Judas, Shame, and the Church's Greatest Enemy: Guest Blog

This post was written by my good friend Andrew Barber. Andrew is a student at Covenant Theological Seminary in St. Louis, Missouri, where he is currently pursuing a Masters of Divinity degree. Among other things, Andrew is an avid Cubs fan, an amateur and published writer, and a movie critic with ZekeFilm.  Andrew and his wife Jessica live in St. Louis with their dog Gromit.

“I feel dead inside. Like, not human.”

These were the words from one of my friends I was counseling. He was successful, had plenty of friends, respected and, from all appearances, a content person. And yet, he was internally dead.

The miracle (a Holy Spirit-driven one, I think) was that he could name it. After spending years with youth I’ve noticed two things. Firstly, they have an infinite capacity for passion and life. If you turn on the right song, they’ll dance. If you bring out the right equipment, they’ll play games with complete abandon (regardless of their skill level, but that’s another story). If you ask the right questions, they’ll give you answers so painfully honest they should be on a Pink Floyd album.

 But, secondly, most of these urges are buried. In the face of an emotional challenge, these students often shutdown. Given a chance to connect with one another on a deep personal level, they choose isolation. The desire for more comes out every now and then, but is quickly rebuked and pinned down. Something keeps them feeling dead inside. Like, not human.

 I believe that, like many of us, they are in the shame trap. So often the church argues that Satan’s greatest weapon are the externals: the world, movies, peer pressure, etc. But these externals gain power because of what they are capable of doing internally: causing sin which leads to deep shame.

One of my friends told me, “I’ve let you see what’s in the living room, and even what’s in the closet, but I’ve never told you, or anybody, what is in the black box in the corner of the closet.” To actually lead to healing, emotional health, and a sense of the Father’s forgiveness, we had to go to the black box. We can spend all day talking about what is in the living room and, even, the tougher stuff in the closet, but if we never acknowledge the box, we’re never getting to the root of the issue.

The problem is, Satan loves that black box. He will defend it with everything he’s got. It is, for many Christians, his last stronghold. The story of Judas perfectly illustrates Satan’s plan for shame. It has three steps: regret, confession, and atonement.

 Whoa, wait, those sound like good things, right? Hang with me and lets find out. 

The Traitorous Disciple 

 When I was younger, I was really interested in the story of Judas. Judas was one of those parts of the gospel that forced you to accept how much was at stake. No matter how cartoon the presentation of the gospel, Jesus still had to die and Judas still had to betray him.

He is unavoidably part of the story. And, while Pilate and the Pharisees also reject Christ, they did not start out as his disciple. And, in the end, we don’t see what happens to Pilate. But we do see what happens to Judas: he kills himself.

The scary thing is that Judas did so much right. He did much good in his life, he sought to serve his country, he knew the Scriptures backwards and forwards, he felt regret, he confessed, and he tried to make things right. But it wasn’t enough.

Then when Judas, his betrayer, saw that Jesus was condemned, he changed his mind and brought back the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and the elders, saying, “I have sinned by betraying innocent blood.” They said, “What is that to us? See to it yourself.” And throwing down the pieces of silver, he departed, and he went and hanged himself. (Matt. 27:3-5) 

Judas Felt Regret

We don’t know much about Judas. But somehow Christ had let him down in a major way. I personally believe that Judas came to the conclusion that Jesus wasn’t the Messiah he claimed to be. In anger that spawned calculated action, he went to the Pharisees and gave Jesus over. But something about the trial of Jesus and his actual condemnation leads Judas to this frightening truth: Jesus is innocent. And he might just be the Messiah.

Certainly Judas would have realized that he was guilty of Deuteronomy 27:25 – “Cursed be anyone who takes a bribe to shed innocent blood”. This realization that Christ was the Messiah must have overwhelmed him with emotion, because he “changes his mind [literally, wishes he could go back and do otherwise] and [brings] back the thirty piece of silver to the chief priests and elders”.

Many people have felt nervous about this and wanted to downplay the guilt of Judas. If we think that guilt is the key ingredient for forgiveness, it’s unnerving to see someone who feels guilty but doesn’t end up right with God. But, I think there is a reason that this passage comes right after the betrayal of Peter (just look up to Matthew 26:69). Peter also betrayed Jesus, felt guilt, but ended up finding life, not death. We are brought to this question: why is it that Peter is brought back to Christ and Judas isn’t?

Some people have wanted to differentiate between the guilt of Peter and Judas. As in, clearly Judas didn’t feel enough guilt, because he didn’t come back to Christ. But let’s stop for a second: Judas kills himself after this. The depth of feeling and shame in his chest must have been unbearable.

I don’t think we can distinguish between the guilt of Peter and Judas other than to say what 2 Corinthians 7:10 tells us: “For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death”. In that same passage Paul tells us that he “rejoices, not because you were grieved, but because you were grieved into repenting”. Guilt by itself is useless.

Judas is certainly grieved, but what is the difference between his grief and Peter’s? Peter’s grief leads him to the feet of Jesus. The grief of Judas leads him on a journey to death. We see how a point of shame can always go two directions: towards the Savior or away from him. It takes courage and community to bring your shame to the King.

Many of us have subconsciously entered into Judas’ game. We have been set on a journey by shame, guilt and regret. We have spent hours in our room feeling the weight on our shoulders. And we have wondered if it is enough. Have I felt enough regret yet? Have I cried enough? Suddenly regret turns into a form of penance. If I can feel bad enough, if I can show God the scars on your back, it will be enough. If we commit to this, we’ve stumbled on a kind of spiritual dryness that feels like death.

 Regret isn’t enough. We must let go of the temptation to judge our forgiveness based on how much guilt we feel. More time spent crying is not going to make you more loved.

