All four of the gospels speak about the Sanhedrin’s meeting to discuss the fate of Christ Jesus. Ever since the raising of dead Lazarus, there had been an intense and growing excitement about Jesus. He had entered the city like a conquering king, with the adoration and adulation of the common people. He had treated the Temple as if it was His personal property, but then stormed out of it, bequeathing it to the priests and the Sanhedrin, as if He had every right to do so. The city was filling up with Jews from around the world, with many from Galilee, where there was even greater excitement about this man. The atmosphere in Jerusalem at this Passover season was at the boiling point.
The Gospel of John gives us far more detail about this meeting than do the Synoptic Gospels. Matthew merely says that “consulted that they might take Jesus by subtilty to kill him.” Mark agrees with Matthew adding that it couldn’t take place on the feast day lest there be an uproar. And Luke says that the Sanhedrin actually feared what the people might do if Jesus was taken.
It is John who gives us the gist of the debate which took place behind the closed assembly doors. “Then gathered the chief priests and the Pharisees a council, and said, What do we? for this man doeth many miracles. If we let him thus alone, all men will believe on him: and the Romans shall come and take away both our place and nation.” They feared that if the citizens of Israel took Jesus, anointed Him and put a crown on His head, even if it was only symbolical and a waste of time and trouble, the Romans would come sweeping down with their powerful armies and destroy the nation. And that was not idle speculation, because Rome had done that to other nations. Some of the children of these same elders would actually experience that kind of destruction. In AD 70, Titus destroyed the temple and rased the city of Jerusalem. The armies of Rome did their best to destroy every town and village, hamlet and fortress in Israel.
John’s account of the meeting suggests that most of the priests and elders were beside themselves. “What should we do? “What can we do?” They were at near panic. But the High Priest, Caiaphas, about whom I will have more to say this evening, smashed his gavel down and got their attention. “You fools, you know nothing at all. Don’t you realize it is expedient, it is essential, that this man be put to death in order to save the nation.”
This evening I will come back to John 11 in order to consider what Caiaphas meant by what he said. But I take my direction this morning from what the Apostle John says. The Holy Spirit lead the wicked, Christ-rejecting High Priest, to utter a prophesy about Christ. “This spake he not of himself: but being high priest that year, he prophesied that Jesus should die for that nation; And not for that nation only, but that also he should gather together in one the children of God that were scattered abroad.”
Caiaphas was an unconscious and unwilling prophet.
We have other examples of this sort of prophecy throughout the Bible. There are cases of Egyptian and Babylonian kings being given dreams to be interpreted by God’s men. We have the case of Balaam’s donkey – an unlikely spokesman to be uttering the word of the Lord. But perhaps an even better example would be Balaam himself. Oh, how desperately he wanted to pad his bank account and retire early by uttering a curse – a negative prophecy – upon Israel, but God wouldn’t permit it. When he opened his mouth to please Balak the King of Moab, the only words which came out were those which pleased the King of kings. As William Cowper once said, “it is ever in the way of those who rule the earth to leave out of their reckoning Him who rules the universe.” Caiaphas’ words were meant to bring about the death of Christ and the preservation of these wicked men. But what he said actually meant the destruction of these men but the salvation of millions of others.
The Apostle John seemed to believe that the man who filled the office of the High Priest became a channel of God’s will and revelation. When John said “being the high priest that year,” he wasn’t suggesting that there was a new leader every year. He was saying that this was a very important year for Israel – everything was changing. That was the year God’s great and eternal High Priest came to stand for a moment before the last earthly High Priest. Caiaphas, the tiny shadow was for the first time in his life, and for the first time in centuries, standing right beside the reality which produced the shadow. And when Christ offered Himself as the one Sacrifice for sin for ever, He put to death any need for a future priesthood. Caiaphas was in reality the last of the human High Priests – he was a dead man walking. But still, at least for a moment, he had a priestly ministry – as reluctantly given as it was.
Was there anything particularly unusual in an evil man’s prophecy? Not really. It was no more strange that Pilate’s prophecy. Didn’t the Roman governor utter the Word of God, when he wrote “This is the King of the Jews”? And when the Pharisees stood at the foot of the Cross taunting the Lord with the words, “He saved others, Himself he cannot save,” didn’t they utter things much deeper than they understood? The lips of this unworthy, selfish, unspiritual, unscrupulous, cruel priest were used unconsciously to proclaim the glorious central truth of Christianity. Christ died for a great many people from the nation which rejected and killed Him – but not for that nation alone.
Caiaphas’ words suggest a twofold aspect to Christ’s death. From the human point of view it was a savage murder, using the law for political gain. But in essence the killing of Jesus was designed to avoid a confrontation with Rome. And with that avoided, the personal position of each of these men was assured for a little while. But of course, in the eternal plan of God, the death of Christ was to be an atonement for sin.
How many times has the Lord made “the wrath of men to praise” Him? The law of Divine Providence runs through the history of the world like the Columbia river. The poisons of man’s sin, strained through the will and grace of God, come out refreshing and nutritious. The greatest crime that man has ever committed was turned by God into the greatest blessing ever bestowed upon us unworthy sinners.
