All Our Yesterdays
"To the last
syllable of recorded time, and all our yesterdays. . ." (Macbeth V.v.)
A series of brief articles
dealing with Human Pre-existence
by Arthur & Rosalind Eedle.
17. Judas Iscariot
The career
of Judas Iscariot is compassed about with perplexities, at least by traditional
exegesis. But let's have a look at the texts concerning him.
John
6:64-65 "'There are some of you who do not believe.' (For Jesus
knew from the beginning the ones who were not believing, and the one who was to
betray Him.) And He said, 'Therefore I told you that no one can come to me
unless it has been given to him of the Father.'"
John 13:2 "And
supper being ended, the Devil put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, son of
Simon, to betray Him."
Matthew
26:24 "The Son of Man goes, as it is written of Him, but woe to
that man through whom the Son of Man is betrayed. It would be good for that man
if he had not been born."
Here is a
case of apparent predestination to betrayal, and its awful consequences. How
does that square with the character of God? The simple answer is, it doesn't.
As students of Scripture, we cannot afford to allow ungodly thoughts to
determine the meaning of what we read, even if at first reading it
seems paradoxical and unjust.
On the
basis of Judas Iscariot's pre-existence, something must have happened to cause
this scenario. Let's take stock of the situation. Judas was Ish-Kerioth, that
is, "man of Kerioth", a town in
But what
can be learned from his pre-existence days? Hardly anything, except what may be
based on Jesus' words about Judas, that "it would have been better if he
had not been born." The Gospel of Mark, in the A.V. unfortunately says
"never been born," which is not in the Greek. In fact the
Greek of Matthew and Mark is identical in this reference.
Why would
it have been better for him not to be born? The word "not"
is OU in Greek, and is the intensive form of the negative, differing from ME,
which is not so strong. Hence the Master was saying "it would have been
better if he had not been born."
Therefore there was something about his birth in that place and at that time
which militated against his best good. Jesus was saying in effect that his
birth was contrary to the Father's will at that time.
We can only
say therefore that Judas must have asked the Father to be allowed to be born at
that time, and to become a disciple of Jesus. This was his great wish in
life, and he imagined that God would be pleased with such a request. He was crest-fallen
when the answer given him was "No, it will not be to your best good."
But Judas must have argued, and having been told several times that it would be
better for him to be born later, he still insisted. Eventually, God said to
him, "Be it then according to you will. But I have warned you. No good
will come of it."
This being
so, Jesus knew about this decision when He chose Judas, hence the words, "Jesus
knew from the beginning who it was who would betray Him."
He was to be allowed to attain his greatest wish, and become a disciple of
Christ. But during those three and a half years he became more and more
disillusioned. Imagining himself to be a great ambassador of the Christ when He
entered His Kingdom, he found the Messiah talking about crucifixion, and
asking His followers to take up their crosses to follow Him. What merit was
there in that? He wanted a military-style Messiah, who would eliminate the
Roman tyrant from the land. Instead he found a foot-washing, woman-and-child
loving man, who spoke about lilies of the field, sparrows, and widow's mites.
He learned to despise Him, and eventually decided to betray Him into the hands
of the authorities. Why? To save Him from Himself! To prevent Him from being
made a fool of, and being tortured and crucified by the Romans.
But it
backfired on him badly, because no sooner had he played his part, he realised
that he had betrayed innocent blood. But it was too late. In utter remorse he
went out and committed suicide.
This is the
only way in which a just and proper understanding of Judas's actions, and
Jesus' choice, can be explained. If Judas had never existed until he was
conceived or born, then the events of his life would forever remain a mystery,
compassed about, perhaps, by dark thoughts towards God Himself.