Judas's Suicide- Matt 27:1-10

Peter isn’t the only apostle outside of Caiaphas’s palace when Jesus is being beaten, “Judas, which had betrayed him, when he saw that he was condemned, repented himself, and brought again the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders, saying, I have sinned in that I have betrayed the innocent blood.” I honestly feel like I’ve beaten the “Judas” horse to death in other posts, and most of that has to do now with statements that people have made in the modern era that Judas is a son of perdition. We know that perdition is the state of being in which someone refuses to repent, even after they have a fullness of knowledge, being in a state of perdition is a choice by the individual who prefers to wallow instead of repent.

I think the biggest problem that I have with the concept of “perdition” as it is understood by most people these days, is that it is usually viewed as a place a person is put after displeasing God in some way. It is viewed as divinely decreed punishment from which there is no escape despite the deepest desires of those who are so punished. This understanding works for Satan because it implies that despite our best efforts, there is still some unknown cliff which we may inadvertently fall down and become his subject. Why does this view point work for him? Before I more fully understood the concept of perdition, I remember asking a guy who was way more scripturally knowledgeable than I was repeatedly what it took to be refused the opportunity to repent. There was a story about a general authority that was convicted of child molestation, was he a son of perdition? Is that where Jesus drew the line? What if he sincerely repented, could he ever be forgiven? What if the victim was able to forgive him, would Jesus be the hold out and say “too bad, so sad, you went too far”?
I eventually had to come to the conclusion that except for possibly very few exceptions, none of us have sufficient knowledge in this life to make an eternal decision about whether or not we will repent. That doesn’t mean that we should run around being crazy and claim that “we don’t know any better” but there is so much pressure that comes with feeling that you will be judged and possibly be condemned to eternal suffering for an action that you didn’t intend to be so meaningful. Even the commandments can be so ambiguous sometimes. Thou shalt not kill, but what if you are in combat? Thou shalt not kill, but what if you are being attacked? Thou shalt not commit adultery, but what about if your spouse dies or leaves you or you get divorced or raped? Honor your father and mother, but what if your parents are crazy and want to hurt you?
My point with all that is, to say that to deny the Holy Ghost is the unforgiveable sin, what does that even mean? Does that mean if you have a prompting and you don’t heed it, you will be a son of perdition? Because if that’s the case then we are almost all certainly guilty. Does that mean that if we have a testimony and then leave the church or commit a serious sin, then we are denying the Holy Ghost and become a son of perdition? Because I’m guilty of that. And I think that that was why I was so concerned with “what does it take to be a son of perdition?” because I didn’t want to be cast off, but I had already been guilty of so much grievous error. But then again, that flies in the face of the doctrine of repentance, completely contradicts the statement that you can never do anything for which you can not repent.
We’ve also already established that Judas was not essential to the crucifixion of the Savior. Judas sold him out, sure, but Jesus could have stopped everything at any point, he even pointed out to the arresting officers that they had seen him teaching in the temple and knew exactly who he was, they didn’t need Judas. Any part that Judas played in Jesus’ death was strictly his own personal doing. I don’t know what exactly Judas expected the Jewish leadership to do once they had Jesus, maybe their intentions weren’t clear, or maybe he just didn’t believe that it would turn so violent so quickly. But once Judas understood that those who had paid him intended to have Jesus dead within the next few hours, he understood just how serious his betrayal was. Surely Judas didn’t actually think that Jesus was the Son of God, he wouldn’t have betrayed him if he did. Therefore, Judas didn’t understand that Jesus was going along with this because he chose to, he didn’t understand his own negligible impact of the situation.
Judas realized that he couldn’t stop what was about to happen, but he could release himself from his part of it, so he goes to the chief priests and tell him that what he did was wrong. But the chief priests don’t care, it seems that they are more committed to seeing Jesus’ death through than Judas is, and say, “What is that to use? See thou to that.” They tell him, “your guilt is not our problem, you deal with it.” So Judas “cast down the pieces of silver in the temple, and departed.” When I watched The Passion of the Christ when it first came out, this scene was incredibly powerful for me.
I grew up very poor, and have always worked to make money, since I was a child, therefore having money was very important to me, many times to the point where I would work too much or fight with my husband about it. When I watched the pieces of silver bounce on the ground I had to ask myself if I sold out the Savior for money. Do I work instead of being obedient? Do I pay a full tithe? Do I focus on the physical aspects of life in place of the spiritual ones? And in this way, I think that many of us are like Judas, we give up our relationship with the Savior for money, more or better things, we cast aside the things of the kingdom and focus on the things of the world. So to look at what Judas did and condemn him, is incredibly hypocritical of us, who sell him out in a different way.
