John 11:45–57
The Bible4Jesus.com Podcast
About this episode
We come now to a passage that lays bare the inner workings of two starkly different councils. On the one hand, we have the Sanhedrin, the highest court of the Jews, gathered in a panic. They are doing their political arithmetic, calculating risks, and trying to manage a crisis. The Sanhedrin thought they were in control, but they were merely stagehands in a divine drama, reading lines written for them by the ultimate Playwright. This is a central lesson for the Christian life. We are constantly tempted to view the world through the lens of the Sanhedrin. He is teaching us to see that the frantic, self-preserving plots of wicked men are the very instruments He uses to accomplish His glorious, redemptive purposes. God does not just make lemonade out of lemons; He ordained the sourness of the lemon from eternity to bring about the sweetness of the final drink.