Judas the traitor.
Walking with Jesus but following Satan.
John 13: 21-27
Every story needs a villain and Judas Iscariot fills this role in the gospels. He is the apostle who betrayed Jesus and helps the Jewish authorities to arrest him. Judas enjoyed a privileged position among Jesus' apostles — John describes him as the band’s treasurer and he is often present at important times. John also describes him as a thief.
The Gospels are very selective in what they tell us about people. We get very few details about Jesus’ childhood and teenage years, and almost no details about what the apostles were doing before Jesus found them (other than what some of their professions were). However, there are some things we know about Judas:
His last name probably tells us where he was from. The word “Iscariot” means " man of Kerioth,” a town in south Judea.
Jesus gave him spiritual authority. Matthew 10:1 says that Jesus gave spiritual authority to all 12 apostles, which allowed them to cast out demons and perform miracles. They also preached (Mark 3:14). So Judas also had authority to heal and cast out demons.
He was in charge of the finances. Several passages in the Gospels tells us that Jesus and his disciples were funded by the women who followed Jesus - Luke 8:1-3, and John 12 says that Judas was in charge of the disciples’ money, implying a communal bag the group used to cover their expenses. John 12: 6 also mentions that Judas stole money from that communal bag. Given that Matthew was a tax collector, a profession associated with theft and extortion, it’s perhaps ironic that someone other than Matthew turned out to be sneaky with the finances.
The other disciples didn’t suspect him. While John 12:6 says that Judas stole from the money he was put in charge of, it’s worth noting that when Jesus announced at the Last Supper that one of the apostles would betray him, they were all surprised. In fact, they each asked Jesus “Am I the one?” (Mark 14:19), meaning Judas didn’t have a reputation that immediately made them think “Oh, I know who He’s talking about…”
How did Judas betray Jesus? He points out Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. This is hardly an action worthy of payment because Jesus wasn’t someone unknown and was not in hiding. Judas doesn’t actually do anything except fulfill the narrative and eschatological need for the Messiah to be betrayed by someone.
Jesus says several times in the Gospels that He know someone would betray him. He predicted his death at least twice, with different Gospels apparently referencing the same two predictions, and Jesus uses the word “betrayed” (as opposed to being “handed over” or arrested) in at least some of these predictions. We see this in Matthew 17:22-23, Matthew 20:17-19, Mark 9:30-32, Mark 10:32-34, and Luke 9:43-45.
In John 6, after Jesus gives a hard teaching about people eating His flesh, many of his disciples leave and Jesus asks the 12 apostles if they’re leaving Him too. Peter replies, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and to know that you are the Holy One of God” (John 6:68-69). Jesus answers, “Have I not chosen you, the Twelve? Yet one of you is a devil!” (John 6:70). The only time where Jesus calls a man "a devil."
There are few more perplexing questions of the Bible than this: If He knew that Jesus would betray Him in the end, why did Jesus choose Judas as a disciple to begin with?. And what does Jesus have to teach us by choosing someone to be his disciple, knowing full well he would betray him?
John 6:64 says, “Jesus knew from the beginning who those were who did not believe, and who it was who would betray him
(1) The Old Testament Scriptures prophesied that this would take place. So Jesus chose Judas to fulfill the Scriptures. In John 13:18, Jesus says to his apostles, “I am not speaking of all of you; I know whom I have chosen. But the Scripture will be fulfilled.” And then He quotes Psalm 41:9: “He who ate my bread has lifted his heel against me.” And Peter, on the day of Pentecost, in Acts 1:16, says, “Brothers, the Scripture had to be fulfilled . . . concerning Judas, who became a guide to those who arrested Jesus.”
Step by step, Jesus moved toward the cross, taking pains to fulfill every Scripture concerning his death, right down to the details of how he would be handed over. The point was to show that the Scriptures cannot be broken, and that God is in control.
2. Saving faith is not the same as religious activity.
By choosing a person who was destined for apostasy and destruction, and by including him in His closest group and by giving him power over unclean spirits and over diseases, Jesus shows us that religious associations and religious practices and miracle-working are no sure evidences of being born again. Matthew 10:1–4 describes the choosing of the twelve. It names Judas and says Jesus “gave them authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal every disease and every affliction” (Matthew 10:1). Judas walked with Jesus, ministered with Jesus for three years, and he worked those miracles. And yet he was lost.
3. Judas becomes a vivid illustration of the people in Matthew 7:22–23: “On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’” That’s Judas — and many, many other people in history. And then Jesus will declare to them, “I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.” What a vivid lesson to learn that right doctrine (“Lord, Lord, we know who you are; we’ve got our doctrine right.”) and religious activity and miracle-working (“We’ve cast out demons; we’ve healed people”) prove nothing about saving faith and being born again. That’s the lesson of Judas.
