Wednesday in Holy Week is known by some traditionalist Christians as Spy Wednesday.
Find out why:
The reading for Wednesday of Holy Week is John 13:21-32.
The painting shown is Judas Betrays Christ (1308-1311) by Duccio di Buoninsegna (1255-1319). Art and the Bible tells us that it refers to Matthew 26:15. Here are the relevant verses from Matthew 26 to put it in better context:
14 Then one of the twelve, whose name was Judas Iscariot, went to the chief priests 15 and said, “What will you give me if I deliver him over to you?” And they paid him thirty pieces of silver. 16 And from that moment he sought an opportunity to betray him.
This is what happened on Good Friday (Matthew 27:3-10). Emphases mine:
3 Then when Judas, his betrayer, saw that Jesus[a] was condemned, he changed his mind and brought back the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and the elders, 4 saying, “I have sinned by betraying innocent blood.” They said, “What is that to us? See to it yourself.” 5 And throwing down the pieces of silver into the temple, he departed, and he went and hanged himself. 6 But the chief priests, taking the pieces of silver, said, “It is not lawful to put them into the treasury, since it is blood money.” 7 So they took counsel and bought with them the potter’s field as a burial place for strangers. 8 Therefore that field has been called the Field of Blood to this day. 9 Then was fulfilled what had been spoken by the prophet Jeremiah, saying, “And they took the thirty pieces of silver, the price of him on whom a price had been set by some of the sons of Israel, 10 and they gave them for the potter’s field, as the Lord directed me.”
Matthew Henry’s commentary has this analysis:
27:1-10 Wicked men see little of the consequences of their crimes when they commit them, but they must answer for them all. In the fullest manner Judas acknowledged to the chief priests that he had sinned, and betrayed an innocent person. This was full testimony to the character of Christ; but the rulers were hardened. Casting down the money, Judas departed, and went and hanged himself, not being able to bear the terror of Divine wrath, and the anguish of despair. There is little doubt but that the death of Judas was before that of our blessed Lord. But was it nothing to them that they had thirsted after this blood, and hired Judas to betray it, and had condemned it to be shed unjustly? Thus do fools make a mock at sin. Thus many make light of Christ crucified. And it is a common instance of the deceitfulness of our hearts, to make light of our own sin by dwelling upon other people’s sins. But the judgment of God is according to truth. Many apply this passage of the buying the piece of ground, with the money Judas brought back, to signify the favour intended by the blood of Christ to strangers, and sinners of the Gentiles. It fulfilled a prophecy, Zec 11:12. Judas went far toward repentance, yet it was not to salvation. He confessed, but not to God; he did not go to him, and say, I have sinned, Father, against heaven. Let none be satisfied with such partial convictions as a man may have, and yet remain full of pride, enmity, and rebellion.
John MacArthur, who wrote his seminary dissertation on Judas, tells us (emphases in bold in the original, purple highlights mine):
No man could be more evil than Judas Iscariot. Only eleven other men in all of history have had the intimate, personal relationship he had with the incarnate Son of God, No man has ever been more exposed to God’s perfect truth, both in precept and example. No man has been more exposed firsthand to God’s love, compassion, power, kindness, forgiveness, and grace. No man has had more evidence of Jesus’ divinity or more firsthand knowledge of the way of salvation. Yet in all of those three indescribably blessed years with Jesus, Judas did not take so much as the first step of faith.
In a way that defies comprehension, Judas persistently resisted and rejected God’s truth, God’s grace, and even God’s own Son. Also in a way that defies understanding, he managed to completely conceal his wicked rebellion from everyone but Jesus. His hypocrisy was so complete and deceptive that even when Jesus predicted that one of the disciples would betray Him, Judas was not suspected.
Judas was so totally trapped in the darkness and corruption of sin that he became a willing instrument of Satan. Because this false disciple had totally renounced Christ, “Satan entered into Judas who was called Iscariot” (Luke 22:3), and it was then a simple matter to persuade him to betray Jesus (John 13:2). Judas’s heart was so utterly hardened to the things of God that long before he consciously considered betraying Him, Jesus called him a devil (John 6:70).
