Two Kinds of Death in a Field of Blood Text: Matthew 27:1-10
Introduction: The Great Reversal
The story of the world hinges on a great reversal. God became man, the immortal put on mortality, the righteous was treated as a sinner, and life came through death. But in the passion of our Lord, we see another kind of reversal, a dark and tragic one. We see a man who walked with God in the flesh, who saw the miracles, who heard the sermons, who was a minister of the gospel, and who cast out demons. And we see him reverse his course entirely, ending his life in despair, hanging from a tree, a son of perdition. At the same time, the Son of God is handed over to his own death, also on a tree, so that sons of perdition might become sons of God.
This passage is a tale of two counsels, two transactions, and two deaths. On the one hand, you have the council of the chief priests and elders, plotting the death of the innocent. On the other, you have the determinate counsel of God, ordaining all these wicked deeds for the salvation of the world. You have the transaction of thirty pieces of silver, the paltry price of a gored slave, used to betray the Lord of Glory. And then you have the second transaction, where that same blood money is used to buy a boneyard for Gentiles. And you have two men destined for a tree. Judas, who by transgression fell, goes to his own place. And Jesus, the righteous one, goes to the cross to purchase a place for us.
What we are witnessing here is the machinery of redemption, and it is lubricated with irony. We see the meticulous providence of God working through, and in spite of, the wicked hands of men. We see the difference between worldly sorrow that leads to death and godly sorrow that leads to life. And we see the self-condemning hypocrisy of religious men who strain out the gnat of ceremonial defilement while swallowing the camel of deicide. This is not just a historical report; it is a spiritual diagnostic. It forces us to ask what we have done with the blood of Christ. Have we, like Judas, found it to be a cause for despair? Or have we, like Peter, found it to be the only cause for hope?
The Text
Now when morning came, all the chief priests and the elders of the people took counsel together against Jesus to put Him to death; and they bound Him, and led Him away and delivered Him to Pilate the governor. Then when Judas, who had betrayed Him, saw that He had been condemned, he felt remorse and returned the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders, saying, “I have sinned by betraying innocent blood.” But they said, “What is that to us? See to that yourself!” And he threw the pieces of silver into the sanctuary and departed; and he went away and hanged himself. And the chief priests took the pieces of silver and said, “It is not lawful to put them into the temple treasury, since it is the price of blood.” And taking counsel together, they bought with the money the Potter’s Field as a burial place for strangers. For this reason that field has been called the Field of Blood to this day. Then that which was spoken through Jeremiah the prophet was fulfilled, saying, “AND THEY TOOK THE THIRTY PIECES OF SILVER, THE PRICE OF THE ONE WHOSE PRICE HAD BEEN SET by the sons of Israel; AND THEY GAVE THEM FOR THE POTTER’S FIELD, AS THE LORD DIRECTED ME.”
(Matthew 27:1-10 LSB)
The Counsel of the Wicked (v. 1-2)
We begin with the formalizing of the wicked plot.
"Now when morning came, all the chief priests and the elders of the people took counsel together against Jesus to put Him to death; and they bound Him, and led Him away and delivered Him to Pilate the governor." (Matthew 27:1-2)
The trial before Caiaphas was a sham, conducted under the cover of darkness. But now, with the morning sun, they seek to give their crime the veneer of legality. They take "counsel together." This is the second time Matthew has mentioned them taking counsel, the first being when they plotted with Judas. This is the unholy parody of the divine counsel. The Father, Son, and Spirit counseled together in eternity to save the world. These men counsel together in time to condemn the Savior of the world. And yet, their wicked counsel serves only to fulfill the divine counsel. As Acts tells us, Herod, Pilate, the Gentiles, and the people of Israel were gathered together "to do whatever Your hand and Your plan had predestined to take place" (Acts 4:28).
God's sovereignty is not a zero-sum game. The fact that God ordained it does not make them puppets. Peter says on the day of Pentecost that Jesus was "delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God," and in the very next breath says, "you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men" (Acts 2:23). They are fully culpable. Their hands are wicked. Their motives are envious. And God, in His infinite wisdom, weaves their sinful threads into His perfect tapestry of redemption.