4. Sovereignty does not undermine human responsibility.
Judas serves as an illustration that predestination and human responsibility go hand in hand. Judas’s destiny was set before his betrayal. Jesus said that he kept all his disciples from apostasy except Judas, “the son of destruction” (John 17:12).
5. Greed for money corrupts our souls.
Judas serves as a vivid example of the terrible, terrible power of the love of money, and how it blinds us to what is true and beautiful and valuable in this world. In John 12:4–6, when Mary anointed Jesus, Judas said, oozing with hypocrisy, “Why was this ointment not sold for three hundred denarii and given to the poor?” And John comments, “He said this, not because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief, and having charge of the moneybag he used to help himself to what was put into it.” He did that under the nose of the very Son of God, who would give his life as a ransom for many, whose teachings he had heard for three years, in whose power he did miracles.
Judas loved money more than he loved Jesus. That’s horrific, unbelievable, unspeakably evil. It should make every one of us tremble at the thought of the power that money has in our lives to blind us to what is true and beautiful and precious. So, when Judas got his chance, thirty pieces of silver is all it took to sell the very Son of God.
Luke 22 says that while Jesus was in the Jerusalem-Bethany area for the Passover, “Satan enter into Judas Iscariot, who was one of the twelve disciples, and he went to the leading priests and captains of the Temple guard to discuss the best way to betray Jesus to them” (Luke 22:3-5). Assuming that Luke doesn’t mean that Satan possessed Judas and overrode his free will, this could be an expression to mean Satan tempted Judas with this particular idea.
Multiple prophecies hundreds of years before Judas’s birth predicted his betrayal. Zechariah predicted Jesus would be betrayed for 30 pieces of silver (Zechariah 11:12-14). Psalm 41:9 predicted that Jesus’ betrayer would share his bread, which Jesus directly referenced in John 13:18 and acted out in John 13:26-28.
Thus, God knew of this “disastrous” turn of events long before it ever occurred. God was not blindsided by this betrayal. In fact, it was part of His plan. In order to save the world from sin, the Bible claims, Jesus had to die. God therefore used Judas’ betrayal to help bring about the salvation of His people.
Satan may have thought he was thwarting God’s plan through Judas, but the results show just how impossible that is. Judas reminds us that God is always in control. Judas’s life is a reminder that even the worst of situations can be used by God in powerful ways.
We know that Judas felt remorse for his actions (Matthew 27:3) and knew he sinned. His sorrow, however, did not lead to true repentance and a change of heart, as it did for Peter (see Luke 22:55 - 62, John 18:17, 25 - 27, etc.). It led to him committing suicide (Matthew 27:5, Acts 1:18). What is the difference between remorse and repentance?
Remorse can be temporary. It doesn’t lead to change. Remorse can leave you filled with guilt that eventually leads to shame. This type of “worldly sorry” can eat you up emotionally. But repentance leads to confessing our sin to God, leaving it at the cross, and asking the Holy Spirit to change us. It brings a change in thinking and behaving. It is taking responsibility for our actions, not because they hurt people, but because they are sin. Ultimately, it leads to freedom.
Repentant people change from their previous ways and don’t wallow in guilt. Repentance comes when we cry out to God and say, “There is nothing in me that can make this change. I need you.” When we do, God forgives us. We turn from our sin and allow His Spirit to help us overcome.
To be free, repent and allow God to change you.
The majority of Biblical commentaries state that Judas likely killed himself by hanging off a tree that overlooked the valley of Hinnom.. Nothing more is stated about him after the last Biblical reference to his life in Acts 1:25.
Understand, Judas was not a robot. Our Lord did not simply allocate to an unwilling Judas the part of the villain in the crucifixion. Such a thing would be inconsistent with the character of Jesus Christ. . Throughout the ministry of Jesus, He endeavored to drive Judas to repentance, time and time again, with His love, His pleas, and His rebukes. So although Judas's treachery fit into the plan of God, God did not design him as a treacherous man. He became a traitor to Christ by his own choice. God merely designed his treachery into the divine plan. He took Judas, wretched as he was, and fitted him into His plan.
Judas, through his life of treachery, supplies sinners with a solemn warning. We learn from the example of Judas that a person can be very near to Jesus Christ, and yet be lost and damned forever. Nobody was ever closer to Christ than the Twelve. Judas was one of them, he too like the other apostles had the "authority to cast out evil spirits and to heal every kind of disease and illness” (Matthew 10:1). But he's in hell today, because while he may have given intellectual assent to the truth, he never embraced Christ with heartfelt faith.
Judas wasn't deceived by Satan . He understood the truth, and he posed as a believer. Furthermore, he was good at it—the cleverest hypocrite we read about in all the Scriptures, for no one ever suspected him. He had everyone fooled except Jesus, who knew his heart.
Satan did not overrule Judas' will. By his greed for money or position Judas fell into the plot of Satan and betrayed Jesus.
Be careful if you play about with sin we will become instruments of Satan.
