Anthony Rykowski

There are a few major problems with how the scriptures about Judas have been interpreted. One is that we don’t know if Jesus actually said, “It would have been better if he had not been born,” and it doesn’t seem likely he would. This is not something God could say, as God would not negate his own creation or view a transgression as some personal offense or mistake. It’s possible that he was trying to impress upon his listeners the severity of the pain that Judas must have felt. This is something we could imagine him saying. My guess is that the listener, lacking Jesus’s level of consciousness and awareness, mistook what was said and replaced it with what “it seems like he ought to have said” given the nature of the offense. The second, and I think more serious, error is the idea of some kind of permanent punishment, as later depicted by theologians and artists like Dante. The idea that there is a “foreverness” to the penalty of the transgression seems unjust and not possible, as it implies a finite human could transgress in an infinite way. Many subsequent scholars and theologians have suggested that God may show mercy in ways we cannot know beyond the grave, even in cases such as taking one’s own life. But it simply wouldn’t be in line with God’s plan for a universe with perfect justice to be encased in ice “forever.” For a long temporal time perhaps, as such things would weigh heavily on men’s conscience for a long time, but there is always “an end” to the suffering. Eventually it runs itself out. And Jesus would be first to welcome Judas back at the table if we are to embrace the gospel’s true meaning.

San Francisco shows out with a message to Trump: "NO ICE NO WARS NO LIES NO KINGS"