Judas' Apostasy in Light of God's FaithfulnessSample

Judas changed & immediately Jesus knew it

In John 6:64, “’Yet there are some of you who do not believe.’ For Jesus had known from the beginning which of them did not believe and who would betray him.”

The minute they made the decision to turn against Jesus – He supernaturally knew it, just like He knew when power went out from Him when the woman who had been afflicted with bleeding touched the hem of His garment (Mark 5:25-34).

Exactly when did Jesus know that it would be Judas who betrayed Him? In looking at Colossians 1:15-17, we learn that Christ is fully God, and continually holds all things together. Hebrews 1:3 tells us that “The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word.” So Christ never stopped being God, but He added to it by taking on the form of man, to be the perfect sacrifice that only He could be, in order to save us from sin. So if Jesus truly is fully God, then He knew from the beginning of creation that it was Judas who would betray Him. He came to fulfill a mission, and that involved the process of betrayal to fulfill scripture.

It is declared then in John 6:70 that Judas was a devil (with a strong implication from the literal Greek wording that he was not such when called out to serve Christ in an intimate way.) “Then Jesus replied, “Have I not chosen you, the Twelve? Yet one of you is a devil!” (He meant Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot, who, though one of the Twelve, was later to betray him.)”

And in John 12:4-6: “But one of his disciples, Judas Iscariot, who was later to betray him, objected, “Why wasn’t this perfume sold and the money given to the poor? It was worth a year’s wages.” He did not say this because he cared about the poor but because he was a thief; as keeper of the money bag, he used to help himself to what was put into it.” Judas, before his heart and mind changed, seemed to have been trusted by the rest of the disciples, or he wouldn’t have been given the responsibility of keeping the money.

Judas then made his dreadful covenant with Christ’s enemies in Matthew 26:14-16: “Then one of the Twelve—the one called Judas Iscariot—went to the chief priests and asked, “What are you willing to give me if I deliver him over to you?” So they counted out for him thirty pieces of silver. From then on Judas watched for an opportunity to hand him over.”

Reflection: We sometimes think we can fool others by appearing to be pure and kind and Godly. But God sees right into our thoughts and the intent of our hearts, so what do we gain if we can fool others? In Matthew 16:26, Jesus asked “What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul?”