Matt 27:1–10 — Thirty Shekels And A Guilty Conscience

This text today is perhaps a dark and depressing text for us. We would rather not dwell upon this story of Judas’s end. And how he regretted what he did in betraying Christ to the Jews. And how he ended up taking his own life in despair.

But this passage is clearly important according to Matthew’s understanding of the Passion narrative. It is clearly important for Matthew. One way you can tell that is the amount of space that is given to it, verses three through 10, and the extensive dialogue between Judas and the priests, and this whole discussion of what the priests did with the money after Judas threw it back at them in the temple, how they took the money and they bought with it the potter’s field as a burial for strangers, And Matthew even, as if this is not enough, that he is given us all this dialogue and all this extensive discussion of this event, if that was not enough, Matthew even adds to it one more thing, which is, he says that this was important because it was the fulfillment of Scripture.

And he quotes here from the book of Zechariah, Zechariah 11, verse 13, as well as some other passages in the prophecy of Jeremiah and That is why he says that this was in fulfillment of what was spoken by the prophet Jeremiah, to let us know that he is also bringing in some other passages from Jeremiah.

just as a little footnote, this is not to be unexpected. This is not a surprising thing to us. It seems strange to say Here is what the prophet Jeremiah said, and then to quote Zechariah, that seems strange to us, but it is actually something that does happen elsewhere in the New Testament.

If you read the opening paragraph of the Gospel of Mark, Mark chapter one, verses one through three, Mark quotes the prophet Isaiah, he says, as was spoken by the prophet Isaiah, but then he quotes from Malachi. But then after the Malachi quote, he quotes from Isaiah again. So it is clear that this is an intentional thing. And the Zechariah quote in our passage is the obvious one. The Jeremiah allusions are not as clear. So that is why Matthew says that he wants to flag that for us and say, I am really quoting also Jeremiah. Yes, I am quoting Zechariah, but I am also quoting Jeremiah.

And the reason for that is because of this key word in the Zechariah quote where it says that they took the 30 pieces of silver and they gave them for the potter’s field. The potter’s field, the reference to the potter and to a field, that is from the book of Jeremiah. Now the word potter does occur in the Zechariah quote, but it is like a key word. And the author of the gospel, Matthew, is saying that word potter that is there in Zechariah is a link back to all the references to the potter in Jeremiah. For example, in Jeremiah 18 and 19, where God tells Jeremiah to go to the potter’s house and to be taught a lesson about how God is the potter and Israel is the clay.

And just as Israel is about to be destroyed and judged, God is going to remake Israel into a new people under a new covenant. So that is a very detailed, there is a lot of exegetical questions about how to understand the fulfillment of this prophecy. And I am not going to get into them in much detail in this sermon. But I will get into that in the adult Sunday school class after the sermon if you want to know more about how to interpret this prophecy from Zechariah and Jeremiah. I mention this though here to say that clearly Matthew thinks this is important. Not only the extensive dialogue, not only the amount of verses that are spent on this topic, but also the fact that he sees it as the fulfillment of prophecy.

This is actually the 10th of the 10 fulfillment quotations in the Gospel of Matthew. Remember, throughout the Gospel of Matthew, Matthew will say, this happened in the life of Christ in order to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet, whether it is Isaiah or Jeremiah or Hosea. And this is the 10th one. This is the last one. This is the last fulfillment quotation in the Gospel of Matthew.

The Significance of Judas

So all these things then show us that this story has theological significance. Just to remember the context, we are in the Passion narrative. This passage here is picking up on something that was told to us back in Matthew 26. At the beginning of the Passion Narrative, Matthew 26 verse 1, when Jesus had finished all these sayings, he said to his disciples, you know that after two days the Passover is coming, and the Son of Man will be delivered up to be crucified.

Delivered up in what sense? Well, the word delivered is going to be used throughout the Passion Narrative to refer to a number of different delivering ups? There is the delivering up of Judas, betraying Jesus. The word to betray is the word to deliver up.

