Betrayal
Published by Stanley Pouw in 2015 · 26 April 2015
Let us open our Bible to Matthew 26 where he is preparing us for the cross of Christ. We have discussed the preparation of the religious leaders, the preparation of Mary, the sister of Martha and Lazarus who anointed Jesus with costly perfume. We have seen the preparation of Judas. From Matthew 26:17-25 we find the final Passover, an essential act our Lord has with His disciples as He moves toward the cross.
In verses 17-19, we saw that it was Thursday night after the sun has gone down. And so, the Lord on that evening celebrates a Galilean Passover Day, and yet there is another Passover Day on Friday which means that Jesus can keep the Passover one day and die during the Passover as the Lamb of God the next day. Our Lord desired to keep the Passover with His disciples in order to teach them, to give them the promise of the Holy Spirit, and to institute a new memorial feast which we know as the Lord’s Supper and time to unmask the betrayer.
Verse 20, “When it was evening, He reclined at the table with the twelve.” That is really all that Matthew says about the supper itself, the Passover meal. It is after 6:00 PM on Thursday evening. Christ will be captured later in the night, brought to a mock trial early in the morning, crucified and He will die at about 3:00 PM on Friday. The Passover meal has to be eaten that night before midnight and nothing can be left for tomorrow.
Notice it says, “He reclined.” That’s interesting because historically when God set the Passover up, you have to eat the Passover standing up, with your loins girded in haste, with your staff in your hand and your shoes on, ready to move out. But through the years, the custom became a rather elongated feast, and since they were no longer in a hurry, they would recline as they did at very many feasts.
And verse 21 says, “And as they were eating.” And that just takes us into the Passover meal itself. Now there was a defined sequence in the Passover meal. The tradition is that the first thing was the initial cup of red wine mixed with water so that they would not become drunk. And that first cup is called “the cup of blessing”, it symbolized the blessing of God (Luke 22:14-17).
Next, following that first cup, would be the washing of their hands. This ceremonial cleansing before the meal itself, is a recognition of the need for personal holiness because they were celebrating God’s deliverance. Now, after they washed there was a little bit of an interlude where the conversation of the disciples turned into an argument among them: which of them was the greatest (Luke 22:24).
It’s quite amazing that while they ceremonially washed their hands as a sign of the cleansing of their inward soul, their souls were filled with pride, self-glory and ambition. There was no connection between what they were doing on the outside and what was going on inside their hearts. Not unlike many people who come to the Lord’s Supper and go through the motions while entertaining sin in their own lives. Jesus knew what they were thinking and here He teaches all of us about real greatness.
John 13:4-14, “Jesus, 4 rose from supper. He laid aside his outer garments, and taking a towel, tied it around his waist. 5 Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples' feet and to wipe them with the towel that was wrapped around him. 6 He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, “Lord, do you wash my feet?” 7 Jesus answered him, “What I am doing you do not understand now, but afterward you will understand.” 8 Peter said to him, “You shall never wash my feet.” Jesus answered him, “If I do not wash you, you have no share with me.” 9 Simon Peter said to him, “Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head!”
10 Jesus said to him, “The one who has bathed does not need to wash, except for his feet, but is completely clean. And you are clean, but not every one of you.” 11 For he knew who was to betray him; that was why he said, “Not all of you are clean.” 12 When he had washed their feet and put on his outer garments and resumed his place, he said to them, “Do you understand what I have done to you? 13 You call me Teacher and Lord, and you are right, for so I am. 14 If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet.”
Jesus gave them a profound lesson on humility, on condescending love, on meeting the needs of someone else and taking the role of a slave. And He said further in verse 15-16, “For I have given you an example that you also should do just as I have done to you. 16 Truly, truly, I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him” and taught them humility which was a strong rebuke to their pride.
And Jesus also gave them a verbal rebuke as well in Luke 22:25-27, “And he said to them, “The kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them, and those in authority over them are called benefactors. 26 But not so with you. Rather, let the greatest among you become as the youngest, and the leader as one who serves. 27 For who is the greater, one who reclines at table or one who serves? Is it not the one who reclines at table? But I am among you as the one who serves.”
