_JUDAS._
"I speak not of you all: I know whom I have chosen: but that the
Scripture may be fulfilled, He that eateth My bread lifted up his
heel against Me. From henceforth I tell you before it come to pass,
that, when it is come to pass, ye may believe that I am He. Verily,
verily, I say unto you, He that receiveth whomsoever I send
receiveth Me; and he that receiveth Me receiveth Him that sent Me.
When Jesus had thus said, He was troubled in the spirit, and
testified, and said, Verily, verily, I say unto you, that one of you
shall betray Me. The disciples looked one on another, doubting of
whom He spake. There was at the table reclining in Jesus' bosom one
of His disciples, whom Jesus loved. Simon Peter therefore beckoneth
to him, and saith unto him, Tell us who it is of whom He speaketh.
He leaning back, as he was, on Jesus' breast saith unto Him, Lord,
who is it? Jesus therefore answereth, He it is, for whom I shall dip
the sop, and give it to him. So when He had dipped the sop, He
taketh and giveth it to Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot. And after
the sop, then entered Satan into him. Jesus therefore saith unto
him, That thou doest, do quickly. Now no man at the table knew for
what intent He spake this unto him. For some thought, because Judas
had the bag, that Jesus said unto him, Buy what things we have need
of for the feast; or, that he should give something to the poor. He
then having received the sop went out straightway: and it was
night."--JOHN xiii. 18-30.
When Jesus had washed the disciples' feet, apparently in dead silence
save for the interruption of Peter, He resumed those parts of His dress
He had laid aside, and reclined at the table already spread for the
supper. As the meal began, and while He was explaining the meaning of
His act and the lesson He desired them to draw from it, John, who lay
next Him at table, saw that His face did not wear the expression of
festal joy, nor even of untroubled composure, but was clouded with deep
concern and grief. The reason of this was immediately apparent: already,
while washing Peter's feet, He had awakened the attention and excited
the consciences of the disciples by hinting that on some one of them at
least, if not on more, uncleansed guilt still lay, even though all
partook in the symbolic washing. And now in His explanation of the
foot-washing He repeats this limitation and warning, and also points at
the precise nature of the guilt, though not yet singling out the guilty
person. "I speak not of you all; I know whom I have chosen; I have not
been deceived: but it was necessary that this part of God's purpose be
fulfilled, and that this Scripture, 'He that eateth bread with Me, hath
lifted up his heel against Me,' receive accomplishment in Me."
It was impossible that Jesus should undisturbedly eat out of the same
dish with the man whom He knew to have already sold Him to the priests;
it were unfair to the other disciples and a violence to His own feelings
to allow such a man any longer to remain in their company. But our Lord
does not name the traitor and denounce him; he singles him out and sends
him from the table on his hateful mission by a process that left every
man at the table unaware on what errand he was despatched. In this
process there were three steps. First of all, our Lord indicated that
among the disciples there was a traitor. With dismay these true-hearted
men hear the firmly pronounced statement "one of _you_ shall betray Me"
(ver. 21). All of them, as another Evangelist informs us, were exceeding
sorrowful, and looked on one another in bewilderment; and unable to
detect the conscious look of guilt in the face of any of their
companions, or to recall any circumstance which might fix even suspicion
on any of them, each, conscious of the deep, unfathomed capacity for
evil in his own heart, can but frankly ask of the Master, "Lord, is it
I?" It is a question that at once proves their consciousness of actual
innocence and possible guilt. It was a kindness in the Lord to give
these genuine men, who were so shortly to go through trial for His sake,
an opportunity of discovering how much they loved Him and how closely
knit their hearts had really become to Him. This question of theirs
expressed the deep pain and shame that the very thought of the
possibility of their being false to Him gave them. They must at all
hazards be cleared of this charge. And from this shock of the very idea
of being untrue their hearts recoiled towards Him with an enthusiastic
tenderness that made this moment possibly as moving a passage as any
that occurred that eventful night But there was one of them that did not
join in the question "Lord, is it I?"--else must not our Lord have
broken silence? The Twelve are still left in doubt, none noticing in the
eagerness of questioning who has not asked, each only glad to know he
himself is not charged.
The second step in the process is recorded in the 26th chapter of
Matthew, where we read that, when the disciples asked "Lord, is it I?"
