. Startling End of the Age prophecy was fulfilled as the incredible "Gospel of Judas" is published to the world.
From The Cutting Edge Newspaper NEWS BRIEF: "Lost Gospel Revealed; Says Jesus Asked Judas to Betray Him", National Geographic News, April 6, 2006 "He is one of the most reviled men in history. But was Judas only obeying his master's wishes when he betrayed Jesus with a kiss? That's what a newly revealed ancient Christian text says.
After being lost for nearly 1,700 years, the Gospel of Judas was recently restored, authenticated, and translated." Starting in the early 1990's, New Age bookstores were suddenly filled with new books shouting that "new sacred writings" had been discovered about Jesus and His "lost years"!
Each of these books reinforced the horribly apostate Gnostic view of Jesus and Christianity, and were totally set against the Biblical accounts. Obviously, these nefarious writings were penned in order to destroy people's faith in the Biblical account. Furthermore, New Age writers had written that the New Age Christ could not appear until and unless a "significant proportion" of the peoples of the world had been preconditioned to accept him.
Obviously, the first step in conditioning people to accept the occult New Age Christ is to discredit the genuine Jesus Christ. That is the reason we have such publicity about the "DaVinci Code", a Gnostic account of the human Jesus never dying, marrying Mary Magdalene, having children by her, and depicting Mary as fleeing to France pregnant with a baby girl, who later married into the Merovingian bloodline.
The DaVinci Code was written to discredit the true Biblical account and smear the real Jesus. Ditto for this terrible "Gospel of Judas". Since "Gospel" means "Good News", what good new could possibly come from Judas? He betrayed his trust as the Treasurer of the Disciples as he stole from their little amount of money. He agreed to betray Jesus to the authorities for a scant 30 pieces of silver.
He betrayed His master with a kiss in the Garden of Gethsemane so that the Roman soldiers would know whom they were to arrest. And, then, Judas went out and hung himself, his body falling from the tree and becoming disemboweled. What "good news" can possibly come from Judas Iscariot? It was Jesus' fault!! Can you believe it? "Some biblical scholars are calling the Gospel of Judas the most significant archaeological discovery in 60 years. The only known surviving copy of the gospel was found in a codex, or ancient book, that dates back to the third or fourth century A.D.
The newly revealed gospel document, written in Coptic script, is believed to be a translation of the original, a Greek text written by an early Christian sect sometime before A.D. 180." (Ibid.) Note that this document is not an original but "the only known surviving copy". This is the standard work of the propagandist who wishes only to deceive.
This is certainly the situation today with this "Gospel of Judas". Doubt it not! "The Bible's New Testament Gospels—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John—depict Judas Iscariot, one of the Twelve Apostles of Jesus, as a traitor. In biblical accounts Judas gives up Jesus Christ to his opponents, who later crucify the founder of Christianity. The Gospel of Judas, however, portrays him as acting at Jesus' request. "The text begins by announcing that it is the "secret account of the revelation that Jesus spoke in conversation with Judas Iscariot during a week, three days before he celebrated Passover'.
It goes on to describe Judas as Jesus' closest friend, someone who understands Christ's true message and is singled out for special status among Jesus' disciples. In the key passage Jesus tells Judas, "'you will exceed all of them. For you will sacrifice the man that clothes me.'" "Kasser, the translation-project leader, offers an interpretation: 'Jesus says it is necessary for someone to free him finally from his human body, and he prefers that this liberation be done by a friend rather than by an enemy. So he asks Judas, who is his friend, to sell him out, to betray him. It's treason to the general public, but between Jesus and Judas it's not treachery." "Between Jesus and Judas it's not treachery."
If this is the case, Jesus is shown to be liar, for He foretold who would betray Him, and was fully aware of Judas' true nature. "Jesus saith to him, He that is washed needeth not save to wash his feet, but is clean every whit: and ye are clean, but not all. For he knew who should betray him; therefore said he, Ye are not all clean." (John 13:10-11) "Now when the even was come, he sat down with the twelve. And as they did eat, he said, Verily I say unto you, that one of you shall betray me. And they were exceeding sorrowful, and began every one of them to say unto him, Lord, is it I? 23
And he answered and said, He that dippeth his hand with me in the dish, the same shall betray me. Of man goeth as it is written of him: but woe unto that man by whom the Son of man is betrayed! it had been good for that man if he had not been born. Then Judas, which betrayed him, answered and said, Master, is it I? He said unto him, Thou hast said." (Matt 26:20-25) This verse tells us that there was no pact between Jesus and Judas, for then Judas could not be held accountable for his actions; Judas would have suffered, and would not have been better off if he had never been born.
