All through this gospel the Holy Ghost bears in mind very particularly our Lord's relations with Israel. Hence in the preceding chapters, where we had the destruction of Jerusalem foretold, care was taken to bring out also the preservation of a godly remnant of Israel, as a fact which would be of special comfort to His own people. And, just as we have seen in that prophetic testimony, so in the narrative of the crucifixion, what comes out peculiarly in Matthew's gospel is the part which Israel takes in the wondrous scene; their accomplishment of what was written in the law and Psalms and Prophets touching their rejection of their own Messiah. Our evangelist wrote with a very express view to the Jews, and hence it was of the greatest importance to convince them, by his testimony, that God had accomplished the promises in the sending of the Messiah, whom Israel's unbelief had refused and crucified, by Gentile hands, on the tree. What would be the special value of quoting the law and prophets to Gentiles? The Old-Testament Scriptures formed a book of which the heathen had the scantiest knowledge. We do find references to these Scriptures in Luke, just enough to give a link, but that is all. But Matthew, while writing for all souls, has Israel in full view. Hence the Lord is so distinctly and carefully presented as Messiah in this gospel; but, at the very first, enough is intimated to show His rejection. In the subsequent details we see not only broad predictions accomplished, but the way in which enmity is brought out. The guilt of the religious leaders is prominent. In this world, religious evil works the part that is specially offensive to God. The devil cannot give effect to his ends here below unless he brings in the name of God to sanction what is done by man.
Hence here the active people are the priests. “When the morning was come” —they rise early to accomplish their design. And, mark, it is said, “all the chief priests,” &c. This shows the utter ruin and blindness of the nation. It was a most startling fact, and a capital one for a Jew to understand (for a Jew knew that the priesthood was instituted and ordered of God), that those who ought to have been the sure guides of the people, were their misleaders in the greatest of all sins. Were not the sons of Aaron divinely chosen l Was not the succession duly maintained? Were not the Jews a people called out from the rest of the world, to own the true God and His law? Most true; but what were they and their leaders now about? Led or leaders, they had played the chief part in crucifying the Christ. These were the men who had the best light of any nation, but all the use man made of the light was to become more hardened and embittered in rejecting the Son of God. “And when they had bound him, they led him away, and delivered him to Pontius Pilate the governor.” Whatever we find the Gentiles doing here, God takes care to point out that the Jews were not only the secret conspirators, but that the open guilt fell upon them.
“Then Judas, which had betrayed him,” &c. “And they said, What is that to us? See thou to that,” Awful picture of what Satan brings about in a wretched human heart! Only the farther from Jesus morally, because he was the nearer externally. Most of all guilty are those who have the greatest outward privileges, while the truth of God does not govern the soul. We see, too, the mockery of Satan—the way in which he cheats his victims even in this world. Judas did not expect that Jesus would die. He had known the Lord in imminent peril before; He had seen Him, when the people took up stones to cast at Him, hiding Himself, going through the midst of them and passing on His way. He knew how Jesus could walk on the sea—how He could conquer all the obstacles of nature; and why not the raging storm of human passion and violence? But Judas was deceived, whatever his calculations may have been; he yielded to covetousness; he bargained for the blood of Jesus—and Jesus came to die. To his horror, he found it too true. And Satan, who had led him on by his love of money, leaves him without a single hope, in black despair. He goes to the priests; but miserable comforters were they all to the miserable despairing soul. Confession of sin, without giving God confidence for His grace, is worthless. Cleave to God, my soul, and give Him credit for what He is in Christ. But there is no faith where Jesus is not loved: and Judas had neither. Jesus was a forgotten object before his soul, and this proved that there was no life in him. All the outward nearness he had enjoyed before, was only a greater weight to sink him into perdition. What a thing is the end of sin even in this world, sin against Jesus! Judas brings the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders with the confession, “I have sinned, in that I have betrayed the innocent blood.” They could not deny the truth of this; but with utter heartlessness they say, “What is that to us? See thou to that. And he cast down the pieces of silver in the temple, and departed, and went and hanged himself.” Many a one sells Jesus virtually, if not literally. Let every soul look to it, that his sin be not in some way akin to that of Judas. If God is calling sinners to a knowledge of His Son, it is an awful thing to reject Him; it is selling Jesus for some object in this world, which either we seek to attain, or love too well to part with. In Judas, this came out in its worst form; but perdition is not confined to him who is the son of perdition.
“And the chief priests took their silver pieces,” &c. Conscience would have told them that theirs was the guilt of bribing Judas to betray Jesus. But another thing becomes evident here. Religion without Christ only gives persons the means of cheating their souls into the belief that they are doing God service. They said, “It is not lawful for us to put them into the treasury, because it is the price of blood.” Here was religion, but where was conscience in giving the money for Jesus? “And they took counsel, and bought with them the potter's field to bury strangers in. Wherefore that field was called, The field of blood, unto this day.” They are obliged thus to perpetuate their own wickedness. And this is exactly a picture of what the people, once holy, had now become—the chief priests the pattern of what the nation was. A field of blood that land remains to this day, a field “to bury strangers in.” Israel being cast out of their own land, it is left to others, if only to be buried there.
