Lazarus of Bethany is a figure of the New Testament whose life is restored by Jesus four days after his death, as told in the Gospel of John. The resurrection is considered one of the miracles of Jesus. In the Eastern Orthodox Church, Lazarus is venerated as Righteous Lazarus, the Four-Days Dead. The Eastern Orthodox and Catholic traditions offer varying accounts of the later events of his life.
In the context of the seven signs in the Gospel of John, the raising of Lazarus at Bethany – today the town of Al-Eizariya in the West Bank, Palestine, which translates to "the place of Lazarus" – is the climactic narrative: exemplifying the power of Jesus "over the last and most irresistible enemy of humanity; death. For this reason, it is given a prominent place in the gospel."
The name Lazarus is frequently used in science and popular culture in reference to apparent restoration to life; for example, the scientific term Lazarus taxon denotes organisms that reappear in the fossil record after a period of apparent extinction, and also the Lazarus sign and the Lazarus syndrome.
There is also a North Korean cybercrime gang called Lazarus Group. There are also numerous literary uses of the term.
A distinct character of the same name is also mentioned in the Gospel of Luke in Jesus's parable of the rich man and Lazarus, in which both eponymous characters die, and the former begs for the latter to comfort him from his torments in hell.
Raising of Lazarus
The raising of Lazarus is a story of the miracle of Jesus recounted in the Gospel of John (John 11:1–44) in the New Testament, as well as in the Secret Gospel of Mark (a fragment of an extended version of the Gospel of Mark) in which Jesus raises Lazarus of Bethany from the dead four days after his entombment. The event took place at Bethany. In John, this is the last of the miracles that Jesus performs before the passion, crucifixion and his own resurrection.
Narrative The biblical narrative of the raising of Lazarus is found in chapter 11 of the Gospel of John. A certain Lazarus, who lives in the town of Bethany near Jerusalem, is introduced as a follower of Jesus. He is identified as the brother of the sisters Mary and Martha. The sisters send word to Jesus that Lazarus, "the one You love is sick." Jesus tells his followers: "This sickness will not end in death. No, it is for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it." Instead of immediately traveling to Bethany, according to the narrator, Jesus intentionally remains where he is for two more days before beginning the journey. The disciples are afraid of returning to Judea, but Jesus says: "Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I am going there to wake him up." When the apostles misunderstand, he clarifies, "Lazarus is dead, and for your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him."
When Jesus arrives in Bethany, he finds that Lazarus is dead and has already been in his tomb for four days. He meets first with Martha and Mary in turn. Martha laments that Jesus did not arrive soon enough to heal her brother ("Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died.") and Jesus replies with the well-known statement, "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me will live, even though he dies."John 11:25, BSB Martha affirms that she does truly believe and states, "Yes, Lord; I believe that You are the Christ, the Son of God, who was to come into the world." Jesus then meets with Mary who likewise says "Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died." Here the narrator gives the famous simple phrase, "Jesus wept."John 11:35, BSB
In the presence of a crowd of Jewish mourners, Jesus comes to the tomb. Jesus asks for the stone of the tomb to be removed, but Martha interjects that there will be a smell. Jesus responds, "Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?" Over the objections of Martha, Jesus has them roll the stone away from the entrance to the tomb and says a prayer. They take the stone away then Jesus looks up and says: "Father, I thank you that you have heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I say this for the benefit of the people standing here, so they may believe that you sent me." He then calls Lazarus to come out ("Lazarus, come out!") and Lazarus does so, still wrapped in his grave-cloths. Jesus then calls for someone to remove the grave-cloths, and let him go.
The narrative ends with the statement that many of the witnesses to this event "believed in him". Others are said to have reported the events to the religious authorities in Jerusalem.
The Gospel of John mentions Lazarus again in chapter 12. Six days before the Passover on which Jesus is crucified, Jesus returns to Bethany and Lazarus attends a supper that Martha, his sister, serves. Jesus and Lazarus together attract the attention of many Jews and the narrator states that the chief priests consider having Lazarus put to death because so many people are believing in Jesus on account of this miracle.
