Have you repented of your sin?
What did you repent of when you repented?
The good news: Jesus forgives our sin.
The bad news: Repentance is only a condition of salvation and not its meritorious ground.
More bad news: Many folks are filled with remorse, not repentance. Remorse is a moral anguish arising from repentance for past misdeeds; a bitter regret. Repentance is a turning away, 180 degree reversal of one's direction.
Here's a quick analogy. You're pulled over by a police officer for speeding. He tickets you and you're back on your way. How long after the officer is out of sight did you go right back to your lead foot ways? Did you indeed repent? Did you never again break the speed limit?
At any rate, God is opposed to the proud, but gives grace to the humble. Humble yourself in the eyes of the Lord. The Lord looks favorably on the one who is humble and contrite of spirit, and who trembles at His word. He heals the brokenhearted. And binds up their wounds.
Deeper questions:
Read Matthew 27:3
Then Judas, His (Jesus') betrayer, seeing that He had been condemned, was full of remorse and returned the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders.
Do you remember this part of the gospel story? Judas was a follower of Jesus. He was there, he saw it all, AND he was a thief. And ultimately he betrays Jesus to the temple authorities. After Jesus is arrested with his help, Judas hangs himself in a fear funk. He had betrayed innocent blood, he was damned by his own sin. And fatigue makes cowards of us all. BUT before he kills himself he confesses his sin. Did he bring it to Jesus? No. He instead brings it to the church.
Was Judas redeemed?
Verse 4 - The Confession
4 “I have sinned,” he (Judas) declared, “for I have betrayed an innocent man.”
Ironically, the men authorized by tradition to cleanse the unholy person, the temple priests, didn't offer redemption from sin to the remorseful penitent person. Instead they reply...
“What do we care?” they retorted. “That’s your problem.”
That's your problem?
THATS YOUR PROBLEM?!
More like the priests of devils than like the priests of the holy living God.
Also interestingly, it was this act of contrition by Judas that triggers a true confession...
Versus 6
The leading priests picked up the coins. “It wouldn’t be right to put this money in the Temple treasury,” they said, “since it was payment for murder.”
AH HA!!! Payment for murder you say?!!!
Hmmm.
Isn't that typical? The unholy are filled with excuses for their sin and YET...they continue in the fraud as they pretend to be holy. How so? Glad you asked. Look again...
The leading priests picked up the coins. “IT WOULDN'T BE RIGHT to put this money in the Temple treasury,”
Oh NOW you're concerned about what's right?!
Humph.
Friends,
The Lord gently brings truly repentant and regretful people into his ministry of comforts. He dispatches angels and The Word of God to them to bring them out from the depths of their despair. He will make provisions for a strengthening to prepare them to know God and live again. God reinvigorates them. He shows them the way. He brings them out from their depression. He will not leave them alone when they come before him in confession and the confirmation of their remorse.
For Judas it might have been terribly difficult to get with Jesus and confess his sin and express his regret. But he could have tried. Instead he chose death in despair. Judas confessed, followed up with an act of contrition, and showed remorse. He could have prayed to God, but instead he sought relief from his terror in a noose. He couldn't live with himself any longer...maybe? Maybe he just didn't trust Jesus enough to forgive him. Maybe like so many, he projected himself onto Jesus, and figured there was no way in hell that Jesus wouldn't condemn him, as he would, if he did confess.
I think that sin blinds people to the truth regarding Jesus and to any sense of true justice and righteousness found in him. Those who measure sinful actions by the real-time consequences of them, instead of by the divine law of God, will find themselves mistaken in their method of measure. Sin is a downhill momentum. Even if we choose to ignore it, by gravity or osmosis alone, it will bring us down. Sin always leaves a bitter taste in your mouth, and spoils the stomach.
Conclusion:
I can't say that Judas was completely lost. The scripture suggests that most among the early Christian ministries of that age believed Judas to be a son of perdition, (AntiChrist).
Maybe so.
If so, here's what I believe:
God is the righteous judge, it is his right and he has all authority to do what he does. I'm not going to question his ways. To do that would be a sin.