Judas and Satan; John 13:21-30

John 13:18 ^NASB “I do not speak of all of you…” Here we have to pay attention to very precise language in the text. For “all” He uses the word pas [paj] which is in the plural form. So He is talking about everyone there; “of you” is the genitive plural humon [u(mwn], second person, “you all.” So He is addressing the entire group. “… I know the ones I have chosen; but {it is} that the Scripture may be fulfilled, ‘HE WHO EATS MY BREAD HAS LIFTED UP HIS HEEL AGAINST ME.’” He quotes from Psalm 41:9. [19] “From now on I am telling you before {it} comes to pass, so that when it does occur, you may believe that I am {He.}” What He is emphasising there is His personal sovereign control over the circumstances leading up to the crucifixion. This isn’t an accident, something that just befell Jesus. He is showing that He was is specific control of all of the events lading up to His arrest and His crucifixion to bring about the fulfilment of Old Testament typology and prophecy related to accomplishing salvation for the human race. He is announcing this to His disciples to encourage them so that they would not run away—which they did anyway.

John 13:20 ^NASB “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who receives whomever I send receives Me; and he who receives Me receives Him who sent Me. [21] When Jesus had said this, He became troubled in spirit, and testified and said, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, that one of you will betray Me’.” There is this inner turmoil because Jesus sees what is coming. He understands the dynamics, He knows that he who knew no sin would be made sin for us, and He knew the suffering that he would endure on the cross during those three hours when he came into contact with our sin would be more painful, more miserable than any suffering we could ever imagine. So we see this agitation that takes place in His soul. Then He mentions one of them would be tray Him. From verse 22 we realise that the disciples did not have a clue who this would be. [22] “The disciples {began} looking at one another, at a loss {to know} of which one He was speaking.” They had been three years together and they do not discern a distinction in their midst.

John 13:23 ^NASB “There was reclining on Jesus’ bosom one of His disciples, whom Jesus loved [John].” John had a very close relationship with the Lord. Peter is across the room. Jesus makes the comment and he doesn’t expand on it. Peter has opened his mouth and put his foot in it once already this night, so he gestures to John. [24] “So Simon Peter gestured to him, and said to him, “Tell {us} who it is of whom He is speaking. [25] He, leaning back thus on Jesus’ bosom, said to Him, ‘Lord, who is it?’ [26] Jesus then 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.” No one else here hears this. This is private conversation. Jesus is leaning over right up against John and He tells him. The morsel that is dipped is just bread. They would take a piece of bread and wrap that around a piece of lamb. So He is going to take this, and it is symbolic once again of God’s continuous grace to Judas. One last time symbolically he is offering salvation to Judas.

John 13:27 ^NASB “After the morsel, Satan then entered into him. Therefore Jesus said to him, ‘What you do, do quickly’.” The conversation with John and the conversation with Judas is very private, the others at the table don’t hear. [28] “Now no one of those reclining {at the table} knew for what purpose He had said this to him. [29] For some were supposing, because Judas had the money box, that Jesus was saying to him, ‘Buy the things we have need of for the feast’; or else, that he should give something to the poor. [30] So after receiving the morsel he went out immediately; and it was night.” Notice what John says: “… and it was night.” As we have seen over and over again in this Gospel John draws this juxtaposition between the darkness and the light. Remember in chapter three that Nicodemus comes to Jesus out of the darkness. He is an unbeliever. He truly comes out of the darkness but John mentions these things to teach us things at different levels. He is using the darkness not only because it is literally true but to emphasise the spiritual principle that Nicodemus is an unbeliever and is coming out of the darkness. Later on in that same chapter John draws out that point by saying that Jesus is the Light and the Light that comes into the world, and the Light is rejected because men loved the darkness rather than the light. So when he notes for us here that it was night he is indicating Judas’s salvation status, that he was not a believer and that he goes back into the darkness, for men love the darkness rather than the light and reject the light.

This whole episode with Judas has raised a lot questions and concerns throughout church history. People ask the question: Why did Jesus include an unbeliever in the inner circle? Why did the disciples not ever realise that Judas was different? Could it even be possible that Judas was a believer? So what we will look at is how Judas fits into the plan of God in bringing about the salvation of the world. Judas plays a role that goes beyond a human role of betrayer, but his particular function fits into the overall function of the angelic conflict in a phenomenal way.

In church history there has been a number of different sects and cults and heretical cults that have had some odd positions about Judas. There was a group in the second and third centuries called the Cainites because they glorified Cain, the brother of Abel. And there was an apocryphal book called the Gospel of Judas in which it was claimed that Judas was really a believer. The Cainites were a sort of Gnostic sect. In Gnosticism they taught that there were two Gods really. There was the Old Testament God who was wicked and evil and angry and overbearing, and then there was the New Testament God who was Jesus. They are both eternal and because in most Gnosticism there was always this eternal dualism in the eternal existence of good versus evil this continual battle went back and forth between the Old Testament Jehovah-God who is evil and Jesus who is loving. What they taught was that Judas understood this secret wisdom that was taking place here so that he more than all the other disciples knew what was going on, so with his great wisdom and insight he manoeuvred things so that the crucifixion would take place. He alone had the secret knowledge necessary. So his betrayal of Jesus was a good thing for Judas.

