I’ve entitled our message this evening, “One Man Shall Die for All.” We call the day that our Lord died on the cross Good Friday, but there was nothing good about it for Jesus. This day is called “good,” because it’s good for us. In a prophecy of the Messiah, in Isaiah 53:4-5, we read, “Surely, He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed.” A key word in this prophecy is “our,” because it details all the benefits that “we” have received from Jesus’ death on the cross. But sometimes people choose to reject these benefits, which is something we will see this evening.
The Response to Jesus’ Miracles (11:45-48)
45 Then many of the Jews who had come to Mary, and had seen the things Jesus did, believed in Him. 46 But some of them went away to the Pharisees and told them the things Jesus did. 47 Then the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered a council and said, “What shall we do? For this Man works many signs. 48 If we let Him alone like this, everyone will believe in Him, and the Romans will come and take away both our place and nation.”
“No sooner had Lazarus come forth [from the tomb], than attention shifted from him and focused on the response of the onlookers to Jesus” (Broadman, p. 316). The restoration of Lazarus had a two-fold effect. First, some who heard about it believed in Jesus. Secondly, there were others who went to the Pharisees and told them about the things that Jesus had done (Johnson).
In John 14:6, Jesus declared Himself to be the way, the truth, and the life. He stated that no one could come to Father, and that no one could make it to heaven apart from knowing Him as their Savior and Lord. Their response to Jesus – their response to His claims, and their response of either surrender or defiance – was determined by their presuppositions, opinions and ideology.
All of us have ideas about the person of Christ and His work. Even those who are not Christians have an opinion or a view concerning Jesus. Our ideas may be deficient, they may be wrong, or they may even be opposed to the Bible, but we still have ideas (Johnson). So, because of their presuppositions, some – namely the chief priests and Pharisees – were unable to see Jesus for who He really was as the long-awaited Messiah and Savior. They acknowledged that He was doing many signs, but all they could see is Someone who challenged their beliefs and authority.
In Isaiah 8:14, we are told of the coming Messiah, “He will be as a sanctuary; but a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense to both the houses of Israel.” S. Lewis Johnson says, “Either we build upon Christ or we must fall over Him.” For those whose views are founded on the Word and founded on the Rock of Christ, Jesus is their sanctuary; He is salvation and eternal life. But for those whose views are contrary to the Word, whose ideology is based on personal opinion, or founded on societal acceptance and approval, they will stumble and fall before Truth.
So, the scribes and Pharisees gathered a council together, and they said, “What shall we do?” Notice that there is an emphasis on “our place” and “our nation.” They were not very concerned about the things that Jesus was doing, which were amazing and impressive. They were more concerned about the privileges they had received from the Romans (Johnson).
There are many in our society today, many who are lost, who have the preconceived notion that the way to heaven is to be a good person, to live a good life and do good for others; and because of this, they refuse to see the truth that salvation is by grace through faith in Christ alone (Ephesians 2:8-9); and so, they stumble and fall. There are others who claim to be Christians and hold views contrary to the teachings of the Bible, and because of an ideology based purely on personal opinion rather than the Word, they refuse to hear the truth of the Bible; and they make it their cause to fight those with “conservative” beliefs.
In a similar manner, the chief priests and Pharisees opposed Jesus. They felt it “impossible to allow Jesus to continue unchecked. If He was allowed to go on doing the things which He was doing, it was inevitable that the people would follow Him in even greater numbers. So, the Sanhedrin was called to deal with the situation” (Barclay, p. 120).
The Sanhedrin was comprised of the Pharisees and Sadducees. “The Pharisees were not a political party at all; their sole interest was in living according to every detail of the law; and they cared not who governed them so long as they were allowed to continue in meticulous obedience to the law. On the other hand, the Sadducees were an intensely political party. The Sadducees were the wealthy and the aristocratic party . . . All the priests were Sadducees. And it is clear that it was the priests who dominated this meeting of the Sanhedrin. That is to say, it was the Sadducees who did all the talking” (Barclay, pp. 120-121).
“The one thing at which the Sadducees always aimed, was the retention of their political and social power and prestige. What they feared was that Jesus might gain a following and raise a disturbance against the government . . . With such a vast empire to govern, Rome could never afford civil disorder, and Rome always quelled civil disorder with a firm and merciless hand. If Jesus was the cause of civil disorder, Rome would descend in all her power, and, beyond a doubt, the Sadducees would be dismissed from the positions of authority in which they gloried” (Barclay, p. 121). So, they felt that something had to be done, which brings us to our next set of verses.
