WWUTT 2118 Judas Kills Himself (Matthew 27:1-10)

Peter betrayed Jesus by denying him, abandoning him, and then denying that he even knew Jesus. Judas went even further, turning Jesus over to the hands of his enemies. While Peter repented, Judas did not, when we understand the text.

This is when we understand the text, studying God's word to reach all the riches of full assurance in Christ. Find all our videos online at www .wtt .com, as well as links to follow us on Facebook and Twitter.

Here's your teacher, Pastor Gabe Hughes.

Matthew 27 and the Betrayal of Judas

Thank you, Becky, and greetings everyone. In our study of the Gospel of Matthew, we have been in those last hours of Jesus' life before going to the cross. And today we come into chapter 27. I'm going to begin by reading verses 1 through 10 out of the Legacy Standard Bible.

Hear the word of the Lord. Now when morning came, all the chief priests and the elders of the people took counsel together against Jesus to put him to death, and they bound him and led him away and delivered him to Pilate the governor.

Then when Judas, who had betrayed him, saw that he had been condemned, he felt remorse and returned the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders, saying, I have sinned by betraying innocent blood.

But they said, What is that to us? See to that yourself. And he threw the pieces of silver into the sanctuary and departed, and he went away and hanged himself. And the chief priests took the pieces of silver and said, It is not lawful to put them into the temple treasury, since it is the price of blood.

And taking counsel together, they bought with the money the potter's field as a burial place for strangers. For this reason, that field has been called the field of blood to this day. Then that which was spoken through Jeremiah the prophet was fulfilled, saying,.

And they took the thirty pieces of silver, the price of the one whose price had been set by the sons of Israel, and they gave them for the potter's field, as the Lord directed me. So we see yet another prophecy that is spoken about as being fulfilled through what Judas had done in betraying Christ.

Now, as we've been going through this portion of the narrative, we've been seeing these various ways in which people turned on Jesus. You have the chief priests and those who were with them that put Jesus through this kangaroo trial.

You then have Peter's denials, even Peter, who had said that he would die with Jesus. He would never fall away. And yet three times he denied that he even knew Jesus in fulfillment of exactly what Jesus said Peter was going to do.

And now we come to Judas. Now it is the final hour of Judas's life when he recognizes his own betrayal and being filled with grief rather than leading to repentance. It leads to his very death as he commits suicide.

And then we see with the way that he discards the silver he had been paid. That was in direct fulfillment of exactly what had been said through the prophet Zechariah. Well hang on, I thought that Matthew said here it was in fulfillment of the prophet Jeremiah.

Yeah, we'll talk about that when we get to that passage, but first let's begin here in verse one. Now, when morning came, all the chief priests and the elders of the people took counsel together against Jesus to put him to death.

Hang on now, we already read that. So why is Matthew saying again that the chief priests and the elders are conspiring together to put Jesus to death? Well it's because what we read previously, this court that had happened, this trial in which Jesus was taken before Caiaphas, the chief priests, this likely happened right at daybreak.

So right at the very start of the day, just as darkness is waning and the sun is coming.

Up.

We gather that from the other gospel accounts, that it was at the very start of the day. And so Matthew had included that. Remember what I mentioned yesterday is that we're going backwards from the order of the people that Jesus addressed when he was being arrested.

First he addressed Judas, then he addressed Peter, then he addressed the chief priests men, and that's the order that we're going through. So then we have Jesus before the chief priests and the trial that takes place.

Then we have Peter who's in the courtyard and then goes to the gate and between those two places denies that he knows Jesus three times. And now we come to Judas. So this is simply the structure in which Matthew is laying these things out.

Some of these events were probably going on at exactly the same time. So you had the trial that was going on and Peter trying to, you know, be fairly close to the trial because he wants to see what's going on, but keeping his distance also because he doesn't want to be noticed.

