John 13:18-30

I speak not of you all: I know whom I have chosen: but that the scripture may be fulfilled. He that eateth bread with me hath lifted up his heel against me. (19) Now I tell you before it come, that, when it is come to pass, ye may believe that I am he. (20) Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that receiveth whomsoever I send, receiveth me; and he that receiveth me, receiveth him that sent me. (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. (22) Then the disciples looked one on another, doubting of whom he spake. (23) Now there was leaning on Jesus' bosom one of his disciples, whom Jesus loved. (24) Simon Peter therefore beckoned to him, that he should ask who it should be of whom he spake. (25) He then lying on Jesus' breast saith unto him, Lord, who is it? (26) Jesus answered, He it is, to whom I shall give a sop, when I have dipped it. And when he had dipped the sop, he gave it to Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon. (27) And after the sop Satan entered into him. Then said Jesus unto him, That thou doest, do quickly. (28) Now no man at the table knew for what intent he spake this unto him. (29) 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. (30) He then having received the sop went immediately out: and it was night.

I would wish in this place to call the Reader's attention to the scriptural account of the character of Judas, the traitor; having passed over the history of this man in the preceding Evangelists, purposely to gather into one point of view the several particulars relating to him.

And, first, it will be proper to look at what is said of him in respect to the many great advantages he possessed, in being brought by the Lord himself to attend his person. He had the privilege of being always in the society of Jesus, and this not transiently, but for nearly three years and half. He had seen Christ's miracles, heard his divine discourses, and was in the daily habit of conversing with Him, who spake as never man spake. Add to these, he was sent forth to the service of the ministry, and beheld (at least the outward tokens of it), what mighty events followed Christ's power. Matthew 10:1

Let us next consider some of the many aggravated circumstances which attended the perfidy of his conduct. Without going over the ground in the numberless opportunities he had found of Christ's kindness to him in common with the other Apostles, we need have reference no further than to what is related in this Chapter. The Lord Jesus washed his feet. And when he had re-assumed his seat at the table, the gentle intimation Jesus made, that there was one present which would betray him, was enough in any breast less obdurate than Judas, to have stung him to the quick. Could any arrow of conviction have reached his heart, surely the one drawn and levelled by Christ would have penetrated. But there he sat, unmoved and hardened, up to all the possibilities of determined guilt. And while all the other Apostles were tremblingly alive at the bare suspicion only, that one of them could do such a thing as betray their Master; Judas sat, like another Etna, with all the fire of hellish malice burning within, until the Lord had given to him the fatal sop, intended to identify the traitor, and then, and not before, he withdrew.

Nay, after all this, as if it was not enough to shew the desperately wicked state of his hardened heart, when he left the table, he must have gone away immediately to Jerusalem, which was two miles from Bethany, though it was now night, in order to concert schemes with the chief priests, the better to deliver Christ into their hands. For here we find him, as Matthew hath related, soon after, Matthew 26:14. And during the whole of this solitary walk by night, from Bethany to the city, we read of no one compunction that he felt; neither during the two days which intervened between this evening and the Passover, is there the smallest intimation of any softenings or relentings in his mind. Yea, so much to the contrary, that we next hear of him as taking his place with the other Apostles at the Passover, and actually receiving at the Lord's hands the sacramental Supper, as if a faithful disciple.

And as all tenderness was lost upon the wretch, so the alarms of judgment had no effect also. For when he daringly headed the band of men and officers which went to apprehend Christ, and they all fell to the ground, when the Lord Jesus, to the question whom seek ye? answered, I am he; Judas must have fell with them. See John 18:2. But neither this miracle, nor every former; neither judgments nor mercies could affect Judas. Satan had taken the complete possession of him, and the last state of that man was worse than the first. Luke 11:26

Reader! here let us pause, as we behold the awful history of one of whom the Lord Jesus said, good were it for that man if he had never been born, Mark 14:21 Let us look into the cause, and, under divine teaching, we shall soon be led to discover it. The scriptures of God, in tracing effects to their source, have drawn the line of everlasting distinction between the precious and the vile, between the righteous and the wicked, between him that serveth God, and him that serveth him not, Malachi 3:18. One of the Apostles in a single chapter hath done this business to our hand. He contemplates the Adam-apostacy of our whole nature, the Church, as well as the Christless, all alike involved in the ruin of a fallen state, and then marks the different features of character which distinguish the Church in her grace-union with Christ, from the seed of the serpent, which are forever precluded from any possibility of salvation. Of the former, he describes them as sanctified by God the Father, preserved in Jesus Christ, and called. Of the latter, he declares, that they were of old ordained to this condemnation. And hence, as the lineal descendants of Cain, they have ran, and do run greedily after the error of Balaam, and must perish in the gainsaying of Core. Jude 1:4. And what further testimony doth God the Holy Ghost give of all such, but such as the Lord Jesus himself gave of Judas. Ye are of your father the devil, (said Christ to some of this race), and the lusts of your father ye will do. John 8:44. And John follows up the same doctrine as his Master. For, speaking of Cain, he expressly saith, that he was of that wicked one. Not simply under the temptations of the devil, but of him. For he is speaking at the time, how the children of God are manifest, and the children of the devil. 1 John 3:8. And Judas is not merely said to have been tempted of the devil, but that he was a devil, and Satan entered into him, took an entire possession of him. John 6:70. Hence the enemy calls the heart of such his house. Luke 11:24. Reader! ponder well the whole, for the doctrine is truly awful. But, remember the awfulness of it doth by no means lessen the truth of it. See, in confirmation, Psalms 109:6. compared with Acts 1:16, and hence that Psalm is called the Iscariotic Psalm. See John 18:2.