In John 17:12, Jesus talks of guarding his disciples and “not one of them being lost – except, that is, the one who was doomed to destruction, to fulfill what Scripture had predicted.”
It sounds like Judas had no choice: Scripture said it – and he was the man doomed to fulfill it. But if it truly was Judas all along, what was the point of Jesus spending all that time with him, giving him the same power to heal and cast out demons as the other eleven disciples, trusting him to manage their money, and dropping several hints along the way that one of his disciples would betray him, giving Judas both fair warning and opportunity not to betray him? What could be more fair than that?
The only thing Jesus didn’t do was name who would betray him, but even that was done out of love, to give Judas three years of listening to Jesus and seeing his miracles to make it blatantly obvious that Jesus was “the Holy One of God,” John 6:69, with “the words of eternal life” (68).
And never did Jesus treat Judas any differently to the other disciples, to the point that right up to the moment when Jesus said that one of his disciples was about to betray him, none of the disciples knew who it was. Jesus never stopped treating Judas as a much loved friend too. When identifying who his betrayer was by dipping a piece of bread into a dish and handing the bread to Judas, that too in the custom of the day was extending the hand of friendship. And Jesus’ last words to Judas in Matthew 26:50 were, “Friend, do what you came to do.”
So right up to the last minute Jesus was being extremely merciful and loving to Judas. What excuse did Judas have, then, for seeking out the religious leaders and asking, “What will you pay me for giving Jesus to you?” (Matthew 26:15). And even if the Father hadn’t opened Judas’ mind to who Jesus was (John 6:65), what excuse did Judas have – as a normal, regular human with a conscience – for kissing Jesus like a friend but stabbing him in the back at the same time as he handed Jesus over to the Roman authorities?
So was God being fair to Judas? Yes, because Judas was given every opportunity to repent, and in the end he did repent, when “seized with remorse,” Matthew 27:3, he cried out, “I have sinned for I have betrayed innocent blood” (4). But was it fair of God to let Satan get at Judas (Luke 22:3)? Wasn’t that risking Judas being lost forever? Or “Does the devil serve a vital purpose?”….(next blog)