So his denial of Jesus was, was happening at the same time that this trial was going on with Judas. This may have been taking place at a, at a later time. It may have been after Jesus was sentenced to be crucified by pilot.

None of the other three gospels recall this conversation between Judas and the priests going back and trying to return the 30 pieces of silver. Matthew is the only one who writes about that in the other three gospels.

We lose Judas after the betrayal, after he kisses Jesus and Jesus is turned over to those soldiers that had been sent out by the chief priest. Then then Judas doesn't come back into the story again. Matthew is the only one that comes back to this so that Judas recognizes what he did and that he betrayed an innocent man and he tries to return the silver and the chief priest won't take it back.

Judas filled with guilt goes out and hangs himself. Only Matthew recalls Judas's suicide. Acts one in Acts chapter one, we also have a mention there of Judas's death, which I'll get to here in just a moment.

But otherwise, as far as the gospel accounts are concerned, this is the only gospel in which we find that. So it could have been sometime later since the gospels don't lay out for us plainly. Here's exactly what hours in which these events take place.

We know at what hour Jesus was crucified and when he died, but we don't know exactly the hours of most of these other events. So here, this could have taken place after it would have been, it would have been difficult for Judas to request this audience while everything else was going on.

The priests were involved in sentencing Jesus, in taking him before Pilate. So it would have been after that sentencing, perhaps that Judas then goes and tries to return the silver. But nonetheless, what we're reading about here, he is filled with remorse.

And Matthew, as we are coming into this scene, is sure to remind us or recap very briefly that the priest had been involved with binding Jesus and delivering him over to Pilate. So that's the way we start.

When morning came, all the chief priests and the elders of the people took counsel together against Jesus and put him so that they may put him to death. That summarizes what we had read in chapter 26, verses 57 to 68.

So they bound him, they led him away and delivered him over to Pilate, the governor. Then when Judas, who had betrayed him, saw that he had been condemned, he felt remorse and returned the 30 pieces of silver to the chief priests and the elders.

Now what I had mentioned yesterday with regard to Peter, at one point, Peter was very brave. Just a matter of like an hour or so before he denies Jesus three times. He had been quite courageous. He drew a sword when this mob had come to arrest Jesus and Peter was ready to fight.

He even cuts off the ear of the servant of the high priest before Jesus tells him to put his sword away. Peter was dangerously close to killing somebody. And if he had done that, then Peter would have been put to death.

Because just as Jesus said, he who lives by the sword dies by the sword. If you're going to try to fight like this against governing officials, well, they have been given the authority to put you to death if you kill somebody.

So don't think that you are doing me or yourself any favors with Peter's reaction to the mob coming to arrest Jesus. So Peter, at one point, was very brave, but he thought he was fighting for the winning side.

Jesus is the promised king. He's the one that's going to ascend to the throne. And I want to be part of this victory. He thinks that Jesus is the fulfillment of all the victory that comes with the one who will sit enthroned on the throne of David.

So Peter is acting out of confidence, but believing the wrong trajectory of the way these things were going to go. The disciples just simply did not comprehend. They did not understand what Jesus was saying to them when he had foretold to them that he was going to be arrested and put to death, but then he was going to come back again.

He told them that multiple times before we even get to this particular day. But their hearts were hard and they just simply did not hear it. It's not until after Jesus rises from the dead that he opens their hearts to understand all that had been foretold by the prophets.

And yet we still have an account at the end of this gospel, at the end of Matthew in chapter 28, that when Jesus, having risen from the dead, is speaking with them on a mountain in Galilee, it still says there that some of them doubted.

They see him risen with their own eyes, but they still could not comprehend all of the things that had taken place with regards to his life and his death and his resurrection. Still can't even believe their own eyes.

And so Peter at one point acted very confidently, but he was acting under a wrong assumption of what he thought was going to take place. And I believe the same case was with Judas. I talked about this before in a previous lesson, but did Judas really know that he was betraying.