But it is not now the chief priests and elders, nor the wretched condition of Judas, nor the perpetuation of Israel's wickedness, foretold by the prophet, that occupies us. It is our Lord Himself, standing before the governor. He acknowledges the power of the world, when Pilate asks Him, “Art thou the King of the Jews?” To the chief priest and elders He answers nothing. Pilate, struck by the silence and moral dignity of his prisoner, desires His release, sees through the malice of the people, and proposes to them a choice, such as was the governor's custom. “Whom will ye that I release unto you?” But he had to find out the hatred with which men regarded Jesus: there is no person or thing the malice of man does not prefer to Him. God takes care, too, that there should be a home testimony to the conscience of the governor. His wife sent a message, saying, “Have thou nothing to do with that just man; for I have suffered many things this day in a dream because of him.” This, which is recorded only in Matthew, disturbed Pilate the more. All of it God ordered, that man's iniquity in rejecting Jesus should be evident and without excuse. Then observe the solemn lesson: “The chief priests and elders persuaded the multitude that they should ask Barabbas, and destroy Jesus.” The greater the moral advantages, where there is not simple faith in God, the greater the hatred of Jesus. The reception or rejection of Jesus now is the same thing in principle, though, no doubt, the circumstances of the world are changed. Persons may know just enough of Jesus for their souls' salvation and experience little of the world's rejection; but if I really cling to a crucified but now glorious Christ, I must know what it is to have the scorn and hatred of the world. If the world rejected Him, I must be prepared for the same thing. We cannot have both heaven and earth. The cross and the glory go together. The Lord presented hopes of blessing on earth to Israel if they had received Him; but they refused, and this brought in the cross of Jesus. God knew it was inevitable, and this because of man's wickedness. Then God brings in heavenly glory, and we must prepare for as much as man chooses to do in the present state of society. It is a lie of Satan's to say, that man is altered for the better in the last 1800 years; the feeling of the human heart is always the same, though there may be times when it comes to a focus. The very people who “wondered at the gracious words that proceeded out of His mouth,” the same day sought to cast Jesus down headlong. And what was it that brought out their enmity? It was the assertion of God's grace. Man cannot endure it—the thought that His salvation is the same perfect, eternal salvation for the worst of sinners as for any. “Is it possible,” he says, “that I, who have tried to serve God for so many years, should be treated like a drunkard, a swindler, or a harlot?” He turns round on God, and becomes His open enemy. But, after all, there is no question of justice to man in the salvation of a sinner. It must be grace, if God saves any, and He shows that. Nor is it merely a partial remedy, for there is no case so desperate that His grace cannot reach.
“Pilate saith unto them, What shall I do then with Jesus who is called Christ? They all say unto him, Let him be crucified.” Here we see the righteousness of these religious men. If Pilate was, at least, too sensible to do as they, we shall see what his righteousness amount to. He asks, “Why, what evil hath he done? But they cried out the more, saying, Let him be crucified. When Pilate saw that he could prevail nothing, but that rather a tumult was made, he took water,” &e. There you see what the world's righteousness is. We have seen what the chief priests were; now we see what is the righteousness of the Roman. There cannot be true righteousness unless God governs. We have all failed—I must therefore be saved by another; for God shows all measured, weighed, and found wanting. One person alone in this scene is found full of wisdom, patience, goodness, perfect in every way. When it was the time to speak, His word is spoken; when it was the time to be silent, He holds His peace. He was God upon earth, and all His ways perfect. But this is not the great point here. The Gospel of John specially developer the Deity of our Lord, as that of Luke His humanity. In Matthew we see Him as Messiah; therefore Pilate asks Him here, “Art thou the King of the Jews?” When Pilate had “washed his hands before the multitude, saying, I am innocent of the blood of this just person: see ye to it” (as if that could relieve him of the fearful guilt he was perpetrating); all the people answered and said, “His blood be on us and on our children.” And there the dark fatal stain abides to this day. Others are guilty too, but the favored Jew above all. “When he had scourged Jesus, he delivered him to be crucified.” See what the righteousness of man is! This was he who had just before called Jesus a just man. And now come the soldiers. They are, and must all be proved, guilty. Not a class or condition of man but evinces its hatred of God in the person of His Son; failing most, too, in that which was their pride. For what base cowardice is that which tramples down One who suffers unresistingly! “And they stripped him, and put on him a scarlet robe. And when they had platted a crown of thorns, they put it on his head.... and they spit upon him, and took the reed, and smote him on the head,” &c. But that was not all. “As they came out, they found a man of Cyrene, Simon by name; him they compelled to bear his cross.” The excesses of human tyranny follow the rejection of Jesus.
