3 At that time the chief priests and the elders of the people were gathered together in the courtyard of the high priest named Caiaphas; 4 and they plotted together to arrest Jesus covertly and kill Him. 5 But they were saying, “Not during the festival, otherwise a riot might occur among the people.”

Matthew 26:3-5 (NASB) 中文

Backdrop

Jesus has shared with His disciples (yet again) that He is going to be killed (v2) We don’t have a record of their response. Maybe some are more accepting of this fact than the others. But it’s likely they all still don’t understand the real meaning.

Priests plotting

While Jesus is with His disciples sharing this prophecy about His coming death during the Passover, the chief priests and other religious leaders were fulfilling the prophecy! They wanted to secretly arrest Him and kill Him. They required secrecy so that the crowds would not be aware of it – especially at the time of Passover. These priests wanted to avoid an insurrection.

We know from Matthew 21:6-11 that the crowds had welcomed Jesus earlier in the week with cries of, “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!” (v9) So these leaders don’t want trouble. But did their timing prevail? Or Jesus’ timing? (v2)

High Priest

Matthew gives us the name of the high priest: Caiaphas. But do we know what the high priest is? He’s not just the top dog priest. “The high priest was the supreme religious leader of the Israelites. The office of the high priest was hereditary and was traced from Aaron, the brother of Moses, of the Levite tribe (Exodus 28:1; Numbers 18:7). The high priest had to be “whole” physically (without any physical defects) and holy in his conduct (Leviticus 21:6-8).” (gotquestions.org)

Gotquestions.org continues, “The most important duty of the high priest was to conduct the service on the Day of Atonement, the tenth day of the seventh month of every year. Only he was allowed to enter the Most Holy Place behind the veil to stand before God. Having made a sacrifice for himself and for the people, he then brought the blood into the Holy of Holies and sprinkled it on the mercy seat, God’s “throne” (Leviticus 16:14-15). He did this to make atonement for himself and the people for all their sins committed during the year just ended (Exodus 30:10). It is this particular service that is compared to the ministry of Jesus as our High Priest (Hebrews 9:1-28).” (gotquestions.org)

The main reason this is important to us is, Jesus is our High Priest (Hebrews 9:11-12) who made the one, complete, final offering for sin on our behalf.

RЯeflection

• How are you encouraged by knowing Jesus is God and knows the future? Not only did He know the future, He knew it involved His sacrificial death and separation from the Father for our sin. And He still went ahead with it! How many of us would have continued?
• Do we make time to thank Jesus for being our High Priest and offering Himself as a sacrifice for us, in our place? We are free from the consequences of sin, eternal separation from God. We confess, repent and believe. If you want to learn more about salvation click here.