Then Judas, who delivered him up, seeing that he had been condemned, filled with remorse, returned the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and the elders,
Matthew's account pauses the trial of Jesus to tell us what happened to the man who handed Him over. Judas sees the verdict, feels its weight, and tries to undo his deal. So why did turning back save him nothing?
Judas acts only after he sees the verdict. Commentators suggest he had expected the Lord to slip away, as He had done before.
It looks as if he had expected the Lord to escape His enemies and walk away from them, as He had done before. But now he saw Him condemned and submitting to their hands, and remorse and horror at what he had done swept over him.
Judas had watched Jesus escape a hostile crowd and walk on water.
He had known the Lord in great danger before. Once the people took up stones to throw at Him, and Judas saw Him hide Himself, walk through the middle of them, and go on His way. He knew how Jesus could walk on the sea. He could overcome every obstacle in nature. So why not the raging storm of human passion and violence? But Judas was deceived, whatever his calculations may have been. He gave in to greed. He bargained for the blood of Jesus. To his horror, he found it only too true.
The ESV says Judas "changed his mind." Older translations say he "repented himself." The commentators agree this was not the repentance that saves. Remorse and repentance can look alike, but they are not the same thing.
Repentance is the judgment of my sin that I have in the light of love, and grace known. Remorse is produced by viewing the sin in the light only of its probable results. Repentance begets hope, remorse leads only to despair. Repentance leads the soul back to God, remorse drives it to deeper sin, and further into Satan's hands.
Judas did more than many people ever do — and it still fell short.
There is a mourning that ends in despair. Judas' mourning was like that: he saw his sin, he was sorry, he said Christ was in the right, he gave the money back. Judas, who is in hell, did more than many nowadays.
Judas gave the money back and named his crime. What was missing was not honesty but faith — and the very words of his confession show it.
He shrieks out even in their ears the confession of his sin in having betrayed the innocent blood. But there it ends: "innocent blood." He does not say holy or righteous, still less "the Holy and the Righteous One." The glory of the Son of God has no part in it. It neither heals him nor even wounds him. There is no turning to Him whom he had kept company with so long — no sense of anyone he can turn to. There is, in short, no faith, and therefore no repentance.
Judas owned up, and it still left him with nothing.
Sadly, confessing sin without trusting God for His grace is worthless. It produces nothing good.
The sum Judas carried back was not chosen at random. Israel's law had already fixed that exact figure.
Thirty pieces of silver was the price of a slave who had been killed. If the ox gores a slave, male or female, the owner shall give to their master thirty shekels of silver (Exodus 21:32). Oh, what unfathomable love! The Lord from heaven became like a slave. The love He looked for He did not find.
Judas belonged to the twelve, the small group of men who lived closest to Jesus.
He was only farther from Jesus in heart because he was nearer to Him outwardly. Some people have the greatest outward privileges while the truth of God does not rule their souls. They are the most guilty of all.
And the sin behind it is one anyone can commit.
Many a person sells Jesus in practice, if not literally. If God is calling sinners to know His Son and His grace, it is an awful thing to reject Him. That is selling Jesus for some object in this world which we either want to gain or love too much to part with. In Judas this came out in its worst form. But eternal ruin is not limited to Judas, the son of perdition.
- Miscalculation. Judas looks to have expected Jesus to slip away, as He had before. The verdict shattered that hope.
- Remorse. He looked at his sin only in the light of its results, and that view breeds despair, never hope.
- No faith. He confessed "innocent blood" and never got as far as the Son of God. Confession without trust in God's grace saves nobody.
- The price. Thirty pieces of silver was the legal value of a dead slave; that is what the Lord of glory was worth to them.
- The warning. Being close to Christ outwardly, while the truth of God does not rule the heart, leaves a person more guilty, not less. Anyone who trades Him for something they love more repeats what Judas did.
saying, I have sinned [in] having delivered up guiltless blood. But they said, What is that to us? see *thou* [to that].
