JUDAS THE APOSTATE

 

 

JOHN CHAPTER 7 VERSES 1-36*

 

[* See also a selected number of the author’s “Sermon Notes” on The Book of Hebrews.]

 

 

By Mike Balloun

 

 

 

 

 

John 7: 1-2 “After these things Jesus walked in Galilee: for he would not walk in Jewry (Judea), because the Jews (Leaders) sought to kill Him (as He was a threat to their institution). Now the Jews’ feast of tabernacles was at hand” (in calling it the Jews’ feast, John now separates himself from them, having greater understanding of who he is as part of the “New Man” which is neither Jew nor Gentile). The end of the previous chapter 6 speaks how all but 12 of the disciples left him because of His “...hard saying...” of the necessity of eating His flesh and drinking His Blood. It is not hard to understand, but hard to receive given the Jewish leaders’ traditional religious teachings (note it is 100 times harder to UN-learn than to learn or relearn. This goes for not only the Jews, but for all of us who have religious thinking we have to unlearn). To these [chosen] 12, Jesus turned and asks them if they would also go away? Peter answered, “... to whom should we go, thou hast the words of eternal life.” Jesus responds to them in John 6: 70 ...“Have not I chosen you twelve, and one of you is a devil? (foreshadowing Judas’ future role in the End Times - more on that later.) He spake of Judas Iscariot (the name Iscariot means the hired one) the son of Simon: for he it was that should betray him (in that the Jewish leaders were fearful to openly arrest Jesus, Judas sold them the place and time wherein they could safely accomplish their wicked purposes), being one of the twelve” (representative of God’s perfect governmental foundation). Noteworthy is it that Judas was most likely the only one out of the twelve that was from Judea. He was referred to by Christ as not a ‘devil / slanderer / accuser’, but also later Jesus calls him the ‘son of perdition.’ (John 17: 12).

 

 

The Lord stayed away from Jerusalem for there the Pharisees and the Chief Priests (verse 32) sought to kill Him due to His previous visit and actions when He healed the crippled man at the Pool of Bethesda on the Sabbath and told him to take up his mat and walk. This murderous spirit of Judas was discovered by our Lord as foretold by David in the [Holy] Spirit centuries before as prophetically set forth in Psalms 41: 9 and Psalm 109: 1-20... “Yea, mine own familiar friend, in whom I trusted, which did eat of my bread, and hath lifted up his heel against me.” Psalm 109, verses 1-20 is a strong indictment and probably the worst curse spoken in all of scripture and is aimed prophetically towards Judas and a particular few ... “Hold not thy peace, O God of my praise; For the mouth of the wicked and the mouth of the deceitful are opened against me: they have spoken against me with a lying tongue. They compassed me about also with words of hatred; and fought against me without cause. For my love they are my adversaries: but I give myself unto prayer. And they have rewarded me evil for good, and hatred for my love. Set thou a wicked man over him: and let Satan stand at his right hand. When he shall be judged, let him be condemned: and let his prayer become sin. Let his days be few; and let another take his office. (as when another was chosen to replace Judas’ office as one of the twelve after he committed suicide) Let his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow, Let his children be continually vagabonds, and beg: let them seek their bread also out of their desolate places. Let the extortioner catch all that he hath; and let the strangers spoil his labour. Let there be none to extend mercy unto him: neither let there be any to favour his fatherless children. Let his posterity be cut off; and in the generation following let their name be blotted out. Let the iniquity of his fathers be remembered with the Lord; and let not the sin of his mother be blotted out. Let them be before the Lord continually, that he may cut off the memory of them from the earth. Because that he remembered not to shew mercy, but persecuted the poor and needy man (John records in John 12: 6 that Judas’s reason for objecting to the expensive perfume being poured on Jesus’ feet was “not that he cared for the poor; but because he was a thief, and had the bag, and bare what was put therein.” This really shows forth his true character, and that he was someone who was easy prey for Satan to enter. Is it not too hard to think that Satan could have offered Judas esteem, money, and power for him to betray Christ, just as when he offered Jesus all the kingdoms of the world?), that he might slay the broken in heart. As he loved cursing, so let it come unto him. As he clothed himself with cursing like as with a garment, so let it come unto his bowels like water, and like oil into his bones. Let it be unto him as a garment which covereth him, and for a girdle wherewith he is girded continually. Let these be a reward of mine adversaries from the Lord, and of them that speak evil against my soul.”

