Matthew 26:24

24. The Son of man goeth as it is written of him He marches with unfaltering step in the way to the scene of death, as marked out by the divine prophecies. Yet that does not exculpate the authors of his death.

Woe unto that man No apologies for Judas can stand before this terrible woe. It marks him out as one of the dark beings in human history, one who must ever be named when an example of utmost guilt is to be adduced. The fact that Judas’s free act of treachery was foreseen of God made it none the less free, and therefore none the less guilty. As St. Chrysostom says: “Judas was not a traitor because God foresaw it; but God foresaw it because Judas would be so.” Foreknowledge does not force or compel an act, or make it less free than if it were wholly unforeknown.

Had not been born And so it is impossible that he can over be restored to Divine favour. For if after millions of years he ascends to an eternity of happiness, he is a clear gainer in the balance of existence. It will not do as before intimated, to say that this phrase, “Good that he had never been born,” is a mere proverb. No doubt thoughtless persons may use the same phrase lightly to indicate some inferior misery. But our Lord here is speaking too seriously to be repeating a proverbial hyperbole. He expresses and knows the full measure of Judas’s woe; and he would neither aggravate it beyond its literal extent, nor lightly express it in a cant saying.

After this verse we must bring in the passage in John, who tells us that he privately asked the Lord which the traitor was, and that our Lord gave him a sign by which he knew the man.