14 Then Judas Iscariot, one of the twelve disciples, went to the leading priests 15 and asked, “How much will you pay me to betray Jesus to you?” And they gave him thirty pieces of silver. 16 From that time on, Judas began looking for an opportunity to betray Jesus.

Matthew 26:14-16 (NLT) 中文

Ready for burial

Jesus has been anointed by the woman at Simon’s home. He’s ready for death and burial. His disciples have been taught some important lessons about priorities in ministry and how to value things. As we pointed out yesterday, He goes from this loving act by the woman to betrayal by one of His very own disciples, Judas Iscariot. 

Betray Jesus?

We may ask, “Why did Judas do it?” The Bible does not tell us exactly why. But, we can surmise by the things we know about Judas. Gotquestions.org provides some ideas such as: 1) He never called Jesus Lord as the others did, only Rabbi. 2) John tells us Judas was a thief (John 12:5-6). As we noted yesterday, in the perfume “wasting”, it was Judas who led the protest. 3) He had an expectation Jesus would overthrow the Romans, as other followers of Jesus did. Many of them left Him along the way.

When did He know?

Another question we may ask is, “When did Jesus know? Was it when He first called Judas?” John’s gospel account tells us that He knew, “from the beginning” (John 6:64). Regarding today’s passage, Luke’s account provides a key detail regarding this betrayal, that “Satan entered Judas” (Luke 22:3). This is pretty serious language. We might even say it’s the worst degree of possession – by Satan! So Jesus’ nemesis, the Devil, came back to try and stop God’s plan. But, as we know, in the process, He was used to fulfill it.

Heart set

But his heart was set on betrayal. The passage says he started looking for opportunities to betray Him. Considering that Jesus knew in advance (as noted above), some will ask, “Did Judas have a choice or was he just a pawn”? As a serious Bible student and seeker of the truth, I thankfully have not wrestled with this much. I accept that God is God and as such, He exists outside of time. Since He is omniscient, He must know all things including the future. So He knew what Judas would do – and even predicted it in the OT (Zechariah 11:12-13).

But does that free Judas of culpability? By no means. He had every opportunity to decide for himself what he would do. It was not a forgone conclusion – though it may seem as such from a human perspective. Reference the gotquestions.org article for a nice, concise, explanation of this.

RЯeflection

• The intersection of free will and God’s foreknowledge is difficult to grasp. Even if we think we understand, we come up short. See the gotquestions.org link above or their link on free will for more help. But seeking to know God will be the best.
• Have we betrayed Christ? Certainly not to the extent Judas did, but maybe as Peter did (which we’ll see later). Was there a peer pressure situation where we were asked if we believed “such fairy tales”? Or maybe a work situation where subtle discrimination of religion kept your mouth shut? Time to confess and repent. Trust God is really in control.