 

 

Another insightful word about Judas in Scripture (Acts 1: 25) is that “... by transgression he fell, that he might go to his own place” (referencing that locate in the centre of the Earth specific to him where only one like him would go). That ‘place’ [see Luke 16: 26, 27, R.V. Cf. Numbers 16: 26, 30] being one then of his own particular making and standing, in that after having been uniquely chosen as one of the foundational 12, upon the Ministry of the Son of God, anointed by Christ with the [Holy] Spirit (albeit the spirit being with him not in him - John 14: 17), walking 3½ years with Him, being confronted with his sin before he carried it out (Matthew 26: 25) yet after all this, he willingly gave himself up to the energy of Satan, and in covetousness (idolatry) and devilishness he aligned himself eternally [aionously] with Satan (John 13: 27), after he later committed suicide.

 

 

Judas today stands in his special place among the dead in ‘Hades’ ready to come up and fill with meaning the prophecies of the End-Time False Prophet. That which John’s recording in Revelation Chapter 13: 11-17 declares, for he comes up out of the earth. For 3½ years in open opposition to Jesus. He is to come forth in resurrection out of ‘Hades’, in his special place, in all the power of the first Beast, subservient to the first resurrected Beast the Anti-Christ / resurrected son of Satan, who will then sit in the seat of great authority in the Earth fronted by the ‘father’ Satan. Revelation 13: 11-12 “And I beheld another beast coming up out of the earth; and he had two horns like a lamb (he’ll appear very spiritual), and he spake as a dragon, And he exerciseth all the power of the first beast before him, and causeth the earth and them which dwell therein to worship the first beast...” Judas resurrected, to be the End-Time chosen witness of the ‘father and son,’ completes the unholy trinity and thereby fulfils the prophetic Words of David “Set thou a wicked man over him: and let Satan stand at his right hand.” [Psalm 109: 6]

 

 

These words are yet to be accomplished in him. And when they are, he comes forth and performs again many very real miracles, this time in the power of unleashed Satan who may now both solicit and empower. (Speaking of the Antichrist, but applies to the False Prophet as well. 2 Thessalonians 2: 9 describes him as ... “whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders...”) Satan rises up these Two men in supernatural opposition to those Two men, who had been caught away from among the living, having never died, to their God arranged ‘place’ and now for 3½ years return as the Two faithful Witnesses. They are, as we suppose, Enoch and Elijah, who having gone to their ‘place’ now manifest again on the Earth in the power of God at the beginning of that future appointed time of the 70th week of Daniel. (Revelation 11: 1-7). They work the mighty End-Time signs and miracles of God in the Earth with Israel’s restoration in view (Malachi 4: 5, 6), for their appointed 3½ years they prophesy, testify and exercise God’s power in the Earth. (Revelation 11.) Until they are murdered by those ‘two men’ overcome by Satan and rejected of God, and who united, supernaturally openly resist the Kingdom of Christ to come in the Earth for the remaining half of Daniel’s 7 years; 3½ years of unprecedented tribulation in battle and judgment.

 

 

This gives depth of meaning as to why Jesus would sound so harsh when He said, speaking of Judas, “... but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed, it had been good for that man, if he had not been born.” (Matthew 26: 24) Judas being ‘born’ or brought forth out from among the dead in Hades for the purposes set forth in prophetic Scripture makes him  solemnly and uniquely “the son of perdition” who will then be cast eternally into the Lake of Fire in fulfilment of the judgment of the “Second Death”. This evil duo of the Antichrist and False Prophet being the first and second to be judged by the Second Death / be cast alive in the Lake of Fire. This also implies that these two beings had to be men who were resurrected [from the dead] at some point in order for them to experience a second death. (Revelation 20: 10).