Jesus answered, "He that dippeth his hand with Me in the dish, the same
shall betray Me." It was a large company, and there were necessarily
several dishes on the table, so that probably there were three others
using the same dish as our Lord: John we know was next Him; Peter was
near enough to John to make signs and whisper to him; Judas was also
close to Jesus, a position which he either always occupied as treasurer
and purveyor of the company, or into which he thrust himself this
evening with the purpose of more effectually screening himself from
suspicion. The circle of suspicion is thus narrowed to the one or two
who were not only so intimate as to be eating at the same table, but as
to be dipping in the same dish.
The third step in the process of discovery went on almost simultaneously
with this. The impatient Peter, who had himself so often unwittingly
given offence to his Master, is resolved to find out definitely who is
pointed at, and yet dare not say to Christ "Who is it?" He beckons
therefore to John to ask Jesus privately, as he lay next to Jesus. John
leans a little back towards Jesus and puts in a whisper the definite
question "Who is it?" and Jesus in the ear of the beloved disciple
whispers the reply, "He it is to whom I shall give a sop when I have
dipped it." And when He had dipped the sop, He gave it to Judas
Iscariot. This reveals to John, but to no one else, who the traitor was,
for the giving of the sop was no more at that table than the handing of
a plate or the offer of any article of food is at any table. John alone
knew the significance of it. But Judas had already taken alarm at the
narrowing of the circle of suspicion, and had possibly for the moment
ceased dipping in the same dish with Jesus, lest he should be identified
with the traitor. Jesus therefore dips for him and offers him the sop
which he will not himself take, and the look that accompanies the act,
as well as the act itself, shows Judas that his treachery is discovered.
He therefore mechanically takes up in a somewhat colder form the
question of the rest, and says, "Master, is it I?" His fear subdues his
voice to a whisper, heard only by John and the Lord; and the answer,
"Thou hast said. That thou doest, do quickly," is equally unobserved by
the rest. Judas need fear no violence at their hands; John alone knows
the meaning of his abrupt rising and hurrying from the room, and John
sees that Jesus wishes him to go unobserved. The rest, therefore,
thought only that Judas was going out to make some final purchases that
had been forgotten, or to care for the poor in this season of festivity.
But John saw differently. "The traitor," he says, "went immediately out;
and it was night." As his ill-omened, stealthy figure glided from the
chamber, the sudden night of the Eastern twilightless sunset had fallen
on the company; sadness, silence, and gloom fell upon John's spirit; the
hour of darkness had at length fallen in the very midst of this quiet
feast.
This sin of Judas presents us with one of the most perplexed problems
of life and character that the strange circumstances of this world have
ever produced. Let us first of all look at the connection of this
betrayal with the life of Christ, and then consider the phase of
character exhibited in Judas. In connection with the life of Christ the
difficulty is to understand why the death of Christ was to be brought
about in this particular way of treachery among His own followers. It
may be said that it came to pass "that Scripture might be fulfilled,"
that this special prediction in the 41st Psalm might be fulfilled. But
why was such a prediction made? It was of course the event which
determined the prediction, not the prediction which determined the
event. Was it, then, an accident that Jesus should be handed over to the
authorities in this particular way? Or was there any significance in it,
that justifies its being made so prominent in the narrative? Certainly
if our Lord was to be brought into contact with the most painful form of
sin, He must have experience of treachery. He had known the sorrow that
death brings to the survivors; He had known the pain and disappointment
of being resisted by stupid, obstinate, bad-hearted men; but if He was
to know the utmost of misery which man can inflict upon man, He must be
brought into contact with one who could accept His love, eat His bread,
press His hand with assurance of fidelity, and then sell Him.
