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into a boat and hurried away. We may assume that Judas was angry; he felt that Jesus was letting vital opportuni ties slip through His fingers. After this feeding of the five thousand, Jesus began to talk of Himself as the bread of life. He suggested that His followers must eat His flesh and drink His blood. This made no sense to Judas. Probably he sought to dismiss this discussion from his thinking as just so many pious phrases intended to impress the multitude. But then, when Judas noticed that many of Jesus’ followers were leaving Him after this statement (John 6:66), he was alarmed. He felt that Jesus ought to switch His talk to a political challenge and try to recapture the numbers of disciples who were severing connections with Him. Tell them that He was the Messiah, that He intended to conquer Rome and lead them to victory! That would bring them back. But Jesus seemed to take the departure of the throngs quite casually. It was here that He made a reference to Judas: “ Did I not choose you, the twelve, and one of you is a devil?” (John 6:70). However, no name was mentioned and Judas was not ex posed. One day, the Pharisees approached Christ and de manded that He show them a sign of His authority and right to His claim of Messiah. “ Show us a sign from heaven!” they demanded. Expectantly, Judas must have waited. What miracle would He perform? But instead, Jesus simply refused (Matthew 12:38 ff; 16:1 ff). Judas could not understand this; it made no sense. Jesus was breaking all the known laws of successful political cam paigning. The next strong blow to Judas’ house of cards was Jesus’ talk of His coming death. “ From that time forward, Jesus began to show His disciples how . . . He must suf fer . . . and be killed . . .” (Matthew 16:21 ff). Jesus— dying? This could not be! It would mean the end to any possible earthly kingdom. This was a terrific blow to Judas, a contributing factor to his ultimate betrayal. When Jesus went up to the top of the mount of trans- figuration, Peter, James and John were chosen to accom pany Him; not Judas! He may have felt slighted for, after all, wasn’t he important? Wasn’t he the treasurer? And, while Jesus was gone, the father with the demon-possessed boy came seeking healing for his son at the hands of the disciples. One after another they tried to cast out the de mon and they failed. Even Judas, who had so valued his power to heal, discovered that his power had apparently vanished. And, when Jesus descended from the mountain top, He severely rebuked His disciples: “ O faithless and perverse generation; how long shall I be with you?” (Matthew 17:17). This must have stung Judas like a whip. On another occasion, Jesus declared His deity and when the Jews tried to stone Him, instead of striking them down with His power, He “ hid Himself’ (John 8:59). This sort of thing didn’t seem logical to Judas and he had begun to APRIL, 1961
wonder whether he had made a big mistake joining up with this messianic movement. Had he picked the wrong Man? Possibly Palm Sunday lightened the load a bit for Judas. He discovered that the moment had now come when Jesus was to ride into Jerusalem. This was the tradi tional conduct of the conquerer—riding triumphantly into the capital city to announce his conquest. Possibly he was a bit chagrinned that Jesus and His disciples carried no weapons for use against the Romans. But Judas probably figured that the miraculous powers of Christ would make weapons unnecessary. The tumultous reception Christ received from the crowds who surrounded Him on all sides, as well as those who came out from the city to see what was taking place, buoyed up Judas’ spirits considerably. Perhaps he had misjudged Jesus. He had just been waiting for the right moment to take over. Then, the second cleansing of the Temple (Luke 19:45 ff) seemed to be a real sign of con quest. Naturally, the Messiah would start His clean-up campaign with God’s House. This would be the beginning of greater things to come. But then, to Judas’ shocked amazement, Jesus simply withdrew from the city and went back to Bethany once more, without any further at tempt at overthrowing Rome. This was probably the last straw. There are those who think that it was Judas’ desire to force Christ’s hand— to make Him exert conquering power — that caused him to sell out his Lord. If he could only put Him into a position in which He would have to utilize His miraculous power and take control, in order to get out of some predicament—then He might conquer Rome and establish His kingdom. This theory is possible, of course. Psychologically, and humanly speaking, this would fol low on what we have already suggested. But there was more to Judas’ betrayal than psychology. The whole thing was satanically engineered. Twice, we read that Satan entered into Judas: once, to start the ball rolling, and once when he left the communion table to finish the foul deed. Judas’ bargain with the priests is in teresting. They paid him thirty pieces of silver as prophe sied by Zechariah 11:12, 13. This would be equivalent to about $24 in our money. $24 is all Judas received for the most nefarious betrayal in human history. And for $24, he sold out the Lord of Glory. The money, incidentally, came from the Temple treasury, from a fund used to buy sacri fices for the Temple. How little those religionists realized that they were contributing Temple funds to pay for the greatest sacrifice of all, the Lamb of God who would take away man’s sin. At the Last Supper, we have the show-down. Jesus had already said, “ one of you (disciples) is a devil,” but Judas had not been identified. Now, in the upper room, He said, “• ■ • you are clean, but not all of you . . . one of you CONTINUED ON NEXT PAGE 9
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