The scene continues from last time, it is the last supper in the upper room. Jesus and his disciples are reclining at the table as Jesus continues his remarks after washing their feet. He has just said that if they follow the example that he set when he washed their feet, they would be blessed. Now he modifies that by saying that one of them would not be blessed; he will send Judas on his way shortly…
Jesus is concerned that his coming betrayal and death not be understood as his mission being thwarted. Instead he attempts to convey that everything is proceeding according to God’s amazing, if counter-intuitive plan. In short, creating the community of believers, the church, was the whole point of Jesus’ ministry and not an accident or a “fall back” position.
The time for Jesus to leave subtle hints and illusions has passed; he tells them plainly that one of them will betray him; they are shocked. It would appear that Peter asked John to find out from Jesus who the traitor was and John’s question and Jesus’ answer was in a whisper. He indicated Judas who was next to him on the other side from John… (vv. 21-26)
Jesus gives the bread to Judas, who accepts it. It is hard to imagine that Judas has not heard what has passed between John and Jesus… and he accepts the bread when he could have repented. So completely did Satan win out in Judas’ life that John refers to it as satanic possession. Judas leaves the room immediately; it would seem that nobody other than John understands what has happened, and John keeps quiet. John ends this with a chilling sentence: “And it was night.” This has much more meaning than simply noting the time of day, for Jesus has spoken of the coming night before. It was literally the beginning of the most beastly occurrence in human history, when Satan had stolen away a disciple of the Son of God to affect the murder of the Son of God to silence the truth and darken the light once and for all. Paul noted in 1 Cor. 2:8 that if the rulers of that time and place had understood what was going on, they would never have put Jesus on that cross!
Verses 31-32 are a little confusing for their use of “glorify” so many times in quick succession together with the indefinite pronoun “him” and it requires a little sorting out. Here’s a paraphrase: The time has come for the Son of Man to be glorified (recall that Jesus has been using this term to describe his crucifixion all through John) So then, we would say, starting over: “The time has come for the Son to be crucified and God will be glorified in him (By completing His plan for redemption). If God is glorified in the Son by what he accomplished on the cross, then God will glorify the Son by the Son’s resurrection and ascension to glory (as King of kings and Lord of lords). What comes next is inconvenient for certain end of the world theorists: “and will glorify him (the Son) at once”. That is to say not at a time which has still not come.
Jesus repeats here what he has previously told the Jews, that they cannot come where he is going, referring to the right hand of the Father in heaven. This is a statement that establishes his authority, and is followed by a new commandment: Love one another. As you might expect, the Greek word used here is agape which is a godly, unselfish love. It is a commitment to serve and value one another with no expectation whatsoever of anything in return. It is just what the unbelieving world will notice, for it is seldom if ever found amongst them. By this sign all will recognize the difference between the Christian and everyone else. This is the most important lesson from today’s text: We must love one another. Imagine what the reaction of the rest of the world would be if they saw this kind of powerful love at work in the lives of millions of Christians! Would you like to ‘change the world’? Love one another!
Peter doesn’t seem to soak up the new commandment and wants to go with Jesus. The exchange leads directly to Jesus’ prediction of Peter’s denial of him. I guess there’s a little bit of Peter in all of us.
Life Project Blog 
When I was reading my poem Resurrection to a group of people who are largely secular but have knowledge of the Scriptures, we got talking about the Easter story. I was amazed that the majority expressed more sympathy for Judas than for Jesus. It is as if Judas was a pawn in God’s plans and had no choice. I used to have more sympathy for Judas than I do now. I think he did have a choice. What have we done with the Christian message to evoke this response? Have you any ideas? it still puzzles me?
Julia
Julia you certainly raise an interesting and complex issue. Personally, I have quite a bit of sympathy for Judas, just like I might for anyone today who makes bad choices and ends up throwing their life away… And yes, I think Judas was a pawn in a much larger drama that he realized, but whose pawn was he? I wouldn’t expect a non-Christian to perceive that God is most notable by his restraint, but in fact He is. God doesn’t force anybody to do anything… but that other fellow uses coercion along with lies and deceit to accomplish his work, and it seems to me that old Judas let himself be deceived and succumbed to pressure to throw his life away, and when the deed was done and the deception revealed, he hanged himself, so great was his despair. How very sad.
Did God need Judas to accomplish His work through Jesus on the cross? Did the Jewish authorities need Judas to find Jesus? It seems to me that the answer to both questions is “NO”. The authorities had more than adequate resources to find Jesus, Judas just made it easy.
Don Judas fulfilled prophesy – one of the close companions of the ‘Messiah’ Psalm 41, and the price in Zechariah along with other scriptural indications that one of his close associates was disloyal.
