Oh Judas...

It has been more than 1 month already as Jon pondered on his next entry; A follow up on Judas - a character if controversy.

It seems like we are having a good time examining about this chap. In fact, after Jon's previous post about "Poor Judas", Jon received a couple of feedbacks. Many claimed that Gospel Of Judas is a Gnostic Gospel, it lacks credibility. No doubt about it, the Gospel Of Judas is full of controversy. However no one seems to understand Jon's point of view. Jon is not bothered who wrote the Gospel Of Judas, but rather, Jon is more interested in finding out the role Judas is playing more than 2,000 years ago...… Was Judas a villain heading to hell or was he a stroke of genius by God in fulfilling the great "Resurrection" of Christ?

Looking at Jon's last post, many would have seen that Jon had established some facts stated in the bible to "redeem" Judas' name. It really has nothing to do with what the Gospel of Judas had written. The gospel only triggered Jon's interest to examine the role of Judas in further details. After going through several feedbacks and other's comments about Judas, Jon has an urge to "charge" Judas guilty for his villain act too:

This is what Jon has examined:

Mathew's account really catches Jon's eye. In fact Mathew was the only disciple who really criticized Judas heavily as a "Betrayer" and Mathew alone recorded the exact amount of money Judas accepted to betray Jesus - 30 silver coins, the price of a slave (Exodus 21:32).

Though as mentioned in Jon's previous post, many actions prior to the capture were to fulfill what was prophesized, but the prophecy did not mention anything about any specific betrayer. In fact the religious leaders had all along planned to wait until after the Passover to take Jesus, but Judas had offered to betray his master. That had accelerated their plans.

Now, let's examine the actual reasons why would Judas want to betray Jesus? Was Judas really part of God's plans or it was purely based on GREED? If you understand more of the scriptures, it actually explained to us that it was all about man's greed that prompted Judas action. Read Mark 10:35 about "The Request of James and John":

After Jesus had predicted his death earlier, Mark recorded that John and James went to Jesus with their request. James and John wanted honored places in Jesus' Kingdom. The disciples, like most Jews of that day, had the wrong idea of the Messiah's Kingdom as predicted by the OT prophets. They thought Jesus would establish an earthly Kingdom that would free Israel from Rome's oppression, and James and John wanted honored places in it. But Jesus' Kingdom is not of this world; it is not centered in palaces and thrones but in the hearts and lives of his followers. The disciples did not understand this. In fact bible stated in Mark 10:41 that when the other ten disciples discovered what James and John had asked, they were indignant - meaning angered at something unjust!

Irving's comment was spot on: If we looked at Judas, as a Treasurer, he certainly assumed that he would be given an important position in Jesus's "Kingdom". But when Jesus praised Mary for pouring out perfume worth a year's salary, Judas may have realized that Jesus' Kingdom was not physical but spiritual when Jesus mentioned about his "burial". Judas' greedy desire for money and status could not be realized if he continued to follow Jesus. Satan was able to exploit on Judas main weakness and used him to betray Jesus in exchange for money.

So as we see from here, there is "SIN" at play in Judas heart. Though the bible claimed that Judas later regretted over his action, his following action (suicide) did not "redeem" himself. He had forgotten what Jesus said in Mathew 26:31 & 32: "Tonight all of you will desert me." ... "But after I have been raised from the dead, I will go ahead of you to Galilee and meet you there." So by committing suicide, Judas did not really obeyed Jesus' instruction even though Jesus had already assured all his disciples earlier in Mathew 26: 28: "for this is my blood, which seals the covenant between God and His people. It is poured out to forgive the sins of many in my Father "Kingdom". As such, Judas missed out on the Great Commission!

At this point, Jon could not really judge Judas if he should be burned in hell. However we all knew that though we were all redeemed by the blood of Jesus, our calling is to fulfill the great commission. Revelation 20:11-15 about "The Final Judgement" sums up all!

"11And I saw a great white throne, and I saw the one who was sitting on it. The earth and sky fled from his presence, but they found no place to hide. 12I saw the dead, both great and small, standing before God's throne. And the books were opened, including the Book of Life. And the dead was judged according to the things written in the books, according to what they had done.13The sea gave up the dead in it, and the death and the grave gave up the dead in them. They were all judged according to their deeds. 14And death and grave were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death - the lake of fire. 15And anyone whose name was not found recorded in the Book Of Life was thrown into the lake of fire."