When we endeavour to set before our minds a clear idea of the character
of Judas, and to understand how such a character could be developed, we
have to acknowledge that we could desire a few more facts in order to
certify us of what we can now only conjecture. Obviously we must start
from the idea that with extraordinary capacity for wickedness Judas had
also more than ordinary leanings to what was good. He was an Apostle,
and had, we must suppose, been called to that office by Christ under the
impression that he possessed gifts which would make him very serviceable
to the Christian community. He was himself so impressed with Christ as
to follow Him: making those pecuniary sacrifices of which Peter
boastfully spoke, and which must have been specially sore to Judas. It
is possible, indeed, that he may have followed Jesus as a speculation,
hoping to receive wealth and honour in the new kingdom; but this motive
mingled with the attachment to Christ's person which all the Apostles
had, and mingles in a different form with the discipleship of all
Christians. With this motive, therefore, there probably mingled in the
mind of Judas a desire to be with One who could shield him from evil
influences; he judged that with Jesus he would find continual aid
against his weaker nature. Possibly he wished by one bold abandonment of
the world to get rid for ever of his covetousness. That Judas was
trusted by the other Apostles is manifest from the fact that to him they
committed their common fund,--not to John, whose dreamy and abstracted
nature ill fitted him for minute practical affairs; not to Peter, whose
impulsive nature might often have landed the little company in
difficulties; not even to Matthew, accustomed as he was to accounts; but
to Judas, who had the economical habits, the aptitude for finance, the
love of bargaining, which regularly go hand in hand with the love of
money. This practical faculty for finance and for affairs generally
might, if rightly guided, have become a most serviceable element in the
Apostolate, and might have enabled Judas more successfully than any
other of the Apostles to mediate between the Church and the world. That
Judas in all other respects conducted himself circumspectly is proved by
the fact that, though other Apostles incurred the displeasure of Christ
and were rebuked by Him, Judas committed no glaring fault till this last
week. Even to the end he was unsuspected by his fellow-Apostles; and to
the end he had an active conscience. His last act, were it not so awful,
would inspire us with something like respect for him: he is overwhelmed
with remorse and shame; his sense of guilt is stronger even than the
love of money that had hitherto been his strongest passion: he judges
himself fairly, sees what he has become, and goes to his own place;
recognises as not every man does recognise what is his fit habitation,
and goes to it.
But this man, with his good impulses, his resolute will, his enlightened
conscience, his favouring circumstances, his frequent feelings of
affection towards Christ and desire to serve Him, committed a crime so
unparalleled in wickedness that men practically make very little attempt
to estimate it or measure it with sins of their own. Commonly we think
of it as a special, exceptional wickedness--not so much the natural
product of a heart like our own and what may be reproduced by ourselves,
as the work of Satan using a man as his scarcely responsible tool to
effect a purpose which needs never again to be effected.
If we ask what precisely it was in the crime of Judas that makes us so
abhor it, manifestly its most hateful ingredient was its treachery. "It
was not an enemy that reproached me; then I could have borne it; but it
was thou, a man mine equal, my guide, and mine acquaintance." Caesar
defended himself till the dagger of a friend pierced him; then in
indignant grief he covered his head with his mantle and accepted his
fate. You can forgive the open blow of a declared enemy against whom you
are on your guard; but the man that lives with you on terms of the
greatest intimacy for years, so that he learns your ways and habits, the
state of your affairs and your past history--the man whom you so confide
in and like that you communicate to him freely much that you keep hidden
from others, and who, while still professing friendship, uses the
information he has gained to blacken your character and ruin your peace,
to injure your family or damage your business,--this man, you know, has
much to repent of. So one can forgive the Pharisees who knew not what
they did, and were throughout the declared opponents of Christ; but
Judas attached himself to Christ, knew that His life was one of unmixed
benevolence, was conscious that Christ would have given up anything to
serve him, felt moved and proud from time to time by the fact that
Christ loved him, and yet at the last used all these privileges of
friendship against his Friend.
And Judas did not scruple to use this power that only the love of Jesus
could have given him, to betray Him to men whom he knew to be
unscrupulous and resolved to destroy Him. The garden where the Lord
prayed for His enemies was not sacred to Judas; the cheek that a seraph
would blush to kiss, and to salute which was the beginning of joy
eternal to the devout disciple, was mere common clay to this man into
whom Satan had entered. The crime of Judas is invested with a horror
altogether its own by the fact that this Person whom he betrayed was the
Son of God and the Saviour of the world, the Best-beloved of God and
every man's Friend. The greatest blessing that God had ever given to
earth Judas was forward to reject: not altogether unaware of the majesty
of Christ, Judas presumed to use Him in a little money-making scheme of
his own.
The best use that Judas could think of putting Jesus to, the best use he
could make of _Him_ whom all angels worship, was to sell Him for L5.[12]
He could get nothing more out of Christ than that. After three years'
acquaintanceship and observation of the various ways in which Christ
could bless people, this was all he could get from Him. And there are
still such men: men for whom there is nothing in Christ; men who can
find nothing in Him that they sincerely care for; men who, though
calling themselves His followers, would, if truth were told, be better
content and feel they had more substantial profit if they could turn Him
into money.
