Judas was a man with a native frailty which was his undoing because he did not bring it to the Saviour for subduing. His weakness lay very close to his strength. He was a man of keen business sense, which nurtured a germ of covetousness until it became a passion dominating his whole outlook. The question arises, Was Judas made bearer of the common purse because he was a good businessman? If the office was elective, that may have been so. But I think that our Lord had a voice in his appointment, and that He had this particular member of the band assigned to the task, not so much for his strength, as for his weakness.
It is well known that medical men try to localize an infection in order to treat it the more effectively. Here, then, was an office, in which the infection of covetousness was localized, so that what looks at first sight like putting temptation in the way of this man was really an opportunity for him to face his sin. At this point victory must be won, or at this point all would be lost. The power of God was present to heal him, but he would not be healed: till the disease broke forth in an eruption of foulness whose stench remains to this day.
The more he yielded to his sin in pilfering from the meagre purse, the more he hated the sinless One against whom he was sinning, until at last he was willing to accept blood money in a plot of betrayal against his best and divine Friend. It has been well said that “Judas was the worst of men because he was false to the Best of men.” Never play with a weakness, lest it prove itself a powerful monster of destruction.
Who would have dreamt that when David cried out to God from his sickbed about the familiar friend who had turned traitor against him, he was really predicting the Saviour’s betrayal by Judas? It was no fanciful interpreter who gave us that, but the Lord Himself saw the prophetic import in what would seem to have only local reference. David’s betrayal, then, was a type of his divine Son’s betrayal, and his complaint became a scripture which must needs be fulfilled in the Messiah.
A great agitation shook Jesus as He announced the foul treachery about to be committed: “Verily, verily, I say unto you, that one of you shall betray Me.” Many a wound had He received at the hands of the Jews, and many more would He receive at both Jewish and Gentile hands, but “one of you!”–
Let Shakespeare describe for us the baseness of such ingratitude:
“Blow, blow, thou winter wind,
Thou art not so unkind
As man’s ingratitude;
Thy tooth is not so keen
Because thou art not seen
Although thy breath be rude.
“Freeze, freeze, thou bitter sky,
Thou dost not bite so nigh
As benefits forgot;
Though thou the waters warp,
Thy sting is not so sharp
As friend remember’d not.”
I think the Lord had a twofold object in refraining from an open identification of the traitor. For one thing, He knew that this heart searching on the part of all the disciples would be a wholesome discipline in view of the coming test to their faith and loyalty. If we can be deceived into thinking that we cannot sin in this direction or that, Satan has got us well prepared for that very sin. Was it not so with Peter just a little later? A little more trembling for himself would have cast him more on the Lord for strength. But at least their awakening to the possibility of the sin of treachery in their own hearts was a wonderful fortifying of the disciples against it.
Then, too, with all of His knowledge of what Judas was about to do, Jesus never relaxed His gracious efforts to redeem that sold-out man. With the horrible crime already half committed, the gracious Lord would not confirm the traitor in his deed by openly pointing him out. Rather He would give him every opportunity to abandon his evil project, approaching the subject in such a way that a heart still human would have revolted from the unspeakable crime.
Yet it was meet that someone in the apostolic band should receive the intelligence, in order to bear witness to the perfection of our Lord’s foreknowledge. Who should more appropriately receive it than John, the special intimate of the Master? And who should more appropriately signal John to ask than Peter?
The bosom of Jesus is a good place to learn secrets. You will receive joyful confidences there: and the Lord will trust you further by letting you into the more sorrowful secrets of His heart. When glad and prosperous days come to us, we call our friends and neighbors to rejoice with us: but when evil attends our way, we seek out our most intimate friends who will enter into our griefs with us. Are we close enough to Jesus to share His burdens?
Then, too, have you wondered why John did not jump up, when by the sign of the sop Jesus indicated to him that Judas was the guilty one, and denounce the traitor before the whole company of the disciples? Was it because he was so stunned, as if Judas were the very last that he would have suspected? Or was it that he was close enough to Jesus to have his passions subdued even in the face of so appalling a discovery? The miracle of grace is surely operating in this “son of thunder”! I am sure there would be fewer volcanic eruptions among the saints of God if we dwelt more deeply on the bosom of our Lord.
“After the sop, Satan…” Strange association! That sop was more than a sign of identification to John. It was a mark of special honor and favor to him who received it; to Judas it was a last, powerful call back from the way of destruction which he was following, and a last tender invitation to a life of blessed, loving communion with the Lord. Surely there must have been a convulsion of emotion in the heart of Judas in that moment; till Satan, afraid that he was about to lose the instrument which he had so cunningly prepared for this very hour, entered into him as a tidal-wave of evil, destroying the last vestige of finer feeling in the already so hardened son of perdition.
The disciples must have felt the tenseness of the atmosphere as this spiritual battle was waging, although quite unacquainted with the nature of it. Jesus, completely Master of the situation, knew the very moment when Judas finally threw his whole being open to the entrance and domination of Satan. There was nothing further to do, save to separate that devil from the little company of His true apostles, and to commit him to his evil designs.
Yet even the manner of the dismissal of Judas still left the way open for him to return in penitence, for only Jesus and Judas, of the whole group, knew the meaning of the ambiguous words, “What thou doest, do quickly.” Even John, who had been let in on the secret of the traitor’s identity, had no idea it was coming so soon, and doubtless shared the general thought that the exit of Judas at the command of Jesus had to do with his office of treasurer for the little company. So, if he had even then turned back from his black purpose, he would have returned to an unsuspecting company.
“He then having received the sop went immediately out: and it was night.” That last phrase has caught the imagination of Bible readers ever since this record was given to the Church. It suggests the pall of eternal darkness coming down upon this man who had sold himself to sell the Son of God. It was the outer darkness, a night that knows no dawning. The hour would come when Judas awoke to the awfulness of his deed, but his remorse would be met only by the sneers of the priests and the laughter of hell. It would be no awakening to the light of a new and better day, but a plunge deeper into the darkness as he, by his own hand, went “to his own place.” Whoever goes out from the presence of Christ goes out into the night, but whoever abides with Him dwells in eternal day.