July 23, 2000
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Judas Iscariot
Common Men, Uncommon Calling: Judas Iscariot, Part 1
We have met each of the 12 apostles, at least up to the last one. We have met the first eleven. We know a little bit about the twelfth because he's an infamous man. When we think about history, we would stop at certain points along the way and mark out certain killers, certain men who massacred towns or villages in more primitive times. We would bring up names, of course, that are at the top of the list such as Adolph Hitler and Joseph Stalin and others. We could come up with a pretty big list of the worst of the worst, the wretched of the wretched, the vilest of the vile.
But frankly, at the top of any list is Judas Iscariot, the worst of the worst. I remember reading years ago doing some research on Adolph Hitler, reading that he was very tightly engaged with some what were called Black Monks from Tibet. They were mediums who contacted demon spirits. And Hitler was up to his proverbial neck in demonism. And he was supercharged by the forces of hell. In fact, his biographers would say that he didn't speak in his own voice. If you talked to him before he gave a speech you would hear his voice, when he got up to the podium to give a speech, it was not his voice. He was literally taken over by demonic voices. Many serial killers have some kind of bizarre preoccupation with Satan, and of course, have allowed their souls to be utterly given over to wretchedness and wickedness.
But what to me is more profoundly evil than a man under the influence of Satan, conducting himself like that, is a man under the influence of Christ conducting himself like Judas did. It's explicable to understand that under the control of the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now works in the children of disobedience, that under the control of Satan wretchedness to some degree or another is going to manifest itself. And all the unconverted people, all the ungodly people, all those who do not know God through Christ in the world are in the kingdom of darkness under the control of Satan. It's only a question of degree and manifestation. But all of that is categorically under Satan's influence.
What makes Judas such a solitary figure in his wretchedness is that for three years plus he was under the direct influence of Jesus Christ. And it wasn't actually until that night at the Last Supper when he went out to betray Jesus that the Bible says, "And Satan entered into Judas." This is the epitome of human disaster. A horrifying, colossal failure.
We looked at the eleven, we found them to be common men. I suppose from some viewpoints, unqualified for such a noble calling as being the official representatives of Jesus Christ, the first preachers of the gospel after Christ, those responsible for the founding of the church, overseeing and even in some cases doing the writing of the New Testament.
We saw how that these common, unqualified men were transformed and they were empowered and the Lord Himself enabled them to preach and to teach and to heal and cast out demons and become powerful, official representatives of His Kingdom. And we looked at their character, we looked at their personality and in some cases we learned a little about their life and ministry and even about their martyrdom. We have enough information to know that they were successful and we're living proof of their success. We are their progeny.
But in the midst of it, there was this one colossal, monumental failure, Judas Iscariot. In all four lists of the apostles, Matthew, Mark, Luke and Acts, he is last. And always there's a statement with his name about his being the betrayer of Christ so that no one would ever overlook that or forget it or miss it. What makes the story of Judas so dark is that it's against the background of the brightest light that ever shone in the face of the world, and that is the light of the glory of God shining in the face of Jesus Christ. And because of the brilliance of Christ, the darkness of Judas is clearly seen. His is the foulest deed ever done by any human being. His is a treachery beyond comprehension.
His name is the legendary byword for betrayal. Judas is always painted as a willful sinner, always painted as one who chose his path of iniquity. He's never painted as some kind of a victim of destiny, victim of sovereign choice by God for which he had absolutely no control and to which he made no contribution...not at all. He is loaded with culpability in Scripture.
The church from the very outset after his life has put him in the lowest place. Even Dante in The Inferno in his passage through hell, you find Judas as depicted as occupying the lowest place with Lucifer and that he is enduring the most punishment possible by God. And part of his punishment is that Judas in Dante's view is barred and shunned from even the caverns of the damned. He's beneath them. Dante came to that thought because when Judas died it says he went to his own place. In Dante's view that is a solitary place at the bottom of hell.
Let's look, first of all, at his name. Judas Iscariot. Judas is a good name. In fact, just prior to him was Judas the son of James. Judas was a common name meaning "Jehovah leads." Well, when this little baby was born, some mother and father wanted God's will for his life and named him "Jehovah Leads." I'm sure there was in their heart some kind of prayer that this little one would grow up to step into the leading of Jehovah God. It might indicate that his parents were devout Jews, Jehovah leads.
We could assume that his life started out with a lot of hope on the part of his mom and dad and the family around him. It says Iscariot, apa keriotu(?) in the Greek, from Kerioth, from Kerioth. That is not the name of his father because in John 6:71 his father's name is given as Simon. Some Jewish man named Simon and his unnamed wife had this little baby and they named him Jehovah Leads. Certainly they were like any parent with a newborn in their arms, hopeful of all the best of God's direction in his life. Where was Kerioth? There was a Kerioth 23 miles south of Jerusalem. If you were to go from Jerusalem in a direct line south, you'd go a few miles and you'd pass through Bethlehem. You go about 21 miles further and you'd be in Kerioth, mentioned also in Joshua 15:25, and as I said, not to be confused with Kerioth over in Moab, far to the east across the Jordan. The area of Kerioth was really a very rural farm area. And there were a number of little hamlets, little farming villages that banded together to form a sort of loosely held-together town called Kerioth.
It was not in Galilee, that was where the other eleven were from, it was in Judea. He's the only apostle from Judea and that's why it doesn't say here, "Judas the son of Simon," because that wouldn't give us the hint that we need that he wasn't one of the group. He started out as an outsider, remained an outsider and is forever in hell an outsider. Seven miles from Hebron in this peaceful little rural town was born a baby who in spite of all the hopes and dreams of the parents who named him Jehovah Leads would become the most despicable man ever to live, who would take a position opposite God that was so severe one couldn't imagine a more severe one, to spend forever in eternal hell.