 

 

It seems appropriate to bring forth a few more critical points of prophetic understanding here as John points out that the Fast of Tabernacles was at hand. It is just six months before the Passover designed for Jesus’ Death. John continues to reveal the TRUTH as to whom Jesus was and is, in that He was the Son of God from eternity, Who then came from Heaven’s Glory in the council and will of God at the exact time appointed. We suppose that Scripture bears out that Christ was Born on the first day of the Feast of Tabernacles, as the Only Begotten incarnate Son of God and Son of Man, having been conceived and manifest through the agency of the Holy Spirit in the virgin’s womb. It is Written... “And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us...” (John 1: 14). It should read as in the RV of the KJV ... “And the Word became flesh; And tabernacled with (or among) us. We have had a tendency to take this Statement of His tabernacling as pointing to one event, but it is in actuality two. The first being that Holy event / marvel of His being conceived in the womb of Mary, “And the Word became flesh...” as presented in Luke 1: 35 and Matthew 1: 18, 20 and the second being the result of His conception, 280 days later, in the Birth of the Lamb of God in a lowly stable in Bethlehem when He “tabernacled with us...” [Luke 2: 6-70] Counting backwards from the 15th day of Tishri in that year, (the perfect gestation period of 280 days) we get the first day of the Hebrew month Tebeth, that being when the Holy Spirit conceived Christ in the womb of Mary. (John 1: 14) (This corresponded with the 25th day of December on the Gentile Calendar. If so, it would go a long way to do away with the scruples of those of us who have resisted worshipping Christ in the celebration and form of Christmas, having had some historical understanding of its association with pagan gods or because of the policy of Constantine, who in the historical Edict of Milan proclaimed religious tolerance for Christians while effectively mixing religious beliefs. But in actuality, Christmas day / the 25th December may have been venerated by early day Messianic believers familiar with Laws and Feasts. The feasts’ spiritual and typical meanings would have soon be lost on Gentile believers given the circumstances of that day. For they considered themselves now free from any religious tether, but in ignorance and apathy, lost site of their Jewish roots by separating themselves from it, if they ever had it, and thus of the true significance of the 25th December, that being Christ’s conception. And over a short time, they became confused by pagan religious practices that celebrated the birth of the Egyptian god of Osiris on the 25th December and ended up adapting the day as the Birth of Jesus). The Feast of Tabernacles, considered the ‘holiest and greatest,’ consists of 7 days plus 1 day (Leviticus 23: 36) and so it would be seen  in perfect harmony with Scripture, that the 8th day of Tabernacles, that of a high holy day, and called the Great Day of the Feast, would have been the day of Christ’s circumcision, being that the Jews are to circumcise their children in the 8th day after birth.

 

 

That first day of the Feast of Tabernacles (representative of the first day of Christ’s First Coming and tabernacling 33 years before, along with His circumcision) was now approaching. It was also to be His last observance of the Feast of Tabernacles. John 7: 2-3 says, “Now the Jew’s feast of tabernacles was at hand. His brethren (there were 4 brothers of Jesus: James, Joses, Simon and Judas) therefore said unto him (chiding Him), Depart hence, and go into Judea, that thy disciples may also see the works that thou doest. For there is no man that doeth any thing in secret, and he himself seeketh to be known openly. If thou do these things, show thyself to the world. For neither did his brethren believe in him (until after His Resurrection when they became Apostles as seen in 1 Corinthians 9: 5...) “Don’t we have the right to take a believing wife along with us, as do the other apostles and the Lord’s brothers and Cephas?”).

