Is Judas Iscariot "save"?

First published on Tuesday, July 26, 2011 at 3:43pm

I was trying to convince my classmate to choose Judas Iscariot as her subject for a Character Study (a requirement for the completion of NT class). "You may discover that Judas is saved after all".  My friend was a little bit shocked with my statement and she asked "why, sister, do you believe so?"  "Why not?" "I am not sure, but whether I believer or not, it does not really matter. Only God knows!" 

There had been debates on this issue. Pro-Judas articles and books had been published and points raised are somehow true. I read today Max Lucado's article and it gave clarity (at least to my layman's mind) on Judas' state.  It's also an invitation for heart examination. Read on...

JUDAS, THE MAN WHO NEVER KNEW

I've wondered at times what kind of man this Judas was.  What he looked like, how he acted, who his friends were.

I guess I've stereotyped him.  I've always pictured him as a wiry, beady-eyed, sly, wormy fellow, pointed beard and all.  I've pictured him as estranged from the other apostles.

Friendless. Distant. Undoubtedly he has a traitor and a quisling.  Probably the result of a broken home.  A juvenile delinquent in his youth.

Yet I wonder if that is so true.  We have no evidence (saved Juda's silence) that would suggest that he was isolated.  At the LAst Supper, when JEsus said that his betrayer sat at the table, we don't find the apostles immediately turning to Judas as the logical traitor.

No, I think we've got Judas pegged wrong.  PErhaps he was just the opposite.  Instead of sly and wiry, maybe he was robust and jovial.  Rather than quiet and introverted, he could have been outgoing and well-meaning.  I don't know.

But for allt he things we don't know about Judas, there is one thing we know for sure:  He had no relationship with the Master.  He had seen Jesus, but he did not know Him.  He had heard JEsus, but he did not understand Him.  He had a religion but no relationship.

As Satan worked his way around the table in the upper room, he needed a special kind of man to betray our Lord.  He needed a man who had seen JEsus but who did not know him.  He needed a man who knew the actions of Jesus but had missed out the mission of Jesus.  Judas was this man.  He knew the empire but had never known the Man.

Judas bore the cloak of religion, but never knew the heart of Jesus.

We learn this timeless lesson from the betrayer.  Satan's best tools of destruction are not from outside the church; they are within the church.  A church will never die from the immorality in Hollywood or the corruption in Washington.  But it will die from corrosion within---from those who bear the name of JEsus but have never met him and from those who have religion but no relationship.

Judas bore the cloak of religion, but he never knew the heart of Christ.  

LEt's make it our goal to know Christ deeply.

From Shaped by God (original title: On the Anvil) Copyright (Tyndale House, 1985, 2002) Max Lucado