JUDAS

What's in a Name?

Key Verse: "A good name is to be chosen rather than great riches." (Proverbs 22:1)

If you could choose any name for your child, knowing it would follow him into every classroom, job interview, and wedding invitation, what would you choose?

Most parents spend months on that question. They scroll through lists, argue at the kitchen table, and say each name out loud in the nursery. Then one finally fits, and it feels like a small gift from heaven.

Now consider a couple in New Zealand who brought their four-month-old son to the registrar and submitted the name Lucifer.1 The registrar advised against it and warned of problems. The father later recalled her saying the boy might struggle to find a job and that teachers might not want to teach him. In New Zealand, the name is banned.

Be honest. If you had the choice, would you ever name your child after the devil? Of course not. Why? Because there is a great deal of weight in the naming of a child, isn't there? A name is the first word of destiny spoken over a life.

The same is true of another name no modern parent would choose. Walk through any maternity ward in America and listen. You will never hear a mother whisper, "Hello, little Judas." It is not going to happen, because that name has become synonymous with betrayal.

It was not always so. In Part 1 of our study of Judas Iscariot, we ask a simple question: what is in a name? What we find may change how you carry your own.

The Weight of a Name

To the Hebrew mind, a name was never just a label to tell one person from another. A person's name was viewed as equivalent to the person himself. To know the name was to know the nature.

Take the first man. "Adam" is so common today that we rarely ask what it means. It comes from the Hebrew adamah, "ground," because God formed him "from the dust of the ground" (Genesis 2:7). Look closer and a pattern appears: adam (man), adamah (soil), dam (blood), and adom (red).2 Every human being is dust brought to life, and Scripture says "the life of the flesh is in the blood" (Leviticus 17:11). Even the name tells us who we are.

God sometimes took the naming into His own hands. When Solomon was born, God sent word through the prophet Nathan that the boy should be called Jedidiah, "Beloved of the Lord," because the Lord loved him (2 Samuel 12:25). Before that child could speak, heaven had already spoken over him.

That is what a good name does. It says, before you have done anything, this is who you are. Hold that thought, because it is about to be tested.

A Name That Means Praise

Now enter Judas. In the small village of Kerioth, in southern Judea, a couple rejoiced at the birth of a son. They gave him a name that was prized among the Jewish people: Yehudah, or Judah. When Leah bore the patriarch Judah, she said, "This time I will praise the Lord" (Genesis 29:35).

Dictionaries define the name as "praise," but one Hebrew scholar notes that the English word is too flat. The root is yad, "hand," and the verb yadah means to throw or stretch out the hands.3 Picture someone standing at the rim of the Grand Canyon for the first time, arms flung wide, saying, "Wow, will you look at that!" That is the heart of the name.

It is also what every new parent does. They stand over a crib with their hands lifted and say, "Hallelujah! Look at what God has made." A child is a new creation, fashioned by the hand of God and entrusted to sinful people. Oh, the mercy and love and grace of God!

So on the day that boy was born, his name meant Look at what God has done! Now fast-forward a few decades. The man named for praise is remembered for a kiss in a garden and thirty pieces of silver.

Here is a sobering truth: a name can be given but not guaranteed. It must be lived into. Judas had the right name and the wrong heart.

The Outsider From Kerioth

What about the second name, Iscariot? Its origin is less certain, but the most widely held view is that it comes from the Hebrew for "man of Kerioth."4 It is like calling someone "Bob from Los Angeles" or "Jenny the Bostonian." Kerioth was a town in the south of Judah, which means Judas was probably the only Judean among twelve Galileans. He was an outsider from the start.

Yet notice that he was chosen. Jesus called him, seated him at the table, and trusted him with the money bag. That should encourage every one of us, because we were all outsiders once. Paul wrote that we "who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ" (Ephesians 2:13). Strangers to the promises, outcasts, and Christ drew us in.

But here is the warning: being invited in is not the same as staying in. Judas was brought to the inside, yet he never truly became an insider. His legacy is a piece of real estate called Akeldama, the "Field of Blood," bought with his thirty pieces of silver.5 The man named for praise left behind a burial ground.

Some people spend their lives near Jesus and never in Him. They sit close to the fire and never feel warm. May that never be said of us.

Moving Away From Judas

So where do we go from a name like that? We move away from Judas and toward the name Jesus gives us.

First, a word of hope. There was another Judas in Jesus' own household. Matthew 13:55 lists "Judas" among His brothers, and John tells us plainly that His brothers "did not believe in Him" (John 7:5). But after the resurrection, that brother was found praying with the believers (Acts 1:14), and later he opened a letter with the words "Jude, a servant of Jesus Christ" (Jude 1). English Bibles shorten his name to Jude to keep distance from the betrayer.6 Same name, different master. A name can be redeemed.

