In John 17:11-12, Jesus prayed for the continued protection of his disciples, having successfully protected them from the devil while he was with them (Luke 22:31-32). It was just the evidence any disciple of Jesus needs that under Jesus’ care he is eternally secure. He cannot “lose his salvation.”
But Jesus then says at the end of John 17:12 that “None has been lost except the one doomed to destruction.” So a disciple was lost after all, but did “lost” mean Judas lost his salvation too?
Jesus offers a clue in answer to that in John 6:63 when he says to his disciples, “The words I have spoken to you are spirit and life.” But, verse 64, “there are some of you who do not believe that,” and Jesus “knew from the beginning too who didn’t believe and who would betray him.” Jesus’ point being, verse 65, that “no one can come to me unless the Father has enabled him.”
So Judas not believing in Jesus “having the words of eternal life” (68), or that Jesus was “the Holy One of God” (69), shows the Father hadn’t given Judas that belief yet. So how could Judas “lose” his salvation when he had no idea who Jesus really was?
Yes, Jesus had chosen him, verse 70, but he also knew that “one of you is a devil.” Jesus was well aware of Judas’ motives right from the beginning, as he did in everyone he met (John 2:24). And calling Judas a “devil” – a diabolos in Greek – revealed the deceitful, duplicitous nature of the man. On the surface he seemed fine. None of the other disciples suspected anything wrong either, even when Judas didn’t call Jesus “Lord” like they did, and only called him “Rabbi,” just a teacher.
For three years, then, Judas managed to hide his thieving, self-interest motives in a cloak of noble moral superiority. Like the time he objected to Mary’s use of expensive perfume which, he said, “could’ve been sold and the money given to the poor” John 12:3-5. Or given to him, more likely, because he’d been stealing from their own funds all along (6).
So Judas was no example of a disciple losing his salvation, because he was never a believer in Jesus in the first place. In which case, “Why did Jesus choose Judas?” ….(next blog)
Buck To Basics 