. Judas was Served Communion

 

 

Judas was a thorn in the flesh of Jesus to trouble and test Him. God does this to all His ‘generals’. None are excepted, not even Jesus. The noted Kathryn Kuhlman who healed an untold number of Americans in the 1940’s once told a group of budding theology students who wanted healing ministries, “So you want a ministry like mine? You don’t know how much I had to suffer”. She was born into poverty, had a disastrous marriage and died in poverty. She had no friends. Even her sister mocked her, “You are too theatrical on stage”.  That she was. It put some people off. She was devoted to the Holy Spirit.  She spoke His name slowly from the bottom of her lungs, very drawn out as though it was going to be her last breath. She once asked the Lord why she was given her profound ministry. The Lord answered, “because the man I intended it for didn’t want it”. Being poor, she told everyone that all she wanted at her funeral was a bouquet of roses. A night nurse at the hospital where she died testified years later that the night Kathryn died the entire hospital was filled with a fragrance of roses. It emanated from her room.

 

Generous is the opposite to covetous. Judas was a power-hungry zealot, hoping that with His miracles Jesus would evict the Romans from Jerusalem and then jointly rule Israel with King Jesus at the helm. Judas was treasurer for the apostolic group which suited him to the hilt. Judas was a thief (John 12:6).

 

A betrayal followed by crucifixion was crucial to the Father’s plan.  The unblemished Lamb of God had to be killed at the set time, not sooner nor later. Passover during the beginning of the barley harvest was going to be God’s appointed time. Passover was also called the Feast of First Fruits. Jesus was the first fruit to God. He became God’s Son, incarnate in flesh – the Word in flesh (John 1:1). Flesh in the Godhead for the very first time.

 

If there is a first fruit, then a harvest must surely follow. Pentecost was the time of wheat harvest. Sheaves of wheat came in literally and spiritually. 3000 Jews from districts far and wide were baptised by Peter on the Day of Pentecost. This ensured that precious seed, the Word of God, would eventually spread far and wide (Parable of the Sower, Matthew Chapter 13).

 

For God’s to accomplish His purposes everything had to be numerically exact according to His grand plan.  Nothing is left to chance. God had been counting 7x7 days from Passover before the Day of Pentecost (50 days). Note how Acts Chapter 2 begins, “ And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place” (Acts 2:1).  Not a day earlier nor a day later!

 

“Speak to all the congregation of Israel, saying, In the tenth of this month they shall take to them each man a lamb for a father's house, a lamb for a house. And if the household is too little for the lamb, let him and his neighbor next to his house take according to the number of the souls, each one, according to the eating of his mouth, you shall count concerning the lamb. Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male of the first year. You shall take from the sheep or from the goats. And you shall keep it up until the fourteenth day of the same month. And the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it in the evening. And they shall take some of the blood and strike on the two side posts and upon the upper door post of the houses in which they shall eat it. And they shall eat the flesh in that night, roasted with fire, and unleavened bread. They shall eat it with bitter herbs. Do not eat of it raw, nor boiled at all with water, but roasted with fire, its head with its legs, and with its inward parts. And you shall not let any of it remain until the morning. And that which remains of it until the morning you shall burn with fire. And you shall eat of it this way, with your loins girded, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand. And you shall eat it in a hurry. It is Jehovah's passover. For I will pass through the land of Egypt this night, and will smite all the first-born in the land of Egypt, both man and beast. And I will execute judgments against all the gods of Egypt. I am Jehovah” (Exodus 12:3-12).

 

The timing had been planned from before the beginning. Jesus had to be crucified at the hands of wicked men, first by the Jews and then by the Gentiles (Pilate), in that order.  The Father chose the Last Supper for the betrayal. The stage was set. Nothing could reverse it. Nothing in God happens by mere chance.

 

Jesus declared of Himself, “Truly, truly, I say to you, He who believes on Me has everlasting life. I am the Bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and died. This is the Bread which comes down from Heaven, so that a man may eat of it and not die. I am the Living Bread which came down from Heaven. If anyone eats of this Bread, he shall live forever. And truly the bread that I will give is My flesh, which I will give for the life of the world” (John 6: 47-51).

 

And again, “Jesus says to them, Truly, truly, I say to you, Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink His blood, you do not have life in yourselves. Whoever partakes of My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For My flesh is food indeed, and My blood is drink indeed. He who partakes of My flesh and drinks My blood dwells in Me, and I in him. As the living Father has sent Me, and I live through the Father, so he who partakes of Me, even he shall live by Me. This is the Bread which came down from Heaven, not as your fathers ate the manna, and died; he who partakes of this Bread shall live forever” (John 6:53-58).

