The Lord’s Last High
Priestly Prayer
~*~
Introduction
It was the night of the Last
Passover. Supper had ended. Judas Iscariot had left the table to go out into
the dark night to do the black beckoning of hell. When
he was gone, Jesus began to speak. He had many things He wanted to say to His
beloved disciples and He had a final prayer He wanted them to hear. Some have
called it The Lord’s Last High Priestly
Prayer. Of this prayer, Martin Luther wrote, “This truly, beyond measure, a warm and hearty prayer. He opens the
depths of His heart, both in reference to us and to His Father, and He pours
them all out. It sounds so honest, so simple; it is so deep, so rich, so wide,
no one can fathom it.”
The Scottish Reformer John
Knox had this chapter read to him every day during his last illness and in the
closing moments of life; the verses from this chapter brought comfort to him.
What we have before us is a prayer for the people of God. There is something
very special and tender about the Lord Jesus Christ praying. The Bible tells us
that Jesus was a man of prayer. Sometimes He arose a
great while before dawn to pray. Sometimes He spent whole nights in prayer. And
He taught His disciples to be men of prayer as well. The content of some of the
prayers of Christ has been recorded as per John 17. We can listen afresh to
Jesus as He opened His lips and said, “Father,
the hour is coming; glorify thy Son, that thy Son may also glorify thee.”
1 These words spake Jesus, and lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, Father, the hour is come; glorify thy Son, that thy Son also
may glorify thee:
17:1 The ‘hour’ referred to was the hour of
death. Seven times in the gospels Jesus referred to this special time. Unlike
other men, Jesus entered into the world to die a violent death. He came to die
in such a way as to spill His blood as atonement for sin, for without the
shedding of blood there is no remission of sins. For Christ, the Cross was not
only the object of His destiny but also the means of being glorified. Dr.
William Barclay notes, “It is one of the
facts of history that again and again it was in death that great ones found
their glory. Abraham Lincoln’s Secretary of State once called him, ‘the original gorilla.’ But in the hour
of
Despite the attempts of the
Catholic Church to break her, Joan of Arc stood firm and in the end she became
a martyr for a great cause. Today, the 19-year-old peasant girl who heard
voices from heaven and led French armies to victory is respected worldwide.
Meeting death with dignity she achieved a measure of immortality in the minds
of millions. Joan of Arch found glory in death.
In the hour of the Cross,
Jesus Christ found glory. He delivered His message of triumph shouting, “It is finished.” During the days of
World War I, there was a famous painting made of a workman in rural
stringing wires across the open
prairies in order to advance communication. As the final
connection was made the workman listened in on the line. The painting
had a one-word caption, “Through!”
That said it all. Jesus cried, “Telelesti!
Through! Finished! Completed” The work of redemption had been accomplished.
The Lord gave His life that the message might get through that God is love. God
does love. God will love all that repent and come to Him.
As the Lord was concerned
that He be glorified so He was anxious to glorify the Father. The way to
glorify the Father is to obey Him. A child brings honor to his parents by
obedience. A soldier brings honor to his uniform and his country by obeying
superiors, especially in time of war. Jesus brought honor to the Father by
obeying Him even when that obedience meant death by crucifixion.
The Father was glorified and
in turn He glorified His Son by raising Christ from the dead. It is as if God
pointed to the Cross and said, “That is
what men think of my Son.” Then God pointed to the empty tomb and said, “That is what I think of my Son.”
17:1 There is
something else to be noted and that is for Christ, the way of the Cross was the
way back to His home in heaven. “Glorify
me,” Jesus prayed, “with the glory
which I had before the world began.” The eternal existence of the Son is
one of the great mysteries and great revelations of the Bible. Jesus was like a
solider or a knight who had left the king’s court to perform a noble and
dangerous deed. He had to fight the Old Dragon called Diabolos. He had to conquer the fear of death. Jesus had to brave
the scorn of the Sadducees,
the insults of the Pharisees,
and the skepticism of the Scribes.
There were many battles for
the Lord to engage in but He fought the good fight. He finished the course and
He was able to return home with all of His foes defeated. When Jesus returned
to His heavenly home, He was given a royal welcome. All the souls of the saints
and all the host of heaven stood up to honor His return.
2 As thou hast given him power over all flesh,
that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him.
