THE BOOK OF MATTHEW
Lesson 93, Chapter 27
Matthew chapter 26 concluded with a mixed group of Jewish religious leadership,
representing both the Temple and the Synagogue authorities, gathering at night
in an official capacity at the High Priest Caiaphas’s home with one purpose in
mind: to find false allegations against Yeshua so that they could produce an air of
legitimacy to convicting and executing Him. To their relief, after several aborted
attempts to find cause for their predetermined outcome, the frustrated High Priest
bellowed at Christ: “By the living God, tell us if you are the Messiah, the Son
of God”. Jesus, after having remained silent at a series of false charges levied
against Him by lying witnesses who couldn’t even get their stories straight,
affirmed what the High Priest just stated. But He went even further in
pronouncing an eschatological prophecy (that is, a prophecy about the End
Times) concerning Himself. He said: “…one day you will see the Son of Man
sitting at the right hand of The Power, and coming on the clouds of
heaven”. “Blasphemy” says the High Priest; the other members of the
Sanhedrin agreed, and collectively pronounce the death sentence.
What we need to know to help us understand why chapter 27 begins as it does
(by the Sanhedrin taking Yeshua to the Roman governor Pilate), is that while
they could pronounce the death penalty for a Jew committing a religious offense
within the Jewish Law system, they could not carry it out. This was reserved only
for the Roman government to decide and to do.
Yeshua’s fate was sealed, God’s will was advancing rapidly, and at the same
time His disciples had all deserted Him and renounced their faith in Him. To
emphasize the earnestness at which they, and especially Peter, had fallen away
in their trust Peter denied even knowing who Yeshua was and did so in an
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escalating level of conviction. From a simple denial, to swearing an oath that he
had no association with Him, to finally pronouncing a curse upon himself if he
was not sincere about not knowing Christ. It was Jewish custom that to claim or
state something 3 times was to make it the strongest possible degree of denial or
affirmation. The point being that this was not an issue of 11 frightened disciples
hiding the truth from the authorities because they were scared, but secretly
retaining their loyalty; rather it was exactly as Jesus prophesied in chapter 26
verse 31:
CJB
Matthew 26:31 Yeshua then said to them, "Tonight you will all lose faith
in me, as the Tanakh says, 'I will strike the shepherd dead, and the sheep of
the flock will be scattered.'
The 12 disciples to the last man had all reverted to their former spiritual state, just
as they were before they ever met Yeshua up in the Galilee. To put it in Western
Christian jargon, they had lost their salvation by denying they’re Savior. Let’s
move on to Matthew chapter 27.
READ MATTHEW CHAPTER 27 all
Chapter 27 could be said to be a chapter of ironies. The first irony we should note
is that the great End Times Judge, Yeshua, has been judged by the very people
He is going to judge sometime in the future.
The opening words of this chapter “early in the morning” are tied to the final
words of chapter 26 that say: “Before the rooster crows, you will disown Me 3
times…” That is, the rooster crowing is Yeshua saying WHEN (at what time of
day) Peter will disown Him. It will be just as daylight is breaking, and so this
connects to the first words of chapter 27, “early in the morning…” Much is
happening in a very short time span.
Many Bible scholars explain that what we are reading about is a 2
nd
trial, or
perhaps Christ’s actual trial (with what we saw happen in chapter 26 as only a
sort of pre-trial hearing). While we probably ought not to insert more meaning
than is actually intended, it’s probably best to view this not as a matter of a
second trial but rather it is a 2
nd
meeting that now includes the entire Sanhedrin,
whereas the 1
st
meeting had only some of its members. So, this 2
nd
meeting was
not about determining Yeshua’s guilt or what His sentence should be, but rather
it was working out the details of just how to be certain that He would be put to
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death at the hands of the Romans, at the same time they could appear to have
been following both Jewish and Roman legal procedure. By putting Jesus in
chains and handing Him over to Pontius Pilate, this fulfilled Christ’s prophecy of
Matthew 20:18 – 19. In it, Yeshua said to His disciples:
CJB
Matthew 20:18-19
18
"We are now going up to Yerushalayim, where the
Son of Man will be handed over to the head cohanim and Torah-teachers.
