Raising of Lazarus

The raising of Lazarus is the seventh miracle of Christ, and the turning point leading to Christ-Jesus' arrest and crucification because performing the initiation ritual in public was a betrayal of the ancient mysteries.

It represents the single unique event of initiation of a human being by the divine being Christ-Jesus.

Lazarus is the same person as the later John the Evangelist, writer of the Gospel of John and the Book of Revelation, also known historically as the Individuality of Christian Rosenkreutz.

After this initiation, the writer of the Gospel of John writes from his newly acquired clairvoyant spiritual perception.

The Mystery of John covers how the Individuality of John the Baptist (see The being of Elijah) was involved in the initiation of Lazarus-John or John the Evangelist. Discussion Note 2 on The being of Elijah points out this was it was the Adam sister soul that provided the consciousness soul for John during that process.

Illustrations

Lecture coverage and references

1902-GA008

Ch 7: The Miracle of the Raising of Lazarus

1906-02-12-GA097

On the third day, a marriage took place. This means that John lay in the sleep of initiation for three days. There the vision of the marriage in Cana in Galilee occurred. In a sleep lasting three days he went through the events that took place in the world of the spirit. On the third day he experienced the vision of the marriage in Cana. All that follows are events he saw in his astral vision.
In the third chapter we have the talk with Nicodemus. In his astral vision it would always be the Lord himself who appeared to John. In the talk with Nicodemus we hear what was to happen to John. The Lord put things very clearly. Nicodemus did not at first understand him. It is John himself who needed to understand; it was explained to him in the vision that it was a matter of killing off the lower human being, with the higher human being coming alive. He gradually understood who Jesus actually was; that the powers of the world's origin, the father of the world, were alive in him. This is why we then have the words Jesus said about the father. The occult powers Jesus possessed appeared to John as an astral reflection of the actual events. John was thus learning the most profound truths through the Lord himself.
In the fourth chapter we have the meeting with the woman of Samaria. The Lord said to her: ‘You have had five husbands and the one you have now is not your husband’ She was to be raised to the higher self. For this, she had to go through the lower bodies. Those were the old husbands. She now had to be connected with the higher self. That was the new husband. In the story of the man who was born blind it became evident that it was his karma to be unable to see.
The first events described in John's gospel are astral experiences. Surely it is natural that John himself was not present, seeing that he perceived it all in image consciousness? John is not mentioned in the first 12 chapters. He was not yet the disciple, experiencing all these things in the astral level.
He then slept the initiation sleep. He was to rise to a higher degree. This happened as he lived through the experiences of the three days and on into the fourth day. The initiation took three and a half days. Then he saw his own initiation, his own resurrection. This was the raising of Lazarus.
Lazarus wrote the gospel of John. Martha and Mary were the states of consciousness in his soul, one divine, the other turned to life on Earth. The description of the Lazarus miracle is the description of a higher level of initiation. The 12^th chapter prepares for the actual recognition of the Jesus personality.
John himself then says: ‘Now I know him, who has raised me from the dead.’

1908-05-22-GA103

(read full lecture, as always, for context) positions the raising of Lazarus as a betrayal of the Mysteries

This took place always in the greatest secrecy and the outer world knew nothing of the occurrences within these ancient Mysteries. Through Christ-Jesus a new initiation had to arise to replace the old, an initiation produced by means of forces of which we have yet to speak. The old form of initiation must end, but a transition had to be made from the old to the new age and to make this transition, someone had once more to be initiated in the old way, but initiated into Christian Esotericism. This only Christ-Jesus Himself could perform and the neophyte was the one who is called Lazarus. “This sickness is not unto death,” means here that it is the three and a half day death-like sleep. This is clearly indicated.
You will see that the presentation is of a very veiled character, but for one who is able to decipher a presentation of this kind it represents initiation. The individuality Lazarus had to be initiated in such a way that he could be a witness of the spiritual worlds.
An expression is used, a very significant expression in the language of the Mysteries, “that the Lord loved Lazarus.” What does “to love” mean in the language of the Mysteries? It expresses the relationship of the pupil to the teacher. “He whom the Lord loved” is the most intimate, the most deeply initiated pupil. The Lord Himself had initiated Lazarus and as an initiate Lazarus arose from the grave, which means from his place of initiation.
This same expression “Whom the Lord loved” is always used later in connection with John, or perhaps we should say in connection with the writer of the Gospel of St. John, for the name “John” is not used. He is the “Beloved Disciple” to whom the Gospel refers. He is the risen Lazarus himself and the writer of the Gospel wished to say: — “What I have to offer, I say by virtue of the initiation which has been conferred upon me by the Lord Himself.”
Therefore the writer of the Gospel distinguishes between what occurred before and what occurred after the raising of Lazarus.