17:2 Another way that God the Father honored
His Son was to give Him power over all
flesh that He should give eternal life to as many as the Father had given
to Him. How many souls the Father has decreed to give to the Son is unknown,
but it is a vast multitude that no man can count. And to each soul Jesus has
promised the grace of eternal life.
The word for eternal is aionis. This word has as a main meaning:
the quality of life. Simply to have duration or longevity of life is not
enough. There are many people who exist for years but they are not happy for
one reason or another: poor health, unhappy homes etc. Life is endured but it
is without any quality.
3 And
this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus
Christ, whom thou hast sent.
4 I have glorified thee on the earth: I have finished the work
which thou gavest me to do.
5 And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with
the glory which I had with thee before the world was.
17:3-5 Jesus has promised the very life of
God to His own. The Lord promised that the Creatures of time could possess
eternal life of the everlasting Father and experience something of the splendor
and the majesty, the joy and the peace and the holiness which characterizes the
life of God. “This is life eternal,” said
Jesus, “that they might know thee, the
only true God.” Do we want to know God?
In a general manner, the
universal answer is, “Yes” for
mankind is incurably religious. All over the world, there are countless souls
that long to know God. J. I. Packer wrote a book many years ago called, Knowing God. Heathen people in the
darkest corners of the globe want to know God. Cultured and educated people
want to know God. The work by A.W. Tozer, The
Knowledge of the Holy, remains very popular though it was written over
thirty years ago. We must ask ourselves, “Do
we know God?”
To know God was an important
concept in the Old Testament. Such knowledge was wisdom. Only the fool
would say in his heart there is no God. Wiser men sought after Him. Proverbs
3:18 declares that “wisdom is the tree of
life to those who lay hold of her.” Habakkuk dreamed of a Golden Age in
which “the earth will be filled with the
knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the seas” (Hab. 2:14).
To know God involves an
element of intellectual comprehension. Through the Bible, God has told us what
He is like as to His nature, His attributes, and His character. There are many
facts to study about God as a person. The essence of His character may be
mediated upon with great profit.
For example, the Bible says
that there is only one God. When Father Abraham first perceived that, when the
Holy Spirit illuminated his heart and mind to that fact, it was a revolutionary
thought. Abraham came from a polytheistic society. The concept of there being
only one true God required an element
of intellectual consideration rooted in spiritual illumination. But once the
evidence was considered and the truth was embraced, there came tremendous
freedom. Now the one true God could be sought for the purpose of fellowship.
Many a missionary has
brought relief to certain cultures that embrace a horde of gods whom they do
not know and cannot please—though they try desperately to appease them. New
knowledge makes a difference in the world.
We need to study and find
out intellectually just what the Bible has to say about God and what God has to
say about Himself. When we do, we find wonderful things about the God of
self-revelation.
·
God is a spirit. John 4:24 God is a Spirit: and they that worship him
must worship him in spirit and in truth. Though Christ is the embodiment of
the godhead, bodily God is spirit and is not to be thought of as an animal or
some inanimate object.
·
God is sovereign. Psalms 24:1 The earth is the LORD's, and the fullness
thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein.
·
God is a great Saviour from
personal distress and from the pollution of sins. Exodus 15:2 The LORD is my strength and song, and he is
become my salvation: he is my God, and I will prepare him an habitation; my
father's God, and I will exalt him.
·
God is unsearchable. Job 5:8-9 I would seek unto God, and unto God would I
commit my cause: 9 Which doeth great things and unsearchable; marvelous things
without number:
·
God is full of tender mercy. Psalms 31:7 I will be glad and rejoice in thy mercy: for
thou hast considered my trouble; thou hast known my soul in adversities;
·
God is forgiving. Psalms 32:1-2 Blessed is he whose transgression is
forgiven, whose sin is covered. 2 Blessed is the man unto whom the LORD
imputeth not iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no guile.
·
God is glorious. Psalms 8:9 O LORD our Lord, how excellent is thy name
in all the earth!
These
are just some of the things we can know about God. But really knowing things
about God is not totally satisfying. It is possible to become too academic and
impersonal with God, even if His mercy and grace is acknowledged and accepted.
