ESSAY
Inescapable Blood

Matthew is organized around 5 discourses, which trace out the history of Jesus as a recapitulation of the history of God and Israel in the Old Testament. Jesus first speaks as a new Moses, instructing His disciples on a mountain about a righteousness that surpasses the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees. Then Jesus is a Moses or Joshua, sending out His apostles to announce the kingdom and carry out a gracious conquest of the lost sheep of the house of Israel. He speaks about His kingdom in parables and dark sayings, like Solomon the sage-king. He instructs His disciples about forgiveness and discipline within the new Israel, like a new Elisha leading a band of sons of the prophets. Finally, he is a new Jeremiah announcing the doom on the temple and the city of Jerusalem, warning that the temple is going to be torn down and there will not be one stone left upon another.

If Matthew is following the history of the Old Testament, the next thing that should happen is a destruction of a temple and an exile. Jesus should be moving through that phase of Israel’s history.  This happens in chapter 26. When Judas leads the temple guard to Gethsemane to arrest Jesus, the disciples flee, leaving Jesus the shepherd to be struck instead of the scattered sheep.

And this is the story line of chapter 27 as well. At Jesus’ trial before the Sanhedrin, the charge is that He said he was going to destroy the temple and rebuilt it in three days (26:61). While Jesus hangs on the cross, this is the focus of the Jews’ mockery of Jesus: “You who are going to destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, save Yourself!” (27:40). And that is the meaning of the narrative that surrounds these two statements. What we are witnessing in Matthew 27 is the collapse of a temple, the fall of a house, and great is its fall.

Matthew links the fall of the house with the shedding of innocent blood by quoting from Jeremiah and Zechariah. In both prophets, we have warnings about the breaking of a covenant, the shattering of Israel, because of their hostility to Yahweh and because of their shedding of innocent blood. The story of Zechariah 11 begins with the Lord instructing the prophet to feed and pasture the sheep that are destined for slaughter. The shepherd is paid for his work, but the wages get thrown into the house of God Zechariah shows that the money thrown into the temple treasury, to the potter, is a sign that the bonds between Israel and Judah are going to be shattered. Israel will fight with Israel, as the Lord raises up a shepherd who will care for the flock but will eat the fat and tear their hooves.That’s what lies in store for the Jews, and Judas’ blood-money in the temple is a sign of that doom. Jeremiah likewise warns that Israel will be shattered like a clay pot because they worship idols and shed innocent blood (19:4, 10-11).

Blood is everywhere in Matthew’s narrative. Everyone in the story tries to escape the condemnation of shedding Jesus’ blood, but Jesus’ blood will be charged to Jerusalem, the city of blood (23:34-35). When Judas recognizes that his betrayal has led to Jesus’ condemnation, he acknowledges that he is under a curse.  One of the curses of Deuteronomy was a curse against those who accept bribes to strike down the innocent (cf. Deuteronomy 27:25).  Judas knows that the temple authorities conspired with him, and he throws the blood money where it belongs – into the temple (v. 5). The money came from the temple in the first place. He was given the money by the chief priests and scribes, and now he’s returning it to the temple. He throws the money into the temple, which puts the blood money – the innocent blood of Jesus – right before the face of God. Innocent blood will call down God’s wrath against His temple.

For their part, the chief priests deny any involvement in the matter, but they admit their guilt when they hastily remove the blood/money before it can defile (v. 6). They even concede that they cannot remove the curse from Judas (Matthew 27:4). The blood of their sacrifices cannot remove high-handed sin. They are right.  “See to that yourself,” and Judas does, taking his own life in a desperate attempt to pay for Jesus’ blood with his own (cf. Number 35:33; Leviticus 24:21).   The Jews try to escape the blood guilt, but they cannot escape it any better than Judas can, and they eventually spread the guilt out on the whole nation, and their children (27:24-25).

Eventually, they just accept the blood. And not just Jesus’ blood. The first time Matthew mentions blood is in chapter 23, where Jesus warns that all the righteous blood from Abel to Zechariah the son of Berechiah will be charged to this generation, the generation that completes the story of righteous blood, the generation that brings the sin of the Israelites to fullness. The Jews finally accept that blood on themselves and their children. 

Everyone feels the contamination of the blood of Jesus. Judas wants to get rid of the money because it bought Jesus’ blood. The Jews don’t want the money because it’s blood money. Pilate knows that Jesus is innocent, and so he tries to wash off the blood of Jesus. Everyone wants to scrape off the blood. But it keeps coming back, and it will be charged to “this generation.”

Jesus’ blood is inescapable. Everyone in the story is going to come under the blood of Jesus, one way or another. It is going to be charged against those who conspire to kill Jesus, or it is going to be the blood of the covenant, shed for the forgiveness of sins, for those who turn to Jesus. Either way, the blood will be on you and your children. Those who try to remove it, throw it away, wash it off – those are the ones who are doomed.  Those who receive Jesus’ blood will have robes of white washed in the blood of the Lamb.  Jesus closes out the history of blood that began with Abel: His righteous blood is also charged to Jerusalem, and cries out for vengeance against Jerusalem. But to those who receive Jesus and trust Him, it speaks a better word than the blood of Abel, a word of forgiveness and pardon.


Peter J. Leithart is President of Trinity House.

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