They will sentence him to death
19
and turn him over to the Goyim (the
gentiles), who will jeer at him, beat him and execute him on a stake as a
criminal. But on the third day, he will be raised."
Pontius Pilate is a man known in history outside the Bible; he was at different
points the prefect over the Roman provinces of Judea, Idumea and Samaria. He
ruled from 26 to 36 A.D. so we have a 10-year window during which time Jesus
was executed. No matter all the attempts over the centuries at trying to pin down
the exact year of His death, we’ll probably never know for certain. Pilate was
known to be a cruel man who hated the Jews. Against the wishes of the
Emperor, Pilate would find ways to aggravate and rile up the Jewish people so he
would have cause to punish them. He forcibly took money from the Temple to
build an aqueduct for Jerusalem. He brought the standards and shields of the
Roman legion into Jerusalem that bore the image of the emperor knowing how
passionate the Jews were against images of men especially when hailed as
gods. He is even said to have murdered Galileans on the Temple grounds at the
same time they were slaughtering their animals for holy sacrifices on the Temple
altar. The Jewish historian Philo says Pilate was “naturally inflexible, a blend of
self-will and relentlessness”. He ordered the execution of countless Jews without
the benefit of trial, and nearly always by crucifixion, because it was the most
horrible and humiliating way to die known to him.
In verse 3 Matthew takes a short detour to deal, again, with Judas. It seems that,
similar to Peter, Judas suddenly had a bout of regret and guilt once he heard that
Yeshua had been condemned to death. He tried to return the 30 pieces of silver
he had received to the senior priest that had given it to him saying that he had
betrayed an innocent man; as though this outcome was a surprise to Judas. The
callous priest and his fellow senior priests replied that they had no interest in his
remorse or the money, and that whatever he did didn’t concern them in the least;
his guilt was his problem. Judas threw the silver coins at them and went off and
hanged himself. Interestingly, Matthew is the only Gospel that records Judas’s
death. The only other New Testament mention of Judas dying is found in the
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Book of Acts.
CJB
Acts 1:15-19
15
During this period, when the group of believers
numbered about 120, Kefa stood up and addressed his
fellow-believers:
16
"Brothers, the Ruach HaKodesh spoke in advance
through David about Y'hudah, and these words of the Tanakh had to be
fulfilled. He was guide for those who arrested Yeshua-
17
he was one of us
and had been assigned a part in our work."
18
(With the money Y'hudah
received for his evil deed, he bought a field; and there he fell to his death.
His body swelled up and burst open, and all his insides spilled out.
19
This
became known to everyone in Yerushalayim, so they called that field Hakal-
D'ma- which in their language means "Field of Blood").
While both accounts speak of Judas’s death clearly there’s differences in the
circumstances, although it may have more to do with aspects of the aftermath of
his death than with the manner. That is, Matthew is straightforward in that Judas
committed suicide by hanging, while Luke (in Acts) says Judas’s body swelled
up and burst open. While I don’t wish to get gruesome or graphic, the reality is
that after a few days of hanging dead from a noose, indeed his body would have
swelled up from the gases of decay building up in his body cavity and when cut
down, as he hit the ground, it could have resulted in his body splitting open.
Either way, it was known that Judas died and his death was undignified to say
the least.
Different branches of Christianity have different takes on Judas’s mindset, and
even his state of salvation, when he died. Note how Luke makes it clear that
Judas was as much part of the original 12 disciples as any other by saying “he
was one of us”. And, that Judas, too, had an assignment to be part of the work of
the disciples. Thus, for a time, Judas was a follower of Jesus; there is no hint,
even in the hindsight of the New Testament authors, of Judas not being sincere
in his faith. Matthew speaks of Judas’s regret for what he did (lying and helping
to condemn an innocent man), but regret is in no way repentance. Yet we find
that some Christian institutions profess a regaining of salvation by means of such
regret. Once again this seems to be more a way to spin a pre-existing
denominational doctrine and tradition than in accurately reporting what is
painfully obvious in the Bible. Yeshua Himself pronounces in advance the
damnation of Judas for what he will do back in verse 24 of chapter 26:
CJB
Matthew 26:24 … but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is
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betrayed! It would have been better for him had he never been born!"
