But a certain one of them, Caiaphas, being high priest that year, said to them, Ye know nothing
Caiaphas breaks into a panicked council meeting with one sentence of scorn, and the man who says it holds the highest religious office in Israel. Yet John attaches a strange note — Caiaphas was "high priest that year" — and his words carry a meaning far beyond what he meant.
The phrase "that year" is not a small detail. The high priesthood was meant to last for life. By this time Rome handed it out and took it back.
"Being high priest of that year." Instead of election for life, the Romans handed out the office at their own whim, as Josephus records. Valerius Gratus removed Annas and then appointed Eleazar and Simon one after the other, and each of them held the office for only one year.
That same phrase exposes the state of the whole nation.
The present destruction of their moral order is also clear: "The High Priest of that year." Who ever heard of such a thing? But they were wrapped up in their own selfishness, along with a claim to power.
Caiaphas talks down to the room: "You know nothing at all." He speaks like a man who thinks his position makes him the only clear thinker there.
Caiaphas, we are told, was high priest that year. Herod set up and removed high priests to suit himself at any time. This of course went against God's original appointment. Caiaphas was clearly puffed up with pride in his own position. He looked down on his colleagues, announced how ignorant they were, and showed off his superior wisdom by finding some justification for murdering the Lord Jesus.
What he offers them is a calculation, not a judgment. He never asks whether Jesus deserves to die.
So Caiaphas comes forward. He scolds them for failing to work out so simple a sum: the value of one man set against a nation. He does not speak of what is right but of what pays, and he claims that profit for his own side of the account. He does not see how blinding self-interest is, nor does he doubt his conclusion for a moment. His arithmetic is so simple that it can hardly come out wrong.
Caiaphas measures the case by what is useful, not by what is right. One writer sees the same habit in politics today.
Caiaphas throws aside every claim to righteousness and acts only on expediency. With Caiaphas, as too often with the politicians of this world, the question is not what is right but what is expedient (or "profitable"). This man is ready to crucify a just Man to preserve, if he can, the standing of a guilty nation.
John adds that Caiaphas "did not say this of his own accord" but prophesied. God took a corrupt man's cynicism and made it carry truth — as He had done before with a prophet hired to curse Israel.
It was He who spoke through Balaam against his will to bless His people, though Balak had hired him to curse them... It is He who now speaks through Caiaphas, whose high priesthood in that year gave his words all the more official weight... No wonder that God, long silent, should speak through the high priest of that year. He is Sovereign.
Caiaphas belonged to a different party from the Pharisees he scolded. He and John heard two different things in the same sentence.
"You know nothing at all," Caiaphas said to the Pharisees — and he was himself a Sadducee, which may explain how he spoke at that council... This was the last real prophecy to fall from anyone holding the office of high priest in Israel. He could have understood little of what the Evangelist saw hidden in those words. Caiaphas only thought of calming Roman suspicion by putting the Lord to death. John saw in them a prediction of the Lord as the sin offering... Caiaphas feared the Roman power and its anger. John thought of divine judgment, and of God's way of escape — a substitute of His own choosing.
The sentence was vile as Caiaphas meant it. Read as God meant it, it states the ground on which sinners are saved.
In the heart of Caiaphas it was an unprincipled remark. In the mind of the Spirit it was most holy, and more: it expressed the foundation of God's righteousness in Christ. On His death rests the future hope of Israel, and the present gathering of God's scattered children, the Church.
- Ruin. "That year" marks an office Rome now handed round at will — the sign of a nation whose moral order had collapsed.
- Pride. From that broken office comes contempt. Caiaphas tells the council they know nothing and sets himself up as the one clear head in the room.
- Profit. His argument is arithmetic, not justice — one man against a nation, with the gain counted on his own side.
- Overruling. God took that cynical sum and made it prophecy, just as He once spoke through Balaam. The speaker's wickedness did not block the message.
- Result. Caiaphas meant murder. The Spirit meant the foundation of God's righteousness in Christ — a death that gathers God's scattered children into one.
nor consider that it is profitable for you that one man die for the people, and not that the whole nation perish.
Caiaphas was the high priest, and the council had met to decide what to do about Jesus. His cold political advice turned out, without his knowing it, to state the meaning of the cross.
Caiaphas breaks into the council's debate with a calculation.
They have to confess that He whom they are relentlessly pursuing "does many signs." Their only argument from this is that if they let Him alone, all men will believe on Him. Then the Romans will take away their place and nation. This brings forward Caiaphas. He rebukes them for failing to do so simple a sum: the value of one man set against a nation. He does not speak of right but of profit, and claims this for his own side of the account. Nor does he realise the blinding nature of self-interest, nor question his own conclusion in the least. His arithmetic is so simple it can hardly be worked wrong.
The verse asks what is "better for you." The man who held Israel's highest religious office decided the case on profit alone.
Caiaphas throws aside all claim to righteousness and acts only on what is profitable. He pleads that whatever Jesus might have done, or whatever people might think of Him, it is better that He should die than that the whole nation should perish. With Caiaphas, as too often with the politicians of this world, it is no question of what is right, but of what is expedient (or "profitable"). This man is ready to crucify a just Man to preserve, if possible, the position of a guilty nation.
John treats these words as prophecy. He and Caiaphas meant very different things by the same word: perish.
This was the last real prophecy ever spoken by a man holding the high priest's office in Israel. Little indeed could he have understood what the Evangelist saw lay hidden in those words. Caiaphas only thought of calming Roman jealousy by putting the Lord to death. John saw in them a prediction of the Lord as the sin offering. He would meet the claims of a holy God on behalf of the godly remnant of the nation. "That the whole nation perish not," said Caiaphas. Precisely so, John could have replied. But the high priest's thought and John's understanding of his words were far apart. Caiaphas considered the Roman power and feared its wrath. John thought of divine judgment, and of God's provision to escape it by the substitute of His choice.
Much hangs on the little word "for." One writer reads it as substitution.
"For the nation." This is plainly substitution: not "on behalf of," but "instead of." Our Lord died as Saviour or Redeemer of Israel, as well as of the Church. "For the transgression of My people was He stricken."
Scripture is explicit that Caiaphas did not speak from himself. That raises a striking question: how can God's Spirit use a man whose plan at that moment was murder?
This is a remarkable instance of how far God's Spirit can overrule a human mind, with no connection at all to that mind's moral state. Caiaphas was a witness to his nation's turning away from God. The Spirit made him voice their desire to murder the Messiah — and turned those words into a prophecy of the purpose of the Messiah's death for the nation he represented.
Caiaphas meant his own nation. But one writer points to a second purpose in that death.
God's purposes for that nation were surely before the Lord Jesus as one object of His death, just as Caiaphas had prophesied (though not of himself). But there was another object nearer and dearer to His heart... the blessed Lord died so that the children of God should no longer be scattered. Until then they had no sense of their relationship to Him or to one another. He died to gather them together in one on earth.
- Profit. Caiaphas argued from profit, not justice. He weighed one life against a nation, and self-interest did the counting.
- Prophecy. The Spirit took that cold sum and made it a true statement of why Christ would die. The speaker never grasped it.
- Perish. Caiaphas feared Rome. John saw divine judgment, escaped only through God's chosen substitute.
- Place. "For" here means instead of — Christ died in the place of others, as Redeemer of Israel and of the Church.
- People. The death reached past the one nation, to gather into one the scattered children of God.