Matthew 27:1-10

¹ When morning came, all the chief priests and the elders of the people conspired against Jesus to put him to death.

² And they tied him up and led him away and handed him over to Pilate the governor.

³ Then when Judas, his betrayer, saw that Jesus was condemned, he changed his mind and brought back the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and the elders,

⁴ saying, “I have sinned by betraying innocent blood.” They said, “What is that to us? Take care of it yourself.”

⁵ And after throwing down the pieces of silver into the temple, he left, and he went and hanged himself.

⁶ But the chief priests, taking the pieces of silver, said, “It is not proper to put them into the treasury, since it is blood money.”

⁷ So they conspired and bought with them the potter’s field as a burial place for strangers.

⁸ Therefore that field has been called the Field of Blood to this day.

⁹ Then what had been spoken by the prophet Jeremiah was fulfilled, saying, “And they took the thirty pieces of silver, the price of him on whom a price had been set by some of the sons of Israel,

¹⁰ and they gave them for the potter’s field, as the Lord directed me.”

a few coins and an enormous debt

The chief priests had an curious moral code. It was considered OK to pay Judas for the betrayal of Jesus and for them to arrange the murder of Jesus, but they could not use the money that Judas returned for the temple treasury! From the standpoint of eternity, what was placed in that temple account is grossly insignificant. But what was charged to their moral account for arranging the murder of the Messiah is an enormous debt. There is – or, rather, will be – a hell. Gehenna is the place where all who have ever sinned will have to pay for those sins. The only ones excluded from that judgment will be those whose names are in the Lamb’s book of life – those whose sins are covered by Jesus atoning death.

Yet, here these religious officials are debating the moral propriety – not of murdering Jesus – but of where they invest a few coins. What an odd lot we humans are!

LORD, give us your eternal perspective on the choices we make.