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In Matthew 27:1-26 Judas tries to remove the guilt of betraying Jesus only to find the priests don’t want the money back. Jesus stands before Pilate who is also keen to remove his guilt in killing Jesus, while the crowds welcome the guilt onto themselves and their children.
Dan: (00:00)
Hi, everyone. And welcome to training for life redeemed. I’m your host, Dan. I’m here with my father, David Jackson, and we are again, bringing you some insights into the book of Matthew. Today. We are up to chapter 27. We’re going to get halfway through 27 because things get, you know, they’re meaty. They’re really intense. They got really great things to chat about in this chapter. So dad, chapter 27 is going to start with Judas. Well, yeah, Judas, basically feeling some remorse. We’ve got him basically feeling bad for himself. Cuz what he’s done has led to Jesus being condemned to death. Yep. and so he, he goes and returns his money to the chief priest. He chucks it on the floor and they pick it all up and go and buy a block of land. Yep. With the money. Now this section ends with him with this quote that just basically says that they did this to fulfill his is Jeremiah, Jeremiah, the prophet basically saying that, you know, the money that gets used to pay for him or also buy a potters field. Right. yeah. So why is this so important? Why does Matthew want to tell this story? Why do you wanna tell this story before in a timeline? That’s not even up to that story.
David: (01:09)
yeah. It’s
Dan: (01:10)
Very, it’s going to happen after Jesus. He is actually condemned
David: (01:12)
yeah. Math. Matthew we call it chasing rabbits. Hmm. Okay. So we we’ve had Peter’s denial and we know Peter’s a good guy. He he’s trying to cope with the guilt of his denial. We’re now going to look. But before we look at how we resolve Peter there’s Judas’s guilt, and then we’re going to look at, Pontius Pilate’s guilt. And then we’re going to look at the guilt of the people. So you’re going to go from Peter denying Jesus, the cock crows, and he bursts into tears and runs away and is just grief stricken. You’ve got Judas who can’t get rid of his guilt and kills himself. You’ve got Pilate. Who’s going to try and wash his guilt off his hands with water. Like that’s going to work. And then you have the crowd standing there saying, yep. Put all the guilt on us. you know, we’ve got no king, but Caesar on us and our children put his blood.
David: (02:12)
We don’t mind. And you think what? Where is redemption? Where’s the gospel in all this? The short answer is it’s with Peter. Yeah. He’s the guy who’s going to be forgiven. And these other fellas are making a real mess of it. So we do a flash over to the worst case scenario and this is Judas. So there’s a point. You wonder what went through Judas’s head it’s when Judas sees that Jesus is condemned, that all of a sudden reality dawns, what have I done? what you wonder? What was he expecting was going to happen? You know? anyway, poor old Judas. how do you get rid of that guilt?
Dan: (03:06)
Well, you don’t Jesus already told him that it’s better for you to have not been born. Yeah. And to be the person who betrays Christ. Yeah. So he’s not going to get rid of that. He commits suicide. If it feels prophecy, he yeah. Makes Jesus a prophet at the same time.
David: (03:21)
The prophecy. The prophecy tells you that this thing has been planned. Yeah. there’s a difficulty here in the text. It actually, isn’t a quote from Jeremiah at all. It’s a quote from Zechariah .
David: (03:34)
But, but therein as a lesson, when you go through and you check through Matthew’s quotes, what Matthew does and, and mark does the same is you combine three or four passages because these aren’t proof texts. This is a pattern of the way God does business. Mm. So in Zechariah’s case, Zara 11, 13, I think it is. here’s a lesson for the church today. What is the word of God worth to you? What is the ministry of the word worth? They paid the prophet minimum wage. They paid him the, the wage you would give for an unskilled slave. And he was so offended. He packed up the money in a bag and he threw it at them. Now that’s that’s Zechariah. Jeremiah went through a similar process involving money, potters fields and all the rest. There’s a pattern there. So because the prophet Jeremiah was rejected by the Sanhedrin of his day. So this rejection, this betrayal, all of these things are just consistent through the old Testament. Matthew just puts the whole lot in the little package. sticks. Jeremiah on the labels. You
Dan: (04:48)
He’s the more known one. He’s the
David: (04:49)
Bigger, he’s the big
Dan: (04:50)
Fella. It’s probably from that one, right?
