But some of them went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done. 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. 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.”
When the chief priests and the Pharisees got together, they were very concerned. They already had several confrontations with Jesus in the temple. And they were hearing reports of things Jesus had done. The result of these miracles was always the same: more people talking about how Jesus must be the Messiah.
In most of his gospel, John lets us speculate what the motives of the Pharisees are. Here he tells us. The leaders of the Jews fear that the Romans would take away their temple and the nation of Israel. Notice that they were not concerned about what God thought. They did not refer to it as “God’s temple,” but rather “our temple.”
Continue reading “Projection – John 11: 46-48”