This as opposed to how Yeshua does NOT damn the remaining 11 disciples, but
even says He will meet up with them again, after His resurrection, in the Galilee.
This seems to be a prophecy of regained faith and thus reclaimed salvation,
which history confirms. I will repeat something I’ve said on numerous occasions
because it is pivotal to our understanding as regards maintaining our salvation.
Nothing is more dangerous to our eternal future with God than the “once saved
always saved” doctrine of the mostly evangelical Church denominations. While
sounding lovely, it is biblically, factually and spiritually incorrect. Nothing could be
more opposite of what Christ teaches, what other New Testament writers warn
against, or what we’re reading about here in the Book of Matthew. The “once
saved always saved” doctrine implies that once someone has approached God
and said the sinner’s prayer and determined at that moment to be a Christ
follower, then no change of heart or lack of obedience to God, or lack of good
fruit in his or her life has any bearing on their salvation. Even publicly disowning
Christ (as did Peter) will not be taken seriously in Heaven. The doctrinal rebuttal
to my position on this matter is always that anyone that would pray to receive
Messiah Yeshua, and then later (whether weeks or years) completely fall away
from Him, was never a Believer in the first place; he or she was something
else…something we also don’t find in the Bible… someone called a pretender.
Not only is this idea illogical, it defies the plain Scriptural teachings of several of
the New Testament writers. Judas went to His eternal death, judged by Christ.
Had the other 11 disciples for some reason died after firmly renouncing Jesus an
hour or so after the Last Supper event, and prior to the regaining of their faith not
long after His resurrection, they, too, would have been eternally damned. The
good news in all this is that should you (or any of us) fall completely away from
the faith, you can with proper repentance and sincerity, be accepted back into the
Kingdom by God.
CJB
Ezekiel 18:21
21
"However, if the wicked person repents of all the sins he
committed, keeps my laws and does what is lawful and right; then he will
certainly live, he will not die.
Our feelings of guilt and regret are not good enough. Repentance means to turn;
it means to chart a different course… a righteous course… in your mind and in your
behavior. It has to be the right kind… the Godly kind; not any kind that seems right
to you or to the present world order. Jesus outlined in several of His parables and
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illustrations about the Kingdom of Heaven and who the members (those who are
saved) will be, and what is expected of those who hope to be members. It
amounts to more than the mouthing of words or temporary sincerity. If you are
wondering if you are destined for the Kingdom or alternatively for the Lake of
Fire, I urge you to look again at those parables we studied together to help you
find out.
Following the recounting of Judas’s suicide there is a paragraph on exactly what
the priests did with the money Judas gave back to them. They rightly say they
can’t put it in the Temple treasury because it is “blood money”. What is “blood
money”? On one level, it is money paid that purposely leads to the death of
someone. On another level (the more usual level) it means money paid to bribe
someone to cause the death of an innocent person. I think that’s how it is meant
here. When Judas tries to return the “blood money”, and says that he betrayed
an innocent man to death… and the priests say “not our problem” … I think they
fully expected Judas to end his own life. In the Torah, should a liar’s testimony
lead to the conviction of the innocent the liar is to receive the same penalty that
the falsely accused did. Judas, the liar and betrayer, was subject to death for his
despicable act.
CJB
Deuteronomy 27:25 "'A curse on anyone who accepts a bribe to kill an
innocent person.' All the people are to say, 'Amen!'
