April 23, 2023

God’s Divine Selection

“Jesus answered them, ‘Did I Myself not choose you, the twelve, and yet one of you is a devil?’ Now He meant Judas the son of Simon Iscariot, for he, one of the twelve, was going to betray Him.’”

John 6:70-71 (NASB)

            The sovereignty of God cannot be competed against under any circumstance. When Jesus answered the disciples, “Did I Myself not choose you, the twelve, and yet one of you is a devil?” Peter suggested He and the other disciples who remained had intentionally chosen Jesus. But did they? MacArthur says, “This call is not referring to election to salvation, but rather selection to apostleship. He chose twelve men, one of whom was to slander Him in the most unthinkable way... His sovereign choice of them, both to salvation and apostleship, ruled out any pretentiousness or self-importance they might have otherwise felt.”[1] No person can accept God’s invitation without His calling. Jesus took the twelve from following, to trusting His teachings, to placing their faith in Him. Today it is the same way. Salvation is an act of faith, by God’s grace. Man doesn’t understand his position before God until God chooses to reveal. When man realizes his lost position before God, he acts in God-given faith and repentance. God then sovereignly acts on his faith, discharges his sin, and grants him life into His family through adoption.

            Many questions arise to Judas’ intent during this period. When Jesus said, “one of you is a devil,” we have to define what was said. “A devil,” is diabolos; meaning one who is slanderous, and accusing falsely.[2] Throughout time, Jesus “knowing him then to be devilish in his nature, and so that he might have his character demoralized by this close contact with Christ’s holiness, and thus be trained for the damnation of the traitor’s sin and doom. Yet this choice, to Christ’s human nature and self-consciousness, was early seen to be one which was not softening but hardening the heart of Judas. He brought him nearer to himself and gave him fresh opportunity of acquiring just ideas of the kingdom and its methods, and by these warnings the Lord was giving him chance after chance of escaping from what, even to the Lord’s prophetic human foresight, looked like his destiny.”[3] “The designation “Iscariot” may be derived from ʾîš qĕrîyôt, “man from Kerioth.” Another possibility may be that he was one of the sicarii, the revolutionary knife men who sought the overthrow of the Roman authorities in Israel. But whatever the original meaning, the designation “betrayer” has become almost synonymous with the name Judas.”[4] In addition, Judas would have been the only one of the twelve who was not Galilean. He was an outsider to the twelve. As an outsider initially, he would define this in coming days.

            Jesus spent with Judas probably trying to encourage him, but Judas’ heart seems to harden over time. He gave in to the influence of Satan. This same spirit is very much alive today. It is that heart that has heard the gospel but has hardened. Folks, we have a lot of work for the Kingdom of God. Time is running out. Will you take the challenge with me today?

[1] (John MacArthur, 2006), 273.

[2] Robert L. Thomas, New American Standard Hebrew-Aramaic and Greek Dictionaries : Updated Edition (Anaheim: Foundation Publications, Inc., 1998).

[3] H. D. M. Spence-Jones, ed., St. John, vol. 1, The Pulpit Commentary (London; New York: Funk & Wagnalls Company, 1909), 275.

[4] Gerald L. Borchert, John 1–11, vol. 25A, The New American Commentary (Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 1996), 276–277.