So difficult is it to comprehend how any man who had lived as the friend
of Jesus could find it in his heart to betray Him, should resist the
touching expressions of love that were shown him, and brave the awful
warning uttered at the supper-table--so difficult is it to suppose that
any man, however infatuated, would so deliberately sell his soul for L5,
that a theory has been started to explain the crime by mitigating its
guilt. It has been supposed that when he delivered up his Master into
the hands of the chief priests he expected that our Lord would save
Himself by a miracle. He knew that Jesus meant to proclaim a kingdom; he
had been waiting for three years now, eagerly expecting that this
proclamation and its accompanying gains would arrive. Yet he feared the
opportunity was once more passing: Jesus had been brought into the city
in triumph, but seemed indisposed to make use of this popular
excitement for any temporal advantage. Judas was weary of this
inactivity: might he not himself bring matters to a crisis by giving
Jesus into the hands of His enemies, and thus forcing Him to reveal His
real power and assert by miracle His kingship? In corroboration of this
theory, it is said that it is certain that Judas did not expect Jesus to
be condemned; for when he saw that he was condemned he repented of his
act.
This seems a shallow view to take of Judas' remorse, and a feeble ground
on which to build such a theory. A crime seems one thing before, another
after, its commission. The murderer expects and wishes to kill his
victim, but how often is he seized with an agony of remorse as soon as
the blow is struck? Before we sin, it is the gain we see; after we sin,
the guilt. It is impossible to construe the act of Judas into a mistaken
act of friendship or impatience; the terms in which he is spoken of in
Scripture forbid this idea; and one cannot suppose that a keen-sighted
man like Judas could expect that, even supposing he did force our Lord
to proclaim Himself, his own share in the business would be rewarded. He
could not suppose this after the terrible denunciation and explicit
statement that still rang in his ears when he hanged himself: "The Son
of man goeth as it is written of Him: but woe unto that man by whom the
Son of man is betrayed! it had been good for that man if he had not been
born."
We must then abide by the more commonplace view of this crime. The only
mitigating circumstance that can be admitted is, that possibly among the
many perplexed thoughts entertained by Judas he may have supposed that
Jesus would be acquitted, or would at least not be punished with death.
Still, this being admitted, the fact remains that he cared so little
for the love of Christ, and regarded so little the good He was doing,
and had so little common honour in him, that he sold his Master to His
deadly enemies. And this monstrous wickedness is to be accounted for
mainly by his love of money. Naturally covetous, he fed his evil
disposition during those years he carried the bag for the disciples:
while the rest are taken up with more spiritual matters, he gives more
of his thought than is needful to the matter of collecting as much as
possible; he counts it his special province to protect himself and the
others against all "the probable emergencies and changes of life." This
he does, regardless of the frequent admonitions he hears from the Lord
addressed to others; and as he finds excuses for his own avarice in the
face of these admonitions, and hardens himself against the better
impulses that are stirred within him by the words and presence of
Christ, his covetousness roots itself deeper and deeper in his soul. Add
to this, that now he was a disappointed man: the other disciples,
finding that the kingdom of Christ was to be spiritual, were pure and
high-minded enough to see that their disappointment was their great
gain. The love of Christ had transformed them, and to be like Him was
enough for them; but Judas still clung to the idea of earthly grandeur
and wealth, and finding Christ was not to give him these he was soured
and embittered. He saw that now, since that scene at Bethany the week
before, his covetousness and earthliness would be resisted and would
also betray him. He felt that he could no longer endure this
poverty-stricken life, and had some rage at himself and at Christ that
he had been inveigled into it by what he might be pleased to say to
himself were false pretences. His self-restraint, he felt, was breaking
down; his covetousness was getting the better of him; he felt that he
must break with Christ and His followers; but in doing so he would at
once win what he had lost during these years of poverty, and also
revenge himself on those who had kept him poor, and finally would
justify his own conduct in deserting this society by exploding it and
causing it to cease from among men.
