31 Days of Holiness: Day Nine

[BASSENCO]

They answered him, Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus saith unto them, I am [he]. And Judas also, which betrayed him, stood with them. As soon then as he had said unto them, I am [he], they went backward, and fell to the ground. John 18:5-6

The word "he" is added to both expressions of "I am" by the translator in the KJV, an error in the text. What the Lord Jesus actually said when the soldiers told Him they sought Jesus of Nazareth was "I am," the name of God.

Not every revelation of God is spell-binding, and not everybody who is given a revelation comes to believe. The soldiers came to arrest and bind their prisoner. He answered them with a divine revelation of His identity: I AM. Note what the text says: Even the man who had traveled with Christ, His betrayer, stood with the soldiers, and the instant that Christ named Himself with His godhood, they all fell to the ground.

The Lord Jesus controlled the confrontation. They did not get up until He questioned them, as was His prerogative. And He ordered them to spare His disciples. Peter, not appreciating that this demonstration of power was not pointed at escape, charged the soldiers with a sword as they got to their feet and struck of the ear of one of the soldiers, Malchus. And he, in his turn, was rebuked by Christ, and Christ healed Malchus.

So the soldiers, daunted by Christ's authority, saw the power in His authoritative claim to Godhood. They could not stay on their feet when He announced His name to them. He restored Malchus' ear. He ordered and maintained peace so that the arrest did not turn into a slaughter.

Christ was separate from the wrath of the soldiers and the wrath of his own disciples. He participated neither in the politics of the Council and their manipulative and legal tactics. Nor was He a freedom fighter who struck a blow against an evil government. He came to do God's Will, and as a Person Holy and separated unto God, He fulfilled what God assigned of Him and was above the politics of His day.

Yet seeing this, the soldiers still arrested Him and delivered Him to the Council. They stood up and shook off the effects of His revelation and went about their dirty job.

It is possible to intellectually comprehend God, even to comprehend that Christ is the Son of God, and still not have union with God. it is possible to stand less than an arm's length from Him as He restores a suffering person to wholeness, and still not have union with Him: to see, and to experience, and even to understand, and yet not participate in the union that God's Holy People have with Christ.

There are men who, seeing God declare Himself, will still put fetters on Him if He so permits it. They would lead God to their own religious leaders and submit to have their own corrupt religion condemn a just God to death, if such a thing could be. It's all happened. Judas had as much of Christ in terms of earthly fellowship as any apostle. Yet he never had that union with God that brought him into the atoning work of Christ. He did the work of the apostles, asked the same questions, prayed with them, suffered the hardships of the road with them. But none of these things made Judas holy. In the end, he tried to force the situation his way, to get what he wanted. He betrayed his Master and betrayed the entire way of grace, handing the Son of God over to legalists and apostates.

The anguish he felt afterwards was real, but it was not repentance. He named his sin yet never turned to gracious forgiveness from God. Instead, he took his own life, as though that would atone for the life he handed over to evil men. Judas suffered, and he punished himself with greater suffering. All this, but never holiness. He rejected everything Christ accomplished, and offered instead a carnal version of atoning. There was a lot of Cain in Judas.

Yet Holiness is no guarantee against suffering. Quite the opposite. Isaiah was put into a hollow log and sawn in half because he claimed to have seen God. The Lord Jesus, God Himself, was crucified. Yet neither person lost the holiness God had imparted. God drew a boundary around them, reserving them to Himself. He ordained union with them. Yet God willed that they should suffer. And they maintained their integrity to the end, because God was with them, united to them to keep them.

As you pray today, ask the Lord for insight into Him during times of difficulty, so that you can enjoy union with Him even in suffering.

You can listen to this devotional on the All of Grace podcast.