Judas throws the thirty pieces of silver back at the men who paid him and calls the blood he sold innocent. His words are true and his sorrow is real, yet he dies by his own hand — so what was missing?
Commentators say Judas had not expected the arrest to end this way. He had watched Jesus slip out of danger before.
Clearly Judas did not expect such an end for Jesus. He had known the Lord in great danger before. He had seen Him hide Himself when the people picked up stones to throw at Him, go through the middle of them, and pass on His way. He knew how Jesus could walk on the sea and overcome every obstacle in nature. So why not the raging storm of human passion and violence? But Judas was deceived, whatever his calculations may have been. He gave in to greed. He bargained for the blood of Jesus. To his horror, he found it was all too true.
That guess, if it was his, made his sin worse, not lighter.
He seems to have thought He would escape as before. But this made his sin worse, for he knew that power was there. Money governed his heart, and by it Satan led him into the horrible sin. Yet Satan could not shield him once the sin was done. What was money to a man in despair? The fruit and witness of sin is no comfort to the one who is lost by it.
The word Judas uses for the blood is a rare one.
A word often used in the Old Testament as the opposite of those showing wickedness. It occurs only twice in the New Testament. Judas uses it about the Lord, who could truly be called "guiltless." Pilate uses it about himself. Matthew 27:4, 24.
The mouth that testifies to Christ's innocence here is the last mouth anyone would call.
The very man who handed the Saviour over to His enemies had to confess His innocence. God so ordained it; and this is very striking.
Judas admits the sin and hands back the money. Yet writers point to what he does not say, and to the One he never turns to.
He shouts out even in their ears the confession of his sin in having betrayed the innocent blood. But there it ends: "innocent blood" — not holy or righteous, and still less "the Holy and the Righteous One." The glory of the Son of God has no part in it. That glory neither heals him nor even wounds him. There is no turning to Him whom he had been with so long — no sense of anyone he can turn to. There is, in short, no faith, and therefore no repentance.
Writers set Judas beside Peter to show the difference.
Repentance is judging my own sin in the light of the love and grace I have come to know. Remorse comes from viewing the sin only in the light of its likely results. Repentance gives birth to hope, remorse leads only to despair. Repentance leads the soul back to God. Remorse drives it into deeper sin and further into Satan's hands. Judas, who did not know what grace was, went out and hanged himself in remorse over his terrible wickedness. Peter, who did know what grace was, went out and wept bitterly.
Judas takes his agony to the religious leaders, and they brush him off with four words.
"What is that to us? See to it yourself" (v. 4). What a testimony to their degraded condition! It was no question with them whether He was innocent or not. They had Him in their hands and were determined not to let Him go.
On the evidence of this verse, some writers rate the priests as the greater sinners.
The very name Judas has become a byword for wickedness, but Annas and Caiaphas were worse than he. Verse 4 shows this. Judas betrayed innocent blood and they condemned it. He at least had some feeling of remorse for what he had done — enough to drive him to destroy himself. They had no feeling whatever.
The warning here is not only about Judas.
Many a person sells Jesus in effect, if not literally. Let every soul watch that his sin is not in some way like that of Judas. If God is calling sinners to know His Son and His grace, it is an awful thing to reject Him. To reject Him is to sell Jesus for something in this world that we want to gain, or love too much to give up.
- Witness — God arranged it so that the man who sold Jesus was the one who had to call His blood innocent.
- Miscalculation — he seems to have banked on Jesus escaping again, so he sold a power he had seen at work.
- Confession — he named his sin and still perished. He said "innocent blood," but never turned to the One he had betrayed.
- Contrast — remorse looks at what the sin will cost and ends in despair. Repentance looks at sin in the light of grace and goes back to God, as Peter did.
- Coldness — the priests' "see to it yourself" shows a conscience colder than the traitor's own; they felt nothing at all.
And having cast down the pieces of silver in the temple, he left the place, and went away and hanged himself.
