John 11:47-53 became the tipping point of Israel’s tolerance of Jesus.
It states that Caiaphas, “who was the high priest that year,”1 listened to the other members of the Sanhedrin argue back and forth in an impromptu meeting that should not have occurred in the manner in which it did. The Sanhedrin in Jerusalem was the “Supreme Court” of Israel. They consisted of seventy members, plus the high priest, giving the body an odd number for voting purposes. They heard cases from other areas of Israel that could not be settled by the local Sanhedrins in those towns which had twenty-three members (if the town was big enough to convene a Sanhedrin).2
Since the latest incident preceding this passage of scripture occurred in Bethany (John 11:1-46), which was the raising of Lazarus from the dead, the Sanhedrin in Bethany should have been convened and held hearings. However, in verse 46, these people ran to the Pharisees—the ones in Jerusalem, who in turn, went to Caiaphas. As a result, the Jerusalem Sanhedrin undertook the proceedings.
The Jewish system detailed in the Torah in Deuteronomy 16:18-20, Deuteronomy 17:7, and
In these illegal proceedings, these members of the Jerusalem Sanhedrin argued about “this man” who was “doing many signs.” No doubt, the conversation went on for several minutes, with members weighing the pros and cons of allowing Jesus to continue with His ministry. They were concerned about Roman retaliation, if all of Israel believed in Jesus. They would first lose their “place” (John 11:48). They were more concerned about their status and positions of power. If the Temple were made physically inoperative or religiously illegal by the Romans, then how would they exert their influence over the rabble who were walking away from traditional Judaism to follow this Jesus character? Second, they would lose their “nation.” They were concerned Israel would be wiped off the map and absorbed by the Roman Empire, no longer allowed to exist in any way, shape, or form, which was a very real possibility.
This is where Caiaphas steps in and tells the other seventy members of the Sanhedrin that they “know nothing at all.” This speaks to the ignorance and audacity of Caiaphas. As we pointed out last week, his conclusion actually produced the very effect he was trying to avoid. Had they all “believed in Jesus,” Jesus would have “taken on the Romans” by using the nation Israel as His messengers of the gospel. He would have brought the nation back to Himself (Matthew 23:37). The rest of the gospel record would have looked much different, I do believe, as would have the remainder of the New Testament.
However, Caiaphas thought he was smarter than the crowd, which in this particular case was the seventy members of the Sanhedrin. What was his conclusion? It would be better for one man, Jesus, to die for the nation Israel, than to hold Him up as the Messiah and deal with the aftermath of a bloody beat down at the hands of the Roman army, which they had already concluded would result in the loss of their “place” (the Temple), not to mention their precious “nation” (Promised Land).
In this scene, we get a glimpse of just how corrupt the religious leaders had become and why Jesus called them out every chance He got. What was their issue? They believed that what made them Jewish was their tradition. They used certain parts of the Torah to justify their existence and often gave it a lofty status, even when they were an occupied nation.
An example of this is found in Matthew 15. The Pharisees and teachers of the law question Jesus about his disciples, claiming they were breaking tradition by not washing their hands before they ate. What was Jesus’s response? “Why do you yourselves transgress the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition?” (v. 3; LSB). He proceeds to give them an example of what he is talking about:
For God said, “Honor your father and
mother” and “He who speaks evil of father or mother is to be put to death.” But
you say. “Whoever says to his father or mother, ‘Whatever you might benefit
from me is given to God,” he need not honor his father.’ And by this you
invalidated the word of God for the sake of your tradition. You hypocrites,
rightly did Isaiah prophesy of you:
‘These people honor me with their lips, but their heart is far away from me. But in vain they do worship me, teaching as doctrines the commands of men.’” (vv. 3-9; LSB).
Jesus quotes God’s Word. The first commandment He references comes from Exodus 20:12 and Deuteronomy 5:16. The second commandment comes from Exodus 21:17 and Leviticus 20:9. Jesus is pitting God’s instructions and teachings (God’s torah) against the traditions of the religious leaders of Israel, known as the Oral Law, which in their minds, were simply explanations of the Torah, to help clarify and better understand its meaning so that it could be implemented in daily life. In other words, like we have commentaries on the Bible today, the Oral Law, which consisted of the Mishnah and the Talmud, was (and still is) the “Jewish Commentary” of the nation Israel.
The Pharisees and teachers of the law were upset because Jesus’s disciples broke one of their rules explained in the Oral Law, i.e., traditions. Tradition was what saved the Jews, according to their teachings. The Oral Law is referenced in passages like Matthew 23:23, where Jesus again pits God’s Torah against their misinterpretation and adherence to the Torah via their Oral Law traditions:
Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cumin, and have neglected the weightier provisions of the Law: justice and mercy and faithfulness; but these are the things you should have done without neglecting the others (LSB).