Did God foreordain this with regard to Judas? No Judas still had the choice but he allowed his personal greed to become self serving and this hardened his character.
The later rebuke from Christ may have led to his suicide but his act was wholly disloyal.
Where Christianity has got is wrong in looking at Judas is the idea that he was led to this course of action by God but foreknowledge is different from fore-ordination. Judas chose to betray the Christ knowing that the consequence of his action was the execution. He was not a simple man, he demonstrated his avaricious tendency which when he focused on it led him to the point where he betrayed Christ.
I don’t agree with you that Judas felt remorse his action and the consequences were the product of decisions he made.
So where has the church gone wrong? Many in the church speak of unconditional love but it is not a Bible teaching therefore the bible account does not require modern hypothesising or movement to modern values, just as Ananias and Sapphira sought to deceive the Apostles and the congregation the lesson is we can not play false with God or the Holy Spirit. When we do we align ourselves with Satan – this is exactly what Judas did and he died as a consequence.
As always, your views are quite interesting and well considered. I do feel that I should point out that I gave my thoughts on the question, but I didn’t speculate on why others might differ. As for Judas, I think that he was deceived, just as many others have been, and as the NT documents that many have been deceived. Judas was known to have been a bit greedy, yet if his actions were simply a matter of greed, then it would seem to me that his subsequent actions might be inconsistent with that as his motivation, since he threw the money away and killed himself, rather than keeping the money and living large…. and if indeed the rebuke of Jesus moved him to his suicide, then it would demonstrate his remorse.
An interesting view that was once presented to me is: both Peter and Judas failed Jesus. Peter found release from his guilt and shame in Jesus. Judas attempted to find release from his guilt and shame in suicide. Would Jesus had forgiven Judas had he not sought his escape in death? Personally, I believe he would have.
I think the love command as Jesus describes it is one of the most overlooked parts of Christianity today. Most of our love is conformance based–if you do what we say then we’ll “love” you; if not, we’ll claim love but withhold relationship until you come around to our way. I consider from time to time that if each person could love just two others right near them in that agape fashion, that exponential outflow could change the world.
Jesus also states this is a new command. By the old command, we attempted to love God by our human will (bottom up approach). The new command states that we are loved and are now empowered to love others in that same fashion (top down approach).
John, I think your observations are awesome and right on the money!
Thank you all for your much considered responses. You have given me even more food for thought.
Here in the UK “Jesus Christ Superstar” by Andrew Lloyd Webber is still a popular musical. I enjoy it too. One of my favourite and what I consider a most poignant song is the one sung by Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. I can be in tears when i listen to it. The narrator of “Jesus Christ Superstar” is said to be Judas and the story is told very much from his perspective. The story ends with the Crucifixion rather than the Resurrection. The show was controversial when it first came out. I liked it from the start and tolerated the difficult ending.
Now I wonder if seeing things from Judas’s point of view has seeped into our secular culture here in the UK. It is hard to know what Judas’s motives were. He was in charge of the purse, perhaps he was a thief, perhaps he was disappointed in Jesus’s mission, perhaps he thought Jesus was going too far and needed reigning in, perhaps he thought he could do better himself?
I agree with you Don when you say that he let lies and deceit take over. And he allowed his relationship with Jesus to be broken. Instead of coming to Jesus with his concerns, he secretly went to the Religious Authorities. John, perhaps that is where he was different from Peter. Guilt or pride did not allow him to repair his relationship with Jesus. I think that we all agree that Judas had a choice and that Satan the deceiver, the wrecker of relationships had a hand in it.
I hope this is not too garbled a comment. I would love a new musical to come out which is from Peter’s perspective or the family of Martha, Mary and Lazarus.
Thank you all for considering my question.
Julia
Thank you, Jula, for such a fascinating question. In the final analysis, we really don’t know what motivated Judas. We do know that Satan entered the picture, and that he was involved with the Jewish authorities almost from the beginning of Jesus’ ministry. Yet even though Judas’ motivations are hard to pinpoint, we do have a clear lesson from his story, for we know that when lies, half-truths and the temptations they bring come our way, that we must resist them; for they bring destruction in their wake.
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I’m probably just way too literal… but as to the “glorify” issue… I’ve just always read that word fairly simply as… “cast a spotlight onto”. As if it had reference to the literal Glory (light/Shekinah) of God. As to connotations and flavors… “shine divine light onto” attracting man’s attention and directing his spirit towards God.
Like for me… glorify = give glory, and glory = divine light and illumination.
Somehow, it has always seemed to fit and make sense of any verse I find it in.
Grace — LM
🙂