Preparation for Death; John 11:45-12:11

John 11:45 ^NASB “Therefore many of the Jews who came to Mary, and saw what He had done, believed in Him.” So we see a large number who trusted in Christ as their saviour. They are believing in a Jesus who is historically objective, a Jesus who performs objective miracles, and a Jesus who made certain claims related to His own deity. They were relating to who He was in terms of all of His essence.

The problem today in a lot of evangelism is that we present Jesus in some sort of subjective framework: “You need Jesus because He will solve a lot of problems in your life; Jesus will make you feel better.” It presents Jesus as though He is a sort of lucky rabbit’s foot or magic talisman. We present Jesus as the psychological solution to life’s problems as opposed to the Lord of the universe, and modern subjective psychological man has basically created a subjective emotional concept of Jesus in his own mind. This is the human viewpoint thinker, and a lot of people who are Christians, and they don’t know anything about the Bible. They create an image of what they think Jesus is. This is their own subjective concept, it doesn’t have anything to do with the Bible, and then they project this up into heaven: this is who Jesus is. What they have done is create a very sophisticated idol. Just because people talk about Jesus or talk about God does not mean they are talking about the Jesus of the Bible or the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. There are all sorts of systems out there in religious groups and Christian churches who talk about Jesus and God but they are not the Jesus and God who are revealed in the Scriptures. That is why it is so important to understand who Jesus is and what the Scripture teaches about Him.

The people who responded to Him treated this event as a historical fact. Scripture is always grounded in historical events. Everything that God taught in the Old Testament was taught in the framework of objective historical events. If we remove the historical veracity of those events then the doctrine that is taught becomes meaningless. That is the dangerous and subtle attack on Scripture and on history. History has meaning because it is the outworking of God’s plan and purposes for mankind. History is not just a collection of random thoughts. Once you get a culture where history is destroyed as having objective meaning then those historical facts are subject to change, and this is called historical revisionism.

John 11:46 ^NASB “But some of them went to the Pharisees and told them the things which Jesus had done.” So there is a small group that is going to tattle of Jesus. Religion always produces small-minded people because it operates on arrogance and legalism. We see the results of this in verse 47: “Therefore the chief priests and the Pharisees convened a council, and were saying, ‘What are we doing? For this man is performing many signs.’” How did John know what went on in that meeting? John wasn’t present. Options: a) God could have informed him; b) there were probably a few believers in that meeting, e.g., Nicodemus, Joseph of Arimathea. The word for “council” in the Greek is the technical word for Sanhedrin. When they say, “What are we doing?” they use a present tense of the verb poieo [poiew] which means that they are actively engaged in doing something against Jesus, and they have been. They are trying to stop the growing movement of followers of Jesus. So they are actively engaged in trying to stop Jesus’ ministry and they have already determined that they want to kill Him, and it is in this meeting that they are going to finalise the plan.

John 11:48 ^NASB “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 our nation.” On the one hand, those who respond to Jesus recognise that no one could do the things He did and say the things He did unless God was with Him. It was obvious from His miracles that He was fulfilling all of the requisite signs of the Messiah laid out in the Old Testament. But the others couldn’t accept that so they had to offer an alternate solution, and their solution was that Jesus was simply leading a political revolt. So they had interpreted everything that Jesus was doing in terms of politics. Because they have a false interpretive framework they are going to come out with the wrong conclusions. Their conclusion is that if they let Him go and this continues then the Romans (everything that the Jews did was under the watchful eye of Rome) will intervene. There is tremendous irony here. They are saying the problem is political and the problem is Rome. As we have seen there are only two solutions basically to any problem. There is the human viewpoint solution and there is the divine viewpoint solution. They have defined the problem as political and because they are operating on human viewpoint reasoning they are going to misinterpret the analysis and are going to come up with false solutions. That solution is to kill Jesus. What they are saying is that if they take this solution it will take the political heat off our backs. Because they have identified the problem wrongly and from human viewpoint what they are going to get by applying this solution is what they are trying to avoid.

The principle is that in life whenever we try to solve our problems through a human viewpoint solution what we are trying to avoid is what we are going to get. The only true solution is the divine viewpoint solution. If they had allowed Jesus to continue to such a degree that, say, there was a positive response to the gospel so that the majority of the people became believers, then Jesus would have indeed established His kingdom as a political kingdom. He would have worked out the plan of salvation and died for sin in some way, but He would have established His kingdom at the first advent if they had accepted Him, and He would have been able to overthrow Rome then just as he will overthrow the revived Roman empire at the end of the Tribulation. On the other hand, by exercise their human viewpoint solution the result was that they killed Jesus and then Rome comes back and destroys Israel completely in 70 AD.

