God Conquered Sin through
Sin
“Then Satan entered into Judas called Iscariot,
who was of the number of the twelve. He went away and conferred with the chief
priests and officers how he might betray him to them. And they were glad, and
agreed to give him money. So he consented and sought an opportunity to betray
him to them in the absence of a crowd.” (Luke 22:3–6)
The Murder of Jesus :
The most spectacular sin that has ever been
committed in the history of the world is the brutal murder of Jesus Christ,
the morally perfect, infinitely worthy, divine Son of God. And probably the
most despicable act in the process of this murder was the betrayal of Jesus by
one of his closest friends, Judas Iscariot.
Judas was one of the twelve
apostles whom Jesus had personally chosen and who had been with Jesus during
his entire public ministry. He had been entrusted with the moneybag for the
whole group (John 13:29). He was close enough to Jesus at the Last Supper to be
dipping bread with him in the same cup (Mark 14:20).
“Satan Entered into Judas”
On the night of the Last
Supper, Luke tells us in Luke 22:3–6 that “Satan entered into Judas. . . . He
went away and conferred with the chief priests and officers how he might betray
[Jesus] to them. And they were glad, and agreed to give him money. So he
consented and sought an opportunity to betray him to them in the absence of a
crowd.” Later he led the authorities to Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane and
betrayed Jesus with a kiss (Luke 22:47–48). With that, Jesus’ death was sealed.
When Luke tells us in verse 3 that “Satan entered
into Judas,” several questions come to our minds. One is whether Satan simply
mastered a good Judas or whether Judas was already walking sinfully in step with
Satan, and Satan simply decided that now was the time. Another question is why
Satan would do this, since the death and resurrection of Jesus would result in
Satan’s final defeat, and there is good reason to think that Satan knew that.
And the third and most important question is: Where was God when this happened?
What was his role or non-role in the most spectacular sin that ever was? Let’s
take these questions one at a time.
Satan’s
Power in Judas’ Sinful Passions
When it says in Luke 22:3 that “Satan entered into
Judas,” how are we to think about the will of Judas and the power of Satan?
Judas was not an innocent bystander when Satan entered into him. The apostle
John tells us in John 12:6 that he was a “thief.” When Judas complained that
Mary had wasted money in anointing Jesus, John comments, “He said this, not
because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief, and having charge
of the moneybag he used to help himself to what was put into it.”
Paul tells us how that works together with Satan’s
power. Listen to Ephesians 2:1–3: “You were dead in the trespasses and sins in
which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince
of the power of the air [notice the connection: dead in sins, following
Satan], the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—among
whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires
of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest
of mankind.”
Dead in our sins, walking in the passions of the
flesh, fulfilling the desires of body and mind, and therefore following
the prince of the power of the air.
Satan does not take innocent people captive. There
are no innocent people. Satan has power where sinful passions hold sway. Judas
was a lover of money, and he covered it with a phony, external relationship
with Jesus. And then he sold him for thirty pieces of silver.
How many of his ilk are still around today! Don’t
be one. And don’t be duped by one.
Satan’s Role
in His Own Destruction
The second question is why Satan would lead Judas
to betray Jesus. Didn’t he know that the death and resurrection of Jesus would
result in his final defeat (Col. 2:13–15; Rev. 12:11)? There is good reason to
think Satan knew that.
When Jesus began his ministry on the way to the
cross, Satan tried to turn him away from the path of suffering and sacrifice.
In the wilderness, he tempted him to turn stones into bread and jump off the
temple and get the rulership of the world by worshiping him (Matt. 4:1–11).
The point of all these temptations is: “Don’t walk the path of suffering and
sacrifice and death. Use your power to escape suffering. If you’re the Son of
God, show your right to reign. And I can help you do it. Whatever you do, don’t
go to the cross.”
And remember the time when Jesus predicted he would
suffer many things from the elders and the chief priests and be killed, and
Peter rebuked him and said, “Far be it from you, Lord! This shall never happen
to you” (Matt. 16:22). In other words, I will never let you be killed like
that.
