Sanhedrin were no doubt thrilled to have added a conspirator from Jesus’ own inner circle. Judas was undoubtedly pleased to have profited so neatly from his treachery. From His opponents’ standpoint, things were falling together nicely. No one but Jesus Himself realized it at the time, but a higher plan was really at work. It was the eternal plan of a sovereign God—a plan that had been laid out from before the foundation of the world. And from the very inception of the plot, the fact of God’s sovereign