Judas' Apostasy in Light of God's FaithfulnessSample

No one can be snatched from Jesus’ hand, but can we walk away on our own?

John 10:28-30: “I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand. I and the Father are one.”

Let us look at John 17:11-12; “I am no longer in the world; and yet they themselves are in the world, and I come to You. Holy Father, keep them in Your name, the name which You have given Me, that they may be one even as We are. While I was with them, I was keeping them in Your name which You have given Me; and I guarded them and not one of them perished but the son of perdition, so that the Scripture would be fulfilled.”

The scripture that was fulfilled is Psalm 41:9, “Even my close friend in whom I trusted, who ate my bread, has lifted his heel against me.”

It is very difficult to walk away from our salvation. If we have received Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, we are indeed eternally secure. The Holy Spirit will do everything He can to stop us from making an awful decision, like Judas, to walk away from real Life.

The key to understanding this awful tragedy is our acceptance or denial of free will. Did Judas have free will, or was he just put in place to perform an evil deed? God gave us free will, because He desired people with whom He could have a real relationship and real fellowship. We are not just playing out a role like puppets in the hands of the master – but we are offered real love and fellowship with the uncreated Creator of the universe – the King of kings and the Lord of lords. God could easily have total sovereignty over us, by having us just play out the roles decided ahead of time for us. The risk of creating us with free will was huge, and God knew we could, and very likely would, mess things up and choose selfishly. That happened with Lucifer who then took a third of the angels of heaven in his rebellion, and it happened again with the first two human beings that He created – Adam and Eve. But the risk was more than worth it, to God, because then for all who would freely receive Him, He could have real fellowship, and a real love relationship. As Christians, we are His Bride, and the beautiful intimacy of that relationship would never have been possible without us having true free will.

Reflection: Do we sometimes take lightly the freedom that God gave us, when He gave us free will? Can we possibly conceive of what that cost Him, and how much He values a true love relationship? If we are that valuable to God, how can we even think of being careless with our choices?