Maybe that was important because he needed to work his way into the treasury. He needed to get to the money and it helped that nobody knew him, or his background. How did he ever get into this group? How did he ever arrive here? I mean, you know if you're working in a ministry, you're working in a church and you're trying to pick leaders, you're very cautious, and very careful, and you go through all kinds of drill just to make sure you don't get somebody in a position of leadership who is not qualified to be there, and so you can ask the question...how in the world did this man ever end up as an apostle? It was because he had a divine purpose to fulfill in the plan of God. God knew it, Jesus knew it. I don't think Judas knew it. And I'm confident that the other eleven had no clue. They embraced him as a fellow apostle. They never had a question about his legitimacy. And apparently in the beginning he was attracted to Jesus.
By the time he had reached this age, a young man, maybe in his early twenties, his heart had been given over to material things. He was driven by avarice, which is a dominating and compelling greed. But that kind of wickedness, that kind of ambition is not just singular. Attached to his driving greed was something of his devout background, some idea that there really was a Messiah who really was going to come. And he had been looking for the Messiah.
His view of the messiahship was a material view of the messiahship. It was an earthly, political, military, economic view of the Messiah and that was not foreign to the rest of the Jews, that's the way they all viewed it. They thought when the Messiah comes He's going to create a welfare state, He's going to fulfill all the Old Testament prophecies, the desert will blossom like a rose, we'll all have free food, everybody will be well, all things will be good, all our enemies will bow down, He'll rule over the whole world. The Romans will be destroyed, thrown out. And this is what they looked for. They were not looking for a spiritual Messiah to come and deal with the sin of their hearts. In the end, they executed Jesus because He wasn't what they wanted.
In the beginning, they were all looking this way. I mean, even James and John were saying, "You know, when You come into Your big Kingdom, can we rule on the right and the left?" They were self-promoting, they wanted to be in the big seats, in the big chairs at the head of the Kingdom, in the positions of power and prestige and financial benefit. So he wasn't that different at the outset and he followed Jesus from his side because he wanted to. There was no determinism going on here. He's not some kind of robot. He's not some kind of mechanical man who had no thought of his own. He was doing what he wanted to do. He admired Jesus. He believed that this man is very likely the Messiah. He heard His words, he saw His mighty works, he saw Him raise people from the dead, he saw Him heal people, he saw this massive amount of miracles, the profound teaching of Jesus, feeding crowds of people, creating food, there was never anybody like Him, he needed that, he was astute enough to know this man appears to be the Messiah, I am going to hitch my wagon to this star. He'll take me where I want to go.
Don't ever think for a moment that Judas wasn't acting on his own volition, he was precisely acting on his own volition, acting on his own will, driven by ambition for power and position because it would bring to him money, driven by greed. But on the other side of the story, while all this is working in his wicked heart, from the divine side Christ chose him. God was at work moving him to the crowd on the edge, moving in. In John 6 when Jesus said, "You have to eat My flesh and drink My blood, you have to take everything in about Me," Judas wasn't willing to do that. But he didn't leave. Some of the disciples, it says, "Walked no more with Him." Not Judas, he hung around. He was going to cash in on this deal. He was in there for the duration. And it was his own volition and his own choice and his own will that he was there. He was driven by ambition, greed, avarice. But at the same time, in that inexplicable and marvelous way in which human volition and divine purpose and sovereignty work, God was putting him in the position to do what the plan required.
I suppose on the spiritual pathology side we could say that Judas was a wicked, wretched, selfish, proud man. He was probably a self-righteous person, probably thought he was good enough the way he was and things were right with God...if he thought about that at all. He was going to ride the Messiah into the Kingdom and become rich. It was all working in his heart that direction, but what he didn't know was that God was orchestrating all of his wretchedness to fit perfectly into His eternal plan. From the start, our Lord knew that Judas was the betrayer and chose him because He knew that.
In John 6:70 Jesus said, "One of you is a diabolos, one of you is a devl." It never registered with the apostles. They knew it wasn't them and they couldn't identify anybody else. And I doubt that Judas even accepted that description...one of you is a devil. Jesus knew it from the very beginning cause that was the plan.
In Psalm 41:9 the psalmist gives a prophecy of Judas. "Even My close friend in whom I trusted who ate My bread has lifted up his heel against Me." You know, in the ancient Middle East, ancient near-eastern culture, when somebody ate your bread, that was a signal of friendship. That's the intimate affirmation of friendship. And for someone who was your close friend whom you trusted, who ate your bread, sat at the table with you, to lift up his heel against you was the treachery of all treacheries. That's precisely a description of Judas.
In Matthew 26:23 Jesus was saying, "One of you is going to betray Me," verse 21, "and they all said, 'Surely not I, Lord...surely not I.' He answered and said, 'He who dips his hand with Me in the bowl is the one who will betray Me.'" He who dipped his hand with Me in the bowl is the one who will betray Me, it's the one sitting at My table, the one who put his hand with Me in the bowl. And we know at that last supper Judas was sitting next to Jesus and Jesus shared the sop with him.
Verse 24, "The Son of Man is to go just as it is written of Him, but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed." Just because it's prophesied, just because it fits into the purpose of God, just because God is determined that that man will be the traitor who would betray Christ and bring about His execution, does not exonerate the man who was the traitor. And Jesus then says that compelling statement in verse 24, "It would have been good for that man if he had not been born." Reason? Because once he was born, he could never die and that spells eternal punishment.
