Of Deeds, Misdeed, and Motives
Or: some thoughts on Spy Wednesday
Today is Spy Wednesday, which has traditionally been taken as the day when Judas agreed to betray Jesus in exchange for 30 silver coins — and no small amount of ink has been spilled in speculating about why Judas decided to betray Jesus.
Now, Scripture speaks to the salient facts, of course: that Satan entered into him (Lk 22:3), and that he went to the chief priests and religious authorities to figure out what he could get for such a diabolical deed, and that his very ill-gotten gains came out to the sum of 30 silver coins (Mt 26:15) -- which, by the by, at best would be worth a measly $441 in our economy today, and at worst would be worth $91. This is, therefore, what the theologians would refer to as a “capitally bad deal,” and that is really quite the understatement.
But to our great consternation, nothing is explicitly stated regarding Judas’s motivation for perpetrating this most heinous of acts; an act so heinous, in fact, that Jesus himself said it would have been better for Judas if he'd never even come out of his mother's womb (Mk 14:21). One would expect, perhaps, that for such a monumental betrayal, the authors of Scripture would see fit to include a clear statement about his motives – but, as was said aforetime, no such statement exists.
And thus, the scholars and biblical commentators are left to speculate: and speculate they do. As a sampling of suggestions, from more plausible to definitely not plausible: some say that Judas felt so stung by Jesus' rebuke in John 12:4-6, that he betrayed him as a form of payback; others think that Judas actually hoped to “force” Jesus into a Messianic overthrow of the Romans by boxing him into a corner, as it were; an old Gnostic text went so far as to say that Jesus actually asked Judas to betray him so that he could be die and be freed of his physical body, and that Jesus asked Judas to do this because he knew that Judas loved him the most of all the disciples. And thus the speculations.
But, not to Obscure Things…
Now I mention all of this because I am rather convinced that these musings, interesting and potentially informative as they are, might obscure the main point of the texts themselves. After all, God saw to it plenty of other times in Scripture that motives of characters were stated; but in the case of Judas, he saw to it that no motives were stated; thus, there is a lesson here.
I mean, in the main, that the Lord alone can look upon the heart. You and I cannot. There is a very true and strict sense in which we can only judge by appearances. Indeed, even when we ask questions and try to help people reveal their hearts and motives, we are going off appearances: the appearances they give us in their face and words.
Now naturally, this can be abused, and where God contravenes our judgment of appearances, we are obviously obligated to offer our amen to his word (cf. 1 Samuel 16:1-13). But unless that happens, we can only assess others by their actions and professions; indeed, to try and divine someone’s motives for any given act, apart from asking them outright, can quite quickly lead to being a moralistic busybody – which is, to put it frankly, the worst. It is to try and play as God, which is always a bad idea.
Jesus, on the other hand, endorsed the idea of discerning what someone is about by their acts:
You will recognize [false prophets] by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? So, every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit. A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus you will recognize them by their fruits (Matthew 7:16-20).
By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another (John 13:35).
Now on the note of loving one another, that cannot refer to a merely inward feeling of warmth and affection, because people can’t see that. They have to see the inward love of the heart flow out into deeds of love and service if Jesus’ words there are to be taken seriously.
And to Hammer Home the Point
And to hammer home this point, consider Mary anointing Jesus with the pure nard in John 12 – the very act, by the way, for which Judas registered his protest and for which he received a rebuke from Jesus.
Mary, rather than trading Jesus for a measly 30 silver coins, poured out a perfume upon Jesus that was worth a whole year's wages for a common worker. Think about that for just a moment. Mary poured out a year’s worth of wages upon Jesus in one moment of worship, and Judas sold him for the equivalent of six week’s worth. Now those are fruits that reveal roots.
But the deeds and recorded words are all we have to go off of as human beings. Apart from Jesus’ commentary on Mary’s act, we couldn’t have known why she did it, and it wouldn’t have done us any good to try and figure out why all these thousands of years later. And to bring it back to Judas once more, this is why John Milton wrote that real hypocrisy is a sin known only to God alone – because we cannot see it in others, and apart from the illuminating power of the Holy Spirit we can't even see it in ourselves.
Now, to be clear, our deeds do not save us or make us right before God; only Christ can do that, and we are justified by faith alone and grace alone in his name alone. One must believe in their heart that God raised Jesus from the dead – but then they must also publicly confess that name, and along with that confession comes the expectation that the saving faith works (cf. Romans 10:9-10; Ephesians 2:8-10).
Also to be clear, I say that motives matter — but that there is simply no way for us to know, apart from their own words, the motives of others — and that if we’re going to focus on motives at all, what we should focus on first and foremost are our own motives.
So I say simply: let Judas and Mary stand as a sign of this truth, and let the reader understand. We shouldn’t make excuses for awful decisions because we think we can divine someone’s motives; we shouldn’t degrade good decisions because we think we can divine someone’s motives; we should check our own motives, and let the acts of others speak for themselves as we measure them against God’s word, not our own opinions.
