by Alice Whitaker

Created on: November 13, 2008

Poor Judas. His love of money definitely became his undoing. Here was a man who actually knew Jesus. He was an apostle. What an envious position to hold! They slept and ate together. He saw some of the miracles that Jesus performed. He participated in the preaching work that was conducted and was privy to Jesus' teaching sessions. He knew every facet of Jesus' behavior, including all of his personal traits. One must ask how he could possibly come to betray him.

Obviously, Judas must have presented himself as a good financial manager as he was responsible for handling the money for the disciples. When Mary, the sister of Lazarus chose to anoint Jesus with expensive perfume, it was Judas who took issue, stating that the perfume could be sold and given to the poor. He was stealing money from the disciples. (John 12:6)

Jesus was a very intuitive person, so why would he choose to have a thief numbered among his apostles? Could Jesus have made a mistake? Jesus was bathing the feet of the apostle Peter when he stated, "you are not all of you clean." (John 13: 11) After the ritualistic foot bathing, again Jesus points out that one who was eating bread with him would raise up his heel against him. (John 13:18) He specifically tells the apostles that one of them will betray him. (John 13:21) The disciples ask who would betray him and he states that it is the one to whom he would give the dipped bread. (John 13: 25-26) Although, the disciples see Jesus give the bread to Judas, they still don't understand. (John 13: 28-29) After receiving the bread, Judas left the gathering quickly. Later that night Judas betrayed Jesus for thirty silver coins. Jesus realized that the prophecies must come to pass and Judas was a necessary part of fulfilling those prophecies.

Judas felt deep remorse over what he had done after Jesus was arrested. Unfortunately for him, it was too little, too late as Jesus had already said, "woe to that man by whom the Son of man is betrayed! It would have been better for that man if he had not been born! (Matthew 26:24) He tried to assuage his conscience by returning the money but the chief priests and the elders refused to accept it. Unable to deal with what he had done, Judas threw the money in the temple and than hanged himself. Judas was definitely a bad guy. Not only was he a man of greed and a thief but he was living a lie. He had put on the mask of living his life based on the principles that Jesus taught. Being a deceiver is worse than being a thief.

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