CRITICAL NOTES
Luke 22:1 Feast of unleavened bread.—Which lasted for a week. Called the Passover.—An explanation for Gentile readers. Strictly speaking, it was the 15th Nisan, and not the whole week, that was the Passover, “the great day of the feast.”
Luke 22:2. Chief priests, etc.—The Pharisees now drop out of the foreground. Those now most active against Christ were the Sadducean party. Sought.—This corresponds to the calling of the council and the deliberation spoken of in John 11:47. For they feared.—Before this clause such words as “but not on the feast day” are to be understood.
Luke 22:3. Then entered Satan.—I.e., put it into the heart of Judas to betray Christ. The phrase is used in John 13:27, with greater emphasis than here, to describe the final abandonment of Judas to his wicked purpose.
Luke 22:4. Captains.—I.e., of the Temple (see Luke 22:52). These were commanders of the body of Levites who kept guard in the Temple. They were, strictly speaking, civil and not military officers. One of them had the special title “captain of the Temple” (cf. Acts 5:26; Acts 4:1). Betray Him.—Rather “deliver Him” (R.V.).
Luke 22:5. Covenanted.—I.e., agreed to pay. The actual payment was evidently made at a later meeting, when the definite plan of betrayal was fixed upon. Money.—St. Luke does not state the amount, perhaps because the thirty pieces of silver foretold in prophecy would not have significance for a Gentile reader.
Luke 22:6. In the absence of the multitude.—Or perhaps “without tumult” (R.V. margin).
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— Luke 22:1-6
The Unholy Covenant.—So great was the enmity of the chief priests and scribes against Jesus that they had definitely resolved to put Him to death. The only question was how they could best accomplish their design (Luke 22:2). The feast of the Passover was at hand, when the city would be crowded by pilgrims from all parts of the land, and from foreign countries; and the Jewish authorities were afraid that a serious riot might be caused if they took any open and precipitate step in carrying out their project. The inhabitants of Jerusalem were largely under their influence; but Christ still enjoyed a considerable measure of popularity among His Galilæan countrymen, many of whom would be present in the Holy City on the occasion of the feast. Their present intention evidently was to take no action during the feast, but to wait until the bands of pilgrims had returned to their homes. The unexpected offer, on the part of Judas, to deliver Him into their hands, however, determined them to act at once and to arrest Jesus before the feast. The sight of the chief priests and scribes entering into an unholy compact with the traitor apostle for the destruction of our blessed Lord suggests some solemn lessons.
I. It brings to light the fact that there is no alternative between obedience to Christ and enmity against Him.—It is impossible to ignore Him. The chief priests felt that power was slipping away from them, and that the movement with which Jesus was associated was out of their control. They must either yield to Him or take instant action against Him. In like manner Judas, who had cast off his allegiance as a disciple, went straightway to the enemies of his Lord and planned with them how he might betray Him unto them. This fact that there is no alternative between being a disciple and an enemy was clearly stated by Christ Himself in the word “He that is not with Me is against Me.” And what was the case when the Saviour was upon earth, still holds good: all who are brought into connection with Christ are forced, by an inexorable law, to take up either the one attitude towards Him or the other. He claims our worship as God incarnate, and He lays down rules of conduct for the guidance of all men, and if we refuse to accept His claims, or to obey His precepts, we instantly become hostile to Him.
II. It also shows that it is out of our power to fix the limit to which we will go, when once we have entered on a sinful course.—Both the chief priests and scribes and the disloyal disciple were led, by their alienation from Christ, to the perpetration of the most shameful deeds: actions from which they would once have recoiled with horror now seem necessary, and do not shock them. They are deliberately planning the murder of an innocent person under the guise of zeal for religion. All checks of conscience are powerless to control them. The priests forget their sacred office, the claims of justice, and the covenant between God and Israel of which the feast now at hand was so solemn a memorial, and think of nothing but the gratification of their personal hatred of Jesus. Judas forgets all his Master’s love and compassion, His wonderful deeds and teaching, His holy and innocent life; he forgets all that was due from him as a disciple, a friend, and an apostle, to that Master with whom He had lived so long in intimate communion, and in whose character and conduct even the closest scrutiny could discover no flaw or stain. Without a shudder he sees the unhallowed joy upon the faces of the enemies of Christ as he discloses to them the hatred against Him that fills His breast also, and he arranges with them the price at which his treachery is to be rewarded. Probably neither of the parties would have believed it possible for them to descend to such a depth of infamy, when first they began to be conscious of alienation from Jesus. A sinful course is a course downhill; it may be in our choice to enter upon it or not, but when we have wilfully entered upon it, it is not in our power to check ourselves and to fix the point at which we shall stop.
III. The historian lays stress upon the special guilt of apostasy from Christ.—While both chief priests and scribes were guilty of grave sin in planning the death of Jesus, the traitor apostle was guilty of a worse offence than theirs. They had never been Christ’s disciples; their enmity had been open and intense from a very early period in His career. The peculiar infamy of Judas is indicated by St. Luke in the reminder (Luke 22:3) that Judas had been of the number of the twelve, and in the statement that Satan entered into Him, as an explanation of his shameful conduct. He does not speak of Satan as entering into the chief priests and scribes. Some palliation of the guilt of the latter might be found in their ignorance of the Saviour, and in the false conceptions they had formed of Him. The knowledge Judas had of Christ only intensified the heinousness of his sin in betraying Him. A very solemn lesson is here contained for all who are professed disciples of Christ. Our responsibilities are increased by our relations with Him. The sin of those who wilfully depart from Him is necessarily greater than that of those who never acknowledged Him as their Lord and Master.
IV. The history before us is an illustration of there being an over-ruling Providence.—God makes even the wrath of men to serve Him. The priests had decided to take no present action, but to wait till the feast was past. But it was part of the Divine purpose that the death of Christ should occur at the time of the feast—that then He, who is our Passover, should be sacrificed. And hence the very treachery of Judas was made to serve a higher end. Without any violation of human free-will the purposes of God were carried into effect, and those who were simply bent upon gratifying their own selfish and evil feelings were unconsciously made to assist in accomplishing a plan predetermined by God. God’s power cannot be resisted; if we are not fellow-workers with Him consciously and deliberately, He will yet be glorified by controlling and directing all our actions in accordance with His own will.
SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS ON Luke 22:1-6
Luke 22:1. “Feast of unleavened bread.”—The rulers of the people were unwilling to put Christ to death at this season, as they dreaded an uproar being caused among the people. Yet in the providence of God their counsels were overruled. Had Christ been put to death at any other time, there would not have been that coincidence between the offering of the typical lamb, sacrificed year after year for nearly fifteen centuries, and the sacrifice of the true Passover, the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.
Luke 22:2. “Sought how they might kill Him.”—On more than one occasion before they had endeavoured to take Him, but He had escaped from them, for He would not then be taken (John 10:39). But at the very time when they were unwilling to take Him, He willed to be taken: so, against their will, they fulfilled the types and prophecies in killing Him who is the true Paschal Lamb.
Luke 22:3. “Then entered Satan.”—At first Satan came to make the heart of Judas his own; now he enters, because it is his own.—Hall.
Luke 22:4. “Went his way.”—Unconscious of being under the control of the evil passion by which He had given Satan access to his heart.
Luke 22:5. “Were glad.”—The thing wished for, but scarcely expected, being now within reach.
Luke 22:6. “Sought opportunity.”—Doubtless he was baffled at first by the entire and unexpected seclusion which Jesus observed on the Wednesday and Thursday of that week.—Farrar.