There is something quite ironic here, but which John doesn’t bring to our attention. When was this Gospel of John written? It is generally agreed, at least by those men who love God’s Word, that this chapter was written by John while in Ephesus, somewhere between 90 and 94 AD. In other words, John already knew about the destruction of Jerusalem and the devastation of Israel when he wrote the account of this conspiracy. John knew that the catastrophe which Caiaphas and his cohorts tried to avoid by their short-sighted policy, they actually encouraged. Christ’s death was in some ways the reason for the physical destruction of the nation.
How many of Jesus’ parables go something like this from Luke 20 – “A certain man planted a vineyard, and let it forth to husbandmen, and went into a far country for a long time.” The owner then sent servant after servant to receive the fruit of his vineyard, but the husbandmen mistreated the ambassadors in a horrible and shameful fashion – beating and wounding them. “Then said the lord of the vineyard, What shall I do? I will send my beloved son: it may be they will reverence him when they see him. But when the husbandmen saw him, they reasoned among themselves, saying, This is the heir: come, let us kill him, that the inheritance may be ours. So they cast him out of the vineyard, and killed him. What therefore shall the lord of the vineyard do unto them? He shall come and destroy these husbandmen, and shall give the vineyard to others.” As prophesied by parables, Christ’s death meant the destruction – not the salvation – of the nation. And do you remember the verses which followed that parable in Luke 20? “And (Jesus) beheld them” – beheld whom? The chief priests and scribes. “And he beheld them, and said, What is this then that is written, The stone which the builders rejected, the same is become the head of the corner? Whosoever shall fall upon that stone shall be broken; but on whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder. And the chief priests and the scribes the same hour sought to lay hands on him; and they feared the people: for they perceived that he had spoken this parable against them.” Christ’s death meant the destruction of Israel – as a nation and the destruction of the these very people.
Ah, but that death was also the salvation of many others – both in and out of the nation of Israel. “Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation a stone, a tried stone, a precious corner stone, a sure foundation.” Those individuals who build upon that foundation stone are made safe. But for those who reject it, that Stone becomes a “stone of stumbling and a rock of offence.” We must either build upon Christ or trip over Him. We must either build upon Christ, or be crushed to powder under Him. Caiaphas was making his choice, and now we must make ours. Sadly, if you do not choose to kneel before this Christ, then the choice will be made for you.
Clearly, the effects of the sacrifice of Christ were not meant by God to be confined to Israel.
As I said earlier, John was preaching the gospel in far away Ephesus on the western coast of Turkey. That church had been founded by the Apostle Paul, during his second missionary journey. He began his ministry in the Jewish synagogue, where he preached for three months. But like Caiaphas and his council, those people grew antagonistic to Paul’s message about Christ Jesus. “But when divers were hardened, and believed not, but spake evil of that way before the multitude, he departed from them, and separated the disciples, disputing daily in the school of one Tyrannus.” For two more years Paul preached the gospel of Christ to both Jews and Greeks. “And God wrought special miracles by the hands of Paul. So mightily grew the word of God and prevailed.”
With both hindsight and the leadership of the Holy Spirit, John interpreted the words of the High Priest in the light of God’s eternal and world-wide will. “And this spake he not of himself: but being high priest that year, he prophesied that Jesus should die for that nation; And not for that nation only, but that also he should gather together in one the children of God that were scattered abroad.”
What a diverse world it is in which we live – how many nations – how many ethnic groups. Of course the Jews considered themselves to be the elite – everyone else were dogs and Gentiles. The fact is – we are all dogs – sinners in the sight of an angry God. The only thing that can unite the diverse people of the world is a common relationship to the Divine Redeemer. That bond is then becomes deeper than any national bond, blood bond, or bearer bond, or James Bond. If we are bound by Christ to Himself, then we are bound to everyone else who are bound to Him. One life enervates us all – as believers in Christ.
The death of Christ brings diverse people into the family of God. As Caiaphas said, “He will gather into one all the scattered children of God.” There are no children of God through simple humanity and people’s descendance from Adam. Spiritually speaking, human beings are children of the devil. There are children who were born Asian, and there are children who were born Caucasian. There are children who are now old, and there are children who are yet anticipated. But the Lord know those who are His. Christ once said, “I am the good shepherd, and know my sheep, and am known of mine. As the Father knoweth me, even so know I the Father: and I lay down my life for the sheep. And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold, and one shepherd.”
If I may, I’d like to apply Caiaphas’ situation to a much larger one. That man was trying to prevent the destruction of his home, his city, and his position. But by rejecting Christ, he destroyed them all, including himself. And today the people of this world are still trying to do the same – save their homes, their positions, and of course, themselves. But by refusing to bow before the Saviour, they are guaranteeing their own eternal destruction. Christ Jesus will soon “be revealed from Heaven with his mighty angels, In flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.” And those people – perhaps even you – “shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power.”
What Caiaphas needed to do, and what sinners still need to do today is repent before God. They need to admit and acknowledge that they are worthless, doomed sinners in the Lord’s holy sight. They then need to see their need of this Christ Jesus, who gave His life as a ransom for many. They need to put their trust for deliverance and forgiveness upon the Saviour. Oh, will you not, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.”