18:12
Jesus was arrested, it seems that the Roman and Jewish officers were involved. Jesus was bound. Just let that sink in a moment, the Son of God, the one through whom and for whom all things were created, was bound. As we know, all this was according to God’s plan, achieving God’s purposes. There are times when it seems that the world and/or the devil are achieving their purposes. This is never the whole story.
18:13,14
Under normal Jewish practices the high priest was essentially appointed for life. However, the Roman authorities had stuck their noses in and there were periodic changes in the high priesthood, much to the chagrin of the Jews. Annas had been high priest, but since then five of his sons had held that office, and at the time Caiaphas, his son-in-law, held the office. However, in the eyes of the Jews Annas was the real boss, the godfather if you like! Back in John 11:49-52 Caiaphas had said that it was better for one man to die than for the nation to perish. Of course, at the time he actually had no idea at all about the true import of what he was saying, yet John puts it down as prophecy. The Jewish idea of God doing something, and our idea have significant differences, which is one of the reasons why we have such heated (and silly) debates about the sovereignty of God and predestination. The Bible sees all things as being down to God, our Western minds add all sorts of things to that which the Bible does not. In particular, we think that God determining something means that human responsibility goes out of the window. That is not a Biblical thought.
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