Did HE lie? Do we die?

After Jesus had been notified that His friend, Lazarus of Bethany, was sick, HE purposely waited a few days and then told His disciples (my paraphrase), "Lazarus has died. Now we can go to him in Bethany." As they approached the village, Lazarus' sister, Martha, came to meet Him. She told Jesus, "if you had just come when we called, my brother would not have died." We then read: Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this? (John 11:25-26 KJV) It sounds as if Jesus made two contradictions here. Obviously Lazarus, her brother, a believer and follower of Jesus, had died. Jesus said, okay, even though he's dead, yet he shall live. Then HE said, anyone that believes in me, which included Lazarus, shall never die. Wait a minute, we know Lazarus as a believer, and a dead one at that, so how could Jesus say he would never die? The problem lies in the language we speak; we speak in an earthly tongue with earthly meanings. Jesus used earthly sounding words, but with the Heavenly meaning. We think of death in one way only, the full cessation of life. Jesus knows there are two possible stages to what we call death. In this situation, although Lazarus, a believer, did enter into the first stage of death, and would again, later, Jesus knew Lazarus would never enter that second stage of eternity without Him, the future thing John was allowed to see, and tells us about in: And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire. (Revelation 20:14-15 KJV) Now, Martha and Mary did not understand Jesus' Word to them, they only understood the earthly meaning of dying. If Jesus had responded immediately, as they desired, to their original message, Lazarus could have been healed of his sickness, and they would all have enjoyed a very temporary blessing. Jesus knew the truth about death, though, and wanted to give them a better blessing, one that would carry them through the rest of their lives, so HE let Lazarus die, in the earthly sense. We, of course, wouldn't and don't see that as a blessing, but Jesus wants us to learn the Heavenly meaning of "death", the fact that: And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Men and women would never have grasped that meaning so fully, if Jesus had prevented Lazarus' "death" at that time. We would never have accepted His Word to us through John: Fear not; I am the first and the last: I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death. (Revelation 1:17-18 KJV) We would not have understood that what we see as final, death, is merely transitory for the believer in Jesus; we just pass through it!!!! "Dying", for the believer, is merely a gateway to real life; we shall never die!!, not in the Heavenly meaning. Martha, like us, though a believer in Jesus, and accepting that on some future day we will "rise up from death", still saw only the earthly meaning of the word. She later "warned" Jesus not to open the tomb, believing in the long lasting effect of death, for she said, "don't! He's been 'dead' four days and by now he stinks." We often picture death in the same way, even though we mouth words to the contrary. When we begin to fully grasp the Heavenly meaning of the word, our concept of it changes completely. Before, like Martha and Mary, we imagine believers who have gone on before us as being held in the grave, stuck there, like the false teaching of "purgatory." That is a lie, the believer goes straight to Jesus. Paul's rhetorical question rings out: O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. (1 Corinthians 15:55-57 KJV)