“They gave him vinegar to drink mingled with gall.” We must not confound this circumstance with that mentioned in John, where the Lord says, “I thirst.” In Matthew's narrative it was the stupefying draft administered to prisoners before they suffered; and this the Lord would not drink. Whereas, in John, the Lord, while on the cross, remembers, as it were, a scripture as yet unfulfilled. Here then He is regarded not as One who did not suffer, but withal as the absolute Master over all circumstances. Alive therefore to the honor of Scripture, and a word which had not received its accomplishment, He says, “I thirst.” “And they filled a sponge with vinegar,... and put it to his mouth.” He did drink the vinegar then; but here, on the contrary: “When he had tasted thereof, he would not drink.” He wished no alleviation from man. “And they crucified him, and parted his garments, casting lots,” &c. The superscription differs in the various gospels. But we must remember that Pilate wrote it in three different languages. One gospel (Mark) does not profess to give anything but the substance of what was written, the accusation or charge against Him; in the others, the Holy Ghost gives the words. And what appropriateness is here! “This is Jesus the King of the Jews.” The great thing for the Jew, was the identifying of their Messiah and King with Jesus. In Luke the word “Jesus” ought to be omitted, as in the best authorities. It is really, “The King of the Jews, this!” meaning “this fellow,” a term of contempt, the point there being “He is despised and rejected of men.” Here, “He came to his own, and his own received him not;” because though the Gentile shares the guilt, it is the Jew who leads Pilate to condemn Him to death. In John, we have, characteristically, the fullest form of all— “Jesus of Nazareth the King of the Jews.” The reason is, that it unites two things in our Lord, not anywhere else so brought into juxtaposition: the most complete humiliation and the highest glory. He by whom all things were made—God Himself—was as man “of Nazareth.” The beauty of this must appear to any spiritual mind. Throughout John's Gospel the Lord is both higher and lower than anywhere else.
“The thieves also, which were crucified with him, cast the same in his teeth.” They found time to revile Jesus too, venting their bodily anguish in mockery of the Son of God. Oh! beloved friends, was there ever such a scene? We have looked at man's part, but what was God doing there? “About the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabacthani? that is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” We have full evidence that this was not the exhaustion of nature. “And when he had cried again with a loud voice, he yielded up the ghost.” Our Lord died a willing victim. Man might will, and be the instrument of, His death. A man He became that as a man He might die; but He marks it in its every circumstance so as to show that He was there who could as easily have swept away a world as of old He laid down by a word the foundations of heaven and earth. “He yielded up the ghost; and, behold, the vail of the temple was rent in twain, from the top to the bottom; and the earth did quake, and the rocks rent.” Nature was made to yield its testimony, above and below; and the darkness over the land was no mere eclipse. The Jewish system, too, yielded its solemn witness in the rent vail. Unrent, it had been the symbol that man could not draw near to God. Under the law it can never be. God dwelt then in the thick darkness. But in the death of Jesus there is the expression of full grace. God and man may now meet face to face. The blood is sprinkled upon and before the mercy-seat, and man is invited to draw near boldly. Why should it not be? It is due to that precious blood. God in Him had come down from heaven to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. For every soul that believes, it is done. The Jewish system might linger on, like a corpse waiting so many days for burial; but the rending of the vail was the soul severed from body. Thus there was witness on every hand: the earth and the heaven, the law and the unseen world. Jesus has the keys of Hades and of death. The very graves were unlocked when Jesus died, if the bodies of the saints did not rise till after His resurrection. He was Himself the firstfruits, and the power of life was brought in through His resurrection. What testimony could be more complete? The centurion set to watch (heathen as, no doubt, he was) “feared greatly, saying, Truly, this was the Son of God.”
“And many women were there beholding afar off,” &c. But where were the disciples? Oh, what withering condemnation of all boasted strength! They had forsaken Jesus and fled; but here were these women, contrary to their natural timidity, “out of weakness made strong,” beholding, even though afar off. In Joseph of Arimathea, we see a man who had a great deal to lose: he was a rich man and a counselor; before, a secret disciple of Jesus: but now God brings him to a point when you would least expect it. With the death of Jesus before his eyes, he goes to Pilate, begs His body, and having laid it in his new tomb, rolls a great stone to the door of the sepulcher, and departs. If apostles and disciples fled, God can, and does, raise up testimony for His name's sake.
We have traced the history of self in this chapter. If we had all the riches, the learning, the power of this world, these could not make us happy. But Jesus can. Yet let us remember that we are in an enemy's country, which has shown its treachery to our Master. If we do not feel that we are passing through the camp of those who crucified Jesus, we are in danger of falling into some ambuscade of the enemy. The Lord grant us that calmness of faith which is not occupied with itself, but with Him who His own self bare our sins in His own body on the tree.