Why did Judas decide to betray Jesus? Well, he had
bought into the Kabbalistic teaching that the messiah would be a
Jewish man endued with supernatural power. This power would make him
immortal and so powerful that the Roman Empire would be crushed and
he would restore the kingdom of Israel and rule the entire world.
Judas had seen the awesome power displayed by Jesus and clearly
believed the He was the Kabbalistic messiah. So when Jesus spoke
about dying for the sins of mankind and being killed on a cross, it
was an insult to the Jewish idea of the messiah. Judas therefore
wanted to force Jesus to abandon his teaching of suffering and
instead become a militant messiah. He was operating under the
expectation that Jesus would display His supernatural power the
moment He was arrested. You can imagine his horror when Jesus did
not resist arrest and was instead condemned to die on a cross. Judas
betrayed Jesus because he believed a lie and it will be the same
toward the end times as Christians betray one another; in fact, our
worst enemies will be those from our own families. |
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