The senior priest (not the High Priest) took the coins Judas returned and bought
a field where they could bury foreign visitors to Jerusalem. The Greek word that
is usually translated to foreigners or strangers is xenos; it has a wide range of
meanings from strangers to guests. Some suggest that it is means Jewish
visitors to Jerusalem; I am doubtful of that. It was known that thousands of
gentiles flocked to Jerusalem to see the incredible Temple that Herod had rebuilt
at enormous expense. I suspect that due to the wicked source of the money… and
that it was acknowledged as blood money… that the field purchased as a
cemetery was probably not used for Jews. It is because of the unclean blood
money that the cemetery came to be known as the Field of Blood. This act, too,
was done to fulfill prophecy. What is a bit odd is Matthew says that it was a
prophecy of Jeremiah; that doesn’t seem to hold true. Rather we find a highly
paraphrased verse from Zechariah.
CJB
Zechariah 11:11-15
11
On that day when it was broken, the most
miserable of the sheep who paid attention to me knew that this was indeed
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a message from ADONAI.
12
I said to them, "If it seems good to you, give me
my wages; if not, don't." So they weighed out my wages, thirty silver
[shekels, that is, twelve ounces].
13
Concerning that "princely sum" at
which they valued me, ADONAI said, "Throw it into the treasury!" So I took
the thirty silver [shekels] and threw them into the treasury in the house of
ADONAI.
14
Then I snapped in two my other staff Hovalim [bound together],
in order to break up the brotherhood between Y'hudah and
Isra'el.
15
ADONAI said to me, "This time, take the equipment of a worthless
shepherd.
There’s been much academic head scratching about Matthew 26:9. Even when
we look to Zechariah, it’s difficult to connect it to Judas. That said, as we look at
the original Hebrew of Zechariah, we need to know that the Hebrew name
Y’hudah is most properly translated into English as Judah. Judas is a kind of
twisted secondary translation of Y’hudah. There is no known Jewish name of
Judas and so I doubt the original language of Matthew’s Gospel that was
Hebrew had it that way. All translation by definition is an editing of the original.
To sum it up, it’s a stretch to make Zechariah 11 explain what happened with
Judas, and there are numerous scholarly speculations as to why Jeremiah is said
to have been the prophet and not Zechariah. It’s not worth our time to wrestle
with what can’t be known. There is a scientific proverb used in such conundrums
that would do us all good to remember; it is called Occam’s Razor. The proverb
is that in the end, the simplest solution to any problem is usually the best one.
The problem of Jeremiah being mentioned instead of Zechariah is most likely a
scribal error that came later.
After Matthew’s detour to include what happened to Judas, verse 11 brings us
back to Yeshua’s march to the cross. Jesus is taken to Pilate and Pilate asks
Him if He is King of the Jews. Notice that Pilate’s concern has nothing to do with
the Sanhedrin’s accusation of blasphemy. However, I have little doubt that the
politically astute Caiaphas and his close associates knew that telling Pilate that
Jesus claimed to be the King of the Jews versus telling him that Jesus had
committed blasphemy would stand a far better chance of getting Christ executed.
Pilate was all too aware of the Jewish belief that a Messiah would come in the
mold of King David and lead a successful rebellion against Rome. Thus, for the
High Priest to tell Pilate that Yeshua claimed to be King of the Jews wasn’t really
a lie, because for the High Priest that’s exactly what Yeshua’s admission as
being the Jewish Messiah meant to him. And if it hasn’t occurred to you yet, it’s
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time to notice that the High Priest, the Senior priests, and the highest officials of
the Synagogue didn’t really want a Messiah; especially not one in the mold of
long held Jewish thought. These men had lucrative positions of power and wealth
and lived very comfortable lives; a rebellion against Rome would have been
counter-productive for them. This is the entire reason they wanted Jesus (or any
would-be Messiah) eliminated. It was only the common Jews that wanted a
Messiah.
Jesus affirms Pilate’s question if He is the King of the Jews. Pilate needs to hear
nothing more. In the Roman Empire there can be only 1 king: Caesar. So, for
Pilate this is sedition, plain and simple. The same crowd of wicked Jewish
leadership were there with Christ and Pilate, and so started peppering Yeshua
with more accusations (needlessly I would argue), to which He won’t respond.
