sign in sign up
<<
Home , Book of Signs, John 11

Lent V: :45-54: The Plot to Kill

1. Ylvisaker: "The fourth has been called the ''. John groups his account of Jesus' public ministry before the Passion about six great QT\µE'i:aor miracles. Three of these were performed in : the turning of water into wine in ch. 2, the healing of the nobleman's son in 4, and the feeding of the 5,000 in 6. Three were performed in : The restoration of the sick at Bethesda, 5, the healing of the man born blind, 9, and the raising of Lazarus, 11. These signs may be considered in a climatic or ascending relation, one to the others. The opposition to Jesus waxes greater and more bitter, therefore His signs become more marvelous and reveal His majesty with an ever greater glory and effulgence. There is a battle, as it were, between the light and the darkness. Jesus seeks to save His opponents, but they despise and repudiate Him." Well said. John 11 ought be read in English in its entirety before one studes vss. 45-54.

2. Vs. 45: Jesus' miracles had one of two effects, reflected in vss. 45-46. ouv, 11therefore" in view of the miracle. Cf. vs. 19. They had come to console the sisters and left as believers in . They received much more than they gave. They saw what Jesus did. This brought them to faith. Not to be exluded are the words which Jesus spoke.

3. Vs. 46: S~ clearly means 11but". Lenski thinks that these too were believers but went to the to tell them that they were mistaken about Jesus. We disagree. People feared to disagree with the Jewish leaders. However, we do not agree with LB: uretumed to the Pharisees" which implies that the Pharisees had sent them. This cannot be proved. Note that O £1to{11crt:voccurs both in vss. 45 and 46. The first group believed. The second merely reported. They had the evidence but rejected it.

4. Vs. 47: ouv, "in view of this message". They swing into action at once. Note the order of words: verb, subject, object. By the way, this must have taken place in . Commentators and translations differ as to the meaning of cruvtSpwv. Does it mean simply a meeting, a gathering of part of the , or the full Sanhedrin? We prefer the last. But, in any case, from what is said in vs. 53, there were sufficient authorities to make a decision. '{:;A£yov"they were saying 11 denotes repeated action. 'tC nowuµEv is not deliberative subjunctive, nor future indicative, nor a question asking for information. We think AAT gets at it: "What are we doing? This man is doing many miracles." Note that forms of nottco occur twice. For the question AV; NIV, JB, NEB and NASB are recommended in addition to AAT; not LB, RSV, TEV, NKJV. They are admitting to each other that all their attempts to curtail Jesus' work and influence have failed utterly. On the other hand 11This fella is performing many miracles." He goes right on doing the Father's will and more and more people believe on Him. ouw~ 6 av9pcono~ is plainly derogatory. Note how the Jewish authorities never want to use Jesus' name. One can trace that through all four . They are frustrated by both the number and quality of his miracles. Perhaps they have in mind the miracles in chapters 5, 7, 9 and surely in chapter 11 here. They had the indisputable evidence. They could not deny it. But they refused to believe in HIM. They had the intellectual knowledge but their will was adamantly opposed to Him. Bengel aptly remarks: "Death itself sooner yields to the power of Christ than does unbelief." Exactly. Jesus came to conquer sin, death and the devil. But those who absolutely reject this are worse than death itself.

5. Vs. 48: "If we allow Him to go on in this way (of doing miracles), everybody will believe in Him." That is just what God wanted. That is just what they did not want. As if they could stop Him! Read Mt. 27:18. Envy was their root-problem. The people followed Jesus rather than the Jewish authorities. Kat means "and as a result". The first half of vs. 48 is precisely right but the second half

73 involves a fallacy. It implies that Jesus was a revolutionary, for which there was no evidence. In the second place, most of Israel was looking for a secular Messiah, one who would throw off the yoke of Rome. But when it came right down to it, the Jewish authorities did not even want that kind of Messiah. Note prominence of 11µ<1>v,meaning primarily the Jewish authorities. 1mt--.catmeans "both­ and". 't61tov has variously been interpreted to mean "Jerusalem" "the temple" "our position". The translations reflect these differences. Bengel simply translates both nouns with "our all", meaning 11simply everything we have and aretl. The authorities are thinking primarily of themselves. Ylvisaker: "In order to attain their objective, they seek to give the matter a political aspect. They would appeal to the love of liberty among the rnasses. 11 Bengel: "With all their scheming the Jews did not escape that which they dreaded; indeed, they brought it upon themselves by this very course of action." By rejecting Jesus they thought they'd keep Rome away. The very opposite happened. Lenski: "Observe the selfishness that is here thinly veiled behind a show of patriotism.... Yet the plan they adopted for maintaining themselves brought on the very calamity they meant to avoid. 11 Stoeckhardt: "They themselves did not believe that Jesus was politically dangerous, but this was advantageous to them to quiet their own conscience and to rid themselves of Hirn Who had told them the truth." The thinking of the Sanhedrin is a mixture of envy, rejection, unbelief, lies, hatred and illogical thinking. Deliberate unbelief leads to madness.

