Matthew 27

¹ When morning came, all the chief priests and the elders of the people took counsel against Jesus to put him to death. ² And they bound him and led him away and delivered him over to Pilate the governor. ³ Then when Judas, his betrayer, saw that Jesus was condemned, he changed his mind and brought back the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and the elders, ⁴ saying, “I have sinned by betraying innocent blood.” They said, “What is that to us? See to it yourself.” ⁵ And throwing down the pieces of silver into the temple, he departed, and he went and hanged himself. ⁶ But the chief priests, taking the pieces of silver, said, “It is not lawful to put them into the treasury, since it is blood money.” ⁷ So they took counsel and bought with them the potter’s field as a burial place for strangers. ⁸ Therefore that field has been called the Field of Blood to this day. ⁹ Then was fulfilled what had been spoken by the prophet Jeremiah, saying, “And they took the thirty pieces of silver, the price of him on whom a price had been set by some of the sons of Israel, ¹⁰ and they gave them for the potter’s field, as the Lord directed me.”

In the National Museum of Ireland there is a cross that is most interesting. On this cross we see a carving of Christ crucified along with some other carved symbols. But below the feet of Jesus there is a most fascinating and strange sight: There is a drawing of a rooster above a pot! What on earth does that mean?

In fact, the strange image of the rooster above the pot is alluding to a legend about Judas. Here is one description of it:

The story goes that Judas got home after betraying Jesus and asked his wife for a rope so that he may hang himself, as he knew that Jesus was to return from the dead on the third day.

His wife, dismissing this, drew his attention to the cock that she was cooking in a pot. She told Judas that Jesus had as much chance of returning from the dead as the cock had of coming back to life from the pot that she was cooking him in.

No sooner had she spoken the words than the cock flew out of the pot and crowed, sending Judas into despair.[1]

In these legends, the cock represents either Jesus or the resurrection of Jesus. In one rendering of it, this is the cock that crowed Peter’s denials, and he will also fly over Judas Iscariot’s body as it hangs from the rope!

All of these legends seem to be trying to say the same thing, albeit in a fanciful way: Judas could not escape his dastardly crime of betrayal just as he could not escape the resurrection of the Jesus He betrayed!

A Confession to the Wrong Audience

We begin with Judas’ confession. Observe:

¹ When morning came, all the chief priests and the elders of the people took counsel against Jesus to put him to death. ² And they bound him and led him away and delivered him over to Pilate the governor. ³ Then when Judas, his betrayer, saw that Jesus was condemned, he changed his mind and brought back the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and the elders, ⁴ saying, “I have sinned by betraying innocent blood.” They said, “What is that to us? See to it yourself.”

This is a confession of sorts. “I have sinned by betraying innocent blood.” Craig Keener writes of this expression:

Having innocent blood on one’s hands meant that one was guilty of murder; in the Old Testament, this guilt could be expiated only by the blood of the murderer or, if the murderer was unknown, through a sacrifice (Gen 4:10; 9:6; Num 35:33; Deut 21:1-9). God could, however, grant mercy to the repentant (Gen 4:15; 2 Sam 12:13-14).[2]

But let us note something very obvious: Judas confesses to the priests. There is no record of him confessing to God. And as if they too saw the absurdity of it, the priests reply: “What is that to us? See to it yourself.”

Indeed, what is that to the priests? No man can absolve you of your sins. Only God can. Judas should have confessed to God! After all, his offense was against God!

Consider Daniel’s prayer of confession in Daniel 9.

³ Then I turned my face to the Lord God, seeking him by prayer and pleas for mercy with fasting and sackcloth and ashes. ⁴ I prayed to the Lord my God and made confession, saying, “O Lord, the great and awesome God, who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, ⁵ we have sinned and done wrong and acted wickedly and rebelled, turning aside from your commandments and rules.

In the New Testament, we find again the principle of the need for us to confess our sin to God! For instance, in 1 John 1:

⁸ If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. ⁹ If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

How wonderful would have been to find Judas saying what David said in Psalm 51:

¹ Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions. ² Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin! ³ For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. ⁴ Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you may be justified in your words and blameless in your judgment.

But there is no evidence in the New Testament that Judas confessed to the Lord. All we have is his confession to the priests, such as it is.

