One of the more shocking verses of the Holy Bible is John 11:48. It is here that the chief priests and the Pharisees of the Sanhedrin reveal why they are so keen to stop Jesus in his tracks. This is how the conversation goes:
John 11
47 Then the chief priests and the Pharisees called a meeting of the Sanhedrin.
“What are we accomplishing?” they asked. “Here is this man performing many signs. 48 If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and then the Romans will come and take away both our temple and our nation.”
These were men that taught the Jewish community all the prophecies from the Old Testament about the coming Messiah. Yet when the events began to unfold before their eyes, their minds turned to the potential loss they may have had to suffer if people knew that the Messiah had arrived. Pharisees were the people that, on the surface, were most keenly awaiting his arrival and were supposed to be the spiritual shepherds of the flock.
Of interest, in this conversation they do not say they want to stop him because he is not the Messiah. They don’t seem to care about that. Their minds are on worldly things, not what the prophecies say and what they need to do in turn. However, when they try to shut Jesus down in public, they accuse him of lying about being the Messiah, being demon possessed, and being a lawbreaker. Caiaphas takes it a step further. He claims that it would be good if Jesus was killed by the Romans as it would do the reverse of their concerns: it would unify Jews in Judea and abroad. The Scriptures even hold that Caiaphas prophesied about this prior to the conversation.
John 11
49 Then one of them, named Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, spoke up, “You know nothing at all! 50 You do not realize that it is better for you that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish.”
51 He did not say this on his own, but as high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus would die for the Jewish nation, 52 and not only for that nation but also for the scattered children of God, to bring them together and make them one. 53 So from that day on they plotted to take his life.
Caiaphas had no concern for what God expected him to do at that time, or whether Jesus was the Messiah. His concern, like the others, was the political state of Israel, not the prophecies which he was required to interpret for the people. His conclusion was different from the others, however, as he thought there was a way to end the situation that would unify the political nation of Israel and the power of the Sanhedrin: and that was to have Jesus killed.
These men demonstrate the danger of not looking to the kingdom of God but to the worldly kingdoms of humans. Anyone that puts the destiny of their nation above the requirements of the Scriptures can end up like the high priests and Pharisees. They may end up denying God to pursue worldly ambitions; they may lose sight of what the Scriptures presented about future events in Matthew 24, the Book of Daniel, Revelation, and the letters of Peter, John and Paul because they are more focussed on the future of their nation. In this state, we become blind to spiritual things.
The question that comes to mind is how could a group of people who were so immersed in the prophecies not see, or even worse, not care that the prophecies were being fulfilled? Yes, there is the obvious factor of how power, ambition and fear get in the way of truth. There is also the phenomenon of thinking that things will always be the same, so when new things arrive people are unable to accept them.
There is another factor mentioned throughout the Old and New Testaments. This is that God has allowed people to be under a kind of spiritual blindness so they cannot ‘see’ or ‘hear’ the things in front of them. The prophet Amos alludes to this (Amos 8:11–12), and so does Isaiah in the famous passage of Isaiah 6:9–10 that is quoted by both Jesus and Paul.
Matthew 13
14 And in them the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled, which says:
‘Hearing you will hear and shall not understand,
And seeing you will see and not perceive;
15 For the hearts of this people have grown dull.
Their ears are hard of hearing,
And their eyes they have closed,
Lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears,
Lest they should understand with their hearts and turn,
So that I should heal them.’
Acts 28
24 Some were convinced by what he said, but others would not believe. 25 They disagreed among themselves and began to leave after Paul had made this final statement: “The Holy Spirit spoke the truth to your ancestors when he said through Isaiah the prophet:
26 “‘Go to this people and say,
“You will be ever hearing but never understanding;
you will be ever seeing but never perceiving.”
27 For this people’s heart has become calloused;
they hardly hear with their ears,
and they have closed their eyes.
Otherwise they might see with their eyes,
hear with their ears,
understand with their hearts
and turn, and I would heal them.’
