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The Heart that Became Loveless.
Ann Bendall, B.A. Dip. Psych., Qld. Australia
A Personality Profile: Judas Iscariot, the apostle who chose to be the "son of revenge" in preference to being a son of God.
The Urantia Book gives a wealth of information on Judas - his childhood, personality characteristics and coping strategies in dealing with life events. The revelators, in indicating that a particular attribute or characteristics was a hindrance to the spiritual development of an individual (in particular, Judas), describe where it eventuated from as well as giving advice on how to overcome it (for those readers who might recognize some similarity in themselves).
Judas was the spoilt, only child of unwise parents. As a consequence, he grew up with exaggerated ideas about his self-importance, ideas which he strongly adhered to. Due to his ego-centric view of the world, he became expert at misinterpretation of the words and acts of his friends, viewing any and all as related to him personally. He expected always to win, was a poor loser, and had loose and distorted ideas about fairness. And Judas was prone to indulgence in hate, suspicion and revenge. Instead of accepting disappointments "as a regular and commonplace feature of human existence, he unfailingly resorted to the practice of blaming someone in particular, or his associates as a group, for all his personal difficulties and disappointments." (2056)
Primarily Judas "went wrong" because he was "an isolated personality". He neither confided in nor freely fraternized with those he lived in close association with, preferring to seek the advice and consolation of his unspiritual relatives or those chance acquaintances who were either indifferent, or actually hostile, to the welfare and progress of the spiritual realities of the heavenly kingdom, of which he was one of the twelve consecrated ambassadors on earth (2056) .
He never once went to the Master with a purely personal problem! This fact coupled with:
a) his inability to develop close, loving relationships with others, perhaps caused by his seeing others as the tools to be used in the fulfillment of his ambitions;
b) leading to his not growing "in spiritual grace"; and
c) his persistent harbouring of grudges, plus cravings of revenge for his own disappointments in life, led to Judas meeting "defeat in his battles of the earth struggle". He "failed to subdue these evils by love, faith, and trust." Finally he became loveless, and incapable of recognizing love in others.
Some of the other apostles had similar characteristics to Judas but they chose to grow in love for Jesus and the other apostles, leading to growth in grace and truth. They became more trusting, developed the confidence to confide in others, and in honesty, they craved to know and be known.
"Judas never learned that the real rewards for noble living are, after all, spiritual prizes, which are not always distributed during this one short life in the flesh." (2056)
"He craved worldly honor in his mind and grew to love this desire with his whole heart." (1926)
With worldly honour being the centre of Judas' being, his vision became so clouded that he finally developed a mental image of Jesus as - a clown, a coward! He was ashamed of and bitterly resented Jesus, became resentful of what he regarded as Jesus' lack of appreciation of himself, and embarrassed to be associated with him. (The other apostles were similar to Judas in their mental craving for honour, but they loved Jesus so much they were prepared to substitute his greater truths for their dreams of glory.)
If we dissect Judas into personality, mind, temperament, emotions etc., we find that:
In personality he was isolated. Despite being surrounded by friends, Judas isolated himself by his refusal to form deep, honest meaningful relationships with any of them.
In mind he was suspicious and vengeful. He did not like to face facts frankly and was dishonest in his attitude toward life situations.
In intellect he became vainglorious.
In temperament he was surly and vindictive.
Emotionally, he was loveless and unforgiving.
Socially, he was unconfiding and almost wholly self-contained, and yet he could not stand ridicule. It was ridicule which was the most powerful influence "in his final
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