John 18:3

So Judas, having procured a band of soldiers and some officers from the chief priests and the Pharisees, went there with lanterns and torches and weapons.

We know the earlier statement from Jesus where he asks what it will profit a man to gain the whole world but forfeit his soul.  Like many great truths, this one isn’t hard to grasp intellectually.  It doesn’t require, at least on the surface, a great theologian to unpack its meaning.  It’s striking in its simplicity.  

Judas must have heard our Lord say this.  He knew of the miracles, signs, and wonders.  He saw Lazarus walk out of the tomb, bound in death’s garments.  So how is it that this disciple, for not the whole world but for some silver, betrays his Master?  What would account for it?  

Ah, but we have the question wrong, don’t we? Jesus whole point with the previous question was exactly its spectacular insanity – which is what sin is…it is moral and intellectual insanity. Man trades the truth for a lie and worships and serves the created things rather than the Creator.  Man refuses to give thanks to God.  All other sins flow from these (Romans 1:21-23). Our minds, the great John Calvin said, are idol factories.  Do we not see our own beam while reading of the one in Judas’ eye?  Judas trades the glory of God for silver and probably for power and acclaim.  Notice that he enters the garden with the world’s authorities.  He is paid and his actions are sanctioned by his world’s powers.  This is what he sees and he trades Jesus for them.  He doesn’t gain the whole world, just 30 pieces of silver and whatever it would buy.  Nor can we gain the whole world either, but we can and do forfeit our souls for the sake of pride, money and sex.  

Are we not as bad?  We hold in our hands His living Word.  The disciples had Jesus.  That is true but if he was off praying on the mountain, or sitting at the well with the gabby and many times married woman, they were without Him.  Today we have the finished Scripture and the Holy Spirit.  How precious are these things!  Yet, how many marital beds have been defiled while the Bible sat nearby on a shelf?  The rich man suffering in perdition pleaded with Abraham to send the beggar Lazarus to his still living brothers that they might be warned and thus escape such horrific torment.  What was Abraham’s reply?  He tells that once rich man that the living have Moses and the Prophets.  They have Scripture.  That is enough.  

If we marvel that someone could be so dense as to trade the living Jesus for pieces of sliver, I’m sure the first century Jews would marvel at us today that we betray the Word of God and his Holy Spirit for our careers, pornography, and possessions. A man cannot serve two masters. If we aren’t utterly, totally devoted to His word, enraptured by the gift of Scripture – it’s holy majesty, transcendent beauty, and perfection – then we are more like Judas than we’d care to fathom.  The man or woman that has the Bible before them but treats it with indifference or with convenience, while lavishing worldly things with all their devotion, is like a Judas.  Don’t we see this?  Sin’s danger is exactly that we can delude ourselves so easily.  

What have you traded for the glory of God?  We know Judas’ price.  If you haven’t pondered this deeply, fearfully, and reverently, repenting of your sin, it’s very possible that you have one too.  

Danger lurks everywhere in this world.  Sin is forever crouching at the door of our hearts, seeking weakness, opportunity.  This is why we pray, “and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.”  So, we should always beware lest we grow overconfident and the enemy sift us like wheat.