 

 

Then Jesus said unto them, My time is not yet come: but your time is always ready. (His brothers were not considering the Creator’s will. Christ knew His steps were ordered according to the Father’s timetable. Continuing to speak to them He said...) The world cannot hate you, but me it hateth, because I testify of it, that the works thereof are evil. Go ye up unto this feast: I go not up yet unto this feast; for my time is not yet full come. When he had said these words unto them, he abode still in Galilee. But when his brethren were gone up, then went he also up unto the feast, not openly, but as it were in secret.” Why did they not believe in Him? Because they were most familiar with Him, having grown up with Him. This should teach us that familiarity with Him is not faith. Certainly His brothers had a naïve approach to His Ministry. Which, by way of reason, caused them to bring His sincerity into question. Their ‘ifs’ remind us of Satan’s ‘ifs’ in the wilderness temptation. They did not understand that the Father’s Plan was mot to rescue Jesus, as they might have supposed, but to give Him up into the hands of His enemies and that they would crucify Him. Jesus’ timing in this and all other matters was to be in the Father’s perfect timing. Being in accord with all God’s purposes revealed in Scripture, its types, shadows and prophecy, and it was not yet the time for Him to be delivered up unto death. Accordingly, He didn’t let anyone know He was going up to the Feast. He was aware they were set to capture Him secretively and Crucify Him before His chosen time.

 

 

VERSE 14 “Now about the midst of the feast Jesus went up into the temple, and taught.” The Law of Moses in Deuteronomy 31: 10-13 required the entire Torah to be read at the end of every 7th year “... in the feast of tabernacles, When all Israel is come to appear before the Lord thy God ... Gather the people together men, women, and children and thy stranger that is within thy gates, that they may hear, and that they may learn, and fear the Lord your God, and observe to do all the words of this law...” Jesus, no doubt in the design of God, took up the task of quoting the Torah and taught that they marvelled, saying, How knoweth this man letters (scripture), having never been taught (formally)? In answer, Jesus declares the pathway to knowledge of God is through willingness to do the will of God.

 

 

The undecided were split ... the ones who looked at what He did thought Him good; whereas those, because of what He said, being contrary to the leader’s religious views, thought He was mad. They were not judges of good teaching because of their unwillingness to do God’s will.

 

 

Some marvelled that the Rulers allowed Him even to speak knowing of the enmity between Him and the Leaders. They were aware that they sought to kill Him. Possibly some Jews from other far away places unfamiliar with previous encounters of Jesus with the Jewish Rulers might have thought Him  mad, possessed of a devil; in claiming they were conspiring to kill Him. He confronted those who were secretly planning to kill Him showing them to be contrary to the Law of Moses, and not in accordance with it. The Statement of Jesus to those of the mindset of the Religious Leaders was that the World does not hate them, but because of His example in living the Words that they testify against their worldly behaviour, they hated Him. Hated Him for being good, not because He did bad.

 

 

“My doctrine is not my own but His that sent me.” A Jew has but one major; that is Theology. What is set forth in this discourse is the contrast of Christ with the Rabbis about His not having formal training that was passed down from generation to generation through the Rabbis. His wisdom / revelation / training was direct ... and virtually shows that true Theology is a work of the heart. For it is the heart that prepares the way for the knowledge of God, without the will to do His will, there is only vain knowledge that puffs up in religious darkness without impartation of truth. His is the ability to see the spirit of the Law. Christ reveals their condition to be one of the heart that cannot see Truth. They only see the literal meaning and application of the Law of Moses that they vainly profess to keep. See Numbers 15: 30-36 as an example. It speaks of the Law of Moses’ command to put to death the man gathering sticks in the Sabbath. This strict adherence to the letter of the law is why they wanted to kill Jesus for healing on the Sabbath. Jesus calls out their duplicity in that they allow for circumcision (work according to the letter) to be done on the Sabbath, yet they protest Him making a man whole on the Sabbath. There are 248 members of the body, so say the Sages, and if one part of that body has been set apart to be addressed (circumcision), even if it is the Sabbath, and that one part is not even critical of life and death... then what about a part that is critical of living? Should it not be made whole on the Sabbath? They should judge the matter righteously, not literally.