David: (04:51)
Yeah. He never actually names any of the minor prophets that he quotes. Yeah. And he names Isaiah, Jeremiah and Daniel. So there you go. These are the big boys. but J poor old, you know, I sort of feel for Judas, he’s done a really bad thing, but he didn’t expect the outcome. How many of our sins do we do where you look at it and you think that I didn’t mean it. You know, I thought it would end in this. I didn’t mean it to go that far. that’s the summary of what’s sin is it’s a fantasy that it’s not going to do any damage. So anyway, he dashes up, I just love the scene where he goes to them and they say, oh no, this is blood money. We can’t touch it. we can’t put that in with the people’s offerings they’re. Holy that’s where the money came from they took the money out of the people’s offerings to pay, to get Jesus killed.
David: (05:42)
When he brings it back, they go, oh no, no, no. That’s uncle that’s on you. and Judas does a really wonderful thing. So just picture, you know, Judas is dashed off after Jesus is condemned. That’s about six o’clock in the morning. Morning. Jesus will be nailed up at nine mm-hmm . Meanwhile, you’ve gotta remember, this is all happening in Herod’s house, over there in the temple. Everybody’s getting ready for the morning. Sacrifice the morning sacrifices at nine. So as they’re doing the morning, sacrifice in the temple, they’re nailing Jesus up while they’re nailing Jesus up. Judas has already had a fight with the . The people who won’t take his money back, he takes his little bag of money. He goes into the temple, past the altar where they’re offering the morning lamb.
David: (06:34)
There’s the door into the holy of Holies. And he hers the bag through the doorway. If that money is unclean money, the holy of Holies is now unclean. he’s just, you know, in your face, fellas. Yeah. it’s too unclean to put in the, with the offerings. Let’s just put it in the holy place. so yeah, and again, we have multiple witnesses as to how Judas died at this point. Nobody can put those two stories together, but we’ve learned from the rest of the Bible to be some humility here. God has a way of, in our pride, we think, oh, these two things are irreconcilable. The Bible’s not true. And then along will come one little piece of evidence that says actually that’s the only way it would’ve worked.
Dan: (07:25)
David: (07:25)
So we’ve gotta wait for that evidence. I’m afraid.
Dan: (07:29)
Yeah. Okay. So now have the actual trial with Pilate. Yeah. So Jesus gets taken to the Romans who can actually condemn him to death Pilate contrary to his character. very contrary to his character tries not to kill him. and the only real reason given is that there’s a dream for his wife or something the night before, or, tells him to try and stay away from this guy cuz he’s innocent. Yeah. and I don’t know what superstitions they’ve got that are going to motivate him to try and free Jesus. But obviously he’s not willing to risk the idea of having some kind of riot or anything like that. or have reports sent back to, Caesar, let’s say that, you know, Pilate’s not doing his job. He’s definitely more scared of that than he is of anything that has
David: (08:21)
To, yeah. He’s more scared of Caesar. And these guys can, these guys have a habit of dobbing the governor into Caesar and if Caesar decides the governor, isn’t doing his job, all sorts of horrible things happen. We know that actually, I think AD 36 or 39, they did do him into Caesar. he and his wife went back to where they came from and we have different reports of whether he committed Pilate committed suicide, or he just went back to Gaul and some obscure post and nothing was ever heard of him, but he is in fear of these guys reporting him to Caesar. And that, that does happen. We also know that he likes, he hates Jews yeah. So there was another incident when they objected to the fact that he, he took money out of the treasury, the temple treasury to pay for an aqueduct.
