Replacing Judas
Published by Stanley Pouw in 2022 · 12 June 2022
Let us study Acts 1:12 all the way down to the end. The goal of God and the history of redemption is right on schedule. Redemption has so far had three great elements. Jesus has fulfilled all the promises of the Old Testament. Next is the four gospels which tell of Jesus arrival and His accomplishments, His death and resurrection and then His departure to go back to heaven.
Acts is the history of redemption, God’s continuing work as the apostles preach the gospel and established churches to gather the believers and equip them to continue to fulfill the Great Commission. And this section goes on being written through all of human history until the return of Christ. So Luke is showing us that God’s plan always continues, as promised in the Old Testament.
When we come to verses 12 to 26 we come to the situation regarding Judas. Not even the most horrendous apostasy by one of the 12 apostles of Jesus Christ can delay or thwart the continuing progress of God’s plan. It was predicted in the Old Testament, predicted by Jesus, and it came to pass. And it does not damage God’s purpose. God’s purpose unfolds exactly as God designed it.
It was Judas originally who delivered Christ into the hands of His Jewish enemies. But then subsequently Jesus was delivered by the Jews to the Romans and to death as a part of God’s plan. Everybody who had a role in arresting Jesus, trying Jesus, and executing Jesus was fulfilling God’s predetermined plan. All the people who condemned Jesus were fulfilling prophecy.
But that in no way lessens the guilt of Judas any more than it lessens the guilt of the Jews, than it lessens the guilt of the Gentiles who were all complicit in His death. Now in preparing the apostles for their role in redemptive history; God gave us Ephesians 2:20, where the apostles and prophets are the foundation of the church. Jesus spent time during the 40 days in verses 9 - 11 preparing them.
And He defined the mission to be witnesses. We’re living in a time that is more like the experience of the early church. The world in which the first Christian lived was brutal, totally pagan and openly anti-Christian. There was no morality of cultural Christianity. So persecution was happening to them everywhere. To embrace Christ often meant signing one’s own death warrant.
What was the church doing that caused such hostile treatment and persecution? They preached the words of Jesus about God becoming incarnate. The message was simple and clear: if you don’t repent and believe in Him you’re going to hell forever. They were confronting sin and calling people to deny themselves. They were preaching a gospel that was offensive both to Jews and Gentiles.
Where are we today? There is no more cultural Christianity. There is no collective Christian consensus wielding any significant power in this country. The more biblically true Christians are and the more they speak and live that way, the more they are going to be labeled as extremists, homophobic, intolerant and guilty of hate crimes. We’re now aliens in every country.
As the façade of cultural Christianity is crumbling, true Christianity is starting to stand out in a way it hasn’t in our lifetime. Scripture teaches and church history confirms that the body of Christ is most potent and most effective when it simply speaks and lives the gospel without apology. With the mask of a superficial Christianity gone, the gospel advances by personal witness one soul at a time.”
So the apostles and the prophets are the first generation of preachers. They are the foundation of the church. Subsequently, evangelists and teaching pastors took their place. This is a unique calling from God. There are only 12 apostles with the addition of the apostle Paul at a later time. God gifts them with miraculous gifts, signs, wonders and gifts of an apostle.
2 Corinthians 12:12 says, “Why do they have the ability to do signs and wonders?” So that they can validate that they are the true representatives of God by the signs that they do. Judas, you noticed, was not listed there in the names that are given in verse 13. He’s already unmasked. He’s already out of the picture. But God had designed 12, and the ranks need to be filled in.
Luke ends it this way, “After worshiping Him, they returned to Jerusalem with great joy and were continually in the temple praising God.” So they’re waiting in Jerusalem. Acts 1:12 picks the story up right there. “They returned to Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet,” where Jesus ascended into heaven. And that’s how Acts begins, “which is near Jerusalem, a Sabbath day’s journey.”
A Sabbath day’s journey is an actual measurement. It started out as the distance a Jew was permitted to travel on the Sabbath. You weren’t supposed to do anything that was like work. So they put restrictions how far you could walk. It’s about 2, 000 cubits, which would be 3,000 feet, which is a little bit over half a mile. That is as far as you could walk according to the rabbis.
This is not in the Mosaic Law. But the rabbis made this up. The tabernacle was always placed at the center of the camp. And on the Sabbath they had to walk to worship. Since the furthest of them had to get to the tabernacle on the Sabbath it became acceptable to walk about a half a mile. So the Mount of Olives is about half a mile from the city gate of the city of Jerusalem.
Verse 13, “And when they had entered, they went up into the upper room where they were staying: Peter, James, John, Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew, Matthew, James the son of Alphaeus, Simon the Zealot and Judas the son of James. This was the same upper chamber where they met for the Passover. And also the same room where they were all in fear, when Jesus appeared.
And the same place where eight days later Jesus showed up again. Some exciting things happened in that upper room. Judas, who was mentioned the son of James, is a different Judas. What were they doing there? Well, they were waiting because they were told to wait. So “they were devoting themselves to prayer, along with the women, Mary, the mother of Jesus, and with His brothers.”
And what do we know about His brothers? In John 7:5, they didn’t believe, right? His brothers are James, Joseph, Simeon and Jude. He's not an apostle; this is James, the brother of our Lord. 1 Corinthian 15:7 says, “He appeared to more than 500 brethren at the one time, and He appeared to James, then to all the apostles.” James had a personal appearance of Jesus, which was rare.
Jesus’ post-resurrection appearance to James was what brought James to faith in his half-brother Jesus. And the conversion of James led to the conversion of the rest of the brothers. James becomes the head of the Jerusalem church, and he writes James, a wonderful epistle. And another of His half-brothers, Jude, writes the epistle of Jude. This is the initial beginning of the salvation of his brothers.
