Resurrection is Not Always Desirable

God raises some things. And others He buries. The Christian life depends entirely on knowing the difference.

This is not something most of us heard growing up in church. Back then, resurrection only spoke of Jesus, and was a good thing. So we associate resurrection with God and with celebration. And it is, when He is the one calling it to life.

But we too often declare resurrection over things He never wanted to live again. And we do it while we sing. With the lights low.

Without thinking.

The Song I Caught Myself Singing

A song has been popular in many of our churches lately. It repeats a line dozens of times. “Dead things come alive in the name of Jesus.” Chains break. Dry bones wake. Something comes out of the grave every time we call His name.

I sang it. Initially without any hesitation. Actually over several months, with no thought at all. It seemed right. Seemed biblical.

Then I started listening to what I was declaring and the words no longer sat right.

Not because the name of Jesus is weak. And not because resurrection is bad. But because the claim I was making, in unison with all the voices in the room, was theologically much larger than I had bargained for.

And much more careless than I would have tolerated in a sermon.

This is each of our experiences most Sundays: The lights drop, the words scroll, and we sing. Sometimes we pay attention, sometimes we just sing the words on the screen. And we declare things we would never let pass in a Bible study without deeper examination. We catechize ourselves in lyrics without stopping to consider them.

The service worship time is not just warming the crowd up, or waiting for everyone to get there. It is not about feeling a certain way. It is the congregation declaring in unison what God is worth. Every line is a theological claim about His character. We sing these words every week and they shape us more than most of the preaching ever will.

Which is why we must examine what we sing.

A songwriter who puts words on the lips of thousands, and a worship leader who leads those people in the songs, are doing pastoral work. That is a weight worth calling out. But the focus here is the person in the pew. We can’t change what gets written. What we can change is what we agree to declare.

Jesus Named Lazarus

When the topic of resurrection comes up everyone goes to John 11 and the story of Lazarus. And for good reason. It’s the clearest picture of Jesus’ authority in the Gospels.

But we tend to skip an important detail.

Jesus did not stand at the entrance of the tomb and call out to the dead. He did not say, “Come on out.” He did not declare, in general, that all dead things would come alive.

He called one man. By name.

“Lazarus, come forth.”

Everyone knew who was in the tomb. Jesus knew exactly who He was raising. He knew what the resurrection was for and what it would set into motion. It was not a blanket declaration over death itself.

It was a specific word spoken to a specific person by the One who had authority to discern.

This is the grammar of resurrection throughout Scripture. Named. Known. Specific.

Vagueness is not the language of God’s power. Specificity is.

He Did Not Come When Called

We sometimes miss another detail in this story.

Mary and Martha sent for Jesus before Lazarus died. And Lazarus was Jesus’ best friend. Why wouldn’t He come straight away?

He stayed where He was for several more days. Even the disciples were confused by this.

Lazarus died and was buried. Only then did Jesus start out for Lazarus’ house. Not because He was indifferent, but because He was obedient. The timing was the Father’s, not Mary’s and not Jesus’. The movement was divine initiative, not human demand, or even personal desire. The raising happened on Heaven’s schedule, not on the urgency of Earth.

“I am glad for your sakes that I was not there, that you may believe” (John 11:15 NKJV).

Everything about this second most famous resurrection in the Gospels runs downstream from the Father’s direction. The naming was specific. The timing was specific. The purpose was specific.

Nothing was triggered simply by an act of desire.

Which makes a lyric like “something comes out of the grave every time I call Your name” not just a poetic flourish, but a theological problem.

The Reversal

In John 11, Jesus is not the one being called. Jesus is the one doing the calling.

Lazarus does not summon Jesus by name. Mary and Martha do not command, ‘Lazarus come alive in Jesus’ name’.

Jesus summons Lazarus. By name.

The power is not located in the human voice speaking Jesus’ name. The power is located in Jesus speaking our name, at the Father’s request.