Judas has carried the silver back to the men who paid him. This verse leaves him alone with what he has done, and with a question: why did a man who confessed his sin never find mercy?
Judas says the right words about his crime, yet his own account of Jesus stops short. One writer traces the failure to the exact term Judas chose:
Clearly it is the awful agony of remorse that awakes now in Judas, and not repentance. He cannot keep the money he has gained. Even for the chief priests, the blood-stain will not come off it. He shrieks out in their own ears the confession of his sin in betraying the innocent blood. But there it ends: "innocent blood." Not holy, not righteous, and far less "the Holy and the Righteous One." The glory of the Son of God has no part in it. It neither heals him nor even strikes him. There is no turning to Him with whom he had spent so long, no sense of anyone he can turn to. There is, in short, no faith, and therefore no repentance.
Peter also failed his Lord, and ended somewhere else entirely. One writer sets the two men side by side:
Here is the difference between repentance and remorse. Repentance is the judgment of my sin that I have in the light of love, and grace known. Remorse comes from looking at the sin only in the light of its likely results. Repentance begets hope, remorse leads only to despair. Repentance leads the soul back to God, remorse drives it to deeper sin, and further into Satan's hands. Judas did not know what grace was. In remorse over his utter wickedness, he went out and hanged himself. Peter did know what grace was. He knew then, better than ever, how much the Lord loved him, and he went out and wept bitterly.
The word for "temple" here is not the one for the whole set of buildings. It means the sanctuary, where only priests could go. Commentators differ over whether Judas went inside at all:
The word used here means the sanctuary itself, not the temple buildings as a whole. What brought Judas in there? We can hardly suppose he was a priest. If he was not, his connection with the priests must have been very close for him to be let in where only priests might come. … He may have only thrown the money into it. But if he did go in, it shows the desperation of the betrayer, now feeling the bitterest remorse as he thought of his condemned Master, with the surest dread of God's wrath.
Judas got the money he bargained for, and it bought him nothing:
Money governed his heart. By it Satan led him into this horrible sin. But Satan could not shield him once the sin was done. What was money to a man in despair? He goes to those who ought to have led him in the right way. They were his heartless partners in the wickedness. He throws down the money in despair. Sin once committed lies on the conscience. All is dark in the trail behind it. And if the love of God is not there to hold on to, nothing remains but despair — dark, black despair.
The verse ends with Judas taking his own life, and one writer adds what the Lord had called him:
He went and hanged himself, and probably fell from the tree, so that his bowels gushed out. It was an awful end to a sinful course. The Lord called him the "son of perdition."
The silver landed where a prophet had said it would:
Messiah, who was the embodiment of all beauty, was priced at thirty pieces of silver. Judas fixed the price and got the silver. In his remorse, before he took his own life, he threw the money down in the temple. That fulfilled the words "in the house of the Lord." The chief priests took the silver and used it to buy the potter's field. That fulfilled the words "I … cast them to the potter."
The verse is not only about one man. It marks out a pattern anyone can repeat:
Many a person sells Jesus in practice, if not in fact. Let every soul make sure that his sin is not in some way like that of Judas. If God is calling sinners to know His Son, and the grace that comes by Him, it is an awful thing to reject Him. It is selling Jesus for something in this world that we either want to gain or love too much to give up. In Judas this came out in its worst form; but perdition is not confined to him who is the son of perdition.
- Bait — Satan used money to draw Judas in. The sin was done, and the silver was worth nothing to him.
- Confession — Judas called the blood innocent, but never called Jesus holy or righteous. His confession had no faith in it.
- Remorse — remorse looks at what sin will cost, and ends in despair. Repentance looks at sin in the light of known grace, and ends in hope.
- Contrast — Peter failed too, and wept; Judas, who never knew grace, went out and hanged himself. The difference was not the size of the sin.
- Warning — many still sell Jesus for something they want in this world. Ruin is not limited to Judas.