To
know God involves something else. There
must be a quality to a relationship that supersedes all the collectable facets
of His essence and theological facts. There is a soul intimacy that cannot
be appreciated by mere objective knowledge. To truly know God is to have a
personal relationship with Him by faith. How is this possible? The answer is
primarily through Jesus Christ. To look at Christ and to believe in Him is to
know God, for in Christ is the physical expression of all that God is in
essence.
·
Christ is sovereign. He can make the winds to
hush and the dead to live.
·
Christ is a great Savior. “Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden and I will give you
rest.
·
Christ is unsearchable. He is Prophet, Priest,
King and He is the eternal Son.
·
Christ is full of tender
mercy. He
will even touch the untouchable. He will touch the leper.
·
Christ is forgiving. Son, be of good cheer, thy
sins be forgiven thee.
·
Christ is glorious. See him as the exalted Son
in the Book of the Revelation enthroned on high.
In
March of 1991 my daughter Tara, who was twelve asked me a profound question
when we were driving home from a hospital visit. She asked how a person can
know if they are a Christian? How can we
know if we know God?
Five things will help answer that question on
a personal level.
·
Is Jesus loved? To make it personal, “Do I love Jesus Christ?” Having not yet
seen the Lord, “have I learned to love
Him through the hearing of the Word and the testimony of the heart?”
One of the great love stories of the soul of this
century is that between the British author C.S. Lewis and the American woman he
eventually married, Joy. Through a series of letters, this couple began to
correspond with one another. When they finally met many months later, there was
a soul love between them based upon the words they had shared with one another.
Many of us who have read the Bible and have heard sermons about Christ have
grown to love Him whom we have not yet seen.
·
Is Christ believed? To make it personal, “Do you believe in Jesus? Do I believe Jesus
when He says that before the world began He, as the eternal Son of God, had
fellowship with the Father? Do I believe Christ when He says, I am the way, the
truth, and the life. No one will ever come unto the Father except through me?
Do I believe Jesus when He says All that the Father has given to me will come
to me, and I will lose no one?”
Some
people, when they hear the teachings of Christ are angry. The Jews of His day
picked up stones because they did not believe His words. They thought He was a
blasphemer for He said that He could forgive sins. Do I believe the words of Jesus and rest my all in Him?
·
Is there a love for what
Christ loves?
To make it personal, “Do I love the
Church? Do I love the Bible? Do I love biblical sermons?”
Christ does. The Bible teaches that
Jesus loved the church and died for it. (Eph. 5:25) He also respected the
Scriptures and studied them in the synagogue where He opened up their spiritual
meaning. Those who have nothing to do with the Church nor the Bible nor gospel
sermons, how can they say that the love of God dwells in them?
Perhaps such souls are involved in a subtle
form of self-deception. On this matter, the Scriptures are plain. 1 John 2:19 They went out from us, but they were not of
us; for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us: but
they went out, that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us. Do
you love what Christ loves? Have you turned your back on hearing the Word of God? On Bible study? On Church
attendance? On the fellowship of the saints? Why not return to Christ?
·
Is there an inner witness of
the heart that it has closed with Christ? To make it personal, have I heard Christ
say, “I am yours and you are mine?”
·
Romans 8:16 The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the
children of God:
·
Is there a difference in
life? To
make it personal, can I say, “I am not
the person I used to be”? 2 Corinthians 5:17 Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are
passed away; behold, all things are
become new.
·
Is God honored as Father? To make it personal, “Do I know God as Father-God?” The
Bible says that Jesus, with eyes lifted to heaven addressed God as Father—and
then He died. Jesus died for the very purpose of revealing the Father to men.
The prayer of Christ in John 17:1-8 was answered.
Never did Jesus ask for anything that was not granted and for this reason.
Jesus always prayed according to the will of the Father. And the Father heard
and glorified His Son. Therefore, bless His holy name and be thankful that
there is a prayer for the people of God. Amen and Amen.
~*~
There was sadness in the air. Something terrible was going to happen soon. The disciples knew it. Jesus was speaking with a sense of urgency at the Passover meal. He talked of leaving the world and going back to the Father. The disciples did not quite know what to make of all this. Perhaps if they reassured the Lord of their own absolute confidence in Him, He would not find it needful to speak of death.