We must be ripe to see the spiritual things happening around us, such as the work of demons, prophecy being fulfilled, and God speaking to us through his Word or other people. We can see from the Pharisees and high priests of the Sanhedrin, this has nothing to do with being entrenched in rituals and doctrines. Sure, we need to know enough to grasp what is going on, but things like understanding the numerous scholastic interpretations of Biblical text, knowing the doctrines of every denomination, or sitting in church each Sunday do not guarantee that we won’t get deceived by the lying signs and wonders (2 Thessalonians 2:9).
What will give us the ability to see through Satan’s lies, and grasp what is of Jesus? Only the Holy Spirit can do this. For the Holy Spirit is God working through us and is the Spirit of Truth (John 16:13) and hence pulls us out of the Spirit of Deceit, which is the Spirit of the Antichrist. We first need to experience the arrival of the Holy Spirit in our lives, and then do what it says. For, if we hear the voice of the Spirit and go against its instruction, the voice becomes dimmer and dimmer. We also need to pray for wisdom, and the ability to see through deceptions, both in the world and within our own minds. Finally, we need to pray to God to lead us to the chapters in the Holy Bible that we need to read at that time, and for the wisdom to understand what He is saying to us through those verses.
Throughout the Gospels we find many examples of Jesus healing people’s sight. While I take such healing literally, I also see that it has a symbolic meaning, in that Jesus came so people could grasp the nature of the spiritual war we are immersed in. He opened people’s eyes to the tricks of the devil and exposed the demonic realm and the hypocrisy and faithlessness of the Jewish religious elite. He then promised to send the Holy Spirit to those who believe in him, which opens the receiver's eyes to these truths too.
John 14
16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever — 17 the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you.
Many undoubtedly denied Jesus because they simply couldn’t see the truth of who he was and why he had come. This is also true today, for most people simply cannot see the spiritual war unfolding around them and are caught in the lies of this world. Until the Holy Spirit enters us, we are all stuck in a spiritual prison, and no matter how much we read or how many services we attend, we will remain blind. This remains the case until our faith offering is accepted by God, and He decides to break the spell by sending the Holy Spirit into our being. This is the situation Isaiah spells out so lyrically when he states:
Isaiah 60
“Arise, shine, for your light has come,
and the glory of the Lord rises upon you.
2 See, darkness covers the earth
and thick darkness is over the peoples,
but the Lord rises upon you
and his glory appears over you.
However, chillingly, Jesus indicates that there was a group of Pharisees that were more wilful in their blindness. They had a greater understanding of what is going on but sided with evil. This is revealed in John 9:
39 Jesus said, “For judgment I have come into this world, so that the blind will see and those who see will become blind.”
40 Some Pharisees who were with him heard him say this and asked, “What? Are we blind too?”
41 Jesus said, “If you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin; but now that you claim you can see, your guilt remains.
One could argue that they only claim to see, so are the same as the others. However, Jesus clearly differentiates them from the others in terms of their guilt, and the insinuation here is that they should have known better but didn’t, while others were in the pits of ignorance. They were also non-responsive to the miracles, and pressured others around them to also deny the Messiah. Perhaps this is why he says that their father is the devil (John 8:44). This is a hard pill to swallow but was true then and is true now. Some people have consciously handed themselves over to Satan for gain and have thus blasphemed against the Holy Spirit.
Scripture tells us that not all are destined to awaken from spiritual darkness, but we never know who Jesus will decide to bring into His kingdom. For Paul was lost in complete evil, hunting Christians, until Jesus plucked him from Satan’s hands. It is not a surprise that he was made blind by God when he was struck down on the way to Damasus, and his spiritual awakening then coincided with the revival of his physical sight.
Acts 9
17 Then Ananias went to the house and entered it. Placing his hands on Saul, he said, “Brother Saul, the Lord — Jesus, who appeared to you on the road as you were coming here — has sent me so that you may see again and be filled with the Holy Spirit.” 18 Immediately, something like scales fell from Saul’s eyes, and he could see again. He got up and was baptized, 19 and after taking some food, he regained his strength.
This reminds us that God at times chooses those with a past of vile actions to expand His kingdom. We should not therefore hold someone’s past against them when they have had the scales dropped from their eyes no matter what they once were. This applies to those both famous and unknown, to the casual sinners and the lead satanists. It is not for us to judge who God chooses to fight for His kingdom. We should remember this before we sling mud at those claiming to have converted from a life of evil and attempt to hold their past against them.