David: (09:20)
So the Jews all decided that they were going to circle him when he’s sitting on his judgment seat and there’d be this huge riot and a coup and he heard of it. So he sent the troops in, in civilian dress with clubs, looking like they’d joined in the riot and they turned around and bashed hundreds of Jews to death. so he, he’s looking for an opportunity to Dong Jews on the head. He’s really antisemitic, but then the Jews want Jesus dead. And he’s looking at Jesus, he’s looking at a terrorist like Barabbas yeah. There’s not a thief. He’s abandoned. And he’s a famous terrorist. There’s lots of guys out there who wanna overthrow Rome. He’s caught three of ’em. He’s caught the leader and he’s looking at that and going, you are bringing me Jesus, who heals people, you know, who’s virtually a pacifist, no threat to Rome at all. And you want me to release the chief bandit that’s Anti Rome. And then the wife comes up with a dream that says, you know, the gods have said, don’t touch him.
Dan: (10:33)
David: (10:34)
And, and at every point Jesus is being declared innocent. Mm. And at every point, the guilt of these people is on show. and you just, this pathetic attempt of Pilate to wash his hands and think that that’ll take care of the problem. You know, I’m innocent of his blood Now you’re not, you gave the order. ,
Dan: (10:58)
That’s the way it works. You should know that
David: (11:00)
, you should know that
Dan: (11:01)
Chain of command you’re at the top. You’re responsible.
David: (11:04)
Yeah.
Dan: (11:05)
Well, so yeah, so we’re going to have Jesus get handed over to be crucified. And that is where we are going to leave it for this episode. So if you would like to come and grab the show notes for this episode, please head over to trainingforliferedeemed.com/85. If you enjoyed the episode and you would like to get more, you just wanna leave us to review and give us some great comments. We would love for you to do that. we’d love to see more reviews going up there on apple podcast and in Spotify. And if you would like to hit the subscribe button, come back and join us again next week in a continue to look through chapter 27 and finish that off before we then head into chapter 28.
David: (11:42)
All good.
Hi, everyone. And welcome to training for life redeemed. I’m your host, Dan. I’m here with my father, David Jackson, and we are again, bringing you some insights into the book of Matthew. Today. We are up to chapter 27. We’re going to get halfway through 27 because things get, you know, they’re meaty. They’re really intense. They got really great things to chat about in this chapter. So dad, chapter 27 is going to start with Judas. Well, yeah, Judas, basically feeling some remorse. We’ve got him basically feeling bad for himself. Cuz what he’s done has led to Jesus being condemned to death. Yep. and so he, he goes and returns his money to the chief priest. He chucks it on the floor and they pick it all up and go and buy a block of land. Yep. With the money. Now this section ends with him with this quote that just basically says that they did this to fulfill his is Jeremiah, Jeremiah, the prophet basically saying that, you know, the money that gets used to pay for him or also buy a potters field. Right. yeah. So why is this so important? Why does Matthew want to tell this story? Why do you wanna tell this story before in a timeline? That’s not even up to that story.
David: (01:09)
yeah. It’s
Dan: (01:10)
Very, it’s going to happen after Jesus. He is actually condemned
David: (01:12)
yeah. Math. Matthew we call it chasing rabbits. Hmm. Okay. So we we’ve had Peter’s denial and we know Peter’s a good guy. He he’s trying to cope with the guilt of his denial. We’re now going to look. But before we look at how we resolve Peter there’s Judas’s guilt, and then we’re going to look at, Pontius Pilate’s guilt. And then we’re going to look at the guilt of the people. So you’re going to go from Peter denying Jesus, the cock crows, and he bursts into tears and runs away and is just grief stricken. You’ve got Judas who can’t get rid of his guilt and kills himself. You’ve got Pilate. Who’s going to try and wash his guilt off his hands with water. Like that’s going to work. And then you have the crowd standing there saying, yep. Put all the guilt on us. you know, we’ve got no king, but Caesar on us and our children put his blood.
