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Joh_11:51-52. Observation of John, that Caiaphas did not speak this out of his own self-determination, but with these portentous words—in virtue of the high priest’s office which he held in that year—involuntarily delivered a prophecy.[96]
The high priest passed in the old Israelitish time for the bearer of the divine oracle, for the organ of the revelation of the divine decisions,[97] which were imparted to him through the interrogation of the Urim and Thummim (Exo_28:30; Num_27:21). This mode of inquiry disappeared, indeed, at a later time (Josephus, Antt. iii. 8. 9), as the high-priestly dignity in general fell gradually from its glory; nevertheless, there is still found in the prophetic age the belief in the high priest’s prophetical gift (Hos_3:4), exactly as, in Josephus, Antt. vi. 6. 3, the idea of the old high-priesthood as the bearer of the oracle distinctly appears, and Philo, de Creat. Princ. II. p. 367, sets forth at least the true priest as prophet, and consequently idealizes the relation. Accordingly—as closely connected with that venerable and not yet extinct recollection, and with still surviving esteem for the high-priestly office—it was a natural and obvious course for John, after pious reflection on those remarkable words which were most appropriate to the sacrificial death of Jesus, to find in them a disclosure of the divine decree,—expressed without self-knowledge and will,—and that by no means with a “sacred irony” (Ebrard). Here, too, the extraordinary year in which the speaker was invested with the sacred office, carries with it the determination of the judgment; since, if at any time, it was assuredly in this very year, in which God purposed the fulfilment of His holy counsel through the atoning death of His Son, that a revelation through the high-priestly organ appeared conceivable. ἀρχιερ . ὤν certainly bears the main emphasis: but ΤΟῦ ἘΝΙΑΥΤ . ἘΚ . is again significantly added to it (not, as De Wette thinks, “mechanically, as it were”), as in Joh_11:49.[98] For Rabbinical passages on unconscious prophecies, see in Schoettgen, p. 349. The notion of prophecy, however, is different from that of the áÌÇúÎ÷åÉì (against De Wette); comp. on Joh_12:27-28. The latter is a heavenly voice of revelation.
ὅτι ] not: that, according to which what follows would directly state the contents of προεφήτ ., but: he gave utterance to a prophecy in reference to the fact that (Joh_2:18, Joh_9:17, et al.). For what follows goes beyond that which the words of Caiaphas express.
ὙΠῈΡ ΤΟῦ ἜΘΝΟΥς ] Caiaphas had said: ὙΠῈΡ ΤΟῦ ΛΑΟῦ ; but John turns to the negative part of Joh_11:50 ( κ . μὴ ὅλ . τὸ ἔθνος ἀπόλ .), because he wishes to set the Gentiles over against the Jews, and this separation is national. Comp. Luk_7:5; Joh_18:35. For the benefit of the nation Christ was to die; for through His atoning death the Jews, for whom, in the first instance, the Messianic salvation was designed, Joh_4:22, were to become partakers by means of faith in the eternal saving deliverance. But the object of His death extended still further than the Jews; not for the benefit of the nation alone, but in order also to bring together into one the scattered children of God. These are the Gentiles, who believe on Him, and thereby are partakers of the atonement, children of God (Joh_1:12). The expression is prophetic and, just as in Joh_10:16, proleptic,[99] according to the N. T. predestinarian point of view (Rom_9:24 ff; Rom_15:27; Gal_3:14; Eph_1:9 ff.; Rom_8:29-30; Rom_11:25-26; Rom_16:25-26; Eph_3:4 ff.; Col_1:27; Act_13:48; Act_18:10), from which they appear as those who, in order to further their entrance into the filial state, are drawn by God (Joh_6:44), are given by the Father to the Son (Joh_6:37), and endowed with the inward preparation (Joh_6:65). Euth. Zigabenus rightly remarks: τέκνα μὲν οὖν τοῦ θεοῦ τὰ ἔθνη ὠνόμασεν ὡς μέλλοντα γενέσθαι . This likewise in answer to Hilgenfeld, Lehrbegr. p. 153, Evang. p. 297, according to whom the Gentiles, as natural children of God, who do not first become so through Christianity, are said to be meant (but see Joh_1:12, Joh_3:3; Joh_3:6, et al.). A filial state toward God out of Christ is opposed to the N. T., not only as Hilgenfeld puts it, from a Gnostic, dualistic point of view, but also, as Luthardt conceives it (comp. also Messner, Lehre der Ap. p. 330 f.), referring the essence of it only to the desire after Christ (Tholuck, Weiss, Godet, to the susceptibility). This is only the preliminary step to the filial state. The gathering into one, i.e. to a unity, to an undivided community, is not intended in a local sense; but, amid their local dispersion, they were to become united in a higher sense, in virtue of a faith, etc., through the κοινωνία τοῦ ἁγίου πνεύματος , as one communion ἐν Χριστῷ . Chrysostom aptly remarks: ἓν σῶμα ἐποίησεν · ὁ ἐν Ῥώμῃ καθήμενος τοὺς Ἰνδοὺς μέλος εἶναι νομίζει ἑαυτοῦ . The uniting with the believing Jews (the ποιεῖν τὰ ἀμφότερα ἕν , Eph_2:14) is not spoken of here, but in Joh_10:16; here only the Christian folding together of the scattered Gentiles themselves. For the expression συνάγειν (and the like) εἰς ἕν , comp. Plat. Phileb. p. 378 C; Eur. Or. 1640, Phoen. 465.
[96] Here there is the conception of an unconscious prophecy, so far as that which Caiaphas spoke in another sense must yet, according to divine direction, typically set forth the substance and object of the redemptive death. See Düsterdieck, De rei propheticae naturâ ethicâ, Göttingen 1852, p. 76.
[97] See generally Ewald, Alterth. p. 385; Keil, Arch. I. p. 182.
[98] According to Tholuck, τ . ἐνιαυτοῦ ἐκ . should be understood in the sense that the high priest himself was bound to explain that in this year a greater and more general collective sacrifice was to be offered than that offered by him once a year on behalf of the people (Heb_9:7). But how can this lie in τ . ἐνιαυτοῦ ἐκ .? especially as ἀρχιερεὺς , κ . τ . λ ., is said only to make the προεφήτ . explicable, but expresses nothing as to the relation of the high-priestly sacrifice. This also against Luthardt’s similar interpretation, I. p. 87.
[99] Calvin well remarks: “Filios ergo Dei, etiam antequam vocentur, ab electione aestimat, qui fide tandem et sibi et aliis manifestari incipiunt.”