The Judean leaders plot to kill Jesus.

John 11.45-53.

In the other gospels, we read of Jesus annoying the Pharisees of his community to the point they start conspiring with the Herodians to kill him. Mk 3.6 But that’s in Herod Antipas’s province; that’s in the Galilee. Judea’s a whole different province.

In Jesus’s day, in the 30s CE, Judea was run directly by Rome, who sent a procurator—at this point in time, the prefect Pontius Pilate—to keep the peace, and make sure the Romans got their taxes. But day-to-day stuff was handled by Judean nobles, who mimicked the Roman senate by creating their own senate. They called it a συνέδριον/synédrion (Syriac ܣܢܗܕܪܝܢ/sanhedrín), “sit-together, council,” and people get the idea this was a legislative or judicial body. It really wasn’t either of them: It was an oligarchy, same as the Roman senate. These were the noble families, the rich families, the “important” people of the province, presided over by the temple’s head priest. (Until the Romans took over, the head priest was also the king of Judea; now he was just appointed by the procurator.) Bound by the Law of Moses—although they certainly bent it every which way—but yeah, they ruled the province wherever the Romans didn’t.

And Jesus’s raising of Lazarus threw ’em into a panic.

John 11.45-48 KWL

45So, many of the Judeans coming to mourn with Mary,

upon seeing what Jesus does,

believe in him.

46Some of them go off to the Pharisees

and tell them what Jesus does.

47So, the head priests and Pharisees gather in the senate

and say, “This person does many miracles.

48When we leave Jesusᴾ free to do so,

everyone will believe in him,

and the Romans will come,

will take us away,

plus the land and the nation.”

Well that escalated quickly: “If everyone believes in him, the Romans will destroy us!”

As I said, the senate consisted of all the important people in the province. Many of ’em were Pharisees, and Pharisees had a whole End Times Timeline which told of a Messiah coming to overthrow the Romans. Of course if you don’t believe Jesus is that Messiah—and they didn’t, ’cause Jesus didn’t act at all like they wanted—it means his overzealous followers might try to overthrow the Romans anyway, and you wind up… well, with what actually happened in the year 70. This fear the senators articulated in the last three lines of verse 48? Spot on.

The head priest, Joseph Caiaphas, then stepped in and shrewdly said no, things don’t have to be that way.

John 11.49-50 KWL

49A certain one of them, Joseph Caiaphas,

being head priest that term,

tells them, “You² don’t know anything,

50nor do you² consider this:

It is better for you² that one person might die for the people,

and the whole nation might not be destroyed.”

If it sounds a little bit like a mafia don trying to quiet the agitated members of the other crime families by saying this could easily be solved by whacking the troublemaker… well yes it does. Oligarchs are oligarchs, you see.

“Caipahas doesn’t say this on his own.”

Christian sermons and movies have long depicted head priest Caipahas as an evil politician, a woeful hypocrite who pretended to be a holy man but was no such thing, a Sadducee who believed in neither miracles nor angels, and could barely be said to even be a believer. Whose only function in history was to sentence Jesus to death.

I would agree with them… if I hadn’t once been involved in my local political party. Back then I met elected officials and candidates, and got to see firsthand what sort of people they were. Some of ’em were actually Christian. But they were the sort of Christians who had figured out how to feel like they consistently followed Jesus everywhere they went… and at the same time not really.

Y’see, they made exceptions. “In this particular instance, I know Jesus wants me to [MORAL THING TO DO], but I gotta be practical.” In other words, gotta do whatever it takes to stay in power and gain more, and that includes immoral things. Breaking promises, lying, hiding things, appeasing patrons. All stuff Jesus can’t possibly approve of, but they figure “in this particular instance,” power comes first, Jesus comes second. Jesus forgives all, so he’ll understand.

Thing is, they make a lot of exceptions. But they’re not keeping track of how often they do it, and never notice their whole lives are exceptions. They don’t follow Jesus at all. He doesn’t know them.

Back to Caiaphas. We don’t know what kind of religious leader he was, for the scriptures don’t say. Since they only talk about Caiaphas sentencing Jesus, he sure doesn’t look all that religious! But it’s entirely possible he was. He might’ve been a very devout Jew for all we know, Sadducaism aside.

But two fatal flaws in his religion. One, obviously, is Caiaphas didn’t believe in Jesus at all. Remember, Sadducees didn’t believe in miracles. Ergo Caiaphas wouldn’t’ve believed any of the miracle stories about Jesus. He’d have assumed, same as atheists assume about Christian miracle stories, they’re all fake, and all the people who believe ’em are delusional fools. Jesus must be some trickster who’s only trying to gain influence and power, and using religion to do it, and how dare he. (Nevermind all Caiaphas’s influence and power came from religion; he’s the head priest, so it’s totally okay if he does it.)

