I think Jesus was quoting the Jeremiad. He is constantly quoting bits of Isaiah, and these phrases would have, I think, been known to his listeners - even I thought immediately of Job cursing his mothers womb, and Iâm no scholar. I donât think at the end of his life Job (or Jeremiah) felt that way, but at a very real and tangible moment, as he scraped his boils with a potshard, Job indeed saw no benefit to his birth. At that real moment, before a future rerurbishment or redemption, Jobâs life had a ânegative balanceâ. Jesus prophesies that Judas will see his own life the same way, and he does - because he ends his own life.
You buy a car. The engine throws a rod that same weekend. You say âit would have been better if Iâd never bought this carâ. Fair enough, true enough, at that moment. Next day, the prior ownerâs son shows up, says his dad taught him to drive in that car, and repurchases it for twice what you paid for sentimental reasons, blown motor and all. Now youâre glad you bought the car, but the fact it ended up a good deal was something of a miracle.
Our lives end up a good deal, even though we blow our motors, but only because the son redeems them.
I tend to agree with other commenters so far, except to clarify that Jesus is deploying the saying in regard to Judas and not to Himself.
I had another more detailed entry on this topic in another thread elsewhere, but Iâll try to summarize.
Grammatically itâs possible that the pronoun refers to âthe Son of Manâ, i.e. to Jesus, Who is the immediately prior reference. However, itâs also grammatically possible that the pronoun refers back to the preceding identical pronoun which was certainly about Judas; and the phrase typically doesnât involve a split subject, so we can expect it to be deployed about Jesus or about Judas, not about both. And from comparing those two options, it makes no sense in this context for Jesus to be saying that it would have been better for Himself if He had not been born.
Itâs a call of pity for Judas, in other words. (Not a statement that Judas existed in some sinless state before he was born to suffer as Jesusâ betrayer.)
Judas is not referring to himself like Job and Jeremiah are. Jesus is talking so itâs not the same and bad hermeneutics unless you can find another example of Jesus talking to or about someone else (elect) in the same manner.
In defense of Youngâs translation (the Son of Man doth indeed go, as it hath been written concerning him, but woe to that man through whom the Son of Man is delivered up! good it were for him if that man had not been born), I found this comment interesting.
Itâs interesting because itâs from a non-universalist who aparently sees little hope for Judas, and yet finds something âvery strangeâ in the word order and emphasis.
But it still seems strange to me that Christ would start by pronouncing woe on Judas, and end by saying it would have been better for Him (in His humanity) if Judas hadnât been born.
It seems like the two thoughts are disconnected, but maybe Iâm missing something?
âThe Son of Man is to go, just as it is written of Him; but woe to that man (Judas) by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It would have been good for him (Judas) if that man (Jesus) had not been born.â
I think we also need to remember that Judas was fulfilling prophecy; even though he was (unfortunately for him) chosen as a vessel for dishonor. I kind of see this in the same way as Israel being cut off (temporarily, for all Israel will be saved according to scripture!) so that the âfullnessâ of the gentiles can come in.
We think that if Judas went to heaven, then after being forgiven and spending time in heaven it definitely would have been worth it, even with the awful thing that he did. But I think that Jesus was speaking in much more practical terms. Jesus, if you look at his ministry didnât spend lots of time talking about what we would be doing after we died, though he did talk about it. He spent the greater part of his ministry talking about how we should be HERE, NOW. In this life, with our neighbor, our enemy, our eyes and our hearts. I donât think he was making an eternal pronouncement about an ethereal afterlife here - it was much more practical. How many of you have ever done something that you are really ashamed of? I have. Just because Iâm forgiven doesnât mean that I willingly share it with the massesâŚitâs embarrassing. Imagine being the one who betrayed GOD!! The shame would be absolutely astounding, unbearable. You would suffocate in it. You would certainly feel, as Judas did, âI wish I was never born.â He certainly wasnât going to think, âHey, Iâll be forgiven and it will all be worth it in the end.â I think we stretch Jesusâ words when we think he was making an eternal pronouncement on Judasâ state. Even thinking about heaven, I would still hate to be the guy who betrayed God.
God allowed Judas to kill himself before the Resurrection of Christ (rather than having Judas meet the resurrected Christ). So, either God preferred this scenario, or could/would not override Judasâ Free-Will.
What does this tell us if anything?
Wouldnât the message of Jesus have been more clear to all of us if we could have record of Jesus talking to Judas post-resurrection? What do you think He would say?
(I wish I could have found my original article on this, to point back to.)
In the other refs mentioned by posters upthread, the person being referred to (typically the speaker himself) is being presented as an object of pity for the hearers of the speaker.
No one anywhere thinks Job or Jeremiah wonât be saved by God; neither do most people (though a few universalists back to Origen have thought otherwise) think Job or Jeremiah lived in some pre-incarnate perfect existence from which they were punted (apparently by God) into human life where they might be miserable. Culturally, the statement is recognized to be a poetically hyperbolic way of appealing to God (or at least to the listener) for pity on the person being so described.
Granted, a super-vengeful heart might read such a statement, in regard to someone else, as meaning something like âyouâre going to wish you had died in the womb before Iâm through with you!â The question is whether weâre supposed to have that kind of heart toward sinners like ourselves, or whether weâre supposed to have the heart toward other sinners that we expect (or at least hope) God has toward us.
