Judas

Judas (Greek Ioudas, the form of the Hebrew Judah, "praise") is the name of several men in the New Testament, but it is forever marked by the most infamous of them — Judas Iscariot, the disciple who betrayed Jesus Christ. The name that means "praise" became, through one man, a byword for treachery, even as Scripture also bears other faithful men who carried it.

Judas Iscariot was numbered among the Twelve and entrusted with the moneybag, but he "was a thief" who pilfered from it (John 12:6). The Gospels trace his fall: indignant at the costly anointing of Jesus at Bethany, he went to the chief priests and agreed to hand Jesus over for thirty pieces of silver (Matthew 26:14–16) — the price of a slave, fulfilling the prophetic word of Zechariah 11:12–13. At the Last Supper Jesus identified the traitor, and "Satan entered into him" (John 13:27). In Gethsemane he betrayed his Master with a kiss (Luke 22:47–48). Seized with remorse, he flung the silver into the temple and hanged himself (Matthew 27:3–5); the field bought with the "blood money" was called Akeldama (Acts 1:18–19).

His betrayal is presented as both a free and guilty act — "woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed" (Matthew 26:24) — and as the fulfillment of Scripture; Jesus called him "the son of destruction" who was lost that the Scripture might be fulfilled (John 17:12). After his fall the apostles, citing the Psalms, chose Matthias to take his place (Acts 1:16; Acts 1:26). He stands as Scripture's sober warning that nearness to Christ without true faith ends in ruin.

The name belonged to several others, by contrast honorable. A second member of the Twelve, Judas the son of James — distinguished by John as "Judas (not Iscariot)" and identified with Thaddaeus in the other lists (Luke 6:16) — asked Jesus at the Last Supper, "Lord, how is it that you will manifest yourself to us, and not to the world?" (John 14:22). Judas was also the name of one of the Lord's own brothers (Matthew 13:55), generally taken to be the author of the Epistle of Jude, who calls himself "a servant of Jesus Christ and brother of James" (Jude 1:1). A Judas of Galilee is remembered as the leader of a failed revolt in the days of the census (Acts 5:37), and a believer named Judas Barsabbas was sent with Silas to carry the decree of the Jerusalem council (Acts 15:22). Thus the name spans the spectrum from the church's deepest tragedy to its faithful servants.