In Luke 22:21 Jesus says, "Behold, the hand of the one betraying Me is with Me on the table." There's that table thing from Psalm 41 again. He's here, My own companion, My intimate friend. His hand is on the table with Me. And then He repeats, "For indeed the Son of Man is going as it has been determined but woe to that man by whom He is betrayed." The fact that God used that betrayal in the plan, the fact that God controlled Judas so that he was useful to God in a horrifying way, is not determinism and does not take Judas off the hook, woe to that man by whom He is betrayed.
John 13:18 explicitly refers back to Psalm 41:9, "I do not speak of all of you, I know the ones I have chosen," Jesus says, I know who I chose, not to be an apostle, but to be saved, this is the choice to salvation, I know whom I have chosen, interesting that concept of election comes back in. "But it is that the Scripture may be fulfilled." He quotes Psalm 41:9, "He who eats My bread has lifted up his heel against Me." Judas did what he did in the way it was designed in the Old Testament so that there would be a fulfillment of prophecy that would show that God knew exactly what was happening, that God was orchestrating everything. Jesus knew every single thing that was going on all the way down the line, He knew Judas, He knew Judas would betray Him, He knew the one who sat at the table and ate with Him that night at the last supper would be the one who would betray Him, and that is exactly the way it happened as God had ordained long before, and indicated in the prophecy of Psalm 41.
Turn to Psalm55:12, and here again is another Davidic look at this whole idea of sort of inside treachery. "It is not an enemy who approaches Me, then I could bear it, nor is it one who hates Me who has exalted himself against Me, then I could hide Myself from him." It's one thing to have treachery against you done by an enemy. You can handle it, you can bear it. But verse 13, "It is you, a man literally my acquaintance, somebody I know, My companion," "My familiar friend, we who had sweet fellowship together, walked in the house of God in the throng." The worst pain you'll ever endure on a human level in terms of relationships is to be betrayed by the people who are the closest to you. I could have born it, He says, I could have dealt with it if it was somebody I didn't know, but it was My own familiar friend, My acquaintance, My companion, we had sweet fellowship together in a worshiping environment. So the Old Testament tells us that there's going to be a betrayer, he's going to be on the intimate circle.
In Zechariah 11:12, "So they weighed out 30 shekels of silver as my price, or my wages. Then the Lord said to me, 'Throw it to the potter, that magnificent price at which I was valued by them, so I took the 30 shekels of silver and threw them to the potter in the house of the Lord." There is a very explicit statement looking forward to Christ, the details aren't all here, of course, looking forward to Christ, being sold for 30 pieces of silver. Those pieces of silver being thrown on the floor of the house of the Lord, which is what Judas did with them because they were burning a hole in his hand because of his guilt. They were used to purchase the potter's field for a cemetery. There's no way that the prophet Zechariah in this vision could understand all of that, but that again is power of inspired prophecy, that the Messiah would be sold for 30 pieces of silver, that they would be thrown down in the house of the Lord, they would end up in a potter's field. And that's precisely what happened.
Judas came of his own volition, his own choice, of his own decision to accomplish the things that were in his own wretched, proud, greedy ambition. But at the same time he, as far as he was concerned, was functioning completely on his own mind's desire, God was at work effecting the fulfillment of prophecy through him. This is a great illustration. We cannot understand all of the supernatural way in which this works. But we can know that it does, that men do what they do, but it all works within the framework of God and His purpose. The man is culpable for his own choices, he is guilty for his own sins, and he is damned for his own rejection. And yet, the purposes of God come to pass.
The sum of understanding this man is in one title that he is given in John 17:11. He's given one title that sums up the man in a phrase. Jesus, of course, is praying for His own, the apostles, and He says, "You know, I'm no more in the world," He's anticipating leaving, "they're in the world, I come to you, holy Father, keep them in Your name, a name which You have given Me that they may be one even as we are one, keep these men who are mine. While I was with them I was keeping them in Thy name which Thou hast given Me, I guarded them and not one of them perished." Jesus says I'm keeping them, I guarding them, I'm holding them, as it were, powerfully to bring them to eternal glory, they'll not perish. Then He says at the end of verse 12, "But not one of them perish, but the son of perdition that the Scripture might be fulfilled." There we go again, that the Scripture might be fulfilled, Psalm 41, Psalm 55, Zechariah 11.
But notice here Judas is called "the son of perdition." Only one other person in the Bible is given that label. Second Thessalonians 2:3 and it's the Antichrist. And what it means, Luther interpreted it...translated it as "the lost child." A son of perdition means that his nature was lostness. His essential character was destruction. His very nature was to be lost to God. Judas has a nature that is headed to damnation. His very definition is lostness. And that's why early on Jesus could say he's a devil, he's a diabolos.
This man by his own will and his own pride and his own unbelief, ambition and greed follows Jesus, chooses to get into the circle, is probably shocked when he's chosen to be one of the 12 because he knows he's not the same as they are and he feels he's probably in the background rubbing his hands together, "I can't believe this happened. I'm in." And then he manipulates in order to become the treasurer, get his hands on the money. He's successful at it. And none of the eleven ever knew that he was the hypocrite because when Jesus said "One of you is going to betray Me," what did they say? "Is it Judas?" No. What did they say, "Is it I?" If he was the worst of men who ever lived, then he was the best of hypocrites who ever lived, good in the sense of effective. To be that wretched and to be chosen to take the responsibility for the treasury, the small treasury that sustained the life of the apostles, to have that kind of trust when you're that kind of greedy, you have to be a very adept hypocrite. And the worst of men then is the best of hypocrites.
Just like everything else in the death of Christ, you remember when Peter stood up in Acts 1:22-23 and preached on Pentecost, "By the determinant counsel and foreknowledge of God, you have by the hands of ungodly men killed Christ." You did it by the hands of ungodly men, you're responsible, it was by the predetermined plan of God. The sinner chooses and God sovereignly orchestrates and controls. So it was with Judas.