 

 

VERSES 27-28. The Pharisees thought they knew where Jesus came from, supposing He was the biological son of Joseph the carpenter and son of Mary. Because of this, they thought He could not be the Messiah. “Howbeit we know this man whence he is: but when Christ cometh, no man knoweth whence he is.” Do you really know Me? Who I am and where I came from? You can know a lot of true facts about Him without knowing Him. How the great darkness in spiritual understanding is perpetuated by religious polarization! Where there are two aspects of a Scriptural doctrine topic, seemingly one opposed to another, men and entire denominations set up the one against the other... without giving prayerful thought to the possibility of both being true (such as Arminianism and Calvinism). So many lose their inheritance holding to their understanding that God is love, He is merciful, which is true, while they refuse to be moved by the equally true fact that God is Holy and Just. Demands of God’s Justice must be satisfied before mercy and grace may be granted (the demands of the Law of Moses for Justice and the demands of Christ in Justice being two different things). Confusion persisted as the people wondered why if this Man was thought to be worthy of death, why yet do the Rulers let Him speak? Have they changed their minds about Him being the Sent One? But they reasoned that Christ was said to appear suddenly and no man would know from whence He came. (Micah 5: 2?) But this Man we know, where He was raised and Who He is. How then could He be the Sent One? Jesus cried with a loud voice as the crowds shuffled and murmured. Yes, you know me and from where I came in one physical nature... nevertheless but in the spiritual aspect of my Nature, in which God has sent me and then taught Me, you know not. The reason you don’t recognize this Truth is because you do not know God, but I do. (Matthew 22: 41) John is giving the Words of Jesus that assert that which he declared from the very beginning of his account; to the Jews first, that Christ manifest, was the Son of God with the Father from eternity. No one that refuses Jesus in either of His Natures can know the Father. He needs to be received in both natures. Here Christ stops His immediate discourse.

 

 

The last verse of this lesson is verse 36. Those of the crowd were mixed. Because many believed on Him, as a result the Rulers sent some to apprehend Him; Christ declares to those who came out to arrest Him in the ears of the people... “Yet a little while am I with you (for My appointed time of death is yet not come), and then I go unto him that sent me. Ye shall seek me, and shall not find me; and where I am, hither you cannot come.” He was about to go back to the One that sent Him. They wouldn’t find Him, nor could they come to where He was going. He spoke mysteriously about His soon being betrayed and His willing offering of Himself up unto the Father in the appointed time of Passover. Satan and the religious leaders were ever ready and willing to cut off Jesus from the Earth, but until God gave His leave, they could not.

 

 

How should we consider this entire matter? The answer being, as with much of John’s writing; mysteriously emblematic, and enigmatic, Jesus said: “I am not going up unto the feast.” His statement is to be taken in the revealed fullness of prophetic understanding of God’s meaning behind this appointed annual Greatest of Feasts recorded by Moses. That is to say, how the Feast of Tabernacles relates to His Son’s Conception, His Birth, Life, Death, Burial, Resurrection, and Return. All of which points towards His going up to Jerusalem in the future Great Millennial Feast of Tabernacles in His Kingdom Glory. Tabernacles represents the true 7th Day Rest of God after 6 days of 1000 years each, or restoration toil, that Day in which He joyfully invites all men to enter into. It is the beginning of tabernacling with God in the 7th Millennial Age on Glory that fills all the aspects of God’s appointed times throughout Scripture with their fullest meaning. On the Earth, and pre-eminently in Israel, it is the beginning of the 1000 year Age of joy wherein Jesus the Christ is worshiped as King and Lord of hosts that centers up in Jerusalem, that being declared and described by the prophets. (See Zechariah 14: 16-18)

 

 

But the Leaders of Israel would not own Him as their King even in the earlier appeal of the healing of the leper. (Matthew 8: 2-4) They perceived His Message of being one that would Jeopardize their social position and livelihood. He now openly testifies of their darkened understanding in willing religious hypocrisy and brings their enmity with God to the surface. It was towards the true Sabbath Rest of the Father, to be realized in His Messiah, that Moses gave clear enough indications. And to that, Jesus set forth the sign and miracle of the healing of the crippled man on that Sabbath in Jerusalem before those who sit in Moses’ Seat. By this sign and miracle, Jesus revealed the passing away of the Old Covenant which leaves man saved from eternal death but whose soul is lost in sinful unworthiness of son-ship, unto a far better and New Covenant in Himself. (This reveals the sad state of the merely ‘saved’ that turn their spiritual lives over to the ‘educated’ as well as the grave responsibility of those who shepherd His sheep.)

