Judas, the Betrayer

You shall love your neighbor as yourself. (Leviticus 19:18b NKJV.)

You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy, But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven (Matthew 5:43-45a NKJV).

Then Judas Iscariot, one of the twelve, went to the chief priests to betray Him to them. And when they heard it, they were glad and promised to give him money. So he sought how he might conveniently betray him (Mark 14:10-11 NKJV).

The test of loving like Christ is not loving Jesus. It’s loving Judas. (Anonymous meme.)

Writing about Judas Iscariot is problematic. His name has become an epithet for a betrayer, a traitor, a double-crosser, the ultimate villain. 

Art and literature have immortalized his greed and duplicity. Dante’s Inferno shows him being eternally devoured by Satan (along with the assassins of Julius Ceasar, Brutus and Cassius). Spanish tradition shows him with red hair, considered an anti-Semitic bad trait. Matthew and Mark’s gospels have Judas betraying Christ for money. Luke and John’s gospels have him becoming possessed by Satan. Only in Jesus Christ Superstar do composers Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber treat Judas a little more sympathetically. 

Judas Iscariot was one of the twelve chosen by Jesus Himself. In the Gospels, we hear very little about him other than his betrayal of Christ. In the Gospel of John, we hear Judas grumbling over the expensive oil Mary, sister of Lazarus and Martha, used to wash Jesus’s feet. “ ‘Why was this fragrant oil not sold for three hundred denarii and given to the poor?’ This he said, not that he cared for the poor, but because he was a thief, and had the money box; and he used to take what was in it” (John 12:5-6).

Nobody has a good word for Judas Iscariot. 

I know what Judas did. But I’ve often wondered why he did it. Matthew’s gospel is the only one that specifically mentions “thirty pieces of silver” (Matthew 26:15). Mark seems to think Judas gave the authorities a reason to arrest Jesus, but doesn’t mention money at all. Luke states, “Then Satan entered Judas, surnamed Iscariot, who was numbered among the twelve. So he went his way and conferred with the chief priests and captains, how me might betray Him to them. And they were glad, and agreed to give him money” (Luke 22:3-5), but doesn’t specify an amount. John simply says, “Judas, who betrayed him,” (John 18:28). Matthew and Luke relate some payment for the betrayal, but Mark and John focus on the betrayal alone. 

So, it’s hard to gauge Judas’s motivation. Greed? Dissatisfaction with Jesus’s teachings? Demonic possession? Any or all could be valid, or there might have been some other motive. There is no scholarly consensus that I could find. It’s a mystery wrapped in an enigma. 

And Judas comes to a bad end.  

Matthew writes that Judas was overcome with remorse after the crucifixion and tried to return the money, which the priests would not accept because it was blood money. Judas threw it on the floor in front of them and went and hanged himself. The priests used the money to buy a “potter’s field,” a burial ground (Matthew 27:1-10). But Luke writes that Judas “purchased a field with the wages of iniquity, and falling headlong, he burst open in the middle and all his entrails gushed out” (Acts 1:18). There’s no remorse in Luke’s account.

Nobody has a good word for Judas Iscariot.

How can you love a Judas Iscariot?

Rejoice Always,

Jerry Lipscomb