Jaw-dropping Jewels about Jesus
Rarely does Jesus, God the Son, do exactly what we expect of Him. It seems odd that He so frequently surprises us, given that He never changes. Hebrews 13:8 makes this absolute statement: “Jesus the same yesterday, and today, and forever.” Still, though He is blessedly consistent in His goodness, Jesus does unforeseen things. Even when He does what is expected, He does not always do it in the way that we anticipate. Let us join with Jesus on a jaw-dropping journey. (I will be using this opening paragraph for each of the brief messages in this series. The following material will change daily.)
Why does Jesus select “Judas Iscariot, [who] also betrayed Him” (Mark 3:19a) as an apostle? Certainly his negative example is a forceful warning to all people at all times. I think of the penultimate sentence of John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress: “Then I saw that there was a way to Hell, even from the Gates of Heaven, as well as from the City of Destruction.” Judas, as close to Jesus as anyone could be, exemplifies Bunyan’s sad insight. However, Jesus would not have selected Judas (or anyone else) merely to turn him into a tragic lesson, for everything that He does is designed to bring us to repentance: He is “not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance” (II Peter 3:9c). Romans 5:8 reveals the scope of Jesus’ love: “But God commendeth His love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” This demonstration of sacrificial love is to and for Judas as well as us. He repeatedly rejects the overtures of the Savior, but Jesus still reaches out to him. If Jesus had not chosen Judas as an apostle, he would not have had these opportunities. His selection, then, is another indication of the grace of God. The fact that Judas spurns this grace does not diminish it. Rather, it highlights “the breadth, and length, and depth, and height” (Ephesians 3:18b) of the love of Jesus, Who does everything possible to bring this traitor to eternal salvation.