Acts 1:15 - Meaning and Application

Judas’s sin was not only his shame and ruin, it also left a gap in the group of apostles. They had been appointed twelve, with the twelve tribes of Israel in view, because Israel came from the twelve patriarchs. They were the twelve stars in the church’s crown (Revelation 12:1), and twelve thrones were set for them (Matthew 19:28). So when they were twelve as learners, it would have been strange for them to be only eleven as teachers. That would have kept bringing back the shame of one of their own falling away. So, before the Holy Spirit came down, they took care to fill the empty place. Jesus likely had already given direction about this, along with other things he spoke concerning the kingdom of God.

Notice, first, the people involved in this matter. The whole group was about one hundred and twenty. That is, there were one hundred and twenty names, meaning one hundred and twenty persons. Some think this meant only the men, set apart from the women. Dr. Lightfoot thought the eleven apostles, the seventy disciples, and about thirty-nine more, many of them Christ’s relatives, neighbors, and close followers, made up this one hundred and twenty. He believed they were a kind of ministerial meeting, a standing group of leaders (Acts 4:23), and that others did not dare join them openly (Acts 5:13). He also thought they stayed together until the persecution after Stephen’s death scattered them all except the apostles (Acts 8:1). But he also thought that many hundreds, perhaps thousands, in Jerusalem believed at this time. We have indeed read of many who believed in him there, though they did not dare to confess him openly. So I cannot agree that they had already been formed into separate congregations for preaching and worship. I also do not think that happened until after the Spirit was poured out and the conversions in the next chapter. Here we see the beginning of the Christian church. This one hundred and twenty was the mustard seed that grew into a tree, and the leaven that worked through the whole lump.

The speaker was Peter, who had been, and still was, the most forward and active among them. He is mentioned here to show that he had fully recovered from the fall of denying his Master. And since Peter was meant to be the apostle to the Jews, the story stays with him while it is among the Jewish believers. Later, when the account turns to the Gentiles, it follows Paul.

Second, Peter’s proposal for choosing another apostle. He stood up among the disciples (Acts 1:15). He did not sit like one giving commands, as if he had authority over the rest. He stood like someone making a proposal, showing respect for his brothers while he spoke to them.

In his speech, we see the account he gives of the vacancy left by Judas’s death. He speaks very carefully, and, as one taught by Christ, he notices how Scripture was being fulfilled. Judas had been given a high place: “He was numbered with us, and had received part in this ministry” (Acts 1:17). Many are counted among the saints in this world who will not be found among them when the precious are separated from the worthless. What good is it to be counted among Christians if we do not share the spirit and life of Christians? Judas’s place in the ministry only made his sin and ruin greater, as it will for all who preached in Christ’s name and still worked evil.

Yet Judas’s advancement did not keep him from sin. He became the guide for those who arrested Jesus. He did more than tell Christ’s enemies where they could find him, something they could have done without his help. He boldly stood at the front of the group that seized him. He went ahead of them to the place and, as if proud of his role, gave the signal: “That is the one, seize him.” Leaders in sin are the worst sinners, especially when people who should have led Christ’s friends instead lead his enemies.

Judas’s sin also brought ruin on himself. Seeing that the chief priests wanted to kill Christ and his disciples, he thought he could save himself by joining them. He likely hoped to gain property under their rule, and that his pay for betraying Jesus would be only a first payment. But see how it ended. He lost his money in a shameful way (Acts 1:18). He bought a field with the thirty pieces of silver, the reward of his wickedness. The meaning is that his wages for wrongdoing bought the field, and the wording shames his plans to enrich himself by this bargain. He thought he was buying a field for himself, as Gehazi did with what he got from Naaman by lying (2 Kings 5:26). But instead, it became a field for burying strangers. What did he, or anyone of his, gain from it? Money gained by sin only deceived him, and the reward of his sin became the trap that ruined him.