For someone to break a rule of the Oral Law was equal to—in the minds and theology of the teachers of the law and Pharisees—sinning against God. These traditions became so lofty, in fact, they have been viewed from the decades and centuries prior to Jesus’s time until now as necessary explanations of how to interpret the Torah “because the Torah alone,” as one modern Jewish website states, “even with its 613 commandments, is an insufficient guide to Jewish life” (emphasis added).3
God’s Word? An insufficient guide for life? Was that how the Pharisees and teachers of the law in Jesus’s day felt about God’s instructions and teachings (torah)? They didn’t come right out and say it, but their actions point in that direction, judging by Jesus’s condemning remarks in Matthew 5-7 and Matthew 23.
May I take this a step farther? Is this how we, as Christians today, view God’s Word? The words on the page are not sufficient enough? Not clear enough? Therefore, we need to write volumes and volumes, arguing over every jot and tittle, to explain what God really meant? What Jesus really meant? What the New Testament writers really meant? To the point where our denominational traditions and interpretations of God’s Word, both Old Testament and New Testament, hold more sway over us than His actual commandments (and let us not even mention our political leanings, psychological beliefs, or personal feelings at this time)? It’s one thing to create quick references, like a Strong’s Concordance, for example, or a Greek or Hebrew dictionary. These kinds of works do not interpret the Bible or change what it says or means. You can even write a commentary, but you had better make sure it jives with the mind of God and doesn’t contradict anything. That’s why James said not many of us should wish to be teachers because of the stricter judgment that teachers must endure (James 3:1).
But you see, these religious leaders had taken the Torah and made it say things it was never intended to say with their explanations and commentary on it. They argued about what constituted work in relationship to the Sabbath to the point where if something weighed more than a fig, you couldn’t lift it. Parents couldn’t pick up a frightened child. You couldn’t help a fellow Israelite get his child or ox out of a well. They argued about what could be done for someone who was injured or ill on the Sabbath. Jesus confronted them about this lunacy as well (Luke 14:1-6).
These religious leaders had become so intense about keeping the Oral Law, they were driving people away from the Lord instead of drawing them near (Matthew 23:13). For example, they had water jars or jugs ready for use before every meal. They established the minimum amount of water to be used for hand cleansing at the amount needed to fill one-and-a-half eggshells. The water was first poured on the hands with the fingers pointing upward, kind of like a doctor, so the water ran down the hand and off at the wrist, but it could not run down the arm. Of course, once this step was conducted, the water was now unclean and could not touch anything else, since it had been made that way by washing the unclean hands. Therefore, one had to be careful not to allow the water to backtrack and cover areas of the hand already “washed clean,” otherwise, it would make that area unclean again.
The process was administered again, but this second time, the hands were held down, with the fingers pointing toward the ground. Once the second application was completed, the Jew would then rub the fist of one hand into the palm of the other to complete the cleansing process. Strict Judaism did this not only before each meal, but between courses as well. This was looked upon as so honorable, that Rabbi Ta’anith said doing this would cause a Jew to obtain eternal life.4
But again, before we pick up stones for casting, I’m afraid we, the Church, are doing the same thing today and have done the same thing over the centuries. What God calls sin, we call mistakes. What God says is forbidden, we claim was an Old Testament standard and commandment that no longer applies in our grace-filled New Testament era. Yet, I would argue Jesus claimed the Old Testament was just as in force in His day as it ever was (Matthew 5:17-20), and since the writer of Hebrews says God never changes (Hebrews 13:8), it would behoove us not to commit the same sins the Pharisees, the teachers of the law, and the chief priests committed.
We are seeing the fruit of our Pharisaical ways today, bad fruit, mind you. As so many things are happening “in the name of God” or with God’s supposed blessing that is based on some person’s or group’s personal, political, or religious commentary on God’s Word.
A simple law, like “honor your father and mother,” is wrapped up in the verb, as are most of God’s commands, because it is in the verb where the action occurs. The Hebrew word “honor” in Exodus 20:12 is the word “kabad” (pronounced kaw-bad), and it means “to be heavy, weighty, burdensome, honored.”5 This seems an odd word to use on the surface, when speaking of how to properly deal with one’s father and mother so that “your days may be prolonged in the land Yahweh your God gives you. (LSB)” How can one be “heavy,” “weighty,” “burdensome,” and “honored,” all at the same time? At first glance, this definition seem incongruous. However, when you look at them the way Jesus was—through the eyes of the Almighty—you see the spirit of the Torah plainly.6
As followers of God, trying to live according to His instructions and teachings, we know that we are owed nothing, deserve nothing, and are only worthy of death, because of sin, according to scripture (Romans 3:9-20; 6:23). With that as our attitude, then “honoring” our father and mother doesn’t become a burden to us, in the sense of drudgery, caring for their needs, taking care of them in their old age, etc. Instead, it should become a weighty burden, a heavy honor, like that of a servant towards a king, when he feels the utter importance of his position. “Weighty” can be seen in this regard not only as something to do with how heavy an object is, but more importantly, as in “to be important because of its enormous gravity on a subject.” We used to hear this concept bantered about a lot back in the 1970s and 1980s when someone would refer to an important event as “heavy.” I always think of Marty McFly in the Back to the Future film series, having his discussions with Doc Brown, and how Marty meant “weighty, as in very important and even awesome,” while Doc Brown interpreted it as something being wrong with the gravitational pull of the earth.