Even so, Judas could not escape the divinely designed signal of guilt that reminds men of their sin and warns them of its consequences. Just as pain is an intrinsic and automatic warning of physical danger, guilt is an intrinsic and automatic warning of spiritual danger. It was not that Judas suddenly became afraid of God, else he would have turned in desperation to the One he knew could forgive him. Nor was he afraid of men. Although he was now discarded and despised by the Jewish leaders, they had no reason to harm him. It was rather that Judas suddenly realized the horrible wrongness of what he had done. An innate awareness of right and wrong is divinely built into every human being and cannot be totally erased, no matter how deep a person may fall into depravity or how consciously and rebelliously he may turn against God. This is intensified by the convicting pressure of the Spirit of God.
Judas’s remorse was not repentance of sin, as the King James version suggests. Matthew did not use metanoeo, which means a genuine change of mind and will, but metamelomai, which merely connotes regret or sorrow. He did not experience spiritual penitence but only emotional remorse. Although he would not repent of his sin, he could not escape the reality of his guilt. Genuine sorrow for sin (metamelomai) can be prompted by God in order to produce repentance (metanoeo), as Paul declares in 2 Corinthians 7:10. But Judas’s remorse was not prompted by God to lead to repentance but only to guilt and despair.
Because he was a kind of witness against Jesus, perhaps Judas thought that by admitting the wickedness of what he had done he would be punished as a false witness, as Deuteronomy 19:16–19 prescribed. Under that provision, he would have been crucified himself, suffering the penalty imposed on the one he caused to be falsely convicted. Instead of looking to Jesus’ for forgiveness and trusting in His atoning death, Judas’s perverted mind may have led him to believe that by dying he somehow could atone for his own sin.
Proof that Judas’s sorrow was ungodly and selfish is seen in the fact that he made no effort to defend or rescue Jesus. He had no desire to vindicate or save Jesus but only to salve his own conscience, which he attempted to do by returning the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders.
Heretics masquerading as Christians can write as much revisionist baloney as they like and make notionally new and revealing documentaries about Judas. They are wrong. Enough said.
Churchmouse Campanologist 
3 comments
April 12, 2017 at 5:59 am
TheBlockedDwarf
They are wrong. Enough said
Back when I was child I was required to attend The Beach Mission every summer….I’m sure my parents meant well. One day I came into possession of something written by the Jehovah’s Witness-some glossy or the other. Glancing through it I was struck by the fact that they seemed to believe that Jesus was crucified ‘at a stake’ not on a cross.
Being a horrible child I made fun of the JW’s belief later that day whilst at the Beach Mission. One of the Mission workers had obviously had a few semesters of theology (they, the Beach Mission Team,were all young christian students but not all were taking theology). He kindly but firmly cut me down to size (I really was an obnoxious child) and pointed out that infact the Greek word used for ‘cross’ does indeed mean ‘a stake’. He also explained that there are very good reasons why the rest of Christianity says it was a cross and why Bible translators translate ‘stake’ as ‘cross’.
If I took one thing from my entire Christian upbringing then the memory of that incident. That memory has stood me in good stead almost daily since.
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April 12, 2017 at 7:07 am
churchmouse
“He also explained that there are very good reasons why the rest of Christianity says it was a cross and why Bible translators translate ‘stake’ as ‘cross’.”
What were those very good reasons?
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April 12, 2017 at 4:59 pm
TheBlockedDwarf
Sorry for the late answer, I’ve been babysitting Granddaughter2 all day and that probably is of more theological value and certainly of more value to my immortal soul (if I believed I had one) than being online.
As far as I can recall-and I can’t have been more than 10 or 11 at the time- he went on to give the only really possible explanation that despite the ‘originals’ being clear that saying ‘cross’ wasn’t ‘a lie’ because the Church Fathers/Tradition (he probably said ‘early Christians’) said it was infact a cross and not a stake. I know he also said that it was likely it was a ‘T’ or St. Andrews.
An explanation he probably got in trouble for from the Group Leader because it was far beyond what he was ‘allowed’ to say (for fairly obvious reasons of the different denominations that take part in such things they try in all things to stick to a ‘safe’,uncontroversial, middle of the road form of mainstream Christianity).
I remember it came as a shock to me, with my childlike ‘sola scriptura’ understanding of such things, that Christians could knowingly ‘contradict’ the bible and use other sources outside it. One of the problems of being raised Low Church . Don’t think I had ever run into ‘Tradition’ before that.
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