A MORSEL OF BREAD

"IT IS THE ONE...

to whom I am going to give this morsel of food after I have dipped it.

So when He had dipped the morsel of bread, He gave it to Judas, Simon Iscariot's son." John 13:26

"SO AFTER RECEIVING...

the bit of bread, he went out immediately..."

and Judas conspired with the Pharisees, selling out Jesus for thirty pieces of silver with one kiss of betrayal beyond the winter torrent of Kidron in the garden there.

When Jesus was taken prisoner--without protest, struggle or defense--Judas went out and hung himself in remorse for the personal loss he encountered for his self-indulgent efforts to direct the destiny of God's Incarnate Son without regard to the Sovereign Almighty Father's hand.

The hand of Jesus.

A cup.  A morsel of Bread.  What will I do with mine?  What will you do with yours?  Do we have any choice in the realm of our Sovereign's will?  Did Judas?

[copyrighted, SelahV Today, 2007]     

Comments

[Richard Coords]

SelahV,

Well written.

Judas was a rebel and a fraud, which Jesus knew from the beginning: "Did I Myself not choose you, the twelve, and yet one of you is a devil?" (John 6:70)

God has a plan for each one of us, and if we refuse to submit to His plan, we suffer loss.

In an unrelated matter, I thought that I would share this:

Adrian Rogers preached a sermon in which he started out by asking, "What is our greatest privilege?"

1) It is to know Him. Yet, Adrian Rogers answered, No. Indeed, that is a wonderful privilege, but not the greatest privilege.

2) It is have your name written in the Lamb's Book of Life. Yet Adrian Rogers said, No. Indeed, what a wonderful privilege, but that's not the greatest privilege.

So, then, what is our greatest privilege? Adrian Rogers answers: It is to worship God. That's our greatest privilege.

[SelahV]

Richard: Adrian Rogers is one of my favorite preachers. Have I told you that before? You and I see Judas in the same light. I'm so grateful for the privilege to worship the King. Especially at this time of year when some folks are touting that there is no need of emphasizing the resurrection. My goodness, where would we be for not the Victory in Jesus through His Resurrection? Oh I know, folks say that all we need is the attoning sacrifice He made on the cross. But if that were all we needed, Jesus would have stayed in the grave, don't you think? Christ's miraculous resurrection was nothing for the Almighty Father to perform. But what a mighty impossible thing for man to perform. Life from death has a parallel to man's death in life to life through death, don't you believe? selahV

[Les Puryear]

The betrayal of Christ was foretold hundreds of years before it happened, therefore, God sovereignly orchestrated this event to happen. The Bible teaches that God worked through Judas to accomplish His will and that Judas was wholly responsible for His choice. God's sovereignty and man's responsiblity is not an "either/or" proposition but a "both/and."

How can both be true? That is one of the wonderful mysteries of God.

Kindest regards,

Les

[SelahV]

Dear Bro. Les: thanks for stopping by my brother. I pray you are well and reveling in this Friday we ponder before resurrection morn. I love the mysteries of God, don't you? The reason I love them is because it shows all the more how incomprehensible the mind of Almighty God is. Man tries so hard to build their towers of babble to explain away or add human wisdom to God's mysteries. I'm so glad I rest in Him and not unto my own understanding of it all. I'd go stark raving mad if I dwelled too long in the sea of philosophy and theory I think.

I do have a question, though, Les. In the prophesies did it say Judas would betray Jesus as a result of God's Sovereign hand? Or did the prophecies foretell what God already foreknew to be the path man would take? I thank you in advance for an answer. I'm not all that familiar with prophecy of the crucifixion other than that in Isaiah and Psalm 22. Are there more specific prophecies you could point me to. selahV

[Richard Coords]

SelahV,

Acts 2:23 states: "This Man, delivered over by the predetermined plan and *foreknowledge* of God, you nailed to a cross by the hands of godless men and put Him to death."

Question: What role did foreknowledge play?