He didn't appear to have a defective character on the outside so that when Jesus added him to the group, nobody said, "We've gotten to know this guy, You don't want him in the group". In fact, at the start he might not have been any worse than Matthew who was a wretched, despised, hated tax collector. He might not have been any worse than Simon the Zealot who was a terrorist. They became better and he became worse.
Everybody around him saw the material, the same raw material out of which an apostle could be made. Everybody saw the same clay out of which a vessel unto honor could be shaped. They never even asked any questions. He was probably young, nationalistic, zealous, devout religiously, honorable in his efforts, labor and in his expectations for the kingdom of Messiah, showing the same hope of a kingdom but without the spiritual dimension, he was void of that from the beginning. He got in it because he thought he could get exalted, but so did James and John, didn't they? The only difference was they also had the spiritual dimension. They believed in Jesus Christ as their Messiah, Savior.
Jesus chose Judas because of the plan and because of the prophecy. And yet Judas chose Jesus out of his own driven ambition. Judas thought he could hook up to Jesus and get where he wanted to go. And God knew that he would hook up to Jesus and go exactly where God wanted him to go.
Being a southern Jew he was a little bit of an outsider. That worked in his favor. They didn't have any background. They trusted him enough to make him the group treasurer, they gave him all the money which he systematically stole. If he was wicked enough to betray the Son of God, it certainly didn't bother that consciousless man to steal from his acquaintances. The stupid eleven played right into his greedy hands, they gave him the money. He deceived them and they just were clueless. Day after day after day through the ministry of Jesus his heart got more hard and more hard and more hard and more hard. The same sun that melts the wax, hardens the clay. And while the disciples were melting under the Son of righteousness, he was hardening harder.
Don't stay around Jesus Christ if it's hardening you, get away, lest you become like Judas. His view of the kingdom was earthly. How could he gain for himself here and now. For the disciples it was increasingly heavenly and he concealed the fact that he was a tare, he concealed the fact that he was a fruitless branch described in John 15 by the Lord Himself. When Judas was sitting in that upper room and Jesus taught in John 15, I don't think the disciples knew...I don't think they'd all came together even when Judas left, that he was that fruitless branch attached to Christ with nothing growing that was going to be cut down, thrown into the fire. And Jesus never exposed him. All of those years He never told the others. But Jesus did extend to him love and affection, even at the last supper in John 13, He took the sop which was some kind of bread and you dipped it and He gave it to Judas is what you did to the honored guest, always reaching out with affection, always reaching out with love to Judas, always.
Then there were all those times when Judas was right there, you know, arm's length from the face of Jesus and Jesus was warning people about money and saying you can't love God and money, you can't serve two masters. Who do you think he was talking to? Well here's Judas standing in the front and Jesus is saying...don't be concerned about earthly riches, don't lay up your treasure here, put it in heaven, you can't serve God and money, don't worry about what you give up in this life, I'll give you everything in My Kingdom. And it never penetrated, it just made him hard.
Jesus in Luke 16 gave the parable of the unjust steward and warned about having tremendous opportunity, tremendous privilege and wasting it and getting pitched out into outer darkness. And then He told a parable in Matthew 22 about the great wedding feast, and everybody was invited. All the guests were to come and somebody came to the wedding feast and didn't have a wedding garment, he's a party crasher, a kingdom crasher. And they picked him up and threw him out into outer darkness where there's weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth. Who do you think He's talking to?
The message of repentance was offered repeatedly right in Judas' face. And while it was melting the wax in the other's lives, it was hardening the clay in his because he was so evil, so wicked, so ambitious, so proud, so money hungry. In Matthew 6 when He was saying, "Don't worry about what you eat or what you drink or what you wear, seek first the Kingdom of God and everything will be added," that had to ring in Judas' ear. Matthew 23 when Jesus blisters hypocrisy, that whole chapter is all about hypocrites, hypocrites this and hypocrites that, and the biggest hypocrite in the crowd was Judas. He was a far bigger hypocrite than the chief priests, the scribes, the Sadducees, the Pharisees. He was the hypocrite of hypocrites. It didn't register.
This is a tragic man and I think Jesus reached out to him in tenderness, love and affection and never exposed him. He showed him affection when He gave him the sop at the last supper. I think Jesus preached to him, preached to him, preached to him, preached to him right in his face and his heart just got harder and harder and harder. No wonder...no wonder Jesus said he is a son of perdition. What describes him most is his utter lostness.
Judas is so tragic. Understand his culpability as well as the fact that Jesus reached out and spoke to him and preached to him and directed His words at him, as well as His love and His affection at him. And that to me is like the universal gospel offer, that increases his culpability and defines his unbelief as obstinate. And he is guilty and yet God in His amazing, incredible providence and power fit that man's obstinate unbelief into the plan to fulfill the Scripture so that no one could ever say that things went wrong in Jesus' life and oops, this happened. This was planned from the start.
Common Men, Uncommon Calling: Judas Iscariot, Part 2
The first eleven disciples have encouraged us greatly because they were common men lifted to an uncommon calling. We saw how the Lord took common men, greatly loved them, taught them, trained them and empowered them to the greatest calling that any person ever has had, that of being an apostle of Jesus Christ. Judas, as common as the rest, with no earthly credentials started out like all the rest started out, but was never transformed like the rest. While they were becoming increasingly stronger sons of God, he was becoming increasingly more a son of hell, as the weeks pass.
The New Testament tells us plenty about him, enough to accomplish two thngs, first of all, a clear warning about the danger of being near Christ and hardening. And secondly, a great lesson that no matter how sinful a person may be, no matter what treachery they may attempt against God, the purpose of God cannot be thwarted. And the worst of treachery finds its place in the fulfillment of the divine plan. In the end, God is not overthrown by the treachery, and the sinner is damned in unspeakable judgment.
