Well, thank you my dear friend for this very interesting question. To be sure, you and I cannot see into the hearts of men as the Lord does, so at the end of the day, only God truly knows who are saved…those who are His own.  2 Timothy 2:19 tells us that, “The Lord knoweth them that are his.”  Yet, even though no one can truly know the hearts of other people except God Himself, we can see evidence of faith (or the lack of it) in what the Bible tells us regarding various ones in the Scriptures. Thus, from what I read in the Bible, I am confident that Judas Iscariot was not a saved man, even though he walked with the Lord Jesus for a time as a disciple. This is the one who betrayed the Lord Jesus for 30 pieces of silver, and even though he later did try to give the money back to the Jewish leaders, we never read any Scriptures indicating that Judas ultimately accepted that Jesus was the Son of God, nor did he ask the Lord for forgiveness for his sin. We only read that Satan entered into him (Luke 22:3; John 13:27), a thing which would not happen to a true believer. Instead of seeking grace and forgiveness, Judas hanged himself and died without ever accepting Christ Jesus as his Savior and Lord (Acts 1:18). We read that Judas “went to his place,” and his position as an apostle was given by a sign from the Holy Spirit (casting the lot) to Matthias (Acts 1:25-26). Now as to the eleven others who were chosen by the Lord, I think we can safely say that all were saved, since from what I read in the Bible, these remained faithful to the Lord up through His crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension into heaven. And after the ascension of our Lord, they all received the Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost (Acts 2:3-4; see also John 7:38-39; John 14:17). As I believe you know, only true believers, those who are saved, can receive the Holy Spirit, which is a sign that they are truly born again as we read in Ephesians 1:13-14, “In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise, Which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of his glory.”

But now, I must go on to say that there were many more disciples of the Lord Jesus than the twelve apostles, and I believe that Scripture would show us that not all disciples truly believed on the Lord Jesus. For example, the Lord Jesus had many disciples early in His earthly ministry, but at length, quite a few were unable to accept His teachings and ceased to walk with Him (John 6:60-68). I believe that the eleven (with the later addition of Matthias in place of Judas Iscariot) did in fact remain faithful and did believe. But now, in addition to the twelve, there were many other disciples of the Lord that we read about in the Gospels including Cleophas and his wife Mary (John 19:25), Mary and Martha of Bethany, and their brother Lazarus, Mary the mother of Jesus, and as we read in Luke 8:2-3, “And certain women, which had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities, Mary called Magdalene, out of whom went seven devils, And Joanna the wife of Chuza Herod’s steward, and Susanna, and many others, which ministered unto Him of their substance.” I have no reason to doubt that these were true believers as I believe that they all, from what I can tell, remained faithful to the end. There are also two Pharisees whom I believe were disciples of Jesus, though secretly, and these would be Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathaea (John 19:38-39). Were they saved? It sure would seem to me that they were because they risked their very lives and fortunes to prepare the body of Jesus for the grave at a time when the Sanhedrin had sought only to kill Jesus. Now, it should be noted here that we do not read of any of the Lord’s half-brothers being believers on Christ Jesus until after He ascended into heaven. Quite to the contrary, we read in John 7:5, “For neither did His brethren believe in Him.” So, I do not think any of his half-brothers came to believe on Him right away.  Now, we do know that James, the half-brother of the Lord Jesus, did ultimately come to be a Christian, and we know that he later would author the book of James in the Bible. We do read that the Lord, after His resurrection, appeared to James as we’re told in 1 Corinthians 15:7, “After that, He was seen of James; then of all the apostles.” I understand from William MacDonald’s Commentary on the Bible that most commentators do feel that the James in this verse is the Lord’s half-brother. I thus leap to the conclusion that upon seeing the Lord Jesus alive, James finally did believe, but not until after Christ had risen. Another verse possibly supporting the idea that the half-brothers did not become Christians until after the resurrection and ascension into heaven might be Acts 1:14 where we read, ”These all continued with one accord in prayer and supplication, with the women, and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with His brethren.” Regarding this last verse, MacDonald says: “The mention of the brothers of Jesus, coming after the reference to Mary, makes it likely that these were actual sons of Mary and half-brothers of Jesus.” But again, we do not hear of them gathering together as believers until after the resurrection and ascension of the Lord, so it would appear that they did not believe during the earthly life and ministry of Jesus but did believe later.  (SF)  (627.2)