There are always hard questions surrounding the sovereignty and omniscience of God. Our human, finite minds cannot cope with His infinite nature. Reconciling questions like predestination and human free will will always result in a tension that cannot be fully explained. If God knows everything and is all-powerful, why does He allow sin into the world in the first place? If He is all-loving, why does He allow evil to flourish? For many, these questions reveal stumbling-blocks to faith, and it is not easy to answer such questions to our satisfaction, for there are many factors we do not know or understand.

We may well feel some of these tensions when we think about Judas Iscariot. One of the original twelve apostles chosen by Jesus, we may ask why Jesus chose him if the end result of that choice was going to be betrayal. If Jesus knew that Judas would betray Him (see John 6:64), why give him the chance to do so in the first place?! We may wonder if Judas was simply a ‘pawn’ in God’s plan of salvation and therefore was God unfair to judge him for these actions of betrayal?  The dilemma reminds us of the Exodus narrative when Pharaoh and Moses go head to head before the Israelites escape from Egyptian slavery. Did God really harden Pharaoh’s heart or was Pharaoh simply stubborn?

There is no simplistic answer to these questions which satisfies. In fact, Scripture carefully balances God’s sovereign foreknowledge with man’s freely offered responses. Pharaoh hardened his heart when he saw the miracles done by Moses through God’s power (Ex 8:15, 32; Ex 9:32); on other occasions, it says, ‘the Lord hardened his heart.’ (Ex 9:12; Ex 10:1, 20) We are told that Judas was frustrated by the way Jesus endorsed the woman’s anointing of him (Mark 14:1-11; John 12:4-6) and how money was an issue for him, but also that ‘Satan entered into him’ (John 13:27). Judas himself clearly recognised his own culpability (‘I have sinned, for I have betrayed innocent blood’ Matt 27:4), but he did not turn back to God in repentance. Remorse and regret are not the same thing as repentance.

Even the accounts of Judas’s death (Matt 27:1-10 and Acts 1:18-19) contain differences which may puzzle us: did Judas hang himself or fall headlong into a field? Some of these differences may well be explainable (the branch on which he hanged himself may have fallen and therefore he did fall into a field, causing his body to rupture), but we have to be mature enough to admit that we do not know all the answers to all the questions and be content to live with not knowing.

Daily I see many people spiritually and emotionally crippled by not having all the answers for which they long. Trials and suffering have come upon them and they do not understand why a loving God has allowed this. ‘Why me? Why this? Why now?’ are all questions asked. The book of Job records many of the questions asked and conclusions uttered at times of suffering, but ultimately gives us no conclusive answers as to why God allows suffering. What it does tell us is that God is infinitely greater than us and His plans cannot be thwarted (Job 42:2) We also know that God is well acquainted with suffering and grief (Is 53:3-6) and that we have a Saviour who has entered our humanity and suffering and is not aloof or far off. (Heb 2:10, Heb 4:15) We have a Saviour who knows all about betrayal, hurt, rejection, suffering and injustice, but whose love, forgiveness, tenderness and mercy offer us hope in every situation of life.

There are worse things in life than not knowing and not understanding, however hard that may be for us to accept. As we recognise the limitations of our understanding, we come before God in humility and reverence. We may not understand, but we can still trust that He is good and what He does is good. (Ps 119:68) We can still believe that He works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. (Rom 8:28) The apostles must have been hurt and bewildered to think that one of their number betrayed Jesus (‘He was one of our number and shared in our ministry’ Acts 1:17), but they coped with this by trusting in God’s ultimate sovereignty. May we learn to do the same, learning humility, submission and trust even on the path of suffering.