John 11:50

50 Can't you see that it's to our advantage that one man dies for the people rather than the whole nation be destroyed?"

John 11:50 Meaning and Commentary

John 11:50

Nor consider that it is expedient for us
Priests, Levites, Pharisees, the sanhedrim, and ecclesiastical rulers of the people; who, as Caiaphas apprehended, must suffer in their characters and revenues, must quit their honourable and gainful posts and places, if Jesus went on and succeeded at this rate: wherefore it was most expedient and advantageous for them, which was the main thing to be considered in such a council, so he thought it was,

that one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation
perish not;
he proceeded entirely upon this political principle, that a public good ought to be preferred to a private one; that it was no matter what the man was, whether innocent or not; common prudence, and the public safety of the nation, required him to fall a sacrifice, rather than the Romans should be exasperated and provoked to such a degree, as to threaten the utter ruin and destruction of the whole nation.

John 11:50 In-Context

48 If we let him go on, pretty soon everyone will be believing in him and the Romans will come and remove what little power and privilege we still have."

49 Then one of them - it was Caiaphas, the designated Chief Priest that year - spoke up, "Don't you know anything?

50 Can't you see that it's to our advantage that one man dies for the people rather than the whole nation be destroyed?"

51 He didn't say this of his own accord, but as Chief Priest that year he unwittingly prophesied that Jesus was about to die sacrificially for the nation,

52 and not only for the nation but so that all God's exile-scattered children might be gathered together into one people.