Objection: Lazarus Was Sick for the Glory of God (John 11:4)

In John 11:4, Jesus said, “This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God might be glorified thereby.”  You should be able to stop reading right there and figure out what Jesus meant when He said this.  Did anyone at Bethany look at Lazarus’ sick condition and start glorifying God before Jesus showed up?  No!  Did God get any glory out of Lazarus being sick?  No!  Actually, if you read this carefully, Lazarus had already been dead two days when Jesus made this statement.  Jesus stayed where he was two days before going to Bethany, where Lazarus had been dead four days when he got there.  So when Jesus made this statement about Lazarus’ sickness, he wasn’t even sick anymore – he was dead!  So Jesus never said that anyone’s current illness was “for the glory of God.”

Are we to assume that God made Lazarus sick just so that Jesus could put on a circus sideshow and raise him up to prove something?  We can’t assume that, because Jesus was manifested to destroy the works of the devil (1 John 3:8), not the works of God!  If God makes you sick so that He can show off your healing, he is truly a zero-sum God, because He only left you the way He originally found you.  This is a horrible and unbiblical picture of your heavenly Father!

When was the glory of God manifested?  When Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead!  Jesus told Martha that if she would believe, she would see the glory of God.

John 11:40:
Jesus saith unto her, Said I not unto thee, that, if thou wouldest believe, thou shouldest see the glory of God?

So watching Lazarus be sick and die, she could not have been seeing the glory of God, because she hadn’t seen His glory yet!  Therefore, his sick condition and death did not bring God any glory at all.  Then Jesus raised Lazarus and God was glorified!

The only sickness that was “for the glory of God” was completely healed.  Lazarus lived quite a while after he was raised from the dead.  You are not sick for the glory of God and neither is anyone else.  God did not make you sick to show off your healing later.  God gets no glory from your sickness; He gets glory from your healing.  Why not cooperate with Him for your healing and bring Him some glory right now?