According to The Times, Judas Iscariot is undergoing an extreme makeover by the Catholic Church.
Judas the Misunderstood – Europe – Times Online:
The proposed “rehabilitation” of the man who was paid 30 pieces of silver to identify Jesus to Roman soldiers in the Garden of Gethsemane, comes on the ground that he was not deliberately evil, but was just “fulfilling his part in God’s plan”.
Christians have traditionally blamed Judas for aiding and abetting the Crucifixion, and his name is synonymous with treachery. According to St Luke, Judas was “possessed by Satan”.
Now, a campaign led by Monsignor Walter Brandmuller, head of the Pontifical Committee for Historical Science, is aimed at persuading believers to look kindly at a man reviled for 2,000 years.
What does this have to do with Westminster Confession and God’s Eternal Decree? We read in Chapter 3, section I – IV and VII:
I. God from all eternity, did, by the most wise and holy counsel of His own will, freely, and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass; yet so, as thereby neither is God the author of sin, nor is violence offered to the will of the creatures; nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established.
II. Although God knows whatsoever may or can come to pass upon all supposed conditions; yet has He not decreed anything because He foresaw it as future, or as that which would come to pass upon such conditions.
III. By the decree of God, for the manifestation of His glory, some men and angels are predestinated unto everlasting life; and others foreordained to everlasting death.
IV. These angels and men, thus predestinated, and foreordained, are particularly and unchangeably designed, and their number so certain and definite, that it cannot be either increased or diminished.
VII. The rest of mankind God was pleased, according to the unsearchable counsel of His own will, whereby He extends or withholds mercy, as He pleases, for the glory of His sovereign power over His creatures, to pass by; and to ordain them to dishonor and wrath for their sin, to the praised of His glorious justice.
These sections deal with God’s sovereignty, God’s election and predestination, God’s foreordination, the reprobate, man’s free-will and man’s responsibility, and finally God’s mercy.
R.C. Sproul in Essentials Truths of the Christian Faith states the Judas was no less evil or treacherous just because God ordained that Jesus be betrayed by Judas. Sproul sums up God’s sovereignty over Judas in this way:
His laws, whether they be found in the Scripture or in the heart, are binding. We have no authority to violate this will. We have the power or ability to thwart the preceptive will of God, though never the right to do so. Nor can we excuse ourselves for sinning by saying, “Que sera, sera.” It may be God’s sovereign or hidden will that we be “permitted” to sin, as he brings His sovereign will to pass even through and by means of the sinful acts of people. God ordained that Jesus be betrayed by the instrument of Judas’s treachery. Yet this makes Judas’s sin no less evil or treacherous. When God “permits” us to break His preceptive will, it is not to be understood as permission in the moral sense of His granting us a moral right. His permission gives us the power, but not the right to sin.
The Times goes on to report:
Father Allen Morris, Christian Life and Worship secretary for the Catholic Bishops of England and Wales, said: “If Christ died for all — is it possible that Judas too was redeemed through the Master he betrayed?” The “rehabilitation” of Judas could help the Pope’s drive to improve Christian-Jewish relations, which he has made a priority of his pontificate.
Other than a strange turn into political correctness, what else does this statement say? It says that – Christ died for all – even the reprobate Judas. However, Jesus knew that Judas did not have a genuine faith. Jesus says, ” Did I not choose you, the twelve, and one of you is a devil?” (John 6:70). John later wrote in the same chapter of his gospel that “Jesus knew from the first who those were that did not believe, and who it was that would betray him” (John 6:64). Christ died for the elect – clearly not for Judas. Judas’ betrayal was said to be according to Scripture (Acts 1:16; John 17:12), but God does not hold him any less responsible for it. Man is responsible for their sins, the wages of sin must be paid. Christ’s life of obedience and death on the cross paid that price, for those he has chosen.
Lastly, the Times says:
Signor Messori said that the rehabilitation of Judas would “resolve the problem of an apparent lack of mercy by Jesus toward one of his closest collaborators”.
Lack of mercy by Jesus??? Let’s close by looking how this “rehabilitation of Judas” is what Luther called “Mistress Reason”, a mistress that has a strong grip on this world:
“Reason will insist that these are not the acts of a good and merciful God. They are too far beyond her grasp; and she cannot bring herself to believe that the God Who acts and judges thus is good; she wants to shut out faith, and to see, and feel, and understand, how it is that He is good and not cruel. She would certainly understand, were it said of God that He hardens none and damns none, but has mercy on all and saves all, so that hell is destroyed, and the fear of death may be put away, and no future punishment need be dreaded!”
“[I]f God foreknew that Judas would be a traitor, Judas became a traitor of necessity, and it was not in the power of Judas or of any creature to act differently, or to change his will, from that which God had foreseen. It is true that Judas acted willingly, and not under compulsion, but his willing was the work of God, brought into being by His omnipotence, like everything else. . . .If you do not allow that the thing which God foreknows is necessarily brought to pass, you take away faith and the fear of God, you undermine all the Divine promises and threatenings, and so you deny Deity itself!” The Bondage of the Will, Martin Luther
This is a strong statement in favor of maintaining God’s sovereign will over even evil events and actions such as Judas Iscariot’s betrayal of Jesus. I don’t believe Judas is misunderstood!
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