John 11:4 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

This sickness is not unto death,— Compare Matthew 9:24 and Mark 5:39. All that our Lord could mean here was, that this sickness ofLazarus was not designed to end in his death, considered as a final removal from this world; and indeed, our Lord so fully explains afterwards what he meant by this ambiguous speech, that nothing can reasonably be objected to it: but it is aremarkable instance of the candour and fidelity of the evangelists here, and in the places above quoted, so exactly to record the very words of Jesus; though malice might so cavil at them. The verse might be thus paraphrased, "Lazarus is permitted to be sick by the special providence of God; not that he designs to take him out of the world by death, as he does other men, but that the Son of God might be glorified by shewing his almighty power in raising him from the dead; hereby declaring that he has given to the Son to have life in himself, and to quicken whom he will; and therefore that he could fulfil his promise made to those who should perseveringly believe in him, that he would raise them up at the last day." So Christ expounds it himself in the 25th and 26th verses. We may remark from the words, but for the glory of God, that the Son, &c. which are parallel to those in ch. John 9:3 that the glory of God the Son, and God the Father, is one and the same; which plainly proves that Christ is God.