John 13:2 - The devil had already put it into the heart of Judas

13:2

John mentions the supper (which may or may not be the “last supper”, some think it could have been the day before), but does not dwell on it in the way that the synoptics do. John mentions here that “the devil had already put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot to betray Jesus”. We are prone to wanting to assign events or actions solely to either God, the devil or to man. The Bible does not do this. Here we have the devil’s part being stated. Elsewhere it is made clear that this was always part of God’s plan, He was not taken by surprise! Then the gospels also make clear that Judas bore responsibility for his actions. From our time bound human perspective we cannot work out how all three can be responsible, it seems to us that it must be one of them. But this is not the Biblical perspective, and the reason we cannot work out how this can be is because while we are time bound, God isn’t! This is the same reason why people have such a problem with predestination, thinking it is opposed to human responsibility.