Then one of the twelve, he who was called Judas Iscariote, went to the chief priests
A woman has just poured costly ointment on Jesus. Now a disciple goes out to put a price on Him. The word "then" ties the two scenes together, and it raises the hardest question in the chapter. How could a man who walked three years with Jesus bargain against Him?
Matthew places the anointing at Bethany here for a reason. The chief priests had already agreed not to seize Jesus during the feast, and what broke their plan was a woman's act of love.
Mary's devotion was the cause of the failure of the plans of the enemies that the death of the Lord should not take place during the feast. It stirred up the traitor to action. This is no doubt why the Holy Spirit gives the record of the anointing out of its chronological order.
Two hearts measured Jesus in those days. One found nothing too precious for Him. The other counted what he could gain by losing Him.
Judas was making his agreement with the chief priests to sell Jesus for thirty pieces of silver. At the same time she was pouring the precious contents of her alabaster jar upon His Person. Touching contrast!
The verse gives the traitor's surname, and one writer explains what it marks about him.
His surname is given here. Iscariot is made up of two words, "Ish" and "Kerioth" — "the man of Kerioth." He was the only disciple from Judea among the twelve; the rest were all from Galilee.
His place among the twelve was never a matter of faith.
In Luke we are told that Satan entered into him. He took actual possession of the one who was indeed his own, for Judas had never believed in Christ. Peter might deny Him and the rest of the disciples might forsake their Lord, yet Satan could never enter into them, for they were saved.
Matthew names the man's place before he names his crime. Judas belonged to the twelve — the group who kept company with Jesus and were sent out to preach — and that is where the horror lies.
He had all the appearance to other people of being like the rest of the disciples. He had kept company with the Lord. He had been one of those sent out to preach the gospel and work miracles. But his conscience was never before God. He might have truth in his understanding... Judas could not have walked three years with Jesus and seen His grace and love without having his affections moved. Yet his conscience had never been at work before God. So it is with many.
Closeness to Jesus did not make Judas better. One writer turns this into a general rule:
The nearer a man is to God outwardly, if his soul has no living fellowship with Him, the worse he is. Judas is worse than the Pharisees; the Pharisees than the Samaritans. So where people profess Christianity without its living power, that is the very place to expect the most terrible evil.
The sin behind this betrayal was an ordinary one.
Here was Judas betraying his Master! After all, what was this? At bottom, nothing more than what is in every heart. Judas loved money — no uncommon lust. And the love of money in a believer today is as bad, or worse, since it is done in fuller light.
Judas went to the chief priests. Their welcome shows what their consciences had become.
Chief priests should have had honest concern for the spiritual help of souls. Instead they were glad to welcome a man who would betray his friend for money, and they strike this unholy bargain with him. How cold and hard the consciences of Israel's spiritual leaders have become!
The bargain was struck. But the timing was never in Judas's hands, nor in Satan's.
Here the will was engaged on one side. On the other side a man enjoyed nearness to the Lord without judging himself. He lived in conscious hypocrisy and gave in to greed again and again. So Satan easily found the means to carry out his own designs against the Son of God, as a liar and a murderer. Yet how reassuring it is to see that both man and the devil were powerless until the due moment came for God to carry out His purposes. Even then their malice only served those purposes, without knowing it, and in the very way they thought most certain to hinder and defeat them.
- Nearness. Judas had the closest place any man on earth could have — one of the twelve, a preacher, a worker of miracles. It saved him from nothing. He had never believed, and his conscience was never before God.
- Nearness hardens. Outward closeness to God without living fellowship is where the worst evil grows.
- Nearness prices Him. Set beside Mary's devotion, Judas shows what a heart without Christ does with Christ. It sets a price. The sin was love of money, common to every heart.
- Nearness corrupts. The priests should have cared for souls. Instead they were glad to buy a friend's betrayal. Cold consciences sat at the very centre of religion.