There is the delivering up of the Jews, where they deliver up Jesus to Pilate. That is in our text, Matthew 27, verse 2. They led him away and delivered him over to Pilate. And then there is the delivering up of Pilate. After he goes through that whole discussion back and forth, you want me to release Barabbas? They say no, crucify him. Then it says Jesus delivered up, or that Pilate delivered up Jesus to be crucified. So there is three delivering ups. Judas, the Jews, and Pilate. And all of those are under the umbrella ultimately of God himself. God is using these sinful actions of men to accomplish the ultimate delivering up, which is that God himself is delivering up his son as a substitute to atone for our sins.

That delivering up is referred to by the Apostle Paul in Romans 4.25. He was delivered up for our trespasses and he was raised for our justification.

Immediately after going back to Matthew 26 verses 1 and 2, immediately after Jesus makes this final passion prediction and says he is going to be delivered up to be crucified, we are told that the chief priests and the elders of the people gathered in the palace of the high priest, whose name was Caiaphas, and they plotted together in order to arrest Jesus by stealth. and kill him.

But they said, not during the feast. That is not during the Passover festival when there is lots of people in Jerusalem. Not during the feast, lest there be an uproar among the people. They do not want to cause a riot. Now, of course, we know that it is going to be during the feast. It is going to be during the Passover.

But they have this dilemma of how do we do this? How do we arrest Jesus and get him handed over to Pilate for capital punishment without causing a riot among the people? Because remember, the crowd from Galilee that came with Jesus for the feast of Passover is supporting Jesus. They have cried out that he is the son of David when they welcomed him at the triumphal entry into the city of Jerusalem back in Matthew 21, which was only a few days earlier. So the question is, how are they going to do this? How are they going to get Jesus? How are they going to arrest him in order to kill him?

And so we are told in Matthew 26 verses 14 through 16 that Judas gave them the solution to their problem. Then one of the 12 whose name was Judas Iscariot went to the chief priests and said, what will you give me if I deliver him over to you? There is that word deliver over again. And they paid him 30 pieces of silver. And from that moment, he sought an opportunity to betray him. And we know, of course, the solution was that he betrayed Jesus in the middle of the night, late Thursday night, maybe early Friday morning in the Garden of Gethsemane. And they were able to arrest Jesus secretly by stealth without causing a riot in public because Judas, had agreed to betray Jesus to them and they paid him 30 pieces of silver, 30 shekels of silver.

Our text today, then, picks up on that point. Notice that it begins, before we get to Judas, it begins in verses 1 and 2, Matthew 27, telling us that now it is happening. Remember, Jesus had said back in 26, verse 2, that the Passover is coming, the Son of Man will be delivered up to be crucified.

Now in Matthew 27 verses one and two, when morning came, all the chief priests and the elders of the people took counsel against Jesus to put him to death. After they had just tried him and secured from him this confession that he was the Messiah, the Son of God, and they said this is blasphemy, they now took counsel against Jesus to put him to death. And what did they do? Verse two, they bound him and led him away and delivered him over to Pilate, the governor.

That will then be picked up after this text about Judas’s end, it will be picked up in verse 11. Now Jesus stood before the governor, that is before Pilate. But right here in the middle of that, Matthew inserts this paragraph, this story to somewhat tie off the loose end.

What happened to Judas? What happened to those 30 pieces of silver? The answer is that when Judas saw the result of his work, saw the result of his deed, that Jesus was now being handed over to Pilate to be judged by him and ultimately crucified by him, when he saw that it was working, that he was going to be put to death, He changed his mind. Verse three. He changed his mind and brought back the 30 pieces of silver to the chief priests and the elders.

A Guilty Conscience

Judas has remorse. Judas has woken up to the depth of his sin. And he is feeling guilty. He is feeling a guilty conscience. And that is really the point that I want to draw out from this passage, is to talk about what was Judas’s fundamental error in dealing with his guilt.

The error was not that he felt no remorse. He did. It says, the text clearly says that he changed his mind. In fact, the word that is translated, he changed his mind, can also be translated as repented. Now, of course, he did not repent in the right way. He did not repent in a way that would lead to true forgiveness and reconciliation with God, but he did change his mind. He had remorse. He was feeling the guilt of his sin. Notice that the text says, verse four, that Judas said, I have sinned. I have sinned by betraying innocent blood. He acknowledges that he has sinned and he is even very specific about his sin.