Sacrificing One to Save Many (11:49-50)
49 And one of them, Caiaphas, being high priest that year, said to them, “You know nothing at all, 50 nor do you consider that it is expedient for us that one man should die for the people, and not that the whole nation should perish.”
The Sadducees insisted that Jesus must be eliminated. Caiaphas said it was “expedient” that He die. And I want hone in on this term “expedient.” The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines this word as, “Something done or used to achieve a particular end, usually quickly.” The Oxford Dictionary defines “expedient” as, “a means of attaining an end, especially one that is convenient but considered improper or immoral.” The word “expedient” to all who were gathered there meant compromise. It meant, “Let’s get this over with and out of the way in a hurry before it leads to political or national ruin! Before it leads to embarrassment!”
Jesus claimed to be the truth, but they weren’t interested in truth. They were interested in their own privileges. So, here’s the Jewish nation, having a connection with Almighty God, and receiving from Him the very revelation of God; but then later on, because of their own privileges, because of “expediency,” they will eventually say to the Romans, because they’re so anxious to get rid of Jesus, “We have no king but Caesar!” (Johnson). “In order to preserve their position, their place, and their nation, they are willing to deny their own theological views. They were full of expediency” (Johnson) to the point of readily compromising truth.
Now, expediency is something that touches all of us at some time or another. Sometimes it’s expedient for us to deny the claims of Christ. We may be speaking to a friend, and when the subject of Jesus comes up, we keep quiet. We don’t want to be thought of as strange. We don’t want to be thought of as fanatical. And so, we keep quiet (Johnson). How many of us are expedient to let go of our convictions in order to save face; or, maybe to keep our job?
“Caiaphas [said] that it was better that Jesus should die than that there should be trouble with the Romans. He must die to save the nation” (Barclay, p. 123). For Caiaphas it should have been truth above our own interests, at all cost. But that was not the case. It was the aim of Caiaphas to preserve the status quo – which was one of privilege and position. Truth was secondary to expediency. “The nation and the temple; they must be preserved at all costs, even to the rejection of the One for whom we look” (Johnson); even at the cost of Jesus Christ, the one true Messiah; at the cost of Israel’s faith and her eternal hope.
Sometimes, it seems, the sins that characterize the high priest are the sins that characterize each of us as individuals. It’s not truth above all costs. It’s not truth above our own interests (Johnson). When it comes to speaking the truth or standing on the truth, sometimes we take the attitude of, “How will this affect the church? How will this affect my family? How will this affect me?” But you never find someone like Martin Luther doing that in the days of the Reformation (Johnson).
There are consequences for denying truth. Think about Caiaphas. He has resisted truth, and resisted truth, and resisted truth, and blindness, utter blindness, has fallen upon him; and now, as a consequence of that, murder and then eventually, eternal death” (Johnson) as he has rejected Jesus as the one true Messiah and Savior. S. Lewis Johnson says, “You can never defeat God by the principals of expediency . . . You can never get the best of Him. You can never do yourself any good by acting by expediency when matters of truth are at stake” (Johnson) – and we’re about to see how the Lord was not defeated.
Double Meaning and Prophecy (11:51-53)
51 Now this he did not say on his own authority; but being high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus would die for the nation, 52 and not for that nation only, but also that He would gather together in one the children of God who were scattered abroad. 53 Then, from that day on, they plotted to put Him to death.
We read in verse 51 that Caiaphas unknowingly spoke a prophecy in his pronouncement of death. “Consciously seeking only to be expedient, he proposed that one man (Jesus) should die for the people, if that would prevent the whole nation from perishing. But the [gospel writer John] realized that, in a redemptive sense, Jesus did die; not only for the Jewish nation, but to gather as a shepherd into one flock [all] the children of God . . . scattered throughout the world. Thus, in deciding to put Jesus to death, the Sanhedrin was unwittingly carrying out the ‘deepest purposes’ of God” (Broadman, p. 317); “to save to the uttermost those who come to God through Him” (Hebrews 7:25); to offer the forgiveness of sins and redemption unto all people, even to the uttermost parts of the earth.