It must be said that the mere lack of a recorded prayer of confession to God does not in and of itself mean that Judas lacked true repentance. (There is likely other evidence for that.) However, the fervency of his actions in going back to the priests and attempting to return the money could be seen as evidence of a belief on his part that making restitution with the earthly parties was the primary task at hand. St. Jerome seemed to be getting at this idea when he wrote in the 5^thcentury:

It profits nothing to do an act of penance which is incapable of correcting the sin. If a man sins against his brother in such a way that the wrong he committed can be amended, it is possible for him to be forgiven. If the consequences of his sin remain in force, however, in vain does he attempt to do penance.[3]

At the least, the example of Judas is a warning to us all that the mere enactment of the recorded steps he took is insufficient as far as genuine repentance is concerned.

A Regret Lacking Repentance

What is more, there is reason to see Judas’ actions as lacking true repentance. What we do see is evidence of internal agitation manifesting itself in dramatic outward displays of renunciation.

³ Then when Judas, his betrayer, saw that Jesus was condemned, he changed his mind and brought back the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and the elders

⁵ And throwing down the pieces of silver into the temple, he departed, and he went and hanged himself.

By “internal agitation” I mean that Judas “changed his mind.”

By “dramatic outward displays of renunciation” I mean Judas (a) going to the priests and elders, (b) proclaiming his guilt, (c) throwing the silver down in the temple, and (d) hanging himself.

Much of the effort at understanding Judas’ mental and spiritual state has to do with what is meant in verse 3. Does Judas repent? Or does Judas merely regret? Or, as the English Standard Version renders it, does Judas “change his mind” in some way that is distinct from the act of repentance?

R.T. France makes a very interesting observation about the language of verse 3.

Repented is not the word usually so translated in the New Testament (which usually implies a resulting forgiveness), but means “regretted”, “changed his mind”; its only other New Testament uses are in 21:29, 32; 2 Cor. 7:8; Heb. 7:21. It is thus appropriate to convey the idea of remorse without suggesting Judas’ salvation.[4]

Iain Duguid concurs with France, writing:

Once Judas sees the consequences of his betrayal, he “change[s] his mind” (v. 3). This is not repentance; the verb is metamelomai, which typically means to change one’s feelings or to feel remorse or regret. (It occasionally means “repent,” but the normal term for repentance is metanoeō.) He knows he has sinned, but he confesses it to men, not God. He tells the priests, “I have sinned by betraying innocent blood.” But the priests care nothing for Judas’s conscience.[5]

There is a wide space between emotional and intellectual regret and heartfelt repentance! Regret, unaccompanied by repentance, can lead to deep despair. And this helps explains Judas taking his own life.

⁵ And throwing down the pieces of silver into the temple, he departed, and he went and hanged himself.

The description of Matthew is interesting when placed alongside the reference to this infamous scene in Acts 1.

¹⁵ In those days Peter stood up among the brothers (the company of persons was in all about 120) and said, ¹⁶ “Brothers, the Scripture had to be fulfilled, which the Holy Spirit spoke beforehand by the mouth of David concerning Judas, who became a guide to those who arrested Jesus. ¹⁷ For he was numbered among us and was allotted his share in this ministry.” ¹⁸ (Now this man acquired a field with the reward of his wickedness, and falling headlong he burst open in the middle and all his bowels gushed out. ¹⁹ And it became known to all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, so that the field was called in their own language Akeldama, that is, Field of Blood.) ²⁰ “For it is written in the Book of Psalms, “‘May his camp become desolate, and let there be no one to dwell in it’; and “‘Let another take his office.’

Many creative attempts have been made to harmonize these pictures, but the question of whether or not they needharmonization is a good question to ask! Keener offers wisdom here when he writes:

Some ancient spoofs on suicide attempts report ropes breaking while a person was attempting to hang himself or herself, but these accounts were normally fictitious and at best would have been uncommon in real life! More plausibly, Luke might depict the fate of the corpse if it was cut down.[6]

Regardless of how we understand this, what is most interesting is Luke’s language in Acts 1 is the graphic imagery alongside the complete absence of any idea of Judas’ salvation. In Acts 1, the whole scene, as it pertains to Judas, is bathed is misery and hopelessness, as it appears to be in Matthew 27.

Keener, commenting on 1st–century notion of suicide, writes:

Judas’s suicide is an act of despair (cf. Saul—1 Sam 31:4; the traitor Ahithophel—2 Sam 17:23). Roman tradition considered suicide a nobler way to die than letting others kill one. To some Jewish people it was likewise noble if it was performed to avoid falling into the hands of torturers or to avoid being defiled (e.g., in Josephus and in 4 Maccabees, possibly under Greek influence). But Judaism, especially strict Palestinian Judaism, normally regarded it as evil. (Ancient readers would thus view Judas’s act in a more negative light than they would view that of the jailer in Acts 16:27.) Hanging was often viewed as a dishonorable form of suicide.[7]

It is likely the case that the majority view on Judas’ demise is encapsulated well in St. Jerome’s 5^th–century words, where he wrote:

Not only was Judas unable to repair the damage of his sinful betrayal, but he even continued to compound the evil of that initial crime by committing suicide.[8]

In all, while we perhaps should be cautious against making overly-bold pronouncements about Judas’ eternal destiny (i.e., We simply are not given enough evidence of whether or not perhaps in his last moment he cried out to Jesus for salvation!), the overall picture is one devoid of hope, one devoid of encouragement, and one devoid, seemingly, of genuine repentance.