The third part of the Passover feast which was the bitter herbs which was symbolic of the bitterness of bondage in Egypt. There was also the sauce and into this the unleavened bread and the herbs were dipped. And then, came the fourth part of the Passover which was the second cup. Again, red wine mixed with water. And then the head of the table, in this case the Lord Himself, took that cup and instructed those who were there as to the meaning of the Passover meal.
Following that there was some singing. And what was sung was the hallel, from which we get the word “hallelujah” which means “praise.” The hallel is Psalm 113 through 118, and at this point they would sing Psalm 113 and 114. After the singing of the first couple of psalms, the lamb would be brought out and the major portion of the meal began. And the father again would wash his hands, take pieces of bread, bless them, break them, and eat them with the lamb and everybody else began eating also.
Verse 21 continued, “Jesus said, “Truly, I say to you, one of you will betray me.” Mark 14:18 adds, “One of you who is eating with Me will deliver Me over.” Now, this is a shocking thing because in that part of the world at that time, when you ate a meal with a person, that means that you consider him to be a good friend. Betraying a friend was unthinkable. But Jesus always spoke the truth, so they knew one of them had done it.
Verse 22 says, “And they were very sorrowful and began to say to him one after another, “Is it I, Lord?” And John 13:22 says, “The disciples looked at one another, uncertain of whom he spoke.” Luke 22:23 says, “And they began to question one another, which of them it could be who was going to do this.” They had just been rebuked for their pride and ambition, and they were doubly shamed by the washing of their feet. And so they are very aware of their weakness, so that they don’t trust themselves.
Judas was very adept at his hypocrisy. The fact that they had chosen him to be the treasurer shows they did not have any doubt about his integrity. And Jesus did nothing to outwardly expose Judas at all. In fact, Jesus had done everything He could to pull him close to Himself. Here he was sitting on the left side of Jesus at the table which Edersheim, the Jewish historian says was the place of great honor. It was to him Jesus dipped the sop and gave it. Again, a symbol of him as the honored guest.
And in verse 23 Jesus answered, “He who has dipped his hand in the dish with me will betray me.” They had no knives or forks; they ate with their hand, dipping the bread, dipping the herbs, dipping the lamb also. Now, who did that? All of them were eating and dipping. He is saying it’s one of you who is here. In John 13:18 He quotes Psalm 41:9, “I am not speaking of all of you; I know whom I have chosen. But the Scripture will be fulfilled, ‘He who ate my bread has lifted his heel against me.”
Psalm 41:9 speaks of Ahithophel in 2 Samuel 16 who was the familiar friend of David who betrayed him. And Ahithophel is a picture of Judas, the arch-traitor, who betrayed Jesus Christ. The wretched one who sat at the table, dipped the sop, ate with Christ, turned around and betrayed Him. In Luke 22:21, “Jesus said, ‘The hand of him that betrays Me is with Me on the table.’”
So, in verse 24 Jesus says, “The Son of Man goes as it is written of him, but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It would have been better for that man if he had not been born.” In other words, don’t think this is a plan gone wrong. It is exactly what God had prewritten in prophetic history. No one is doing anything to me that is not a direct and immediate fulfillment of the eternal plan of God.
So, Judas was a betrayer by his own choice. Judas was a betrayer who rejected grace, and rejected the offer of salvation. Judas rejected all of that, made his own choices and yet some way, somehow in God’s marvelous mysterious sovereignty, he was placed right into the middle of the betrayal of Jesus Christ to accomplish holy purposes. But it doesn’t make him a good man. Judas was a cursed man. Jesus said he was a devil. The Bible says he was a thief. He sold Jesus for money; that is all he wanted.
At the end of verse 24, “It would have been better for that man if he had not been born.” The more you reject, the more truth you understand and refuse, the greater the punishment in hell. Therefore the most severe damnation in hell comes to Judas. Hebrews 10:29, “How much worse punishment, do you think, will be deserved by the one who has trampled underfoot the Son of God, and has profaned the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified and has outraged the Spirit of grace?”
