John 11:45 - Meaning and Application

Here we see what happened after this great miracle. As usual, it brought opposite results. For some, it became a gift of life, leading to faith. For others, it became a cause of deeper hardness and judgment.

Some people were moved by it and came to believe. John says that many of the Jews, when they saw what Jesus did, believed in him. They had every reason to do so, because this was clear proof that Jesus had come from God. They had heard of his miracles before and had tried to avoid the truth by questioning whether the events had really happened. But now they had seen this miracle for themselves, and their unbelief was finally defeated. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.

The more we see of Christ, the more reason we find to love him and trust him. These believers were some of the Jews who had come to Mary, Lazarus’s sister, to comfort her. When we do kind things for others, we often place ourselves where God can bless us too. In serving others, we may find new chances to receive good from God.

Others were stirred up against Jesus and became even harder in their unbelief. Some of the eyewitnesses were not convinced at all. Instead, they went to the Pharisees, the Jewish religious leaders and Jesus’ enemies, and reported what he had done. They did not share the news in order to honor Christ, or even to make the leaders think more carefully about him. They told the story with a malicious purpose, hoping to push the leaders into acting against him.

This is a striking example of stubborn unbelief. They refused to accept the strongest possible proof. It is hard to see how they could resist such evidence, except that the god of this world had blinded their minds. It also shows deep hatred. Even if they would not believe that Jesus was the Messiah, one might have expected them to soften a little and stop persecuting him. But if water does not put out a fire, it only feeds it. Their report was true, but their malice gave it a wicked edge. Twisting what is true is just as bad as making up a lie. Doeg, in the Psalms, is described as a deceitful tongue, even though what he said was true (Psalm 52:2-4; Psalm 120:2-3).

The chief priests and Pharisees, the rulers and leaders of the people, were no less angry when they heard the report. So they called a council, a special meeting of their ruling body. This fulfilled the Scripture that says the rulers take counsel together against the Lord (Psalm 2:2). In the name of public good, they were actually doing great harm. The things that belonged to the nation’s peace were hidden from the eyes of those who should have guarded it.

This council was not only for advice. It also gave them a chance to stir one another up in hatred. Like iron sharpening iron, they were sharpening each other in anger against Christ and his teaching. The issue before them was what to do with Jesus in order to stop his influence from growing. They said, “What are we doing? This man is doing many miracles.” They were so alarmed that they treated the raising of Lazarus as if a great enemy army had invaded their land.

They admitted that Jesus had done many miracles. In doing so, they became witnesses against themselves, because they recognized his signs but refused his claim. They were also angry with themselves for not having acted sooner to crush him. They never once asked whether they should receive him as the Messiah, even though they were supposed to be waiting for the Messiah and Jesus had given strong proof that he was the one. Instead, they assumed he must be an enemy and needed to be brought down.

Their fear was that Jesus and his followers would bring trouble from the Romans (John 11:48). They said that if they let him continue, everyone would believe in him, and then the Romans would come and take away their place and nation. In their minds, this was no time to delay. Their fear shows how much confidence they had in their own power. They acted as if Jesus’ work depended on their permission, as if they could stop the one who had already conquered death. But the Lord in heaven laughs at the proud idea that weak human malice has real power against him.

It also shows how much they trusted their own judgment. They believed they were wise enough to predict what would happen if Jesus were left alone. They even claimed that soon everyone would believe in him. In saying this, they admitted that his teaching and miracles had real power and could not easily be resisted. Yet at another time, these same men had argued that no ruler believed in him (John 7:48). What they feared most was exactly this, that people would believe in Jesus and their whole plan would fall apart.

The success of the gospel is what Christ’s enemies fear most. If souls are saved, they see their own ruin. They also warned that if the nation as a whole followed Jesus, the Romans would come against them. They feared losing “our place,” meaning the country itself, especially Jerusalem and the temple, or else their positions of power and honor there. This was a real concern, since the Romans watched them closely and knew they were only waiting for a chance to throw off Roman rule.

It was also true that, if the Romans sent an army against them, it would be very hard for them to stand against it. Yet this showed a cowardice you would not have expected in the priests of the Lord, if their wickedness had not already cut them off from God and from good people. If they had kept their integrity, they would not have needed to fear the Romans. Instead, they speak like a people without heart, like the men of Judah who shamefully said to Samson, "Do you not know that the Philistines rule over us?" (Judges 15:11). When people lose their godliness, they also lose their courage.