Second, notice that giving a new name is the prerogative of God. Abram became Abraham. Jacob became Israel. Simon, the shifting sand, became Peter, the rock. When Jesus renamed Simon, He did what only the One who sees the heart can do. "I have called you by name; you are Mine," God says in Isaiah 43:1, and "You shall be called by a new name, which the mouth of the Lord will name" (Isaiah 62:2).

Who knows you better than the God who made you? Not your parents, not your reputation, and not your worst day. When Jesus names you, He is not guessing. He is speaking truth over you that your past cannot cancel.

The Name You Now Carry

And what name has He given us? Christian. The disciples "were first called Christians in Antioch" (Acts 11:26). That church was a mixture of Jews and Gentiles with nothing in common but Christ: not race, not culture, not even language.7 The word is built from Christos, "anointed," plus a Latin-style ending meaning "belonging to." A "Caesarian" belonged to Caesar. A Christian belongs to Christ.8

Some think the name began as a taunt. If so, the believers wore it like a medal. Peter wrote, "If anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed" (1 Peter 4:16). Before that, they were simply called people of the Way, because they walked the way of Jesus, who said, "I am the Way."

Here is a detail that stopped me cold. The Lord told Ananias that Paul was His chosen vessel "to bear My name" (Acts 9:15). The Greek verb for bear is bastazō, which means to carry. It is the same verb John uses when he says Judas carried the money bag and helped himself to what was in it (John 12:6).9 Two men, one verb. One carried a bag. The other carried a name.

A police officer wears a badge with honor. A soldier wears his insignia with pride. When you say, "I am a Christian," you are putting on the uniform of heaven. Do not wear it as a costume.

The Challenge

So let me leave you with this: value the name. Do not misuse it. The Third Commandment forbids taking the Lord's name in vain (Exodus 20:7), and that is about more than words. It is about carrying His name casually, wearing the label while living a lie. 

When someone says, "I am a Christian," what do people see? The Jesus version, or the Judas version? Does hell know your name? Even the evil spirit in Ephesus knew who belonged to Jesus: "Jesus I know, and Paul I know; but who are you?" (Acts 19:15).

 

Now for the encouragement, and it is a big one. Jesus promises the overcomer "a white stone, and on the stone a new name written which no one knows except him who receives it" (Revelation 2:17). There is a name waiting for you that no one else has ever heard. It is not a label from the world, a nickname from your past, or the name your worst failure tried to give you. It is a secret name, spoken by the One who knows you completely, and your name is already written in heaven (Luke 10:20).

 

Judas had a name that meant praise and left behind a field of blood. You carry a name that means belonging to Christ, and you have a promise of a name still to come. Live like it.

 

Prayer: Lord Jesus, thank You for knowing my name and for calling me Yours. Forgive me for the times I have worn Your name carelessly. Keep me from the foolishness of Judas, who stood near You and never surrendered. Help me carry Your name with honor, and let my life say, "Look at what God has done." In Your name I pray, Amen.

Endnotes

1 The account of the couple and the registrar comes from the author's study notes, which did not cite a source. The notes place the story in New Zealand and say the name is banned there. Verify the details before publishing.

2 Jewish Jewels, Alef-Bet series, "Dalet" (jewishjewels.org), on the word relationships among adam, adamah, dam, and adom.

3 Ancient Hebrew Research Center, "Judas" (ancient-hebrew.org/names/Judas.htm), on the roots yad (Strong's 3027) and yadah (Strong's 3034).

4 Most scholars derive "Iscariot" from the Hebrew for "man of Kerioth," a town in southern Judah (Joshua 15:25) generally identified with ruins at El Kureitein, south of Hebron. The origin is not certain.

5 Abarim Publications, "Akeldama." Matthew 27:3-10 and Acts 1:18-19 differ in detail about how the field was acquired and how Judas died, and the two accounts should not simply be merged.

6 "Jude" is the same Greek name as "Judas" (Ioudas). English translators generally use "Jude" to avoid association with Iscariot. The author of the letter is identified with the half-brother of Jesus named in Matthew 13:55 and Mark 6:3.

7 Life Application Study Bible, p. 1974, on the church at Antioch.

8 E. J. Bickerman, "The Name of Christians," Harvard Theological Review 42.2 (1949): 109-124; reprinted in Studies in Jewish and Christian History, Part Three (Leiden: Brill, 1986), p. 147.

9 Strong's Greek 941, bastazō, used in John 12:6 and Acts 9:15.