John 11:47-54

CONDEMNATORY VERDICT OF THE SANHEDRIN

John 11:47-54. “ Then the chief priests and Pharisees convened the Sanhedrin, and continued to say, What shall we do? because this man is performing many miracles.” If the leading ministers and Church authorities had not stood in the way of the people, Israel would have received Jesus unanimously, turned evangelists, and preached Him to the world, bringing on the millennium long ago. The truth of the matter is clear. The high priests, Pharisees, and Sanhedrin had so yielded to Satan and grieved the Holy Spirit as to superinduce the departure of the latter, and the actual, diabolical possession of the former, till they had crossed the dead-line and were unconvincible.

“ If we thus let Him alone, all will believe on Him.” What a frank confession of the truth, if they had not meddled with them and obstinately stood between the people and Jesus, they would all have believed on Him. The Holy Ghost is the Spirit of Jesus. The present holiness movement, like that of Luther, Wesley, and others, is Jesus again walking upon the earth in His spiritual manifestation, inviting the people to enter the kingdom of holiness, as He did in the days of His incarnation. If let alone, the Churches would en masse seek holiness, and inundate the world with salvation. The leading preachers are still in the way, as in the days of Christ.

“ The Romans will come, and take away both our place and nation.” Thirty- three years Judea had been a Roman province, every vestige of their former freedom swept away. They were looking for Christ, and all believed that He was to be the King of the Jews when He came; in which case they knew that mighty Rome would be arrayed against them, with her invincible armies, and their only chance to have their own king was to conquer the Romans, an utter impossibility, as they ruled the whole world in one vast, consolidated despotism. This prophecy actually did come true. Though they rejected Christ, they erelong revolted against the Romans, and fought for their independence till literally exterminated, with the exception of a few poor people, driven away to the ends of the earth; while the Romans not only destroyed Jerusalem, but desolated all Palestine. So the very calamities they here deprecate as an excuse for the rejection of Christ, actually overtook them.

“ And a certain one of them, Caiaphas, being high priest that year, said to them, You do not know nor consider that it is profitable to you that one man may die for the people, and not the whole nation perish.” This prophecy is literally true, and yet you see it was uttered by that wicked high priest, whom Satan had captured. The next verse explains it. “He spoke this, not from himself, but being high priest that year, he prophesied that Jesus was about to die for the nation, and not for the nation only, but that He may gather together in one the children of God which had been scattered abroad.” The elect of God have been in all nations, in all ages, as will be revealed when the assembled universe shall stand before the Great White Throne. Before Jesus came on the earth in His Incarnate Personality and preached the gospel, the Holy Spirit revealed Jehovah i.e., God in Christ to the humble, sincere, true, and appreciative souls of every age and nation, who, in the absence of the written Word and a knowledge of the Incarnate Redeemer, walking in the light of nature, conscience, providence, and the Holy Spirit even the savage, in his primeval wilds, seeing God in the clouds and hearing Him in the winds,

“Whose soul proud science never taught to stray Far as the solar walk or milky-way,”

were accepted of God, like Cornelius, the heathen Roman centurion. The advent of Christ marked a signal epoch in the history of redemption, after which no soul who stubbornly rejects Him can be saved; meanwhile the Christhood of Jesus becomes the great dogma on which the visible Church is built in all the world. However differing in non-essential matters, she must be a unit on the Christhood of Jesus. (Matthew 16:18.) In this instance, we have a demonstrative proof that the gifts of the Spirit are not invariably limited to the sanctified nor to the regenerated, as here we have a demonstrative case, in which the gift of prophecy, pronounced by Paul the most important, is conferred on Caiaphas, for the moment, who at that time was leading the Council against Jesus, and ready to sign His death-warrant, which he did a few days afterward.

“ Therefore from that day they counseled in order that they may kill Him.” Ebouleusanto, “counseled,” is in the aorist tense, which means an instantaneous and complete performance, setting forth the fact that the Sanhedrin, on that occasion, passed a formal verdict condemning Him to death. So potent and overwhelming was the popular influence, superinduced by the resurrection of Lazarus, that they, after deliberate counsel and consideration, came to the conclusion that, despite all they could do, the people would rally and crown Him King, thus precipitating on them a war with the Romans, which could only end in their extermination. Consequently they concluded that it was better for one to die than that multitudes should perish, a verdict so common among the Orientals; meanwhile, the spirit of prophecy coming on Caiaphas, the high priest, in a thrilling proclamation of a clear Messianic prophecy setting forth the vicarious atonement. Thus we see a strange combination of concurrent events: the true prophecy of Caiaphas, inspired by the Holy Ghost, proclaiming the necessity for one to die for the people rather than that all perish, and at the same time the seventy sages constituting the Sanhedrin corroborating that prophecy from a purely selfish and secular consideration, illustrating how wonderfully “God makes the wrath of man to praise Him, and restrains the remainder of wrath;” i.e., when the wrath of man can no longer be made subservient to the glory of God, then He puts His hand on it and restrains it altogether. “ Therefore, Jesus no longer was walking about among the Jews, but departed thence into the country near the desert, into the city called Ephraim, and there abode with His disciples.” Ephraim here is identical with Ephron in O. T. After that condemnatory verdict of the Sanhedrin, immediately following the resurrection of Lazarus, finding it unsafe to abide among the Jews, He retired to this quiet, rural retreat on the border of the desert, known in the N. T. as “the wilderness of Judea.” I have journeyed through it four times.