Regret is a part of repentance, but it is not repentance.

Anguish is a part of repentance, but it is not repentance.

Repentance is the heart’s cry to God for forgiveness alongside an accompanying determination that, through the Spirit’s power, one will not commit the same crime again!

An “Obedience” Compounding Guilt

And then we have the stupefying actions of the priests before whom Judas hurled his blood money.

⁶ But the chief priests, taking the pieces of silver, said, “It is not lawful to put them into the treasury, since it is blood money.” ⁷ So they took counsel and bought with them the potter’s field as a burial place for strangers. ⁸ Therefore that field has been called the Field of Blood to this day. ⁹ Then was fulfilled what had been spoken by the prophet Jeremiah, saying, “And they took the thirty pieces of silver, the price of him on whom a price had been set by some of the sons of Israel, ¹⁰ and they gave them for the potter’s field, as the Lord directed me.”

The mind boggles at the depths of the priests’ blindness and despair! Notice their heightened scruples concerning what is “lawful” and their misguided quest for goodness!

The priests:

• Dismiss the idea of putting the silver in the treasure as unlawful.
• See the money as tainted, as “blood money.”
• Conversed about the appropriate course of action.
• Bought a field for the burial of strangers…undoubtedly commending themselves for their act of benevolence!

When one holds these efforts at compliance up alongside the priests’ participation in the greatest crime every committed in human history, one finds oneself at a loss for words!

If ever men swallowed a camel while straining at gnats, this was it: the camel being their complicity in the unlawful killing of Jesus and the gnats being their violation of treasury protocols.

My goodness! Really, priests? Really? Your great concern is over how tainted and unholy the silver coins are? What of your own souls? What of your own hearts?

Your great concern is over what the presence of those coins might do to the integrity of the treasury? What of the effect of your demonic crimes on the integrity of your very beings?!

Your great concern is what should be done with the money? But what should be done with you, priests, who have delivered Jesus over to be executed?

You hold a meeting over how not to violate the law and how to do what is right and good with the money? But when you put your heads together about the incarnate God who made heaven and earth all you can conclude is murder and death!

For shame!

Here is the very nature of legalism: It puts all its energy in all the wrong places! It frets over minutia while turning a blind eye to atomic explosions of wickedness!

Truly the priests’ guilt was compounded by their “obedience,” so-called, concerning the money.

Talk about “rearranging the furniture on the Titanic”! This is it if ever the world has seen it! For shame! For shame!

What a sad and tragic text our text is! And yet…and yet…through the shame of this episode Jesus will walk in obedience to the Father, laying down His life and having the Father raise it back up again! The crimes of Judas are not as strong as the grace of Jesus, and for this we may thank the Lord! For in Judas, if we dare to look honestly, we find ourselves. But, seemingly unlike Judas, we can sincerely repent, sincerely return to Jesus, and sincerely give Him our hearts! Unlike Judas, we do not have to end our lives in despair. Unlike Judas, we can find joy again on this side of our shameful rebellion…the joy that Jesus gives, the joy that is found in the Son of God saying, “Father, forgive them…”

Do not despair! Yes, we are guilty in our sins…but Jesus is forgiving and merciful to sinners!

Jesus will forgive you! Repent before Him and give Him your heart!

 

[1] https://www.catholicarena.com/latest/2024/3/30/the-cock-and-the-pot

[2] Keener, Craig S. The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament (IVP Bible Background Commentary Set) (p. 119). InterVarsity Press. Kindle Edition.

[3] https://catenabible.com/mt/27

[4] France, Richard. The Gospel According to Matthew. (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1985), p.385.

[5] Iain M. Duguid. “ESV Expository Commentary: Matthew–Luke.” Apple Books.

[6] Keener, Craig S. The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament (IVP Bible Background Commentary Set) (p. 321). InterVarsity Press. Kindle Edition.

[7] Keener, Craig S. The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament (IVP Bible Background Commentary Set) (p. 119). InterVarsity Press. Kindle Edition.

[8] https://catenabible.com/mt/27