6. Vs. 49: This is the first mention of in the Book of John. Here in vs. 48, in vs. 51 and at 18:13 John makes a point of the fact that he was high priest of that year. In which year? As Bengel says: "In that memorable year when Jesus was to die." Note emphatic uµEi<; and the double negative. Ylvisaker: "Caiaphas was a heartless person, cold, calculating, and discerning, a man who looked with sovereign disdain upon all others. He shows his mastery at once. If the other members of the council are at a loss, this is certainly not true of hirn. 11 Hendriksen: 11In the patchwork of his personality the strands of brazen impudence, insane ambition, rancorous jealously and consummate cleverness were interwoven.... That Caiaphas was a rude and sly manipulator, an opportunist, who did not know the meaning of fairness or justice and who was bent on having his way, is clear from the passages in which he is mentioned (Mt. 26:3.57; Lk:. 3:2; Jn. 11:49; 18:13.14.24.28; Acts 4:6). 11 They know nothing! He knows everything!

7. Vs. 50: Note that AV and NKJV read 11µiv, not uµiv as do all our other translations. In either case Caiaphas is speaking of what is advantageous to the Jewish leaders. JB is good here: "You don't seem to have grasped the situation at all; you fail to see that it is better for one man to die etc." They don't know anything nor do they assess the situation correctly. What's his solution? Cold-blooded murder. Ylvisaker: "He feigns the belief of a necessary choice between two evils." By the way both i5n and tva introduce noun clauses, the first the object of A,,O"({~E0'8Eand the second the subject of the impersonal cruµq>tpEt. Caiaphas uses unep in its true vicarious sense. Here A,,a6<;means "the covenant people" and ~evoi; denotes the national standing of Israel among lhe nations. Note that A,,a6c., does not appear in vss. 51 and 52. Bengel remarks: "But John does not now any longer call them a people (A,,a6c.,) since their polity was expiring." Caiaphas presents only two possibilities which allowed no third choice. Hendricksen: 'The alternative which Caiaphas presented was false because it was based upon a presupposition which was the exact opposite of the truth. His reasoning was: Follow Jesus, and the nation perishes; put Jesus to death, and the nation is saved. Conclusion: Jesus must be put to death,--By the irony of history the exact opposite was to happen: when the Jews murdered Jesus, they sealed their own doom."

8. Vs. 51 and 52 are virtually a parenthetical thought, added by the evangelist, most wonderful Gospel. ouv in 53 resumes the thought of vs. 50. a4>'tauwi) does not mean that he spoke as a robot. It was not only of his own deliberation. &.'A.'A.a,following a negative means "quite to the contrary." The true

74 cause for his saying this was that he was high priest in that memorable year, the year of Christ's death. Lenski: "God controlled his utterance. His wickedness is left wholly intact, his murderous intent and his cunning way of expressing it in order to bring the Sanhedrin to action .... The words .... say just what HE wants to say and are words that also say just what GOD wants said .... THEY want to slay Jesus for their purpose, GOD will let them slay Jesus for his purpose .... He unconsciously states also GOD'S purpose. This, John says, was not accidental but due to God." Stoeckhardt: "God used Caiaphas for our good, putting this significant prophecy in his mind and on his lips, so that without his knowledge and will, Caiaphas poured ONE meaning into his words; God, ANOTHER. ... In God's wonderful providence, the choice of words was so directed that these same words were capable of expressing the gist of God's glorious plan of salvation." Bengel: "Caiaphas and Pilate condemned Jesus; yet both gave a testimony foreign to their own personal feeling: Caiaphas, in this passage, gives testimony as to the SACERDOTAL character of the death of Christ; Pilate, in the inscription on the cross, gave testimony as to His KINGLY character. Cf. 2 Cor. 5:14.15." Ylvisaker: "The fact that a person may be an instrument of the Spirit without personal communion with God and with His Spirit--without a spark of faith and love--is nothing new; this is apparent already in the case of Balaam, the old Mesopotamian seer (Num. 24:lff., 23)." Edersheim: "This was the last prophecy in Israel; with the sentence of death on Israel's true High Priest died prophecy in Israel, died Israel's high-priest-hood." im~p is substitutionary, vicarious. Caiaphas used Aa6c;, rnvoc;. It is no longer a covenant people for it had rejected God. It is only a 11nation".

