12 While I was with them in the world, I kept them in Your name. Those whom You gave Me I have kept; and none of them is lost except the son of perdition, that the Scripture might be fulfilled.
In verse 12, Jesus harked back briefly to His earthly ministry.
12 While I was with them in the world,
Prior to His departure from the apostles, Jesus kept them safe in the name of the Father.
I kept [guarded] them in Your name.
Jesus kept the apostles’ faith true to the Father’s character, secure during His time on earth. He helped them understand how the Father was with them and protected them from a hostile world. His personal presence would also be with them through any duress they might face in the future.
Those whom You gave Me I have kept;
Jesus kept the apostles from a faltering faith by personal intervention into their lives.
and none of them is lost
The word “lost” means doomed to destruction. There are those who are destined to perish should they not embrace the gospel. There was no genuine exception to losing faith among the apostles because they truly believed in Jesus. There was no flaw in His protection of genuine believers. Jesus perfectly carried out protection of the 11 apostles’ faith.
except the son of perdition,
“The son of perdition” is Judas (Jn 13:2, 27). He was no exception to Jesus protecting genuine apostles. Judas was never a genuine sheep of Jesus.
There is a play on words between the word “lost” and “perdition.” The idea is “the perishing one perished.” This was a person characterized by lostness. Judas never became a believer and went into a Christless eternity when he died. He was chosen to an office of being with the apostles, yet in the face of that he remained belligerent toward Jesus.
The name “son of perdition” is also used of the man of sin in 2 Thessalonians 2:3.
that the Scripture might be fulfilled.
Judas’ betrayal of Jesus was in God’s sovereign plan. He concurred with these events to a tee (Ps 41:9, 10).
PRINCIPLE:
Every community of Christians harbors traitors among them.
APPLICATION:
God takes into account the volition and free acts of men (Ac 2:23; 4:28). Judas was no automaton; he acted by his own will. He was an unbeliever from the beginning. He never lost his salvation because he was never a believer in the first place. He was a phony and pretender. Jesus exposed him as a fraud. Jesus never lost any of His genuine sheep (Jn 10:26-30).
Every genuine community of believers harbors traitors. The church will always have skeptics and apostates in it.
So Judas was given to Jesus by the Father as an apostle for ministry(service). The giving here does not relate to election to salvation but to apostleship and ministry. Judas was protected by Jesus until his ministry was fulfilled then he betrayed Jesus of his own volition. I believe Judas performed miracles as mentioned in Matthew 10. Do you agree with these comments?
JROCK, Jesus initially chose 12 as His chosen group to minister with Him (Jn 6:70); later this group was referred to as the 11 because these would be the genuine among them. In that gathering of a new group our Lord made a point that one of them was “a devil.” He was under no illusion about whom He appointed.
Re Matthew 10, I do not see any indication that Judas performed miracles in that chapter.
The reason Jesus chose Judas may have been to point out that heresy and apostasy will always come from within the believing body. Not everyone in a believing body was or is genuine in their belief.
Later in John 17 Jesus prays for future believers but they are not mention as being “given” by the Father to the Son. Is it because they were not to be apostles as the 11 apostles who were alive with Jesus?
My Daughter took an overdose but she was in depression does it mean that she will not go to heaven she did believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and was brought up to believe that he is our savior?????
Donna, Your daughter is guaranteed by Jesus to be in heaven. Note my study on John 5:24. Here is the study: https://versebyversecommentary.com/2017/01/24/john-524/
In John 6:40, only believers would be raised up. In John 6:39, the given would be raised up. Therefore, only believers were the “given” to Jesus in John 6:37. Judas was not given – he was chosen to fulfill Psalm 41:9 (John 6:70; John 13:18). Notice that Judas was not with Jesus in John 18:9 when John 6:39 was fulfilled. Only the “given” were with him. Judas was with the group arresting Jesus. Therefore, Judas was not in the “given” in John 17:6, and John 6:39 was also fulfilled in John 17:12.
Herb, thanks for responding to JROCK. I did not notice his question.
Grant, how can you guarrantee a grieving mother that her daughter went to heaven? Jesus said that even those who think they are saved may be mistaken, so what basis do you pronounce that some dead person had saving faith?
Doug, thanks for your post. The assurance that I gave that mother had to do with the premise that her daughter genuinely accepted the work of Christ on the cross to provide the way to heaven. If that is indeed true, then when a person accepts a promise of God, he or she can trust that promise. To introduce the idea of self-deluded people thinking that they are Christians is an aside from the issue at hand.