This is where Judas’s real outcome is more solidified to me because after throwing the money on the floor and leaving, Judas “went and hanged himself.” This is the crux of the whole experience for me because his suicide is telling in a way that his actions couldn’t have been. If Judas had truly had nothing but hatred and evil toward Jesus in his heart, if he had understand who Jesus is the way that Satan does, or as a son of perdition would, then he would have recognized Jesus as the Son of God, the creator of the universe and would have known that after this life, Judas would have to face judgment for what he’d done.
 If he knew that only suffering was coming in the next life for him because of his betrayal of the Savior, when he would have known that this life was the only enjoyable time he would have left. If he truly understood this concept, then death would be his absolute worst enemy, and suicide would have been the last thing on his mind. He would have taken that money and lived large, and then done whatever it took to get more and more so that he could just have a great time. But that’s not what he did. Judas wasn’t so spiritually numb that he could feel no guilt, like Laman and Lemuel, he felt an incredible amount of remorse, so much so that he gave up on possibly the only chance he had to live it up before damnation. Judas was dead even before Jesus was and I’ve said it before, but I truly hope that when Jesus came through the veil, Judas was there on his knees begging for forgiveness. I believe that it’s completely possible that Judas is a leader among spirits and an ardent believer and testifier of Christ. Similar to what happened with Peter, hopefully, nothing has cemented Judas’s loyalty to the Savior than his betrayal of him of earth.
We focus so much on the dynamic between Judas and Jesus when it comes to the betrayal, but what we seem to forget is that Judas had spent at least three years with the eleven other disciples and that they were probably good friends. The IM points this out, saying, “Matthew was obviously affected by the suicide of Judas, a fellow Apostles.” In fact, as far as I can tell, Matthew is the only one who mentions Judas killing himself. We have the benefit of 2,000 years of hindsight, but putting this timeline into perspective, we have to remember that just 12 hours earlier, Jesus and the twelve apostles were having the “last supper.”
When Judas left the group earlier in the night, only he and Jesus knew that he was going to the chief priests to betray the Savior, everyone else assumed that Judas was going to purchase something they needed for the supper. Even when Judas showed up with the arresting officers, it doesn’t seem to have clicked for any of the other disciples that Judas had switched sides, and honestly they were probably focused on Jesus and saving their own skin at this point. Once all the information came out and the deductions were able to be made, realizing that a man who professed devotion for the God of love ultimately betrayed him, must have been a kick in the face that sent them reeling. I just hadn’t considered just how much the individual apostles would have been affected by Judas’s actions and death, because I mean, really, one night they are getting ready to celebrate the Passover, and the next night their master and their friend are both dead.
Back at the place of the high priests, there are still 30 pieces of silver laying on the ground, and the Jewish leadership is trying to figure out what to do with it. This is where the irony gets painted on really strong. One of the chief priests reminds them, “it is not lawful for to put them into the treasury, because it is the price of blood.” He’s saying, “we can’t put it into the temple fund because it’s blood money.” But the irony here is that they were the ones who paid the blood money to Judas in the first place. They used the money to buy Jesus’ blood, but now they don’t want to taint the temple treasury with that evil, but they will taint their own souls with it.
No one wants to take it back, because they don’t want to taint themselves with blood money either, so they decide to buy “the potter’s field, to bury strangers in. Wherefore that field was called, the field of blood, unto this day. Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremy the prophet, saying, And they took the thirty pieces of silver, the price of him that was valued, whom they of the children of Israel did value; and gave them for the potter’s field, as the Lord appointed me.” The IM gives perspective saying, “The Old Testament quotation Matthew cited may be a combination of words from Zechariah 11:12-13 and words from the prophet Jeremiah, even though Matthew cited Jeremiah as the writer. Early Christian writers knew the Old Testament prophecies so well that sometimes they combined the information from various sources.”
Thus ended Judas’s mortal sojourn, but when we look at him and others who have fallen from grace so publically, let’s remember that we rely on the mercy of Jesus for redemption just as much as they do. Let’s also remember that there are no secret sins, there is nothing we can ever do that would bar us from repenting, and that it’s only through our own choice to stop that we can be truly damned.