The text leads us to the contemplation of the conduct and fate of Judas under the remorse occasioned by his betrayal of his Lord. We cannot think any the better of Judas for feeling that remorse, nor will we for a moment admit it as an extenuation of his guilt. Peter wept bitterly after he had denied Christ; but there was more real penitence in his tears than in the frantic desperation of Iscariot when he had handed over his Master to the accuser. The remorse of Judas was but the beginning of his retribution the first stripe of the avenging angel's lash, not the bleeding of a contrite or relenting heart.
I. Observe that this remorse was caused by looking at the consequences of his sin rather than at the sin itself. It was "when he saw that Jesus was condemned" that he flung down the money before the elders, and gave vent to his despair.
II. The sting of the remorse of Judas arose from the thought of the innocency of Him whom he had betrayed. (1) "I have sinned in that I have betrayed the innocent blood." Although this was the lamentation of his soul, he did not realise the entire greatness of his guilt, because he did not know the full innocence of the betrayed One. Could he but have thought of this, how ineffable would have been his remorse! It drove him to suicide as it was; but if he could have slain himself ten thousand times, it could not have attested all the woe he would have felt had he known all. (2) The sense of wrong-doing eventually becomes intolerableto the wrong-doer. He does not feel it at the time, but the retrospect shall bring the retribution. There is a capacity in the human soul for self-review, and a tendency in that direction also. The barbed thoughts will not be kept down, the unwelcome visitors will not be shut out.
III. The next conspicuous idea presented by the text is the worthlessness of worldly gains. The price of innocent blood lay in the dust, spurned as a loathsome thing by him who had received it; avoided as a merited curse by those who had offered and paid it; no greedy Jew with hardihood enough to pick it up; a stern and speaking evidence of the worthlessness of guilty gains.
IV. Confederacy in sin does not diminish individual guilt.
V. Note, lastly, the intolerable remorse which sin brings with it, or, at least, brings after it. Whatever we may say about the natural depravity of man, there is a capacity in the soul for suffering through sin, which sometimes makes the thought of a past evil almost maddening. Life to Judas became unbearable, and he went out and hanged himself.
A. Mursell, Calls to the Cross,p. 106.
I. We see from the repentance of Judas how wide is the difference between a sin in prospect and a sin in retrospect. Before, nothing is in sight but the pleasure, or the honour, or the reward. Afterwards the sting alone remains. Judas had his desire, but along with it a famine entered his soul. Those looks and words of kind and deep compassion that unceasing self-sacrificing care for his happiness and his good, of which at the time he had thought scorn now rushed upon his mind with a power which he could not resist; and when he saw that Divine Friend handed over by his instrumentality to suffering and to death, that hard heart was subdued for the moment by a thrill of unwonted tenderness, and he who had betrayed his Lord, when he saw that He was condemned, repented himself.
II. Judas repented himself, but with no godly sorrow. His sorrow was neither from God nor towards God. No cry for forgiveness, no entreaty for a new heart, preceded or followed that crushing sense of sin. It was the remorse of despair, the last token of lingering animation in the natural heart, before the light that was in it should have become darkness for ever.
III. For ourselves, then, let us learn not to rest on any signs and circumstances of repentance, but to seek that true renewal of the heart which comes from God only. The nature of the repentance of Judas is proved but too clearly by its end. He had so long despised mercy that at last he despaired of it. How could he, who for three years and a half had accompanied the Lord, had seen His works and heard His words, not only without loving Him, without being attracted by His Divine character, but actually as a spy and a traitor, and who at last had succeeded in delivering Him up to His enemies, and consigning Him to His last sufferings how could he even hope, even ask, for forgiveness at God's hand? And if not, why should he linger out in blank and utter despair the few short years that might yet have remained to him upon earth? If an eternity of wretchedness must be endured, why seek to curtail it by a few days or months, which in comparison with its endless duration could be but as a drop in the ocean?
C. J. Vaughan, Harrow Sermons,2nd series, p. 81
References: Matthew 27:3-5. E. B. Pusey, Parochial Sermons,vol. ii., p. 197; E. M. Goulburn, Occasional Sermons,p. 139; C. A. Fowler, Parochial Sermons,p. 101.