 

For His command to be lawful His body had to become “Kosher”, or set apart, or holy. It had to be ceremonially clean. Jewish butchers must hang meat until every drop of blood is drained. That was what happened to Jesus, from the moment He sweated clots of blood in the Garden to Gethsemane to the soldier piercing His side. Out came water and congealed blood (John 19:34). The Lord had arranged to have His Son made Kosher to fulfil every jot and title of the Law. For God had said to Noah, “But you shall not eat of flesh with the life in it, or the blood of it” (Genesis 9:4).  

 

There is an interesting observation about the presentation of an animal sacrifice in the Outer Court.  The sinner had to lay hands on the head of the animal who then also had to kill it.  The Levitical priest only looked on (Semicha in Sacrifice, Wikipedia). His important role was to ensure that the offering was perfectly unblemished. Throughout their history, corrupted Israelites brought lame or blind offerings. It revealed their covetousness!

 

Since Jesus was the Lamb of God, He had to have hands laid on Him as well. The arresting party laid their hands on Jesus as soon as Judas kissed Him when he said, “I AM” (The I AM of the burning bush, Exodus 3:3-14; Matthew 26:50). Hands had to be laid on Him by the guilty party. The laws related to the sin offering were thereby fulfilled.

 

Before any of my readers contradict the statement above, I do understand the involvement of Levitical priests in sacrifices. They varied according to the status of the sinner. Jesus was no sinner.

 

We symbolically eat of His flesh and blood at communion. At communion  too many churches omit  mention of the last verses in 1Corinthians 1-23-25, “For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus in the night in which he was betrayed took bread; And giving thanks, He broke it and said, "Take, eat; this is My body, which is broken for you; this do in remembrance of Me. "In the same way He took the cup also, after supping, saying, "This cup is the New Covenant in My blood; as often as you drink it, do this in remembrance of Me. "For "as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you show" the Lord's death until He shall come. So that whoever shall eat this bread and drink this cup of the Lord unworthily, he will be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of that bread and drink of that cup. For he who eats and drinks unworthily eats and drinks condemnation to himself, not discerning the Lord's body.”

 

Judas took communion unworthily because he already had in mind to betray Jesus. That would reflect the worst possible unworthiness one could imagine. His judgement was immediate. As soon as he was given communion the devil entered him (John 13:27). But there is more.

 

 

At the last supper none of the disciples suspected that one of their own would betray Jesus, “And as they reclined and ate, Jesus said, Truly I say to you, One of you will betray Me, the one eating with Me. And they began to be grieved, and to say to Him one by one, Not at all I, is it? And another said, Not at all I, is it? And answering He said to them, It is one of the Twelve, the one dipping with Me in the dish. (Mark 14:18-24). If you read the entire passage, you will realize that none of the eleven disciples received the bread dipped in a dish (Sop for dipped bread in the KJV).

 

The details are clearer in the account given by John in chapter 14, verses 26-30.  “Jesus answered, It is he to whom I shall give the morsel when I have dipped it. And dipping the morsel, He gave it to Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon. And after the morsel, then Satan entered into him. Then Jesus said to him, What you do, do quickly. But no one reclining knew for what reason He spoke this to him. For some thought, because Judas had the moneybag, that Jesus had said to him, Buy what we have need of for the feast; or that he should give something to the poor. He then, having received the morsel, went out immediately. And it was night”.

 

When celebrating communion we are never given a sop. A sop is what we may do occasionally by dipping a biscuit into a cup of tea or cocoa for pure indulgence. Most churches repeat exactly how Jesus served first the bread and only then offered the wine. Why is that?

 

What was the significance of Judas being given bread saturated with wine, whereas Jesus offered them separately to the eleven? It was a prophetic move signifying that Jesus did not shed his blood for Judas knowing full well that he was of the devil. Judas symbolically ate of Jesus while it still contained His blood – in other words, he ate what was not Kosher. He will be judged under the Law of Moses (Hebrews 8:28).

 

Judas hung himself, remorseful because his plans to force Jesus to claim an earthly kingship had unravelled. Christians continuing to pray for the soul of Judas are deluded. Jesus called him the son of perdition (John 17:12).