Fourth day of the passion week; Judas' fall and the 30 pieces of silver Matt 26; Zech 10:12; Ex 21:32

It is the fourth day of the passion week and now the Master was telling it to them in plain words; as He was calmly contemplating it, and that not as in the dim future, but in the immediate present - at that very Passover, from which scarcely two days separated them. He would be crucified on the Passover.

 

But to Judas Iscariot, in whose heart the darkness had long been gathering, this was the decisive moment.

 

Matt 26:14 Then one of the twelve, named Judas Iscariot, went to the chief priests,

 

Matt 26:15 and said, "What are you willing to give me to deliver Him up to you?" And they weighed out to him thirty pieces of silver.

 

Matt 26:16 And from then on he began looking for a good opportunity to betray Him.

 

Luke 22:3 And Satan entered into Judas who was called Iscariot, belonging to the number of the twelve.

 

Luke 22:4 And he went away and discussed with the chief priests and officers how he might betray Him to them.

 

Luke 22:5 And they were glad, and agreed to give him money.

 

Luke 22:6 And he consented, and began seeking a good opportunity to betray Him to them apart from the multitude.

 

The last glimmer of light for the possibility of a believing Judas is gone and with that darkness comes such an evil; so evil to the extent that Judas allows Satan to enter his body.

 

As the Lord rests and prepares Himself for the greatest act of love the universe could ever see, Judas was opening his heart to satan so as to betray the impeccable One.

 

This possession by satan would be temporary, but would occur again on the night of the Passover.

 

And also while the Lord was resting the religious leaders were scheming.

 

Matt 26:1 And it came about that when Jesus had finished all these words, He said to His disciples,

 

Matt 26:2 "You know that after two days the Passover is coming, and the Son of Man is to be delivered up for crucifixion." 

 

Matt 26:3 Then the chief priests and the elders of the people were gathered together in the court of the high priest, named Caiaphas;

 

Matt 26:4 and they plotted together to seize Jesus by stealth, and kill Him.

 

Matt 26:5 But they were saying, "Not during the festival, lest a riot occur among the people."

 

And they were pleased to see Judas since through him they realized that they could take the Lord by stealth rather than in public.

 

Judas is an interesting but terribly sad study. Many of us have been on the edge such weakness that we’ve thought about denying our faith but as believers we are only on the edge, Judas dove headlong into the abyss.

 

The thought of being without Christ, no matter how bad things may get, is terrifying, and so like the prodigal son we return, if only to be a bondslave and not a son, and all the while we have the Lord praying for us because we are in Him.

 

Judas faced the decision of believing that Jesus was the Christ every day for three years and instead of getting closer to that faith he got farther away from it - culminating in being one of the very few in all history to be indwelt by satan.

 

Judas was, so far as we know, the only disciple of Jesus from the province of Judæa. He carried the money bag, i.e. was treasurer and administrator of the small common stock of Christ and His disciples; and that he was both a hypocrite and a thief - this is all that we know for certain of his history.

 

From the circumstance that he was appointed to such office of trust in the Apostolic community, we infer that he must have been looked up to by the others as an able and prudent man, a good administrator.

 

And there is probably no reason to doubt, that he possessed the natural gift of administration.

 

The question, why Jesus left him ‘the bag’ after he knew him to be a thief - which, as we believe, he was not at the beginning, and only became in the course of time and in the progress of his own disappointment over the Lord’s ministry.

 

He was probably best fitted for an administrative position. To engage in that for which a man is naturally fitted is the most likely means of keeping him from brooding, dissatisfaction, alienation, and eventual apostasy.

 

On the other hand, it must be admitted that, as mostly all our life-temptations come to us from that for which we have most aptitude, when Judas was alienated and unfaithful in heart, this very thing became also his greatest temptation, and, indeed, hurried him to his ruin.

 

But only after he had first failed inwardly. And so, as ever in like circumstances, the very things which might have been most of blessing become most of curse, and the judgment of hardening fulfills itself by that which in itself was thought to be good.

 

Be careful of your human talents. They can be used by God, but they can also become a curse if you use them without God’s power.

 

Nor could ‘the bag’ have been afterwards taken from him without both exposing him to the others, and precipitating his moral destruction. And so he had to be left to the process of inward ripening, till all was ready for the sickle.

 

This very gift of ‘government’ in Judas may also help us to understand how he may have been first attracted to Jesus, and through what process, when alienated, he came to end in that terrible sin which had cast its snare about him.

 

The ‘gift of government’ would, in its active aspect, imply the desire for it. Judas desired Jesus as the Messiah of government and not of men’s souls. This caused incredible ambition in him.

 

Judas expected to share in the success of a new Jewish government with Jesus the King. Judas was after the crown and not the cross.