Verse 14, “These all continued with one accord in prayer and supplication, with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with His brothers.” Now Jesus’ brothers who previously didn’t believe and all the women were waiting for the Holy Spirit to come. Nobody was worshiping Mary, the mother of Jesus. She’s not identified as having a place of superiority. They are all kneeling, because verse 15 says that Peter stood up.
Mary was kneeling like all the rest, expressing as great a need as theirs. Back in her Magnificat in Luke 1:47, she praised God, as my Savior. She needs a savior. And this is the last mention of Mary in Scripture. When the Holy Spirit was poured out in Acts 2, she too was placed into the body of Christ as a redeemed Christian, like any other believer. Mary had no part in redemption.
What were they praying for? They’re together in persistent, single-hearted prayer. Jesus said, “Wait until I send the Holy Spirit.” That was a fact. But Pentecostalism and the charismatic movement is based on the notion that the baptism of the Holy Spirit is given to believers who ask for it. That is wrong. The coming of the Holy Spirit on any believer is based on God’s sovereign will.
Verse 15 - 17, “And in those days Peter stood up in the midst of the disciples (altogether the number of names was about a hundred and twenty), and said, 16 “Men and brethren, this Scripture had to be fulfilled, which the Holy Spirit spoke before by the mouth of David concerning Judas, who became a guide to those who arrested Jesus; 17 for he was numbered with us and obtained a part in this ministry.”
Here we learned there were 120 of them. That’s a small start to reach the world, isn’t it? So this little group of disciples submitted to the Lord. They did exactly what He told them to do. The second thing we see here is the suicide of a disciple, Judas. Peter says, “Brethren, the Scripture had to be fulfilled.” This is the first time the disciples are seeing things from an Old Testament perspective.
But once they got through those 40 days of instruction that really began the day He rose and went on Emmaus road and opened the Old Testament, the Moses, and the Law and the prophets and the holy writings and explained all the things concerning Himself to those on the road to Emmaus, in Luke 24. Then, later that same night, He went to the upper room and did it all over again. They get it.
Peter is showing us that they now are making all the connections. “Brethren, the Scripture had to be fulfilled what the Holy Spirit foretold by the mouth of David concerning Judas.” Wow, there are even prophecies by David, the psalmist, about Judas. Psalm 41:9, “Even my close friend, in whom I trusted, who ate my bread, has lifted up his heel against Me.”
David is speaking about the betrayal. Jesus knew Judas was that familiar friend. Judas made Judas what he was. But God planned Judas into the redemptive scheme. He was allowed to be an apostle to play a role. Everybody in that situation was a God-ordained player, whether it was Annas or Caiaphas or Pilate or Herod, they all had a part. They all fit in as part of the scheme.
Judas did exactly what the Old Testament said he would do. He did exactly what his evil heart wanted to do. It’s amazing how sinners think that by not coming to God they somehow operate in freedom. Everybody’s freedoms are within the sovereign power, purpose and providence of God. So when Judas did what he did, the Old Testament was validated, the Holy Spirit being its author.
What happened to Judas? Verse 18 - 19, “(Now this man purchased a field with the wages of iniquity; and falling headlong, he burst open in the middle and all his entrails gushed out. 19 And it became known to all those dwelling in Jerusalem; so that field is called in their own language, Akel Dama, that is, Field of Blood.) He got his 30 pieces of silver, but Matthew 27 says, he went back and threw it on the ground.
Blood money burned in his hands like hot coals. The leaders took the money and bought a field with it. And apparently he went to that place, and tried to hang himself. The rope broke and he fell and all his intestines came out. There Judas went to die. Verse 20, “For it is written in the Book of Psalms, “Let his dwelling place be desolate, and let no one live in it and let another take his office.”
Verse 21 - 22, “Therefore, of these men who have accompanied us all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, 22 beginning from the baptism of John to that day when He was taken up from us, one of these must become a witness with us of His resurrection.” There has to be an eyewitness, who accompanied us all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us.
Which tells us that Jesus traveled not only with the 12 but with others who believed in Him. Somebody who was there at the beginning when John the Baptist baptized Jesus down at the Jordan until the day of His ascension, one who was a witness of all of it including His resurrection. He had to be an eyewitness of the life and ministry of Jesus. But he also had to be chosen by God.
Verse 23 - 25, “And they proposed two: Joseph called Barsabas, who was surnamed Justus, and Matthias. 24 And they prayed and said, “You, O Lord, who know the hearts of all, show which of these two You have chosen 25 to take part in this ministry and apostleship from which Judas by transgression fell, that he might go to his own place.” How’s God going to do that?
Verse 26, “And they cast their lots, and the lot fell on Matthias. And he was numbered with the eleven apostles.” The other guy accepted the divine choice. This is one of the ways that God revealed His will. The last of the Old Testament ways of doing things because there are no more lots past the day of Pentecost in the Bible. Matthias means “gift of the Lord.” Now it’s complete.
What about Matthias? Well, the historical record is that he preached in Judea and he preached in Colchis, which is the Republic of Georgia on the Black Sea that was once a part of the Soviet Union. And he preached so powerfully and so effectively that he was stoned to death. So his ending was like almost all the other apostles. And if you go to that area you can find his grave site.
Whatever God decides will come to pass not only in Scripture but also in our lives. Because God is all knowing He knows what will happen years from now. Psalm 139:16 says, “Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed, and in Your book they all were written, the days fashioned for me, when as yet there were none of them.” Don’t be afraid and don’t worry, God is in charge. Let us pray.