The Betrayal of Judas Iscariot
Series: 7 Last Steps to the CROSS
Jesus' Path to the Crucifixion in the Gospel of LUKE
by Joshua YJ Su (Soh Guan Chin) (Revd. Dr.)
(You can follow the audio series at www.thejoshuamission.net click on “Messages”)
Step 1 - Luke 22:47-54 – The Betrayal of Judas Iscariot
This is the first of a series of eight articles on the theme, 7 Last Steps to the Cross. It tracks Jesus' Path to the Crucifixion in the Gospel of Luke. This is a topic very suitable for study and reflection as a preparation for, or as a part of, a Good Friday series. The subject matter, of course, is a timeless study of what our Lord Jesus Christ did for us by walking to the cross to die for our sin and salvation.
We begin this article and series with when Jesus was betrayed by Judas Iscariot to be arrested by the Jewish Council, as the 1st of the 7 Last Steps that Jesus, our Lord, took to the cross. This is in Luke 22:47–54 (ESV)
47While he was still speaking, there came a crowd, and the man called Judas, one of the twelve, was leading them. He drew near to Jesus to kiss him, 48but Jesus said to him, “Judas, would you betray the Son of Man with a kiss?” 49And when those who were around him saw what would follow, they said, “Lord, shall we strike with the sword?” 50And one of them struck the servant of the high priest and cut off his right ear. 51But Jesus said, “No more of this!” And he touched his ear and healed him. 52Then Jesus said to the chief priests and officers of the temple and elders, who had come out against him, “Have you come out as against a robber, with swords and clubs? 53When I was with you day after day in the temple, you did not lay hands on me. But this is your hour, and the power of darkness.” 54Then they seized him and led him away, bringing him into the high priest’s house, and Peter was following at a distance.
The Deepest Betrayal
This first step may be considered the worst betrayal because it is the betrayal of one who was among Jesus' closest disciples. He was a man who had professed that he had repented of sin, and surrendered to Christ as his Messiah, his Lord and his God. He was even chosen out of thousands to be among the twelve who were to personally follow Jesus wherever He went to learn from Him and to be sent out by Him to minister in His Name. Yet for his own reasons, which this passage does not specify, he chose to be the one to identify Jesus to those who wanted to arrest Him and kill Him. Judas Iscariot, one of the chosen Twelve, led those who sought to capture Jesus to Him! Even more ironically, the way he chose to expose Jesus rather drastically, yet accurately, even poetically, demonstrated the starkness of this betrayal. He used a kiss, an act of respect and love, to identify Him to His captors.
This betrayal demonstrated the truth of Jeremiah 17:9 (ESV) - “9The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?” It is a shocking indictment of Judas Iscariot himself. It is, no less, a shocking indictment of the fallen human nature that is in all of us! It is important to recognise that what he did is not something that he alone was capable of. It is a concrete real-life expression of what a fallen human being can do. We must not go away with any presupposition that he is the worst of all human beings and the rest of us are his superiors. This would be pride, arrogance, and prejudice, on our part; a sure path to our own judgement! The right lesson to take away from this is to never take for granted our own worship or commitment to Christ. If one who has made the confession and profession, like Judas did, of one's faith and commitment to Christ, can turn around and betray Him, we are liable to do the same. We need to watch over our own heart as to the genuineness and sincerity of our own repentance and surrender. We need to take most seriously what Jesus said to His disciples at Gethsemane in Matthew 26:41 (ESV) - 41Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.” Indeed, the Gospel of Luke, the Gospel from which we identify these 7 Last Steps, gives a fuller version in relation to being prepared for Christ's return in Luke 21:34–36 (ESV)
34“But watch yourselves lest your hearts be weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and cares of this life, and that day come upon you suddenly like a trap. 35For it will come upon all who dwell on the face of the whole earth. 36But stay awake at all times, praying that you may have strength to escape all these things that are going to take place, and to stand before the Son of Man.”
The key is to look to the Lord for His strength for us and not to count on our own sufficiency. It involves the discipline of checking our own commitment to Him from time to time by seeking the Spirit's leading. Psalm 139:23–24 (ESV) guides us:
23Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! 24And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!
Seeking the Lord to search us and root out sin and evil in us cannot be words we look at and simply admire as poetry and song. It needs to be a definite action of our hearts to walk with our God. It is a vital discipline for us to practice. It is an expression of true dependence on Him as first and and foremost in our lives. Unwillingness to so seek Him, or to so pray, as an act of utter dependence on Him, signifies a serious danger of our flesh to self-sufficiency, or overconfidence. We foolishly think that our own strength and wisdom are quite enough. We can do Him a favour by honouring Him. But we believe we can do quite well on our own without Him. No doubt, this was the path that Judas took, whatever his rationale!