 

 

The true Great Feast can not be realized yet. His eye looks on to the future in His Return to Israel after 2000 years to joyful going up to celebrate that First of a thousand uninterrupted gloriously filled Feasts of Tabernacles. Jesus goes up secretively in that His eye was upon their continued unbelief and stubbornness.  (Isaiah 1: 13-15... “Bring no more oblations; incense is an abomination unto me; the new moons and sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot away with; it is iniquity, even the solemn meeting. Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hateth: they are a trouble unto me; I am weary to bear them. And when ye spread forth your hands, I will hide mine eyes from you: yea, when ye make many prayers, I will not hear: your hands are full of blood.”)  Judas is yet to finalize his agreement with the false shepherds of Israel... as the True Shepherd was to be sold by the false shepherds for “30 pieces of silver.” In answer to rejecting One Who came in the Name of another, (Jesus, in the Father’s name) they will receive the wicked one that comes in his own name (the Antichrist). That next great shepherd of Israel God will raise up in the Last Days will be compassionate, but one that will rend and tear. (Zechariah 11 with Isaiah 10: 5-6 & Revelation 12: 17 - 13: 7)

 

 

The Day of Atonement precedes the Feast of Tabernacles; that great Day of the Lord now must be fully realized, and that will come when the God of Mercy and Grace is completed, and the fullness of the Gentiles / spiritual Nation of the One New Man come in. Then comes the Un-suspending of the 70th Week of the finishing of Israel’s transgression (Daniel 9: 24); the last 7 years of the Old Covenant Law / Jacob’s Trouble in meeting the demand of God’s Justice before Mercy can be extended. The Tabernacle Feast with Israel cannot come until the Anti-Christ and False Prophet are cast into the Second Death, and Satan and his [deceived] children* are cut off and incarcerated in their appointed place in the Centre of the Earth. (Revelation 20: 1-3)

 

[* NOTE: It appears from Scripture, that there will be many more ‘children’ than the unregenerate, who are being deceived by Satan today! Many of God’s redeemed, deceived and unrepentant children also, will be cut off from their inheritance during “the Thousand Years” of Messiah’ Earthly Reign! See Galations 5: 16, 17, 19-21; Ephesians 5: 1-6; Cf. 1 Corinthians 5: 9-13, R.V.]

 

 

All now proceeds unto the manifestation of Himself to all Israel in His Glory, as facetiously proposed by His brothers, but first must come the Day of the Lord in woeful answer to their rejection and continued rejection for 30 plus years after their having crucified Him. (Acts 2: 38; 6: 8 through the entire 7th Chapter, Acts 28: 20.) Christ’s First Coming (at His birth) was at the Feast of Tabernacles. He declares the end from the beginning. Christ’s Second Coming to dwell with them at the end of Jacob’s Trouble / Great Tribulation will be at the Feast of Tabernacles (not His preceding Coming / parousia / presence into the unseen 1st heavens of this Earth. (Revelation 4: 2, Daniel 7: 9-11), which corresponds to the Feast of Trumpets and Day of Atonement, during which the faithful worthy living of Jesus will be caught up from the worst of it (Revelation 12: 5; 3: 10), which answers to the Scriptures as seen in Matthew 24: 36... “But of that day and hour no man knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only.” All must come before Tabernacles. First, there is a time of Jacob’s Trouble / Judgment of Israel, but then “they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for me ... as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn.” (Zechariah 12) After the Jews repent and accept Jesus, then comes that future Great Feast of Tabernacles. The Father’s Salvation Plan of the restoration of all things that have been corrupted will be Scripturally fully realized at the end of the Feast of Tabernacles in His forming a New Heavens and a New Earth, all foreseen by God from the beginning. As was represented in the 7+1 symbolism, the Eighth Day of eternity will follow.