Pilate is taken aback; Jesus won’t defend Himself. On the one hand He is
refusing to dignify nonsense; on the other He has determined to submit Himself
to the will of His Father and that will is for Yeshua to die on the cross.
Verse 15 explains that during Pilate’s tenure as prefect, at the time when
Jerusalem was overrun with Jews for Passover, he would set 1 prisoner free,
apparently as chosen by the crowd on a voice vote. Here we encounter another
and little noticed irony. There was apparently a notorious revolutionary in custody
(likely a Sicarii) that Mark also identifies as a murderer; a rebel whom our Bibles
call Barabbas. Pilate asked the crowd who they would rather he pardon and
release; Barabbas or Yeshua.
Before we proceed, let’s spend a few moments about a topic that I’ll call
“what’s in a name?” The Bible is positively crowded with names, and the first
name/last name nomenclature so common to us in the West didn’t exist in
ancient times. Rather it was usually a name and then some kind of designation
that might connect the named person to a particular family or family industry, or
more likely to just the name of that person’s father (Simon son of Jacob, for
example). Just as in almost any culture, among the Jews there were favored
names that got chosen far more often than
others. Shim’on (Simon), Yaacov (Jacob), and Yeshua (Jesus) to name a few
were the 3 most popular around Yeshua’s era. In fact, according to Rabbi
Joseph Shulam and others, Yeshua was the 2
nd
most popular male name in the
1
st
century among Jews. It was no different for women, with Miriam (Mary)
and Elisheva (Elizabeth) particularly popular.
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So, let’s take a look at the name Barabbas. It becomes much easier to identify if
we simply remove the “s” at the end of the name (a letter that doesn’t belong
there, but had to have been added in Christian Bibles at some unknown point).
Bar-abba, then, is really two words in Hebrew: Bar and Abba. Bar is actually
Aramaic and means son or son of. Abba means father. So, this man’s name as
we have it is literally “son of the father”. Was that his real name? I doubt it. First
because there is no attestation to the name Bar Abba anywhere in Jewish
literature at any time in the ancient past, and second because no Hebrew man
would have held the formal name of “Abba”. Abba (father) was used
occasionally as a title; but never as a name.
Interestingly in some of the oldest scriptural Greek fragments of Matthew that
have been found and attested to by the early Church Fathers Origen and
Chrysostom (among others) Bar-Abba is further identified with the name Yeshua.
That is, just as we correctly find it in the CJB in verse 16, Matthew calls this
notorious prisoner Yeshua Bar Abba (Jesus, son of the father). Can we not also
view Christ as Yeshua Bar Abba (Jesus, son of the Father… the Holy Father… God
the Father?) So, we essentially have 2 Yeshua Bar Abbas before us: the one is a
rebel and murderer, the other is divine, without sin, and is going to meekly die on
the cross to save those Jews standing before Him who currently are clamoring
for His death. The irony is thick and unfortunately once again translation (and
perhaps a hint of something intentional) hides this rather surprising part of the
account from view. As the preeminent New Testament Scholar Bruce Metzger
notes, there is little doubt that the more ancient fragments with Barabbas’ name
written as Yeshua Bar Abba is correct; later gentile Christian editors would have
had far more motive to erase the name Jesus from Barabbas’s name than to add
it.
Verse 18 explains that Pilate was fully aware that Yeshua in reality was no threat;
that He was only being thrown to the wolves because the Temple and
Synagogue authorities were jealous of Him (jealous in the political sense of
fearing Christ’s growing popularity). Then something awfully strange occurs.
Pilate’s wife comes to him during this so-called trial and warns him of something
she’s just dreamt. She advises her husband to leave this innocent man alone
because she suffered so terribly in the dream (in other words, it was a
nightmare). No details are given. Another irony. The Jewish religious leadership
want Yeshua to be guilty, but the gentile woman knows He is innocent. How does
she know? A dream.