Jesus did not commend Peter. He said, “Get behind
me, Satan! You are a hindrance to me. For you are not setting your mind on the
things of God, but on the things of man” (Matt. 16:23). Hindering Jesus from
going to the cross was the work of Satan. Satan did not want Jesus crucified.
It would be his undoing.
But here he is in Luke 22:3 entering into Judas and
leading him to betray the Lord and bring him to the cross. Why the about-face?
Why try to divert him from the cross and then take the initiative to bring him
to the cross? We are not told. Here is my effort at an answer.
Satan saw that his efforts to divert Jesus from the
cross had failed. Time after time Jesus kept the course. His face was set like
flint to die (Luke 9:51, 53), and Satan concluded that there was no stopping
him. Therefore, he resolved that if he couldn’t stop it, he would at least make
it as ugly and painful and as heartbreaking as possible. Not just death, but
death by betrayal. Death by abandonment. Death by denial (Luke 22:31–34).
Death by torture. If he could not stop it, he would drag others into it and do
as much damage as he could. It was a spectacular sequence of sins that brought
Jesus to the cross.
God’s Role
in the Murder of His Son
The third and final question—the most important
one: What was God’s role or non-role in the most spectacular sin that ever
happened—the murder of Jesus Christ?
God himself has shown us in his word. And the first
thing he shows us is that the details surrounding the death of Jesus were
prophesied in God’s word hundreds of years before they happened.
The Scriptures show that evil men would reject
Jesus when he came. “Jesus said to
them [quoting Psalm 118:22], ‘Have you never read in the Scriptures: “The stone
that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; this was the Lord’s
doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes”?’” (Matt. 21:42).
The Scriptures showed that Jesus must be hated. Jesus quoted Psalm 35:19 and said, “The word that
is written in their Law must be fulfilled: ‘They hated me without a cause’”
(John 15:25).
The Scriptures showed that the disciples would
abandon Jesus. Jesus quotes Zechariah 13:7: “You will all fall
away because of me this night. For it is written, ‘I will strike the shepherd,
and the sheep of the flock will be scattered’” (Matt. 26:31).
The Scriptures showed that Jesus would be pierced,
but none of his bones would be broken. John
quotes Psalm 34:20 and Zechariah 12:10 and says, “One of the soldiers pierced
his side with a spear. . . . For these things took place that the Scripture
might be fulfilled: ‘Not one of his bones will be broken.’ And again another
Scripture says, ‘They will look on him whom they have pierced’” (John
19:34–37).
The Scriptures showed that Jesus would be betrayed
by a close friend for thirty pieces of silver. Jesus cites Psalm 41:9 and says, “I am not speaking
of all of you; I know whom I have chosen. But the Scripture will be fulfilled,
‘He who ate my bread has lifted his heel against me’” (John 13:18). In Matthew
26:24, Jesus says, “The Son of Man goes as it is written of him, but woe to
that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed!” And Matthew 27:9–10 says, “Then
was fulfilled what had been spoken by the prophet Jeremiah, saying, ‘And they
took the thirty pieces of silver, the price of him on whom a price had been set
by some of the sons of Israel, and they gave them for the potter’s field, as
the Lord directed me’” (Jer. 19:1–13; Zech. 11:12–13).
And not only the Scriptures, but Jesus himself
declared, down to the details, how he would be killed. In Mark 10:33–34 he says, “See, we are going up to
Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and
the scribes, and they will condemn him to death and deliver him over to the
Gentiles. And they will mock him and spit on him, and flog him and kill him.
And after three days he will rise.” And on that last night, Jesus looked at
Peter and said, “Truly, I tell you, this very night, before the rooster crows,
you will deny me three times” (Matt. 26:34).
According to
His Sovereign Will
From all these prophecies, we know that God foresaw
and did not prevent and therefore included in his plan that his Son would be
rejected, hated, abandoned, betrayed, denied, condemned, spit upon, flogged,
mocked, pierced, and killed. All these were explicitly in God’s mind before
they actually happened as things that he planned would happen to Jesus. These
things did not just happen. They were foretold in God’s word. God knew they
would happen and could have planned to stop them, but didn’t. So they happened
according to his sovereign will. His plan.