With this right understanding of “honor your father and mother” in mind, immediately, you can see what’s wrong with so much of society today. Children do not honor their fathers and mothers with a servant’s heart that is rightly understanding the concept of sin. Instead, they blame their parents for all their ills, when in fact, it is their choices and their sin that causes their ills. But you see, to admit we are the problem in our own life would mean the blame would have to be shifted from dear old Mom and Dad to us. Therein lies the rub.
Getting back to the discussion between Jesus, the Pharisees, and the teachers of the law, to lighten the “burden” of this law in Exodus 20:12 and Deuteronomy 5:16, the Pharisees and teachers of the Law came up with a great way to do just that. In essence, their tradition allowed them to say something like this in Matthew 15:5-6:
“Hey, Mom, Dad, I was going to give this gift to you so that you could use it to live (usually referring to an amount of money), maybe even enjoy life a little. Or maybe you could have at least used it to pay the bills or put some food on the table. However, all my gifts are now devoted to God, so I can’t give them to you. That would be a sin. I would be stealing from God. Therefore, I have to give them to the Temple, to the priests, as a gift to God.”
On the surface, it sounds extremely pious. It sounds religiously righteous. It sounds like that mother and father raised a godly son, of whom they should be proud. However, Jesus calls it something else. He called it a tradition of men. He called it out as the attempt of the religious leaders to manipulate God’s Law into their own favor. Jesus called them hypocrites. Jesus said Isaiah was right about them when he prophesied:
This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. But in vain do they worship Me, teaching as doctrines the traditions of men (vv. 8-9; LSB).
How convenient.7
This explains Caiaphas’s words in John 11:48: “If we let him go on like this, all will believe on Him, and the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation (LSB).” Do you understand the glaring treachery of his words? He treats “everyone believing on Jesus” as a plague to avoid at all costs. Why? Because if they do, the Romans would swoop in and take away the livelihood of Caiaphas and his cronies. The Romans would take their money and their homes, and they lived in some nice digs. “According to tradition the palace of Annas was located in the Upper City near the palace of Caiaphas and Herod's Palace. The high priests of the Second Temple period had their luxurious residences on the southwest hill.”8 They were consummate politicians who padded their status with wealth, taken from the people, like the widow with her two little pieces of money that added up to mere cents (Luke 21:1-4). And heaven forbid if the Romans would take away their power. The Pharisees, chief priests, and teachers of the law would be turned into mere paupers. They would be forced to live like the rabble they serve.
In this eye-opening episode, Caiaphas spoke and acted like a true human ruler. The fulfillment of the elders’ wish in 1 Samuel 8 came true again and again. However, this time, it became viler as God’s Word became perverted to aid and abet these leaders in their craftiness.
Thought for the Week:
Imagine if “everyone in Israel believed on Jesus,” during His first three years of ministry. All of Israel would have been saved because God would have “become their God and they would have been His people” once again.
However, in a turn of irony—echoing the words of the elders in 1 Samuel 8—Caiaphas, the high priest, believed serving Rome was a better alternative.
The religious leaders in Jesus’s day had indeed become religious hypocrites. They were just like the earthly kings described for us by God in 1 Samuel 8. In fact, they were religious kings, in a way. They had the power to arrest Jesus and submit him to a religious judgment (John 18:31). They were even allowed to submit Him to punishment, so long as they did not enact the death penalty. Only Rome could execute prisoners.
In a kind of reverse Robin Hood-ism, these religious rulers took from the people and gave it to themselves. They were just like politicians today, who write laws that favor themselves and their donors. Do not ever believe a politician when he or she says, “I can make your lives better.” How do some politicians, who never worked a real job a day in their lives but have always been a politician, become multi-millionaires on a salary of less than $200,000 a year? Because they give themselves gifts intended for the poor, intended for the honor of fathers and mothers, intended for the widows and the orphans, all in the name of serving their country, which is their solemn duty.
You see, it doesn’t matter what nationality you are. It doesn’t matter what century you live in. It doesn’t matter what religion is being touted. People are all the same. And God told the Israelites exactly how those kings and rulers would act and react if they gave themselves over to them instead of being qadosh and following God’s instructions and teachings (torah).
