This shall be a permanent statute for you: in the seventh month, on the tenth day of the month, you shall humble your souls and not do any work, whether the native, or the alien who sojourns among you; for it is on this day that atonement shall be made for you to cleanse you, you will be clean from all your sins before the LORD. It is to be a sabbath of solemn rest for you, that you may humble your souls; it is a permanent statute. So the priest who is anointed and ordained to serve as priest in his father’s place shall make atonement: he shall thus put on the linen garments, the holy garments, and make atonement for the holy sanctuary, and he shall make atonement for the tent of meeting and for the altar. He shall also make atonement for the priests and for all the people of the assembly. Now you shall have this as a permanent statute, to make atonement for the sons of Israel for all their sins once every year.” And just as the LORD had commanded Moses, so he did. –Leviticus 16.29-34 [NASB95]

συνήγαγον οὖν οἱ ἀρχιερεῖς καὶ οἱ Φαρισαῖοι συνέδριον, καὶ ἔλεγον, Τί ποιοῦμεν, ὅτι οὗτος ὁ ἄνθρωπος πολλὰ ποιεῖ σημεῖα; ἐὰν ἀφῶμεν αὐτὸν οὕτως, πάντες πιστεύσουσιν εἰς αὐτόν, καὶ ἐλεύσονται οἱ Ῥωμαῖοι καὶ ἀροῦσιν ἡμῶν καὶ τὸν τόπον καὶ τὸ ἔθνος. εἷς δέ τις ἐξ αὐτῶν Καϊάφας, ἀρχιερεὺς ὢν τοῦ ἐνιαυτοῦ ἐκείνου, εἶπεν αὐτοῖς, Ὑμεῖς οὐκ οἴδατε οὐδέν, οὐδὲ λογίζεσθε ὅτι συμφέρει ὑμῖν ἵνα εἷς ἄνθρωπος ἀποθάνῃ ὑπὲρ τοῦ λαοῦ καὶ μὴ ὅλον τὸ ἔθνος ἀπόληται. τοῦτο δὲ ἀφ’ ἑαυτοῦ οὐκ εἶπεν, ἀλλὰ ἀρχιερεὺς ὢν τοῦ ἐνιαυτοῦ ἐκείνου ἐπροφήτευσεν ὅτι ἔμελλεν Ἰησοῦς ἀποθνῄσκειν ὑπὲρ τοῦ ἔθνους, καὶ οὐχ ὑπὲρ τοῦ ἔθνους μόνον ἀλλ’ ἵνα καὶ τὰ τέκνα τοῦ θεοῦ τὰ διεσκορπισμένα συναγάγῃ εἰς ἕν. ἀπ’ ἐκείνης οὖν τῆς ἡμέρας ἐβουλεύσαντο ἵνα ἀποκτείνωσιν αὐτόν. –ΚΑΤΑ ΙΩΑΝΝΗ 11.47-53

Therefore the chief priests and the Pharisees convened a council, and were saying, “What are we doing? For this man is performing many signs. “If we let Him go on like this, all men will believe in Him, and the Romans will come and take away both our place and nation.” But one of them, Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, said to them, “You know nothing at all, nor do you take into account that it is expedient for you that one man die for the people, and that the whole nation not perish.” Now he did not say this on his own initiative, but being high priest that year, he prophesied that Jesus was going to die for the nation, and not for the nation only, but in order that He might also gather together into one the children of God, who are scattered abroad. So from that day on they planned together to kill Him. –John 11.47-53 [NASB95]

Abstract: John, the evangelist, deploys dramatic irony in order to emphasize the depth dimensional reality of Jesus’ prophetic-priestly office juxtaposed with the priesthood of the Jewish nation. The contrast between what the office of the priesthood was intended for, and what it had become by time Jesus comes to fulfill its final office, cannot be starker. The Evangelist, John, uses the corruption the office had slidden into, as a foil to magnify its final and consummate reality in Jesus Christ. John emphasizes the prophetic role of the high priest as a means to demonstrate that no matter the corruption that had taken hold within the systems of God’s covenant people, that God’s plan in Jesus Christ would not be thwarted. Indeed, the high priest still operates as a functionary of God’s mediatorial framework as that was set in motion by God way back in the Levitical (and Aaronic) priesthoods as noted in Leviticus 16.29-34. Even in the face of the fulfillment, of the telos of God’s prophetic-priestly framework, the high priest, Caiaphas, ironically, doesn’t realize what he is doing. He makes a genuine, even kerygmatic proclamation that it would be better for Jesus, the true prophet-priest of Israel, to be sacrificed for the many. The following analyses are intended to substantiate the ironic prophetic role the high priest, Caiaphas, played in the unfolding of God’s providential plan for the world.

Thesis: It will be suggested that the prophet-priesthood of Jesus, as the prophet-priest’s reality in the nation of Israel, deepens the irony of Caiaphas’ malformed operation insofar that what the prophet-priesthood was always already intended for, what it was protologically shaped by, was its prophetic-priestly reality (res) as that was pre-destined by the eternal Logos’ election to become human, to become the man from Nazareth to begin with. That outwith that antecedent reality, Caiaphas’ capacity to ‘prophesy’ in the functionary of the high priesthood of Yahweh and the nation of Israel, would have no telos; and of course, would not exist to begin with.

Lexical Analysis–Koine Greek

Lexeme: προφητεία // Jn. 11.51:: ἐπροφήτευσεν [aorist active indicative third person singular] ‘he prophesied.’

