Did Judas do God's will? (Jesus, priests, ritual, the passion)

[rheff78]

This might belong in a different spot. But I've been struggling with this one for a while. As you can see, I'm Catholic, but I'm still not sure on this one. We all have freewill, including Judas, but without him betraying Jesus to the HIgh Priests then Jesus wouldn't have died for our sins. I guess my question is, was Judas doing God's will? Was he born for that specific reason? Keep in mind, I understand we all have freewill and he could have chose not to turn on Jesus. But, without his actions, the crucifixtion wouldn't have taken place. Just a thought.

[Phasmid]

Originally Posted by rheff78

This might belong in a different spot. But I've been struggling with this one for a while. As you can see, I'm Catholic, but I'm still not sure on this one. We all have freewill, including Judas, but without him betraying Jesus to the HIgh Priests then Jesus wouldn't have died for our sins. I guess my question is, was Judas doing God's will? Was he born for that specific reason? Keep in mind, I understand we all have freewill and he could have chose not to turn on Jesus. But, without his actions, the crucifixtion wouldn't have taken place. Just a thought.

If Jesus carried on what he was doing regardless of Judas, wouldn't he eventually have been crucified? He did have a gift for annoying the religious leaders at the time.

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Originally Posted by rheff78

I guess my question is, was Judas doing God's will? Was he born for that specific reason? Keep in mind, I understand we all have freewill and he could have chose not to turn on Jesus. But, without his actions, the crucifixtion wouldn't have taken place. Just a thought.

I think it depends on how you view the crucifixion.

If the crucifixion is supposed to be one final, perfect ritual sacrifice, consider this: in the sacrifices that came before the crucifixion, would the man who led the sheep in to be sacrificed have been doing the will of God? In the ritual as it existed before Jesus, if Judas had brought a literal lamb to be sacrificed, would he have been considered a holy man or a criminal?

I think that if you want to conclude that Judas was not doing the will of God, you first have to decide that the crucifixion itself was not the will of God.

[rheff78]

Originally Posted by 9-10ths_Penguin

I think it depends on how you view the crucifixion.

If the crucifixion is supposed to be one final, perfect ritual sacrifice, consider this: in the sacrifices that came before the crucifixion, would the man who led the sheep in to be sacrificed have been doing the will of God? In the ritual as it existed before Jesus, if Judas had brought a literal lamb to be sacrificed, would he have been considered a holy man or a criminal?

I think that if you want to conclude that Judas was not doing the will of God, you first have to decide that the crucifixion itself was not the will of God.

I guess illustrates my point. IMHO, I view the crucifixtion as God's will. Jesus was born to die for our sins, so where does Judas fit in? Was HE doing God's will, was he righteous or evil, or what?

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Originally Posted by rheff78

I guess illustrates my point. IMHO, I view the crucifixtion as God's will. Jesus was born to die for our sins, so where does Judas fit in? Was HE doing God's will, was he righteous or evil, or what?

If you go by that interpretation, I'd say that the result of his actions was God's will. His motives may have been suspect, though.

If an action is done for bad reasons but has a good result overall, is it a good action? Depends on your point of view, I guess.

[logician]

The passion story was a made up story, Judas betraying the the suppsed Jesus was I guess a needed element in that story.

[Yeshua_Lives]

Originally Posted by rheff78

This might belong in a different spot. But I've been struggling with this one for a while. As you can see, I'm Catholic, but I'm still not sure on this one. We all have freewill, including Judas, but without him betraying Jesus to the HIgh Priests then Jesus wouldn't have died for our sins. I guess my question is, was Judas doing God's will? Was he born for that specific reason? Keep in mind, I understand we all have freewill and he could have chose not to turn on Jesus. But, without his actions, the crucifixtion wouldn't have taken place. Just a thought.

Judas is a Dark Angel. Without Judas, the crucifixion would NOT take place.

[Melancholy]

If you go by the Gospel of Judas then the plan was for Judas to turn Jesus over to the pharisees for the final act to be carried out.
it was an agreement between the two and Judas was not happy about it, but carried it out regardless.

[trinity2359]

Originally Posted by 9-10ths_Penguin

If you go by that interpretation, I'd say that the result of his actions was God's will. His motives may have been suspect, though.

If an action is done for bad reasons but has a good result overall, is it a good action? Depends on your point of view, I guess.

This goes against Catholic teaching that the ends NEVER justify the means. I was just thinking this from Catholic reading about abortion - saving the mom does not justify aborting the baby because the means don't justify the good ends. (read from Cathlolicism for dummies).

Back to topic, therefore, God to allow Judas to 'sin' to bring about the crucifixion wouldn't work...hmm have to think about this.

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Originally Posted by trinity2359

This goes against Catholic teaching that the ends NEVER justify the means. I was just thinking this from Catholic reading about abortion - saving the mom does not justify aborting the baby because the means don't justify the good ends. (read from Cathlolicism for dummies).

OTOH, Catholic teaching allows for "just war": the Church allows an action where innocent people suffer and die, so long as that the net result is better than what would have occurred otherwise, and no less extreme means would have acheived those ends.

Sometimes the ends do justify the means, apparently.

In any case, I wasn't trying to justify the means, I was addressing the motive. It seems to me that if you consider Jesus to take the place of a sacrificial lamb, then it's necessary that he actually be sacrificed. The question in my mind is whether why Judas did it would have any bearing on our opinion of the act and its results.

The Bible describes Judas helping the Romans find Jesus out of fear and greed; as was pointed out before, the apocryphal Gospel of Judas describes him acting out of duty and loyalty. The means and the method are the same in both; the primary difference is the motive.