SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 4/29/2024 10:16 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
“Signifying The Traitor”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference:
Matthew 25:25
Message of the verse: “And Judas, who was betraying Him, answered and said, “Surely it is not I, Rabbi?” He said to him, “You have said it yourself.”
Now as I look at what John MacArthur writes in his
first paragraph on this section of Scripture I have to admit that I have never
thought about it like this before. “Had
Judas not said to Jesus the same thing as the others, he would have become
suspect. He therefore imitated their
astonished disbelief and parroted their anxious queries to the Lord. He even called Jesus Rabbi, as if to
reinforce his feigned loyalty.”
Another thing that I have always wondered about and that
is the answer that Jesus gave to Judas as He did not respond with a direct
accusation but said simply “You have said it yourself,” affirming that Judas
had not condemned himself out of his own mouth.
It is fairly obvious that the other disciples did not
overhear what was said briefly between Jesus and Judas because Peter privately
asked John to question Jesus about the betrayer’s identity, which he did. “Jesus therefore answered, ‘That is the one
for whom I shall dip the morsel and give it to him.’ So when He had dipped the morsel, He took and
gave it to Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot” (John 13:24-26). We can see from this that John then learned the
appalling truth about Judas, but he apparently did not tell Peter at that time.
John 13:27 tells us what happened to Judas when he took
the morsel as it sealed His fate “Satan then entered into him.” MacArthur writes “The supreme adversary of
God and the ruler of darkness came himself to reside in Judas, and he became
hellish to the core of his being in a way that perhaps no other human being has
exceeded. In betraying the Son of God,
Judas became the archsinner of all human history.” Now my thoughts are that as I expressed
before that it will be Judas who will receive the most severe punishment in
hell as there are different degrees of punishment in hell.
It was after Satan had entered into Judas that Jesus said
to Judas “What you do, do quickly” (v. 27b).
John seems to be the only one, other than Jesus who knew why Jesus gave
that instruction to Judas but supposed “because Judas had the money box, that
Jesus was saying to him, ‘Buy things we have need of for the feast’; or else,
that he should give something to the poor (vv. 28-29). Jesus knew who the betrayer was, John knew;
and Judas himself knew. But the rest did
not know. I think that it is safe to
assume that Jesus wanted Judas out of their after Satan entered into him so not
to disrupt the last moments that He would have with His eleven disciples.
4/29/2024 10:37 AM
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