Jesus?

Did he know that's what was happening as he was conspiring to turn him over to the priests? Now we know that Judas had grown very frustrated with Jesus. We even read about that at his anointing before the triumphal entry and then being arrested and so on and so forth.

Judas was upset that this woman had wasted this fine perfume in anointing Jesus. And so at that point, through his frustration, he goes and conspires with the chief priest to turn Jesus over. Judas is tired of piddling around with all this stuff.

He also wants Jesus to assume the throne and Judas believes that he is on the winning side. So it could have been that Judas trying to speed these things up, make Jesus just bust out of this charade and go ahead and assume the throne of David like we know he deserves to be there so he can finally free us from the tyranny of Rome.

So Israel can be a great empire again to speed up this process. Here comes Judas thinking, well, I'll turn him over to his enemies because then he's got no choice but to break out and show his power, which I know he has.

And so Judas betrays Jesus thinking he was doing the right thing. Perhaps he really thought he was doing something strategic, strategically good. But then when it comes about that Jesus is arrested, he's tried, he's beaten, and he's being taken away to be put to death, Judas realizes, I betrayed an innocent man.

This man is going to be put to death for something that he's not guilty of. And it's because of me, I did this. And Judas perhaps still realizing that he is the son of God. Perhaps it was still in Judas's mind and heart that he's the son of God.

And here I have betrayed the sinless lamb of God. I've betrayed him. To what extent Judas understood this, we do not know. But we are told by what is written down here in Matthew 27, that Judas was deeply filled with remorse.

Unfortunately, it was not a remorse that led to repentance. As the Apostle Paul wrote to the Corinthians, 2 Corinthians 7, 10, Godly sorrow produces repentance without regret, leading to salvation. But the sorrow of the world brings about death.

And this is the contrast that we have here between Peter and Judas. Peter denied Christ three times. And as I said yesterday, we read previously in Matthew where Jesus said, if you deny me before men, I will deny you before my Father who is in heaven.

So how is Peter not condemned? Because as it says at the end of that chapter, in verse 75, Peter went out and he wept bitterly. He knew his own sin and he was deeply grieved over it. Jesus even said to Peter, I will pray for you and that you may strengthen your brothers, that your senses will come back to you even after you have denied me and that you might strengthen your brothers, talking about the other disciples.

And as I mentioned at the end of John, we read about Jesus reinstating Peter, asking him three times, Peter, do you love me? Just as Peter denied him three times. So Jesus asks him three times, do you love me?

And then tells him to go and feed his sheep. So Peter's weeping was a genuine grief that led to repentance. Judas, on the other hand, was filled with a worldly sorrow that led to death, quite literally, because Judas even goes out and hangs himself, finding no other way out of the situation that he was in and recognizing what he had truly done.

He takes his own life instead of repenting, takes his life, which really demonstrates the matter of his heart. There are people that will say, you know, Judas could have repented and he could have been forgiven.

Well, no, he could not have, because we know that he was prophesied from the beginning to do exactly this. And in fact, it's prophesied in Psalm 109, let his days be few and let another take his office.

In Acts chapter one, it says that that verse, Psalm 109, eight was about Judas. And that his days would be few because of the wickedness that he had done. And someone else would take his office because another apostle was appointed to assume the office that Judas vacated by his betrayal and by his death.

So no, Judas could not have repented. The sin that he had done was so grievous. And as I said previously, when we were talking about the unforgivable sin, that could have been something that was referring to Judas, where Jesus said, all the blasphemies of men will be forgiven except blasphemy of the Holy Spirit.

Well, Judas had seen and knew if there was anybody who would know as closely as anyone, it was Judas who would recognize that Jesus is the son of God. All of the disciples would have recognized this. After all, Jesus put the question to them.

Who do you say that I am? And Peter answering, you are the Christ, the son of the living God. And so Judas would have known this. And despite knowing this, betrayed him anyway and turned him over to the hands of his enemies.

