Was Judas saved?

The terrible case of Judas Iscariot furnishes us with an illustration of this very thing. He walked for over three years in the company of the Son of God. What floods of light fell upon his path! What tastes he had of the heavenly gift and of the good Word of God! It could not be said of course that he was a partaker of the Holy Ghost, but he was a partaker of the benefits of the presence of Christ upon earth; and he shared, in common with the other apostles, in those miraculous powers which are here called "the powers of the world to come." He was one of the twelve to whom the Lord gave power over unclean spirits, and of whom it is said, "They cast out many devils and anointed with oil many that were sick, and healed them." (Mark 6:13). Yet the miracle-working Judas was all the while a "son of perdition" and not a saved man at all. He fell away and it proved impossible to renew him to repentance.

The sequence of the story is broken by a parenthetical paragraph giving us the miserable end of Judas. It looks as if he had expected the Lord to evade His adversaries and pass from their midst as He had done aforetime, but now seeing Him condemned and submitting to their hands he was filled with remorse and horror at what he had done. His was not the genuine "repentance to salvation not to be repented of," for that goes hand in hand with faith. Now faith was what he lacked, for had he possessed it he would have turned to his Master as did Peter, who also had grievously failed. His eyes were opened to his sin and he confessed it, while also confessing the innocence of Jesus, yet he flung himself out of life and into a suicide's grave. The very man who was instrumental in handing the Saviour over to His foes had to confess His innocence. God so ordained it; and this is very striking.

Only the Lord was prepared when the enemy came. Judas went ahead of the crowd, evidently thinking that the Lord would not know that he was in any way linked with these soldiers. How blind was his unbelief, and how grossly deceitful, that he would kiss the Lord with the object of betraying Him! The Lord's words to him (v.48), faithful, yet with no bitterness or anger, showed him that his treachery had been discerned. What could he do now? Where could he go? For he had proven to friends and enemies alike that he could not be trusted. Terrible exposure! We know from Matthew 27:3-5 the tragic end of this pathetic victim of Satan's delusion, that he hanged himself and entered eternity lost, and destined to eternal punishment.

Peter went out then, and "wept bitterly." Repentance did its proper work in his soul, as he saw his folly and sin in the light of his Lord's love. Here is the difference between repentance and remorse. Repentance is the judgment of my sin that I have in the light of love, and grace known. Remorse is produced by viewing the sin in the light only of its probable results. Repentance begets hope, remorse leads only to despair. Repentance leads the soul back to God, remorse drives it to deeper sin, and further into Satan's hands. This is all illustrated in the consequent pathway of Peter and Judas. Judas, who did not know what grace was, went out and, in remorse over his consummate wickedness, hanged himself; Peter, who did know what grace was, and who knew better than ever then how deeply the Lord loved him, went out and wept bitterly. The last thing Peter had done was to deny his Master, and the next thing his Master did was to die for Peter; and if He had not died for Peter, he never could have been restored nor saved.

(2) A hope seems to have remained or freshly risen in the heart of Christ's betrayer that, after all, He might not be condemned. Perhaps the words here do not convey as much as that, but rather the horror produced by the actual thing when now accomplished, never to be undone. What tales have we of deeds deliberately done, which when done have assumed at once a new shape of terror and dismay, as if never contemplated before. With what different eyes might the traitor have seen the actual condemnation of his Lord and Master from those with which he had looked on to it, however certain. Clearly it is the awful agony of remorse that awakes now in Judas, and not repentance. He cannot keep the money he has gained, to which even for the chief priests the blood-stain indelibly attaches. Nay, he shrieks out even in their ears the confession of his sin in having betrayed the innocent blood. But there it ends: "innocent blood;" not holy or righteous, still less "the Holy and the Righteous One": the glory of the Son of God has no part in it ― neither heals nor even smites him. There is no turning to Him with whom he had companied so long, ― no sense of any one to whom he can turn. There is, in short, no faith, and therefore no repentance. "He cast the silver pieces into the temple" ― practically, the sanctuary, the part proper to the priests alone, ― "and departed and went away and hanged himself." In this we see again the opposite of faith. How many times must he have seen the miraculous deeds which testified that "the Son of man had power on earth to forgive sins"! but he seems to remember nothing of all this, or else cannot believe in the divine mercy toward himself; and thus he plunges headlong into irrecoverable ruin.

