John 11:56 Commentary and Bible Study

How clumsy that sounds. But be careful. The King James translators did not always produce the prettiest rendering but it is usually the most accurate. ‘What think ye, that he will not come to the feast?’ Or as we might say today, do you really think he is not going to come? That is the sense of the Greek. Do you really think he is not going to come?That is important. They did not say, ‘Is he going to come? Is Christ going to come?’ They remembered the days in the women’s court where thousands of people stood, and though there had been attempts to take his life, he would still calmly come, and he would preach and the scribes, and the Pharisees would barrack him and question him, and he would answer them so beautifully and perfectly. So they say, ‘Is it right? Do you think it is the case that he will not come?’ Why did they say that? Well, because that is what had been put about. The official word from the scribes and the Pharisees, from the priests, was: ‘He is not coming.’ They thought that if they could not actually arrest him, he would be too scared to appear in Jerusalem again.The pronouncement was made: Christ is to be arrested. There were further rules brought out. ‘If you know where he is, if you harbour him, or if you even see him, you had better report him. Tell the authorities where he is, he cannot survive here. He knows that his days in Jerusalem are at an end.’ They were entirely wrong. He did return when the time was right that he was going to suffer and die, and in apparent weakness allow his arrest and his trial. They got everything wrong. Everything was turned to match God’s plan and God’s intentions, and their expectation was wrong.