And all of them were evil. They were sin. It is
surpassingly sinful to reject, hate, abandon, betray, deny, condemn, spit upon,
flog, mock, pierce, and kill the morally perfect, infinitely worthy, divine Son
of God. And yet the Bible is explicit and clear that God himself planned these
things. This is explicit not only in all the prophetic texts we have seen, but
also in passages that say even more plainly that God ordained that these things
come to pass.
God Brought
It to Pass
For example, Isaiah 53:6, 10 says, “All we like
sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord
has laid on him the iniquity of us all. . . . It was the will of the Lord
to crush him; he has put him to grief.” The Lord crushed him.
God was at work in all the circumstances that brought Jesus to the cross.
Behind the spitting and flogging and mocking and piercing is the invisible hand
and plan of God.
And I say that carefully and with trembling. This
truth is too big and too weighty and too shocking to be glib about or to be
cocky about. I choose to say that the invisible hand and plan of God are
behind these most spectacular sins in all the universe—more grievous and more
spectacular than the Fall of Satan or any other sins. The reason I use these
very words is because the Bible says it in these very words.
The Hand and
Plan of God
In Acts 4:27–28 we have the clearest, most explicit
statement about God’s hand and plan behind the horrific crucifixion of his Son.
“Truly in this city there were gathered together against your holy servant
Jesus, whom you anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the
Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, to do whatever your hand and your plan
had predestined to take place.” Those are the two words I am using: the hand
of God and the plan of God.
It is a strange way of speaking—to say that God’s hand
and plan have predestined something to happen. One does not ordinarily
think of God’s “hand” predestining. How does a hand predestine? Here’s what I
think it means: The hand of God ordinarily stands for God’s exerted power—not
power in the abstract, but earthly, effective exertions of power. The point of
combining it with “plan” is to say that it is not just a theoretical plan; it
is a plan that will be executed by God’s own hand.
This explains Isaiah 53:10: “It was the will of the
Lord to
bruise him; he has put him to grief.” Or more literally, with the King James
Version, “It pleased the Lord to bruise him; he hath put him to grief.” The Lord
bruised him. Behind Herod and Pilate and the Gentiles and the people of Israel
was Jesus’ own Father who loved him with an infinite love.
The Gospel:
God at Work in Death
Why should this matter to you? It should matter
because if God were not the main Actor in the death of Christ, then the death
of Christ could not save us from our sins, and we would perish in hell forever
(Matt. 25:46; 2 Thess. 1:9). The reason the death of Christ is the heart of the
gospel—the heart of the good news—is that God was doing it. Romans 5:8: “God
shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for
us.” If you separate God’s activity from the death of Jesus, you lose the
gospel. This was God’s doing. It is the highest and deepest point of his love
for sinners. His love for you.
Romans 8:3: “Sending his own Son in the
likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh.” God
condemned sin in Jesus’ flesh with our condemnation. So we are free.
Galatians 3:13: “Christ redeemed us from the curse
of the law by becoming a curse for us.” God cursed Jesus with the curse
that belonged on us. So we are free.
2 Corinthians 5:21: “For our sake he [God]
made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness
of God.” God imputed our sin to him, and now we go free in God’s righteousness.
Isaiah 53:5: “He was wounded for our
transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities.” God wounded him. God
crushed him. For you and me. And we go free.
The Cross of
Christ: The Work and Love of God
The reason why this book
matters is this. If you embrace the biblical truth (and I pray you will) that
God ordains spectacular sins for the global glory of his Son, without God in
any way becoming unholy or unrighteous or sinful in that act, then you will not
shrink back from the cross of Christ as a work of God. You will not be among
the number of those who call the world’s most loving act “divine child abuse.”
You will come to the cross and fall on your face. And you will say: This is no
mere human conspiracy. This is the work of God and the love of God. You will
receive it as his highest gift. And you will be saved. And Christ will be
glorified. And I will not have written in vain.
(Taken, & shortened to
suite my readers, From ‘Judas
Iscariot, the Suicide of Satan, and the Salvation of the World’ in ‘S P E C T A C U L A R S I N S ‘ by John Piper’s Sermon. ©2013 Desiring God Foundation.
Website: desiringGod.org)
