Have I not chosen you twelve, and one of you is a devil?
Judas Iscariot
I. WHO THEN WILL SAY THAT THE MEN WITH WHOM CHRIST BEGAN HIS NEW KINGDOM WERE MORE THAN MEN; not bone of our bone, but a princely sort, quite away from the common herd? On the contrary, they fairly represented human nature in its best and worst aspects--gentleness, ardour, domesticity, enterprise, timidity, courage, and one of them was a devil--a man like the others, but in him a pre-eminent capacity for the foulest mischief.
II. A wonderfully instructive fact is this that JESUS DID NOT POINT OUT THE SUPREMELY WICKED MAN, but simply said, “One of you is a devil.” Thus a spirit of mournful self-suspicion was excited, culminating in the mournful “Is it I?” It is better not to know the worst man in the Church: to know only that judgment will begin at the House of God, and to be wondering whether that judgment will take most effect on ourselves. No man fully knows himself. The very star of the morning fell from heaven: why not you or I?
III. ISCARIOT’S WAS A HUMAN SIN RATHER THAN A MERELY PERSONAL CRIME. Individually, I did not sin in Eden, but humanly I did; personally, I did not covenant for the betrayal of my Lord, but morally I did; I denied Him, and pierced Him; and He loved me and gave Himself for me.
IV. WHY DID CHRIST CHOOSE A MAN WHOM HE KNEW TO BE A DEVIL.? A hard question, but there is one harder still. Why did Jesus choose you? (J. Parker, D. D.)
A solemn warning
I. FOR THE TWELVE. Peter had spoken in their name as well as for himself: Christ replies that nevertheless there is ground for self-examination. Their honour and the position they enjoyed as apostles, and possible future heads of the Church, was no infallible guarantee of their sincerity. There was, therefore, with a devil in their midst, room for heart-searching before God.
II. FOR JUDAS. How Christ came to elect him presents no more inseperable problem than that involved in any attempt to harmonize Divine sovereignty and human freedom. Why should God employ wicked men anywhere, particularly in His Church? All men are dealt with as free agents. If Christ elected Judas, it was probably because
1. He recognized that to be the Father’s Will.
2. He would rescue if He could a soul as black as his.
3. He would make it clear that Judas was self-destroyed. The warning was manifestly for the sake of Judas to discover to Him his awful danger. (T. Whitelaw, D. D.)
Judas
Did Christ know the character of this man of Kerioth (Joh_2:24-25; Joh_13:11)? A number of questions will suggest themselves; but we note only the brief account given in the Bible.
I. THE DEVELOPMENT OF HIS DEPRAVITY. As treasurer, he develops selfishness, avarice, thievishness: a typical defaulter. The anointing at Bethany showed satan in possession. Conference with the chief priests, and the compact with them. The upper room, the betrayer revealed. The kiss, and the cowardly disappearance.
II. HIS DREADFUL DEATH. The accounts in Matthew and Acts are not contradictory: one is supplemental to the other. Conviction, remorse, suicide (Matthew 28:3-5.)
III. HIS DOLEFUL DESTINY. “Own place” (Matthew 26:24). The two Scripture hints indicate his dark doom. Remarks:
1. This betrayer a minister. Official prominence has special dangers. Hierarchies have been traitors, in destroying foundation doctrines, and individuals have pierced Christ in the house of his friends.
2. But the loyal far outnumber the betrayers. Do not forget the faithful standard-bearers.
3. A warning to all against making worldly gain out of professed godliness. Let avarice be shunned.
4. Each impenitent sinner will have his “own place.” Remorse will be his constant companion.
5. Contrast the joy in prospect of departure which a loyal faith yields (2 Timothy 4:6-8). (H. F. Smith, D. D.)
Why Judas was chosen
In reference to the apostleship of Judas, certain questions are eagerly pressed. If Jesus knew all men, was He deceived in Judas? If not deceived, why did He call him? When He discovered his true character, why did He not dismiss him? In view of such questions, it is to be noted
(1) that he attached himself to Jesus as a disciple before he was made an apostle; and for his profession of discipleship he is himself responsible;
(2) that, being a professed disciple, Jesus appointed him to be one of the twelve;
(3) that Jesus, on whom no mock faith could impose, knew what manner of man he was; and
(4) that his testimony in favour of Jesus, in its own place, and within its own limbs, is as valuable as that of any. Had there been fault in Jesus, he was the man to find it out and tell it; indeed there was the strongest possible reason why he should have told it, to quiet his own conscience and justify his conduct. Not one of the twelve has borne more distinct testimony to the truth--vital to the Christian system--that Jesus is the Sinless One. (J. Culross, D. D.)