The sin of Judas, then, first of all teaches us the great power and
danger of the love of money. The mere thirty pieces of silver would not
have been enough to tempt Judas to commit so dastardly and black a
crime; but he was now an embittered and desperate man, and he had become
so by allowing money to be all in all to him for these last years of his
life. For the danger of this passion consists very much in this--that it
infallibly eats out of the soul every generous emotion and high aim: it
is the failing of a sordid nature--a little, mean, earthly nature--a
failing which, like all others, may be extirpated through God's grace,
but which is notoriously difficult to extirpate, and which notoriously
is accompanied by or produces other features of character which are
among the most repulsive one meets. The love of money is also dangerous,
because it can be so easily gratified; all that we do in the world day
by day is in the case of most of us connected with money, so that we
have continual and not only occasional opportunity of sinning if we be
inclined to the sin. Other passions are appealed to only now and again,
but our employments touch this passion at all points. It leaves no long
intervals, as other passions do, for repentance and amendment; but
steadily, constantly, little by little, increases in force. Judas had
his fingers in the bag all day; it was under his pillow and he dreamt
upon it all night; and it was this that accelerated his ruin. And by
this constant appeal it is sure to succeed at one time or other, if we
be open to it. Judas could not suppose that his quiet
self-aggrandisement by pilfering little coins from the bag could ever
bring him to commit such a crime against his Lord: so may every covetous
person fancy that his sin is one that is his own business, and will not
damage his religious profession and ruin his soul as some wild lust or
reckless infidelity would do. But Judas and those who sin with him in
making continually little gains to which they have no right are wrong in
supposing their sin is less dangerous; and for this reason--that
covetousness is more a sin of the _will_ than sins of the flesh or of a
passionate nature; there is more choice in it; it is more the sin of the
whole man unresisting; and therefore it, above all others, is called
idolatry--it, above all others, proves that the man is in his heart
choosing the world and not God. Therefore it is that even our Lord
Himself spoke almost despairingly, certainly quite differently, of
covetous men in comparison with other sinners.
Disappointment in Christ is not an unknown thing among ourselves. Men
still profess to be Christians who are so only in the degree in which
Judas was. They expect _some_ good from Christ, but not all. They attach
themselves to Christ in a loose, conventional way, expecting that,
though they are Christians, they need not lose anything by their
Christianity, nor make any great efforts or sacrifices. They retain
command of their own life, and are prepared to go with Christ only so
far as they find it agreeable or inviting. The eye of an observer may
not be able to distinguish them from Christ's true followers; but the
distinction is present and is radical. They are seeking to use Christ,
and are not willing to be used by Him. They are not wholly and heartily
His, but merely seek to derive some influences from Him. The result is
that they one day find that, through all their religious profession and
apparent Christian life, their characteristic sin has actually been
gaining strength. And finding this, they turn upon Christ with
disappointment and rage in their hearts, because they become aware that
they have lost both this world and the next--have lost many pleasures
and gains they might have enjoyed, and yet have gained no spiritual
attainment. They find that the reward of double-mindedness is the most
absolute perdition, that both Christ and the world, to be made anything
of, require the whole man, and that he who tries to get the good of both
gets the good of neither. And when a man awakes to see that this is the
result of his Christian profession, there is no deadliness of hatred to
which the bitter disappointment of his soul will not carry him. He has
himself been a dupe, and he calls Christ an impostor. He know himself to
be damned, and he says there is no salvation in Christ.
But to this disastrous issue _any_ cherished sin may also in its own way
lead; for the more comprehensive lesson which this sin of Judas brings
with it is the rapidity of sin's growth and the enormous proportions it
attains when the sinner is sinning against light, when he is in
circumstances conducive to holiness and still sins. To discover the
wickedest of men, to see the utmost of human guilt, we must look, not
among the heathen, but among those who know God; not among the
profligate, dissolute, abandoned classes of society, but among the
Apostles. The good that was in Judas led him to join Christ, and kept
him associated with Christ for some years; but the devil of
covetousness that was cast out for a while returned and brought with him
seven devils worse than himself. There was everything in his position to
win him to unworldliness: the men he lived with cared not one whit for
comforts or anything that money could buy; but instead of catching their
spirit he took advantage of their carelessness. He was in a public
position, liable to detection; but this, instead of making him honest
perforce, made him only the more crafty and studiedly hypocritical. The
solemn warnings of Christ, so far from intimidating him, only made him
more skilful in evading all good influence, and made the road to hell
easier. The position he enjoyed, and by which he might have been for
ever enrolled among the foremost of mankind, one of the twelve
foundations of the eternal city, he so skilfully misused that the
greatest sinner feels glad that he has yet not been left to commit the
sin of Judas. Had Judas not followed Christ he could never have attained
the pinnacle of infamy on which he now for ever stands. In all
probability he would have passed his days as a small trader with false
weights in the little town of Kerioth, or, at the worst, might have
developed into an extortionous publican, and have passed into oblivion
with the thousands of unjust men who have died and been at last forced
to let go the money that should long ago have belonged to others. Or had
Judas followed Christ truly, then there lay before him the noblest of
all lives, the most blessed of destinies. But he followed Christ and yet
took his sin with him: and thence his ruin.