Betrayed by a Friend
Notes
Transcript
18 I am not speaking of all of you; I know whom I have chosen. But the Scripture will be fulfilled, ‘He who ate my bread has lifted his heel against me.’
19 I am telling you this now, before it takes place, that when it does take place you may believe that I am he.
20 Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever receives the one I send receives me, and whoever receives me receives the one who sent me.”
21 After saying these things, Jesus was troubled in his spirit, and testified, “Truly, truly, I say to you, one of you will betray me.”
22 The disciples looked at one another, uncertain of whom he spoke.
23 One of his disciples, whom Jesus loved, was reclining at table at Jesus’ side,
24 so Simon Peter motioned to him to ask Jesus of whom he was speaking.
25 So that disciple, leaning back against Jesus, said to him, “Lord, who is it?”
26 Jesus answered, “It is he to whom I will give this morsel of bread when I have dipped it.” So when he had dipped the morsel, he gave it to Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot.
27 Then after he had taken the morsel, Satan entered into him. Jesus said to him, “What you are going to do, do quickly.”
28 Now no one at the table knew why he said this to him.
29 Some thought that, because Judas had the moneybag, Jesus was telling him, “Buy what we need for the feast,” or that he should give something to the poor.
30 So, after receiving the morsel of bread, he immediately went out. And it was night.
31 When he had gone out, Jesus said, “Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in him.
32 If God is glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself, and glorify him at once.
Introduction: Have you ever been betrayed?
Betrayal happens when there is a relationship of love or trust between people that is broken by the words or actions of one of the people.
Have you ever been betrayed?
I can think of a few times I experienced betrayal:
Many years ago, a girl that I was dating was also carrying on serious relationship with another guy behind my back.
Some of my closest friends walked away from God and from friendship with me.
Being betrayed is one of the worst feelings in the world. And the closer the betrayer is to you, the more it hurts. Whether it’s a family member or a friend, my guess is that we all have felt betrayed at one time or another.
Jesus was no exception.
But Judas’s betrayal of Jesus should not surprise us for at least a couple of reasons.
The Pattern of Betrayal & the Fulfillment of Scripture (v. 18-21)
The Pattern of Betrayal & the Fulfillment of Scripture (v. 18-21)
1. There is a Scriptural pattern of righteous people being betrayed by family members and friends.
Here are 3 examples:
Joseph (Genesis 37:23-28)
Joseph’s brothers hated him because he was his father’s favorite and had received a special coat or robe. His dreams about them bowing down to him didn’t help matters either. They hated him so much that they wanted to kill him, but Reuben kept that from happening. Instead, we read that they took away his special robe, they threw him in a pit, and shortly after that they sold him for 20 shekels of silver to some Midianite traders who took him as a slave to Egypt.
Moses (Exodus 2:11-15; Numbers 12:1-9)
Moses tried to help his fellow Israelites by killing an Egyptian that was beating one of them. But instead of being grateful for his help and recognizing that God had sent him to help them, they got upset at him and spread the word about what he did so that Pharaoh heard about it and drove Moses away from Egypt.
Years later, while Moses was leading the people in the wilderness, Aaron and Miriam, Moses’s siblings, rose up and spoke out against him.
David (Psalm 41; 2 Samuel 15-18)
Perhaps the clearest example, and the one referred to in the passage in John, is David, the king after God’s own heart. His own son Absalom rose up against him and drove him out of Jerusalem, took over the kingdom, and tried to kill his father David. David’s counselor and friend, Ahithophel, joined the conspiracy against David, abandoned his old friend and even tried to get him killed.
So there is a clear pattern in Scripture of those who love God and who seek to follow him being betrayed by people close to them. So it shouldn’t surprise us when we get to Jesus that this is happening to him too.
2. The Scripture had foretold that the Messiah would be betrayed by someone close to him.
Another reason we should not be surprised is that the Scriptures had predicted this.
In John 13:18, Jesus is quoting from Psalm 41, a Psalm of David.
18 I am not speaking of all of you; I know whom I have chosen. But the Scripture will be fulfilled, ‘He who ate my bread has lifted his heel against me.’
When David says in Psalm 41:9,
9 Even my close friend in whom I trusted, who ate my bread, has lifted his heel against me.
He is most likely referring to his friend and counselor, Ahithophel, or possibly also Absalom.
Psalm 55:12-14 may also be referring to this same betrayal:
12 For it is not an enemy who taunts me— then I could bear it; it is not an adversary who deals insolently with me— then I could hide from him. 13 But it is you, a man, my equal, my companion, my familiar friend. 14 We used to take sweet counsel together; within God’s house we walked in the throng.