No matter how good and pure his motivations may have been, they were satanic. No matter how pure we may have perceived them to be. Judas thought he was doing the right thing. That doesn't matter. Motivation does not determine the wickedness of the sin.

And what Judas did was indeed the most grievous sin that had ever been committed by a man. So that Judas was filled with guilt and his solution to this was to hang himself. He threw the pieces of silver into the sanctuary and departed and he went away and committed suicide.

And the chief priest took the pieces of silver and said, it is not lawful to put them into the temple treasury since it is the price of blood. We read in Exodus 23 8, you shall not take a bribe for a bribe, blinds the clear sighted and subverts the cause of the just.

And so because what is said in the law about not taking a bribe, which Judas had received for a man's life, therefore the priests knew that they could not take the money back. It would have broken the law of God.

They could not put that into the treasury since it was blood money. And so instead what they did is they bought the potter's field as a burial place for strangers. Basically they bought a graveyard. And this was even the field where Judas's body would fall into after after Judas had hung himself.

Basically the understanding of the description that we get in Acts one is that he hung himself over a cliff. The branch broke or the rope broke, the body fell and it burst open into the field. And so this became known as the field of blood.

It became a burial place, not only for Judas's body, but for other strangers, it became a graveyard. Then that which was spoken through Jeremiah, the prophet was fulfilled saying, and they took the 30 pieces of silver, the price of the one whose price had been set by the sons of Israel.

And they gave them for the potter's field as the Lord directed me in direct fulfillment of what had been spoken about in the prophets. However, Matthew says here that it was prophesied by Jeremiah, but we know this passage that's being referenced is not Jeremiah.

It's Zechariah, Zechariah chapter 11. It is so detailed and so specific, this particular prophecy and how it was fulfilled. And I don't have time, you know, I'm running short of time to explain all the different parts of this prophecy in Zechariah 11, but let me just read to you plainly what we have here beginning in verse 12.

I said to them, if it is good in your sight, give me my wages, but if not, then nevermind. So they weighed out 30 shekels of silver as my wages. Then Yahweh said to me, throw it to the potter, that valuable price at which I was valued by them.

So I took the 30 shekels of silver and I threw them to the potter in the house of Yahweh. Then I cut in pieces my second staff union. This was the staff favor and here's the staff union. Anyway, like I said, I don't have time to rightly divide all the rest of what is going on here.

But just that specific part, Zechariah 11, 12 and 13, we have 30 shekels, shekels of silver that is weighed out and it is thrown into the house of Yahweh to the potter. And so here Matthew points out the potter's field was bought with these 30 pieces of silver after they were thrown in the house of Yahweh.

So specifically stated and so specifically fulfilled according to the scriptures. But the question remains, why does Matthew attribute that to Jeremiah and not to Zechariah? Is this an error? Does the Bible err here because Matthew said it was Jeremiah when it should have been Zechariah?

So now are the scriptures not inerrant because we have this error? Well, there is a simple explanation for this. There's two potential explanations, but I think the first one is the most likely. Whenever the Hebrews would refer to collections of scrolls, they would refer to those collections by the first name that was on the scrolls.

And the collection of the prophets, according to the Hebrews, was always called Jeremiah. And I believe that that is, that is the understanding of this particular passage. Why was a prophecy from Zechariah referred to by Matthew as Jeremiah?

And once again, if you go back to when we did our introduction to the gospel of Matthew, I said that Matthew's primary audience is Hebrews. He's writing to everybody. But the Jews are clearly his audience, more the focus of his audience.

Whereas when Mark writes his gospel, he's writing to mostly Gentiles. So because Matthew's audience is primarily going to be a Jewish audience, showing how Jesus is the fulfillment of all of these Hebrew prophecies, then it makes sense for him to refer to the collection of the prophets as Jeremiah.