It is the same for us today. We can’t cancel our sin with our own sacrifices offered how we choose to offer them and then expect to stroll through the pearly gates like we own the place. It doesn’t work that way. God was very explicit in His Word.
And although we have touched upon this aspect several times already, we’ll get more into that later in this series.
NEXT WEEK:
We will see the stark
contrast between the Kingdom of men and the Kingdom of God displayed in the
Triumphal entry.
Endnotes
1. It should be
noted here that a high priest was to be one for life, once elected
or placed in that position, much like our Supreme Court justices today.
However, because the position had become highly politicized, it was “bought and
sold,” if you will, when the political winds of the times demanded it. Because
of this, you could have as many as five to ten “high priests” alive at any
given time, for they kept the title for life, even if they didn’t hold the
position for life. An example of this was Annas, who you meet later in the
Gospel record. He was pressured to resign his position as high priest in 15
A.D., because he was amassing too much power. As a result, three years later, the
Romans came in and replaced him with someone they felt they could control. His
name was Caiaphas, and he happened to be Annas’s son-in-law (nepotism has
always been a bedfellow of politics, by the way). I would not be surprised if
Annas had a hand in Caiaphas’s election to the position.
Yet, despite his fall from Roman grace, Annas
was a cunning and intelligent man. He remained in Jerusalem and controlled much
of what occurred in the Temple, including the operation of the Temple courts,
which were known as “The Bizarre of Annas.” Annas held so much sway, despite no
longer being a high priest, that Jesus was brought to his house during the series
of “trials” after His arrest and before His flogging and crucifixion.
Therefore, you can understand the
Sanhedrin’s concerns about all the disruption Jesus is causing at this moment
in John 11. Unfortunately, they were concerned about the wrong things.
2. We here in the
United States patterned our judicial system much after the Romans. However, the
Romans used a variation of the judicial system of Israel, established in the
time of Moses by God (See Deuteronomy 16:18-20; 17:7; 19:16-19).
3. Jewish Virtual
Library. “Judaism: The Oral Law – Talmud & Mishna.” Jewish Virtual Library. No Date. Web. 1 August 2020. <https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/the-oral-law-talmud-and-mishna> This website states the article was taken
from Telushkin, Joseph. Jewish Literacy:
The Most Important Things to Know About the Jewish Religion, Its People, and
Its History. (New York, NY; William Morrow and Co., 1991).
4. Throughts taken
from sermon titled, “Confusing Man’s Traditions with God’s Commandments, Part
1,” by John MacArthur. www.gty.org. 11
July 1982. Web. 30 June 2022. < https://www.gty.org/library/sermons-library/2311/confusing-mans-traditions-with-gods-commandments-part-1>
5. Brown, Francis,
S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs. “3513.” Brown, Driver, Briggs, Gesenius Hebrew and English Lexicon.
(Hendrickson Publishers; Peabody, Mass., 1979), p. 457.
6. There are other
words Moses could have chosen for this word “honor,” like “hadar,” which means “to honor, adorn, perhaps to swell.” It is used
in Leviticus 19:32 to show respect or honor toward the elderly (See Brown,
Driver, Briggs, Ibid, p. 1089;
#1922). It is also used Exodus 23:3 in a different way, as the Israelite is not
to “show honor” as a means of partiality toward a poor man in a lawsuit.
Instead, justice is to prevail, regardless of how one feels about the defendant
or the plaintiff. The point is, Moses chose this word (kabad) for a reason, despite the fact that overall, there are at
least seven other words Moses could have used:
· “kanah” - which means “to honor with a
title” (Brown, Driver, Briggs, Ibid,
p. 487; #3655)
· “chaphets” – which means “to delight in” (Brown,
Driver, Briggs, Ibid, p. 342; #2654)
· “paar” – which means “to beautify,
glorify” (Brown, Driver, Briggs, Ibid,
p. 802; #6286)
· “tamak” – which means “to grasp, support,
attain” (Brown, Driver, Briggs, Ibid,
p. 1069; #8551)
· “shebach” – which means “to laud, praise”
(Brown, Driver, Briggs, Ibid, p.
1114; #7624)
· “salal” – which means “to lift up, cast
up” (Brown, Driver, Briggs, Ibid, p.
699; #5549)
7. We see this
concept used today in the Health & Wealth Gospel. God’s instructions and
teachings about giving, about devoting oneself to God, and about being a
righteous Christian are twisted to benefit the “Temple treasury” of multiple
so-called pastors (Matthew 7:15-23). For just a couple of references on this,
see:
·
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uGOEt1PCWio
· https://www.velvetropes.com/backstage/joel-osteen-house
8. “Palace of
Annas.” No Author. Bible-History.com.
No date. <https://bible-history.com/jerusalem/palace-of-annas>
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