He followed Jesus out of nothing more than selfish gain, nothing more than worldly ambition, avarice and greed. But he was determined to follow Jesus and when Jesus said very hard things, very definitive things that drove other disciples away, they didn't drive him away, his ambition was strong enough and his conviction that he was going to get rich by sticking with Jesus was firm enough to survive the hard words that drove others away. He chose to follow. He chose to follow when following was tough. He chose to follow when he had to be an excellent hypocrite to cover up the reality of what he was. He chose to follow because he really did believe that his ambitions for wealth would be tied to the robe of Jesus.
On the other hand, he not only chose to follow Jesus, Jesus chose him to be the betrayer in the fulfillment of prophecy. In Psalm 55 the greatest amount of treachery, as David pours it out in that Psalm, probably referring to either Absalom or Ahithophel, a son and a close friend who betrayed him with that kind of internal treachery that only a friend can bring upon you. In David's prayer he talked about how easy it would have been to deal with an enemy, or somebody from the outside, but horrible it was to deal with a familiar friend, somebody very close. You also remember the direct prophecy of Psalm 41:9, "My close friend whom I trusted who ate My bread has lifted up his heel against Me." And there in Psalm 41 is a prophecy of Judas which is stated to be fulfilled by Judas in the New Testament.
Zechariah 11:12-13 lays out that Judas would betray Jesus for 30 shekels, 30 pieces of silver. The money would be thrown down in the house of the Lord and ultimately go to a potter. Every bit of that prophecy being fulfilled by Judas who sold Jesus for 30 pieces of silver, took the money back, threw it on the floor of the house of the Lord and it was given to a potter to purchase a field. Judas that solitary monster who by his own greed and by his own ambition, motivated by his own wicked heart chose to follow Jesus. And yet God chose him at the same time to fit him perfectly into the plan. He was always a devil, Jesus said in John 6:70, he was always a son of perdition, a lost soul whose very nature was damnation. He chose to be that and God chose to fit him into the plan.
I want to look this morning at his development. This is a tragedy. This is a tragedy with no hope, no good, no relief, no mitigation of the pain, the sadness and the sorrow. It is wrenching tragedy at its worst. And yet it is intensely instructive for all of us. The definitive look at the development of Judas is brought to us by the apostle John in his gospel. As you watch the life of Judas he becomes more and more disillusioned. And his disillusionment turns to hate and his hate turns to treachery. When he began to see that things weren't going as expected, as hoped for, then he begins to become the monster that he latently was all the while.
At the start, all of the apostles thought of Jesus as the Messiah or they would not have left everything to follow Him. They were not all spiritually motivated. Even James and John, two that we would say are the nobler, the most intimate with Jesus along with Peter, sent their mother to ask if they could sit on the right hand and the left hand of Jesus when he entered into His Kingdom, which they believed would be an earthly kingdom, a military kingdom, an economic kingdom. They all regarded the Jewish Messiah in the terms of an oriental monarch who would defeat the enemies of Judea, who would rid the land of Israel of the Roman occupation, send the Romans back to Rome and establish the kingdom that had been promised to David. They all regarded Jesus as the Messiah who had come to do that. They knew He was a miracle worker. He was a healer. They knew He had power over the kingdom of darkness, the spiritual world. They knew He had power over the physical world. They knew that no one ever taught the way He taught, spoke the way He spoke, or lived the way He lived.
They learned slowly that their notions of the Messiah were really false. It was only gradually that they began to discover that Jesus was coming not as the lion of the tribe of Judah, but as the lamb, slain, from Isaiah 53. That was really hard for them to understand. They had to repudiate their traditional view that the Messiah would come in some spectacular manifestation of divine power and immediately institute the kingdom and free Israel from all the trepidation that was introduced into their lives by their enemies.
Judas like the other apostles were nationalistic, he was patriotic. He was committed to the Messiah. He must have been greatly influenced by the power of Jesus, by the teaching of Jesus, by the personality of Jesus. This man lived for one thing, money. And he had come to the conclusion in his mind that the most money was to be found in sticking with Jesus no matter how tough it became. He believed that Jesus was great, powerful, expected that he would have a place in this kingdom that Jesus would establish. When it became clear that this was a spiritual kingdom and that Jesus was a lamb and not a lion, Judas had to become a better and better hypocrite. And he had to look for a way to get some money out of this three years.
The eleven were responding to the teaching of Jesus about the Kingdom, responding to what Jesus said about the future, responding to even His comments about His death and responding to Him personally by loving Him more and more. Love for Him began to overcome their worldly ambition. They began to see the triumph of the spiritual over the material, though it was a slow, gradual process. And as they grew to love Him more and love Him more and to own the spiritual element of His Kingdom, He became more precious to them and they became more devout. Worldliness was conquered. They began to see the Kingdom that was spiritual rather than the kingdom that was material. But worldliness was never conquered in the heart of Judas, never. He joined Jesus with the expectation that he would have earthly dignity, earthly power, and it would bring him money...and he never ever, ever yielded to the spiritual dimension.
The corrupt elements of his heart just got more corrupt. His original attraction to Jesus became disappointment that ultimately turned to hate. Jesus had stolen his life. Jesus had robbed him of three years of making money potential. And greed and worldliness had so dominated that man's life that Jesus Himself couldn't penetrate his heart. His treacherous kiss was the sign of defeated love in its most blatant hypocrisy.
Once Judas had seen the collapse of his dream, once he had seen the canker at the root of his character rising up, he became literally a passionate man. He was tyrannized by how could he get as much money as possible and get out. He had always been driven by greed, ambition and worldliness. He was avaricious, always. But he reached the place where passion took over to such a degree that in a condition of almost panic he had to salvage something out of these wasted three years. And it came down to selling Jesus. The ultimate Faust, selling his soul to Mephistopheles, Judas sold his soul to Satan. He gambled and he lost forever.
