Some Thoughts About Judas and Remorse

I had an interesting conversation with Nicole, our 18 year old first year college student, recently. She is writing a script for our youth human video team. Part of the script deals with Judas, the disciple that betrayed Jesus. She said that basically what she has been taught is that Judas was a greedy person who probably didn't believe in Jesus from the start and only followed Him for what he could get personally. In the script she is writing, she was wondering if there was more to the story, did he feel any remorse, and will Judas be in Heaven? I gave her a couple of things to think about regarding what the scriptures have to say, particularly in Matthew 26 and 27.

After we ended our conversation, I did some more thinking about Judas and what his motivation was in betraying Jesus, and then his tragic end. The one question Nicole asked, "will Judas be in Heaven?", really got me thinking. It seems like one of the keys to Judas' motivation may be found in the story of the expensive perfume being poured on his head while he was at the home of Simon the Leper in Bethany. Mark says "Some of those present were saying indignantly to one another, 'Why this waste of perfume? It could have been sold for more than a year's wages and the money given to the poor'. And they rebuked her harshly." Was Judas among these? Was this a tipping point for Judas? Verse 10 of Mark 14 says, "Then Judas Iscariot, one of the Twelve, went to the chief priests to betray Jesus to them". The "Then" of this verse comes right after the account of the perfume incident. Interesting thought...

One more thought, why would Judas ask during the Lord's Supper if he was the betrayer unless he thought that Jesus would not know, and not point him out? Would he make himself the deliberate object of scorn in front of his peers? Even after all the miraculous events that Judas had experienced with Jesus, he apparently did not believe that Christ was God, and was all knowing. I think Judas was taken completely by surprise when Jesus said, "Yes, it is you." I believe that Judas' world was turned upside down by that one incident. Now, for the first time, he clearly understood who Christ was, and that he would be "selling Him down the river". I believe that from the time that night that he kissed Christ in the garden to point Him out until the next morning when Judas went to the temple to return the money, he was in the greatest anguish a person could be in. Early the next morning, when he could not resolve the situation, when he couldn't fix it, in desperation he threw the money at the priests and ran out and took his own life.

Will we see Judas in Heaven? As the rope tightened around his neck, did Judas have time to breathe the words, "O God, please forgive me?" What do you think?