The Pulpit Commentary — Matthew — Volume 2 — Section 596

HOMILETICS. Vere. 1-10.-fie end of Judas. I. THE FORMAL CONDEMNATION 01.1' OUR LORD. 1. The Sanhedrin. "When the morning wai come," St. Matthew says-the morn in" which followed the long sad hours of that night of mockery and shame; the morni,cg which ushered in the greatest day in the world's history, the day signalized by the darkest crime ever wrought upon this sinful earth, illustrated by the one all-sufficient Sacrifice for sin, by the noblest deed of holiest self-devotion which has brightened the annals of the human race ;-on that memorable morning all the chief priests and elders of the people came together, They met now to pronounce the formal sentence of death. Their previous meeting was illegal. A capital cause could, by their own rules, be tried only during daylight. This meeting, which St. Luke describes at greater length than the :first two evangelists, was held to render valid the irregular sentence passed in the night. They were careful to observe forms and precedents; they heeded not the awful guilt which they were contracting. 2. The delivery to the Gentiles. Again they bound him who is the King of kings. And then they fulfilled his own prophecy-they delivered him "to the Gentiles to mock, and to scourge, and to crucify him" (eh. xx. 19). They had determined on his death. It was "not lawful for them to put any man to death ; " but they scrupled not to employ the agency of the hated Romans to accomplish their wicked purpose. They hated Pilate ; he had deserved their hatred by his cruelties and by his scornful contempt of their religious prejudices. But they hated the holy Jesus more than they hated the cruel and haughty Pilate; and they delivered Jesus, that is, they betrayed him; they completed the evil deed of Judas. As he betrayed his Master to them, so they betrayed their King, their Messiah, to the Roman Pilate. It was an act of treason, awful treason, against the Divine King of the Jews. Indeed, they knew not what they did. "I wot," said St. Peter, after the Ascension, "that through ignorance ye did it, as did also your rulers" (Acts iii. 17). They would not have dared thus to treat the Lord, had they believed him to be the long-expected Messiah. But their ignarance wae guilty ignorance, If they had searched the Scriptures with a single heart, they must have seen in the Lord's life the signs of the Messiah. Some of them were old enough to remember the visit of the Magi, and the excitement which it caused in Jerusalem. All knew more or less of the Lord's beautiful life, of his holy teaching, of hie works of love and power. But they were blinded by hypocrisy and self-interest. They had long sought his death. The solemn entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, the" Hosanna I" shouts, the enthusiasm of the multitude, followed by the controversies in the temple, with the Lord's awful parables and his stem condemnation of the dominant religionism, deepen6d their resentment and confirmed them in their wicked purpose, They proposed to seize him after the feast-day; but the unexpected treachery of Judas enabled them to take him at once without uproar or danger. They knew his absolute innocence; they saw his holy calmness, his meek, patient self-possession in the midst of insults; they heard his majestic assertion of his Divine office and diguity. 'l'hey would not believe; they were blinded by their prejudices, their pride, their interest; they made the guilt of Judas their own; they completed his fearful treason, and delivered their King into the hands of the merciless Roman governor, whose cruel contemptuous character they knew so well, and whom they expected to be the ready and willing instrument for carrying out their evil design. II. JUDAS. 1. His remorse. He had probably mingled with the crowd of spectators, like Peter. He had nothing to fear, as Peter had. It is said that there is a strange, awful attraction which draws a murderer irresistibly to the scene of his crime; some such feeling forced Judas to linger about the high priest's palace. We know not what his thoughts were during that fearful night. It is possible (though there is no Scripture foundation for the theory) that he may have looked forward, even more eagerly than the other apostles, for the expected earthly reign of the Messiah; he may have been vexed and angry with the Lord for not claiming the throne of David, and thus raising his followers to rank and eminence. It is just possible (very improbable it seems to us) that he may have designed by his treachery to force the Lord to declarn himsdf as the Messiah, to exert his supernatural power, and to set up his kingd,)m in  602 THE GOSPEL .ACOORDING TO ST. MAT'l'HEW, [oa. xxvu. 1-66,