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Biblically, God intervening, warning, or simply passing along information in a
dream, has happened all throughout Hebrew history. But more interesting is how
many times the dream method of divine communication occurred with a pagan
gentile who then brought the contents of the dream to a Hebrew to interpret. That
is, God at times spoke to gentiles and did so here with Pilate’s wife. Although
there are also other instances, Pharaoh and Joseph come to mind as does
Nebuchadnezzar and Daniel. We can even think of the gentile Magi who were
warned in a dream not to return to Herod with news of the location of the Christ
child. I like the way Daniel J. Harrington puts it in his commentary on Matthew:
“The gentile woman’s insight contrasts with the spiritual obtuseness of the
chief priests and elders”. And so, yet another irony unfolds as verse 20 finds
the chief or senior priest leading a rally among the crowd to free Barabbas and to
have Jesus crucified. We must notice the issue of choice: a choice to choose the
divine or the worldly. The evil or the righteous. Who is the crowd? It can only be
Jews. Likely the bulk of them were the Jews of Judea, although some Jews from
Galilee and other regions no doubt were present as well. It is here that we are
forced to deal with a touchy subject: are the Jews really the Christ killers as they
have regularly been cast within Christianity for century after century? Or as some
Christians (and today, Messianics) that fight against that notion will claim… no, it
was really the gentile Romans who killed Christ? I would argue that Matthew
shows us that both divisions of the world’s population…gentiles and Hebrews…
are equally responsible if one chooses to look at it that way. But even then only
to a point.
It is long past time to leave such a disingenuous debate in the smelly dumpster of
religious history. Should any modern gentile Christian feel responsible for what
Pontius Pilate did in condemning Jesus to the execution stake over 2000 years
ago? Should any modern Jew feel responsible for how the illegitimate High Priest
Caiaphas and several other Jewish men connived to get rid of Jesus, back in the
early part of the 1
st
century? Even more, notice how Matthew always focuses
(rightly so) on the leadership. It was with the Jewish leaders that Yeshua always
had a bone to pick, and He blamed them for the common Jews’ lack of Scripture
knowledge and right doctrine, and therefore for the precarious spiritual condition
it put them in. It was only the gentile Roman prefect of Judea that condemned
Christ to the cross; even the gentile Roman soldiers who were tasked with
carrying it out were but following orders from the Roman leadership. It was not
entirely of their own accord that the crowd of Jews cried for Christ’s death
instead of Barabbas’s; they were deceived and egged on by the Jewish religious
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leadership that had brought Jesus to Pilate in the first place.
None of us should look to people groups, nations or tribes, in ancient times or in
the future, to place blame for Christ’s death. From the moment of Adam and
Eve’s rebellious sin in the Garden the day of Christ’s death became necessary
and a certainty. If we want to face facts, in a certain sense all of us have had a
part in His death because all of us have sinned and must have a Redeemer if we
are to have any hope. And the only way that redemption works is for sins to be
paid for with blood.
To highlight the lack of understanding of the now frenzied Jewish crowd standing
before Pilate, in verse 23 Pilate asks the crowd a question: “Why” should
Yeshua be executed, asks Pilate; “What crime has He committed?” The
response was not to answer his question but rather for them to simply double-
down on wanting Jesus dead. They want Him dead because their leaders want
Him dead; they need no more information than that. End of the trial. Pilate could
care less whether this 1 Jew lived or died. Pilate symbolically rinses his hands in
a bowl of water and says his hands are clean from the death of Jesus. Likely he
did this because he understood that in Jewish culture to wash one’s hands in
water is to ritually cleanse them; to make them pure. It amounted to a declaration
of ritual innocence. This was not a Roman custom. Pilate has just given in to the
Jewish mob; there is no semblance of justice. He bears personal responsibility
for what comes next that no amount of hand washing will alleviate.
