quite
true that Christ's death would be the saving of a countless multitude,
only it was not from the Roman legions that it would long save men, but
from an even more formidable visitation. Caiaphas saw that the Romans
were within a very little of terminating the ceaseless troubles which
arose out of this Judaean province, by transporting the inhabitants and
breaking up their nationality; and he supposed that by proclaiming Jesus
as an aspirant to the throne and putting Him to death, he would cleanse
the nation of all complicity in His disloyalty and stay the Roman sword.
And John says, that in carrying out this idea of his, he unwittingly
carried out the purpose of God that Jesus should die for that
nation--"and not for that nation only, but that also He should gather
together in one the children of God that were scattered abroad."

Now it must be owned that it is much easier to understand what Caiaphas
meant than what John meant; much easier to see how fit Jesus was to be a
national scapegoat than to understand how His death removes the sin of
the world. There are, however, one or two points regarding the death of
Christ which become clearer in the light of Caiaphas's idea.

First, the very characteristics of Christ which made Caiaphas think of
Him as a possible scapegoat for the nation, are those which make it
possible that His death should serve a still larger purpose. When the
brilliant idea of propitiating the Roman government by sacrificing Jesus
flashed into the mind of Caiaphas, he saw that Jesus was in every
respect suited to this purpose. He was in the first place a person of
sufficient importance. To have seized an unknown peasant, who never had,
and never could have, much influence in Jewish society, would have been
no proof of zeal in extinguishing rebellion. To crucify Peter or John
or Lazarus, none of whom had made the most distant claim to kingship,
would not serve Caiaphas's turn. But Jesus was the head of a party. In
disposing of Him they disposed of His followers. The sheep must scatter,
if the Shepherd were put out of the way.

Then, again, Jesus was innocent of everything but this. He was guilty of
attaching men to Himself, but innocent of everything besides. This also
fitted Him for Caiaphas's purpose, for the high priest recognised that
it would not do to pick a common criminal out of the prisons and make a
scapegoat of him. That had been a shallow fiction, which would not for a
moment stay th