Another possibility. I don't think this one is as likely, but it's indeed a plausible theory. So another possibility here is that the abbreviations for Zechariah and for Jeremiah, the difference between the spellings of the abbreviations of those two books is by the slightest stroke of a pen.

So it's possible that in the copying of these manuscripts from the original that Matthew wrote to what we have today, there was just a slight pen stroke that was off. And therefore the name Zechariah was translated rather than Jeremiah.

Like I said, the two names are so close in Greek, because remember Matthew was written in Greek. It's being translated into English. The two names are so close in Greek that again, all it takes is the stroke of a pen, and then you've spelled another name.

The abbreviation for Jeremiah is spelled Iota, Rho, Iota, Omicron, Upsilon. And the abbreviation for Zechariah is spelled Zeta, Rho, Iota, Omicron, Upsilon. So it's just like a slight variation in that first letter.

And then suddenly you could have a different name. So that's another possibility. I don't think that's the response though. I mean, it's certainly a plausible explanation, but I think it's more likely that Matthew is simply referring to the collection of the prophetic books by the first name that would have been at the start of those prophetic books, and that would have been Jeremiah.

Now when we look at the prophets the way that we have the Old Testament collected, Jeremiah is not the first prophet, it's Isaiah. But nonetheless, the way that the Hebrews would have collected it, Jeremiah would have been the name at the front.

So that's why Matthew attributes this prophecy to Jeremiah. He's simply saying that it was said in the prophets. He's not trying to address which specific prophet it was that said it. So he's using the name Jeremiah as code for, as is said in the prophets.

And we've seen Matthew do that throughout the scripture. Sometimes he'll attribute it to exactly the prophet Isaiah or otherwise. But he's simply saying here, it was prophesied and it was fulfilled. And Matthew didn't make a mistake in attributing that prophecy to Jeremiah.

Nor is there any kind of contradiction here between what is said in Matthew's gospel about Judas's suicide and then the way he died according to Acts chapter one. There's no contradiction there either.

Acts just includes details that Matthew didn't include, but the two accounts line up with one another perfectly. So Judas betrayed the Christ, was filled with great guilt and took his own life, believing that that was the solution.

Peter, on the other hand, though he denied Christ, was filled with grief and yet repented. He went out and cried. He wept bitterly, recognizing his sin and that he betrayed Christ, though he said he would never deny, I will never deny you, I will never fall away.

And yet that's exactly what he did. Now, Peter didn't go as far as Judas by turning Jesus over to his enemies. Judas definitely had the greater sin, but both of these men betrayed him in a certain sense.

Peter betrayed him by denying him, by abandoning him and then denying Jesus. But because the condition of his heart was genuinely remorseful and repentant and desiring to be restored. So Jesus had mercy on him and he forgave Peter and reinstated him to the ministry that he called him to from the beginning.

And so, as I said yesterday, if there are occasions where our flesh gets weak, the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. Let us come in repentance before our savior who has mercy and grace to give.

Prayer of Repentance and Closing Benediction

Heavenly father, we thank you for the kindness that you show to us every day. We need your mercies every day. And so, as is said in Lamentations 3, that hopeful passage for us, his mercies are new every morning, great is your faithfulness.

Though we have fallen into the temptations of our flesh over and over again, you have not let us go. And may we not lose our conviction. When we have sinned, we're convicted of heart. We come to Christ asking to be forgiven and renewed.

And we are thankful that you have not let go of us, but you continue to forgive and sanctify and grow us as a loving father does with his children. Guide us in your righteousness today and help us to do those things that are pleasing to our father in heaven.

It's in Jesus name we pray, amen.

You've been listening to When We Understand the Text with Pastor Gabe Hubes. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, Gabe will be going through a New Testament study. Then on Thursday, we look at an Old Testament book.

On Friday, we take questions from the listeners and viewers. Tomorrow, we'll pick up on an Old Testament study, When We Understand the Text.