Recently, someone asked me some questions concering Judas and his betrayal of Jesus:
"If Judas' betrayal of Christ was a key catalyst of The Crucifixion, wasn't that action a necessary evil? Did Judas exert genuine free will, or were his actions ordained and cast in stone by God? Could Judas have been saved if he lived long enough to repent and not commit suicide?"
It was a great series of questions that really got me to thinking. It’s so easy to think of Judas as either absolutely evil or absolutely controlled by God to be evil having no voice in the matter. The latter view comes off like the voice of Curly of the Three Stooges saying, “I’m a victim of coicumstance!”
But seriously, this is an important topic because it’s often use to unfairly paint God as ogre or puppet master or unloving ‘supreme being’ by dooming Judas to hell so that the rest of us could be saved.
Servants, stand up! says the Lord of Hosts. Stand up for Me, and I, even I, shall feed you with knowledge and understanding...the Word of God as your drink, and the knowledge of the Lord as your meat...you shall sing and you shall stand up, you shall shout with a new voice in the face of adversity. And in that very same day, you shall be gone, you shall surely be taken and be found no more in the earth...eternal joy and all tears wiped away in the presence of the Lord, your Redeemer, is your reward, and it shall never again depart from you, says the Lord. [Jesus speaking] (Servants, in Christ, Stand Up and Blow the Trumpet! - Letters from God and His Christ - Volume 6)