3. foretell the future, prophesy (Sib. Or. 3, 163; 699 al.), of prophets and men of God in times past: Mt 11:13 . . . prophesy about someone or someth. (2 Ch 18:7) Mt 15:7; Mk 7:6; 1 Pt 1:10 . . . prophesy with reference to someone B 5:6. Also . . . 5:13. Foll. By direct discourse 12:10. . . . foll. By dir. disc. Lk 1:67 (John the Baptist’s father); also . . . someone Jd 14 (Enoch). Of the high priest (cf. Jos., Bell. 1, 68f= Ant. 13, 299f; s. also 282f; CHDodd, OCullmann Festschr., ’62, 134-43.—According to Diod. S. 3, 5; 6 the Jews considered the ἀρχιερεύς to be an ‘messenger of God’ [my trans.]. . . . Whatever is revealed to him he communicates to the people in their assemblies . . . J 11:51. . . . Of the writer of Rv. . . . Rv 10:11. . . .[1]

Background Analysis

11:47-48. The Pharisees and chief priests called together literally a “*Sanhedrin,” probably referring here to the supreme court of Israel or those of its representatives who are available. Their concern is a legitimate one validated by history: those perceived as political *messiahs threatened their own power and Judea’s stability, inviting Roman intervention; the Romans accepted only one king, Caesar. *Josephus testified to this concern of the priestly aristocracy, and one reason Josephus Caiaphas maintained his office longer than any other high priest of the first century (A.D. 18-36) was that he kept the peace for the Romans. But this is another touch of John’s irony (a common ancient literary device): this was their view, not that of the Romans (18:38; 19:12); and although they killed Jesus, the Romans ultimately did take away their temple and nation, in A.D. 70, anyway.

11:49. The high priesthood, like some Greek priesthoods (e.g., at Eleusis), had originally been a lifelong office. It had never been reduced to an annual assignment, like most priesthoods in Syria or Asia Minor, but John’s “priest that year” may poke fun at how the Roman governor had power to change the high priests, or at how the high priest’s deposed relative could still meddle so much in these affairs (18:13); or he may simply mean “high priest in the particular year of which we speak,” because officials’ terms were used to date events.

The high priest presided over the *Sanhedrin. To have a high priest inform his colleagues, “You do not know anything,” is the epitome of John’s irony.

11:50-53. Here the high priest means one thing on the level of his own hearers, but his words have another meaning that would be more obvious to John’s readers: others (both Greeks and Jews) also believed that those appointed as God’s representatives could sometimes prophesy (speak God’s truth) without meaning to do so. Some Jewish traditions seem to associate *prophecy with the priesthood.

Sacrificing the few for the many makes good politics but bad religion: *Josephus claimed that King Agrippa II urged his people to forego vengeance for injustice for the sake of peace; but Jewish teachers said not to betray a single Israelite to rape or death even if the result would be the rape or execution of all.[2]

Depth Theological-Exegetical Reflection

Based on the cursory analysis this exercise has provided it is clear that the office of the high priest could also function in the role of a prophet of Israel. In the Johannine pericope under consideration Caiaphas fulfills his role, even as that is based upon corrupt, politicized, and self-seeking ulterior motives. And yet in the face of its res (reality) in Jesus Christ—the genuine and final prophet-priest ( -king) [triplex munus]—even while attempting to thwart the purposes of God in the spirit of the antiChrist, God’s Way prevails. It’s as if Caiaphas in this situation becomes Balaam’s ass, passively, unbeknownst to him, prophesying for the final time of the promised prophet-priest (cf. Deut. 18), that the Logos ensarkos, Jesus the Christ, ought to die for the nation of Israel, whether they be there, or in some diasporic situation. This is the power and providence of God, He takes His Holy offices, as those were intended for Jesus Christ, even as they have been corrupted by the spirit of antiChrist, and reveals the nothingness of their corruption just as He establishes their reality and substance, as that was antecedently established before the foundations of the world, and re-creates their malformed instantiations by the shedding of the eternal blood of the Lamb in Jesus Christ.

The above continues to hold true: even as the Church of Jesus Christ has waned and wooed here and there, even as she currently apostatizes, even while thinking herself as the functionary, even as prophet-priests for the world, the purposes and providence of the living God will not be thwarted. The esse of the Church is her reality in Jesus Christ as that is grounded in the triune life of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Just as the nation of Israel, the Church has taken what is Holy and soiled it by its own unholiness, over and again. And yet, even as we stand in the face of the living Christ, and as we speak, as the Church, as if we are speaking for God, and we well might be, all of this is in spite of our malformed intentions; as those have taken shape in the milieu of our continuously corrupt hearts, even as the people of God in Jesus Christ.

The Church would do well to recognize her fallen status, even as the simul iustitia et peccator alerts us to. That even while thinking we are doing the work of God, just as Caiaphas did, even as the people of the Way, unless we are living in a repentant lifestyle by keeping in vigilant step with the Spirit, we are prone to be Caiaphases, even while speaking the genuine Word of God to ourselves and the world. This seems to place us in an impossible situation, almost defeatist. But that is what the school of Christ’s faith is for. We are called to recognize our Caiaphasitic hearts, and to seek God’s kingdom and His righteousness moment by moment as we live lives of utter dependence on God’s mercy and grace as He showers that upon us moment-by-moment by the Spirit from the heavenly priestly session of the Son of Man as He always lives to make intercession for us.

[1] William F. Arndt and F. Wilbur Gingrich, A Greek-English Lexicon Of The New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature: A translation and adaptation of the fourth revised and augmented edition of Walter Bauer’s Griechisch-Deutsches Wöterbuch zu den Schriften des Neu Testaments und der übrigen urchristlichen Literatur (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1979), 723.

[2] Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary New Testament (Downers Grove, Illinois: Intervarsity Press, 1993), 293-94.