John 11:5 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

Now Jesus loved Martha, &c.— On account of their unfeigned piety towards God, their friendship and affection towards each other, and their faith in him as the Messiah. See John 11:27. The evangelist mentions the love which Jesus bore to Mary, and her sister, and Lazarus, before he informs us, that, after receiving the message, he stayed two days without stirring from the place where he was.His design in this might be, to insinuate that our Lord's delaying so long after the message came, did not proceed from want of concern for his friends, but had happened according to the counsels of his own wisdom. Had he gone as soon as the messenger from Martha arrived, there would have been nothing more in the recovery of Lazarus, than in that of Simon's mother, or of many sick persons whom he had restored to health. Had he cured him without going to him, no greater effect of power would have been shewn in this miracle, than in the cure of the centurion's servant; and might not the Jews, who lived at a distance from the scene of this transaction, have either questioned the reality of Lazarus's sickness, or have imputed his cure to a collusion between him and Jesus, especially as there was so strong an intimacy between them? Had Jesus gone immediately after his death, and raised him either in his chamber, or as they were carrying him to the sepulchre, it might have been said that his death was a mere pretence; or, if it were granted that there was no fraud, itmight have been alleged, that he was only in a fit or trance, and recovered luckily from it just as Christ pretended to raise him. Nay, even upon the supposition that the restoring of Lazarus to life before his interment, should have been granted to have been a real and proper resurrection, it would have afforded no stronger proofs than the resurrection of the widow's son: but the length of the time which Lazarus lay in the grave, put his death beyond all possibility of doubt, removed every suspicion of fraud, and so afforded Jesus a fit opportunity of displaying his love to Lazarus, as well as his own almighty power, by his unquestionable resurrection from the dead. Our Lord might also have a further view in thus heightening the circumstances of this miracle. The time of his own death being so near, he might intend hereby to convince his disciples, that, as he had life in himself, and could recal those to life who had been dead so long as to putrifyand become offensive, it was equally possible for him to raise himselfafter his own death, according to the intimations with which he always accompanied the predictions of his dying. Our Lord's delay, it is true, kept Lazarus's sisters in the most painful suspense, and at last pierced them with the affliction of seeing their brother die; yet they must, in the end, think themselves abundantly recompensed by the evidence accruing to the gospel from this astonishing miracle, as well as by the inexpressible surprise of joy which they felt on receiving their brother again from the dead.