- Nearness overruled. Judas plotted and Satan drove him. But both were powerless until God's hour came. Their malice only served the purpose they meant to destroy.
and said, What are ye willing to give me, and *I* will deliver him up to you? And they appointed to him thirty pieces of silver.
After the anointing at Bethany, one of Jesus' twelve disciples goes to the chief priests to name a price for his Master. The verse gives both the sum and the motive, and it presses one question: what is Christ worth to the human heart?
The betrayal began with the traitor, not with the priests. His own question shows what was driving him.
No one had tried to lure him into it. No one, that we read of, had even approached him to sound him out on the subject. He came forward of his own free will, for Satan had entered into him (Luke 22:3). The love of money was strong within him. John says he was "a thief, and having charge of the moneybag he used to help himself to what was put into it" (12:6). But greedy as he was, no one had offered a reward for the Lord's arrest to tempt him. He offered himself. He was clearly still smarting from the public rebuke he had deserved four days earlier at Bethany. He asked, as Matthew (26:15) states, "What will you give me?" That question showed that no one had tempted him with money.
Matthew places the bargain right after that costly gift at Bethany. Two valuations of the same Person now stand side by side.
Judas had been disappointed over the three hundred denarii lavished on the Lord. So he made a bargain with the chief priests for thirty pieces of silver — less than half the value of the ointment, and only the price of a slave! The time had come for the Lord to be crucified. These chief priests and elders had decided not to arrest Him during the feast, because they feared a riot. Yet the determined plan and foreknowledge of God delivered Him up, and Judas' offer brought it about.
The sum was not chosen at random. It was the figure the law itself put on a slave.
A saint had shown what Jesus was worth to her, and unbelief, which weighs everything by usefulness, called it waste. What then was His value in the eyes of the bribing priests and of the betrayer? A slave's price was enough for the despised Lord of all! (Compare Exodus 21:32; Zechariah 11:12-13.)
Zechariah records the same price, with one difference: there the shepherd Himself asks for His wages.
In Zechariah the words are "I said to them." In Matthew it is Judas who speaks to the chief priests, and they represent the nation. This brings out a very interesting principle in the ways of God. It was Judas' sin that betrayed the Lord. But the Lord used that sin to test the chief priests, to see what they thought Christ was worth. So, passing over the go-between, He says, "If it seems good to you, give me my wages." They did think it good. And what was the price? What value did they put on Jesus, the Son of God, their Messiah?
The guilt, then, was not the traitor's alone.
If Judas Iscariot was guilty of delivering up Jesus, the chief priests were also guilty of conspiring with him... How very solemn this was. The religious leaders of God's people struck a bargain with a traitor, and they did it to have the Son of God arrested.
Being near Jesus did not keep Judas safe. The trouble started inside him.
There was sin in Judas's nature, and that sin showed itself in the shape of the love of money. The next thing was Satan suggesting a way of gratifying this desire, for he loved money more than he loved Jesus. And now we find the result of being outwardly near the Lord while the conscience is untouched: it made Judas reason about circumstances. He probably thought the Lord would deliver Himself, as He had done before. When he found He did not, he threw down the money and said, "I have sinned by betraying innocent blood."
The currency varies; the transaction does not.
"Every man has his price" is a coarse saying of the world, and it is often untrue. But every soul that Satan cheats out of Jesus has its price. Some accept gold, others position or power. With some it is cheap pleasure, or lust, or some favourite secret sin rolled like a sweet morsel under the tongue. What is he giving you, poor sinner? You are accepting something, be assured.
- Price asked. Judas was not recruited; his own question, "What will you give me?", proves no one tempted him with money.
- Price paid. Thirty pieces of silver was the legal value of a slave (Exodus 21:32) — less than half the value of the ointment poured out at Bethany.
- Price revealed. God used the traitor's offer to test the religious leaders and expose what they thought Christ was worth.
- Price shared. The traitor sold and the chief priests bought, so the guilt belonged to both sides of the table.
- Price today. Every heart that trades Christ away has a price — gold, position, power, or a favourite secret sin.
And from that time he sought a good opportunity that he might deliver him up.
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.