Making A Choice, A Plot To Kill Jesus Will It Be Jesus Or Me?

John 11:45-54 Some believe and some do not. Those who believe do so because they are convinced by the evidence that Jesus is the Messiah, and that He has power over life and death.

Those who do not believe make a willful choice in direct contradiction of the overwhelming evidence. Logically, rationally, they should accept the evidence. Instead, they refuse to believe, and set in motion the machinery that will ultimately take Jesus’ life.

Free will always entails consequences. We human beings are always free to choose, but we are not free to select the consequences. The consequences of our  choices follow according to the sovereign program of God. In this account, we see the inescapable consequences when we choose to oppose Jesus.

A Dead Man Is Alive

John 11:46 But some of them went their way to the Pharisees, and told them what things Jesus had done.

A Choice From Evidence

John 11:47 Then gathered the chief priests and the Pharisees a council and said, “What shall we do? For this man does many miracles.”

The Pharisee Choice

They believed the right things, they honored the Scripture, but they feared they would lose control if people believed on Him as the Messiah.

The Pharisees thought that the political existence of Israel was being preserved by their own clever political intrigues and manipulation. They either did not understand, or they forgot that Israel had been preserved throughout its history, because of the sovereign hand of God’s protection.

The Sadducee Choice

John 11:49 And one of them named Caiaphas, being the high priest that same year, said unto them, “You know nothing at all, 50 nor consider that it is expedient for us that one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation perish not.”

Caiaphas, the high priest, speaks here as a Sadducee, a religious liberal, who does not have a strong, literal belief in God, or Scripture. He does not believe in anything supernatural, and denies the existence of miracles, angels, and life after death.

This viewpoint of the Sadducees is very common in our own secular, materialistic, agnostic age. Caiaphas is arrogant, utterly contemptuous of those around him, especially believers, claiming that they do not know anything.

God’s View & Caiaphas, the High Priest

John 11:51 And he spoke this not of himself, but, being high priest that year, he prophesied that Jesus should die for that nation.

Here is a confirmation of the prophecy of Isaiah 53:6, where we see the promise that One would come Who would bear the sins of the nation.

Caiaphas did not believe this prophecy. Yet, in his office of high priest, this corrupt man uttered a true and reliable prophecy that he himself did not understand, and would not have accepted even if he did understand it!

Here we can see clearly the sovereign hand of God at work: an unseen, yet inevitable hand, which turns the pages of human history, one by one. In our God-given free will, we human beings can do our worst, yet we cannot alter the divine plan.

Even the sinful choices of foolish, self-willed human beings are all ultimately blended into God’s plan. Men and women too often ignore the unseen hand of God. Decision to ignore God’s activity in the world lead people to make choices that are, for them, completely disastrous. In spite of evidence, people often just make decisions, which at the time appeal, and look like a good option, but which ultimately end up as destruction.

We see this principle at work in John 11:53: “So from that day on they plotted to take his life.”

The miracles Jesus had done meant nothing to them, not even the miracle of raising a man from the dead! They didn’t want to look at the evidence.
They didn’t want to be “confused by the facts.”

They simply wanted to eliminate the Man who threatened their own power and popularity.

God is still moving, still at work, and still carrying out His program in our own times.

1 Corinthians 2:16b But we have the mind of Christ.

If we immerse ourselves in the Word of God, we have the mind of Christ! We are able to think, even if on a limited and finite level, the thoughts of God. If we know how God thinks, if we tune our minds to see His hand moving through the events of our times, then we can align our free will with His sovereign will! Instead of becoming unwilling and unwitting instruments in God’s hands, as Caiaphas and the other evil leaders were: We can commit to being God’s partners, vessels for helping Him carry out His eternal plan.