the best use he
could make of _Him_ whom all angels worship, was to sell Him for L5.[12]
He could get nothing more out of Christ than that. After three years'
acquaintanceship and observation of the various ways in which Christ
could bless people, this was all he could get from Him. And there are
still such men: men for whom there is nothing in Christ; men who can
find nothing in Him that they sincerely care for; men who, though
calling themselves His followers, would, if truth were told, be better
content and feel they had more substantial profit if they could turn Him
into money.

So difficult is it to comprehend how any man who had lived as the friend
of Jesus could find it in his heart to betray Him, should resist the
touching expressions of love that were shown him, and brave the awful
warning uttered at the supper-table--so difficult is it to suppose that
any man, however infatuated, would so deliberately sell his soul for L5,
that a theory has been started to explain the crime by mitigating its
guilt. It has been supposed that when he delivered up his Master into
the hands of the chief priests he expected that our Lord would save
Himself by a miracle. He knew that Jesus meant to proclaim a kingdom; he
had been waiting for three years now, eagerly expecting that this
proclamation and its accompanying gains would arrive. Yet he feared the
opportunity was once more passing: Jesus had been brought into the city
in triumph, but seemed indisposed to make use of this popular
excitement for any temporal advantage. Judas was weary of this
inactivity: might he not himself bring matters to a crisis by giving
Jesus into the hands of His enemies, and thus forcing Him to reveal His
real power and assert by miracle His kingship? In corroboration of this
theory, it is said that it is certain that Judas did not expect Jesus to
be condemned; for when he saw that he was condemned he repented of his
act.

This seems a shallow view to take of Judas' remorse, and a feeble ground
on which to build such a theory. A crime seems one thing before, another
after, its commission. The murderer expects and wishes to kill his
victim, but how often is he seized with an agony of remorse as soon as
the blow is struck? Before we sin, it is the gain we see; after we sin,
the guilt. It is impossible to construe the act of Judas into a mistaken
act of friendship or impatience; the terms in which he is spoken of in
Scripture forbid this idea; and on