Who was Judas Iscariot?

Son of Simon and one of the twelve apostles. He was a false disciple: when the Lord said to His apostles 'ye are clean,' He excepted Judas in the words 'but not all.' He was sent out with the others to preach, and no exception is made in his case as to the working of miracles in the name of the Lord Jesus. Under the plea of the necessities of the poor he complained of money being wasted when Mary anointed the Lord. Yet he did not really care for the poor: he was treasurer, and was a thief. Satan knew the covetousness of Judas and put it into his heart to betray the Lord for money, which he did for thirty pieces of silver. Satan afterwards, as the Adversary, took possession of him to insure the success of the betrayal.

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.

Judas Iscariot. — One here comes upon the scene of whom little has been heard before, viz., Judas Iscariot, i.e., a man of Kerioth of Judea, an appellation which he bore in common with his father, Simon, as John (6:71; 13:26) really informs us. He was one of the twelve, and is always named last in the list, and the only one of them, as far as we know, who was a native of Judea. Till the supper at Bethany, nothing special is recorded of him, though the Lord had in the sixth chapter of John distinctly referred to him as a devil. His character and his awful treachery were even then fully known to Him. But circumstances had to develop what was within; and the rebuke he received from the Lord in the house of Simon the leper, the first occasion that we read of on which he opened his mouth (John 12:4), was the inciting cause of his treachery. This both Matthew and Mark teach us by their introduction of the story of Mary of Bethany anointing the Lord, not in its chronological order as related by John, but in connection with that council held in the house of Caiaphas the high-priest.

(12) Judas Iscariot. This name is always placed last of all in the lists of the apostles. With one or two exceptions each reference to him is accompanied by a phrase alluding to his betrayal of Jesus. He is said to have been [the son] of Simon (John 6:71; John 12:4; John 13:2, 26). He was not of Galilean origin, like the majority of the apostles, but of Kerioth, a town in the land of Judah (Joshua 15:25), this being implied by "Iscariot."

Mary's devotion was the cause of the failure of the plans of the enemies that the death of the Lord should not take place in the feast. It stirred up the traitor to action. This no doubt is the reason why the Holy Spirit gives the record of the anointing out of its chronological order. Judas' dark deed we behold next. "Then one of the twelve, he was called Judas Iscariot, went to the chief priests and said, What are ye willing to give me, and I will deliver Him up to you? And they appointed to him thirty pieces of silver. And from that time he sought a good opportunity that he might deliver Him up" (verses 14-16).

Who was Judas? His surname is given here. Iscariot is composed of two words "Ish" and "Kerioth;" translated "the man of Kerith." He was the only Judean disciple among the twelve, the rest were all from Galilee. This is significant and shows the apostasy of Judah, this man of Kerioth being the heading up of it as ere long there will be another heading up, in the man of sin and the son of perdition, the personal antichrist, who will be a Jew. (We desire to caution our readers against a fanciful teaching, which lacks scriptural support, that Judas will be raised up during the great tribulation and will be that man of sin, the antichrist foretold in 2 Thess. 2. Such teaching coming from otherwise reputable teachers of the Bible does much harm.) In Luke we have the information that Satan entered into him. That mighty enemy, who tempted our Lord and found nothing in Him, who took hold of Peter and used him as mouthpiece when he said, "Be it far from thee, Lord," now takes actual possession of the one, who was indeed his own, for Judas had never believed in Christ. Peter may deny Him and the rest of the disciples forsake their Lord, yet Satan could never enter into them, for they were saved, had life and the power of God kept them. The Lord knew that wicked one among His disciples. "But there are some of you who believe not. For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were who did not believe, and who would deliver Him up" (John 6:64). "He knew him that delivered Him up; on account of this He said, Ye are not all clean" (John 13:11. Furthermore, all this had been predicted in the Old Testament. See Zechariah 11:12; Psalms 41:9.; 69:25; 109:8. And the price for which Judas betrayed the King was the price of a servant, a slave, according to Exodus 21:32.

