Gospels (77) - Matthew 27:3-10, Mark 15:1 & Acts 1:18-19

Teacher: Rusty Kennedy
Series: Gospels

Rusty's Notes

Mark 15:1
JESUS FACES PILATE
1 As soon as it was morning, having held a meeting with the elders, scribes, and the whole Sanhedrin, the chief priests tied Jesus up, led him away, and handed him over to Pilate.[1]
 
Matthew 27:3-10
JUDAS HANGS HIMSELF
3 Then Judas, his betrayer, seeing that Jesus had been condemned,

• Jesus’ religious trial before the Sanhedrin

was full of remorse (regret – metamelomai vs repent - metanoia) and returned the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders.

• “What have I done?”

4 “I have sinned by betraying innocent blood,” he said.

• Remorse… not repentance.

“What’s that to us?” they said. “See to it yourself!”

• The seduced is rejected by the seducer.

5 So he threw the silver into the temple and departed. Then he went and hanged himself.
Acts 1:15-19

• In those days Peter stood up among the brothers and sisters—the number of people who were together was about a hundred and twenty—and said: 16 “Brothers and sisters, it was necessary that the Scripture be fulfilled that the Holy Spirit through the mouth of David foretold about Judas, who became a guide to those who arrested Jesus. 17 For he was one of our number and shared in this ministry.” 18 Now this man acquired a field with his unrighteous wages. He fell headfirst, his body burst open and his intestines spilled out. 19 This became known to all the residents of Jerusalem, so that in their own language that field is called Hakeldama (that is, Field of Blood).[2]

• Arnold Fruchtenbaum has this to say about Judas’ death in his Life of Christ series:
  “According to Jewish law, if there was a dead body in Jerusalem, the city was considered defiled and the morning Passover sacrifice could not be offered and could not be celebrated. However, Jewish law goes on to say that if the body is taken and cast into the valley of Hinnom, a place of burning… then the city is reckoned as cleansed and the Passover can be partaken of, and then later they can return and bury the body.”

 
6 The chief priests took the silver and said, “It’s not permitted to put it into the temple treasury, since it is blood money.”

• They only had two options to deal with this money:
• 1) Return it to the owner… but Judas was now dead.
• 2) Do something for the public.
• Alfred Edersheim (Book 5, page 575)
• “It was not lawful to take into the Temple treasury, for the purchase of sacred things, money that had been unlawfully gained (blood money). In such cases the Jewish Law provided that the money was to be restored to the donor, and, if he insisted on giving it, that he should be induced to spend it for something for the public weal.”

 
7 They conferred together and bought the potter’s field with it as a burial place for foreigners (strangers).

• Made themselves look good.
• This apparently contradicts Acts 1:18 that says, “Now this man acquired a field with his unrighteous wages.”
• Who actually bought the field?
• The Sanhedrin did, with the money that was Judas’ so it was purchased in Judas’ name.
• Contradiction solved.

8 Therefore that field has been called “Blood Field” to this day.
9 Then what was spoken through the prophet Jeremiah was fulfilled: They took the thirty pieces of silver, the price of him whose price was set by the Israelites, 10 and they gave them for the potter’s field, as the Lord directed me.[3]

• Matthew quoted Zechariah as prophecy fulfilled. (not Jeremiah)

Zechariah 11:12-13

• Then I said to them, “If it seems right to you, give me my wages; but if not, keep them.” So they weighed my wages, thirty pieces of silver.
• “Throw it to the potter,” the Lord said to me—this magnificent price I was valued by them. So I took the thirty pieces of silver and threw it into the house of the Lord, to the potter.[4]

 

• 30 pieces of silver = The value of one dead slave.
• What did they buy? The Potter’s Field
• 600 years before Jesus was Jeremiah
• Matthew knew when the elders & chief priests bought the Potter’s Field… the very same field that Jeremiah had cursed 60 years before.

 
Jeremiah 7:27-34
27 “When you speak all these things to them, they will not listen to you. When you call to them, they will not answer you. 28 Therefore, declare to them, ‘This is the nation that would not listen to the Lord their God and would not accept discipline. Truth has perished—it has disappeared from their mouths. 29 Cut off the hair of your sacred vow and throw it away. Raise up a dirge on the barren heights, for the Lord has rejected and abandoned the generation under his wrath.’

