This is an excerpt from my book “40 Moments From Christ’s Final Days.” Click here to get it from Amazon using my affiliate link.
Find this moment in: Mt. 27:3-5
Between the trials of the Jewish and Roman courts, Judas has a moment of clarity. Whatever justification he used to betray Jesus melted away, leaving him with thirty silver coins to remind him of what he did to the Son of God. We don’t know if Judas repented, but we know he regretted his actions.
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)
This story seems pretty simple, though tragic. Judas saw the wickedness of what he did. We don’t know how much about Jesus he understood before or after his betrayal, but the full weight of the deed had finally hit him. Unable to continue with his guilt, Judas hanged himself.
However, another writer reports Judas’s death, and the two don’t seem to match up.
Now this man acquired a field with the price of his unrighteousness, and falling headlong, he burst open in the middle and all his intestines gushed out. (Acts 1:18)
Falling headlong and bursting open gives an intense explanation of how Judas died. Though still obviously a suicide, Acts 1:18 claims that he threw himself off something high, like a cliff or building, and whatever he landed on cut open his abdomen. Though confusing at first, the two events both happened.
Matthew tells us that Judas hanged himself, but not where. Luke, the writer of Acts, says that he fell from a high place, but not how he fell. Taken together, Judas very likely hanged himself from the end of a cliff, perhaps attaching the rope to a nearby rock or tree. The rope, or whatever Judas secured the rope to, broke when the rope went tight. Judas fell from the cliff’s edge, landing on jagged rocks and bursting open.
Many suggest that Luke gives more details because he was trained as a medical doctor. Perhaps Matthew gives fewer details because his manner of death isn’t relevant to the bigger story being told at the moment. Whatever reason the authors had for including certain details, it becomes obvious that they are both reporting the true, tragic end of the man who followed and betrayed Jesus Christ.
Stop and think: Defending God’s word is important, but it can be scary when we don’t know how to answer why things seem to contradict. Rather than shying away from challenges, we should see these difficulties as opportunities. If you are confident in 2 Timothy 3:16-17, that God’s word is divinely and perfectly inspired, how can you respond when you don’t understand something difficult in the Bible?
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