Wednesday, April 3, 2019

Did God will Judas to betray Jesus?

Judas did not betray Jesus. Judas served Jesus.

Judas was the apostle who was lost.

Judas did not become lost while he was in the care of Jesus; but he became lost before Jesus chose him to be an apostle; and he remained lost throughout his ministry, because the will of his Father was that he not raise him up again until the last day.

Jesus did not come to lose Judas, but he came to save him. (Matthew 18:11)

Again, God willed Jesus to raise up Judas again, but only at the last day. (John 6:39)

Jesus, as a son of God, was guided by the will of God.

Judas, as one who was lost, was not guided by the will of God, but by the devil. (John 6:70,71; 13:2)

Nevertheless, Jesus used Judas as an errand boy.

In fact, at the last day, after Jesus raised him up again and sent him to serve as guide to them who would take him, other apostles thought that Jesus sent him to run one errand or another, but Jesus withheld from them the fact that he chose him to deliver him. (John 13:28,29)

Some of the apostles thought that the one Jesus chose to deliver him, because he would suffer despite the fact that it was determined that he should deliver him, would be the greater apostle; but the apostles quarreled among themselves when they asserted that thought. (Luke 22:22-24)

We might imagine that Peter would have argued that the greater apostle was the one who died with him. (John 13:37; 18:10, Luke 22:33)

Now, when we recognize that Judas served Jesus, we may know, according to the response of Jesus to their quarrel, that the one who delivered him is the greater one among them. (Luke 22:26)

The will of God was that Jesus deliver himself to suffer and to die, and that is the work which God gave him to finish.

The will of Jesus was to deliver himself to suffer and to die, or, in other words, to finish the work of his Father God.

At the last day, after Jesus washed him clean and thereby cast out the prince of this world, the will of Judas was to serve Jesus; and he served him with a kiss. (John 12:31; 13:1-15; Mark 14:45)

As always, the word “betray” is a mistranslation of what the evangelists wrote.

As always, too, the spirit which entered Judas after the sop was opposed to those things of God which Jesus said should happen at Jerusalem, and Judas overcame that adversary of God, Satan.

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