Judas Iscariot

Judas Iscariot was one of the twelve apostles who betrayed Jesus, leading to His arrest and crucifixion.

Judas Iscariot was one of the twelve apostles of Jesus Christ, known for his betrayal of Jesus, which led to His arrest and crucifixion. He is consistently identified as "Judas Iscariot" or "Judas, the one who betrayed Him" throughout the Gospels (Mat.10.4; 26.14; Mrk 3:19; Luk 6:16; Jhn 6:71).

Judas is first mentioned in the lists of the twelve apostles (Mat 10:4; Mrk 3:19; Luk 6:16). He served as the treasurer for the group, but he was also described as a thief who would take money from the common purse (Jhn 12:4-6).

During the Last Supper, Jesus predicted that one of His disciples would betray Him (Mat 26:21; Mrk 14:18; Luk 22:21; Jhn 13:21). Judas was identified as the betrayer when Jesus handed him a piece of bread (Jhn 13:26-27). After this, Judas left to carry out his plan (Jhn 13:30).

Judas approached the chief priests and offered to betray Jesus for thirty pieces of silver (Mat 26:14-16; Mrk 14:10-11; Luk 22:3-6). He then led a group of armed men to the Garden of Gethsemane, where he identified Jesus with a kiss, leading to His arrest (Mat 26:47-50; Mrk 14:43-46; Luk 22:47-48; Jhn 18:2-5).

After Jesus' condemnation, Judas, filled with remorse, tried to return the money to the chief priests and elders, but they refused to accept it. He then threw the money into the temple and went out and hanged himself (Mat 27:3-5). The chief priests used the money to buy a potter's field, which became known as the Field of Blood (Mat 27:6-10; Act 1:18-19).

The apostles later recognized Judas' betrayal as a fulfillment of prophecy (Act 1:16) and chose Matthias to replace him among the twelve (Act 1:23-26).

Judas' betrayal of Jesus played a crucial role in the events leading to Jesus' crucifixion and the ultimate fulfillment of God's plan of salvation. His actions serve as a tragic example of the consequences of greed, deceit, and turning away from God.

Son of Simon (John 6:71; 13:2, 26), surnamed Iscariot, i.e., a man of Kerioth (Josh. 15:25). His name is uniformly the last in the list of the apostles, as given in the synoptic (i.e., the first three) Gospels. The evil of his nature probably gradually unfolded itself till “Satan entered into him” (John 13:27), and he betrayed our Lord (18:3). Afterwards he owned his sin with “an exceeding bitter cry,” and cast the money he had received as the wages of his iniquity down on the floor of the sanctuary, and “departed and went and hanged himself” (Matt. 27:5). He perished in his guilt, and “went unto his own place” (Acts 1:25). The statement in Acts 1:18 that he “fell headlong and burst asunder in the midst, and all his bowels gushed out,” is in no way contrary to that in Matt. 27:5. The sucide first hanged himself, perhaps over the valley of Hinnom, “and the rope giving way, or the branch to which he hung breaking, he fell down headlong on his face, and was crushed and mangled on the rocky pavement below.”

Why such a man was chosen to be an apostle we know not, but it is written that “Jesus knew from the beginning who should betray him” (John 6:64). Nor can any answer be satisfactorily given to the question as to the motives that led Judas to betray his Master. “Of the motives that have been assigned we need not care to fix on any one as that which simply led him on. Crime is, for the most part, the result of a hundred motives rushing with bewildering fury through the mind of the criminal.”