Second, Caiaphas wasn’t listening to God. That’s a constant problem with today’s cessationists: They don’t think God talks anymore, and for this reason they’re not even trying to listen—and miss everything the Holy Spirit wants to tell them. They don’t entirely miss it, ’cause the Spirit will send ’em people who do listen to him… but if you’re resistant to everything the Spirit is telling you, you’re gonna be just as resistant to his prophets. If you absolutely think you’re in the right, not even God the Holy Spirit Himself will convince you otherwise. Humans are stubborn like that.

Now here’s the bonkers thing: As the head priest, Caiaphas’s job was to mediate God to the people. (If you’re thinking, “Wait, that’s what Jesus does”—yes he does; he’s our head priest now.) How are you gonna talk to people on God’s behalf, and talk to God on the people’s behalf, if you think God doesn’t talk?

Obviously you’re gonna suck at your job. Might even try to swap out that job with another one. Instead of mediating, you just do administration: You boss around all the other priests, and run senate meetings, and otherwise, well, not be a priest. Except on Yom Kippur, when the head priest has gotta do the ritual sacrifices, but that’s only once a year. The rest of the year? Admin.

If Caiaphas was even trying to be any kind of devout man, all these glitches created by his Sadducaism had to result in a profoundly defective religion. So it’s easy to believe he wasn’t drying; that he was some bitter politician, jealous of Jesus’s popularity, who had him killed for annoying him. Just another piece of evidence that the religious hierarchy of Jesus’s day was corrupt to the bone.

But then we get this odd statement John throws into his gospel:

John 11.51-53 KWL

51Caiaphas doesn’t say this on his own,

but as head priest that term,

he prophesies that Jesus

is about to die for the nation.

52And not only for the nation,

but so God’s children scattered abroad

might also gather as one.

53So, ever since this day,

the senate plans to put Jesusᴾ to death.

Because Caiaphas held the office of head priest, he wasn’t merely pitching an opportunistic, immoral scheme. This was somehow prophecy.

Now yeah, there are Christians who believe Caiaphas, because of his rank in the temple and Judean government, was granted the power to speak prophetically. God had decided, “The man’s a weasel, but he’s my weasel,” and when Caiaphas made certain declarations like this, God decided to fulfill them. The problem with this particular belief is obvious: Caiaphas was plotting evil. He may have made it sound altruistic—“It is better for you that one person might die for the people”—but he was talking about an innocent man, a righteous man, a man who didn’t have to die for the reasons he was thinking. Jesus dying to save humanity happened to coincide with Caiaphas’s plan for Jesus to die to placate the Romans, but in no way was Caiaphas cooperating with God.

And yeah, there are Christian determinists who insist Caiaphas was cooperating with God. But unknowingly: God had a secret evil plan which made Judas Iscariot betray Jesus, made Caiaphas sentence Jesus to death, made Pilate look the other way, made the Romans beat him up, flog him, put spikes in his head, and nail his wrists and ankles to a cross. Caiaphas’s statement here reveals he was secretly part of the plan all along; even he didn’t know what God was up to, but God had made Caiaphas his pawn long before. Again, big problem with this belief: Having a secret evil plan makes you secretly evil, and it’s not just fundamentally wrong to describe God that way; it’s slander. It’s blasphemy.

My guess is this—and I’ll confess it’s a guess up front, ’cause the scriptures don’t say this. But it seems consistent with how God works with his wayward leaders. It’s based on the fact God is trying to communicate with those leaders; he’s still trying to lead them the right direction and save them, no matter how resistant or closed-minded they might get.

Okay, imagine a mail slot next to your front door, and every day the postman drops a few envelopes into it. Imagine you, for whatever silly reason, refuse to read your mail, and ignore the growing pile below the slot, no matter how large it gets; no matter how much it’s starting to get in the way of the door. Imagine one day you shove some of those letters out of the way—and happen to notice the front of an envelope; it’s your tax refund. You’re still gonna ignore the pile of mail… but now you know you got your refund. A message—not a big one, but still—got through.

Similar deal with Caiaphas. He’s gonna ignore those God-messages on the grounds God doesn’t do such messages. But some of those God-ideas are gonna slip past his mental barriers… and come out of him in odd ways. Maybe appear in his dreams. Maybe a God-idea will unwittingly drop into a casual conversation. Or maybe, even when he’s plotting evil, a God-idea will pop up about Jesus dying for the nation. The part of the idea which originated from God himself had no taint of evil in it whatsoever, but filtered through Caipahas’s wily mind, it got a bit twisted. But John recognized something in it did come from God.

So John ran with that. Jesus wasn’t just gonna die for the nation, but the whole world. Gentile Christians were gonna join Jewish Christians together in God’s kingdom. Caiaphas never remotely imagined he’d foretell any such thing… but he kinda had.