The disciples found the
courage and said unto Christ, “Lo, now
speakest thou plainly, and speakest no proverb, Now we are sure [Lord] that
thou knowest all things, and needest not that any man should ask thee: by this
we believe that thou comest forth from God”
(John
16:29,30).
As Jesus heard these words from the lips of His disciples, a mixture of
emotions might have surged through His holy body.
There was the emotion of extreme gratitude. Jesus knew what the
disciples were trying to do. They wanted to encourage Him, comfort Him, and
reassure Him of their unbounded loyalty—and He was grateful.
There was the emotion of indescribable love. One by one Jesus had
selected the men in the room to be with Him and to become like Him. He was the
Master; they were the students. Some men, like Matthew, were extremely bright
and intellectual. Others, like Peter, were more emotional. For three years
these men had been together going up and down the land of Palestine preaching
the gospel of the kingdom of God. There were many precious memories now, but
the close fellowship was about to end. Jesus knew that in just a few hours He
had a date with destiny and death. The Man and the hour had finally met and
Jesus must die for the sins of the world.
Before the ordeal of the ages,
the Lord wanted to pray in the presence of His disciples one last time. Lifting
up His eyes to heaven Jesus prayed.
6 I have manifested thy name unto the men which
thou gavest me out of the world: thine they were, and thou gavest them me; and
they have kept thy word.
17:6 In the Bible, the term “name”
is used in a special way. To refer to the name was to refer to the whole
character of the person in as far as the person can be known. Psalm 9:10 says
of God, “Those who know Thy name put
their trust in thee.” The reference is not to a
special title but the very character and
nature of God. The Psalmist noted that, “Some
trust in chariots, and some in horses: but we will remember the name of the
LORD our God” (Psa. 20:7). The
Psalmist knows that he can trust God because he knows something of the power
and the majesty of Almighty God.
Isaiah envisioned a Golden
Age whereby all men would know the name of God and thereby know fully what God
is like. Isaiah 52:6 “Therefore my people
shall know my name: therefore they shall know in that day that I am he that
doth speak: behold, it is I.” In John 14:9 Jesus put it another way when He
said, “He who hath seen me has seen the
Father.” Because of Jesus Christ all of the guesswork as to what God is
like can cease.
·
Men have wondered if God exits. He lives. He is the God who is there.
·
Men have wondered if God is distinct and separate from His creation.
During the time of religious confusion the Hindus of old decided that God was
not distinct from but was part of creation itself.
7 Now they have known that all things whatsoever thou hast
given me are of thee.
8 For I have given unto them the words which thou gavest me;
and they have received them, and have known surely that I came out from thee,
and they have believed that thou didst send me.
9 I
pray for them: I pray not for the world, but for them which thou hast given me;
for they are thine.
10 And all mine are thine, and thine are mine; and I am
glorified in them.
11 And
now I am no more in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to thee.
Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that
they may be one, as we are.
17:11 Jesus Christ was going away. He knew
it, and the disciples knew it though they did not want to accept the reality of
that concept. Jesus Christ was going away. Very soon the sun would rise over
Palestine and Jesus would not be in the land. The disciples would sit down to
supper. They would look at the place of honor but their Leader would not be at
His familiar place. Jesus Christ was going away.
In the mind of Christ so
near and so certain was His departure from the Earth that He could speak as if
it were an accomplished fact. “And now I
am no more in the world.” And one
day all of God’s people will be able to say the same. One day, as it has been
since Adam, Death will come, the icy fingers of the Grim Reaper will reach
forth to claim the life. But if the heart is prepared, if the heart is right
with God, there will be the ability to say with sadness mixed with anticipation
“And now I am no more in the world.”
For Jesus, not to be in the
world did not mean the cessation of life. That is what Satan and the sons of
Satan would have men believe. Evolutionist and humanity unite with certain
cults to teach that there is no life after death and that the end of creation
is the grave. Because of Christ, the Christian community is persuaded of better
things.
“I am no more
in the world,” said Jesus, “I come unto thee Holy Father.”
The Son came from the Father
and the Son will return to the Father. Here is a great mystery that teaches
there is another dimension of time and space that is yet to be experienced.
There is a place called heaven. The Word of God has many things to say about
heaven.
Heaven is a better country. Hebrews 11:13-15 speaks of martyrs. These all died in faith, not having received
the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and
embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth.