He also lost his life more shamefully. Matthew tells us he went away in despair and was suffocated (Matthew 27:5). Here more is added: he was strangled, or choked with grief and horror, and then fell headlong. Dr. Hammond takes this to mean he fell on his face. Partly from the swelling of his own body and partly from the force of the fall, he burst open in the middle, so that all his bowels spilled out. If the devil, when cast out of a child, tore him, threw him down, and nearly killed him (Mark 9:26; Luke 9:42), then it is no surprise that, when the devil fully possessed Judas, he threw him headlong and destroyed him. Matthew’s account of his suffocation would have made him swell until he burst, which Peter now mentions. Some say he burst open with a loud noise, heard by the neighbors, and so, as the next verse says, it became known (Acts 1:19). Luke writes like a doctor, speaking with care about the inner parts of the body. This kind of tearing open was part of the punishment for traitors. Those bowels justly spilled out that had been shut against the Lord Jesus. Christ may also have had Judas in mind when he said of the wicked servant that he would cut him in pieces (Matthew 24:51).

The public notice taken of this was also remarkable. It became known to all the people living in Jerusalem. It was, as it were, reported everywhere, and the whole town talked about it as a clear judgment of God on the man who betrayed his Master (Acts 1:19). It was discussed not only among the disciples, but by everyone, and no one denied that the fact was true.

It was known, that is, it was known to be true beyond dispute. You might think this would have moved the people who had any part in Christ’s death to repent when they saw what happened to Judas, who had taken the first step in betraying him. But their hearts were hardened, and for those who were to be softened, the word of God had to work with the Spirit.

One clear sign that this matter was widely known was that the field bought with Judas’s money was called Aceldama, or the field of blood, because it was bought with blood money. That name kept alive the shame not only of the one who sold that innocent, precious blood, but also of those who bought it. We should think about how they will answer when God investigates bloodshed.

The Scriptures had already spoken so clearly about this that it had to happen, as Peter says in Acts 1:16. No one should be startled or offended that one of the twelve came to such a sad end. David had already foretold Judas’s sin, which Christ pointed out in John 13:18, from Psalm 41:9, “He who ate my bread has lifted his heel against me.” David had also foretold Judas’s punishment in Psalm 69:25: “Let his dwelling become desolate.” That psalm looks ahead to the Messiah. Just a few verses earlier it speaks of giving him gall and vinegar, so the later words about the destruction of David’s enemies must be applied to Christ’s enemies, especially Judas.

Perhaps Judas had a home of his own in Jerusalem. If so, people may have been afraid to live there after what he did, so it became empty and abandoned. This prediction means the same as Bildad’s warning about the wicked man, that his security is torn from his tent and brings him face to face with terror. “It dwells in his tent because it is no longer his; sulfur is scattered over his dwelling” (Job 18:14-15).

David also foretold that another would take Judas’s place in his office, or his bishopric, which simply means his position. This is quoted from Psalm 109:8. Peter uses that quotation well to lead into the next proposal. We should not look down on any office God has set up, whether in civil government or in the church, because of the sin of some who hold it or the shame that follows their sin. God will not let any of his purposes fail, any commission be canceled, or any work be left undone because of the failures of those entrusted with it.

Human unbelief will not make God’s promise worthless. Judas is hanged, but his place is not lost. It is said of his dwelling that no one will live there, so he will have no heir. But that is not said of his office, because he will have a successor. It is the same with the church’s officers as with its members. If the natural branches are broken off, others will be grafted in (Romans 11:17). Christ’s cause will never fail for lack of witnesses.

Peter then moved to the choice of another apostle, as seen in Acts 1:21-22. The man who would take Judas’s place had to be one of those men, one of the seventy disciples who had stayed with them all the time the Lord Jesus went in and out among them, teaching and working miracles for three and a half years, starting from John’s baptism, when Christ’s public ministry began, until the day Jesus was taken up from them. Those who have been steady, faithful, and diligent in a lower role are best suited for a higher one. Those who have been faithful in little can be trusted with more.

No one should be made a minister of Christ, a preacher of his gospel, or a ruler in his church unless he knows Christ’s teaching and works well from beginning to end. No one could be an apostle unless he had stayed with the apostles, and stayed constantly, not just visited now and then, but lived in close fellowship with them.

