"12 So the band of soldiers and their captain and the officers of the Jews arrested Jesus and bound him. 13 First they led him to Annas, for he was the father-in-law of Caiaphas, who was high priest that year. 14 It was Caiaphas who had advised the Jews that it would be expedient that one man should die for the people."
John 18:12-14
John's comment in 14 about Caiaphas is surely significant here, in relation to all we have been saying about the divine initiative at work in the solemn event of our Lord's arrest. This, John means, is not a matter of a poor, defenceless victim being taken to His death, but the outworking of a sovereign plan. When Caiaphas said (11:49ff) that it was expedient that one man should die for the people, John added in effect that he had spoken more deeply than he knew, because he was giving voice to the whole plan and purpose of God. It is this that he now reminds us of, in 14. This, he means is the outworking of that. He has no intention of allowing us to think of the death of Jesus in the wrong way even thus early in the account of the trial and crucifixion, he obliges us to think of what was happening in terms of what God was doing, rather than what men were doing. In this respect, he is simply echoing the uniform teaching of the apostles as we see it in Acts and in the epistles (cf Acts 2:23). We must never forget that the gospel narratives recording the events leading up to the crucifixion were written from the standpoint and in the perspective of the resurrection - i.e. from the standpoint of the divine initiative fulfilled and the victory won.