That takes us to the last thought, unmasking the traitor. Verse 25, “Judas, who would betray him, answered, “Is it I, Rabbi?” And he had to say that, if not the others would become suspicious. At the end of verse 25, Jesus said to him, “You have said so.” At that particular moment, John 13:23-26 tells us that Peter leaned over to John who was on the right side of Jesus, Judas on the left, and said to John, “Ask the Lord who it is.” So, he didn’t hear this discussion between Judas and Jesus.
And so, in John 13:25-26, “John leaned over and said, ‘Who is it?’ 26 And Jesus says, ‘The one I give the sop to.’ And He dipped it and He handed it to Judas.” Jesus identified to John only who the traitor was. And then, it says in John 13:27-28, the most frightening thing that ever happened in the life of Judas, “Then after he had taken the morsel, Satan entered into him. Jesus said to him, “What you are going to do, do quickly.” 28 Now no one at the table knew why he said this to him.”
But Jesus got rid of him before they actually ate the meal because he should have no part in the Lord’s Supper. After that, of course, verse 26 says, “And as they were eating.” They went back to the meal, back to the final Passover. After 1,500-plus years of Passovers, this was the last divine Passover ever held. It is a remnant of a covenant that is no longer needed. Jesus here celebrated the Passover as a way to bring it to its end.
Christ began a new memorial feast which He begins not in the Old Testament but in the New Testament, not remembering a lamb in Egypt but remembering the Lamb of God on a cross at Calvary. And we come to that in verse 26, “Jesus took bread, and after blessing it broke it and gave it to the disciples, and said, “Take, eat; this is my body.”
“Blessing it” means, Jesus took bread and gave thanks. He thanked God for the bread, but not only for the food but for the provision God gave in His resurrection power symbolized in this wonderful feast. And then, in verse 27, “And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he gave it to them, saying, “Drink of it, all of you.” And He gave thanks again, and gave them those directives.
So Jesus breaks the bread and passes it around. Some people think it symbolizes the broken body, but Christ’s body was not broken. John 19:36, “Not a bone of Him was broken that the prophecies might be fulfilled.” Mark tells us that all 11 did drink the cup. That is the idea that all of us who come to the Lord’s Table. The new doctrine comes at the end of verse 26 when He said: “This is My body.”
The unleavened bread had always been a symbol of leaving Egypt, and the unleavened bread was a way of saying “we’re starting new; there’s no influence of the old life.” So, it was symbolic of new life. But now it’s something different. Now, unleavened bread means “My body”. Now He is transforming the Passover, He now initiates the new. “I want you to take and eat this bread as representative of My body.”
Now, some people think it really becomes Christ’s body. The Catholic Church teaches the doctrine of transubstantiation. That was also the thought of the Pharisees in John 6. But the intent was “this is symbolic of My body.” And Luke 22:19 adds, “Which is given for you. This do in remembrance of Me.” And that is what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 11:24. So Christ is saying I give My body to die for you and do this in remembrance of Me.
Then, in verse 28 He says, regarding the cup, “This is My blood of the covenant.” That is basically a quote of Exodus 24:8. Jesus is saying that God when He made a covenant with man required blood. When God made a covenant with Abraham, there was blood shed by animals. That’s why Hebrews 9:22 says “Indeed, under the law almost everything is purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins.”
And verse 28 continues, “which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.” Literally, “for the benefit of many.” And who are the many? All who believe, Jews and Gentiles, not just for the nation of Israel. “For the forgiveness of sins,” that is why Jesus came. So, our Lord instituted the bread and the cup as a memorial for all time that we might remember the self-sacrificing, blood-spilling death of Christ for us.
There has never been an authorized Passover since but a lot of Jewish people are still doing it. So, if that ended then, how long do we celebrate this new one? Verse 29 says, “I tell you I will not drink again of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father's kingdom.” We are going to remember His sacrifice together forever in some marvelous way that He has designed.
And then, in verse 30 it says they sung a hymn. This glorious redemption will always celebrated. We cannot grow spiritually unless we learn to praise and glorify God in song. Well, they had already sung Psalm 113 and 114 and maybe continued with 115 till 118. Let’s pray.