Jesus spells it out for his disciples in v. 21,
21 After saying these things, Jesus was troubled in his spirit, and testified, “Truly, truly, I say to you, one of you will betray me.”
It would be one of the Twelve - one of the Apostles whom Jesus had chosen to be with him and participate in his ministry over the past 3 years. One of those closest to him who had heard his teaching, witnessed his miracles, and even performed miracles himself.
John has been giving us hints about this all along:
64 But there are some of you who do not believe.” (For Jesus knew from the beginning who those were who did not believe, and who it was who would betray him.)
70 Jesus answered them, “Did I not choose you, the twelve? And yet one of you is a devil.” 71 He spoke of Judas the son of Simon Iscariot, for he, one of the twelve, was going to betray him.
4 But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples (he who was about to betray him), said,
2 During supper, when the devil had already put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon’s son, to betray him,
11 For he knew who was to betray him; that was why he said, “Not all of you are clean.”
Later on in John’s Gospel, in Jesus’s high priestly prayer, he again says that Judas’s betrayal is the fulfillment of Scripture:
12 While I was with them, I kept them in your name, which you have given me. I have guarded them, and not one of them has been lost except the son of destruction, that the Scripture might be fulfilled.
So this really should not catch us by surprise. At the same time, this is a very shocking thing.
The Confusion of the Disciples & the Eyewitness Account (v. 22-29)
The Confusion of the Disciples & the Eyewitness Account (v. 22-29)
In v. 22 the disciples are shocked and confused by this news.
22 The disciples looked at one another, uncertain of whom he spoke.
Peter was so shocked by this that he didn’t even want to ask out loud (and remember, he’s the one who’s always talking and asking questions out loud!)
24 so Simon Peter motioned to him to ask Jesus of whom he was speaking.
Even when Jesus indicated that it was Judas, the rest of the disciples still did not understand what was happening.
28 Now no one at the table knew why he said this to him. 29 Some thought that, because Judas had the moneybag, Jesus was telling him, “Buy what we need for the feast,” or that he should give something to the poor.
They thought maybe Judas was going to buy supplies for the feast of unleavened bread, celebrated right after the Passover, or else that he was going out to give alms to the poor. Typically this was not something people would do at night except at Passover. It was considered especially virtuous to give alms at Passover, and even more especially in the holy city, Jerusalem, and poor people would often gather near the Temple to receive these gifts. So this was not a terrible assumption, since Judas was in charge of the money, but they were completely wrong.
The Introduction of the “Disciple Whom Jesus Loved”- one of many evidences in John that the author was one of Jesus’s apostles, an eyewitness of what he writes.
This passage is the first time in John that references the “disciple whom Jesus loved.”
We know from John 21:24 that the disciple whom Jesus loved is the one who wrote this Gospel. And almost all the evidence points to John.
24 This is the disciple who is bearing witness about these things, and who has written these things, and we know that his testimony is true.
John enjoyed a close personal relationship with Jesus (he may even have been a cousin or some other family relation of Jesus)
Compare v. 23 with John 1:18. John was “at Jesus’s side” (literally, in the bosom of Jesus), and Jesus, the Son of God is “at the Father’s side” (literally, in the bosom of the Father). Jesus enjoyed intimate relationship with the Father, and John enjoyed the same closeness with Jesus as his follower and friend.
23 One of his disciples, whom Jesus loved, was reclining at table at Jesus’ side,
18 No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known.
This disciple whom Jesus loved is the one who asked Jesus who would betray him and received his response.
25 So that disciple, leaning back against Jesus, said to him, “Lord, who is it?” 26 Jesus answered, “It is he to whom I will give this morsel of bread when I have dipped it.” So when he had dipped the morsel, he gave it to Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot.
Yet it appears that even John didn’t understand what was going on despite getting this information from Jesus.
But the particular details recorded here show us clearly that this is an eyewitness account. This is not a made - up story. The details of this story point to an eyewitness —the disciple whom Jesus loved, who is recording this information for us.
The Power of Darkness & the Glory of God (v. 30-32)
The Power of Darkness & the Glory of God (v. 30-32)
John isn’t just telling us the time of day when he tells us that Judas went out into the night.
30 So, after receiving the morsel of bread, he immediately went out. And it was night.
“Night” in John refers to “darkness”, which indicates the worldly and even Satanic opposition to Jesus and his work.
