Reasoning from the Bible suggests it was meant to be a sign for those who witnessed it (under the Old Covenant). This question raises another question, why did God do this miracle? All who lived (and died) prior to Jesus’ death were under the Old Covenant and nothing in God’s teaching under the Old Covenant denies the possibility of resurrections of humans who would die again. It is a doctrinal truth for the time in which we live, the church age, the age of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit under the New Covenant. This really shouldn’t be applied to the resurrections of those before Jesus’ first coming. We should also note that the verse in question, “ it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment” (Heb 9:27), is a doctrinal truth from the Apostle Paul…AFTER the cross. It was a miracle that supersedes that which is common to man (death). Because only God can set aside the natural order of that which He has created or ordained, the resurrection of Lazarus does not deny what is said in Hebrews 9:27. J ust as God can re-birth a spiritually dead soul, He can also physically re-birth a dead body. We know our God is omnipotent and can do whatever He wills. There was also the star that led the wise men to Jesus following His birth (Matthew 2:7-10). There was the long day of Joshua, in which the sun “stood still” (Josh 10:13). We know there were other times in which God set aside the natural order with a miracle of His doing. Resurrection is something only God can do, as the Giver of Life and the Almighty and All Powerful Creator. In doing this, God set aside the natural order of what physical life has been since the fall of man. If that is the case, how could Lazarus (and others) be raised from the dead, live again, and die a second physical death? The simple answer is that those who were resurrected and brought back to life were resurrected by a miracle of God. And Hebrews 9:27 is speaking of physical death and clearly declares only one physical death. Therefore, Jesus said, “you must be born again” (John 3:7). In the application of Hebrews 9:27, we must begin by remembering that, since Adam, all are born spiritually dead because of sin. The death imposed in the Garden was both a spiritual death and a physical death. Therefore, Adam, and everyone born since Adam, has death as the penalty of sin imposed upon them. The book of Romans confirms that the “wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23). When Adam sinned in the Garden, God imposed death as the consequence of his sin. The verse in Hebrews speaks of the ultimate end of every man when it says that man will die once. While it does seem that the resurrection of Lazarus is a contradiction to the verse in Hebrews 9:27, it is not. If the Bible says “it is appointed to man once to die and then the judgment,” how do we harmonize Lazarus being raised from the dead and thus having to die twice? The same question applies for anyone who was recorded in the Bible as having been raised from the dead.
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