Those loving eyes that looked upon that new-born babe never imagined that her son would go down in infamy as a thief, betrayer, and taker of his own life. She would have trembled to know that her little boy’s name would become a byword for treachery for millennia to come.
However, not everything about the life of Judas Iscariot was a disaster. How many men could claim to have been handpicked by Jesus to be one of his chosen apostles?
Jesus also chose Judas as his Treasurer. We might have picked Matthew the (former) Tax-collector as the natural choice, but everyone seemed content with Judas. By all accounts no one ever suspected Judas of theft, and his fake outburst about the needs of the poor added to his deception. Strangely, though Jesus knew the heart and habits of his dishonest Treasurer, he did nothing about it.
Some foolishly claim, “I would believe in Jesus if I met him in person.” However, Judas is proof that seeing does not necessarily lead to saving faith. The apostle John would later speak of life lived up close and personal with the Saviour when he wrote:
“What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands, concerning the Word of Life” (1 John 1:1).
Judas had it all…yet he sold it cheap!
With the thirty pieces of silver in his pocket, the morsel of bread handed to him by Jesus to expose him as the betrayer, and Satan in his heart, Jesus sent Judas off with these words:
“What thou doest, do quickly” (John 13:27).
If ever a man chose the poison of his own heart, it was Judas. He and the devil both thought they had the better of Jesus. But God, knowing the nature of those who plotted evil against Jesus, used their evil in His divine plan to save man. Praise the Lord!
John Staiger