By Easter has always been a sacred holiday for myself and my family; filled with fun and good food as well as the Word. Being a product of the church, there is not a year that I can remember that we did not acknowledge the crucifixion, death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ. We revisited the story of the Journey to the Cross religiously every Lenten and Easter season. As the story goes, Jesus grew up and began teaching the gospel, chose 12 men of “questionable” background to follow him into ministry as disciples and was later betrayed by one of his disciples, Judas, for 30 pieces of silver and subsequently turned over to the Sanhedrin to be beaten, tortured and eventually murdered. Just by definition, we would say the Judas was a bad guy… terrible guy, false friend or whatever. And at first look, I would say that I would agree. I mean, how can you turn against the very man that you said you would follow forever, seen him do miracles and raise people from the dead for a mere 30 pieces of silver… not even gold, but silver? How?
But after doing my own study, now I will preface this to say that I am not a preacher but I am a reader and a hearer of the Word… Whoever has ears, let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches Rev. 2:29, I have come to have a fairly different view of Judas. I no longer see him as the bad guy. In fact, I feel that we as Christians, and even non-Christians who reference him in a negative light, don’t give him (or Jesus for that matter) enough credit… and I have a few reasons as to why that is…
- Jesus called Judas to discipleship already knowing who and what he was
Now, in order to sum everything together we will need to do a little background or laying of the foundation so to speak, but bear with me, I promise I’m going somewhere with this. In reading the Bible, we learn in John 1:1,14 that “in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God… And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth.” In knowing this we can conclude two things, a) that God and the Word are synonymous and b) the Word being made flesh is referencing Jesus; therefore, God and Jesus are one in the same. Now knowing that fact, we can go to Jeremiah 1:5 “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you…” meaning that he already knew who you were, who you would become, what you would do or not do, what you would experience and how you would react to certain experiences all before you took your first breath… before the first cell split even. So with that being said, if Jesus, for all intense and purposes, is God personified and because of this he already knew who you were before conception; is it too farfetched to believe that Jesus knew that Judas would be the one to betray him in his last days on earth before he chose him to be his disciple? I don’t think so. I believe that Jesus chose Judas because of that very thing. He needed him to be somewhat weaken in his spirit man and easily influenced in order for him to fall into the trap of greed and betrayal.
- Satan entered Judas
I get it, “the devil made me do it!!” is one of THEE worst excuses in the book but this time it was actually true. You see, in each of the gospels, there is this depiction of the very moment when satan entered into Judas and convinced him to betray Jesus. Though between the 4 gospels the specific time varies, whether before or after he took the bread from Jesus, the fact still remains that it happened. At that time Judas’ heart was hardened and he ultimately chose greed, 30 pieces of silver, over love and friendship. Furthermore, the gospels go on to say that at some point he was remorseful; again there is some discrepancy as to whether he was remorseful because of his actions (which would go on to make the assumption that satan had left him) or because there could be repercussions for his actions (which means he wasn’t sorry for what he did, just that he got caught). Either way, he was so overrun by grief that he ultimately decided that his life was no longer worth living and “fell headlong” in a field purchased with the blood money from betraying Jesus. Scripture goes on to say that because of the suicide of Judas, this same field, called the Field of Blood, became desolate; where no one inhabited it and it became a burial place for foreigners that died in that area. Also, due to the vacancy left by Judas, Matthias was appointed as a disciple in accordance with Acts 1:20 and Psalm 109:8 “May his days be few, may another take his position” fulfilling the scriptures. Which leads me to my final point…
- Prophecy fulfilled
All throughout Jesus’ journey with his disciples, various things would take place and He would always say that those things needed to happen in order to fulfill the prophecy or to confirm what was written by the prophets. For instance, before the betrayal, Luke 19:28-41, depicts where Jesus tells his disciples to go ahead of Him into the village where they would see a colt, untie it and bring it to him so he can ride it into the Bethlehem. This piece of passage goes on to confirm what was written in Zechariah 9:9 which foretold of the Messiah riding on a colt into the city; “Rejoice greatly, Daughter Zion!, Shout, Daughter Jerusalem!, See, your king comes to you, righteous and victorious, lowly and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.” And that is just one instance of many, including the crucifixion, where there needed to be a confirmation of the scriptures. But staying focused on the betrayal aspect, in Zechariah 11:12-13 it says, “And I said unto them, if you think good, give me my hire; and if not, forbear. So they weighed for my hire thirty pieces of silver. And Jehovah said unto me, Cast it unto the potter, the goodly price that I was prized at by them. And I took the thirty pieces of silver, and cast them unto the potter, in the house of Jehovah.” Zechariah clearly foreshadows the process by which Judas was paid for “betraying Jesus, how he attempted to give the money back and (depending on which book of the gospels you read) how he came to his demise. I say all that to get to this point… Judas did not just betray Jesus by happenstance but because the prophesy had to be fulfilled.
As Christians, we should know that God is never surprised by anything that has or will occur. It is all a part of His divine plan… no matter how devastating the event may be. Romans 8:28 sums it up perfectly when it reads, “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are called according to His purpose.” This was His purpose… before the foundation of the earth and before the fall of man, God knew that He would have to send His son to suffer and be sacrificed for the redemption of His chosen people. And in order to do that, He would need to be offered up by one of his own. Judas isn’t the enemy in this story, he played his role exactly as planned. Yes, he did some terrible things but had he not done those things and gave Jesus up to the Pharisees and Sadducees there would not have been a crucifixion, Jesus would not have died and risen from the dead, there would be no forgiveness of sins and there would be no Holy Spirit descending upon the people. So you see, it all worked out for OUR good and this still isn’t the end; there is more to come. Judas may not have been the friend to Jesus the way that Jesus was to him, but he also wasn’t his enemy… just my two cents.
from Leigh, with Love 