Pilate announces to the crowd that this man’s blood (His death) is on them. They
enthusiastically respond that they accept the responsibility for the death of
Yeshua, extending it so far as to include what amounts to a curse on their
children because of being complicit in the death of an innocent man; this indeed
has reciprocal spiritual and earthly consequences. It is here that the early
institutional gentile-controlled Christian Church took their que, deciding that Jews
are the true Christ Killers. So, a doctrine was contrived that said that as a
consequence God shifted His love and the blessings of His Covenants from
Israel to the gentile Church. While I don’t want to get too far into the matter of
curses and the Jewish people, I cannot hide the elephant in the room. Just as the
individual Jews in that crowd were responsible for their own personal responses
to the choice put before them by Pontius Pilate they are not somehow
representative of all the Jews alive in the 1
st
century. Yet there is no escaping
how a curse affects future generations. It is not necessarily that God enforces a
curse upon children, grandchildren and future descendants who had no hand in
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breaking a vow, or in committing a crime against God; in fact, Scripture speaks
against such a concept.
CJB
Ezekiel 18:4, 20
4
Look, all lives belong to me- both the parent's life and
the child's life are equally mine- so it is the person who sins, himself, who
must die………..
20
The person who sins is the one that will die- a son is not
to bear his father's guilt with him, nor is the father to bear his son's guilt
with him; but the righteousness of the righteous will be his own, and the
wickedness of the wicked will be his own.
The offspring doesn’t bear the sins of their parents. Rather it is that
circumstances can be set into motion by parents that will necessarily and
inevitably affect their offspring and descendants in a negative way, generally
along the lines of something that I think can be seen as natural or unavoidable
consequences. For instance, none of us committed a sin in the Garden of Eden;
Adam and Eve did that. Nonetheless, the natural consequence of what
humanity’s common parents did is that we all suffer from physical death, and
face the possibility of eternal death if we don’t accept God’s redemptive mercy.
Children from drug or alcohol addicted parents are far more likely to themselves
become drug or alcohol addicted, and then pass it along to their children, and so
on. It is equally known that violently abusive parents, or parents who wind up in
gangs or go to prison, are more likely to produce children that do the same. I
cannot tell you how that works, or how much (if any) is genetic, or if it more
comes down to the environment and family system the children are raised into.
In ancient times those sorts of things were often explained in terms like
“generational curses”. We moderns don’t like to deal in things like curses (it
sounds too primitive), so we give these sometimes-inexplicable realities other
names and assign them psychological terms. The point is this: these sorts of
decisions and choices by parents especially as concerns a relationship with God…
choices like we read about from the Jewish crowd on that fateful Passover
morning… will have far reaching effects that they’ll never realize and probably
won’t live to see. And, their children and even later generations may not
understand where that heavy ball of oppression that seems to follow them around
was first given its push. We’d probably all like to firewall off one generation from
the next, like turning the page to a new chapter in a book or changing a channel
on TV. But the Bible, and merely living long enough to observe it, provides
sufficient proof that this is not how life works in this present age.
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How much better it would have been for the many future generations of Jews had
the Jewish crowds yelling for Yeshua’s death refused to accept the phony
verdicts of their own Jewish religious leaders as well as that of their Roman
prefect, Pontius Pilate, in order to kill an innocent man, and instead have
recognized Him for who He was. How much better it would have been had their
ears and minds listened, obeyed, and been more open to the truth of God’s
Word and to the presence and saving power of God’s Son, than to the
comfortable human attraction of manmade tradition, the narcotic of custom, and
the naïve certainty that their religious leaders must be the objective holders of
divine truth and righteousness. The curse that crowd put upon itself for the blood
of their Messiah has most definitely affected millions of Jews that would come
later. Not because those who would come later are also cursed of God for
something they didn’t do and are not responsible for, but because sin is
infectious, and because what people are wrongly taught by the previous
generations has a ripple effect across time, like throwing a stone onto the waters
of a pond and watching how it disrupts the calmness of it, the waves rebounding
off the edges and colliding yet again to continue the effects.
Parents, the curse you place upon yourselves for refusing to accept your Savior,
to not live righteously, and thus to withhold from your children a truth you could
have known but chose not to, is more apt than not to carry over to your children
and grandchildren and beyond. They may well be cursed by your curse, even
though that’s not what you intend.
We’ll continue in chapter 27 next time.
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