“Lord, by this time he stinketh: for he hath been dead four days.”
— John 11:39 (KJV)
In this haunting verse, Martha speaks of her brother Lazarus, sealed in the tomb for four days. The stench of decay is expected; death, it seems, has surely had its way. Yet behind the literal reading lies a deeper truth—one that speaks not to physical death, but to a consciousness buried under the weight of limitation, of doubt, of belief in the finality of the senses.
This post explores the strange connection between Lazarus’s tomb and the name Beelzebub—a title meaning “Lord of the Flies”. Through the interpretive eye of Neville Goddard, both symbols reveal a powerful truth: that what we accept as “reality” is often the rotting echo of past beliefs, and that resurrection is always available—but only to those who dare to imagine again.
Beelzebub: The Lord of the Flies
The name Beelzebub comes from the Hebrew Baal-zebub, a Philistine deity whose name literally means “lord of the flies”. In later Judaic and Christian tradition, the name became associated with the chief of devils, a dark force ruling over decay, corruption, and mental infestation.
Flies, as Neville might interpret them, are symbols of persistent, buzzing thoughts—those doubts, fears, and anxieties that swarm around the stagnant places of the mind. They hover over what has been left to decay: past failures, old beliefs, dead assumptions. Beelzebub reigns not through power, but through inertia—by feeding on the things we no longer question, the identities we’ve entombed ourselves within.
Lazarus: Entombed by Belief
When Lazarus dies, Jesus deliberately waits four days before arriving. The delay is significant. In Hebrew belief, the soul was thought to hover near the body for three days before departing. By the fourth day, death was considered complete—irreversible.
“By this time he stinketh.”
This is the voice of sense perception, the voice of Martha, representing the rational mind that protests: “It is too late. The decay is real. Nothing can be done.” To Neville, such statements are not about physical death but about the mental tombs we construct. They are the voices that say:
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“This situation can’t change.”
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“It’s too late for me.”
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“The damage is done.”
In Neville’s teachings, Lazarus represents any state of consciousness that appears lifeless and fixed. The tomb is the mind entrapped in the belief that change is no longer possible. The smell—the “stench” of Lazarus—is the outward manifestation of inward decay: thought patterns so deeply believed they’ve begun to rot into our world as experience.
The Fly and the Stench: One Symbol, Two Faces
Beelzebub and the stench of Lazarus are twin symbols:
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The fly represents mental decay, the obsessive recycling of dead thoughts.
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The stench represents the sensory evidence that seems to confirm them.
In both, Neville points us back to the source of experience: our imagination. What we imagine, we eventually perceive. If we persist in imagining decay—defeat, decline, helplessness—we will find ourselves surrounded by flies and stench. These are not punishments, but reflections of the state we occupy.
Neville says:
“The world is a mirror, forever reflecting what you are doing within yourself.”
— The Power of Awareness
The Command: Roll Away the Stone
Jesus gives one command before Lazarus can rise:
“Take ye away the stone.”
The stone represents the hard, fixed belief that something is final. To remove the stone is to be willing to challenge the belief in limitation, in death, in irreversible decline. It is to stop looking at the evidence and start imagining again.
This is Neville’s consistent message:
“Dare to believe in the reality of your assumption and watch the world play its part relative to its fulfilment.”
Lazarus is not just a man in a tomb. He is any state—dead hope, a broken dream, a forgotten desire—that we have sealed behind the stone of “It’s too late.” The flies of Beelzebub swarm when we give up on imagination. But when we speak, when we assume, when we claim a new identity, we roll the stone away.
Conclusion: Out of the Tomb, Into the Living Word
Beelzebub loses power the moment we withdraw belief from decay. The flies flee when we stop nourishing them with dead thoughts. Lazarus walks out of the tomb the moment we hear the voice of imagination say: “Come forth.”
Your Lazarus is whatever you think has gone too far to be revived.
Your stone is the belief that the evidence is stronger than your inner world.
Your flies are the buzzing doubts you’ve tolerated for too long.
Neville invites us to stop bowing to the “lord of the flies” and rise into the truth that life, not death, is the final word—that your I AM, rightly assumed, can call forth even the most buried desire.
“Loose him, and let him go.”
— John 11:44
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