jesus speaks and this young man is restored to life. Jesus speaks and Jairus’ daughter is restored to life. Jesus speaks and Lazarus is restored to life and comes out of his tomb. So this miracle outside the gates of Nain is merely a preview of things to come.

But there is one thing about the three resurrections in the gospels that leave us wanting. Yes, these people were restored to life, but it was a restoration to life back in the same perishable human bodies. Eventually, each one of them died again.

But the resurrection that you and I will experience will be different. We will not be returned to these corruptible and temporary bodies. We will be given new life in new bodies. Our new lives and our new bodies will be perfect. They will be free from disease, free from pain, and free from death. We will be set free from mourning, free from crying, free from sorrow, and completely free from the ravages of sin. Our new bodies will be glorious bodies, made able to stand in the glory of the presence of God.
1 John 3:2
2 Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we shall be. We know that, when He appears, we shall be like Him, because we shall see Him just as He is.

This morning we are worshipping Jesus Christ, God in human flesh. He is worthy. He has given us the breath of life in the perishable bodies we now inhabit, and He will give us eternal life in the imperishable bodies He will create for us. (back to Luke 7)

What is the response of the crowd of witnesses to all of this?
*Luke 7:16-17
16 And fear gripped them all, and they began glorifying God, saying, “A great prophet has arisen among us!” and, “God has visited His people!”
17 And this report concerning (Jesus) went out all over Judea, and in all the surrounding district.
I guess it goes without saying that those who witnessed this miracle would be stunned.
None of them had ever seen a funeral end like that. Shock, trauma, and even terror would not be surprising. The mix of fear and praise in v. 16 would have been an amazing thing to see. But the spiritual blindness of the lost, those who do not know, or those who refuse to acknowledge the deity of Christ, is no less amazing. They thought He was just another prophet. Luke doesn’t record one person’s understanding of who Jesus really is.

Cynics often say, “You can’t prove that Jesus is God.” And do you know what? They are right! You can’t prove it to an unbeliever’s satisfaction. But it doesn’t really matter what you can or cannot prove. Proof doesn’t please God. Proof doesn’t save souls. Faith does that!
Ephesians 2:8-9
8 For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of your-selves, it is the gift of God;
9 not as a result of works, (so) that no one should boast.

These last few weeks have all been about faith. Jesus has taught us that faith built on the truth of His person is like a house built on a rock. He has healed the slave of a faithful centurion. Now He has not brought someone back from the brink of death, but from the very grip of death itself. And where is the faith of those who witnessed it?
Hebrews 11:6a
6a And without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is…
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IV. Conclusion
I began this morning by asking the question, “What is truth?” The answer – Jesus is truth. After all, He is God in human flesh and God cannot lie. He said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but through Me (John 14:6).”

You can put your faith and your trust and your hope in the truth of Jesus. He alone is worthy. He is God, and only God can save your eternal soul and raise you from the dead. Only He has the power and the authority to say to you, “Arise.”

In one of His confrontations with the Jewish religious leaders, Jesus said this, “…unless you believe that I am He, you shall die in your sins (John 8:24b).”
*Acts 4:12
12 “And there is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men, by which we must be saved.”

~ Pray ~