But this fear was false. There was no real danger that the Romans would turn against the nation because Christ's gospel was spreading, because his teaching harmed no kingdom or province, but helped them. The Romans had no reason to suspect his growing influence. He taught people to pay taxes to Caesar, not to resist evil, but to take up the cross. At his trial, the Roman governor could find no fault in him. In truth, the priests were in more danger of stirring up the Romans against the Jewish nation than Christ was. Pretended fears are often just a cover for evil plans.

Even if there had truly been some risk of offending the Romans by allowing Christ to preach, that still would not excuse hating and persecuting a good man. Christ's enemies have often hidden their hatred behind concern for the public good and the safety of the nation. To do that, they have called his prophets and ministers troublemakers in Israel, and people who turn the world upside down. Worldly politics often puts supposed reasons of state against the rules of justice. When people care more about wealth and safety than about truth and duty, that is wisdom from below. It is earthly, selfish, and devilish.

But look at what happened. They claimed to fear that allowing Christ's gospel would bring destruction from the Romans, so they set themselves against it, right or wrong. In the end, their persecution of the gospel brought on the very disaster they feared. They filled up the measure of their sins, and the Romans came and took away their place and nation, and their place remembers them no more. The trouble we try to escape by sin is often the very trouble we bring on ourselves. Those who think they can protect or advance their worldly interests by opposing Christ's kingdom will find that Jerusalem is a heavier stone than they expected (Zechariah 12:3). The fear of the wicked will come on them (Proverbs 10:24).

Caiaphas, the high priest, then made a malicious but mysterious speech in the council. The malice is plain at once. As the high priest and president of the council, he decided the matter before it was even discussed: "You know nothing at all. Your hesitation shows your ignorance, because this is not something to debate. It is easily settled if you accept the rule that it is better for one man to die for the people" (John 11:49-50). Caiaphas was the high priest that year. Under God's design, the high priesthood belonged to the male heir of Aaron's family for life, and then to his heir. But in those corrupt days, the office was changed often, not by law, but by influence with the Roman power. That year Caiaphas wore the mitre.

His advice was basically this: somehow Jesus must be put to death. They likely suspected that Jesus really was the Messiah, but his teaching went against their favorite traditions and their worldly interests. His idea of the Messiah's kingdom also clashed with theirs. So, whoever he was, he must die. Caiaphas does not say, "Silence him," "Put him in prison," or "Send him away," though any of those would have been enough to restrain someone they thought dangerous. No, he must die. Those who set themselves against Christianity have often lost all sense of humanity and become known for cruelty.

He says this with all the slyness and malice of the old serpent. First, he hints at his own wisdom, as if, being high priest, he saw farther than the rest, even though the Urim and Thummim, the sacred means of guidance used by Israel's priests, had long been lost. How proudly he says, "You know nothing, because you are only common priests, but you must let me see deeper into this than you do." It is common for people in power to force their corrupt ideas on others simply because of their rank. Since they ought to be the wisest and best, they expect everyone to assume they are.

Second, he treats the matter as plain and beyond argument, and as if anyone who disagrees is ignorant. Reason and justice are often pushed aside by force. Truth lies in the streets, and when it is down, people kick it down farther. Justice cannot get in, and when it is kept out, it is shut out entirely (Isaiah 59:14).

Third, he relies on a political rule, that the good of the whole community should come before the good of one person. As priests, he says, it is better that one man die for the people. That much is true in a proper sense: it is noble for a man to risk his life in service to his country (Philippians 2:17; 1 John 3:16). But to kill an innocent man under the excuse of protecting the public is the devil's own policy. Caiaphas skillfully suggests that the greatest and best man, though greater than any single person, is less than the whole body and should gladly give up his life to save his country from ruin. But that has nothing to do with murdering someone who was clearly a great blessing, while pretending to prevent a danger that was only imagined.

The matter should have been stated this way: Was it wise for them to bring on themselves and their nation the guilt of blood, even a prophet's blood, just to secure their civil interests from a danger they had no good reason to fear? Was it wise to drive God and their glory away, rather than risk the Romans' anger, when the Romans could do them no harm if God was on their side? Worldly policy, when it is guided only by earthly concerns, may think it is saving everything by sin, but in the end it ruins everything.

The deeper meaning in Caiaphas's counsel does not appear at first. But the evangelist leads us into it: "He did not say this of himself" (John 11:51-52). It was not only the voice of his own hatred and policy. In these words, he also prophesied, though without knowing it, that Jesus would die for that nation. Here is a precious comment on a wicked statement, the counsel of cursed Caiaphas fitted into the good purpose of the blessed God.