In John 12, Jesus had left the wilderness with His disciples. He told His disciples, "We're going to Jerusalem." The disciples knew that in Jerusalem there was potential death and that's why Thomas said, "Let's go with him and die," they knew that going to Jerusalem was exceedingly dangerous because the leaders of Judaism already had determined they wanted Jesus dead. But Jesus determined to go and He did go. They are now in Jerusalem. It is around the Passover time. Chapter 12:1, "Six days before the Passover came, they came to Bethany," Jesus did, where Lazarus was whom Jesus had already raised from the dead. They made Him a supper there. Martha was serving. Mary and Martha were the two sisters of Lazarus. Lazarus was also there reclining at the table with Him and they therefore took a pound of very costly perfume of pure nard and anointed the feet of Jesus and wiped His feet with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.
It's an extremely extravagant act to pour out this amount of perfume on Jesus. "And Judas Iscariot, one of His disciples," in verse 4. Always this little epithet, "Who was intending to betray Him, said, 'Why was this perfume not sold for 300 denarii and given to poor people?'" You know how much 300 denarii is? Well a denarii was basically a day's wage. That's a year's work, if you take off Sabbaths and a few days. That's some pretty valuable perfume. This was a lavish act on the part of a family that must have had some means. And then Judas' response, "Why wasn't this amazing amount sold so that we could give it to the poor people?" And all the disciples probably looked at each other and said, "Oh, doesn't Judas have a big heart." But John who at the time probably didn't understand his motive, does when he writes this years later. Verse 6, "Now he said this not because he was concerned about the poor, but because he was a thief and as he had the money box, he used to pilfer what was put into it." What kind of a person does that? Traveling band of evangelists with the Son of God, God in human flesh, and you're stealing out of the money box from your intimate friends, from the Messiah? This is a wretched person.
Jesus responds in verse 7. Jesus said, "Let her alone in order that she may keep it for the day of My burial." He reminded them that He was going to die and be buried...let her alone if she wants to anoint Me, she may want to use more of it. "For the poor you always have with you, but you do not always have Me." And again, He sticks that knife in the heart of Judas about His death.
John, as he writes this in retrospect, is revealed by God the motive of Judas. He couldn't have known it when it happened, he was a thief. And Jesus really first unmasks Judas and Jesus rebukes him and says, "Let her alone." Judas faced the decision. Judas, you're out of line. He could have fallen on Jesus' feet right there, could have repented, "I am out of line, Lord, been out of line for a long time, been stealing from the money box. My conscience is guilty, I want Your forgiveness, I need Your mercy."
He didn't do that. It just made him resent Jesus more. Greedy pride hardened him even more. He reacted in hate, crept away, left Bethany, walked over to Jerusalem, not far, met with the chief priests and had his first fatal interview to betray Jesus. There had to be a plan cause everybody was afraid of the popularity of Jesus with the crowd. Just a few days before indicated by what we call Palm Sunday, when He entered the city and the whole town cried, "Hosanna to the Son of David." There had to be a way to do this secretly and quietly and it's going to take an insider to pull it off. The Jewish leaders had been trying for a long time to find a path in to take the life of Jesus. They had been unsuccessful. They needed an inside informant so they could find Him in a compromised situation in a place that was not in public view. And so he went for his first fatal interview.
This is the first time there's any exposure of Judas. He just blended in with the group. This is the first time and it's a direct rebuke. Having set up his bargain, Judas comes back, blends in to the group and in John 13:1 it's just before the feast of the Passover. They're gathered in the upper room on that wonderful night when Jesus knows His hour has come that He should depart out of this world to the Father, having loved His own that were in the world, He loved them to the end. During supper the devil, having already put into the heart of Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon, to betray Him.
The devil put it into his heart. Here he was in the presence of Christ for three years and he had become so hardened that the devil moved in and took control. The devil put into the heart of Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon, to betray Him. The devil is always the servant of God. What the devil did did not result in thwarting the work of God, it fulfilled prophecy and achieved the purpose of God.
Jesus then went on with this lesson of humility. You remember that He washed their feet, which means He washed the feet of Judas. Judas now because he is the world's worst sinner is the world's best hypocrite. He lets Jesus wash his feet and is unmoved. Jesus says, "He who has bathed needs only to wash his feet, but is completely clean." And then He adds, "You are clean, but not all of you." We go from a rebuke to Judas to a direct statement that somebody in the group, and there were only the 12 and Jesus, somebody here is not clean.
Jesus gets even more direct. "I do not speak of all of you, I know the ones I have chosen, but it is that the Scripture may be fulfilled, he who eats My bread has lifted up his heel against Me." There is that Psalm 41:9 fulfillment. And then directly, "From now on I am telling you before it comes to pass so that when it does occur you may believe that I am He. One of you, somebody eating bread is going to betray Me." And they knew the passage. "Some familiar friend whom I've trusted is going to betray Me. I'm telling you that so when it happens you don't think that I have lost control, rather when it happens you will know I am God because I predicted it." So He goes from rebuking Judas to saying generically...one of you is not clean...to saying...one of you is going to betray Me, and when it happens you're going to know that I am...the tetragrammaton, that's the name of God...that I am God.