Judas. — There was, however, one present who had no appreciation of Mary's act, no sympathy with Mary's token of affection. Enjoying opportunities of learning about the Lord far more than she ever had, his heart had remained unattracted, and to any love for Christ he was an utter stranger. His name was Judas, commonly called in addition Iscariot. He was the son of Simon, who was also called Iscariot in the better reading of John 6:71; and the city to which he and his father belonged was Kerioth in Judaea. So he was a man of Kerioth, as Iscariot really implies. The Eleven were probably all Galileans. He alone belonged to Judaea — a fact not without significance, when we remember that the Lord's bitterest opponents were from the Jews. Chosen by the Lord to fulfil the prophetic word (John 13:18), who knew all about him, and the awful crime of which he would be guilty (6:71), the others had no conception till after the betrayal of his duplicity and his cupidity. He bore the bag, writes John, and, being a thief, purloined that which was put therein, as it seems the Evangelist meant his readers to understand (12:6). The first words in the Gospel attributed to Judas are those uttered on this occasion: "Why was not this ointment sold for three hundred pence, and given to the poor?" His last words were addressed to the chief priests, as, casting down in the Temple court the reward of iniquity, he exclaimed in remorse, "I have sinned, in that I have betrayed innocent blood." Then suicide effected, he went, Peter said, to his own place (Acts 1:25), being, as the Lord called him, "the son of perdition" (John 17:12), saying also of him, "Woe to that man, by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! good were it for that man, if he had never been born" (Mark 14:21). Words these are of awful import when we consider from whose lips they fell.

As for Judas, the Gospels tell us that he was the one who betrayed Jesus (see Mark 14:10,11,43‑45); and in remorse for what he did, Judas hanged himself (see Matt. 27:5). Judas died at the end of a rope, not on the Cross of Calvary.

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.

Judas was full of remorse for his sordid treachery when he beheld its awful results. But there was no true repentance, no real turning away from sin and self to God. In the bitterness of his soul he went and hanged himself.

"Then Judas, which had betrayed Him, repented himself. … saying, I have sinned in that I have betrayed the innocent blood" (vers. 3, 4). Awful picture of what Satan brings about in a wretched human heart! Only the farther from Jesus morally because he was the nearer externally. Most of all guilty are those who have the greatest outward privileges while the truth of God does not govern the soul. We see, too, the mockery of Satan — the way in which he cheats his victims. Manifestly Judas did not expect such an end for Jesus. He had known the Lord in imminent peril before; he had seen Him, when the people took up stones to cast at Him, hiding Himself, going through the midst of them, and passing on His way. He knew how Jesus could walk on the sea — how He could conquer all the obstacles of nature; and why not the raging storm of human passion and violence? But Judas was deceived, whatever his calculations may have been; he yielded to covetousness; he bargained for the blood of Jesus. To his horror, he found it but too true. And Satan, who had led him on by his love of money, leaves him without hope — in black despair. He goes to the priests, who heartlessly turn away from a miserable, despairing soul. Alas, confession of sin without confidence in God for His grace, is worthless — fruitless of any good. Cleave to God, my soul! and give Him credit for what He is in Christ. But there is no faith where Jesus is not loved; and Judas had neither. All the outward nearness he had enjoyed before was only a greater weight upon his lost soul now. What a thing is the end of sin even in this world, sin against Jesus!

Judas brings the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders with the confession, "I have sinned in that I have betrayed the innocent blood." They could not deny the truth of this; but with utter heartlessness, more hardened if possible than Judas' own heart, they say, "What is that to us? see thou to that. And he cast down the pieces of silver in the temple, and departed, and went and hanged himself" (vers. 4, 5). Many a one sells Jesus virtually, if not literally. Let every soul look to it that his sin be not in some way akin to that of Judas. If God is calling sinners to a knowledge of His Son, and of His grace by Him, it is an awful thing to reject Him; it is selling Jesus for some object in this world which either we seek to attain or love too well to part with. In Judas this came out in its worst form; but perdition is not confined to him who is the son of perdition.

