Tuesday, April 7, 2020

D.A. Carson on John 11:51



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.