The miracle of the raising of Lazarus, the longest coherent narrative in John aside from the Passion, is the culmination of John's "signs". It explains why there were crowds seeking Jesus on Palm Sunday, and leads directly to the decision of Caiaphas and the Sanhedrin to put Jesus on trial.
A resurrection story that is very similar is also found in the controversial Secret Gospel of Mark, although the young man is not named there specifically. Some scholars believe that the Secret Mark version represents an earlier form of the canonical story found in John."Secret Mark's story is certainly much older in its form than John's account of the raising of Lazarus."
Interpretation The name "Lazarus" The name "Lazarus" is the Greek rendering of the Hebrew אֶלְעָזָר (Eleazar) which means "God has helped". Bede comments that "Of all the dead which our Lord raised, he was most helped, for he had lain dead four days, when our Lord raised him to life."Bede, quoted by Thomas Aquinas in Catena aurea: commentary on the four Gospels, collected out of the works of the Fathers: Volume 6, St. John, p. 367, Parker: Oxford, published in 1874, accessed on 1 October 2025
Theological commentary Theologians Moloney and Harrington view the raising of Lazarus as a "pivotal miracle" which starts the chain of events that leads to the Crucifixion of Jesus. They consider it as a "resurrection that will lead to death", in that the raising of Lazarus will lead to the death of Jesus, the Son of God, in Jerusalem which will reveal the Glory of God.Francis J. Moloney, Daniel J. Harrington, 1998 The Gospel of John Liturgical Press p. 325
The Catechism of the Catholic Church states that the miracle performed by Jesus returned Lazarus to ordinary earthly life, as with the son of the widow of Nain and Jairus' daughter, and that Lazarus and the others who were raised from the dead would later die again. The Russian Orthodox Church's Catechism of St. Philaret states that among the miracles performed by Jesus was the raising of Lazarus from the dead on the fourth day after Lazarus' death. In the Southern Baptist Convention's 2014 resolution On the Sufficiency of Scripture Regarding the Afterlife, the raising of Lazarus is noted among the Bible's "explicit accounts of persons raised from the dead", and comments on those raisings that, "in God's perfect revelatory wisdom, He has not given us any report of their individual experience in the afterlife".
John Calvin notes that, "not only did Christ give a remarkable proof of his Divine power in raising Lazarus, but he likewise placed before our eyes a lively image of our future resurrection." French Protestant minister Jakob Abbadie wrote that Jesus had intentionally delayed his return to Bethany for, "four days, that it might not be said, he [Lazarus] was not really dead." In 2008, Pope Benedict XVI said that the Gospel story of the raising of Lazarus, "shows Christ's absolute power over life and death and reveals His nature as true man and true God" and that "Jesus' lordship over death does not prevent him from showing sincere compassion over the pain of this separation."
Matthew Poole and others saw Lazarus' ability to move despite having his hands and feet wrapped together as a second miracle, but Charles Ellicott disputed that Lazarus' movement would have been restricted by his burial garments. (Matthew Poole) (Charles Ellicott)
Justus Knecht wrote that the object of this miracle related to the fact that, "the time of our Lord's Passion and Death was at hand, and He wrought this mighty miracle beforehand in order that the faith of His disciples, and more especially of His apostles, might be strengthened, and 'that they might believe' and not doubt when they saw their Lord and Master in the hour of His abasement; and most of all to enable them to hope, when they saw His Body laid in the sepulchre, that He who had raised up Lazarus would Himself rise again."
In Roger Baxter's Meditations, he reflects on the verse "His sisters therefore sent to Him saying, Lord, behold he whom Thou lovest is sick", writing that "they do not prescribe to Him what they wish Him to do; to a loving friend it is sufficient to intimate our necessities. Such ought to be the nature of our prayers, particularly in regard to health and other temporal blessings, for we do not know in such cases what is expedient for our salvation."
Narrative criticism