289. Judas' Story

Psalm 69:25, Psalm 109:8, Zechariah 11:12-13, Matthew 27:1-10,
Acts 1:15-19,

Key Verse: When Judas, who had betrayed Him, saw that Jesus was condemned, he was seized with remorse and returned the thirty silver coins to the priests and the elders.
Matthew 27:3

“Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death." (2 Cor. 7:10) Now, we look at the other side of this verse. While Peter was filled with regret, he survived and repented and lived to be restored. Judas gave up hope and took his punishment into his own hands and was forever condemned for what he did.

The task that Judas performed had been prophesied for generations. As we explored earlier, he did what he was predestined to do. However, even betraying Jesus was not beyond the scope of God's forgiveness. In the garden, Jesus looked on him and addressed him as friend. Now, in the Sanhedrin, Judas knows that he has done wrong. He throws the money back at those who had given it to him, but even he knows that does not right the wrong he has done.

Instead of hanging on and dealing with the consequences, he chooses to take matters into his own hands and give himself the punishment that the Deuteronomic law provides. Exodus 21:14 says, “if anyone schemes and kills someone deliberately, that person is to be taken from my altar and put to death.” Judas believed he was guilty of scheming, saw they meant to kill Jesus and rightly sentenced himself to death. But why choose hanging? Was is just a matter of what was possible? Or did it seem fitting to him because of Deuteronomy 21:22-23: "If a man guilty of a capital offense is put to death and his body is hung on the tree you must not leave his body on the tree over night. Be sure to bury him that same day, because anyone who is hung on a tree is under God's curse.”

Perhaps Judas believed himself to be under God's curse because of the way things turned out. He had betrayed innocent blood. Jesus was guilty of nothing. He had been found guilty on trumped up charges and it was all because Judas had set the wheels in motion. The guilt that he must have experienced as he remembered the last few years of his life, devoted to the master, must have been, as Peter's was, overwhelming.

Sadly, however, unlike Peter, Judas had no hope. Another would hang on a tree in a matter of hours who would have offered forgiveness, as He did the thief hanging next to Him, but Judas never truly believed that such grace was possible. I do believe that Jesus would have forgiven even Judas if he had stayed around to ask it of Him. Sadly, Judas had no such faith. What Judas did had to be done. Jesus had to be turned over to the cruel, religious leadership for God's plan of redemption to unfold. But, if Judas had repented, yes, he would have experienced the regret of Peter, but he too could have had an amazing testimony of God's forgiveness for God's glory.

Judas did not choose the path of asking forgiveness, however. With human eyes, he could only see what man sees. He only understood the law. Just as he left the upper room before the true communion took place with the new covenant in Jesus' blood, so now, he chose to punish himself under the old law, condemning himself to eternal death rather than remember what Jesus had taught about forgiveness.

Sometimes we are like Judas. We choose to remember our failings, choosing to punish ourselves again and again for what we have done in our past. We may go on believing God cannot or will not forgive us, so we condemn ourselves. Or we may think that we are earning a place in heaven by the lashes we continue to give ourselves. In truth, however, we are wrong both ways. Jesus paid the price for all the wrongs we have done. We can do nothing that he can't forgive. And we can add nothing to His gift of forgiveness. He has payed it all and He only asks us to lay our burden down and let Him heal us.

Hymn: “Jesus Paid It All"

More Modern : Jesus Paid it All