"Truly, truly I say to you, one of you will betray Me." And, of course, the disciples looking at each other are at a lost to know which one He was speaking. "Is it I?" They didn't suspect Judas at all. Verse 21, "When Jesus had said this He became troubled in spirit." "Jesus therefore answered, 'That is the one for whom I will dip the morsel and give it to him.'" Whoever I give this morsel, it was a chunk of bread dipped in some jam-like paste that they ate, that was what you did to the honored guest, you gave him the first morsel, the host gave it. And He says, "To whom I give it, it's him." So when He dipped the morsel He took and gave it to Judas the son of Simon Iscariot." What else do you need to know? He rebukes him. He says one of you is unclean. He says one of you is going to betray Me. And it's him.
"And after the morsel, Satan," who had already been putting this in the mind of Judas, according to verse 2," entered into him." The day of salvation closed. Divine mercy expired. Sin triumphed and Satan moved in and what follows is not just historical, it's deeply symbolical. "Jesus therefore said to him, 'What you do, do quickly.' No one of those reclining at the table knew for what purpose He said this to him, for some were supposing that because Judas had the money box that Jesus was saying to him, 'Buy the things we have need of for the feast, or else that he should give something to the poor.'"
Even though He had said it and even though He had given him the morsel, it didn't compute. The worst sinner could fool his intimate friends...amazing. The most wretched man could fool his companions who were with him day and night for several years, they couldn't come to that conclusion in their minds. Jesus said, "Go, and go now." And verse 30 says, "After receiving the morsel, he went out immediately and it was night." It was not only night on the outside, it was night in his soul and it's still night right now. Jesus sent him away. It was night forever. It troubled Jesus to have him there. Jesus is pure and sinless and spotless and holy. Here is this wretched, evil presence and Satan has entered into him. Jesus is not about to have the first communion service, the first Lord's table service with the devil, or with Judas. Only when he left did our Lord institute the Lord's supper. Jesus was troubled. That's pretty easy to understand, the fact that this wicked, wretched presence was polluting that fellowship agitated Jesus, the ingratitude, the rejection of His love, the hate that Jesus had for hypocrisy, the repulsiveness of the presence of Satan, the heinousness of sin, the horrors of knowing that hell was waiting his three-year companion troubled Jesus. Get out.
Now we come to the betrayal. He did leave and it seems certain that Judas went to the Sanhedrin, the ruling body of Israel, 70 elders and told them that the breach had been made and negotiated the deal. Both Matthew and Mark tell us that he cunningly looked for a time when he could lead them to Jesus. Matthew 26:16, "He sought opportunity to betray Him;" Mark 14:11 "He sought how he might conveniently betray Him with minimum of disruption."
Judas didn't act in a moment of insanity or passion. His dark deed is deliberately planned. He is a premeditated betrayer. He had been planning this for weeks, if not months. He waits for an opportune hour. All the way along he's been stealing, trying to replenish his pocket for what he thinks he's lost by following this Jesus, and he's stealing the money and putting it in his own pocket, getting as much as he can. And now he sees that in the end he can make a great sum because he knows the Jewish leaders want Jesus and he can have one last opportunity to cash in and make up for his wasted years.
Luke 22:6 shows what a coward he was because it says he sought opportunity to betray Him, quote; "In the absence of the multitude." So Judas was trying to find the door to hell that was most convenient. And when he found it, he plunged in. He feared the popularity of Jesus. He feared the crowd. So while Jesus was instituting the Lord's table in the upper room, Judas was making arrangements for His capture.
He was in some pretty serious negotiations to sell Jesus, but all he could get was 30 pieces of silver. According to Exodus 21:32, that was the price of a slave. That's all he could negotiate. As much as he hated Jesus, all the leaders equally hated Jesus, and they hated Judas...they had disdain for Judas and they had disdain for Jesus and all he could negotiate was that. But his desperate greed caused him to strike an agreement. He's the blackest sinner that ever lived because he sinned against the greatest light. He settled for any price he could get. Matthew in his record tell us that he fulfilled the prophecy of Zechariah, selling Jesus for 30 pieces of silver.
Judas appears again and brings the betrayal to its culmination. John 18, Jesus went forth after the upper room, fellowship with His disciples where He instituted this table that same night, all through the night since Judas left, he's been negotiating the deal with the leaders and while he's negotiating the deal the Lord is giving all these promises with this incredible upper room discourse, all the promises that Jesus gives in John 13-17 are the richest promises that He ever gave His own, it all applied to the eleven, they all apply to us. And while He's pouring out blessing and blessing and blessing and promising them peace, power, and a home in heaven, Judas is shut out of all that promise, he's negotiating for his blood money.
At the end of the evening, Jesus is through speaking. He went with His disciples across the ravine, east of the temple ground on the east side of Jerusalem, down the little slope between the temple mount and the Mount of Olives, a little Kedron valley, where a brook seasonally runs through. They cross the Kedron and they went into the garden. And they went there because they very often went there and Judas knew it. Now Judas also who was betraying Him knew the place for Jesus had often met there with His disciples.
Judas then, having received the Roman cohort, and officers from the chief priests and the Pharisees, a Roman cohort would number about 600 men "Came there with lanterns and torches and weapons." They expect the worst. They expect a battle on their hands. "Jesus therefore knowing all things who were coming upon Him went forth and said to them, 'Whom do you seek?'" Walked right up, didn't try to hide, just walked right up in front of them, said that. "They said, 'Jesus the Nazarene.' He said to them, 'I am.' And Judas also who was betraying Him was standing with them."
Jesus standing with the eleven, Judas standing with the crowd. "And when He said to them, 'I am,' they drew back and fell to the ground." The very statement of the name of God knocked them all down in an ncredible display of power. Here is Jesus giving another evidence that He's the Messiah, another evidence to Judas who picked himself up with everybody else and dusted himself off. Convincing display of divine power which then makes the subsequent kiss all the more diabolical.