They bind Jesus and deliver Him to Pilate. They, the supposed guardians of God's law, hand over the incarnate Lawgiver to a pagan governor to be executed. They do this because they lack the authority to carry out a death sentence themselves. And in this, they unwittingly fulfill the very prophecies they claimed to cherish. Jesus had predicted He would be handed over to the Gentiles (Matthew 20:19), and the Law decreed that the one who hangs on a tree is cursed (Deuteronomy 21:23). They could stone Him, but they could not crucify Him. To get the curse they wanted, they had to go to the Romans. Their political impotence became the instrument of prophetic fulfillment.
The Sorrow of the World (v. 3-5)
Next, the camera turns from the conspirators to the traitor, and we witness the anatomy of a dead-end repentance.
"Then when Judas, who had betrayed Him, saw that He had been condemned, he felt remorse and returned the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders, saying, 'I have sinned by betraying innocent blood.' But they said, 'What is that to us? See to that yourself!' And he threw the pieces of silver into the sanctuary and departed; and he went away and hanged himself." (Matthew 27:3-5)
Judas "felt remorse." This is a crucial distinction. The Bible distinguishes between two kinds of sorrow over sin. There is godly sorrow, which leads to repentance and life, and there is worldly sorrow, which leads to death (2 Corinthians 7:10). Peter felt godly sorrow. After denying the Lord, he went out and wept bitterly, but he ran to the empty tomb, not to a rope. Judas experienced worldly sorrow. It is regret, not repentance. It is the horror of being caught, the agony of unforeseen consequences, not the grief of having offended a holy and loving God.
What was Judas trying to do? He had seen Jesus walk on water and raise the dead. It is likely he was trying to force Jesus' hand, to maneuver Him into a corner where He would have to unleash His power and establish the kingdom Judas wanted. But when he saw that Jesus was actually condemned, that the plan had gone horribly wrong, his ambition curdled into despair.
He confesses his sin: "I have sinned by betraying innocent blood." This is a true statement. It is a confession, but it is a confession made to the wrong people. He goes back to his co-conspirators, the chief priests, looking for absolution. But there is no grace there. They are pragmatists of evil. "What is that to us? See to that yourself!" They used him, and now they discard him. Sin always does this. It makes promises it cannot keep and leaves you utterly alone with the consequences.
So Judas throws the money into the sanctuary. The price of the Shepherd is thrown into the house of the Lord, just as Zechariah prophesied. And then, having nowhere else to turn, he goes out and hangs himself. Remorse without a Savior is a black hole. It is guilt turned inward, which can only consume and destroy. He ran from the consequences of his sin instead of running to the only one who could forgive it. And so, at roughly the same time the Savior of the world was being lifted up on a tree to bear the curse for His people, the son of perdition was hanging on another tree, bearing his own curse.
Hypocrisy and the Price of Blood (v. 6-8)
The scene now shifts back to the priests, and the irony becomes so thick you could cut it with a knife.
"And the chief priests took the pieces of silver and said, 'It is not lawful to put them into the temple treasury, since it is the price of blood.' And taking counsel together, they bought with the money the Potter’s Field as a burial place for strangers." (Matthew 27:6-7)
Behold the piety of murderers. They have just orchestrated the judicial murder of the Son of God, but now they are sticklers for the ceremonial law. They cannot possibly defile the temple treasury with this "price of blood." This is a stunning display of what happens when religion becomes a tool for self-justification. They are fastidious about the details while being utterly blind to the monumental crime they are committing. They are worried about the thirty silver coins while the precious blood of Christ is on their hands.
This is the essence of hypocrisy. It is a meticulous concern for the external, the ceremonial, the trivial, as a cover for a heart full of rebellion and wickedness. Jesus called them whitewashed tombs, beautiful on the outside but full of dead men's bones. And here they are, proving His point in the most dramatic way possible.
