God Visited His People. Luke 7:11-17 Our Lord Jesus Christ raised three people to life during the years of His public ministry we are told about. Luke is the only one of the Gospel writers who wrote about the Lord Jesus raising the young man of Nain from the dead. John is the only one who gives the account of the raising of Lazarus. Matthew, Mark, and Luke all wrote about the raising of Jarius’ daughter. The fact that these accounts of raising people from the dead are written in an almost matter-of-fact way is a testimony to the authority of our Lord Jesus Christ over every obstacle and consequence of sin.
Without a lot of drama, the account says that Jesus saw the funeral procession, leaving Nain to bury the only son of his mother. With a total understanding of all that would mean, the Lord showed His compassion toward the widowed mother. He knew all that was involved and all that would be missing because of her son’s death. Two simple words changed the whole future of her life. “Weep not.” For her sake, Jesus raised the young man to life again.
In the three accounts of the Lord raising people from the dead, the young man from Nain began to speak when he was brought back to life, the young girl from Capernaum began to eat when she was raised, and Lazarus of Bethany began to walk after he was raised from the dead and from being in the grave four days. When the Lord gives new life to those who are born again, there is evidence of the reality of “all things becoming new.” God Himself, the Life-Giver, gives new life, and He wants us to find our spiritual food in the word of God. When that happens, we are ready to speak for the Lord and tell people about the Savior who gave us new life in Christ.
New life comes only by the power of God. When we are saved by His grace and the Spirit of God impresses on us the truth of the word of God, we are brought into a new life in which we are “risen with Christ to walk in newness of life.” Those three people were not resurrected because they all died again. Our spiritual new birth gives us resurrection power to live for the Lord because we have been given eternal life as a gift from God. In the future, our mortal bodies will be raised to immortality and incorruption to be “like His body of glory.” Then we will be like Him in that our newly changed bodies will never die.
Like the son of the widow of Nain, we were hopeless and helpless to do anything for ourselves. God's mercy and compassion for us, as well as those who loved us and prayed for our salvation when we were in our lost condition, made the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ in human flesh of the utmost importance. That was the way He could take our place and bring us to God.
No one deserves new life, let alone eternal life, but our Lord Jesus Christ made that possible for everyone. It is “unto all.” When people accept the fact of their sinful condition and their own responsibility for their sins and repent of them to God, they will find the Lord is right there to receive them when they put their trust in Him. It is then He gives us God’s gift of eternal life, which He paid for by dying in our place. Those who receive that gift will never perish. That is why a truly newborn person praises God audibly, like the young man of Nain. They begin to speak and tell others what God has done for them. More than that, they will use the rest of their lives to do the Lord’s will and give Him glory and honor. When they do that, others are blessed.
Luke knew that the fact that the Lord Jesus Christ healed the centurion’s servant from a distance without seeing him and the public resuscitation of the young man from the dead right in front of a whole funeral cortege was important to report. That left no room for skeptics to say the healing was only psychosomatic or a mental change. To those in the far parts of the world, even those in this room, these are positive witnesses to the fact that the Son of Man is the Son of God who came to seek and save what was lost.