When we sing, or pray, as if the formula worked the other way, we have quietly made ourselves the active agent. We turn Jesus’ name into a vending machine where we punch the right buttons and get what we want.

This is not a small inversion. It is the whole grammar of authority. Scripture puts God on the throne and puts us on our knees. The modern declaration reflex puts us at the microphone and God at our service.

We should feel the difference.

A Word About Declaration

I want to be clear here. I am not arguing against faith-filled speech. As believers we are given genuine authority to speak and act in Jesus’ name. Scripture is full of it. Peter said, “Silver and gold have I none, but what I have I give you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk.” Paul commanded demons out. The early church prayed boldly for signs and wonders.

Real authority. Real declarations. Real results.

But authority is not autonomy. What Peter spoke to the man came after obedience. After being sent. What Jesus spoke at Lazarus’ tomb came after weeping, after praying, after the Father’s leading.

The declaration was the visible part. The hearing was the weight behind it.

And we get that backwards also. We have made the declaration the power, and we skip the hearing that must precede it. We turn “in Jesus’ name” into a magical token we wave around. As if the words open graves.

They don’t.

The words open what the Father already authorized to be opened.

Some Things Should Stay Dead

Even if the words are right, the content may still be wrong.

Paul’s entire framework for the Christian life depends on certain things staying in the tomb.

Romans 6, “We died with Christ…reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Colossians 3, “Put to death what is earthly in you.”

Galatians 5, “Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh.”

We don’t sedate the old flesh. We crucify it and bury it.

Paul treats any resurrection of that old self not as revival, but as catastrophe.

“Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? God forbid.”

When we sing “dead things come alive” without saying which dead things, we are not speaking Scripture. In fact we speak against it. We are declaring, over an entire congregation, that the things God crucified with His Son can return.

I don’t think we realize what we’re saying.

Sincerity and intent don’t cover this. We are responsible for the words we speak with our lips. And they do real spiritual work whether we understand them or not.

If the old self comes back alive, that is not revival. That is resurrection of the wrong corpse.

What Are We Really Asking For

There is a prayer that runs through modern church culture. “God, revive us. Raise us up. Bring us back to life.”

The prayer is sincere. But it is also vague and does not name what we want God to resurrect.

Be sober about what you are asking Him to raise.

Not every part of you should come back. Your old patterns are meant to stay dead. Not every old fire was holy fire. Some of what has been buried was buried for good reason. Some of it God buried Himself.

God gave Abraham a promise that He would give him a son by his wife Sarah. After a while Abraham began to feel the promise was dead and tried to declare it back to life. And Ishmael was born.

“Revive us” without specificity is a blank check. And blank checks get cashed by things we did not intend to fund.

Jesus named Lazarus because He knew. Paul named the old self for death because he knew. The whole pattern of Scripture is specificity.

When we declare life over everything without distinction we are not exercising faith. We are abdicating discernment.

The Real Question

There is no question Jesus’ name has power. It does. And there is no question Jesus has given us the authority of His name. He has.

The question is whether we have learned the discernment that power requires. Do we know what to call out of the tomb? And what to leave there?

And this raises another question. Do we pay enough attention to what we declare over our lives, and the lives of others? Do we really examine the words we sing? Do we give the same weight to our worship that we do to the teaching from the pulpit?

Words sung thoughtlessly are not the same as words sung innocently. Declared corporately is not the same as declared safely. The words we put on our lips in the dim light of a Sunday morning are shaping what we believe about God, and what we invite Him to do.

Worship was never supposed to be warm and fuzzy. It is not supposed to make us feel a certain way. It is supposed to be true.

And truth has edges. Some things God raised. Some things He buried. The Christian life depends entirely on knowing which is which.

I suspect Joshua would have liked to declare resurrection over Moses rather than face the Israelites without him. But God put Moses in the ground.

So before we sing again, it is critical we ask a question.

What exactly are we declaring?

And did He tell us to?