They get up, dust themselves off, the power of Jesus again established, and Matthew 26:17 picks up the account. "Judas, on of the 12, came up accompanied by a great multitude with swords and clubs, the chief priests, elders of the people." Verse 48, "He who was betraying Him gave them a sign saying, 'Whomever I shall kiss, He is the one, seize Him.'" That's what he had told them. "Whomever I shall kiss, He's the one, seize Him." What a diabolical way to point out Jesus. But his wretchedness is so profound that his hypocrisy is so wicked that he seemingly knows no conscience. And immediately he went to Jesus and said, "Hail, Rabbi, and repeatedly kissed Him," that's the Greek...repeatedly kissed Him. And Jesus said to him, "Friend," amazing, "Friend, do what you've come for."
Kissing is the mark of homage, love, affection, tenderness, respect and of intimacy. This is feigned innocence, this is devious hypocrisy, trying to make Jesus think that he's not the betrayer. He kisses Him repeatedly in some bizarre act of concealment of his treachery. The hatred of the priests was one thing to endure, the loud raucous noise of the multitude, the later pitiful cowardice of Pilate, the mistreatment of Annas and Caiaphas, the disdain of Herod, the brutality of the soldiers, Jesus suffered all of that in relative calm and quiet. But this pierced Him so painfully that He responds by just saying, "Just do what you came to do."
He profaned the Passover that night. He profaned the Son of God. He profaned the place of prayer where his Master went with His disciples so often to pray, betraying the Lord with a kiss. He sold Him. Upon selling Him his conscience immediately came alive, and he was in a hell of his own, hammered by his conscience for what he had done. Matthew 27:3, "Then when Judas who had betrayed Him saw that He had been condemned, he felt remorse and he returned the 30 pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders, saying, 'I have sinned by betraying innocent blood.' But they said, 'What is that to us?'" And I guess we could say of all the sinners, they were the closest to Judas. "What is that to us? See to that yourself. We don't want your money back."
"And he threw the pieces of silver into the sanctuary and departed into the house of the Lord and left." It's a short story from then on. "He went away and hanged himself." He was already in a hell of his own conscience. Hell is, you know, a conscience that won't be silenced. Sin leaves terrible guilt, monumental sin leaves monumental guilt. The monumental sin of Judas brought about him unbearable conviction. He didn't repent, he was sorry because he didn't like what he felt. He wanted to undo it but he didn't want to change. He wanted somehow to relieve his brutal conscience and the only thing he knew to do was to give back money because he lived for money...that's all he ever thought about.
He didn't seek the forgiveness of God, he didn't seek the mercy of God. He didn't seek deliverance from Satan. He thought, "I could pacify my conscience if I just give the money back." His sin was unbearable and that's what hell is. In some ways, hell doesn't change the sinner, it just crystallizes into permanency what he already is. He regretted it. He felt bad about it. His unforgiving heart rather than crying out for true repentance, cried out for vengeance on himself, as it often does. His despair was so profound that he himself demanded vengeance on himself and he went away and hanged himself. Many people kill themselves under the screams of conscience. Frantic, confused, guilty...this is the grief of a madman whose lost control.
Acts 1:16 adds the final note to this tragedy. Peter is speaking about Judas. "It was Judas who became a guide to those who arrested Jesus." Go down to verse 18...well, verse 27, "He was counted among us and received his portion in this ministry...he was one of us, this Judas." And then verse 18, "Now this man acquired a field with the price of his wickedness." Now remember back in Matthew that when Judas went into the temple and they wouldn't take his money, he threw it on the floor, they picked it up and scripture says in Matthew they bought a field from a potter, they turned that field into a cemetery for poor people. And that's what verse 18 means. "This man acquired a field." It wasn't that Judas bought the field, it was that the money that was his was used to purchase a field. That was the price of his wickedness.
But then it says about his death, "Falling headlong, he burst open in the middle and all his bowels gushed out." Now some people have suggested that this is a contradiction because we just read a very clear testimony of Matthew chapter 27 that Judas had in fact gone out and hanged himself, and that is exactly what it says in Matthew 27 and that is precisely what happened. It follows on to say, "The chief priests took the pieces of silver, they said we can't put it in the temple treasure because it's blood money. They had a meeting, they took the money, they bought the potter's field for a burial place for strangers, for this reason the field is called 'Field of Blood' to this very day. That which was spoken by the prophets concerning thirty pieces of silver and the use of the money has come to pass."
They had the money, they bought the field. As far as the account of Matthew goes, that's where it ends. What we have here is an additional note. Judas was such a tragic figure that he couldn't even kill himself the way he wanted to. What you do to find the truth about this is to eliminate the thought of a contradiction and realize that either the rope broke or the branch broke. Judas attempted to hang himself, putting himself out over some precipice, was inept at that. It's not hard to imagine that he somehow made an arrangement by which he could swing out and hang himself only to find that he broke the branch or the rope and plunged to the depths below where his body burst open and his bowels gushed out.
Judas thought he could end the misery of his conscience by giving back the money. It didn't work. He thought he could end the misery of his conscience by hanging himself. It didn't work. He right now as I speak is enduring eternal misery as his conscience screams about his iniquity. Acts 1:25 says that Judas turned aside to go to his own place. He was a child of hell and he was a son of prediction, he went to his own place where he belonged.
Don't be a hypocrite, coming and not believing and being hardened is a Judas-kind of hypocrisy. Don't be content with an outward association without Christ in the heart. That is the unimaginable magnitude of a Judas sin that results in the severest eternal judgment. The heathen world could never produce a Judas, he can only appear in the bright light of Christianity. That kind of person can only be produced close to Christ. And so, the severest punishments of hell are reserved for those who never believed but associated with Christ. And the tragedy of his life lies in the possibility of his success. In summing it up we could say it this way, still as of old, man by himself is priced for 30 pieces, Judas sold himself, not Christ.