John 1:5 told us that the light — Jesus— is shining in the darkness (sinful world, Satan’s opposition) and the darkness has not overcome it, though it has tried.
5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
In John 9, Jesus told his disciples of the night that was coming — the dark hour of his death.
4 We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming, when no one can work. 5 As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”
Many other times in John and elsewhere, night or darkness refers to the evil forces of Satan and his demons who are fighting against God.
53 When I was with you day after day in the temple, you did not lay hands on me. But this is your hour, and the power of darkness.”
From the beginning after his fall, Satan has been working against God. After the Fall of Adam and Eve into sin, God cursed the serpent, whom we know is Satan, and said:
15 I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.”
Satan has been working against God and trying to destroy the seed of the woman since the beginning, and now he’s here. The Messiah is here - the one who came to save his people from their sins. This is Satan’s greatest and final opportunity to try to destroy him.
That’s why John tells us it was night. This was the hour Jesus came for, and it was the time when darkness would seem to have the victory.
But even as the light seems to be swallowed up by the darkness, it is then that the light overcomes the darkness.
But God’s glory shines even brighter in the darkness.
This is what we see in v. 31-32:
31 When he had gone out, Jesus said, “Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in him. 32 If God is glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself, and glorify him at once.
Every part of Jesus’s life was for the glory of God.
A few weeks ago I said that “The glory of God is the character or attributes of God - the amazing reality of who he is...”
So when Jesus says that he is glorified and God is glorified in him, he means that both in Judas’s betrayal of him and all the coming suffering and death on the cross and all that would follow, God would be shown to be supreme — in all of these things, Jesus would “display the immeasurable value and beauty of God so that our souls might find joy and satisfaction in him forever.”
At the cross and in all of Jesus’s life we see God’s character on display: his holiness, his justice, his mercy, his love, his wrath, his kindness, his goodness, his patience, and everything else that God is. Because Jesus is God in human flesh - he is the radiance of the glory of God, Hebrews 1:3 tells us. Jesus will tell his disciples in ch. 14 that because they have seen him, they have seen God. To see Jesus is to see God, not just because Jesus is God, but because Jesus is God in the flesh - God made visible for us to see and hear.
So in the betrayal by Judas and in all of the coming events of Jesus’s suffering, death, burial, resurrection, appearances to his disciples, and ascension, he was glorified and he glorified the Father, because in all these things he demonstrated to his disciples and to us the immeasurable value and worth of who God is, and it is by beholding the glory of God in the face of Christ that we are saved and transformed into his image.
And Jesus succeeded where Israel failed.
God said in Isaiah 49:3
3 And he said to me, “You are my servant, Israel, in whom I will be glorified.”
The nation of Israel of course failed miserably in demonstrating the glory of God, but Jesus did this perfectly, and so proved to be the true Israel, the Son of God who always glorified God.
v.19
I want to return here as we conclude to v. 19, which I didn’t comment on earlier.
Why did Jesus tell all of his apostles what Judas was about to do? Why did he remind them that this was the fulfillment and pattern of Scripture?
19 I am telling you this now, before it takes place, that when it does take place you may believe that I am he.
The word “he” at the end of the verse is added, but it’s not there in the Greek. Literally it says,
“I am telling you this now, before it takes place, that when it does take place you may believe that I AM.”
This is almost certainly a reference to the divine name, God’s covenant name, Yahweh (from Exodus 3:14)
Jesus wants to demonstrate to his apostles the reality of who he is — that he is God.
Who else can foretell the future? We don’t know for certain what will happen to us in the next hour.
This kind of knowledge belongs only to God.
So by making this prediction, he is demonstrating the glory of God in his amazing power, sovereignty, knowledge, and wisdom.
And what does Jesus say is his desire for the other apostles?
“That you may believe”
Does that sound familiar?
This is what the whole Gospel of John has been about.
We see this combination of the glory of God and the desired result of faith in John 2 after Jesus’s first sign.
11 This, the first of his signs, Jesus did at Cana in Galilee, and manifested his glory. And his disciples believed in him.
And of course John’s purpose statement in ch. 20:
31 but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.
Not only the signs, but all that John wrote in his Gospel, is intended to make us believe that Jesus is who he says he is - he is the Messiah from the line of David, he is the Son of God, God the Son.
If you will trust in him with a persevering faith, you will have life in his name.
Application
Application
Believe that Jesus is who he says he is— he is the Messiah, and he is God.
If you ever feel betrayed, draw near to Jesus and experience his comfort. He can relate to you because He too was betrayed.
15 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. 16 Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.