The Bewilderment of the Disciples
We should also learn from the bewilderment of the disciples when Jesus was captured. Their first response, when they realised that Jesus was about to be arrested was to fight. They were armed with swords and one cut off the right ear of the high priest's servant. Yet Jesus did the exact reverse! He commanded His disciples to stop and healed the ear of His captor. This totally confused His disciples, if not also those who came to arrest Him.
What we see here is how God's truth can be so utterly different, indeed the very opposite, of what we think. Even up this point of time, the disciples firmly held to the idea of a conquering Messiah. The Gospels repeatedly tell us that they were not able to understand why Jesus spoke of His coming arrest, sufferings, and death. Often, when Jesus told them this, they argued about who is the greatest among them, and who may sit on His right and left hand when He comes in His Kingdom. We find this in Matthew 20:17-24 and Mark 10:32-37. Luke 18:31-34 simply tells us that the disciples had no clue what Jesus meant. Hence, in the face of the arresting party, the disciples were ready to fight and to die, believing that Jesus would inaugurate the Kingdom of God. But when He told them to stop and healed the servant's ear, they were totally lost as to what to do. So they ran away. Only Peter tried to hang on.
Let us put ourselves in the shoes of the disciples. Do we think we can do any better? I do not think so. Let us consider an equivalent scenario for us. We believe that His grace over us means that we will always win, we will be rich, or we will never be sick. But when trouble comes, we lose, we become poor, we fall ill. Our first question is likely to be, “Where is my God in all of these?” Would it be a surprise then that we do like what the disciples did? We run away from Him! It is this kind of confusion that so easily leads to our fall. But what is the matter? Is God not all powerful? Does He not love us? Is it not His will to bless us? Well, this mirrors the confusion that the disciples faced. Yes, they believe He is the Messiah, and they are absolutely right! But the problem they face, a problem we are very like to face, is that divine truth and how God works are often drastically different from what we think! His victory, riches and wholeness, are not necessarily to be received in the here and now but in eternity with Him. It may not be in this heaven and this earth, but in the New Heaven and New Earth! It takes a totally different form from our own presuppositions. Our presuppositions reflect our ignorance or misunderstanding of His revelation and truth. This was exactly the problem that the disciples had. We will not do any better when our presuppositions are likewise mistaken or severely limited.
The lesson for us here is twofold:
Firstly, it reinforces what we learned from Judas' betrayal. We cannot count on ourselves to walk with God. We need to look to Him in faith and to be fully dependent on His enabling for us.
Secondly, there is no substitute for truly knowing God by receiving His revelation in faith. We have now, two supreme advantages that the disciples in the Gospels did not have, the Holy Spirit living in us, and a completed Scripture, the Bible. The disciples had neither. The Holy Spirit was not poured out on the disciples until after Christ's ascension, after His death and resurrection, on the Pentecost that followed His ascension. We live after the fact. We receive the Holy Spirit from Christ when we repent of our sins and surrender to Christ as our Lord and our God (Acts 2:38-39). The Bible was not completed in the form that we have it now until about 350 years after Christ's ascension. The lesson of the disciples in the Gospels for us is how totally inadequate we are on our own. We need, desperately need, the Spirit and Scripture, to enable us to know God and His truth. Only then will we be freed of our own presuppositions and errors that expose us, in the same way as the disciples were exposed, to our severe fallibility. But having the Spirit and Scripture is not a matter of simple possession. It calls for our commitment to actively seek and follow His leading & enabling, and to study and meditate day and night on God's Word so that we live by it by the Spirit. The Word of God and the Spirit of God work in us, guide us, empower us, and transform us, by our voluntary active communion with Him by faith and obedience.
Jesus accepted Arrest
What Jesus did, that was so bewildering and incomprehensible to His disciples, was that He accepted arrest. He is the Messiah. He can more than overpower His captors. Yet He said, “... this is your hour, and the power of darkness.” He did what He did fully knowing what He was doing. It was an act of voluntary acceptance of the evil that was being perpetrated against Him. This is an abiding theme in all the 7 last steps that Jesus took to the cross that we are studying in this series. At this point, we simply note that this was no accident, nor was Jesus helpless, or overpowered. He knowing accepted what was plotted against Him.
The lesson for us here is that we need to obey God's will and way for us, and voluntarily submit to even the opposition we may face for His purpose. Unlike Jesus, of course, we are easily overpowered and often totally clueless as to what may happen to us. But there is a core principle that guides us even here. Our faith to voluntarily accept what is done against us is to come from our trust in Him who can win and has won! It does not matter that, even if we want to reject and overcome what we may face, we can't. We often have neither the wisdom nor the power to do so. But we don't need to. Indeed, even if we can, we should not, if it is not His will. He is our Victory! Accepting the evil against us is not to follow it, or agree with it, or take it as inevitable. It is an of faith that by doing like Christ did by dependence on Him, we will receive His Victory.