• “For the Judeans have done what is evil in my sight.” This is the Lord’s declaration. “They have set up their abhorrent things in the house that bears my name in order to defile it. 31 They have built the high places of Topheth in Ben Hinnom Valley in order to burn their sons and daughters in the fire, a thing I did not command; I never entertained the thought.

• 32 “Therefore, look, the days are coming”—the Lord’s declaration—“when this place will no longer be called Topheth and Ben Hinnom Valley, but the Valley of Slaughter. Topheth will become a cemetery, because there will be no other burial place. 33 The corpses of these people will become food for the birds of the sky and for the wild animals of the land, with no one to scare them away. 34 I will remove from the cities of Judah and the streets of Jerusalem the sound of joy and gladness and the voices of the groom and the bride, for the land will become a desolate waste.[5]

 

• A curse was placed on this piece of property 600 years before Jesus died.

 

• Jeremiah 19:1-15
• This is what the Lord says: “Go, buy a potter’s clay jar. Take some of the elders of the people and some of the leading priests 2 and go out to Ben Hinnom Valley near the entrance of the Potsherd Gate. Proclaim there the words I speak to you. 3 Say, ‘Hear the word of the Lord, kings of Judah and residents of Jerusalem. This is what the Lord of Armies, the God of Israel, says: I am going to bring such disaster on this place that everyone who hears about it will shudder 4 because they have abandoned me and made this a foreign place. They have burned incense in it to other gods that they, their fathers, and the kings of Judah have never known. They have filled this place with the blood of the innocent. 5 They have built high places to Baal on which to burn their children in the fire as burnt offerings to Baal, something I have never commanded or mentioned; I never entertained the thought.
• “‘Therefore, look, the days are coming—this is the Lord’s declaration—when this place will no longer be called Topheth and Ben Hinnom Valley, but Slaughter Valley. 7 I will spoil the plans of Judah and Jerusalem in this place. I will make them fall by the sword before their enemies, by the hand of those who intend to take their life. I will provide their corpses as food for the birds of the sky and for the wild animals of the land. 8 I will make this city desolate, an object of scorn. Everyone who passes by it will be appalled and scoff because of all its wounds. 9 I will make them eat the flesh of their sons and their daughters, and they will eat each other’s flesh in the distressing siege inflicted on them by their enemies who intend to take their life.’
• “Then you are to shatter the jar in the presence of the people going with you, 11 and you are to proclaim to them, ‘This is what the Lord of Armies says: I will shatter these people and this city, like one shatters a potter’s jar that can never again be mended. They will bury the dead in Topheth because there is no other place for burials. 12 That is what I will do to this place—this is the declaration of the Lord—and to its residents, making this city like Topheth. 13 The houses of Jerusalem and the houses of the kings of Judah will become impure like that place Topheth—all the houses on whose rooftops they have burned incense to all the stars in the sky and poured out drink offerings to other gods.’”
• Jeremiah returned from Topheth, where the Lord had sent him to prophesy, stood in the courtyard of the Lord’s temple, and proclaimed to all the people, 15 “This is what the Lord of Armies, the God of Israel, says: ‘I am about to bring on this city—and on all its cities—every disaster that I spoke against it, for they have become obstinate, not obeying my words.’”[6]

[1] Christian Standard Bible. (2017). (Mk 14:66–15:1). Nashville, TN: Holman Bible Publishers.
[2] Christian Standard Bible. (2017). (Ac 1:15–19). Nashville, TN: Holman Bible Publishers.
[3] Christian Standard Bible. (2017). (Mt 26:69–27:10). Nashville, TN: Holman Bible Publishers.
[4] Christian Standard Bible. (2017). (Zec 11:12–13). Nashville, TN: Holman Bible Publishers.
[5] Christian Standard Bible. (2017). (Je 7:27–34). Nashville, TN: Holman Bible Publishers.
[6] Christian Standard Bible. (2017). (Je 19:1–15). Nashville, TN: Holman Bible Publishers.