9. Vs. 52: Note the correlative oux µ6vov-aAAa iccxt. Simply: "not only the Jews but also the Gentiles. 11 Though Israel rejected Jesus, He died for them. But more than that. tva denotes purpose. 1a 't~KVO: 'tot> 9EOiJ is used proleptically of all those Gentiles throughout history who would become children of God. They are called 1a otemcopmcrµ~vcx because sin and the resultant judgment of God have. scattered them. cruvaya:ru: Jesus is the subject. He takes the initiative through His suffering and death. Synergism is ruled out. £le; ~v "into one" denotes the invisible church, the Una Sancta. TEV might give the wrong idea: "into one body". The whole point is that Jesus, by His suffering and death, reconciles man to God, takes the initiative and makes the sinner one with Himself and the Father. Bengel: "The apostle of Christ takes a wider range of view than the Jewish high priest. .. . The children of God he calls them, in respect to the divine foreknowledge/' Stoeckhardt: "Through Christ's sacrificial death God's purpose is being fulfilled, because through dying Jesus has reconciled Israel and the heathen to God, which is being proclaimed to all people. Through this proclamation the exalted Christ gathers His people from the Jews and Gentiles, converting them from sinners to being His children, who serve Hirn willingly. 11 Ylvisaker: "The Jews were, in the sight of the evangelist, one nation, those without were scattered abroad. From Israel, the evangelist visions all nations and observes the effect of Jesus' death in its most inclusive sense. 'Children' not because they were children before the Gospel came to them, since a person may become a child of God only through faith in Jesus Christ, but 'children' in the sense of the 'sheep' in Jn. 10:16: they who shall become children." From Caiaphas' point of view his prophecy proceeded from envy, hatred and hypocrisy. From God's point of view it proceeded from grace and love. Cf. Jn. 3:16.

10. Vs. 53: ouv goes back to vs. 50, 11in view of what Caiaphas said." They followed his advice. "That year" occurs in 49 and 51, the year in which Jesus died. 1'That day", the day of the raising of Lazarus and the resultant meeting of the Sanhedrin initiated the final plot against Jesus. tvcx, "that" introduces an object clause. The verb a1to1<1£fvcomv clearly shows that Caiaphas had cold-blooded murder in mind at vs. 50. There he used the word 11die11 to soften his words. Here the evangelist uses 11kil1 11 to show Caiaphas' true meaning. Were there dissenting votes? Ylvisaker: "Henceforth the members were fully determined to put Jesus to death. Apparently was not present, for we have no reason to believe that he took part in this conspiracy against Jesus.' 1 But Lenski: "Did Caiaphas

75 encounter dissent? Lk. 23 :51 reports that did not consent to their counsel and deed .... We have no word about Nicodemus, save his former courageous dissent, 7:50 etc. It is a fair conclusion that a minority of the Sanhedrin protested, although to no avail." But that cannot be proved. By the way, though they began plotting and planning Jesus' death, they could not have canied it out without the help of Judas, humanly speaking.

11. Vs. 54: Here ouv points back to vs. 53, "in view of this plot". Jesus knew about it. But His hour had not yet come. He did not die until He was ready to die. Jn. 10: 18. 1t£pt£1t

12. Some concluding thoughts: a) Read Gen. 50:20. Its application in vs. 50 is obvious. b) Compare the usage of mcr'tE'Oro in 45 and 48. Caiaphas was afraid of people becoming believers. To him faith in Christ was a threat. And it was, because he was an unbeliever. Their faith condemned him just as Noah's faith condemned the world, Hebr. 11 :7. c) Sensus literalis unus est, an important rule of interpretation. That holds true in Jn. 11:50-52 which has two meanings, that of Caiaphas and that of God. But that double meaning is the intended sense, for God tells us so.

76