He is alluding to a passage in the Old Testament in Deuteronomy 27. You know that whole passage about the blessings and the curses, where the people of Israel are taking upon themselves the curse of the law. One of the curses is at the very end of Deuteronomy 27 verse 25. It says, And the fact that Judas uses that phrase, I have sinned by betraying innocent blood, is intentional. And he is probably referring back to that verse in Deuteronomy 27.

Cursed be anyone who takes a bribe, who takes money to shed innocent blood. That is what he did. He was paid money in order to do this, in order to shed innocent blood. Judas is not just simply worried about the consequences of his sin. He is not just simply, well, I got caught, which actually he did not? But he is not in a situation of somebody who got caught is about to be punished and now is feeling remorse and regret for what he did. He is actually aware of his sin. He is actually feeling the guilt and the weight of it. And he is even specifying the specific sin that he committed, quoting from Deuteronomy 27. He was weighed down by the guilt of his sin.

It reminds me of Shakespeare’s play Macbeth? Macbeth is a Scottish general who is trying to seize the throne and he murders the king to seize the throne. But as a result of his wicked deed, he is haunted by guilt and even paranoia. The famous scene is where his wife, Lady Macbeth, We always get confused about that. We think Macbeth is her name, but actually her name is Lady Macbeth because she is the wife of the General Macbeth.

So Lady Macbeth, but she is also haunted by the guilt. And she is even engaging in sleepwalking and she is trying to wash away this guilt from her soul. She is even like trying to wipe the imaginary blood from off her hands. She is haunted by her guilt. Both her and her husband are. That is what is going on here in our text.

Judas is haunted by his guilt. And even the money, the 30 shekels of silver, it somewhat is being viewed as a, now that he is changed his mind and now that he realizes what he did was so horrible and so wicked and evil, that the money itself is somewhat, I do not want to have anything to do with it? It is like the money itself is tainted. The money itself is a thing of horror.

He needs to get rid of it. So he goes to the high priests, it says, He brought the money back to the chief priests and the elders. And it says in verse 5, he threw down the pieces of silver into the temple. And then he departed and went and hanged himself. He is trying to get rid of the money. He knows it is tainted. He knows it just reminds him of his guilt. It goes back again to Deuteronomy 27, 25. Cursed be anyone who takes a bribe, who takes money in order to shed innocent blood. And so that money itself has to be gotten rid of.

The Wrong Source of Cleansing

So what did Judas do wrong? What did he do wrong? So far it seems like it is a pretty good scenario. He is changed his mind. He has remorse. He knows he is guilty. He specifies his sin as being the sin against that commandment. He is definitely worried that this is a terrible thing that he is done. He needs to deal with his conscience. He needs to deal with his guilt. What was Judas’s mistake? What was his error? What was it about his quote-unquote repentance that makes it fall short so that it is not genuine repentance? The answer is that Judas went to the wrong source for cleansing from guilt.

He went to the chief priests and the elders and he went to them in the temple. This is an interesting point in the text because if you are following the movements of all the different players in the passion narrative, the last time we saw the chief priest and the elders was at Caiaphas’s house? In his palace, not at the temple. But something happened in between here where they have gone to the temple. And Judas himself goes to the temple and goes to these chief priests and elders, and he is seeking absolution for his sin.

He goes to them and says, I have sinned by betraying innocent blood. I am guilty. What are you going to do about it? Is there anything you can do to fix my guilty conscience? And what do the chief priests and the elders say standing there in the temple? What do they say? They say in verse four at the end, what is that to us? See to it yourself. The priests themselves recognize that they have no solution. That they themselves are spiritually bankrupt. Sorry, we cannot help you. We do not have any way of dealing with the guilt that you are feeling. You are on your own.

And is not this exactly what Jesus has told us in his conflict with the leadership of Israel in the previous chapters. He went into the temple after his triumphal entry and he threw out the money changers and in doing so he was implicitly critiquing the Jewish leaders especially the high priestly family that was in charge of the temple.

He was saying why are you guys letting this happen to God’s holy temple. This temple has become a den of thieves. It is supposed to be a house of prayer. It is supposed to be a place where God and his people can meet together and have fellowship with one another and be reconciled together through the sacrificial system. But you guys have turned this temple into an empty shell of itself.