14 For they that say such things declare
plainly that they seek a country. 15 And truly, if they had been mindful of
that country from whence they came out, they might have had opportunity to have
returned.
It is not hard to understand
how heaven can be a better country than the countries of earth. As great and
wonderful as America is when compared to other nations on earth, it pales into
insignificance to the better country of eternal glory for in that country there
is no bloodshed or violence. Mothers do not butcher their babies through the
partial birth abortion process and children do not carry guns to school to
shoot their classmates. In the celestial city women walk without fear of being
molested. There are no liars, nor thieves nor alcoholics. In heaven the voices
of the innocent are heard to laugh and sing. Heaven is a far better country.
Heaven is a place of rest. Hebrews 4:11 Let
us labour therefore to enter into that rest, lest any man fall after the same
example of unbelief.
Heaven is the dwelling place of God. Heaven is much more than the place where
evil is absent and the saints find rest; heaven is the place where Almighty God
dwells. Revelation 22:3 And there shall be no more curse: but the
throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it; and his servants shall serve him:
Now Jesus had already told
the disciples why He had to leave Earth and return to heaven.
First, the Lord had to return to heaven to be honored for His labors. That the Father honored the
Lord is declared in Matthew 28:18, “And
Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven
and in earth.” On the day of Pentecost Peter spoke of the honor that the
Father had bestowed upon the Son.
Once Satan had offered
Christ the kingdoms of this world, but the Lord refused the temptation and
received not only the kingdom of this world, but authority over all heaven and
earth as well. Psalms 2:8 “Ask of me, and
I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of
the earth for thy possession” (cf. Acts 2:25-36).
Then second, Jesus had to return to heaven in order to prepare a home
for His own. John 14:2 “In my Father's house are many
mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for
you.” Someone has said that heaven is a prepared place for a prepared
people. Jesus has prepared for His own a place by entering heaven as a
Representative and taking possession of it on behalf of others.
A.W. Pink writes, “God never has, and never will, take His
people into a place unprepared for them. In Eden, God first ‘planted a garden’
and then
placed Adam in
it. It was the same with Israel when they entered Canaan.’’
Deuteronomy
6:10-11 “And it shall be, when the
LORD thy God shall have brought thee into the land which he sware unto thy fathers,
to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give thee great and goodly cities, which
thou buildedst not, 11 And houses full of all good things, which thou filledst
not, and wells digged, which thou diggedst not, vineyards and olive trees,
which thou plantedst not; when thou shalt have eaten and be full.”
Such is the nature of grace.
While we journey here on earth, Jesus is preparing for us a place in heaven.
But He had to leave the world to go to the Holy Father (John 17:11).
17:11 By using the words “Holy Father,” the Lord indicates that the twofold request He has
is ultimately a work of God’s holiness. The twofold request is for the
preservation and unification of His disciples. The request for preservation is
expressed in the plea “Keep through thine
own name those whom thou has given me.” It is a blessed thought that the
work of our final salvation ultimately rests upon the sustaining power of the
Father. And the prayer of Christ does not diminish the Divine decree of God
whereby He ordains whatsoever shall come to pass.
17:7-11 One of the great religions that Jesus
Christ challenged with His simple declarations was that of Stoicism. Stoicism
had been found 300 years before Christ by Zeno, a native of the city of Citium
[modern Larnaka] in Cyprus. Zeno would stand in the “stoa” or
colonnade at Athens and deliver his philosophy about life.
The three key words of Zeno’s creed were
materialism, monism, and mutation.
Zeno believed that
everything in the universe—every moment of time, every thought of the mind—had
some kind of bodily substance or material. He believed that everything could
ultimately be referred to a single unifying principle (monism). And Zeno taught
that everything is perpetually in process of changing and becoming something
different from what it was before (mutation). According to one professor, “Many of the men who flocked into the
Christian community during the second century had been educated in these
doctrines from their youth.” (Maxwell Staniforth) The teaching of Zeno
would be very acceptable to the youth of today for his concepts are still
pervasion reflected in the teaching of men like Carl
Sagan who speaks of the Cosmos,
eternal Matter, and Education (mutation). Jesus Christ declared that not only
does God exist but also He is distinct from His creation. “I leave the world,” said Christ, “and go to the Father.”