"Now on the first day of the feast of unleavened bread, the disciples came to Jesus, saying, Where wilt thou that we prepare for Thee to eat the Passover? And He said, Go into the city unto such a one, and say to him, The Teacher says, My time is near, I will keep the passover with my disciples in thy house. And the disciples did as Jesus had directed them, and they prepared the passover. And when the evening was come He lay down at table with the twelve. And as they were eating He said, Verily I say to you, that one of you shall deliver Me up. And being exceedingly grieved they began to say to Him, each of them, Is it I, Lord? But He answering said, He that dips his hand with Me in the dish, he it is that shall deliver Me up. The Son of Man goes indeed according as it is written concerning Him, but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is delivered up; it were good for that man if he had not been born. And Judas, who delivered Him up, answering said, Is it I, Rabbi? He says to him, Thou hast said" (verses 17-25).

Is it not the purpose of our exposition to compare the different Gospel records, and so we shall not refer to the different accounts, which certainly are not conflicting. The first day of the feast of the unleavened bread was the day on which the passover was to be killed (Luke 22:7). It is, therefore, clear that He and His disciples commemorated then the Jewish Paschal Supper. He Himself does the ordering and manifests Himself as Lord throughout. Once more He announces the nearness of His passion -- "My time is near." What a moment that was! They had attempted before to take His life. That was impossible. The time is now near, His time, when the King was to lay down His life. Directly we see Him at the table with the twelve, and while they were eating He announces the fact of one of them being the traitor. What follows in that conversation may well be taken for a last warning to Judas. The Lord had seen him turning to the chief priests and knew of his bargaining with them. He read the whole dark story in that heart, which was before Him, the omniscient One, as an opened book. "Verily I say to you, that one of you shall deliver me up." This must have been aimed at the conscience of Judas Iscariot. Did he also show surprise? Did his face turn red or into paleness as he saw the innermost thoughts of his heart revealed? Each of them, with the exception of Judas, asks the question, Is it I, Lord? Judas is silent. Under the power of that awful being, Satan, who held him in his grasp, he hardens his heart. But more than that the Lord speaks. "He that dips his hand with me in the dish, he it is who shall deliver me up." The more detailed account of all this we find in the Gospel of John. While here we have only the fact stated of the betrayer dipping his hand into the dish, in John we read that the Lord gave him a sop. And Judas could take that morsel, a token of the love of the Lord whom he had rejected and was about to betray. It was a silent offer from the side of the Lord to give even to him, but he would not. He rejects that offer. Again we have the record for the second time that Satan entered into him (John 13:27). It was right after he had taken the morsel. The last offer was rejected, and now Satan gains a still firmer hold upon him and possesses him fully. At last these closed lips open. What awful, satanic hypocrisy he utters! "Is it I, Rabbi?" Such hypocrisy in the presence of Him who is the Truth can only be explained by the presence of that being in Judas, who is the father of lies. It is also a significant fact that Judas did not say "Lord" but he used the word "Rabbi" instead. This is evidence that he never had received Him as Lord and believed on Him as the Lord. He had power conferred on him to drive out the demons and to heal the sick -- messianic power, coming from the King, but he was nevertheless an unbeliever. "Rabbi" he said, because Satan had entered into him, and Satan refuses to call Him Lord. Yet the time will come when all knees, including Judas, must bow at (not in) the names of Jesus and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. For thus it is written: "Wherefore also God highly exalted Him, and granted Him a name, which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of heavenly and earthly and infernal beings and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to God the Father's glory" (Phil. 2:9-11). From the lips of the Lord he hears the "Woe," and, according to the Gospel of John, "he went out immediately and it was night." He went out into a night without a morning, into eternal night, the blackness of darkness forever (Jude 13). And all who reject that Lord, who wilfully close their hearts against Him and refuse His authority, go into that night.