Peter's Denial

"Wilt thou lay down thy life for my sake? Verily,verily, I say unto thee, The cock shall not crow, till thou hast denied me thrice.

Let not your heart be troubled. In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you."

That was today's sermon text, from John 13-14. That must be the worst chapter break in the entire Bible. I'd never noticed the contrast, from "You're a boastful, lying coward who doesn't know his own heart," to "But keep trying. And I'll take care of you anyway."

Judas

It gives me hope for Judas, who wasn't really that much worse. Is there any Scripture relevant to the issue of whether Judas was damned? Actually, there is: “The Son of man indeed goeth, as it is written of him: but woe to that man by whom the Son of man shall be betrayed: it were better for him, if that man had not been born” (Mt 26:24). So Judas was damned. Aquinas put it well: "Moreover, the fact that he did not have grace when he died was not due to God’s unwillingness to give it but to his unwillingness to accept it—as both Anselm and Dionysius point out." On topic, see [ https://www.ccel.org/ccel/aquinas/catena1/catena1.ii.xxvi.html Catena Aurea,] Aquinas's compilation of patristic commentary on Matthew and "Damned Lies: On the Destiny of Judas Iscariot," which, however, is mostly off-track talk about his suicide.