It is left desolate. Jesus even says that later on in Matthew 23, that passage where it is his woes to the scribes and the Pharisees. Does not he say there? He says, see, your house is left to you desolate. Matthew 23, verse 38. Your house, that is this temple, is left to you desolate.

And do not we see that then in narrative form here in our text as Judas with this sin problem, this problem of guilt that is weighing him down like Macbeth and his wife, as they are weighed down by the terrible guilt of their sin and they are trying to get rid of the blood guilt that is upon them. Here goes Judas to the place that God had provided for atonement for sin. And he realizes that it is bankrupt, that the house is desolate, and that the priests themselves know that. They know that they cannot provide for the atonement of sin. Why did not Judas go back to Jesus? He could have done that. There was still an opportunity for him to repent and go back to Christ. But his betrayal of Jesus was so complete that he did not want to be reconciled to him.

Even when he saw, even when he came to the dreadful realization that there was no atonement in the temple, And so he gave up in despair, rather than going to Christ, who is about to offer himself as the final sacrifice for sin. And he hangs himself. Of course, hanging is, if one hangs oneself, is typically associated with despair, with giving up, with having no hope.

Judas and Ahithophel

The story of Judas here in our text reminds us of another figure in the Old Testament who betrayed the Lord’s anointed. You can read about it in the book of 2 Samuel, in 2 Samuel chapter 17. This is in the context of Absalom, David’s son, who has rebelled against David in a bid to seize the throne.

And David had a very trusted advisor named Ahithophel. And Ahithophel was widely respected as a very wise man. In fact, the text says that he was so wise that in those days the counsel of Ahithophel was as if one was consulting the Word of God. He was that wise and respected, and David trusted in him.

But Ahithophel joined Absalom’s rebellion, and he betrayed David, just like Judas is betraying the Lord’s anointed here in our text. And this defection of Ahithophel to Absalom was particularly shocking, given his close association with David as almost his right-hand man, his top advisor. And Ahithophel, when he went to Absalom, he advised him to do two things that are absolutely horrific. He advised Absalom to publicly sleep with his father’s concubines in order to make it clear that he has completely rejected David. to underscore his hatred of his father. And then secondly, Ahithophel counseled Absalom to strike while the iron is hot militarily and to go in right now and to attack David and his camp while he was on the run and vulnerable.

And if he had done that, fortunately God prevented that from happening, but if he had done that, David surely would have died and Absalom’s rebellion would have been successful. The story goes on to say that David sent another loyal friend named Hushai who infiltrated Absalom’s inner circle and Hushai successfully persuaded Absalom not to listen to Ahithophel’s counsel, at least not on the second point about the military strike. He did do the first thing. But Ahithophel’s advice was not followed by Absalom because of Hushai who successfully argued against it and convinced Absalom to delay the attack against David. And this gave David time to regroup and to escape.

And eventually Absalom himself died. Remember that is the one where his hair was caught in the tree and somebody came and stabbed him. So Absalom ended up losing his rebellion and he ended up being killed. When Ahithophel saw that his counsel was not followed, he recognized that he was on the losing side of this conflict between King David and Absalom.

And rather than seek to be reconciled to David, What did Ahithophel do? It says that he returned to his hometown, set his affairs in order, and hanged himself. 2 Samuel 17, verse 23. I believe, I am not 100% sure, but I believe these are the only two places in the Bible, Ahithophel and Judas, where it says that someone took their own life by hanging themselves. The parallels between Ahithophel and Judas are so stark and so strong.

Both were intimate friends with God’s anointed. Both joined the enemies of God’s anointed and took their side in the conflict. Both deeply betrayed the Lord’s anointed. And both came to regret their sin. But rather than seeking to be reconciled with the Lord’s anointed, They were so stubborn in their rejection of the Messiah or of King David that they continued in their bitterness and in despair. They took their own lives by hanging. Their suicide is evidence of their willful unbelief. Ultimately, is not that the ultimate point is that their suicide is evidence of their unbelief?

Judas did regret and have remorse and experience something akin to what we would call repentance, but he did not have faith. He did not believe that Jesus was the Messiah. He did not believe that Jesus is the source of atonement. He did not believe that Jesus is the true temple. And when he went to try to get atonement through the priests and through the temple, the earthly temple, and he saw that they could not provide it, rather than turning to the Lord as the only answer, he refused to believe in Christ and persisted in unbelief.

