Prayer for Judas . .

  • Thread starter Thread starter ecs_220
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
“I almost get the feeling that if, for some reason known only to God, Judas did obtain mercy, you might even be a little disappointed.”

But Judas did obtain mercy. Christ died for Judas too. Yet Judas threw God’s mercy back in His face. How else can we explain Jesus’ own words? “It would have been better for him had he never been born”?

Tell me something. It’s the last time I’m going to ask you this question, but you just don’t seem to get it. If Judas is in heaven, would Jesus be a liar for having said it would be better that Judas had never been born? How could it be said of anyone in heaven that it would be better for him never to have been born?

If you can give me an answer that makes an ounce of sense, I may be moved to hope and pray for Judas. Don’t rush your answer. You may have one that will move us all to tears.

God with you.
 
40.png
Carl:
Tell me something. It’s the last time I’m going to ask you this question, but you just don’t seem to get it. If Judas is in heaven, would Jesus be a liar for having said it would be better that Judas had never been born? How could it be said of anyone in heaven that it would be better for him never to have been born?
Click to expand...
Surely, Judas stained with the sin of betraying Jesus would be better had he never been born. But could Judas be forgiven in spite of this? If it exists, it is a forgiveness that I have trouble understanding. To have sinned in a way in which it would have been better had we not been born. Could I have sinned like this? If it is possible for Judas to sin and have no possibility of redemption, then there may be no hope for me. I will go on believing that there is hope for Judas. I have to, otherwise I have to admit that there may not be any hope for me.
 
**We cannot say [whether Judas is in hell] on our own authority. But Jesus can and did say it on his own authority. We may believe Him.

*“The Son of Man will die as the Scriptures say he will, but how terrible for that man who will betray the Son of Man! It would have been better for that man if he had never been born!”

Judas, the traitor, spoke up. “Surely, Teacher, you don’t mean me?” he asked.

Jesus answered, “So you say.”*

Matthew 26: 24
How is it possible, if he was a man destined ultimately for heaven, that it would have been better for Judas had he never been born?

How is it possible? While we are quoting Our Lord, let me jump in with another:

‘Yes, I tell you again, it is easier for a camel to pass through the Eye of a Needle than for someone rich to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven.’ When the disciples heard this, they were astonished. ‘Who can be saved, then?’ they said. Jesus gazed at them. ‘By human resources’, he told them, ‘this is impossible; *for God, everything is possible.’ * (Matthew 19:24-26; italics mine)

**Would that not include saving one for whom “…it would have been better for him had he never been born.”?

If Christ Himself does not place limits on the saving power of the Almighty, why should we?**
 
“I will go on believing that there is hope for Judas. I have to, otherwise I have to admit that there may not be any hope for me.”

Jesus never said to you what he said to Judas.
 
ecs

‘By human resources’, he told them, ‘this is impossible; for God, everything is possible.’ (Matthew 19:24-26; italics mine)

Is it possible for God to lie? Or was he just joking with Judas when he told him it would be better for him if he had never been born?

I see you are trying valiantly to get around the words of Jesus. But you act as if he did not speak them. You refer to other words in other contexts as if they applied to Judas and cancelled out the words that do apply to Judas. I ask again for the hundredth time:
If Judas is in Heaven, why would it be “better for him that he had never been born”? Please don’t evade the words of Jesus by citing yet another passage out of context.

Protestants do this routinely. They look for angles to avoid what is uncomfortable for them. They don’t like the papacy, so they talk around and avoid Mt 16:18 and the final authority of Peter at the Council of Jerusalem Acts 15:7. They don’t like the Eucharist, so they turn the literal statement of Jesus at the Last Supper into a poetic metaphor Mt 26:26. They don’t like the authority of the Church and Tradition, so they pretend the early Christians had the whole New Testament in their hands right from the start. They especially don’t want to hear that it was the Catholic Church that produced the first New Testament, which became the one we use today (except for the books the Protestants have thrown out). And heaven forbid they should ever admit it was a German Catholic who invented the printing press and published first the Bible so that more people than ever could have access to it!

