💫WEB · John 11:47
What does John 11:47 mean?
"The chief priests therefore and the Pharisees gathered a council, and said, “What are we doing? For this man does many signs."
— John 11:47 (World English Bible)
Surrounding context
He who was dead came out, bound hand and foot with wrappings, and his face was wrapped around with a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Free him, and let him go.”
Therefore many of the Jews, who came to Mary and saw what Jesus did, believed in him.
But some of them went away to the Pharisees, and told them the things which Jesus had done.
The chief priests therefore and the Pharisees gathered a council, and said, “What are we doing? For this man does many signs.
If we leave him alone like this, everyone will believe in him, and the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation.”
But a certain one of them, Caiaphas, being high priest that year, said to them, “You know nothing at all,
nor do you consider that it is advantageous for us that one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation not perish.”
Explanation
John 11:47 records the moment when the religious leaders of Jerusalem, having just heard that Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, called an emergency meeting to decide what to do about him. In plain terms, the chief priests and Pharisees—two groups that often disagreed with each other but were united in their opposition to Jesus—gathered the Sanhedrin, the ruling council of Jewish elders, and asked in near panic, "What are we doing?" They openly acknowledge the reality of Jesus's miracles: "this man does many signs." This is a striking admission. They do not deny that Jesus is performing genuine, powerful acts; their concern is not whether the signs are real, but what to do about the growing following those signs are producing.
The context is crucial for understanding the weight of this verse. John's Gospel has just narrated the raising of Lazarus in chapter 11, the climactic and most public of Jesus's miracles, performed openly near Jerusalem with many witnesses. Word of this spreads quickly, and it becomes clear to the Jewish authorities that they can no longer ignore Jesus or dismiss him as a minor troublemaker. The Gospel of John was written later in the first century, traditionally attributed to the
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