I think sometimes Christians get the idea (especially if theyâve been raised into the faith) that our sins donât mean so much, or arenât as bad, as those people over there. We arenât traitors against God; we havenât helped nail Him to the cross, and woud never do so!
(I donât mean you specifically, db. Iâm just pointing out that any interpretation that specially calls out Judas as if any of us are better than him, is missing a pretty big point. Judas betrayed Him, but Peter went so far as to curse against himself in denying and abandoning Him. Judas was called a devil and a son of perdition, but Peter was called Satan.)
I donât think any one suggeted Judas had any kind of pre-incarnate existence.
Leaving aside the question of whether life begins at conception (and assuming for the moment that it begins at birth), saying that it would have been better for him if he hadnât been born (and given Youngâs translation, A.E. Knochâs translation, and Lutharâs German translation, Iâm still not sure thatâs what Jesus said) would seem to imply (to me) that the continued existence of Judas would be more of a curse than a blessing to him.
My question is how Our Lord could make such a statement (again, if thatâs what He said) if He knew that Judas will eventually have reason to thank God for his creation?
As for Job and Jeremiah, I see no hyperbole involved.
Their statements expressed their own personal feelings at times of great suffering, and Iâm sure they both (especially Job) genuinely wished they hadnât been born at the tme they spoke their words.
The fact that they were their words (expressing their feelings), and not objective statements of fact from our Lord, makes them irrelevant here.
Itâs a turn of phrase. Jesus is saying, âYou will suffer terribly because of this deed.â
Taken literally, the statement isnât logically coherent. Turn it back to front. If Judas had never been born, he wouldnât exist. If he didnât exist, how could anything be better for him? Or worse for him?
Itâs absurd to say non-existence can be better than existence⌠because itâs non-existent!
Animals are put down (and people are sometimes allowed to die, by doctors who donât believe in any afterlife) because itâs believed that non-existence is better than suffering.
It makes perfect sense to say that non-existence is better than eternal conscious torment (and I think most universalists, and most anihilationists, would agree with me here.)
My question concerns the proper translation, and the meaning, of Matthew 26:24.
Iâm a technical analyst, so I mention options. Anyone who thinks the saying doesnât mean Judas (or Job or Jeremiah) had a better pre-existent life which he lost by being born, has to be comitting themselves to some kind of hyperbolic interpretation instead: because the situation as stated would (if they didnât exist in a better state pre-birth) make no sense literally.
Was the continued existence of Job or Jeremiah a hopelessly unending curse for them? No. Were they expecting it to be? Ultimately, no. Did they say such things about themselves anyway? Yes. Why? Because itâs a culturally hyperbolic way of expressing a request for pity.
And my answer, again, is that He was deploying a cultural cry for pityânot for Himself in this case but for Judas.
Itâs a completely figurative expression, so the meaning depends on cultural deployment options, and on the personal character of the one making the expression.
So⌠you soberly think they would have existed better off if they had not existed to be born? Or do you think their cause was ultimately hopeless from which not even God could save them so that their existence must always be a curse without any remission or help?
Those are the two literal options. The third option is figurative hyperbole.
No doubt they were honestly expressing their personal feelings, which were immensely intense. That doesnât mean they were expressing metaphysical technical truths thereby. If they werenât, then they were using hyperbole to express their personal feelings.
Youâre assuming our Lord was speaking as an objective statement of fact instead of expressing His feelings in the cultural idiom. Or maybe youâre inferring this?âif so on what ground?
We know from the narrative context Jesus was emotionally agitated when He said it. We know from the narrative context that Jesus had been raised, and was currently living, in a culture where this expression served as a strong cry for pity for the object. We know from prior examples that Jesus deployed cultural imagery in His language, especially when He was being emotional. We know from prior examples that Jesus was a person Who pitied sinners (as well as Who spoke some very kick-ass things concerning overthrowing powerful criminal sinners.)
Three out of four relevant pieces of information weigh in the direction of one interpretation of the saying, and the fourth could go either wayâso could count along with the other three as easily as against them. And even in His two greatest direct condemnations there was room left over for hope: all things emphatically whatever would be pardoned men; and the Pharisees would eventually sing blessings to Him for coming in the name of the Lord.
I thus assess the compound weight of evidence as favoring a cry for pity.
Your only evidence against it is a literal interpretation, the actual literality of which you yourself reject when the implications are spelled out. So itâs a figurative literality which is also somehow not supposed to be hyperbolic but rather a statement of objective fact instead.
Do you have anything better than that Michael?
(I could adduce a mysterious repeated statement from GosJohnâs final discourse in favor of Jesus pitying Judas, too, but itâs an obscure argument and I donât really need it. Nice to have, though, since it answers a riddle theologians have been plugging at for millennia: how is it that âloving one anotherâ is supposed to be a new commandment? I think Jesus is referring back to the Mount Sermon material found in the Synoptics, especially GosMattâs version, where He was also giving what He presented in effect as new commandments about loving one another: if we love only those who love us, donât pagans and traitors do that?! Be loving our enemies, that we may be perfect as our Father in the heavens is perfect. So why reiterate this new commandment to His eleven chief apostles, of all people, in the final discourse? Because they were only eleven apostles nowâŚ)