David: (02:12)
We don’t mind. And you think what? Where is redemption? Where’s the gospel in all this? The short answer is it’s with Peter. Yeah. He’s the guy who’s going to be forgiven. And these other fellas are making a real mess of it. So we do a flash over to the worst case scenario and this is Judas. So there’s a point. You wonder what went through Judas’s head it’s when Judas sees that Jesus is condemned, that all of a sudden reality dawns, what have I done? what you wonder? What was he expecting was going to happen? You know? anyway, poor old Judas. how do you get rid of that guilt?
Dan: (03:06)
Well, you don’t Jesus already told him that it’s better for you to have not been born. Yeah. And to be the person who betrays Christ. Yeah. So he’s not going to get rid of that. He commits suicide. If it feels prophecy, he yeah. Makes Jesus a prophet at the same time.
David: (03:21)
The prophecy. The prophecy tells you that this thing has been planned. Yeah. there’s a difficulty here in the text. It actually, isn’t a quote from Jeremiah at all. It’s a quote from Zechariah .
David: (03:34)
But, but therein as a lesson, when you go through and you check through Matthew’s quotes, what Matthew does and, and mark does the same is you combine three or four passages because these aren’t proof texts. This is a pattern of the way God does business. Mm. So in Zechariah’s case, Zara 11, 13, I think it is. here’s a lesson for the church today. What is the word of God worth to you? What is the ministry of the word worth? They paid the prophet minimum wage. They paid him the, the wage you would give for an unskilled slave. And he was so offended. He packed up the money in a bag and he threw it at them. Now that’s that’s Zechariah. Jeremiah went through a similar process involving money, potters fields and all the rest. There’s a pattern there. So because the prophet Jeremiah was rejected by the Sanhedrin of his day. So this rejection, this betrayal, all of these things are just consistent through the old Testament. Matthew just puts the whole lot in the little package. sticks. Jeremiah on the labels. You
Dan: (04:48)
He’s the more known one. He’s the
David: (04:49)
Bigger, he’s the big
Dan: (04:50)
Fella. It’s probably from that one, right?
David: (04:51)
Yeah. He never actually names any of the minor prophets that he quotes. Yeah. And he names Isaiah, Jeremiah and Daniel. So there you go. These are the big boys. but J poor old, you know, I sort of feel for Judas, he’s done a really bad thing, but he didn’t expect the outcome. How many of our sins do we do where you look at it and you think that I didn’t mean it. You know, I thought it would end in this. I didn’t mean it to go that far. that’s the summary of what’s sin is it’s a fantasy that it’s not going to do any damage. So anyway, he dashes up, I just love the scene where he goes to them and they say, oh no, this is blood money. We can’t touch it. we can’t put that in with the people’s offerings they’re. Holy that’s where the money came from they took the money out of the people’s offerings to pay, to get Jesus killed.
David: (05:42)
When he brings it back, they go, oh no, no, no. That’s uncle that’s on you. and Judas does a really wonderful thing. So just picture, you know, Judas is dashed off after Jesus is condemned. That’s about six o’clock in the morning. Morning. Jesus will be nailed up at nine mm-hmm . Meanwhile, you’ve gotta remember, this is all happening in Herod’s house, over there in the temple. Everybody’s getting ready for the morning. Sacrifice the morning sacrifices at nine. So as they’re doing the morning, sacrifice in the temple, they’re nailing Jesus up while they’re nailing Jesus up. Judas has already had a fight with the . The people who won’t take his money back, he takes his little bag of money. He goes into the temple, past the altar where they’re offering the morning lamb.