In Calvinism, prophecy = Determinism, such that if God foreknows something, then the person foreknown has no freedom of choice. Let me give you an example of a recent exchange on my Blog concerning the disciple Peter, involving prophecy and free-will:

Anonymous Calvinist: "If Jesus told peter he would deny Him, peter had zero freedom in choosing not to do so. You can claim that God merely foresaw that peter would deny Jesus, but peter had no true 'freedom' to do otherwise."

http://examiningcalvinism.blogspot.com/2007/03/what-is-origin-of-sin.html

My response: "Prescience is not predetermination. It is perfectly logical to say that God, an eternal being, has foreknowledge of someone else's free choice. The real question is whether by telling Peter of his future free choice, that he then had the ability to make a different free choice, and that answer would logically be 'yes.' For instance, if you tell me that by your omniscient foreknowledge that my plane trip to New Jersey is going to crash and burn, then I'm going to use your foreknowledge to make a different free choice, and drive."

Jerry Vines explains: “God’s knowledge of the future doesn’t determine the future any more than man’s knowledge of the past determines the past.” (Calvinism – A Baptist and his election, emphasis mine)

http://www.examiningcalvinism.com/files/RollCall/Vines.html

Essentially, foreknowledge doesn't determine choices. It foreknows them.

The way in which I've treated this in the past, is to ask the Calvinist to give me an anology of what they believe is reflective of their understanding of foreknowledge. Immediately, the Calvinist will say, "Well, I know what your analogy is: God takes out a telescope and peers through a porthole in time." Yet, that misunderstands the Arminian explanation. God is an eternal being. He exists in all time and space. That is the perspective of an eternal being. Therefore, to suggest that God needs a crystall ball is simply not indicative of the nature of God. I always challenge the Calvinist to give me their analogy, and see if it's merely an anology of Determinism.

Now while it may seem like I've used debate tactic #12 LOL but I've actually only touched upon a few points: Foreknowledge, Determinism, The Cross and Peter.

http://peterlumpkins.typepad.com/peter_lumpkins/2007/04/loving_ones_ene.html

[SelahV]

RICHARD: Is your comment longer than my post? Ha ha! LOL. I almost used #22 of the rules of Blog Debate on you but then I chewed on your words a bit more.

Now,I can't believe it, but I think (not positive) but I think I understand what you are saying here. I've always [and I mean every since I was a child] imagined God as one who held the world--time and space--in his palm like I do a ping-pong ball. As I came to a saving knowledge of Jesus and received Him into my heart, I began to see how very small I'd conjured God up to be. Now I see Him more like holding all time and space in the palm of His hand as more like a grain of sand.

And in that grain of sand is all that is, was, and ever will be. That is probably too small a God. I can truly see Him knowing it all and allowing it all, all the while moving the palm of His hand this way and that, balancing His creation and offering new roads paved with correction, bridges of grace and tunnels of love.
I'm sticking with Colin's #6 in the Rules of Blog-debate for this one. lol. selahV

[Richard Coords]

SelahV,

There's more.

Have you ever heard of a term called "Middle Knowledge"?

Read Matthew 11:21-24 and ask yourself this question: How does Jesus know what they would do?

This shows that God not only knows what you WILL do, but also what you WOULD do, given an infinite number of changes affecting you.

I would give you the link to a discussion on this, except that the link will be truncated by the typepad software. So I will have to email you the link:

http://www.examiningcalvinism.com/files/Complaints/cc_providence.html

[Richard Coords]

Also, consider this explanation.

Link:

http://www.examiningcalvinism.com/Gospels.html

Click on John 15:16, as it relates to the discussion on Judas.

[SelahV]

Richard: I'm stuffed. You give me too much. My brain can't handle that much stuff. I'm still trying to figure out what I said and what everyone meant by what they said in Peter's blog. I wrote a bunch of thoughts based on all those so-called tactics and wondered if I was "getting" them at all.

I think God knows all because He is all. And all is created because it suited Him to be Who He is. A creator. I agree with Les (did you read his comment?) in the fact that from long before Judas did what he did, that it was foretold that Jesus would come and die. I've been looking up scriptures on and off for a couple of days now and am still looking for the specific one that states Judas himself was a pre-planned player in the betrayal.

Did Judas really not have a choice in the matter? Could he not have chosen a different path and then the betrayer have been someone else? Are all our choices in life--each of them--orchestrated and divinely planned out? If so, wouldn't that mean that God purposefully made me to desire the thing that made me do wrong, then purposefully placed the temptation in my path so the temptation would be there at the exact time that my desire would give in to very thing He commands me not to do?

This is more than a mystery, Les. This is a quandry. At least it is to me. selahV