It is not always the case that the way a person dies is revealing about their fundamental faith and their fundamental life. You know, Christians do also experience tragic deaths in various ways. And it is even possible for a genuine Christian to, in a moment of despair, to commit suicide. I have heard of that happening and I do not necessarily think that means that they died outside of Christ. I think it is possible. that they were genuine believers, but in a moment of weakness, they did something wrong. And the Lord can forgive them even for that.

Nevertheless, in some cases, the manner of a person’s death is revealing. It is revealing about the nature of their relationship with God. And certainly in these two cases of Ahithophel and Judas, it shows their fundamental unbelief, their fundamental rejection of Christ.

Judas knew that Jesus was the true Messiah. He knew that not only was he the Messiah, but that he was going to give his life as a ransom. Because remember, Judas was there when Judas, sorry, when Jesus said that he was shedding his blood for the forgiveness of sins at the Last Supper. He knew that only the blood of Christ can purify our conscience from the stain of sin. And so his suicide was a deliberate act of unbelief in Christ and his blood.

And I believe that this is emblematic, is it not, of the entire nation of the Jewish people, especially their leaders. That they are rejecting Christ? They are plotting to put Christ to death. They are rejecting Christ. Even that episode that we looked at last week where Jesus is before the high priest, and the high priest says, I adjure you by the living God, tell us if you are the Christ, the Son of God. And Jesus said, you have said so. Yeah, you are right, that is exactly who I am. It is this unbelief in the face of direct evidence, directly confronting them that Jesus is the Messiah.

The True Temple and Better Blood

And so Judas’s rejection of Christ as sealed through his taking his own life in this despairing way is an emblem. It is a picture of the entire way in which the Jewish leadership has turned against Christ and rejected him. There is a crucial detail in our text that has massive theological significance.

I have already mentioned it, but just to bring it again to our attention, this whole incident. took place in the temple. It took place in the temple. Verse five, throwing down the pieces of silver into the temple, Judas departed. It took place in the temple. The temple was the place where blood was sprinkled to make atonement, but this earthly temple is desolate. It is empty. It is useless. There is no atonement there. Judas’s mistake was in seeking forgiveness in the wrong place.

He could have repented and been forgiven. In fact Jesus said that if you recall earlier in the Gospel of Matthew. Remember that way back in Matthew 12 where he is talking about the sin against the Holy Spirit. He says even speaking an evil word against the Son of Man can be forgiven but the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit cannot. Judas could have been forgiven for betraying Christ, but he did not go to Christ. He did end up committing the sin against the Holy Spirit by rejecting the Messiah. He went to the wrong priests, he went to the wrong temple, the wrong place of atonement, and he rejected Christ instead.

And of course, this all fits in with this broader theme that we have seen throughout the Gospel of Matthew, that Jesus is building the new temple. The old temple is on the way out. The old temple is desolate. It is completely bankrupt. It cannot provide cleansing for sin. But Christ, through his blood, is beginning to build a new temple, a new spiritual temple.

He is the cornerstone. He said that? When he quoted Psalm 118, verse 22. The stone that the builders rejected, referring to the Jewish leaders. The stone that the Jewish leaders have rejected. has now become the cornerstone of this new temple that God is building through Christ. That is why Jesus said, destroy this temple, and in three days, I will raise it up and build that new temple, which is himself and the church in union with him. What are some applications that we can draw from this text for ourselves today?

Worldly Grief and Godly Repentance

Well, I think the main thing is this, that we need to distinguish between worldly grief and godly grief. Paul talks about that in 2 Corinthians 7. He says godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death.

Judas did have some somewhat remorse, some somewhat grief, some somewhat quote-unquote repentance, if you will. but it was not godly grief. Worldly grief has no trust, but only despair. Godly grief is infused with trust in the mercy of God in Christ. Worldly grief leads to death, and we see that explicitly in our text. It led directly to Judas’s death, whereas godly grief leads to salvation without regret because it leads to assurance of salvation.

Paul is not saying that when you repent that is what causes your salvation. He is saying worldly grief leads to the assurance of salvation without regret. It leads to the assurance that we are forgiven through his blood. It does not lead to despair and death.

