Judas Decides to Betray Jesus

Lesson #208

Chapter 13 begins with, “Now before the Feast of the Passover,” which creates a time problem that commentators can’t agree on. There seem to be two possibilities: The meal mentioned in verse 2 occurred at Simon’s house at Bethany, two days before the Passover, or the meal was the Passover meal. I will not go into the arguments for either interruption, but will make some comments along the way.

“During supper, when the devil had already put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, to betray him,” (John 13:2 ESV). As treasurer of the disciples, Judas had big plans to be treasurer in the coming kingdom, but when Jesus began to talk about dying and not establishing an earthly kingdom, I believe Judas began to resent Jesus. I believe the breaking point came for Judas when Mary poured the expensive ointment on Jesus during the meal at Simon’s house. Judas saw that that act kindness and worship as a waist and a lost opportunity for financial gain, had the ointment been sold and the money given to Jesus to give to the poor. I believe Judas decided at that time that he would betray Jesus and following that meal at Simon’s house, Judas went to the chief priests and made arrangements to betray Jesus (Matthew 26:14 – 16).

Before we can go any farther we need some clarification in our text. Consider just the following: “During supper . . . Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going back to God, rose from supper” (John 13:2 – 4a). The piece I left out is: “when the devil had already put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, to betray him.” At the time of writing this lesson, I believe the devil put into the heart of Judas to betray Jesus at the time of the anointing of Jesus at Simon’s house. A very big question I am now facing for the first time pertains to who the father of Judas was. Was Simon the leper, where the meal is being served two days before Passover, the father of Judas? Commentators are divided over this. At this LINK the argument is presented that he was. Personally, I do not have an opinion on this yet.

Now that we have mentioned the time when Judas decided to betray Jesus and the question of who his father might be, I want to say no more about this and try to move on. I am going to end this lesson at this point, with these issues left open. With the next lesson we will move on with verse 3.

Prayer

Father, when we do a verse by verse study like this we are bound to encounter some difficult verses that are not easy to interpret. This is one of them. We do the best we can and then move on. Maybe someday we will find something that will help us understand these difficult verses. Father, I think it is best that we move on to that which is easier to understand. There is a saying that I have often heard Alistair Begg use: “The main things are the plain things and the plain things are the main things.” This lesson was not about a plain thing.