This new apostle was to be a witness with them of Christ’s resurrection. That shows that other disciples were with the eleven when Christ appeared to them, or else they could not have been witnesses with them, equally fit to testify to his resurrection. The great duty of the apostles was to tell the world that Christ had risen. That was the great proof that he was the Messiah, and it is the foundation of our hope in him. So we see that the apostles were chosen, not for earthly rank or power, but to preach Christ and the power of his resurrection.

Then comes the choice of the man who would succeed Judas in his apostolic office. Two men, known to have been constant companions of Christ and men of integrity, were set forward as candidates in Acts 1:23. They appointed two. It was not the eleven apostles who decided who should be proposed. It was the whole group of one hundred and twenty, because Peter spoke to them, not just to the eleven.

The two men were Joseph and Matthias. We read nowhere else about either of them, unless this Joseph is the same as Jesus, also called Justus, whom Paul mentions in Colossians 4:11. He was a Jew by birth, and Paul says he was a fellow worker in the kingdom of God and a comfort to him. If so, it is worth noting that even though he did not become an apostle, he did not leave ministry. He served well in a lower place, for not all are apostles, and not all are prophets. Some think this Joseph was the same as Joses, named in Mark 6:3, the brother of James the less in Mark 15:40, and called Joses the Just, just as James was called James the Just. Others mix him up with the Joses mentioned in Acts 4:36. But that man was from Cyprus, while this one was from Galilee. It seems they were distinguished by their names, Barnabas meaning “son of encouragement,” and Barsabas meaning “son of the oath.”

These two men were both so worthy and so well suited for the office that no one could say which was the better fit. Everyone agreed that one of them had to be chosen. They did not put themselves forward or compete for the place. They waited humbly and were set forward by others.

Then they turned to God in prayer for guidance, not about any of the other seventy, because none of the others were thought to compare with these two, but about which of these two should be chosen, as in Acts 1:24-25. First, they appeal to God as the one who searches hearts: “You, Lord, know the hearts of all people, which we do not, and even better than they know their own hearts.” When an apostle was to be chosen, the choice had to rest on the heart, on the person’s inward temper and character. Yet Jesus, who knew every person’s heart, chose Judas to be one of the twelve for wise and holy purposes.

It is a comfort to us, when we pray for the good of the church and its ministers, that the God we pray to knows every heart. He has people not only under his eye, but in his hand, and he turns them wherever he wills. If he does not find them fit for his work, he can make them fit by giving them a different spirit.

They wanted to know which one of these God had chosen. In effect they said, “Lord, show us this, and we are satisfied.” It is right that God should choose his own servants. And as far as he shows his choice through the direction of his providence or the gifts of his Spirit, we should follow his lead.

They were ready to accept as a brother the man whom God had chosen. They were not trying to protect their own honor by keeping another man out. They wanted someone to share this ministry and apostleship, to join them in the work and share in the honor from which Judas fell by his sin. Judas left and betrayed his Master, and so he gave up the place of an apostle, a place he was unworthy to keep. He went to his own place, the place of a traitor, the place most suited to him, not only for the rope, but for hell. That was his own place.

Those who betray Christ fall from the honor of belonging to him, and they also fall into misery. Scripture says of Balaam, “he went to his own place” (Numbers 24:25), which one rabbi understood as meaning he went to hell. Dr. Whitby quotes Ignatius, who said that every person has an idios topos, a proper place, meaning the same as God repaying each person according to his works. Our Lord had already said that Judas’s own place would be so terrible that it would have been better for him never to have been born (Matthew 26:24). His misery would be worse than not existing at all. Judas was a hypocrite, and hell is the proper place for such people. Other sinners, as fellow inmates, have their share with them (Matthew 24:51).

The question was settled by lot (Acts 1:26). This was an appeal to God, and it is lawful for deciding matters that cannot be settled in any other way, as long as it is done in a solemn and reverent manner, with prayer and the prayer of faith. The lot is cast into the lap, but the whole decision belongs to the Lord (Proverbs 16:33). Matthias was not ordained by the laying on of hands, as presbyters, or church elders, were. He was chosen by lot, which was God’s act. So, as he had to be baptized, he also had to be ordained by the Holy Spirit, as they all were not many days later. In this way the number of the apostles was made complete, and later, when James, another of the twelve, was martyred, Paul was made an apostle.