This is why I'm baffled by those who claim they are bringing a new work of the Holy Spirit and introducing new signs and wonders — signs follow to confirm the Gospel message, not introduce something new. That is why the purveyors of such false works are consistently revealed to be distorting the very Word of God in order to justify their so-called signs, when the biblical model is 180 degrees from what they purport.

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The way each Gospel records the actions and reactions of people to the news of Jesus' resurrection really speaks to the authenticity of the Gospels. No one devising a hoax would write about these things in this manner. There is a transparent, honest quality to everyone's knee-jerk reaction of disbelief, especially among those purported to be closest to Jesus. These are not the things you would write about if devising a fictionalized account.

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I believe that there are a lot of things which the various writers of the books of the Bible saw as being so obvious and common that they did not need further elaboration. Part of the issue for us is to retrieve this proper sense of context, to understand these things from their perspective so as to properly understand them ourselves today. Two examples of this very thing is found in this verse in the "obvious" fact of why a citizen of Cypress needed to be mentioned as participating somehow in the Messiah's crucifixion, and why Jesus would never have carried His cross to Golgotha.

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We seem to grasp the concept of Jesus as the Lamb of God, the fulfillment of the requirements established in Passover, but I'm not sure we fully realize the other picture of Jesus as the Goat of God, the fulfillment of the Day of Atonement. Two goats would be brought to the high priest to lay upon them the sin of the people; one would be freed while the other sacrificed. The symbolism of the Day of Atonement is played out in what happened to Barabbas and Jesus.

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This is one of the things I really like about God's Word: it is practical. We are not admonished to simply avoid temptation, we are actually told HOW. Scripture just does not provide precise definitions of the terms it uses, but illustrates the greater concepts with the very actions needed to be taken to address them. The odds are that if we are experiencing a recurring problem with a particular temptation, we are neither praying about it nor keeping watch for it.

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I know it would take a lot more space than a daily entry in my Word Journal to definitively answer the question of predestination — did Judas have a choice? — but the examples of both Jesus and Judas seems to indicate that personal choice exists for everyone. Both Judas and Jesus made a choice where it came to God's will, choices which should serve as examples for us in the course of our own life.

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Throughout the course of His earthly ministry, Jesus has repeatedly demonstrated that there is nothing spiritual or physical that is out of His control. Regardless of appearances to the contrary, Jesus always proved He was in greater control of those circumstances. And often, such as in this case, it has been discovered that He has been working out something even before it was actually asked of Him. It is obvious that Jesus made arrangements that would be ready even before His disciples asked how He wanted them addressed. There is a lesson here that has to do with trust, hope, and the true definition of faith in Christ.

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