It is all too easy to throw out the truth when we wish something else was true. It is, at least for some people, all too easy to hope Judas might be in heaven when Jesus said it would have been better for him had he never been born.

We should not rejoice in the doom of Judas. But we should rejoice in, and defend, the word of the Lord.

This is my last post on the subject.

God bless you all and thanks for the dialogue.
 
Carl said:
“I will go on believing that there is hope for Judas. I have to, otherwise I have to admit that there may not be any hope for me.”

Jesus never said to you what he said to Judas.
Click to expand...

Am I to assume that my sins are not as bad as Judas’?
 
40.png
Carl:
ecs

‘By human resources’, he told them, ‘this is impossible; for God, everything is possible.’ (Matthew 19:24-26; italics mine)

Is it possible for God to lie? Or was he just joking with Judas when he told him it would be better for him if he had never been born?

I see you are trying valiantly to get around the words of Jesus. But you act as if he did not speak them. You refer to other words in other contexts as if they applied to Judas and cancelled out the words that do apply to Judas…
Click to expand...
Not at all: Jesus said both things.

*…Protestants do this routinely. They look for angles to avoid what is uncomfortable for them. They don’t like the papacy, so they talk around and avoid Mt 16:18 and the final authority of Peter at the Council of Jerusalem Acts 15:7. They don’t like the Eucharist, so they turn the literal statement of Jesus at the Last Supper into a poetic metaphor Mt 26:26. They don’t like the authority of the Church and Tradition, so they pretend the early Christians had the whole New Testament in their hands right from the start. They especially don’t want to hear that it was the Catholic Church that produced the first New Testament, which became the one we use today (except for the books the Protestants have thrown out). And heaven forbid they should ever admit it was a German Catholic who invented the printing press and published first the Bible so that more people than ever could have access to it! It is all too easy to throw out the truth when we wish something else was true. *

**I do not “wish” something else to be true. I simply go with the belief that even if there were only a .0000000001% probability *** that Our Lord applied the “For-God-everything-is-possible” principle against the “better-never-to-have-been-born” one, I should pray for the wretch (asking pardon for my own ignorance), that’s all.
 
Sorry to keep beating this dead horse, but here’s one more thought:

In the Old Testament, there are many instances in which God promises to bring about some punishment (such as wiping out “…this stiff-necked people…” and sparing only Moses) only to relent later on. This does not mean that God was “just kidding” or “lying” the first time around, nor does it mean that His original statement or plan was “wrong”; it does seem to indicate that – though His Will is always Perfect – God is capable of “changing His Mind” (choosing *another * Perfect action) so to speak.

Just something to chew on 🙂
 
Do we offer the mass for Judas like the right-wing were known to offer them for Adolf Hitler , sometimes in Spain?

My opinion is that Judas resembles Hitler -his destiny is an intolerably evil mystery.Men who are against Christ…
 
40.png
Disillusioned:
Do we offer the mass for Judas like the right-wing were known to offer them for Adolf Hitler , sometimes in Spain?
Click to expand...
Never heard of such a thing. Any sources?
 
To feel no pity or hope for Judas seems so unnatural to me. I must say that from the first time I ever heard the story, before my Catholic roots were even developed, I felt terrible for him. Same way for Peter after he had denied knowing Jesus three times. I really hope it’s ok to feel this way. I think there is a bit of Judas in most of us, and seeing no hope for him would have me think there is no hope for me.
 
I agree with you, Mark. You put it very poignantly.

The treatment of Judas in Gibson’s The Passion was one of the moments where I really got upset. It just seemed cruel to me, and demeaning.

Naprous
 
Earlier in this thread Papal infallibility was discussed; did you know that the Pope has invoked his infallibility only twice in history? for the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, and for the doctrine of the Assumption of Mary. Obviously, the teaching authority of the Church doesn’t depend on Papal infallibility…
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top