Commentaries:
Adam Clarke
And not for that nation only, etc. - These, and the preceding words in John 11:51, are John' s explication of what was prophetic in the words of Caiaphas: as if John had said, He is indeed to die for the sins of the Jewish nation, but not for theirs alone, but for the sins of the whole world: see his own words afterwards, I John 2:1, I John 2:2.
Gather together in one - That he should collect into one body; - form one Church out of the Jewish and Gentile believers.
Children of God that were scattered abroad - Probably John only meant the Jews who were dispersed among all nations since the conquest of Judea by the Romans; and these are called the dispersed, John 7:35, and James 1:1; and it is because he refers to these only, that he terms them here, the children of God, which was an ancient character of the Jewish people: see Deuteronomy 32:5; Isaiah 43:6; Isaiah 45:11; Jeremiah 32:1. Taking his words in this sense, then his meaning is this: that Christ was to die, not only for the then inhabitants of Judea, but for all the Jewish race wheresoever scattered; and that the consequence would be, that they should be all collected from their various dispersions, and made one body. This comports with the predictions of St. Paul: Romans 11:1-32. This probably is the sense of the passage; and though, according to this interpretation, the apostle may seem to confine the benefits of Christ' s death to the Jewish people only, yet we find from the passage already quoted from his first epistle, that his views of this subject were afterwards very much extended; and that he saw that Jesus Christ was not only a propitiation for their sins (the Jews) but for the sins of the whole world: see his 1st epistle, I John 2:2. All the truths of the Gospel were not revealed at once, even to the apostles themselves.
Other Adam Clarke entries containing John 11:52:
John 11:57
John 18:14
Hebrews 2:14
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