TORAH
Gen. 23:1-25:18
HAFTORAH
1 Kings 1:1-31
B’RIT HADASHAH
Matt.
8:19-22; 27:3-10
Luke 9:57-62
The meditation today is “Did Judas really repent after betraying Yeshua?”
Commentators are universally hostile to Judas and at first blush, this seems reasonable beyond question. Certainly, the Church has always maintained Judas’s guilt and lack of true repentance. And we can’t forget that, when dining with his disciples in the upper room, our Lord said “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” (Matt. 26:24, KJV).
The Greek word used here—and variously rendered in English by “changed his mind” (ESV), “remorse” (NIV, NLT, NASB), “regretted” (NSV), and “repented” (KJV, ASV)—is metamelētheis, a cognate of metamellomai, which means, “to care afterwards.”
Most commentators have been unwilling to accept the idea that this word represents true and radical repentance. The word commonly used in the NT for repentance is the Greek metanoeó but there is no technical reason preventing us from understanding metamelētheis in the sense of repentance. Indeed the venerable KJV translates it this way. All the variants of the word metamelētheis can legitimately be translated as repent; I believe it is not the word itself but the context that should decide the case.
And here we have the context, “And they bound him [Jesus] and led him away and delivered him over to Pilate the governor…. Then when Judas, his betrayer, saw that Jesus was condemned, he changed his mind [metamelētheis] and brought back the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and the elders, saying, ‘I have sinned by betraying innocent blood.’ They said, ‘What is that to us? See to it yourself.’ And throwing down the pieces of silver into the temple, he departed, and he went and hanged himself” (Matt. 27:2-5).
Now, it seems evident to me that someone is not likely to hang himself because he has merely “changed his mind” or even experiences significant regret. I change my mind all the time and I regret many stupid words and actions over the course of my life so far. The extent of the change as well as the reason for the change can be seen from the immediate context. I think Judas was profoundly affected by what he had done, and perhaps this justifies understanding the sense of the word metamelētheis as true repentance and not just regret or remorse. The theologian and commentator Albert Barnes says of Judas’s predicament, “True repentance leads the sinner to the Saviour: this led away from the Saviour to the gallows. Judas, if he had been a true penitent, would have come then to Jesus, confessed his crime at his feet, and sought for pardon there. But, overwhelmed with remorse, and the conviction of vast guilt, he was not willing to come into his presence, and added to the crime of a traitor that of self-murder. Assuredly, such a man could not be a true penitent.” I don’t entirely agree with his opinion partly because Judas could not go to the Lord and pour out his heart, begging for forgiveness, as we learn from Matt. 26 and the first two verses of our present chapter. Jesus had been arrested the night before, after celebrating the Passover. Upon His arrest, He was taken immediately before the Sanhedrin where He was subjected to interrogation by the High Priest and after that was sent to Pilate, “When morning came, all the chief priests and the elders of the people took counsel against Jesus to put him to death. And they bound him and led him away and delivered him over to Pilate the governor” (Matt. 27:1-2). Jesus was in the hands of the authorities all night, thus making him incommunicado. Therefore, Judas had no chance to seek forgiveness from Jesus, assuming he wanted such forgiveness.
We see from Judas’s statement in verse four, “I have sinned by betraying innocent blood” that during the course of the night and Jesus’s trial Judas had come to the realization of what he had done, and the magnitude of it. To make matters worse, he would have recalled the words of his Master from the previous night, “The Son of Man goes as it is written of him, but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It would have been better for that man if he had not been born. Judas, who would betray him, answered, ‘Is it I, Rabbi?’ He said to him, ‘You have said so’” (Matt. 26:24-25). While his statement, “I have sinned by betraying innocent blood” amounts to a confession of sin and Judas sees his actions of the night before in a true and merciless light, he is prevented from receiving the mercy and forgiveness he so desperately needs because of his own actions. Worse yet and perhaps the greatest tragedy, is that Judas never goes to the very Father that Jesus, his Master, had been preaching and teaching to His intimate followers for the past three years. Not having access to the Son, Judas tragically never thinks to go to the Father.
For me, Judas is not so much a viscous turncoat (notwithstanding the enormity of his actions). On balance, he is admittedly dishonest, conniving and driven by self-interest as we learn from John’s gospel (John 12:6). Nevertheless, he seems to me more as one who is blind to the light that had dawned upon the world with the coming of the Messiah. He was unable—even more than the other disciples, who still didn’t really understand what was going on or what was about to happen—to comprehend the words of Christ, “the kingdom of God has come upon you” (Luke 11:20b, see also 17:21). The wonder and majesty of Christ was a light that he had no eyes to see. Therefore he did the only thing he could do—which too is a sin—he murdered himself because he could not live with his guilt and couldn’t understand that forgiveness was as close as a head bowed in contrition before the great and awesome Ye’ hovah.
Did Judas betray Christ as an act of free will? John says, “But there are some of you who do not believe.” (For Jesus knew from the beginning who those were who did not believe, and who it was who would betray him.) Did I not choose you, the Twelve? And yet one of you is a devil.” He spoke of Judas the son of Simon Iscariot, for he, one of the Twelve, was going to betray him” (John 6:64, 70-71).
Later in John’s testimony we learn that Satan—or at least a demon “diabolos”, an adversary”—caused Judas to do what he did, and although Judas was a fit instrument for such use it was nevertheless ultimately through the sovereign will of God that these things came to pass.
While not excusing what Judas did, for me the pathos of the passage is still heart breaking. I can’t help feeling sorry for Judas, whom God chose as the instrument of his will.
AMEN
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