Love teaches us to put the kindest meaning on people’s words and actions when we can. Yet godliness teaches us to make good use of them, even when others did not mean them that way. If wicked people, in what they do against us, are God’s hand to humble and correct us, why may they not also be God’s mouth when they speak against us, to teach and convict us?

In Caiaphas’s case, there was an unusual directing of heaven that moved him to say something that carried a very deep meaning. Since all people’s hearts are in God’s hand, so are their tongues. People are mistaken if they say, “Our tongues are our own, so we may say whatever we want and answer to no one,” or, “We can say whatever we want, and God cannot stop us by his care and power.” Balaam could not say what he wanted when he came to curse Israel, and Laban could not say what he wanted when he pursued Jacob.

The evangelist explains and expands Caiaphas’s words. He shows how they were not only used for a good purpose, but meant by God for that purpose. Caiaphas did not speak of himself. If his words were a trick to stir up the council against Christ, then he spoke from himself, or rather from the devil. But as an oracle, declaring God’s plan and purpose in Christ’s death to save God’s spiritual Israel from sin and judgment, he did not speak from himself. He knew nothing of this, and he did not mean it. His heart was set only on destruction, as Isaiah 10:7 says.

First, he prophesied, and true prophecy does not come from a person’s own thinking. But was Caiaphas among the prophets? In this one instance, yes, though he was a bad man and a bitter enemy of Christ and his gospel. God can, and often does, use wicked people as tools to serve his own purposes, even against their own plans. He keeps them not only in a chain to stop the evil they would do, but also in a bridle to lead them into the service they would never choose.

Words of prophecy on someone’s lips are no sure sign of grace in the heart. The plea, “Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in your name?” will be turned away as empty.

Second, he prophesied because he was high priest that year. That did not make him fit to be a prophet. We should not imagine that the priestly crown first gave prophecy to the worst head that ever wore it. But because he was high priest, and so a man of public notice among the leaders, God was pleased to put this important word into his mouth rather than into another man’s, so that it would be noticed more, or ignored at greater fault. People have often paid close attention to the sayings of great men: a wise saying is on the lips of a king (Proverbs 16:10). So this divine saying was placed on the lips of the high priest, so that even from his mouth this truth would be confirmed, that Christ died for the good of the nation, and not because of any evil in his hands.

He happened to be high priest in that very year set apart as the year of the Redeemer, when the Messiah, the Prince, must be cut off, but not for himself (Daniel 9:26), and he had to acknowledge it. It was also that famous year in which the Spirit would be poured out more fully than before, according to the promise in Joel 2:28-29, compared with Acts 2:17. Some drops of that blessed rain fell on Caiaphas, like the crumbs, as Dr. Lightfoot says, that fall from the children’s bread to the dogs. This was the year when the Levitical, or Old Testament priesthood, was coming to an end. From the mouth of the man who was high priest that year came an unwilling surrender of that priesthood to the one who would no longer, as they had done for so many years, offer animals for that nation, but would offer himself and put an end to the sin offering. He made this surrender without knowing it, as Isaac gave the blessing to Jacob.

Third, the substance of the prophecy was that Jesus should die for that nation. This was the very thing all the prophets had borne witness to, as those who testified beforehand to the sufferings of Christ (1 Peter 1:11). Christ’s death must become Israel’s life and salvation. Caiaphas meant by “that nation” the people who stubbornly held to Judaism. But God meant the people in that nation who would receive Christ’s teaching and follow him, all believers, the spiritual children of Abraham.

The death of Christ, which Caiaphas was then plotting, became the ruin of the very interest he meant to protect, because it brought full judgment on them. Yet it also advanced the very cause he hoped to destroy, because Christ, when lifted up from the earth, drew all people to himself. This is a great prophecy: Jesus should die for others, not only for their benefit, but in their place. He died for that nation, because to them the first offer of salvation through his death was made. If the whole Jewish nation had believed in Christ and received his gospel, they would have been saved forever and also saved as a nation from their troubles. The fountain was first opened to the house of David (Zechariah 13:1). He died for that nation so that the whole nation would not perish, but a remnant would be saved (Romans 11:5).