Before the raising, an initiate of the old order is quoted, one who has attained a knowledge of the Spirit, one whose testimony is repeatedly announced to be true.

“However, what is to be said concerning the most profound of matters, concerning the Mystery of Golgotha, I myself say, I the Risen One; but only after I have been raised, can I speak concerning it!”

And so we have

in the first part of the Gospel, the testimony of the old John

in the second half, the testimony of the new John whom the Lord Himself had initiated, for this is the risen Lazarus.

Only thus do we grasp the real meaning of this chapter. These words are written there because John wished to say: I call upon the testimony of my super-sensible organs, my spiritual powers of perception. What I have related I have not seen in the ordinary physical world, but in the spiritual world in which I have dwelt by virtue of the initiation which the Lord has conferred upon me.
Thus we must attribute the characterization of Christ-Jesus, which we find in the first chapters of the Gospel of St. John as far as the end of the loth Chapter, to the knowledge which might be possessed by any one who had not yet, in the deepest sense of the word, been initiated through Christ-Jesus Himself.

1909-06-30-GA112

from RSH:

The initiation of Lazarus-John (John 11:1-45) was the first Christian initiation which bears, however, still features of the ancient initiation (duration of the illness = duration of the temple-sleep of the neophyte). The correct translation of John 11:4: “This sickness is not to end in death; but that the God may be manifest in him.” Lazarus is the disciple whom “the Lord loved” (John 11:5 and 13:23) and becomes the disciple John who was able to proclaim the Christ impulse in his Gospel after he had received it.

