Judas

March 2026

Everyone knows about Judas, who betrayed Jesus for 30 pieces of silver. He has been made into a unambiguous two-dimensional villain that even a child can identify as the "bad guy". But in our oversimplification, we miss some uncomfortable aspects of Judas. Uncomfortable because he is more like us than some archetypical evil.

When asked about the motive for Judas' betrayal, most people will say that it was for money. But I don't think that is the case. First, let's consider the context. Jesus' disciples all believed that the Messiah was coming to overthrow the Romans and set up God's Kingdom on Earth. So Jesus has to disabuse them of this notion, though none of them seem to have "gotten it" until after the resurrection. Matthew 16:21 says that "from that time forth, Jesus began to show His disciples that ... He must be killed..." None of the disciples liked the thought, leading to Peter objecting to Jesus - and the resulting rebuke Jesus gives him in Matthew 16:23.

Judas doesn't stand out until chapter 26. He, like the rest of the disciples, experienced the teachings of Jesus, living with Him for three years. They all saw Jesus's demonstrations of power over nature, over demons, and even over death. Along with the rest of the disciples, he was sent out and healed the sick and drove demons out of people (Luke 10).

So, why would Judas decide to betray the person he believed was the Messiah? In Matthew 26:14 we are told "Then one of the twelve, called Judas Iscariot, went to the chief priests..." The use of the word "Then" means that the following actions followed the preceding narrative. It implies causality. This is the pivot point at which Judas changes from disciple to betrayer. What caused this change? The preceding narrative had to do with the woman coming to pour perfume on Jesus' feet. Many tie Judas' pivot point to verse 10 where Jesus rebukes the disciples for being indignant about the "waste". But making that verse the cause ignores a couple things. There is no reason to choose that verse unless you start from the perspective that it was about the money that was the issue. Partly this is because John 12:6 indicates that Judas was indignant because he dipped into the funds on occasion. But note that in Matthew it isn't only Judas that is indignant ("the disciples", plural), although his indignation was due to him being a thief as opposed to the self-righteous indignation of the other disciples. But we aren't told that it was his indignation or greed that led to betrayal. That is one possibility, of course, but I don't think it was the motivating factor, as I will address in a bit.

Rather, the whole of Matthew 26 prior to verse 14 was about Jesus being killed: "delivered up to be crucified" (v 2), "Me you do not have always" (v 10), "she did it for My burial" (v13). So, the immediately preceding narrative was Jesus talking about His death. Judas didn't like this because it was contrary to what he wanted the Messiah to be - the conquering King. I believe he hatched an idea to try to manipulate the situation into the outcome he wanted. I think he tried to cause a confrontation between Jesus and the Jewish leaders that would trigger the desired result. Remember, he had seen the power exercised by Jesus. There is no indication that Judas lacked faith that Jesus was the Messiah or that He had the power of God at His command. Frankly, he may have had a better understanding of what was going on than any of the rest of the disciples. What he lacked was a trust in God's plan. He may have even thought that he would be rewarded by being instrumental in ushering in the Kingdom.

Why do I think it was this rather than greed that motivated Judas? Three reasons. First, 30 silver pieces was not a lot of money. It wasn't nothing, but it wasn't much. Certainly not commensurate with betraying the Messiah. Second, instead of going out and spending the money, he instead followed the ensuing events carefully. In Matthew 27:3 we are told, "When Judas, who had betrayed him, saw that Jesus was condemned..." The wording here indicates that Judas watched the trial up to the point where Jesus was condemned. Instead of going off and buying new clothes, or a nice meal, or just going to bed, he was following the events from the garden to the end of the trial. Why do that, unless he expected that something was going to happen other than Jesus being condemned? He had engineered the confrontation and he expected Jesus to come out on top. Instead, Jesus did not exert His power and the Jewish leaders handed Him off to the Romans.

So, "When Judas...saw that Jesus was condemned", he realized that things weren't going the way he had planned at all. Now he was faced with the realization that he had merely been a pawn of the Jewish leaders and he was filled with remorse. Why would he be filled with remorse at this point unless he expected a different outcome?

The arc of Judas' betrayal was: 1) Jesus talks about his death, 2) Judas arranges a confrontation, 3) he watches for something to happen, 4) when it doesn't, he is remorseful. Why was money involved then? We know that Judas was greedy, so I think he merely considered that the silver would be a nice little personal bonus to the real agenda of kick-starting the Kingdom - not the motivation for betrayal.

Once we see Judas like this, the whole story takes on a frightening aspect because it hits close to home. We might not betray God for money, but how many of us try to manipulate situations, or other people, in order to have our own agenda come to pass? How many times have we tried to stack the decks so that God would "have to" work out our own goals? It is exceptionally disrespectful to manipulate other people. How much more disrespectful is it to try to manipulate God! There is a name for this: putting God to the test. It is the second temptation that Satan uses against Jesus. There, Satan correctly notes that God promised to protect Jesus by sending His angels to protect Him. But then he tempts Jesus to jump so that God "had" to act. By jumping from the top of the temple, Jesus would manipulate the situation so that Father God was required to act.

But God is not obligated to respond to our actions in a way that will work out our agenda on our timeline. The model given to us is: do what God says and trust Him to be with us through what we do. Leave the results up to God. Leave the strategy to God. And resist the temptation to try to engineer results rather than being a trusting servant. This doesn't mean that we shouldn't give thought or planning to what we do. But it means we don't manipulate things - and we certainly don't try to force God's hand.