In the fifteenth century, starting about 1399 up to about 1411 there was a Spanish Dominican preacher who was associated with a sect called the Flagelants. They were those who beat themselves with whips in order to “crucify the flesh.” They were ascetics and thought that they were somehow more spiritual and could impress God over their sorrow over sin by whipping themselves. This man also taught that Judas was in fact a believer and was not an unbeliever.

In recent years there was a pastor in Denver who wrote a book to justify the fact that believers could actually get involved in all sorts of heinous sins, turn their back on Jesus and be extremely carnal even to the point of death. In order to justify that position he went to Judas. His doctrinal position was absolutely correct. Believers have a sin nature that is just as sinful as any unbelievers and just as capable of any sin of any unbeliever. But you don’t have to make Judas a Christian in order to accomplish that. There are all kinds of examples of carnal believers in the Scriptures who do all sorts of things and are still saved.

John 6:66 ^NASB “As a result of this many of His disciples withdrew and were not walking with Him anymore. [67] So Jesus said to the twelve, ‘You do not want to go away also, do you?’ [68] Simon Peter answered Him, ‘Lord, to whom shall we go? You have words of eternal life. [69] We have believed and have come to know that You are the Holy One of God’.” When Peter said “we have believed” he doesn’t necessarily mean that all of them have believed that because he couldn’t know that. He is just going by what he can tell. It seemed like all the others understand that Jesus is the Messiah and have put their faith in Him alone for salvation. But Jesus corrects his assumption in the next verse. [70] “Jesus answered them, ‘Did I Myself not choose you…” (Notice that we saw this same thing emphasised in John 13:18 when Jesus said: “I do not speak of all of you, I know the ones I have chosen.”) “… the twelve, and {yet} one of you is a devil?’” There is no “yet” there in the Greek. Here we have a very interesting phrase in the Greek. First there is the numeral heis [e(ij], then the noun diabolos [diaboloj], then the verb which is from the root eimi [e)imi]. In John 1:1 the last phrase, “the word was God” that is the whole issue between Christians and those called Jehovah’s Witnesses who want to say that this should be translated “the word was a god” because there is no definite article there in that last phrase. But what we have in the Greek is the noun theos [qeoj] plus the verb eimi in the imperfect tense. Notice that there is no article in the phrase in 6:70 or in John 1:1. It comes before the verb but it is really a predicate adjective describing the head noun. The head noun in 6:70 is “one”; the head noun in 1:1 is “the word.” You have an anarthrous noun followed by a verb. You cannot translate this with an indefinite article in English, you use a definite article to identify something as distinct from everything else in its class. The article in Greek functions in a completely different manner. In fact, you can have an anarthrous noun, “a ball,” and one of the reasons you haven’t used an article is to emphasise some distinct attribute about that particular ball. In other words, the absence of the article may still make it definite. In fact, some nouns are inherently definite, like God. An example is when in American English you talk about going to the hospital; in British English they just say going to hospital—no definite article because in their idiom those words are inherently definite. In John 1:1, when you drop out the article, one of the things being emphasises is the quality, the essence or the inherent nature of the noun. So when Jesus, using the same kind of construction that we have in John 1:1, says in John 6 that “one of you is diabolos,” he is not saying “one of you is a devil, one of a class of creatures called devil,” there is only one devil. John uses the term diabolos about eight different times in all of his writings, including his epistles and revelation, and in those eight times the word diabolos never means generically a slanderer. Paul uses it that way twice in the pastoral epistles referring to women who get involved as malicious gossips, but in Johannine literature the term diabolos always refers to Satan, the devil. So what Jesus is saying in John 6:70 is: “Did I Myself not choose you, the twelve, and {yet} one of you has the same nature/quality as the devil?” That is the import. John 6:71 ^NASB “Now He meant Judas {the son} of Simon Iscariot, for he, one of the twelve, was going to betray Him.” So John does not want us to miss the point: Judas = the devil. There is something going on here in Judas that makes him different from everybody else.

John 17:11, 12 ^NASB ““I am no longer in the world; and {yet} they themselves are in the world, and I come to You. Holy Father, keep them in Your name, {the name} which You have given Me, that they may be one even as We {are.} While I was with them, I was keeping them in Your name which You have given Me; and I guarded them and not one of them perished but [except: e)i mh] the son of perdition, so that the Scripture would be fulfilled.” The word for “perdition” is from the root apollumi [a)pollumi]. We know that word from John 3:16: “whoever believes in Him shall not perish [a)polhtai].” So perishing is the result of a failure to believe on Him, according to John 3:16, and so the “son of perdition” perishes. So he is the one who is lost. Why? Fulfilment of prophecy: “that the scripture might be fulfilled.”