Christ undertook the initiation of that disciple who was to communicate to the world the Gospel of the Christ in the most profound way. An initiation of this sort lies concealed behind one of the narratives in the Gospel of St. John, behind the story of Lazarus.
Much has been written about this story of Lazarus—an incredible amount; but only those have comprehended it who have known, either through esoteric schooling or from their own contemplation, what it conceals. For the moment I shall only quote you one characteristic utterance from this story. When Christ Jesus was told that Lazarus lay sick, He replied:
This sickness is not unto death, but that the God may be manifest in him.
His sickness is for the purpose of manifesting the God in him. It was only due to a lack of understanding that the word dóxa, given in the Greek text, was translated with “for the glory of God”. Not for the glory of God was this ordained, but that the God in him might emerge and become manifest.
That is the true meaning of this utterance: the divine that is in Christ is to flow over into the individuality of Lazarus; the divine, the Christ Divinity, is to be revealed in and through him.
Only by understanding the resurrection of Lazarus in this sense does it become wholly clear.
Do not imagine for a moment, however, that in communicating spiritual-scientific truths it is possible to speak so openly that everything can be made obvious to all and sundry. What is concealed behind a spiritual-scientific fact of that sort is communicated under many a veil of reservation. That is inevitable; for anyone who would attain to an understanding of such a mystery should first work his way through all difficulties appearing in the way, in order to strengthen and invigorate his spirit. And precisely because it is laborious to find his way through the maze of words will he arrive at the underlying spirit.
Recall the passage dealing with the "life" which was supposed to have left Lazarus and which his sisters Martha and Mary longed to have back. Christ Jesus said unto them:
I am the resurrection, and the life
Life is to reappear in Lazarus. You have but to take everything literally, especially in the Gospels, and you will see what all comes to light. Do not speculate or interpret, but take in its literal meaning the sentence, “I am the resurrection. and the life”.
When Christ appears and raises Lazarus, what does He bring to bear? What is it that passes over into Lazarus?
It is the Christ impulse, the force flowing forth from the Christ. What Christ gave Lazarus was the life. Indeed, Christ had said, “This sickness is not unto death, but that the God may be manifest in him.” Just as all the old initiates lay as dead for three and a half days, and then the God became manifest in them, so Lazarus lay in a deathlike state for the same period; but Christ Jesus was well aware that with this act the old initiations would come to an end. He knew that this ostensible death led to something higher, to a higher life: that during this period Lazarus had beheld the spiritual world; and because the Leader of this spiritual world is the Christ, Lazarus received into himself the Christ force, the vision of the Christ. Christ pours his force into Lazarus, and Lazarus arises another man.
There is one particularly noteworthy word in the St. John Gospel: in the story of the Lazarus mystery it is said that the Lord “loved” Lazarus; and the word is again applied to the disciple “whom the Lord loved”.
What does that mean? Only the akashic record can tell us. Who is Lazarus after his resurrection?
He is himself the writer of the John Gospel, Lazarus, who had been initiated by Christ. Christ had poured the message of His own being into the being of Lazarus in order that the message of the Fourth Gospel, the Gospel of St. John, might resound through the world as the delineation of the being of Christ.
That is why no disciple John is mentioned in this Gospel before the story of Lazarus. But you must read carefully and not be misled by those curious theologians who have discovered that at a certain spot in the Gospel of St. John—namely, in the thirty-fifth verse of the first chapter—the name John is supposed to appear as an indication of the presence of the disciple John. It says there:
Again the next day after John stood, and two of his disciples
There is nothing in this passage, nothing whatever, to suggest that the disciple who later is called the one “whom the Lord loved” is meant here. That disciple does not appear in the John Gospel before the resurrection of Lazarus. Why? Because he who remained hidden behind “the disciple whom the Lord loved” was one whom the Lord had already loved previously. He loved him so greatly because He had already recognized him—invisibly, in his soul—as the disciple who was to be awakened and carry the message of the Christ out into the world. That is why the disciple, the apostle, “whom the Lord loved” appears on the scene only beginning with the description of the resurrection of Lazarus. Only then had he become what he was thenceforth. Now the individuality of Lazarus had been so completely transformed that it became the individuality of John in the Christian sense. Thus we see that in its loftiest meaning a baptism through the Christ impulse itself had been performed upon Lazarus: Lazarus became an initiate in the new sense of the word, while at the same time the old form, the old lethargy, had been retained in a certain way and a transition thus created from the old to the new initiation.
This will show you the profundity with which the Gospels reflect spiritual truths that can be brought to light through research, independently of any documents. The spiritual scientist knows that he can find beforehand anything the Gospels contain, without reference to documents. But when he finds again in the John Gospel what he had previously discovered by spiritual means, this Gospel becomes for him a document revealed by Christ Jesus' own initiate. That is why the Gospel of St. John is so profound a work.
Nowadays it is specially emphasized that the other Gospels differ in certain respects from that of St. John. There must be a reason for this; but we shall find it only when we penetrate to the core of the other Gospels as we have now done in the case of St. John. And what we discover by so doing is that the difference could arise only from the fact that the author of the John Gospel was initiated by Christ Jesus Himself. Only because of this was it possible to delineate the Christ impulse as John did. And we must examine in like manner the relation of the other Gospel writers to Christ and discover to what extent they received the baptism by fire and by the spirit. Then only will we find the inner connections between the Gospel of St. John and the other Gospels, and so penetrate ever deeper into the spirit of the New Testament.

Hella Wiesberger in GA265

GA265 contains additional research by Hella Wiesberger on what was recorded by friends who asked Rudolf Steiner about the last address of 1924-09-28-GA238, see also Mystery of John

At the awakening of Lazarus, the spiritual being of John the Baptist, who since his death had been the overshadowing spirit of the disciples, penetrated from above into Lazarus as far as the Consciousness-Soul. The being of Lazarus himself, from below, intermingled with the spiritual being of John the Baptist from above. After the awakening of Lazarus, this Being is Lazarus-John, the disciple whom the Lord loved. ... Lazarus could only develop fully out of the earth-forces at this time as far as the intellectual soul; as the Mystery of Golgotha took place during the fourth post-Atlantean period and at that time the intellectual soul was being developed. Therefore another cosmic being had to lend him the forces from the consciousness soul upwards: manas, buddhi, and atman. [editor note: see Man's higher triad]

Discussion

Related pages

References and further reading

Valentin Tomberg: 'Lazarus, komm heraus: vier Schriften' (1985)
- Lazarus : Das Wunder der Auferweckung in der Weltgeschichte
- Die Verkündung auf dem Sinai : Der Bund und die Gebote
- "Dein Reich komme" : Die drei Reiche der Natur, des Menschen und Gottes
- Der Odem des Lebens : Ein Fragment
John Cornish: 'The raising of Lazarus' (1979)