Judas Confessed 

So Judas feels actual regret and goes to the place that should be most concerned with sin and forgiveness, the temple. Note that, during this, Judas never goes to the actual church which he has offended. Judas doesn’t go to his fellow disciples. Imagine if he had gone to Peter? What kind of fellowship they might have had as they mourned their failure together and found comfort in another! But instead he goes to the people to whom he sold Jesus. His words seem genuinely confessional: “I have sinned by betraying innocent blood”. He is confessing that Jesus was innocent.

But why does he go to the priests and elders? I wonder if, after years of watching Jesus treat sinners with compassion, he hoped to find that same compassion from the ones who are supposed to represent God. But these are the people who sent the climax of compassion to the cross. So when he comes to the priests and the elders, the big dogs, what do they do? They say “What is that to us? See to it yourself.” What is that to us? Judas just confessed that Jesus was innocent and they don’t bat an eyelash. They have aligned themselves so strongly against Christ that the fact that he is the Messiah no longer matters to them. Judas comes to the Pharisees and, after feeling regret, actually confesses his sin to the community. But it is not enough. He brought his sin to the wrong place.

Apart from the healing hand of the Savior, confession is meaningless. My generation, in particular, finds credibility through transparency. We are often the first to confess sin and brokenness, but we are emotionally detached from what we confess. Cynical, flippant confession has replaced coming to Christ. Sometimes even, in the case of Judas, emotionally wrenching confession has replaced coming to Christ.

Don’t hear what I’m not saying. The church represents Christ and it is his most powerful tool for healing. We must confess our sins to our brothers and sisters in Christ. But confessional isn’t enough. We must never be tempted to confuse confession to our brothers and sisters with the work of the King. It is not our confession to peers that brings about forgiveness, but the work of Jesus.

Judas Sought Atonement 

So at this point Judas has done some externally good things. Can regret be good? Absolutely. Can confession be good? You betcha. But not the way Judas did it. How do we know? We know the regret and confession of Judas weren’t good because they ended with the self and ended with death.

Look again at the Pharisees comment to Judas. “What is that to us? See to it yourself.” See to it yourself. What irony. They have just murdered the one who has given all for the sinfulness of man and they, the “moral” ones, turn away a guilt-ridden sinner with the words “See to it yourself”. Judas came to them and, instead of pointing him to the fount of forgiveness, they point him to himself.

If ever we go to a spiritual gospel and leave pointed to ourselves, we have encountered the anti-gospel. And that’s what they give Judas here.

Isn’t this what Satan wants? Aren’t these the words Satan wants to dominate our conscience with? “You’ve sinned? You are covered in shame? You’ve looked at pornography again? You’ve deceived your family? You feel no joy? You hate your neighbor? See to it yourself!” The accuser desires nothing more than to tell God, “Make him see to it himself!” Judas hears this voice and obeys it.

He sees to it himself. He takes his shame and destroys himself. Judas would have remembered Deuteronomy 21:22-23, which says that “if a man has committed a crime punishable by death and he is put to death, and you hang him on a tree…” It is possible that he was trying to atone for himself. I’m not sure what attitude Judas had when he did this. But, whether sincerely or hopelessly, Judas tried to make things right by himself. If the Pharisees wouldn’t tell him how to get out, he would do it himself. But we know, from the prophecies of the Scriptures, that it wasn’t enough. Judas couldn’t pay for his own sin. His atonement wasn’t enough. 

And thus the vicious Satan trap is finished. Regret, confession, and atonement leading to death.

So What? 

I have often ended up on the tracks of this trap. I feel shame, tell myself that I need to “man up”, and then fall towards death. It has often led me to believe I was a 2nd rate Christian and then, ultimately, that God may not actually exist. If God’s goal is “that [our] hearts may be encouraged, being knit together in love, to reach all the riches of full assurance…”, aka that we would know we our His children with whom He is well-pleased, then Satan wants nothing more than to convince us that God hates us.

If this is true, then real ministry doesn’t mean trying to make people externally perfect. It means looking for the black box in the closet and bringing the light of the gospel to it. It means striving for emotional healing and a restoration of their relationship with their Father. It means pulling back all the weeds so that the valuable plant can receive sunlight. It means starting at the beginning of the trap (shame and regret) and pointing to the cross. Much of the time we are ministering to people without dealing with the real issue. We spend hours trimming the bush without seeing the weeds ripping up the roots.

But to do this, we’ve got to understand this truth ourselves.

Many of us (myself included) have been trying to “See to it yourself” for years. And, the real secret we’ve kept is, we can’t do it. I haven’t “Seen to it myself” and it feels like death. Some of us, convinced that we cannot “See to it ourselves”, have been mentally, physically and verbally abusing ourselves for years. Some of us have developed such a contempt for ourselves that it overflows. We punish our children because they remind us of ourselves, we viciously defend ourselves and undercut others. We don’t believe we’re worthy to pray. But here is the kicker: there is one who has seen to it! There is one, when we come with our sins, who says “What is it to me? Its everything to me! I will step down from heaven and become man! I will take that shame and pin it to the cross with me; I will take your death! – I will see to it so that you don’t have to!” We have to quit trying to pay for your own sins and let Christ carry them for us.

Only when we know this can we be vulnerable ourselves, bring our own black boxes to the light, and serve people without fear. And when people see the church do this, finding true healing in Christ, they’ll want it too.

Final Note 

 We can’t do this by yourself. If you walk away thinking “Ok, now I’ve got to let Christ carry my sins! I’m gonna man up and do it!” you’ve missed the point. You can’t do it. Rest in Christ and the knowledge that, even when we can repent well, he died for that to. You don’t have to be perfect anymore.

That was never the point, anyways.