The character of Judas
If the choice of the false disciple was not due either to ignorance or to foreknowledge, how is it to be explained? The only explanation to be given is that, apart from secret insight, Judas was to all appearance an eligible man, and could not be passed over on any grounds coming under ordinary observation. His qualities must have been such, that one not possessing the eye of omniscience, looking at him, would have been disposed to say of him what Samuel said of Eliab: “Surely the Lord’s anointed is before him” (1 Samuel 16:6). In that case, his election by Jesus is perfectly intelligible. The Head of the Church simply did what the Church has to do in analogous circumstances. The Church chooses men to fill sacred offices on a conjunct view of ostensible qualifications, such as knowledge, zeal, apparent piety, and correctness of outward conduct. In so doing, she often makes unhappy appointments, and confers dignity on persons of the Judas type, who dishonour the positions they fill. The mischief resulting is great; but Christ has taught us, by His example in choosing Judas, as also by the parable of the tares, that we must submit to the evil, and leave the remedy in higher hands. Out of evil God often brings good, as He did in the case of the traitor. Supposing Judas to have been chosen to the apostleship on the ground of apparent fitness, whet manner of man would that imply? A vulgar, conscious hypocrite, seeking some mean by-end, while professedly aiming at a higher? Not necessarily; not probably. Rather such a one as Jesus indirectly described Judas to be when he made that reflection: “If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them.” The false disciple was a sentimental, plausible, self-deceived pietist, who knew and approved the good, though not conscientiously practicing it; one who, in aesthetic feeling, in fancy, and in intellect, had affinities for the noble and the holy, while in will and in conduct he was the slave of base, selfish passions; one who, in the last resource, would always put self uppermost, yet could zealously devote himself to well-doing when personal interests were not compromised. In thus describing Judas, we draw not the picture of a solitary monster. Men of such type are by no means so rare as some may imagine. History, sacred and profane, supplies numerous examples of them, playing an important part in human affairs. Baalam, who had the vision of a prophet and the soul of a miser, was such a man; Robespierre, the evil genius of the French Revolution, was another. The man who sent thousands to the guillotine had, in his younger days, resigned his office as a provincial judge, because it was against his conscience to pronounce sentence of death on a culprit found guilty of e capital offence. A third example, more remarkable then either, may be found in the famous Greek Alcibiades, who, to unbounded ambition, unscrupulousness, and licentiousness, united a warm attachment to the greatest and best of the Greeks. The man who in after years betrayed the cause of his native city, and went over to the side of her enemies, was in his youth an enthusiastic admirer and disciple of Socrates. How he felt towards the Athenian sage may be gathered from words put into his mouth by Plato in one of his dialogues, words which involuntarily suggest a parallel between the speaker and the unworthy follower of a greater than Socrates: “I experience towards this man alone (Socrates) when no one would believe me capable of: a sense of shame. For I am conscious of an inability to contradict him, and decline to do what be bids me; and when I go away, I feel myself overcome by desire of the popular esteem. Therefore I flee from him, and avoid him. But when I see him, I am ashamed of my admissions, and oftentimes I would be glad if he ceased to exist among the living; and yet I know well, that were that to happen, I should still be more grieved.” The character of Judas being such as we have described, the possibility at least of his turning a traitor becomes comprehensible. One who loves himself more than any man, however good, or any cause, however holy, is always capable of bad faith more or less heinous. He is a traitor st heart from the outset, and all that is wanted is a set of circumstances calculated to bring into play the evil elements of his nature. (A. B. Bruce, D. D.)
Treachery is not hidden from Christ
Alexander I. of Russia professed a strong friendship for Napoleon, but when nearly all Europe had turned against him, he also became his enemy. An Austrian courier was taken prisoner. There was found in his possession e letter from the commander of the Russian forces, addressed to the Archduke Ferdinand, congratulating him upon his victory, and expressing the hope that very soon the Russian Army would be permitted to co-operate with the Austrian’s against the French. Napoleon immediately sent the letter to Alexander without note or comment. (Abbott’s “Napoleon. ”)
The baseness of treachery
Of all the vices to which human nature is subject, treachery is the most infamous and detestable, being compounded of fraud, cowardice, and revenge. The greatest wrongs will not justify it, as it destroys those principles of mutual confidence and security by which only society can subsist. The Romans, a brave and generous people, disdained to practise it towards their declared enemies; Christianity teaches us to forgive injuries: but to resent them under the disguise of friendship and benevolence, argues a degeneracy at which common humanity and justice must blush. (L. M. Stretch.)
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