Notice their hypocrisy in v. 48. They are not really concerned about the nation, they are concerned about losing their place in the nation and about the fact that they are going to lose their position of power and wealth. Many of them, like Caiaphas, were running a commercial racket and getting wealthy off all of the religious operation and they don’t want to lose it. They were not concerned for the nation but rather what was best for their own pocket book.

John 11:49 ^NASB “But one of them, Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, said to them, ‘You know nothing at all…” Notice that Caiaphas was high priest but he was not a believer. It was not a requirement in the Old Testament for either a priest or a high priest to be a believer. [50] “… ‘nor do you take into account that it is expedient for you that one man die for [u(per plus the genitive: substitution] the people, and that the whole nation not perish’. [51] 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…” Notice he did not say this from himself [a)utoj in the genitive]. If it didn’t originate from himself, where did it originate. God can make stones speak! He made Balaam’s ass speak. God can prophesy and communicate inerrant prophesy even through the mouth of an unbeliever who is antagonistic to the entire plan and program of God. Here He is using Caiaphas for His own purposes to articulate a prophesy, and it is just another example of God’s grace before judgment. The interesting thing is a political sense is that the nation did perish because they did not believe, but in an ultimate eternal sense many within the nation would not perish eternally because they had put their faith and trust in Jesus Christ. “… but being high priest that year…” Notice how John explains this. He explains the fact that he was able to say this because he was high priest. God spoke through the priesthood whether or not they were believers. Because he was high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus was going to die for the nation. John wants to make sure we don’t miss the point that it was a prophesy and it was clearly articulated by an unbeliever in an antagonistic situation. [52] “…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.” This reminds us of what Jesus said when talking about the sheep, that some sheep came from this flock and other sheep came from another flock, Gentiles. So this is merely an allusion to the church.

John 11:53 ^NASB “So from that day on they planned together to kill Him.” They are specifically entering into a conspiracy here to kill Jesus. [54] “Therefore Jesus no longer continued to walk publicly among the Jews, but went away from there to the country near the wilderness, into a city called Ephraim; and there He stayed with the disciples.” In His deity Jesus knows what is going on and he is going to make sure He is going to be crucified at the right place at the right time. So that doesn’t happen prematurely He is going to remove Himself from public exposure.

John 11:55 ^NASB “Now the Passover of the Jews was near, and many went up to Jerusalem out of the country before the Passover to purify themselves.” Why does John make this point? They are coming to Jerusalem to purify themselves. They had to go through a cleansing ritual which symbolised that before they could worship God they had to be cleansed from their sins. It is a training aid to help us understand the importance of confession of sin. [56] “So they were seeking for Jesus, and were saying to one another as they stood in the temple, ‘What do you think; that He will not come to the feast at all?’” They had heard about the controversy and as they came into town they began to ask where Jesus was. There is a heightened expectation among the crowd to find out about Jesus and what is going on. [57] “Now the chief priests and the Pharisees had given orders that if anyone knew where He was, he was to report it, so that they might seize Him.” What they were basically legislating is that if anyone had anything to do with Jesus they were a criminal. To avoid becoming a criminal they had to tell where Jesus was. They were executing a little totalitarian policy here to control the populace to make sure that they get the man that they want. So that places all of Jesus’ friends in a position of criminality.

John 12:1 ^NASB “Jesus, therefore, six days before the Passover, came to Bethany where Lazarus was, whom Jesus had raised from the dead.” Jesus bides His time and he waits for the proper time. “…came to Bethany where Lazarus was ...” John is specifically connecting for us these events with what just transpired. As a part of Jewish ritual you could not have contact with a diseased person, a leper, and you could not have contact with a dead person or you would be ceremonially unclean and could not participate in the Passover. A month had to go by before you could bring your cleansing sacrifice. Remember, when we saw the episode of the resuscitation of Lazarus that it was Martha who said: “Lord, he stinketh.” She knew they were only within two or three weeks of Passover and that of Jesus came in contact with that corrupt body He couldn’t participate in Passover. Now they come together in Bethany and there is going to be a dinner party. We don’t know much about the dinner party here in this passage but it is referenced in Mark 14 and there we discover that it was at the home of Simon the leper. So in the context of everyone going to Jerusalem to be purified Jesus is associating with a leper who had been healed and a dead corpse that had been resuscitated. His very practice is a slap in the face to the legalistic ritualism of the Pharisees.