So they take counsel again. What to do with this tainted money? They decide on a public works project. They buy the Potter's Field to bury strangers in. A potter's field was a piece of land where the clay was exhausted, full of pits and holes, useless for anything else. A fitting place to bury outcasts. And so the money used to betray the King of the Jews, who came for the lost sheep of Israel, is used to purchase a graveyard for Gentiles. The rejection of the Messiah by the Jews becomes the occasion for a provision for the nations. Even in their hypocrisy, God is advancing His plan.
The Fulfillment of Prophecy (v. 9-10)
Finally, Matthew connects all these sordid details to the sovereign plan of God, revealed centuries before.
"Then that which was spoken through Jeremiah the prophet was fulfilled, saying, 'AND THEY TOOK THE THIRTY PIECES OF SILVER, THE PRICE OF THE ONE WHOSE PRICE HAD BEEN SET by the sons of Israel; AND THEY GAVE THEM FOR THE POTTER’S FIELD, AS THE LORD DIRECTED ME.'" (Matthew 27:9-10)
Now, this has troubled some, because if you go looking for this exact quote, you will find the thirty pieces of silver and the potter in Zechariah 11, not Jeremiah. So did Matthew make a mistake? Not at all. First, it was common in Jewish practice to refer to a collection of prophetic scrolls by the name of the most prominent prophet in that collection, which was Jeremiah. So Matthew could be saying it was in the "Jeremiah scroll."
But more than that, Matthew is doing something profoundly theological. He is weaving together multiple prophetic themes. Zechariah provides the thirty pieces of silver, the price of the rejected shepherd, thrown into the Lord's house "to the potter" (Zech. 11:12-13). But Jeremiah provides the potter's field itself. In Jeremiah 19, the prophet is told to buy a potter's jar and break it in the Valley of Ben Hinnom, a place of idolatry and child sacrifice, declaring that God would smash the nation. This place was also near the potter's field. In Jeremiah 32, the prophet is told to buy a field as a sign of future hope and restoration. Matthew, under the inspiration of the Spirit, sees all these threads coming together in this one event. The price of the rejected Shepherd (Zechariah) is used to buy a field of judgment and death (Jeremiah 19) which will ultimately serve as a place for the outsider (a hint of Jeremiah 32's hope).
This is not a mistake; it is a masterful, Spirit-inspired interpretation of the Old Testament. It shows us that every sordid detail, from the greed of Judas to the hypocrisy of the priests, was foreseen and foretold. Nothing is random. God is in absolute, meticulous control. The price was set by the sons of Israel, and the field was purchased, all "as the Lord directed me."
Conclusion: Your Field of Blood
This passage leaves us with a stark choice, embodied in the contrast between Judas and the priests on one side, and the sovereign purpose of God on the other. Judas and the priests tried to deal with the blood of Christ on their own terms. For Judas, it led to despair and suicide. For the priests, it led to religious games and self-deceiving hypocrisy.
Worldly sorrow recognizes that a wrong has been done, but it has no remedy. It sees the blood on its hands and tries to wash it off with more sin, or with despair, or with religious busyness. But the blood of Christ cannot be washed off. It can only be washed in.
Godly sorrow, the kind that leads to repentance, also sees the blood on its hands. It recognizes, "I have sinned by betraying innocent blood." But it does not run to the conspirators or to a rope. It runs to the cross. It understands that this blood, which condemns the hypocrite and drives the despairing to destruction, is the very same blood that cleanses the believer from all sin. The price of our betrayal became the price of our redemption.
Every one of us has a field of blood. It is the boneyard of our sin and failure. The question is what we will do with it. Will we, like Judas, buy it with our own despair? Will we, like the priests, try to sanitize it with our own dead religion? Or will we see that God, in His astonishing grace, took the very price of our treason and used it to purchase our pardon? He bought the field, not as a graveyard for our bones, but as a garden where new life can grow. The blood of Christ either condemns you or it saves you. There is no third option. Therefore, do not see to it yourself. See to Christ.