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Transcript 198A — Was Judas Predestined to Betray Christ?
HC: Good evening. Welcome to Open Forum.
CALLER: Could you speak about free will versus predestination? What about Judas? Was he predestined to betray Christ?
HC: The question is raised about this matter of free will versus predestination, and particularly as to how that relates to, let's say, a man like Judas. Was he predestined to betray his Lord? Therefore can it be said that God cannot really impute guilt to him?
Well, first of all, let's talk about free will. Does the Bible teach free will? Now man likes to think that he has a free will. There was one man and one woman who lived on this earth who had a free will. These were Adam and Eve. They were created in the image of God, and they were not infected by sin. They were not enslaved to Satan at all. They were children of God. They had a free will. They could elect to obey God or to disobey Him. Unfortunately, they elected to disobey Him. But they had a free will.
Now the Bible teaches that mankind has become a slave of Satan, has become a slave of sin. He is dead. If he's ever going to elect to go in any direction, it's going to be toward sin. Ephesians 2:1-3 teaches this so very clearly. And we don't like this. This is pretty horrible, to admit that I as a human being cannot elect really to do right, of my own volition. We don't like that. That troubles our self-respect. That troubles our ego, our pride. But that's what the Bible teaches. Man of himself, for example, would never never want to come to Christ, because he is a slave to his sin. He likes his sin far too much. He thinks he has a free will. But in actuality he is a slave.
Now in order for a person to be saved, it is necessary for God to intervene in our life. It is necessary for Him to change our will, to incline our heart, to open our spiritual eyes, to make us alive. I think the best illustration of this is the miracle of the raising of Lazarus. Lazarus was dead, dead as a person could be. His body was in the grave four days already. And yet Jesus said, "Lazarus, come forth."
Now did Lazarus have a free will? Of course he didn't have a free will. Lazarus couldn't come forth in a hundred million years, no matter how Christ would have pleaded with him, if He left it all up to Lazarus, because Lazarus was dead. And that's how dead we are before we are saved. But Lazarus did come forth. And how did he come forth? Because God qualified him. God changed his will. God gave him the will and the desire and the ability to come forth. And so Lazarus did come forth. And that's the way we come forth when we are saved.
Now this has to do with predestination. God decided, before the foundations of the world, as we read in Ephesians 1:4, who were going to be saved. He had our names already worked out. And so those who do eventually become saved are those whom God elected to be saved.
Well now the question remains, what about those who are used by God in working out His program, who are sinners? What about Judas? Well first of all, Judas is going to hell not because he rejected Christ. Nobody goes to hell because they reject Christ. They go to hell because they're sinners. The wages of sin is death. The wrath of God abides on mankind because they're sinners. The fact that they reject Christ only multiplies their sins. It's just another sin added to all the others. And only by believing on Christ do they take hold of the lifeline, whereby they can be spared hell. But they're not going to hell because they reject Christ. They're going to hell because they're sinners. And Judas, too, is going to hell because he's a sinner.
Now they're not going to hell because they were not elected. Mankind does not go to hell because he's become a slave of sin. Mankind goes to hell because they are sinners. The wages of sin is death. God has created man in the image of God, to be perfect. And man of his own volition sins. True, he is a slave of sin. But that's part of the make-up of man. And it's because of man's own fault. Man has rebelled against God, and God has cursed man, so that he has this nature now to want to sin.
But man is totally responsible, totally accountable. Man is going to hell because of his sin, not because he was not elected. He's going to hell because he deserves to go to hell. As a matter of fact, there's not one person in the whole human race that deserves to go to Heaven. Not one of us. Not one of us. If God had put the whole human race into hell, there's not one of us that could complain. We all deserve to go there. And it's incomprehensible grace that any one of us might be saved. Not one of us deserves in any sense whatsoever this salvation that God has provided.
So Judas, too, when he sinned, he goes to hell for his sin. Now insofar as the particular sin of betraying Christ, that has an interesting sidelight. Jesus hung on the cross and said, "Father, forgive them for they know not what they do." Now we don't know for sure what Christ had in mind. But we can speculate that in all probability He is referring to the specific sins that were committed in bringing Him to the cross. This would include the sin of Caiaphas, who condemned Him to death, it would include the sin of Pilate, for giving Him over to the Jews when they cried, "Crucify Him," it would include the sin of Judas in betraying Him, it would include the sin of the Roman soldiers, when they drove the nails into His hands, it would include the sins of the Jews when they cried out, "Crucify Him! Crucify Him!" The likelihood is that those particular sins are not going to come into judgment. Christ somehow asked for forgiveness. I'm not sure. I'm speculating. I'm really speculating.
But we do know that Pilate nevertheless was an unsaved man. He had all kinds of other sins. And therefore, unless unbeknownst to us he became saved before he died, he ended up in hell. Judas, we know, died an unsaved man. He was called the son of perdition. He ended up in hell, or will end up in hell. Caiaphas, the high priest, unless there's information unbeknownst to us, died an unbeliever. And so he'll end up in hell, not because he decreed that Christ was to be crucified, but because he was a sinner. He is to go to hell.
Thank you for that question. I don't know whether I covered it adequately, but I hope this will help.