John 11:47-50
Expedient that one man should die
The council frets that the Romans will come. Caiaphas cuts through the debate with a policy, and the policy is a killing.
People of the Bible
Caiaphas
Gave the advice that killed him, and John says the man was prophesying without knowing it.
He is the high priest of that year, a political appointment held at Rome’s pleasure, and he keeps it for eighteen years, which tells you what kind of administrator he was. The council he chairs is frightened of exactly one thing: that a movement will attract attention and the Romans will come and take away both our place and nation. Everything he does is a calculation about that risk, made by a man whose office depended on keeping the temple open.
Scroll down to the storyThe movements, in the order the text gives them.
The story of Caiaphas
- 01
- 02
John 11:51-53
He prophesied
John will not let the line stand as mere politics. From that day forth they took counsel together to put him to death, so the sentence is both cynicism and prophecy.
- 03
Matthew 26:59-62
Their witness agreed not together
The trial cannot assemble a case. Two men are found at last, and the high priest stands up because the evidence is failing.
- 04
Matthew 26:63-66
He rent his clothes
He puts the man under oath and asks whether he is the Christ. The answer gets the verdict without any witness at all: what further need have we.
- 05
John 18:13-14
They led him away to Caiaphas
The prisoner is taken first to Annas and then to him. John reminds the reader, at exactly that moment, what advice this man had given.
Why it matters
His sentence after the raising of Lazarus is the coldest arithmetic in the gospels: it is expedient for us that one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation perish not. John stops the narrative to point out that he did not say this of himself, but being high priest that year he prophesied. The man means a political liability removed. The gospel hears a doctrine of substitution. At the trial he abandons the failing witnesses and asks the question directly, and gets the answer he needs.
11 songs
The music
Every song in the catalogue whose passage falls inside these chapters.
Matthew 26:47-75; Mark 14:43-72; Luke 22:47-62; John 18:1-27
Before the Cock Crow
Matthew 26:1-16; Mark 14:1-11; John 12:1-8
The Fragrance and the Silver
Matthew 26:17-35; Mark 14:12-31; Luke 22:7-38; John 13-17
This Do in Remembrance
