Matthew 27 Pt.1 – Betrayed by His own people and Delivered to the Gentiles!

We see from the beginning of Matthew 27 what looks like a recapping of what Matthew has already told us in Matthew 26. But NT writers were not ones to waste paper or papyrus and ink. No, what we have in the opening verses of Matt.27 is the 3rd part of the trial of Jesus before the Jewish leaders. That is not to say that we pin all the blame of the rejection of Jesus and His death only on the few religious leaders, nor do we want to blame all the Jewish people. We are told in John 1:10-13 that He who created the world came into the world and yet was not recognised for who He was. But then we are told that He came to His own, and his own people did not receive Him, and John could have ended with that, yet he went on to say, ‘but as many as did receive Him‘ He gave the right or power or ability to become the sons of God‘ which, by the way it is worded, would mean that that is not limited to Jewish people alone, but can include Gentiles too!

What we find in Matt.27:1-2 is how Jesus was betrayed or delivered by His own people, into the hands of their enemy, the Romans, and that the sole purpose for doing this was to insure that Jesus would not just be killed somehow, but to insure that He would be crucified or in other words, hanged on a tree, since this would mean that Jesus had been cursed by God according to the Mosaic Law.

Of course crucifixion was horrific, but even worse is that it stood for being ‘cursed‘ in the eyes of the Jews, and this would have been the goal of the Jewish leaders – to stamp out “Christianity” – i.e., that nobody would want to follow or be associated with a so-called Messiah, who had been cursed by God. Now, the early church realised this, and could have carefully avoided speaking about the cross, because of the shame associated with it. And yet instead of that that gloried in the cross, realising as Paul did, that Christ BECAME a curse FOR US – See Gal.3:13ff.

How many would respond to the Gospel appeal if it meant shame and humiliation, rather than a wonderful life of health and wealth, as promoted by preachers of today’s “modern gospel“?

To watch today’s video, just click on this link!

Michael Robson