 

The other 11, though believing, were caught up in the same desire. We see this as they fight with each other as to who is the best. Peter asks, what’s in this for us? James and John have their mom ask Jesus if they can sit on His right and left, not in heaven, but on earth.

 

It must have been sorrow, the misery of spiritual loneliness, and humiliation, to Him Who was Unselfishness Incarnate, Who lived to die and was full to empty Himself. His most intimate disciples could not watch with Him even one hour in the Garden of Gethsemane.

 

His aloneness is blanketed by His fellowship with the Father.

 

We will all have times of loneliness. These are great times to be alone with your Father.

 

And in Judas all this must have been a hundredfold more than in them who were in heart believers in Christ.

 

He had, from such conviction as we have described, joined the movement at its very commencement. Then, multitudes in Galilee followed His Footsteps, and watched for His every appearance; they hung entranced on His lips in the Synagogue or on ‘the Mount;’ they flocked to Him from every town, village, and hamlet; they bore the sick and dying to His Feet, and witnessed, awestruck, how conquered devils gave their testimony to His Divine Power. It was the spring-time of the movement, and all was full of promise - land, people, and disciples.

 

The Baptist, who had bowed before Him and testified to Him, was still lifting his voice to proclaim the near Kingdom. And the people had turned after Jesus, and He swayed them. And, oh! what power was there in His Face and Word, and His look and deed.

 

And Judas, also, had been one of them who, on their early Mission, had temporarily had power given Him, so that the very devils had been subject to them.

 

Matt 10:5-8

These twelve Jesus sent out after instructing them, saying, "Do not go in the way of the Gentiles, and do not enter any city of the Samaritans; 6 but rather go to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. 7 "And as you go, preach, saying, 'The kingdom of heaven is at hand. [Millennial Kingdom]' 8 "Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons; freely you received, freely give.

 

But, step by step, had come the disappointment.

 

John was beheaded, and not avenged; on the contrary, Jesus withdrew Himself. This constant withdrawing, whether from enemies or from success - almost amounting to flight - even when they would have made Him a King;

 

this refusal to show Himself openly, either at Jerusalem, as His own brethren had taunted Him, or, indeed, anywhere else;

 

this uniform preaching of discouragement to them, when they came to Him elated and hopeful at some success;

 

this gathering enmity of Israel’s leaders, and His marked avoidance of, or, as some might have put it, His failure in taking up the repeated public challenge of the Pharisees to show a sign from heaven;

 

last, and chief of all, this constant and growing reference to shame, disaster, and death - what did it all mean, if not disappointment of all those hopes and expectations which had made Judas at the first a disciple of Jesus?

 

Did Judas now agree with the Pharisees that Jesus was an agent of Beelzebul and therefore satan? If you don’t believe that Jesus is from God then what other explanation is there for His power and miracles?

 

If we were pressed to name a definite moment when the process of disintegration, at least sensibly, began, we would point to that Sabbath-morning at Capernaum, when Christ had preached about His Flesh as the Food of the World, and so many of His adherents ceased to follow Him.

 

After this, all was wrong, and increasingly so. If Judas was a man of integrity he would have left with the many other disciples, but his arrogance wouldn’t let him be honorable.

 

We see disappointment in his face when not climbing the Mount of Transfiguration, and disappointment in the failure to heal the lunatic child.

 

Matt 17:15-16

"Lord, have mercy on my son, for he is a lunatic, and is very ill; for he often falls into the fire, and often into the water. 16 "And I brought him to Your disciples, and they could not cure him."

 

And in it all we mark the downward spiral of his evil when, in contrast to the deep love of Mary, he first stands before us unmasked, as heartless, hypocritical, full of hatred - disappointed ambition having broken down into selfishness, and selfishness slid into covetousness, even to the crime of stealing that which was destined for the poor.

 

For, when an ambition which rests only on selfishness gives way there lies close by it the coarse lust of covetousness, as the kindred passion and lower expression of that other form of selfishness.

 

Unfulfilled lusts always turn to bitterness. As he heard the words of Christ that should have opened the door of his heart he only listened or half-listened with bitterness, which double-barred the door of his heart.

 

His attachment to the Person of Jesus would give place to actual hatred, though only of a temporary character since he would regret what he had done; and the wild intenseness of his Eastern nature would set it all in flame.

 

Thus, when Judas had lost his slender foothold, or, rather, when it had slipped from under him, he fell down, down the eternal abyss. The only hold to which he could cling was the passion of his soul. As he laid hands on it, it gave way, and fell with him into fathomless depths.

 

We, each of us, have also some master-passion; and if, which God forbid! we should lose our foothold, we also would grasp this master-passion, and it would give way, and carry us with it into the darkness of reversionism.  

