Jews Decide Jesus Must Die (J45)

Romans allowed the Sanhedrin to rule,
So long as they owned the people’s support;
Jews feared that Jesus was winning the duel;
They grew desperate to preserve their court!
High priest Caiaphas said, “There’s just one way;
Jesus must die! It’s better that one die,
Than for Romans the whole nation slay,
Or be chained rowing their warships to ply!”
He knew not that he spoke the will of God—
As high priest that year, he had prophesized—
Not just for the nation Hebrews trod;
For all mankind who believed, Jesus died!
They ordered that He be detained on sight;
The time had come for Jews to snuff the Light!

Scripture Quoted: John 11:47-53 (NIV)
"Then the chief priests and Pharisees called a meeting of the Sanhedrin. ‘What are we accomplishing?’ they asked. ‘Here is this man performing many miraculous signs. If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and then the Romans will come and take away our place and our nation!’ Then one of them, named Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, spoke up, ‘You know nothing at all! You do not realize it is better for you that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish.’ He did not say this on his own, but as high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus woukd die for the Jewush nation, and not obly for that nation, but also for the scattered children of God, to bring them together and make them one. So from that day on they planned to take his life.”

Commentary on: John 11:45-57 (NIV)
John writes that the high priest Caiaphas did not realize that he was speaking prophecy for God when he said that Jesus must die. That’s what God had intended in His “master plan” before He created anything. Jesus did not die though only for the Jewish nation; He died for all the people of the world, so that whoever believed in Jesus would be saved. Prophecy was the job of the high priest, no matter how evil he happened to be. The Romans were the conquerors of the small nation of Judea; they allowed the Sanhedrin to continue as the high court of Jewish religious matters. If it so happened that Jesus became the leader of a majority of the people, the Romans would abolish the Sanhedrin; these Pharisees and priests would have their places taken from them. They feared mass rioting and brutal retribution by Roman soldiers. They came to the decision that Jesus must die for the sake of their selfish status and perhaps the common people’s safety.

News of the “resurrection” of Lazarus had reached the temple on the same day, and the Sanhedrin met immediately. They gave orders that Jesus was to be arrested on sight, and for His whereabouts to be reported by anyone that saw Him. It was just a short few weeks before the ill-fated Passover (or Peshach) Feast, therefore Jesus quit teaching in public. He and His disciples went to a village near the southern desert named Ephraim. Jews had a requirement that each had to be ritually cleansed at the temple before the week of Passover, and they were already gathering in Jerusalem. Jesus was the main topic of conversation; everyone wondered if He would show Himself at the Feast. In the blogs coming up, we shall see what happened in Jerusalem at this particular Passover celebration and the Pentecost that followed 50 days later that turned the world upside down.

The Sanhedrin decided to kill one man (Jesus) to “save the nation”, but their decision actually brought on the perishing of the nation. In 70 A. D., just 38 years later, God caused the Romans to destroy Jerusalem and the nation. Under Titus the Romans killed more than a million Jews, sold 300,000 into slavery in foreign nations for one penny each, plowed the land of Judea up and sowed it with salt, and cut down all the trees along the Jordan River—all as punishment for their killing of Jesus.

“That if you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord’, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” (Romans 10:9)