Judas
Allow me to touch on a historical theological sore spot of the Church of Jesus Christ: the enigma of Judas Iscariot, one time anointed Apostle of the faith turned traitor of the Lord.
Judas was called by Jesus Christ personally to faith. He walked with the Lord and learned to minister in his name. He cast out devils and healed the sick under the anointing of the Spirit. He walked in intimacy with Christ and had opportunity to reign with Christ as one of the twelve whose names are inscribed in the walls of the New Jerusalem.
Judas finally betrayed Jesus with a kiss, selling him out for 30 pieces of silver. There are many theories that try to find something redemptive in this man. Some believe that he was acting out divine will by his treachery and that he was therefore excused. Others believe he made a real choice. The amount of money Judas got for his treachery wasn’t much. I personally believe Judas asked the priests for that much to cover money he had stolen from the ministry treasury.
The Bible says that Judas was a thief, covetous, didn’t care for the poor, and was finally filled with Satan (”Satan entered his heart”). Dispute settled. Liberal theologians have vainly for centuries to find a way to redeem this mans’ sullied reputation. The most common theory is that he tried to force Jesus to reveal himself as the long awaited Messiah but his ideal theocracy had no place for a dying God and he didn’t probably mean to be a traitor. Still, the Book says he was exactly that - a traitor.
I write about Judas to bring up a few painful questions that I have asked myself. Judas had his reasons for his betrayal of Jesus but were they valid? No, they weren’t.
Men tend to reinvent God in our own image to make him a convenient reflection of whatever the popular passing fad is raging in the world. In the 60s, Jesus was a long haired revolutionary. In the Middle Ages he was an uptight pathetic tragic figure. The truth is we often do exactly what Judas did, sometimes for similar reasons. We sell out Jesus, the Lord of Glory, to make him palatable for the times and a means to our own ends.
To hear some gospels preached, Jesus is the missing key to financial freedom. To others, he is the taskmaster watching your every move just waiting for you to even think about sin. He is sometimes caricatured as a laughing sugardaddy who “understands” human weakness and kinda slyly winks at sin - hey, everybody does it. To others he is an unsmiling apocalyptic Zeus figure, thunderbolts drawn and aimed.
If we take only partial truth from Scripture, we paint a distortion of him denying the Truth. What we need is the whole counsel of God, the whole Truth and nothing but the Truth. Yes, he is wonderful and a friend of sinners. And equally yes, in righteousness he judges and makes war. In Paul’s words, “Consider then the kindness and severity of our God.”
Judas was only willing to accept Jesus on his own terms. His own terms finally got him hung and exposed as the Traitor of all traitors for all time. How many people name their children Judas? That name is as damned as that man.
If you would know the Lord, lay your terms and demands down and pick up the cross he grants you and follow him. Lay down your own yoke and pick up his. It’s easy and light because he will handcraft it to fit you to make you a fit follower. Follower? If you would really know Jesus, you must pick up your cross daily follow him.
Any God you can invent and fully comprehend isn’t worth serving. Any God fashioned by human contrivance is no more God and no more real than a hand carved stone idol.
God has many servants but dreadfully few friends. This is because few take time to get to know him for who he is. Ask the Holy Spirit to remove the cobwebs from your mind and reveal Jesus for Himself. Get to know your God through the revelation of his Word. You’ll be wonderfully surprised at the discovery!
So Judas threw the money into the temple and left. Then he went away and hanged himself. Matthew 27: 5.
Bryan Hupperts © 1997 -2009
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