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Author: Stephen Weller
802 words, 4 minutes read time

Alone With His Disciples

Scripture: John 11:49-54

We just started verse 50 in the previous lesson with Caiaphas, who was high priest, offering a solution to the believed growing threat of Jesus; the solution was to be his death. In this lesson we will see that God’s plan for providing our salvation through the death of Jesus will be accomplished by the help of evil men for entirely different reasons.

^{Jn 11:49} ‘But one of them, Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, said to them, “You know nothing at all. ⁵⁰ Nor do you understand that it is better for you that one man should die for the people, not that the whole nation should perish.”’

The statement that Caiaphas makes is one of many with a double meaning, like others John records. For example in John 3:14 ESV: “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up”; John 4:10 ESV: “Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.”; John 19:19 ESV: ‘Pilate also wrote an inscription and put it on the cross. It read, “Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews.”’ The one that stands out is the one with Nicodemus in John 3:7 – 8 ESV: ⁷ “Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ ⁸ The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So, it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”

Here in the mind of Caiaphas he figures with the death of Jesus, the people would not be deceived by Jesus as they follow him and with the people under control, the nation would be protected from attack by the Romans, but what he didn’t understand was how what he said would carry out God’s plan of redemption with Jesus’ substitutionary atonement.

As Jesus continues to put to shame the Jewish leadership for their hypocrisy, their hated grows toward him. Of their own free will, they make plans to kill him; as they plan, God orders their footsteps so that Jesus will end up dying on the cross. Again, and again throughout Scripture, God orders the steps of men, as they make evil plans, so that they will accomplish his will by doing the work he requires to be done.

^{Jn 11:51} “He did not say this of his own accord but being high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus would die for the nation, ⁵² and not for the nation only, but also to gather into one the children of God who are scattered abroad.”

As part of ordering the steps of Caiaphas, God puts in his mind prophetic words to speak; words spoken by Isaiah in Isaiah 49:6 ESV: “It is too light a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to bring back the preserved of Israel; I will make you as a light for the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.” As John said in 1 John 2:2 ESV: He is [to be] the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.” This salvation being provided would not be just for the people of Israel but for all nations of people. Jesus said, “I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So, there will be one flock, one shepherd” (John 10:16 ESV).

^{Jn 11:53} “So from that day on they made plans to put him to death. ⁵⁴ Jesus therefore no longer walked openly among the Jews but went from there to the region near the wilderness, to a town called Ephraim, and there he stayed with the disciples.”

Because of plans to kill Jesus, he no longer walked openly among the Jews but went to an unknown remote area with his disciples. Our text says he went to a town called Ephraim, but the location of this town is not known, and even the spelling is not certain. It might be a small town in the tribe of Ephraim, about five miles west of Jericho, but this is uncertain.

Conclusion

As I thought about how to conclude this lesson, I thought about King Saul wanting to kill David. Jesus would be the one to sit forever on the throne of David is now in harms way as David was.