I am reminded of a verse in Genesis 5:20: “But as for you, you meant evil against me; but God meant it for good, in order to bring it about as it is this day, to save many people alive.” The Sanhedrin meant to harm Jesus to save their status, their jobs and their skewed ideology. But in the end, God will triumph over our schemes and be glorified. Our plans to suppress truth and serve self will backfire. We will fail in our self-glory and self-preservation, as God works through it all to benefit others; namely to benefit those who hunger for truth and who seek the Lord’s face and His salvation. In contrast, Jesus tells us in John 12:25, that those who seek to save their life in this world will lose eternal life.
And They Led Him Away (18:12-14)
12 Then the detachment of troops and the captain and the officers of the Jews arrested Jesus and bound Him. 13 And they led Him away to Annas first, for he was the father-in-law of Caiaphas who was high priest that year. 14 Now it was Caiaphas who advised the Jews that it was expedient that one man should die for the people.
Right here, the prophecy is fulfilled. Verse 13 says, “And they led Him away.” Jesus was “led away” to be tried by Annas, the former high priest; and then by Caiaphas, the current high priest; and then by Pontius Pilate, the governor of the Roman province of Judea. After that, Jesus was mocked and tortured; and then, he was “led away” again for the final redemptive act. We read in Matthew 27:31, “And when they had mocked Him, they took the robe off Him, put His own clothes on Him, and led Him away to be crucified.”
So, why did one Man die for the people? Why did Jesus die for all mankind, for the Jew and Gentile from every part of the earth? Well, a good way to answer this question is by going back to a term that we already encountered, where Caiaphas said “it is ‘expedient’ for us that one man should die for the people” (v. 50). Remember, one definition of the word “expedient” was, “a means of attaining an end, especially one that is convenient but considered improper or immoral?” The Sanhedrin wanted to silence Jesus by unjustly putting him to death; but Jesus even turned their expediency for the good of mankind.
Thayer’s Greek Lexicon tells us that the word for “expedient” can also mean, “to bring together,” “to bear together,” and “to carry with others.” Isn’t that what Isaiah prophesied? “He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows” (Isaiah 53:4). In 1 Peter 2:24, we read that Jesus “Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree . . . by whose stripes you were healed.” So, when Jesus died on the cross, what He bore and what He carried was our sins.
Paul said, in 1 Corinthians 15:3, that “Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures,” and in 1 Peter 3:18, we read, “For Christ also suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive by the Spirit.” So, we understand that Christ “bore” our sins. Why? “That He might bring us to God” – that He might restore our right standing before the heavenly Father. So, Jesus reworked their expediency to become “a means of attaining an end” to sin!
Time of Reflection
The Bible tells us in Romans 3:23, “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” Each and every person in the world has sinned; and sin results in falling short. We come up short, because we can never be perfect in and of ourselves, through anything that we do. Human beings are sinful creatures, and sin cannot abide in the same space as a righteous and holy God; and while we remain in sin, we don’t have a prayer of making it to heaven.
Romans 6:23 says, “The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Jesus bore our sin on Himself when He died on the cross. He took our punishment, which is spiritual death, and He was wounded on our behalf to that we could be set free. It was His shed blood that paid the price for our sin. And if we confess Jesus as Savior and Lord, then His blood covers our sin, we are forgiven, and we receive the gift of eternal life. Once we are forgiven and cleansed of sin, we can then enter into heaven and stand in God’s holy presence on that day that our bodies cease to function.
Jesus declares to us even today, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.” And tragically, there are millions upon millions who have refused to receive the truth in Christ, because of their own false notions concerning truth. In Acts 4:12, we learn that Peter later declared the truth to Annas and Caiaphas, and here’s what he said, “Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.” Jesus is the way, Jesus is the truth, and Jesus is the life; and He became “the way” by His death on Good Friday.
NOTES
William Barclay, “The Gospel of John: Volume 2,” The Daily Study Bible (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1956).
William E. Hull, The Broadman Bible Commentary, ed. Clifton J. Allen (Nashville: Broadman Press, 1970).
S. Lewis Johnson, “The Prophecy of Caiaphas,” SLJ Institute: https://sljinstitute.net/gospel-of-john/the-prophecy-of-caiaphas/ (Accesses February 13, 2020).
