“And while he yet spoke, behold a multitude, and he that was called Judas, one of the twelve, went before them, and drew near unto Jesus to kiss him,” (Luke 22:47).
A combination of majesty and mercy make up the strongest guard against treason. The position and power of a king usually strike terror in the hearts of his subjects sufficient to deter treason. And when coupled with mercy, they can charm and stroke the soul with love such that it cannot be plotted against. And yet the best guard against treason is that which needs no defense, and that is innocence.
However, Luke 22:47 records a treasonous act that not only breaks through that double guard of majesty and mercy but even the protection of innocence itself. Judas, one of the Lord’s personally chosen twelve apostles, betrays the perfect Christ to a band of soldiers who come to arrest him as if he were a thief or a murderer (Luke 22:52). A fair trial based on real evidence would have pronounced him a true and just man, one in whom not even prejudice itself could find fault (Mark 12:14, Matt. 27:24).
“Wrath is cruel, and anger is outrageous; but who is able to stand before envy?” (Prov. 27:4). And yet what could you, Judas, envy in Christ? His glory, his purse, and his power were all yours. He even caused the demons to be obedient to you. Did you not cast out devils in his name? And now you take the devil into your own heart and cast out Christ! (John 13:27).
You once left all to follow him, and now you leave him to follow the worst of all you had formerly left. You dipped your hand in the same dish of fellowship with him. You followed him as master and carried his bag. And yet you now carry those thirty pieces of silver, your new master, in the bag. After walking and working alongside the Son of God day after day for years, seeing his miracles and hearing his teaching, how could you possibly decide that a bag of coins was worth trading him for? Yet you sold Christ to the Jews and yourself to the devil in the bargain.
You sold this Master that you betrayed to his death when he came to give himself for your life. You betrayed him to his enemies for your own personal gain when he came to purchase you with his own blood. It is as if you chose to sell an invaluable pearl – one which the wise merchant sold all he had to buy (Matt. 13:44) – for some useless triviality. This makes your treachery folly, your gain loss, your greediness unthrifty.
How useless is your money without your Master? And how soon does it lose its luster? Can it buy another Master like Christ? Can it buy you an hour’s sleep? Can it bribe your clamorous tongue of conscience to observe one moment of silence? No, it is no more than empty promises to your present misery and the beginnings of greater tortures. It is all quicksilver. It will not stay; it will not enrich. It buys nothing but fields of blood and confusion (Acts 1:19).
Judas did not so much betray his first Master, Jesus, as his second master, money, betrayed him. Judas betrayed Christ into the hands of malice but gain betrayed Judas into the halter of despair and the rope of death.
How could this have happened? Although Judas had just had his feet washed by the Lord in the upper room, he did not allow Christ to wash his hands and his heart in blood. And while a greeting is in his mouth and a kiss on his lips, a hell of treason resides in his heart.
God may allow hypocrisy to go on at length, to fool the hypocrite into a false hope that he is not only deceiving others but God as well. “Have we not taught in our streets, and have we not in your name done miracles, and cast out devils?” This will be the hypocrite’s plea in the day of judgment, to see if he might possibly deceive God as he has men. But like Judas, at his end such a person is shown to be a fool. For God cannot be blinded with guile nor bribed with gifts. His throne is in heaven, but his theater is in the heart where he may be sometimes unseen, but never unseeing.
Contemplations:
- O my blessed Savior, what an infinitely great price you paid for my poor wretched soul that was hardly worth sweeping for, a mite scarcely worth casting into your treasury (Mark 12). And yet you paid for my soul with your inestimable self. You ransomed me with the price of your blood, you who are the treasury itself (Col. 2:3). Thus we can truly say, “we are bought with a great price,” (1 Cor. 6:20).
- How truly might you call us a dear, precious people for you purchased us with your precious blood (1 Peter 1:18-19). And yet we desire to buy of you, but in the right way, that you become to us our own. “Ho you who pass by, come and buy without money,” (Isa. 55:1).
- Lord, how infinitely you have improved the purchase price of man’s soul that you chose to ransom us at a value high above that of rubies! How mercifully have you entitled me, Lord, who was sold under sin (Rom. 7:14), to this enriching sale and purchase of your invaluable self.
Further References for Luke 22:47:
Matthew 26:47; Mark 14:10, 43; John 13:2, 18:3.