The evangelist also expands Caiaphas’s words in John 11:52, not for that nation only, however much it thought itself the special favorite of heaven, but also that he should gather into one the children of God scattered abroad. Here we should notice, first, the people Christ died for. Not for the Jewish nation only, since that would have been a small thing for the Son of God to undertake such a great work just to restore the preserved of Jacob and the outcasts of Israel. No, he must be salvation to the ends of the earth (Isaiah 49:6). He must die for the children of God scattered abroad.

Some understand this as the children of God then living, scattered through the Gentile world, devout people from every nation (Acts 2:5), those who feared God (Acts 10:2) and worshiped him (Acts 17:4). These were likely God-fearing Gentiles who had not submitted to the ceremonial law of Moses. They had some sense of natural religion, but they were spread among the nations, with no shared assemblies of their own, and no special public way to unite or identify themselves. Christ died to bring them together into one great body, named after him and ruled by him. This was like setting up a banner to which all who cared about God and their souls could come, and under which they could enlist.

Others include with these all who belong to God’s choice by grace, who are called children of God even before they are born, because they were chosen beforehand for adoption as children (Ephesians 1:5).

These people are scattered across the earth, among every people and language (Revelation 7:9), and across every age until the end of time. Throughout all generations, there are those who fear God, and Christ had them in view when he made atonement by his blood. As he prayed, so he died, for all who would believe in him.

Second, look at the purpose of his death for those people. He died to gather those who were wandering, and to bring together in one those who were scattered. He came to call people near who were far from him, and to unite people who were far apart from one another.

Christ’s death is, first, the great attraction of our hearts. This is why he is lifted up, to draw people to himself. When souls are converted, they are gathered into Christ as their ruler and refuge, like doves to their windows, and he died to bring that about. By his death he purchased them for himself, and he also purchased the gift of the Holy Spirit for them. His love in dying for us is the great magnet of our love.

Second, his death is the great center of our unity. He gathers them together in one, as Ephesians 1:10 says. They are one with him, one body, one spirit, and one with each other in him. All the saints in every place and every age meet in Christ, like all the members in one head, or all the branches in one root. By the merit of his death, Christ brought all the saints together in God’s grace and favor (Hebrews 2:11-13), and by the love shown in his death, he also calls them each to love one another (John 13:34).

The result of this debate was that the council decided to kill Jesus. From that day on, they kept consulting together to put him to death (John 11:53). They now understood one another’s minds, and each one became fixed in his own: Jesus must die. It seems they even appointed a committee to meet day by day, to keep working on the plan and to hear suggestions for carrying it out. The wicked become worse little by little (James 1:15; Ezekiel 7:10).

Two major steps had now been taken in their hateful plan against Christ. First, what they had each thought privately, they now agreed on together. That strengthened one another in evil and made them bolder. Evil people encourage each other in wrong by comparing notes, and people with corrupt minds feel better when they find others who think the same way. What once seemed impossible now seemed not only possible, but easy.

Second, what they had wanted to do but lacked a reason for, they now had a good-sounding excuse for. It might not remove their guilt, but it could reduce the shame and calm, if not their conscience, then at least their politics, as some cleverly distinguish. Many people will go on doing evil as long as they can say something in their own defense. This decision to kill him, whether right or wrong, shows that the later trial was only a show. They had already decided what they would do.

Christ then withdrew, knowing very well what the private council had decided (John 11:54). He stopped appearing openly among the Jews, especially those in Judea and Jerusalem. He no longer moved freely from place to place, preaching and working miracles as before, but while he stayed in Judea, he did so quietly. In that way, the chief priests put the light of Israel under a basket.

He withdrew to a hidden part of the country, so hidden that the town name is hardly found anywhere else. He went to a place near the wilderness, as if he were driven out among men, or perhaps longing, like Jeremiah, for a lodging place in the wilderness (Jeremiah 9:2). He came to a city called Ephraim, which some think was Ephratah, that is, Bethlehem, where he was born and which bordered the wilderness of Judah. Others think it was Ephron, or Ephraim, mentioned in 2 Chronicles 13:19.

His disciples went with him. They would not leave him in solitude, and he would not leave them in danger. There he stayed and spoke with them. He knew how to use this time of retirement for private conversation, when he had no chance to preach publicly. When he was forced away from the temple, he still kept company with his disciples, who were his family, and his conversations there were surely very helpful. We must do the good we can, when we cannot do the good we would like to do.

