And this spake he not of himself: but being
high priest that year, he prophesied that Jesus should die for that nation.
(John 11:51)
Commenting
on Caiaphas’ prediction of Jesus’ then-future death and John’s statement that
it was a prophecy, D.A. Carson wrote:
Here he spells out his understanding of
Caiaphas’s words, and how the prophecy came about. Caiaphas did not say this on his own. This does
not mean that God used Caiaphas as if he were a puppet, a creature like Balaam’s
ass, a mere mouthpiece. Caiaphas spoke his considered if calloused opinion. But
when Caiaphas spoke, God was also speaking, even if they were not saying the
same things . . . Caiaphas spoke as a prophet, partly by virtue of the fact that
he was the high priest (at one time the high priest revealed God’s will by using
the Urim and Thummim. Zadok the priest is assumed to be a ‘seer’ [2 Sa. 15:7] .
. .), partly by virtue of the fact that it was ‘that [fateful] year’ when Jesus
was to die. (D.A. Carson, The Gospel
According to John [The Pillar New Testament Commentary; Leicester: Apollos,
1991], 422)
This is
important for many reasons, not the least is that it refutes the naïve belief
among some who think that to be a prophet, one must be righteous. While anyone called
to a church office should strive to live a holy life, God can use anyone
anytime he pleases—in the case of Caiaphas, he did not live as the High Priest
should have lived, and yet, in spite of this, God did speak through him.
