The Mystery of Judas
Dr. N. Burr Furlong (burr@artifex.org)
(Ps 41: 9-12) Even my bosom friend in whom I trusted who ate of my bread, has lifted up his heal against me. But thou, O Lord, be gracious unto me, and raise me up, that I may requite them! By this I know that thou art pleased with me in that my enemy has not triumphed over me. But thou hast upheld me because of my integrity, and set me in thy presence forever.I find several things puzzling about the role of Judas Iscariot as presented by the Gospel writers. All four authors specifically identify Judas as the betrayer of Jesus and all four condemn this act as the most vile and treacherous act that any man could perpetrate. Some report that the devil entered Judas and the church tradition has been that Judas was an agent of Satan -- Dante pictured Judas in the deepest circle of hell.(Mt 26:24) The Son of Man goes as it is written of him, but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed!
(Jn 13:18) I am not speaking of you all; I know whom I have chosen; it is that the scripture may be fulfilled, "He who ate my bread has lifted his heel against me."
But why was betrayal necessary? On the surface of it, one could argue that in a city the size of Jerusalem, even crowded as it was at the time of the Passover celebration, agents of the temple could have kept track of Jesus and his followers without the help of any of the disciples to let them know Jesus's whereabouts or to identify him at the time of his arrest. That is, the whole business with Judas seems to be superfluous if its only purpose was to ensure the arrest of Jesus.
The fact the Judas incident is not only included but featured as a vital part of the Passion story means that it had a much deeper significance in the story of Jesus that the Gospel writers are recording. It is not difficult to determine what that significance was. The Gospels all proclaimed the good news that the Anointed One of God was none other than Jesus of Nazareth, He whom the prophets of old foretold, the Messiah, the Son of Man, the Son of God. The evidences cited to support this proclamation drew on the vast body of scriptural tradition much of which was recorded in the books we now call the Old Testament. The coming of the Messiah was to be attended by various signs and wonders and the validation of Jesus as the Messiah depended in part on showing how these were fulfilled in the life of Jesus.
One of these signs was described in Psalm 41 which could be interpreted to imply that God's true servant would have to undergo the humiliation of being betrayed by one of his bosom friends. Now the inclusion of a betrayal as a necessary sign for identifying the Messiah raises a rather thorny theological question about a God who would thus foredoom one of his creatures to the role of betrayer of His Son. This requires that at least one person was born fated to be reviled by future generations as the basest of traitors. Even if Judas had a choice of whether or not to betray and shared this "opportunity" with perhaps a 100 other close friends of Jesus (who did not choose to do so), the fact that some one of the 101 had to fulfil this role still leaves God's justice in question -- what kind of God would create any human soul whose ultimate purpose assured its eternal damnation?
But, it may be objected, God creates humans with free will and will not interfere with the moral choices any given individual makes, so how can we fault God for Judas's decisions? The fact still remains that, had Judas not betrayed Jesus, one of the keystone signs of Messiahship would have been lacking and Jesus may not have been accepted as the true Messiah.
I would like to suggest a line of thought that may help to resolve the dilemma without faulting God for, at the worst, mercilessness or even, in the kindest light, painting himself into a moral corner, so to speak. What if we assume that Judas knew full well the traditions surrounding the appearance of God's anointed and that he was the only disciple to have realized, before the resurrection, that Jesus was indeed the Son of God? What if Judas then took upon himself the role of Jesus's trusted bosom friend who raised his heel against Him to validate His Messiahship? Could Judas have sacrificed himself and his worldly reputation in a selfless act of service to his beloved Adonai?
Various motives have been ascribed to Judas's act of betrayal: perhaps initially, greed for the 30 pieces of silver, or a vindictive revenge for slights he may have felt as a disciple not as favored as Peter or John, or as an act of zealous brinksmanship to push Jesus to political leadership, and so on. All of these assume a rather large measure of insensitivity on the part of the other disciples -- a definite failure in fellowship and group awareness. Despite the unanimous condemnation Judas receives in the reports of the Gospel writers, no unitary, clear picture emerges of Judas's motivation, or, for that matter, the reason for the betrayal event itself except that the latter is a strong confirmation that Jesus was the Promised One.
The Gospel narratives do picture an insensitivity among the disciples, but it is in their failure to comprehend Jesus as the suffering servant of God who would take upon himself the sins of the whole world. If Judas was indeed the first to recognize the true nature of his Master's mission, and if betrayal by a close friend was commonly known and accepted as one of the essential signs of the Messiah's coming, Judas would have been the first to realize the awesome demand that true discipleship would require of him.
There is indirect evidence in the Last Supper and final arrest stories that Jesus may have, in fact, understood Judas on just these terms. The interchange among the disciples after Jesus announces that one of them would betray him makes little sense, as John or Matthew report the incident, since Jesus clearly indicates that this one is Judas, but the other disciples are seemingly too dull to catch on. Then after Judas has led the armed crowd sent by the temple authorities to Jesus, he hails him "Rabbi" and kisses him. Jesus replies "Friend, do what you are here to do" or "Friend, what are you here for?" or "Judas, would you betray the Son of Man with a kiss?" depending on which version or Gospel is being quoted. None of these responses preclude the view that Judas and Jesus could have been acting out their roles with a far deeper understanding of the significance than was known to anyone else present.
That this view was not the one accepted by the early church is perfectly understandable; if Jesus had not really been betrayed, then perhaps he wasn't really the Messiah. In addition, the early church was struggling to become established in the face of official opposition and in a world full of the lures of other faiths. Loyalty was a virtue to be emphasized and those who chose to abandon the faith were castigated as traitors deserving no more better fate than Judas, the arch traitor of all time. Judas was a very handy negative example for instilling the necessity of absolute loyalty in the early church.
But the church survived, became officially accepted and has evolved in numbers and material wealth. In the intervening centuries, despite our human recurrent moral weaknesses, the spiritual power released into the world by Jesus of Nazareth is ample justification for his claim to be the Son of Man, prophetic signs or the lack of them notwithstanding. Perhaps it is now time to reconsider Judas's role to find in his life an inspiration for loving discipleship rather than the object for our self-righteous condemnation. In this light then, Judas becomes the noblest of the disciples -- the one who knowingly took upon himself a role that would earn him the world's vilification. Judas may have sacrificed himself that his Lord would be glorified and he might very well deserve our praise as the greatest of saints rather than the chief of sinners.