There is a despairing kind of mourning; such was Judas' mourning: he saw his sin, he was sorry, he justified Christ, he made restitution. Judas, who is in hell, did more than many nowadays; well, wherein was Judas' sorrow blameworthy? It was a mourning joined with despair he thought his wound broader than the plaster; his was not "repentance to life" (Acts 11:18), but rather to death.

Judas probably thought that the Lord would escape from those who arrested Him, as He had escaped from previous dangers, while he would gain the money. When the Lord was condemned, Judas was filled with remorse, confessed he had betrayed innocent blood, and cast the money into the temple. He was a complete dupe of Satan, who first tempted him to gain the money, and then would not let him keep it. He went and hanged himself, and probably falling from the tree, his bowels gushed out. An awful termination of a sinful course. The Lord called him the 'son of perdition.'

In modern times men have erroneously argued that his confession under remorse showed true repentance, and that there is hope of his salvation! but it is not so: he fell 'that he might go to his own place.' It was a trial of man under new circumstances: to be a 'familiar friend' (Ps. 41:9) of the Lord Jesus, to hear His gracious words, see His miracles, and probably be allowed to work miracles himself in His name; and yet, as in every other trial of man, he fell. Judas is a solemn instance of how far a person may be under the influence and power of Christianity, and yet become an apostate: cf. Heb. 6:1-6. He is mentioned in Matt. 10:4; Matt. 26:14-47; Matt. 27:3; Luke 22:3, 47, 48; John 13:2, 26, 29; John 18:2-5; Acts 1:16, 25, etc.

[6] Judas went to his own place. The Lord was in Paradise, and the penitent thief with Him. Separation for ever took place between the Lord and Judas. Fellowship with the Lord for ever was to be the portion of that thief.

The sin then of Judas and the sin of Peter are both foretold. For the former, Judas, there was no forgiveness; for the latter there would be. Judas would fulfil prophecy: "The Son of man goes as it was determined; but woe to that man by whom He is betrayed!" (Luke 22:22). And Matthew, who was present, adds (26:24), and Mark also (14:21), "It had been good for that man if he had not been born." Yes indeed. The sin of Judas was unpardonable, and the wretched man went to his own place, adding to the guilt of betraying his Master the sin of destroying himself. He died by his own hand. Planning in secret, as he thought, with the chief priests the arrest of the Lord, it was made manifest, and that to the whole company, Judas included, that his act of treachery ere it was carried out was known to Him whom it so deeply concerned, and more, that the traitor's sin had centuries previous been the subject of prophetic communication. Of the Lord the Psalmist had written, and of the traitor likewise. The dark design of Judas was inscribed on the page of inspiration. By the tool of Satan the written Word would be fulfilled. In the case of Peter it was different. No Scripture is quoted as fulfilled by his fall, yet that fall was foreknown and foretold. For him the Lord prayed that his faith should not fail, and for him there was service in store. He was to strengthen (or, establish) his brethren (Luke 22:32). By his fall he would learn that which would be helpful to others. Grace then he was to prove in a double way, his forgiveness and restoration to service being both foreshadowed. And in this gospel, not in that by Mark, have we mention of this last; for grace, as we have before remarked, is characteristic of it. The willing tool of Satan would die by his own hand. The one ensnared by Satan would be forgiven.

Judas sinned wilfully by rejecting the only Saviour and thus made it manifest that he would incur the awful judgment recorded in Hebrews 10:26-29, a judgment which cannot possibly overtake the weakest believer. He had shared in that external sanctification which includes all who outwardly separate from Judaism and Paganism to embrace Christianity, the only soul-saving system which reveals a Saviour. (Outward sanctification is also seen in 1 Cor. 7:14.) To "sin wilfully" is to deliberately, with heart and mind, give up Christ and Christianity completely. That no child God could or would do. (1 John 2:19.)