The Judas Gospel: Bad News of Betrayal – Part II

(Message delivered by Dr Jeffrey Khoo at the True Life Church 10.30 am Service, Apr 23, 06)

Text: John 6:66-71

The Judas Gospel is a False Text

The Judas Gospel is one of the many false gospels written by the Gnostics. How many Gnostic Gospels were there? Some say 15, some say 30, some say 80. The experts are not even sure. Christians have always recognised only the Four Canonical Gospels—Matthew, Mark, Luke and John—to be the inspired Word of God. The DaVinci Code and the National Geographic Society are saying the very opposite—the Gnostic Gospels are true and the Four Gospels false.

Now, how do we know that the Four Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John we have today are true and not the recently discovered Gnostic Gospels like the Gospel of Judas? Christians have long had answers to such attacks on the Word of God and they are in the twin doctrines of the Verbal Plenary Inspiration (VPI) and Verbal Plenary Preservation (VPP) of the Holy Scriptures as taught in Psalm 12:6-7, Matthew 5:18, 2 Timothy 3:16, and 2 Peter 1:21.

The divinely inspired or God-breathed (theopneustos) New Testament Scriptures were those written by God’s special servants, namely, the Apostles of Jesus Christ. Now it is argued that the Gnostic Gospels were also written by Apostles like Thomas and Judas. Why were the Gospels of Thomas and Judas not included in the Bible? The answer is simple. They were not gospels written by the Apostles in the first place, nor written by eyewitnesses, nor written in the first century but appeared only two to three hundred years after the death of Christ, after the Apostles of Christ had passed away, and after the Four Canonical Gospels had long been written, read and received as Holy Scripture by the Church.

Ireneus, the Bishop of Lyons, testified in the 2nd century: “Matthew published a written gospel for the Hebrews … Mark also, the disciple and interpreter of Peter, transmitted to us in writing the things preached by Peter. Luke, the follower of Paul, set down in a book the gospel preached by him. Lastly, John, the disciple of the Lord, who had leant back on His breast, once more set forth the gospel, while residing at Ephesus in Asia.” Ireneus’ testimony can be trusted for he was a disciple of Polycarp who died a famous death as a martyr of Christ, who was also a disciple of the Apostle John.

What is more is that the Four Canonical Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John fulfilled all the prophecies of the Old Testament Scripture concerning the Jewish Messiah and His redemptive mission on earth. There are about 300 prophecies concerning Christ’s first coming. These prophecies were given centuries before Christ came and they have all been fulfilled precisely and completely (eg, Isa 7:14 and Matt 1:21-22, Jer 23:5 and Luke 3:23, Mic 5:2 and Matt 2:1, Ps 22:16 and Luke 23:33). The Four Gospels on the basis of the Old Testament give us “a more sure word of prophecy” (2 Pet 1:19). The Judas Gospel on the other hand can make no such claim for it contradicts the Old Testament Scripture concerning who Christ was and what He came to do.

The Gospel of Judas was written in the 2nd century long after Judas had died. And if it were true that Judas was Jesus’ best disciple and a hero, then Judas should be basking in glory or martyred, but he committed suicide! Why? The truth is Judas was a crook and betrayed his Master out of his own wicked heart. The fact is that the Gnostics were the ones who plagiarised the names and terms of the Four Gospels to invent their own strange gospel of secret knowledge and man-made gods.

The stories found in the Gnostic Gospels are spurious. For instance, the Gospel of Thomas teaches that only men can enter into heaven, women cannot. If a woman wants to get into heaven, she must first become a man. And this was what Jesus did—He turned Mary Magdalene into a man so that she could go to heaven. Now, how does one square this with The DaVinci Code which claims that Jesus married Mary Magdalene? They contradict!

The Biblical doctrine of the VPP of Scripture identifies for us where the true Biblical texts are today. VPP tells us that the true Scripture resides in the continuously used and always existing majority manuscripts which have been traditionally received by God’s people and kept pure throughout the ages by the special providential hand of God Himself. These texts as identified by the Trinitarian Bible Society are the Hebrew Masoretic Text and the Greek Textus Receptus of the great 16th Century Protestant Reformation, the Authorised or King James Bible being the best English translation of these divinely preserved and authentic texts.

The Gnostic Gospel of Judas is disqualified as an authentic text because (1) it was not continuously used, (2) it is just one compared to the thousands of copies we have of the Canonical Gospels today, (3) it disagrees drastically with the words and doctrines of the original, preserved and received Gospels, and (4) it was rejected by the Spirit-guided Church since the beginning for its heresies. Bishop Ireneus for instance knew about the Gospel of Judas in about AD 180 and wrote against its claims, “They [ie, the Gnostics] declare that Judas the traitor was thoroughly acquainted with these things, and that he alone, knowing the truth as no others did, accomplished the mystery of the betrayal: by him all things, both earthly and heavenly, were thus thrown into confusion. They produce a fictitious history of this kind, which they style the Gospel of Judas.”

The Judas Gospel cannot qualify as an authentic text because it does not fulfil Jesus’ criterion of verbal authenticity to the jot and tittle (Matt 5:18). The Judas Gospel has many gaps and many missing words and sentences. Brackets and ellipses indicating lost words or sentences are seen throughout the text. The translators often had to fill in the blanks by guessing what the words were, and writing them into the text. Such remarks as [—-one line lost—-], [—–one line missing—–], [—-about five lines missing—-] are found throughout. The fact that the Gospel of Judas has not been preserved intact by God’s singular care and providence is one evidence that it is not divinely inspired Scripture, not at all.

Conclusion

The divinely inspired Gospels have always been preserved by God and received throughout the ages by His faithful Church. They were never lost only to be found thousands of years later. If what the modernists and textual critics claim is true, that the original and true Gospels are the Gnostic Gospels and not the Four Gospels we have in our Biblical Canon today, then all the Christians who died for their faith under the Roman regime, in the days of the Protestant Reformation, and in anti-Christian countries today have all died in vain believing in a wrong book and a false message. Can this be so? God forbid! For it is written, “The words of the LORD are pure words: as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times. Thou shalt keep them, O LORD, thou shalt preserve them from this generation for ever” (Ps 12:6-7).

But what do we have today? We are living in a postmodern age of relativity and uncertainty that anyone who dares to believe and defend the present perfection of the Holy Scriptures should be castigated as “foolish,” “extreme,” “schismatic,” “heretical,” “cultic,” and “unregenerate.” On the other hand, those who say that the Bible today contains missing verses and passages, insignificant mistakes and redundant words, are considered “godly” and “scholarly.” Is it no wonder that Psalm 12 should end with these words, “The wicked walk on every side, when the vilest men are exalted” (Ps 12:8)? We are nevertheless comforted by the words of the Psalmist in the Bible we have in our hands today that the Lord will not only preserve His words but also His people who are oppressed and persecuted by the rich, the powerful, and the unbelieving, “For the oppression of the poor, for the sighing of the needy, now will I arise, saith the LORD; I will set him in safety from him that puffeth at him” (Ps 12:5). God help us!

Judas is alive today in all who deny God’s only begotten Son, and reject His forever infallible and inerrant Word. The Judas Gospel is the bad news of betrayal all over again. We are living in days of Deformation, not Reformation! May the Lord keep us faithful until He comes again.

Easter Sunrise Service at Labrador Park, April 16, 2006