But, of course, if you believe the Bible, you will not believe the Gospel of Judas; conversely, if you believe in the Gospel of Judas, you will be suspicious of the inerrancy of the Bible. You cannot believe in both, because the Gospel of Judas contradicts the Bible, and the Bible shows the Gospel of Jude to be a fake! What did the Apostle Paul say? "No servant can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon." (Luke 16:13)
Another news story speaks of the "Gospel of Judas" from another angle. NEWS BRIEF: "Judas ‘the good guy’ in this gospel: Long-lost document paints different picture of Jesus’ betrayer", The State, April 7, 2006 "Judas Iscariot, long reviled as history’s quintessential betrayer, actually was Jesus’ best friend and turned him over to Jewish authorities only because Jesus asked him to, according to the gospel of Judas, a long-lost document unveiled Thursday by the National Geographic Society. The document, which some consider the most important archeological find of the past 60 years, purports to record conversations between Jesus and Judas in the last week of their lives — conversations in which Jesus shared religious secrets not known by the other disciples. “ '
He’s the good guy in this portrayal', said Bart Ehrman, a religion professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. ;'He’s the only apostle who understands Jesus'.” "A “gospel of Judas” first was mentioned around A.D. 180 by Bishop Irenaeus of Lyon, in what now is France. The bishop denounced the manuscript as heresy because it differed from the conventionally accepted Gospels. The actual text had been thought lost until this discovery. Most copies were destroyed. The sole known copy lay hidden in the Egyptian desert for nearly 1,700 years before looters found it in the 1970s."
This time period in Church history is precisely the time period in which the Gnostic doctrines were threatening to overwhelm the infant Christian Church. Paul and the other Apostles spoke and wrote heavily against the heresy of the Gnostic Gospels. Thus, it is not surprising that Bishop Irenaeus has spoken out against the Gospel of Judas all the way back to 180 A.D. One common fallacy in thinking today is that everything discovered by archeology is valid and true. A corollary is that anything ancient is more to be trusted than something found in the modern era.
Satan has always been active in every era of time, raising up men and writings to oppose the true Gospel of Jesus Christ. I have no doubt that this "Gospel of Judas" is real, is old, and is translated. But, the fact that these things are true does not mean that the Gospel of Judas is to be believed. This document was heresy when it was written and it remains heretical today. This current article even admits this document is Gnosticism! "Extensive analysis of the paper, ink, writing style and text all indicate the copy was made about A.D. 300, according to Terry Garcia of the National Geographic Society. “We are confident that this is a genuine piece of ancient Christian apocryphal literature.”
The Gnostics were a sect “that emphasized knowledge (gnosis), but not the kind we think of today,” said biblical scholar Gregor Wurst of the University of Augsburg in Germany. They were interested in the spiritual knowledge of God and “the essential oneness of the inner self with God.” They considered the world a creation of lesser, inferior gods who imprisoned the inner self in a material body, a prison from which they hoped to escape.
"The gospel of Judas clearly reflects this belief, which is in stark contrast to the version of Judas presented in the Bible. In a key passage, Jesus compares Judas to the other disciples, saying, 'You will exceed all of them. For you will sacrifice the man that clothes me'. By helping Jesus get rid of his flesh, Judas will help liberate the divine being within." This is pure Gnosticism! And, it is pure Antichrist. The doctrine of Antichrist is that the "Christ Consciousness" spirit fell upon Jesus at the Baptism in the River Jordan and left Him at the cross.
Until the Christ Consciousness spirit fell upon Him, Jesus had no idea He was the Messiah. For the next 3 1/2 years, Jesus the man realized that he was the Jewish Messiah and he acted like the Messiah should act. But, on the cross, the Christ Consciousness released from Jesus' body the moment He died. With this in mind, the following statement from the Gospel of Judas makes a whole lot of sense. "For you will sacrifice the man that clothes me'. By helping Jesus get rid of his flesh, Judas will help liberate the divine being within."
You see, the Christ Conscious spirit was the "divine being within" which the human Jesus was begging Judas to help liberate! Thus, Jesus is supposedly begging Judas to turn him in so the Romans will arrest him, thus setting up the string of events which would inevitably culminate in Jesus' death on the cross. At the moment Jesus took his last breath -- according to this heresy -- the Christ Consciousness Spirit was "liberated". These accusations are simply astonishing, don't you think? What is that prophecy about Antichrist and those people advancing his cause at the very End of the Age? "And the king shall do according to his will; he shall exalt himself and magnify himself above every god and shall speak astonishing things against the God of gods and shall prosper till the indignation be accomplished..." (Daniel 11:36; Parallel Bible, KJV/Amplified Bible Commentary)