David: (06:34)
There’s the door into the holy of Holies. And he hers the bag through the doorway. If that money is unclean money, the holy of Holies is now unclean. he’s just, you know, in your face, fellas. Yeah. it’s too unclean to put in the, with the offerings. Let’s just put it in the holy place. so yeah, and again, we have multiple witnesses as to how Judas died at this point. Nobody can put those two stories together, but we’ve learned from the rest of the Bible to be some humility here. God has a way of, in our pride, we think, oh, these two things are irreconcilable. The Bible’s not true. And then along will come one little piece of evidence that says actually that’s the only way it would’ve worked.
Dan: (07:25)
David: (07:25)
So we’ve gotta wait for that evidence. I’m afraid.
Dan: (07:29)
Yeah. Okay. So now have the actual trial with Pilate. Yeah. So Jesus gets taken to the Romans who can actually condemn him to death Pilate contrary to his character. very contrary to his character tries not to kill him. and the only real reason given is that there’s a dream for his wife or something the night before, or, tells him to try and stay away from this guy cuz he’s innocent. Yeah. and I don’t know what superstitions they’ve got that are going to motivate him to try and free Jesus. But obviously he’s not willing to risk the idea of having some kind of riot or anything like that. or have reports sent back to, Caesar, let’s say that, you know, Pilate’s not doing his job. He’s definitely more scared of that than he is of anything that has
David: (08:21)
To, yeah. He’s more scared of Caesar. And these guys can, these guys have a habit of dobbing the governor into Caesar and if Caesar decides the governor, isn’t doing his job, all sorts of horrible things happen. We know that actually, I think AD 36 or 39, they did do him into Caesar. he and his wife went back to where they came from and we have different reports of whether he committed Pilate committed suicide, or he just went back to Gaul and some obscure post and nothing was ever heard of him, but he is in fear of these guys reporting him to Caesar. And that, that does happen. We also know that he likes, he hates Jews yeah. So there was another incident when they objected to the fact that he, he took money out of the treasury, the temple treasury to pay for an aqueduct.
David: (09:20)
So the Jews all decided that they were going to circle him when he’s sitting on his judgment seat and there’d be this huge riot and a coup and he heard of it. So he sent the troops in, in civilian dress with clubs, looking like they’d joined in the riot and they turned around and bashed hundreds of Jews to death. so he, he’s looking for an opportunity to Dong Jews on the head. He’s really antisemitic, but then the Jews want Jesus dead. And he’s looking at Jesus, he’s looking at a terrorist like Barabbas yeah. There’s not a thief. He’s abandoned. And he’s a famous terrorist. There’s lots of guys out there who wanna overthrow Rome. He’s caught three of ’em. He’s caught the leader and he’s looking at that and going, you are bringing me Jesus, who heals people, you know, who’s virtually a pacifist, no threat to Rome at all. And you want me to release the chief bandit that’s Anti Rome. And then the wife comes up with a dream that says, you know, the gods have said, don’t touch him.
Dan: (10:33)
David: (10:34)
And, and at every point Jesus is being declared innocent. Mm. And at every point, the guilt of these people is on show. and you just, this pathetic attempt of Pilate to wash his hands and think that that’ll take care of the problem. You know, I’m innocent of his blood Now you’re not, you gave the order. ,
Dan: (10:58)
That’s the way it works. You should know that
David: (11:00)
, you should know that
Dan: (11:01)
Chain of command you’re at the top. You’re responsible.
David: (11:04)
Yeah.
Dan: (11:05)
Well, so yeah, so we’re going to have Jesus get handed over to be crucified. And that is where we are going to leave it for this episode. So if you would like to come and grab the show notes for this episode, please head over to trainingforliferedeemed.com/85. If you enjoyed the episode and you would like to get more, you just wanna leave us to review and give us some great comments. We would love for you to do that. we’d love to see more reviews going up there on apple podcast and in Spotify. And if you would like to hit the subscribe button, come back and join us again next week in a continue to look through chapter 27 and finish that off before we then head into chapter 28.
David: (11:42)
All good.