 

On that spring day, in the restfulness of Bethany, when the Master was taking His sad and solemn Farewell of sky and earth, of friends and disciples, and told them what was to happen only two days later at the Passover, it was all settled in the soul of Judas. ‘Satan entered’ it.

 

Christ would be crucified; this was quite certain. And Judas, possessed by satan, heads off to the meet with the leaders of Israel in order to betray Jesus.

 

There had previously been a similar gathering and consultation, when the report of the raising of Lazarus reached the authorities of Jerusalem. The practical resolution adopted at that meeting had apparently been, that a strict watch should henceforth be kept on Christ’s movements, and that every one of them, as well as the names of His friends, and the places of His secret retirement, should be communicated to the authorities, with the view to His arrest at the proper moment.

 

It was probably in Judas’ mind that this was prudent and so the traitor presented himself that afternoon in the Palace of the High-Priest Caiaphas.

 

Those assembled there were the ‘chiefs’ of the Priesthood - no doubt, the Temple-officials, heads of the course of Priests, and connections of the High-Priestly family, who constituted what both Josephus and the Talmud designate as the Priestly Council.

 

All connected with the Temple, its ritual, administration, order, and laws, would be in their hands. Moreover, it was but natural, that the High-Priest and his council should be the regular official medium between the Roman authorities and the people.

 

In matters which concerned, not ordinary misdemeanours, but political crimes (such as it was wished to represent the movement of Jesus), or which affected the status of the established religion, the official chiefs of the Priest-hood would, of course, be the persons to appeal, in conjunction with the Sanhedrists, to the secular authorities.

 

They were deliberating how Jesus might be taken by subtlety and killed. Probably they had not yet fixed on any definite plan. Only at this conclusion had they arrived - probably in consequence of the popular acclamations at His Entry into Jerusalem, and of what had since happened - that nothing must be done during the Feast, for fear of some popular tumultuous uprising.

 

They knew only too well the character of Pilate, and how in any such tumult all parties - the leaders as well as the led - might experience terrible vengeance.

 

It must have been intense relief when, in their perplexity, the traitor now presented himself before them with his proposals. Yet his reception was not such as he may have looked for.

 

He probably expected to be hailed and treated as a most important ally.

 

They were, indeed, ‘glad, and willing to give him money,’ even as he promised to dog His steps, and watch for the opportunity which they sought.

 

In truth, the offer of the betrayer changed the whole aspect of matters. What formerly they dreaded to attempt seemed now both safe and easy. They could not allow such an opportunity to slip; it was one that might never occur again.

 

Might it not even seem, from the defection of Judas, as if dissatisfaction and disbelief had begun to spread in the innermost circle of Christ’s disciples?

 

Yet, withal, they treated Judas not as an honoured associate, but as a common informer, and a contemptible betrayer.

 

The children of satan use people and only honor themselves, which is right in line with their father, the devil.

 

This was not only natural but, in the circumstances, the wisest policy, alike in order to save their own dignity, and to keep most secure hold on the betrayer.

 

And, after all, it might be said, so as to minimise his services, that Judas could really not do much for them - only show them how they might seize Him at unawares in the absence of the multitude, to avoid the possible tumult of an open arrest.

 

So little did they understand Christ!

 

And Judas had at last to speak it out barefacedly - so selling himself as well as the Master: ‘What will ye give me?’ It was in literal fulfilment of prophecy, that they ‘weighed out’ to him from the very Temple-treasury those thirty pieces of silver.

 

Zech 10:12

And I said to them, "If it is good in your sight, give me my wages; but if not, never mind!" So they weighed out thirty shekels of silver as my wages.

 

And here we mark, that there is always terrible literality about the prophecies of judgment, while those of blessing far exceed the words of prediction.

 

And yet it was surely as much in contempt of the seller as of Him Whom he sold, that they paid the legal price of a slave.

 

Or did they mean some kind of legal fiction, such as to buy the Person of Jesus at the legal price of a slave, so as to hand it afterwards over to the secular authorities?

 

Whatever the case may be we mark the deep symbolic significance of it all, in that the Lord was, so to speak, paid for out of the Temple-money which was destined for the purchase of sacrifices, and that He, Who took on Him the form of a servant, was sold and bought at the legal price of a slave.

 

Ex 21:32

If the ox gores a male or female slave, the owner shall give his or her master thirty shekels of silver, and the ox shall be stoned.

 

So it was all set in place. Israel had purchased a slave. Indeed a slave who was God but took on the form of a bond-servant. What a bargain basement price for the Lord and the Lord would fulfill what was needed for Israel - the cross would come before the crown, but because of their rejection, because they thought Him nothing more than a slave and a son of Beelzebul, the crown would be delayed for such a long time, in which time they would be scattered throughout the entire earth.

 

The fifth day is preparation for the Passover.