Charles Ellicott Commentary John 11:4

"But when Jesus heard it, he said, This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God may be glorified thereby." — John 11:4 (ASV)

When Jesus heard that, he said: These words are not simply an answer sent to the sisters, but the uttered thought which arose in our Lord's mind as He heard that Lazarus was ill, and were spoken in the presence of the disciples who were with Him, and undoubtedly in the presence of the messengers as well.

This sickness is not unto death: that is, "it will not result in death; it will not have death as its final result." (John 11:14, and John 8:51).

But for the glory of God: that is, "the furtherance and accomplishment of the glory of God."

That the Son of God might be glorified thereby: This furtherance of the glory of God, with the purpose of glorifying the Son, carries us back, as all the expositors note, to the oneness of the work of the Father and Son which has been made prominent in our Lord's words. (Compare to John 10:38, and references in the note there.) But the words seem to carry us forward as well as backward.

In the next chapter (John 11:23), our Lord says, "The hour is come that the Son of Man should be glorified," and the reference is to His death. Is that thought absent from the words here?

The sickness of Lazarus would not indeed result in death, though it would end in what people call death, and would be the immediate cause leading to the death of the Son of Man. The one would be as a sleep from which he would awake; the other should be the glorifying of the Son of God, which would result in the life of the world.

"Thereby" is probably to be interpreted "by means of the illness," not "by means of the glory."

This verse should be compared with John 9:3. Here, as there, part of the meaning is that the glory of God would be brought about in the person of the one upon whom the miracle would be performed. It was a spiritual crisis in the case of the man born blind. It cannot have been otherwise in the case of Lazarus.