John Calvin Commentary John 11:12

"The disciples therefore said unto him, Lord, if he is fallen asleep, he will recover." — John 11:12 (ASV)

If he sleepeth, he will recover. Replying that sleep will have a beneficial effect on Lazarus, they therefore try indirectly to dissuade Christ from going there. And yet they do not craftily or deceitfully misinterpret Christ’s words to suit their own purpose, pretending not to understand what he said; but, thinking that he spoke about sleep, they gladly seize this opportunity of avoiding danger.

Augustine, and many writers since his time, speculate about the word sleep, claiming that it is applied to death because it is as easy for God to raise the dead to life as it is for us to awaken those who are asleep.

But that nothing of this sort occurred to Christ may be inferred from the constant use of the term in Scripture. And since even secular writers usually apply this word Sleep to Death, there was undoubtedly no other reason why it came into use than that a lifeless corpse lies without sensation, just as the body of a man who is in a deep sleep.

Hence, also, sleep is appropriately called the image of death, and Homer calls it the brother of death (κασίγνητος θανάτου). Since this word denotes only the sleep of the body, it is extremely absurd to apply it—as some fanatics have done—to souls, as if, by being deprived of understanding, they were subject to death.

But I go to awake him. Christ asserts his own power when he says that he will come to awake Lazarus; for, though, as we have said, the word sleep does not express the ease of the resurrection, yet Christ shows that he is Lord of death when he says that he awakes those whom he restores to life.