If ever men are to fully
appreciate God the Father, they must look closely at Jesus Christ. Dr. William
Barclay notes, “It is Jesus’ supreme
claim that in Him men see the mind, the character, and the heart of God.”
Not all men see the mind,
the character, and the heart of God and the Bible explains why. Man is born
physically alive but spiritually dead. The natural person is a soul without
spiritual life, without spiritual sight, and without any genuine hope. Every
impulse of the heart, every thought of the imagination, is away from God and is
centered on self.
Society steps in to curb the
natural tendency of the heart to be a god unto itself, lawless and accountable
to no one. Sometimes, society does a pretty good
job. Most of the time it fails. But what
society cannot do, what the home, and the schools cannot do, what the Laws of
the land cannot do for men and women
and young people is to give them true
spiritual life. Only the Almighty God can do that.
This truth does not stop
individuals from trying to change. The bookstores are filled to overflowing
with an endless array of self-improvement books. And yet, for all of the many
writings, the honest heart will confess that something is still needed in the
soul. The Bible calls this need regeneration or the New Birth. Jesus told
Nicodemus, “You must be born again.”
Educated and uneducated
people need to be born again. Good people as well as the dregs of society need
to be born again. Those who enjoy religious privileges need to be born again.
12 While
I was with them in the world, I kept them in thy name: those that thou gavest
me I have kept, and none of them is lost, but the son of perdition; that the
scripture might be fulfilled.
17:12 In our study of the Lord’s high
priestly prayer we have heard many petitions being made on behalf of believers.
We have listened as the honorable Son has asked the Holy Father “to glorify the Son with the same glory
which He had before the world was” (John
17:5). We have listened as Jesus lifted up the saints before the throne of
grace and requested an essential unity be manifested in the body of Christ.
And we have listened as the Good Shepherd has
requested that the sheep of His pasture be protected and kept from a final fall
from grace.
Jesus reminds the Father
that while He was in the world, He kept His sheep through His sustaining power
while depending always upon the essential glory of the Father. The Father had
given to the Son many pearls of Great Price. The Father had given to the Son
many valuable coins. The Father had entrusted to the Son specific sheep, each
one known by name. “And I have kept
them,” said Christ and “none of them
is lost.”
·
Though Thomas doubted, he would not be lost.
·
Though Satan desired to have Peter to sift him as wheat, Peter would
not be lost.
·
Though Matthew was a tax collator and hated by many as a traitor, he
would not be lost.
James and John, the Sons of Thunder, shall also be kept.
Andrew, Philip, Bartholomew, James the son of Alphaeus and Lebaeus whose
surname was Thaddeus as well as Simon the Canaanite, all these have been kept
by Christ so that none are lost—except one who is duly noted, Judas Iscariot.
Judas is called the Son of Perdition
“ for he it was that should betray him,
being one of the twelve” (John 6:71).
In recent years, secular
movies and sacred Bible commentators
have united in an attempt to reinterpret the character of Judas and present him
as a tragic hero. According to one author the great sin of Judas was that he
simply tried to force Jesus to establish His messianic
kingdom along the expected lines by
overthrowing the Roman government and exalting Israel among the nations of the
Earth. According to this view, Judas
knew that Jesus possessed unusual powers and
abilities. Judas simply wanted the Lord to use His divine powers for the good
of Israel. But the composite Biblical picture is different.
According to Scripture Judas was first and last a covetous man. He was intrinsically a
thief. Judas watched carefully over every coin that came near Christ for he,
not Matthew—as one might expect—the treasury.
Second, Judas was a man of outward morality so much so that when Christ
announced that He would be betrayed by one of the Twelve no one looked over at
Judas with
suspicion. There was no outward
evidence that the Prince of Darkness held the heart of Judas captive so that to
him rightly belonged the title Son of
Perdition. To be called a Son of
Perdition means several things.
First to be a Son of Perdition
means that one is not a child or Son of God. Unlike the other disciples who were born
again into the kingdom of God, Judas remained of his father the devil and the
desires of his father he would do. It may very well be that Judas would not
have classified himself as being outside the circle of faith but he was.
·
Did the other disciples work miracles in the name of Jesus? So did
Judas. Did the other disciples preach the gospel of the kingdom? So did Judas.
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Did the other disciples fellowship with the Lord? So did Judas.