Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to Acts · About this commentary
The place Judas left
Acts 1:15-26
15 In these days, Peter stood up in the middle of the disciples (and the number of names was about one hundred twenty), and said, · WEB
The eleven fill a vacancy before Pentecost, on a scriptural warrant and a strict qualification — and then the method they used is never used again.
Peter's argument begins where every argument in this book begins. Something written must be fulfilled, and he cites two lines from the Psalms: let his habitation be made desolate, and let another take his office. The first accounts for the vacancy; the second requires that it be filled. Whether the psalms in question were composed with Judas in view is not the claim being made. The claim is that a pattern God has already stated about his enemies has now run its course in a particular man.
The account of Judas' death is grim and is left grim. Scripture reports elsewhere that he hanged himself and that the priests bought the field with the returned money Matthew 27:5–7; here the field is said to have been obtained with the reward of his wickedness and the body to have fallen and burst. The two reports are not identical and are not merged. A body left hanging and later falling accounts for both without strain, and the money was his whichever hand made the purchase. What both accounts agree on is the name the city gave the ground, and that the name stuck: the field of blood, known to everyone living there.
The qualification Peter states is narrow and is the reason the office cannot simply be reassigned. The man must have accompanied them through the whole ministry, from John's baptism to the ascension, and must become a witness with us of his resurrection. That is not a description of character or of gift. It is a description of what a person saw. The apostolate as defined here is an eyewitness office, which means it is an office with a natural end — a fact this book never remarks on but which explains why no comparable election occurs again.
Two men qualify, and the church does three things: it prays, it asks God who knows hearts to show his own choice, and it draws lots. The lot is an Old Testament instrument for referring a decision to God where human judgment cannot decide between equals. It is used here for the last time in Scripture, and the reason is stated a chapter later without anyone drawing the connection: after Pentecost the guidance comes directly, and men who are told by the Spirit where to go Acts 13:2 Acts 16:6–7 have no further use for it.
Matthias is numbered with the eleven and is never mentioned again. Neither is Joseph called Barsabbas. The silence has been read as evidence that the whole proceeding was premature, and that God's own choice for the twelfth place was made later on a road to Damascus. The text gives no such verdict. It reports a decision made with prayer, with a scriptural warrant and with an honest procedure, and then declines to evaluate it — which is a fair description of a great deal of faithful church business.
held with reason What this mark means