We have to remember something very important that Jesus said back in John 10:29: “My Father, who has given {them} to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch {them} out of the Father’s hand.” In John 17 He says: “… I was keeping them in Your name which You have given Me; and I guarded them.” He guarded the ones given Him, not the one not given Him, and not one of them perished. The ones the Father gives can’t perish, they are eternally secure. So what we see is that the son of perdition is lost because the son of perdition was never given. Those who are given are in the Father’s hand and can never be lost. The son of perdition, who was Judas, was lost; he was never a believer.

John 13:27 ^NASB “After the morsel, Satan then entered into him. Therefore Jesus said to him, ‘What you do, do quickly’.” We need to look at the verb eiserchomai [e)iserxomai]. In order to understand demon possession we have to understand six key words.

a) daimonizomai [daimonizomai], present passive participle. Some people have said that all this means is to be acted upon, the passive idea, by a demon or to be simply demonised. These same people will say that demon possession and demon influence are just invented categories.

b) echodaimon [e)xodaimwn] which means to have a demon.

c) en pneumati akatharto [e)n pneumati a)kaqartw] which means possession with an unclean spirit.

When we look at accounts of demon possession in the Synoptic Gospels we see that these three are synonyms. When Jesus was going to cast out the demons He uses the word ekballo [e)kballw], He doesn’t use the word exorkizo [e)cokizw] from which we get the word exorcism. Jesus never performed an exorcism. exorkizo describes the mystical, magical, rites that unbelieving priests utilise to try to cast out demons. In the New Testament the apostles and Jesus always cast out [e)kballw] demons, the word exorkizo is never used. ekballo is a compound word: the preposition ek which means out of, and ballo which means to throw. The word “out” means something has to be in, so if Jesus is going to cast the demon out the demon has to first be in something. This is emphasised by the second word that is used in all the demon possession narratives and that is exerchomai [e(cerxomai]: erchomai = to come or to go; ek = out. So the demon is said to come out of the man. So if the demon comes out of a man, where does the demon have to be before he can come out? He has to be in the man. That is why you can go back and say these first words may be generic but these other words—ekballow, exerchomai and eiserchomai are very definite technical precise words and they indicate the indwelling of a demon. The sixth word, eiserchmai [e)iserxomai] means to go into, to enter, to move into, and it is used in Luke 8:30 where many demons had entered the man.

So when we come to John 13:27 and it says, “Satan entered into him,” that is the same identical construction as Luke 8:30. So as Luke 8:30 says that the demons indwelt the Gadarene demoniac then by virtue of every canon of language and grammar the same thing must apply in John 13:27, that Satan entered into Judas. So Judas is clearly possessed by Satan.

Why does this happen? This has to be fitted into the angelic conflict and we go back to Genesis 3:15 where the Lord is addressing the serpent and says: “I will put enmity Between you and the woman, And between your seed and her seed; He shall bruise you on the head, And you shall bruise him on the heel.” Notice the imagery here: head and heel. What does Jesus say when he quotes from Psalm 41 as to what is going to take place in terms of the fulfilment of prophecy in John 13? “HE WHO EATS MY BREAD HAS LIFTED UP HIS HEEL AGAINST ME.” This is an attempt to destroy. In eternity past God the Father as the Supreme Court of heaven sentenced Satan and all of the fallen angels to the lake of fire, but Satan appealed the verdict. So God created human history in which Satan personally intervenes in order to get Adam to fall and to plunge the human race into his domain and to try to control the human race and human history. So God is going to come back and execute salvation at the cross and Satan is again going to try to interfere in a direct fulfilment where it is seen in Genesis 3:15 as a conflict between Satan and God. Satan is going to see to it that God’s saviour is removed from the scene, not knowing that the very act is going to destroy him in the end. That is why this is more than just demon influence. This is demon possession because it is a personal involvement of Satan in an attack on Jesus Christ to remove Him from the scene.

Furthermore, it is a fulfilment of several Old Testament prophecies. In Psalm 41:9 it is prophesied that Jesus would be betrayed by a friend, that He would be sold for 30 pieces of silver (Zechariah 11:12). Then in Zechariah 11:13 the money would be thrown into God’s house, the temple, and used to purchase a potter’s field. There is nothing in the Scriptures that says that Judas was ever a believer as there was with Peter, John, Nathanael and some of the others, but there is evidence that Jesus clearly distinguished Judas from the others. We saw the son of perdition in John 17, thus indicating he is not saved. He had Satan enter him and believers cannot be possessed, therefore he must have been an unbeliever. Judas possessed by Satan fulfils the Genesis 3:15 prophecy. We see the clear freewill decision of Satan and Judas going after Jesus, betraying Him and taking Him to the cross, and in their very free decision Satan brought about his own doom and defeat because our salvation was accomplished on the cross.