Who Betrayed Jesus... Judas or Satan?

Tom: We are continuing with the gospel. We are in the Gospel of John, and we are trying to zero in on salvation verses. Certainly, the Gospel of John is the place to go. However, throughout the scripture—Dave, tell me if I’m right or wrong here—I think there are more than 150 scriptures that deal with the gospel, that it’s by faith and by faith only. Does that sound right to you?

Dave: Tom, it could be, I don’t know that statistic.

Tom: Okay, but anyway there are quite a few. We encourage our listeners to search the Scriptures daily—that’s what this program is all about.

Oh, Dave, I have something that’s been going on at my house I want to share with our listeners. My daughter and I, she’s going to go off to college in the fall, and we’re in a program to really get her more into the Word. So we get up about 6 o’clock, and we start…she reads two verses—we’re going through all the epistles; we’re going through the New Testament, we’re going to get the New Testament covered. She reads a couple of scriptures, I read the next two, she reads the next two, we keep each other awake, we ask questions, and so on. We’ve been doing that now for almost two months. It’s fantastic! I mean, I love to read the Scripture anywhere, anytime, but here’s something for you family members—for you parents who have children—read the Scriptures to them.

Dave, I remember where I first kind of had exposure to that. When I would come over, I mooched many, many meals off you and Ruth. I slept on your couch because when we were working together I lived about 50 miles away, so I’ve had many meals. But at the end of a meal, you would open the New Testament and start reading. That was the dessert. That was fantastic!

Dave: Well, the household that I grew up in, Tom, we had what we called—well, my Dad called it “reading and prayer.” And, “time to read and pray,” twice a day. I don’t know there was—I can’t remember that there was great exposition, mostly…

Tom: But there’s nothing wrong with that. You want to—sometimes it’s good just to read. Dave, I don’t want to take away from what you are saying, but I remember one afternoon, the two of us, we went through the Book of Job, from beginning to end, just reading. I left that experience with—Wow! There was a comprehension I didn’t have before—when you want to get into a commentary, or exposition—not that that’s all bad.

Dave: One of the things that was quite a little game, I guess, oh, fifty years ago, in most—well, many—Christian homes, they had verses in a little…I can’t remember what we called it, but there was a whole, like, a card file, and you had these verses, and each person would pull one up and read it, and then it was up to the others to tell the reference. That happened at most meals. You don’t get that sort of thing today. I don’t even know that you could sell them anymore in a Christian bookstore.

Tom: But you could make it up easily.

Dave: But we’re supposed to be in John 13, Tom. How did we get off on this rabbit trail?

Tom: That wasn’t a rabbit trail, Dave, it was one of my segues. All right, this is John, chapter 13, we’re at verse 28. But before I begin there, Dave, I do have to back up a few verses to put this in context. Verse 21: “When Jesus had thus said, he was troubled in spirit, and testified, and said, Verily, verily, I say unto you, that one of you shall betray me. Then the disciples looked one on another, doubting of whom he spake. Now there was leaning on Jesus’ bosom one of his disciples, whom Jesus loved. Simon Peter therefore beckoned to him, that he should ask who it should be of whom he spake. He, then, lying on Jesus’ breast saith unto him, Lord, who is it? Jesus answered, He it is, to whom I shall give a sop, [and that’s a piece of bread, dipped] when I have dipped it. And when he had dipped the sop, he gave it to Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon. And after the sop, Satan entered into him. Then said Jesus unto him, That thou doest, do quickly.”

So now here we are with verse 28: “Now no man at the table knew for what intent he spake this unto him. For some of them thought, because Judas had the bag, [that is, the treasury, the money, for all of the disciples] that Jesus had said unto him, Buy those things that we have need of against the feast; or, that he should give something to the poor. He then having received the sop went immediately out: and it was night.”

Dave: It’s good that you read those previous verses, Tom, because I don’t think we covered them very well. I can’t remember.… It says that after the sop, this is verse 27, Satan entered into him, that is, into Judas. So somebody could say, “Well, I mean, how did he have any control over this?” Well, it tells us in other places that—in fact, in John’s Gospel, chapter 12, it tells us that he was a thief. He got himself appointed treasurer to carry the bag, so that he could steal from it.

Tom: He wasn’t just dipping the bread, he was dipping into the bag.

Dave: There was…. Well, it’s like Eve back in the garden. Yes, it was Satan who tempted her; yes, it was Satan who gave her the idea. I don’t think he gave her the idea—I think she had that idea before. God had said, “You don’t eat of this tree.” Well, that was the tree she wanted to eat of. And so, it wasn’t that Satan—“the devil made me do it”—but he helped.

But he’s not going to make Judas do something that Judas doesn’t want to do. In fact, we read earlier there was a price on the head of Jesus. The Rabbis offered a reward, and Judas was tempted by that—he wanted that. But now Satan enters into him—I don’t know, it’s like in Acts, chapter 5, where Peter says to Ananias and Sapphira, “Why has Satan filled your heart to lie against the Holy Ghost?” I don’t think Satan is controlling them, but they have become partners with Satan. I think that’s the way we would have to see it.

Tom: Well, Peter—He is saying to Peter, “Get thee behind me, Satan,” as the voice of the Adversary coming from Peter. Not literally, but certainly with what he had to say.

Dave: Well,He said, “You understand not the things of God, but you are speaking like a man. And Satan is the god of this world.”

So, this is a powerful statement. In other words, we can open the door to Satan by our own lusts and our own desires, and he will help us. And Satan certainly now is helping Judas. But that is a strange thing, Tom. It shows us that Satan is not omniscient. He doesn’t know everything, because in Matthew 16—you just quoted it: “Get thee behind me, Satan.” There, Satan is inspiring Peter to tell the Lord He’s not going to go to the Cross. Here, Satan is inspiring Judas to get Jesus on the Cross. He doesn’t know which way to go, and I don’t think he understands very much yet. He probably even still thinks he is going to win the battle by offering human beings…you know, he’s offering Judas some money.

Tom: And his sin was that of pride, and you know, Dave, earlier we talked about Iraq. You think about the self-delusion—and it has to be pride—of Saddam Hussein. Absolutely incredible! Defies reason, and, I don’t know, it’s just insane.

Dave: We haven’t gotten very far, Tom, and we don’t have time to get into it, but verse 28, as you read it, “No man at the table knew for what intend he spake this unto him, [Jesus to Judas]. For some of them thought because Judas had the bag that Jesus had said unto him, Buy those things that we have need of against the feast, or that he should give something to the poor.”

So Tom, obviously, this was not the Passover meal, because if it were the Passover meal, the stores would be closed. The Passover lamb was slain in the afternoon of the fourteenth day of the month, that is, before sunset—had to be skinned and cleaned and roast with fire that night. That would be the beginning of the fifteenth day, because the Jewish day went from evening until morning, and so it would be the beginning of the fifteenth day. That was the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, and it was a high holiday. We will have to come back and talk about this.

Tom: So, this bread, this sop, would have had to have been leavened—or unleavened?

Dave: I think it was unleavened because at this point they are cleaning all leaven out, even though this is not the Passover. The Passover meal is going to be the next night. This is the night before Jesus was betrayed, and we’ll come back and talk about that, Tom. But obviously, it could not have been the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, or the stores are closed, and they wouldn’t imagine he was going out to buy something. And that’s an important thing because the Scriptures must be fulfilled in detail, and we have to come back and talk about it.