Plot To Kill Jesus

When the chief priests and the Pharisees received the news about Lazarus' resurrection, they called a meeting of the Sanhedrin. The Sanhedrin was the official governmental ruling body of Judea. Their power was limited because they had been conquered by Rome, but they still basically ran the nation. The topic of their meeting was, "What are we doing?" or as the NKJV states, "What shall we do? They fully recognized that Jesus was doing many miraculous signs, but that did not cause them to believe in Him. You should keep that in mind when you are witnessing to people about Jesus. Don't expect people to believe just because you have presented the truth to them. You cannot argue someone into the kingdom of heaven regardless of evidence you present. Jesus could not do that even after raising the dead! If they respond in belief to the gospel message it is because the Holy Spirit is working on them. We witness because God commands us to do so and we want to see God at work. Lazarus' resurrection should have brought them to belief, but instead, it increased their antagonism against Him. Why? Verse 48.  THEIR FEAR (48) "If we let Him [go on] like this, all men will believe in Him, and the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation." The chief priests and Pharisees were afraid of the Romans and of losing their positions of power. Note the unbelief that is the basis of their fears. First, they do not believe in the power of God to protect them from the Romans. They all would have been well versed in Jewish history and known of His protection in the past. They knew about Joshua, the various judges including Deborah & Barak, Gideon, David, and the angel that protected Hezekiah from the Assyrians. They knew their history well enough to know that when the nation followed God, they prospered and were protected by Him, but when the nation did not follow God, then they were oppressed by their enemies. Their source of fear was founded in the fact that they knew they were not following God, so for them their only hope of protection was in their own political maneuvering.

Second, if they believed Jesus was the Messiah then they would have also held to Him being their source of protection. Remember that Jesus had already had problems with some of the people because they wanted Him to take the role of political Messiah (John 6:15). Jesus' miracles and teaching attested that He was the Messiah, but they had to reject Him as such or they endangered their own positions of power and influence. Those were positions they were unwilling to give up. That is the bottom line of their reason for rejecting Jesus. They did not want the people following Him or they would lose their influence, and all the miracles Jesus was doing was causing that. Therefore, they must somehow get rid of Jesus and keep Rome placated. They were in fear because their own sinful quest for power blinded them to what was happening in their midst. They did not believe their own history and therefore did not trust God in anyway for themselves or the nation. They looked to themselves as the means of their own salvation. We also must be careful of falling into the same trap they did when it comes to the future of our own nation. We have the great privilege of being involved in our nations politics and we should take that privilege seriously by studying the issues and the candidates and voting appropriately. As Christians, we should understand that those on positions of governmental authority are servants of God (Rom. 13). God is sovereign regardless of who is President or who is in Congress. We pray and seek to persuade people to our position. We plead for God's mercy and grace upon us and we encourage people to vote. The chief priests and Pharisees forgot the history of their nation. They forgot the God of their nation. The result is that they lived in fear of Rome instead of the fear of God. They sought to solve their problems through politics instead of righteousness. We must be careful that we never do the same. CAIAPHAS (49-50) In verses 49 & 50 we meet Caiaphas, the epitome of a political maneuverer, yet even He is subject to the sovereign will of God. But a certain one of them, Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, said to them, "You know nothing at all, 50 nor do you take into account that it is expedient for you that one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation should not perish." The historian Josephus said of the Sadducees that they were, "even among themselves, rather savage in their conduct, and in their intercourse with their peers are as ungentle as they are to aliens" (Jewish War II, viii, 14). Caiaphas is a good example of a rude and arrogant Sadducee. His statement to the rest of the Sanhedrin, "You know nothing at all," should be taken in the sense of calling them all ignorant and stupid. That is quite an insult, especially when you consider he was saying this not only to the Pharisees but also to his fellow Sadducees. All the various Biblical references to Caiaphas as well as other historical accounts present him to be a very shrewd and calculating opportunist. He was the son-in-law of the previous High Priest, Annas, who held that position from 6-15 A.D. The High Priest had a lot of political power including being the chairman of the Sanhedrin. The Romans had taken over the right to appoint the High Priest and Valerius Gratus, the predecessor of Pontius Pilate, had appointed him in A.D. 18. From this position, Caiaphas controlled various aspects of national life. Caiaphas takes to hear the fear that the rest of the Sanhedrin was expressing for he had the same fear, but he also had a plan. It is expedient for you that one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation should not perish (vs. 50). It sounded like a rational plan to them, but it was in reality a cold, calculated method for Caiaphas to destroy Jesus who he considered a rival. Caiaphas' premise was that if the nation followed Jesus, then the nation would be destroyed by Rome. Therefore, it was better for Jesus to be destroyed than for the whole nation. But a false premise leads to a false conclusion. The historical irony is that it is the opposite that happened. They murdered Jesus and in doing so sealed their own doom for the Romans did come and destroy the Temple, the city and the nation. Killing Jesus did not protect them.