Is
the Gospel of Judas
true?
No. Judas died by suicide a few hours after Jesus was
arrested.
The " Gospel of Judas"
was
written about 100 years later by a religious group called
"Gnostics." This particular branch of gnosticism liked to
take
old
familiar stories and turn them around so that the bad guys
became heroes. This group was called "Cainites," named after
Cain
who killed his brother Abel (Genesis 4).
In the Gnostic version of
that story, Cain was the hero.
The Gnostic "Gospel of Judas"
makes Judas the hero by claiming that he was the only disciple who
really understood Jesus' mission, so Jesus asked Judas to hand him over
to the Romans so Jesus could get crucified and become free of his
physical body.
Gnostics were not Christians, but they used Christian names and
characters. For Gnostics, Jesus was not the Savior; he was
only a
teacher who said some really nutty things. Gnostics taught
that a
person can get eternal
salvation by learning special mystical knowledge. (Our
English
word know comes
from the
Greek word gnosis,
which
means "knowledge." The Latin word for know gives us our
English
word for science.)
Gnostics taught that Jesus had that mystical knowledge and that if we
got that knowledge, we would be just like him. Gnostics
taught
that anything
physical is bad, so that the creator of the world is really a demon,
an evil spirit.
You can read an English translation of "the Gospel of Judas" for
yourself. It is only seven pages long. Like all
Gnostic
gospels, you will not find any references to Christ's sacrifice for
sin. There is no
reference to His resurrection. For Gnostics, there is no need
for
forgiveness.
The Gospel of Judas says that Christ
and Jesus
are two different
characters. Jesus is good, but Christ is an evil angel, ruler
over chaos. Christ's creator and boss is Saklas (Satan), whom
the
other 11
disciples worship as their "god." According to the Gospel of
Judas, Satan, with the help of of his 5 evil assistants, created the
physical world, including people:
"Then
Saklas said
to his angels, ‘Let us create a human being after the likeness and
after the image.’ They fashioned Adam and his wife Eve, who is called,
in the cloud, Zoe' " (the
Greek word for "life").
Why did the Gnostics credit Satan with the
creation of
the physical
world, including Adam and Eve? Because physical is the
opposite
of
spiritual. Since spiritual is good, physical is bad.
But, says the Gospel of Judas, God came to the rescue:
First, God gave spirits to people
"as a loan, so
that they might
offer service."
Second,
"God
caused
knowledge [gnosis]
to be give to Adam and those with him, so the kings
of chaos and the underworld [including
Christ]
might not lord it over
them."
And who is Jesus?
"Judas
said to him, 'I know who you are and where you have come
from.
You are
from the immortal realms
of Barbelo."
The Gospel of Judas ends appropriately:
Their
high
priests murmured because [Jesus] had gone into the guest room for his
prayer. But some scribes were there watching carefully in order to
arrest him during the prayer, for they were afraid of the people, since
he was regarded by all as a prophet.
They
approached
Judas and said to him, “What are you doing here? You are Jesus’
disciple.”
Judas
answered them as they
wished. And he received some money and handed him over to them.
THE GOSPEL
OF JUDAS
[THE END]
This is Christian? Not even
close! When
Christ is identified as an evil angel, ruler
of chaos, it is no wonder that today anti-Christian religious
liberals love the
Gospel of Judas.
Another popular Gnostic
document, "Gospel of Thomas," (not really
written by
Thomas) ends with this verse:
Simon
Peter said to him, "Let Mary leave us, for women are not worthy of
life."
Jesus said, "I myself shall lead her in order to make her male, so that
she too may become a living spirit resembling you males. For every woman who will
make
herself male will enter the kingdom of heaven." (Verse 114)
Huh!? And some people say that
these Gnostic
gospels are truly the Word of God? I don't think so!
[Our original reference to the
Gospel of Judas was the National Geographic Society. NGS has
since removed the document from its website.]
~~Pastor
Ron