Bible Strands
John 11:40
Jesus replied, “Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?”
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — Jesus addresses Martha at the tomb of Lazarus, after she objects that the body has been dead four days and will stink. He speaks just before the stone is removed and before he prays to the Father.
The words — οὐκ εἶπον (ouk eipon), "Did I not say," is a rhetorical rebuke in the aorist, anchoring his question to a specific prior utterance rather than a general truth.
The thread — The "glory of God" he points back to is the same phrase from John 11:4, where Jesus called Lazarus' illness "for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified." The promise of rising again in John 11:23 is the specific word Martha is being held to.
Why it lands — The verse makes belief the precondition for witnessing God's glory, not a reward for it. It asks whether a reader would have recognized Jesus' earlier word in the moment when the body was already rotting.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Greek words
King James Version
Jesus saith unto her, Said I not unto thee, that, if thou wouldest believe, thou shouldest see the glory of God?
Cross-references
- John 11:4 When Jesus heard this, He said, “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.”
- John 11:23 “Your brother will rise again,” Jesus told her.
- Romans 4:17 As it is written: “I have made you a father of many nations.” He is our father in the presence of God, in whom he believed, the God who gives life to the dead and calls into being what does not yet exist.
- Psalms 63:2 So I have seen You in the sanctuary and beheld Your power and glory.
- John 1:14 The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us. We have seen His glory, the glory of the one and only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.
- 2 Corinthians 3:18 And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into His image with intensifying glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.
- Psalms 90:16 May Your work be shown to Your servants, and Your splendor to their children.
- 2 Chronicles 20:20 Early in the morning they got up and left for the Wilderness of Tekoa. As they set out, Jehoshaphat stood up and said, “Hear me, O people of Judah and Jerusalem. Believe in the LORD your God, and you will be upheld; believe in His prophets, and you will succeed.”
- 2 Corinthians 4:6 For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made His light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
- John 9:3 Jesus answered, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but this happened so that the works of God would be displayed in him.