47 The high priests and Pharisees called a meeting of the Jewish ruling body. "What do we do now?" they asked. "This man keeps on doing things, creating God-signs. 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. 53 From that day on, they plotted to kill him.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on John 11:47-53
Commentary on John 11:47-53
(Read John 11:47-53)
There can hardly be a more clear discovery of the madness that is in man's heart, and of its desperate enmity against God, than what is here recorded. Words of prophecy in the mouth, are not clear evidence of a principle of grace in the heart. The calamity we seek to escape by sin, we take the most effectual course to bring upon our own heads; as those do who think by opposing Christ's kingdom, to advance their own worldly interest. The fear of the wicked shall come upon them. The conversion of souls is the gathering of them to Christ as their ruler and refuge; and he died to effect this. By dying he purchased them to himself, and the gift of the Holy Ghost for them: his love in dying for believers should unite them closely together.