Why did Christ withdraw now? It was not because he feared his enemies or doubted his own power. He had many ways to save himself, and he was neither unwilling to suffer nor unprepared for it. He retired, first, to show his displeasure at Jerusalem and the Jewish people. They rejected him and his gospel, and so he justly removed himself and his gospel from them. The chief teacher was now withdrawn into a corner (Isaiah 30:20), and there was no open vision of him. It was a sad sign of the deep darkness soon to come on Jerusalem, because she did not know the time of her visit.

Second, he did it to make the cruelty of his enemies more blameworthy. If his public presence was what troubled them and seemed dangerous to the public, he would see whether his private withdrawal would calm them. When David fled to Gath, Saul was satisfied and stopped hunting him (1 Samuel 27:4). But these wicked men were after his life, his precious life.

Third, his hour had not yet come, so he avoided danger. He did this in a way common to human life, to guide and encourage his servants when they face persecution, and to comfort those who are forced into quietness and hiddenness, as if buried alive. The disciple is not above his Lord.

Fourth, his temporary retreat would make his return to Jerusalem more striking and glorious when his hour did come. It would make the cheers of his friends louder when they welcomed him at his next public appearance, when he rode in triumph into the city.

The close search for him during this time followed because the Passover was near, and people expected him to come as usual (John 11:55). The Jews’ Passover was near, a feast that stood out brightly in their calendar and had stirred up expectation for some time before. This was Christ’s fourth and last Passover after beginning his public ministry, and it could truly be said, as in 2 Chronicles 35:18, that there had never been such a Passover in Israel, for in it Christ our Passover was sacrificed for us.

Now that the Passover was near, many people from all parts of the country went up to Jerusalem to purify themselves. This may mean, first, the needed cleansing of those who had become ceremonially unclean. They came to be sprinkled with the water of purification and to carry out the other cleansing rites required by the law, because no one could eat the Passover while unclean (Numbers 9:6). In the same way, before our gospel Passover, we must renew our repentance, and by faith wash in the blood of Christ, so we may come near God’s altar.

Or, second, it may mean a voluntary cleansing, a setting aside of themselves through fasting, prayer, and other acts of devotion. Many who were more serious about religion than their neighbors spent some time this way before the Passover, and they chose Jerusalem because they could take part in the temple services there. In that same spirit, we should prepare ourselves carefully and set limits around the place where we expect to meet with God.

The question they asked was very eager: “What do you think, will he not come to the feast?” (John 11:56). Some think this was asked by people who wished Christ well and hoped he would come, so they could hear his teaching and see his miracles. Those who had come early from the country to purify themselves were eager to meet Christ, and they may have hurried up for that reason. So, while they stood in the temple, the place of their purification, they asked what news there was of Christ. If even the most devout people showed respect to Christ, that was a clear rebuke to the chief priests and a witness against them.

But it may be more likely that these were his enemies asking after him, hoping to find a chance to arrest him. Seeing the city filling up with devout people from the country, they wondered why they had not found him among the crowd. Instead of helping those who came to purify themselves, as their duty required, they were plotting against Christ. How deeply the Jewish church had fallen, when the Lord’s priests became like the priests of the calves, a trap at Mizpah and a net spread on Tabor, and were eager for slaughter (Hosea 5:1-2). Instead of keeping the feast with unleavened bread, they themselves were filled with the sour leaven of the worst hatred.

Their question, “Will he not come up to the feast?” also shows two things. First, it is a mean attack on Christ, as if he would stay away from the Lord’s feast because he was afraid to expose himself. If others stay away because of irreligion, no one notices. But if Christ stays away to protect himself, since God desires mercy, not sacrifice, they turn it into a slur against him, just as David’s empty seat at the feast was used against him, though Saul only wanted a chance to pin him to the wall with his spear (1 Samuel 20:25-27). It is sad to see holy ordinances used for such unholy ends.

Second, it shows how afraid they were of losing their chance. “Will he not come up to the feast? If he does not, our plans fall apart, and we are finished, because we cannot send anyone into the countryside to fetch him.” They feared missing their target. The government’s orders for his arrest were very strict (John 11:57). The high council, the Sanhedrin, issued a public notice, ordering that if anyone in the city or country knew where he was, they must report it so he could be seized. They treated him like a criminal who had fled from justice, likely promising a reward for anyone who found him and a penalty for anyone who hid him. In this way, they presented him to the people as a dangerous man, an outlaw whom anyone could strike. Saul issued such a proclamation for David, and Ahab for Elijah. See how determined they were in this prosecution, and how tirelessly they pushed it, even at a time when, if they had any sense of religion or the duty of their office, they would have done otherwise.