And this means then that it is very important to understand the relationship between faith and repentance. Faith, faith in Christ, that wholehearted trust in Christ, trusting in his blood, trusting in his atoning work for your justification and forgiveness and the cleansing of your conscience, must precede and undergird and make godly grief possible.

Going to Christ is the key to repentance. Judas’s repentance, quote unquote, was not true repentance because he did not go to Christ. He went away from Christ and took his own life. True repentance goes to Christ. True repentance goes to the altar inside the temple. Repentance is not just simply sorrow for sin. It is not just simply remorse.

Judas had that. It is rather falling down at the foot of the cross and receiving, once again, the assurance of Christ’s forgiveness through his cross. It reminds me of, in the wonderful book by John Bunyan, Pilgrim’s Progress, it reminds me of that scene where a Christian finally sees the cross. He is climbing up this hill and he sees the cross and he falls at the foot of the cross and that is when the burden on his back, the burden of his sin, is finally rolled away and it tumbles down and it falls into a sepulcher. It drops into the hole and it is never to be seen again.

And he is full of joy and gratitude and tears of joy, tears of humble repentance, but a repentance that is suffused with faith, that is suffused with confidence in Christ and his work, not just the ungodly worldly sorrow of a Judas. If the promise of the gospel is not in view when we experience sorrow and remorse and those feelings of guilt and quote-unquote repentance, if the promise of the gospel is not in view when we do that, then our repentance loses its gospel flavor. It no longer becomes evangelical repentance. Evangelical, I am using it in that sense just to have an adjective for the word gospel? Gospel repentance, evangelical repentance. If the gospel promise is not in view, if Christ and his cross is not in view in our repentance, then our repentance loses its gospel flavor and becomes what the author of Hebrews calls a dead work.

The author of Hebrews refers to dead works. What are these dead works he is referring to? He is referring to all the dead works of the Jews apart from faith in Christ. Going through the motions of offering the sacrifices or going to the temple. Trying to do all the things that God had commanded. But it is become a dead work because it is Christless.

And so we must not only repent of our sins, we must also repent of our false repentance of our dead works in which we are seeking to win God’s favor simply by our own sorrow and regret. Our sorrow, if it is not within the context of the gospel, if it is not suffused by faith in Christ and trust in the mercy of God, our sorrow then would simply become another work. It would simply become an attempt to earn God’s favor by our sorrow.

And that means then that repentance follows faith. I know that sounds a little bit odd, and people are used to thinking of repentance being before faith, but that is because they are thinking of repentance as conviction of sin, which is definitely before faith. You cannot have trust in Christ without being convicted of your sin and your guilt. But repentance in this true gospel sense, gospel repentance, evangelical repentance, always follows faith. In case you are a little bit doubtful if that is orthodox reform teaching, I quote John Calvin. John Calvin in the Institutes says that repentance not only always follows faith but is produced by it ought to be without controversy. Those who think that repentance precedes faith instead of flowing from it or being produced by it as the fruit by the tree have never understood its nature. Repentance follows faith. It is one of the fruits of faith. Genuine faith, which is born out of a genuine spirit-wrought conviction of sin and a spirit-wrought apprehension of the mercy of God in Christ, will produce genuine evangelical repentance.

And this is the case for our whole lives. Yes, for many, there is a moment in time when, like the Apostle Paul, they are converted and brought from darkness to life. But for many of us, we are not able to pinpoint exactly when it was that we, quote-unquote, repented or were converted.

And it is not important to be able to do that because this is simply our whole life. Our whole life ought to be characterized by this. As Martin Luther said, the very first of his 95 theses, everyone quotes the 95 theses but they do not quote the actual content? They mention the theses but they do not quote the content.

The very first one says, when our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said repent, He willed that the entire life of believers be one of repentance. That is, of continually going again to the cross. to receive the assurance of our forgiveness and the cleansing of our guilty conscience, and then out of that apprehending the mercy of God in Christ with grief and hatred of our sin, turning from it unto God and endeavoring to live as is pleasing to the Lord. As the Apostle Paul said in that passage I read, that one verse in 1 Timothy 1, verse 5, He says the aim of our charge, the aim of our teaching, the aim of our exhortation is love out of a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith.