Why did Judas betray Jesus?

We can see three steps in his fall. First there was the unjudged covetousness which led him to become even a thief (John 12:6). Then came the action of Satan, putting it into his mind to recover part of his loss (John 13:2), since the three hundred pence that the ointment represented had not come into his hands; and he finally settled for ten per cent of that sum. Lastly Satan entered into him. The master spirit of evil took personal control, so that there might be no slip in the arrangements that would bring about the Lord's death.

No one had tried to seduce him. No one, as far as we read, had even approached him to sound him out on the subject. He offered himself voluntarily, for Satan had entered into him (Luke 22:3). The love of money was strong in him. "He was a thief," writes John (12:6), "and having the money bag he used to help himself to what was put into it." But covetous as he was, no reward had been offered for the Lord's arrest to tempt his greed. He offered himself, clearly smarting under that well-deserved rebuke given publicly four days earlier at Bethany. He asked, as Matthew (26:15) says, "What will you give me?" That question showed that no one had tempted him with an offer of money.

Judas probably thought that the Lord would escape from those who arrested Him, as He had escaped from earlier dangers, while he would gain the money… He was a complete dupe of Satan, who first tempted him to gain the money, and then would not let him keep it.

It was man's sin, Satan's guile, God's counsel, and Christ's love. But none of these things altered the wickedness of Judas: "It would have been good for that man if he had not been born." He was ordained, we may say, for this condemnation: he was not made wicked by God, but his wickedness was made to take this shape in order to fulfil the counsels of God.

One of that company chosen to be with Jesus here below was to prove this awful truth — that the nearer a man is outwardly to blessing, if he does not receive it into his heart, the further he is morally from it. There was only one Judas in Israel, and he was nearest to Jesus.

Judas had never been given by the Father to the Son; he was only a disciple outwardly; inwardly, a poor dupe of the devil, a man whose greed was his ruin, but none of the Lord's own will ever perish.

Clearly what wakes up in Judas now is the awful agony of remorse, not repentance… he shouts out even in their ears the confession of his sin in betraying innocent blood. But there it ends: "innocent blood" — not holy or righteous, still less "the Holy and Righteous One": the glory of the Son of God has no part in it — it neither heals him nor even wounds him. There is no turning to the One he had kept company with so long — no sense of anyone he can turn to. There is, in short, no faith, and therefore no repentance.

Many a person sells Jesus in effect, if not literally. Let every soul make sure that his sin is not in some way like that of Judas… it is selling Jesus for some object in this world that we either want to gain or love too well to give up. In Judas this came out in its worst form; but perdition is not limited to the one who is the son of perdition.