Currently Eyes Wide Open: Looking for God in Popular Culture By William D. Romanowski see related

I'm reading through the book of John for Sunday School (I should have already finished it, to be honest), and I came across an interesting passage in John 11, verses 49-52:

But one of them, Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, said to them, "You know nothing at all, nor do you take into account that it is expedient for you that one man die for the people, and that the whole nation not perish."  Now he did not say this on his own initiative, but being high priest that year, he prophesied that Jesus was going to die for the nation, and not for the nation only, but in order that He might also gather together into one the children of God who are scattered abroad. (NASB)

On first read, I thought, A) Caiaphas is kind of a tool because he called his peers idiots, and then preceded to basically agree with them that Jesus is bad news for the Jewish political establishment, and B) that he seems to prophesy about Jesus' substitutionary atonement.  As I read some of the commentaries at Lemstone, though, I got the general impression that the popular interpretation of this passage is that Caiaphas was saying that it would be better for the Jewish nation for Jesus to die rather than incite a rebellion that the Romans would inevitably squelch.  The Romans would then, most likely, persecute or even expel the Jews.  Caiaphas and, let's be honest, most of us would have a similar utilitarian view. 

But John sees in Caiaphas words a deeper meaning--that in fact the high priest was prophesying about the death of Christ that would be capable of even bringing the Gentiles into relationship with the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  However, John also tells us that Caiaphas did not do this "on his own initiative."  How do we interpret this?  Was Caiaphas even aware that he was prophesying?  Was he aware that he was prophesying, but unaware of the actual meaning?  Was he under the impression that he was prophesying the complete meaning, but God withheld from (or deceived?) him the true meaning?  How might this sort of prophecy function under the free will that God has granted us?