John 12:2 ^NASB “So they made Him a supper there, and Martha was serving; but Lazarus was one of those reclining {at the} {table} with Him. [3] This shows Mary’s orientation to the Lord and her grace orientation and puts herself in a very humble position. Humility is always a factor in grace orientation. “Mary then took a pound of very costly perfume of pure nard, and anointed the feet of Jesus and wiped His feet with her hair; and the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.” This was a powerful situation. In the first place, under Judaism a woman would never be allowed to discuss or talk with a man in a situation like this. Only a woman who was considered to be a prostitute would do this. Not only that but (this can be substantiated in Numbers 5) a woman always worse her hair curled up, braided up, and on top of her head as a sign of submission to her husband. Only an adulterous woman ever let her hair down. The only time a woman would ever let her hair down was when she was in privacy and intimate situations with her husband. So by letting here hair down she was demonstrating her submission and her love to the Lord, it is a profound scenario, and anybody with a legalistic bone in their body would just be vibrating all over the place. So it is a sign of grace versus legalism here. She take out this nard. It had to be imported and was a very expensive perfume. She is using pure nard, so this is comparable to a cologne. It hasn’t been diluted, it is the pure essence of nard and it is said to be very costly. In v. 5 it is said to be worth three hundred denarii. A denarius was equivalent to a day’s wage, so this was worth about 10-months of pay. This was an act of worship. In grace orientation we don’t hold on to our own, we recognise that everything we have is from the Lord and so we are willing to give it back; it is the principle of grace giving.

We see the contrast with Judas. John 12:4 ^NASB “But Judas Iscariot, one of His disciples, who was intending to betray Him, said, [5] ‘Why was this perfume not sold for three hundred denarii and given to poor {people?}’” We know with Judas that he would have sold it and pocketed half of the money. Judas was in it for what he could get out of it and so he adopts this pseudo compassion which is typical of unbelievers and typical of legalism as well. [6] “Now he said this, not because he was concerned about the poor, but because he was a thief, and as he had the money box, he used to pilfer what was put into it.”

Jesus response: “John 12:7 ^NASB “Therefore Jesus said, ‘Let her alone, so that she may keep it for the day of My burial.” Mary knows He is about to die. Nard was used in preparing bodies for embalming, so this whole episode foreshadows that Jesus is about to die. Mary knows he is about to die and she is doing this as her act of devotion in preparing Him before His death.

John 12:8 ^NASB “For you always have the poor with you, but you do not always have Me.” This is a slap in the face for every socialist, liberal economic agenda that that has ever come down. That’s why liberals really don’t like Jesus. People are poor because of bad decisions and a lack of responsibility. Jesus is not making a harsh statement here, he is not condemning them for being poor, He is making a realistic observation. There will always be the poor. That gives people the opportunity to share and have compassion and to take care of them, but they are poor not because of it just happened that way or by chance but because of bad decisions. That is not going to change until Jesus comes back and it is not the agenda of the church, of Christianity, and it shouldn’t be the agenda of governments in this age to solve the problem of poverty because it won’t ever be solved this side of the second advent. Poverty has its roots basically in a sinful society.

John 12:9 ^NASB “The large crowd of the Jews then learned that He was there; and they came, not for Jesus’ sake only, but that they might also see Lazarus, whom He raised from the dead.” In other words, they are out to see the show, not for Jesus’ sake. They want to see the miracles and the healings and all of the other hoopla that goes on that usually has nothing to do with Christianity. [10] “But the chief priests planned to put Lazarus to death also; [11] because on account of him many of the Jews were going away and were believing in Jesus.” They realise they have to solve this whole problem. It is not just the problem of Jesus, it is the problem that they can’t let the evidence hang around either. The signs and evidences Jesus gave are valid evidences for who he is and for His claims, and many believed. The facts alone are not the issue, so when we witness to people we find ourselves strategically under pressure to try to find something and to do something to convince people we are right. At that point we are on the verge of making some serious tactical errors because facts are not the issue. Facts are important, we have to explain the facts of the gospel, the historical evidences of Christianity, but the issue is volition. Ultimately the issue is the sovereign executive responsibility of God the Holy Spirit in evangelism to make the gospel clear. That is not an excuse for us to be unprepared intellectually to give the gospel but it does tell us that ultimately it is not our responsibility to answer all the questions and to present an air-tight argument, because even when Jesus was on the earth and He presented air-tight arguments they were rejected. The issue is volition, not our ability to convince people.