The Gospel of Matthew Study Help (Matthew 26:1-13)

Passion of Christ

Questions to be answered in this study

1. What is the definition of Passion connected with the last week of the life of Jesus?
2. Who in history corroborated the Lord’s life outside of the Bible?  
3. What is the meaning of gospel?
4. What are the main events covered in the final section of Matthew beginning with chapter 26?
5. What are the three theories of the day Jesus was crucified?
6. Who was the High Priest at the time of Jesus’ crucifixion?
7. What was the value of the perfume that Mary used to anoint Jesus in today’s money?
8. Who was the main objector to Mary onointing Jesus with the expensive perfume?
9. What was the real reason for the objection to Mary anointing Jesus?
10. Why was it necessary for Judas to betray Jesus?
11. Why was Judas not a believer since he had been with Jesus for three years and had witnessed the healings and miricles?
12. How did Paul describe the church in the last days?

Introduction

The capstone of Christianity is the Passion, death, and resurrection of Christ; without it, there would be no gospel or no hope. Passion comes from the Latin “patior,” which means “suffer.” It refers to the Lord’s sufferings that He endured for our redemption. Passion begins during the private ministry of our Lord with the agony in the garden and continues until His death on the cross at Calvary. The narratives of all four of the gospel accounts provide details of the Lord’s passion. To some extent, extant, history corroborated the Lord’s life on earth through some contemporary Roman historians: Josephus, Tacitus, Seutonius, and Pliny the Younger.

The Gospel means “good news” ultimately found in the death of Jesus, the Lamb of God, who took our place and died in our stead to pay for our sins and therefore provided His forgiveness. His resurrection delivered the means to bring us to glory as citizens of the Kingdom of heaven.

All of the things we have studied, in the Gospel of Matthew, for over the past two years, have led us to this final section beginning in chapter 26 and going all the way to the end of the book at chapter 28; this will include the Last Supper, Jesus’ betrayal in the Garden of Gethsemane, His trial, crucifixion, and resurrection. We want to get a clear picture of these events absent of any tradition or folklore, which has added some erroneous claims to these significant events over the years.

So far, we have studied events that took place at the beginning of the last week of the life of Jesus, which began with His glorious entry to Jerusalem on Plam Sunday, at which time, He went directly to the temple. He started His teaching on that same Day on the temple courts. He continued Monday and Tuesday as the religious leaders listened and questioned Him, but they could not find discrepancies in His teachings. He was the perfect sacrifice, the Lamb of God.

At the end of each day, Jesus walked through the Eastern Gate down a trail that led over the Mt. Of Olives to a small village called Bethany, where He probably spent the night in the home of Mary, Martha, and Lazarus. At the beginning of chapter 24, As Jesus and His disciples left the temple on Tuesday afternoon, His disciples asked Him the questions we have studied concerning the second coming. Jesus answered those questions as he sat on the Mount of Olives; this occasion is known as the Olivet Discourse. After that, Jesus continued to Bethany, and that is where we take our discourse today as we return to the text beginning in chapter 26:

Matthew 26:1-2, “And it came to pass, when Jesus had finished all these sayings, he said unto his disciples, 2 Ye know that after two days is the feast of the passover, and the Son of man is betrayed to be crucified.”

At this time, Jesus tells His disciples that He will be betrayed and crucified at the time of the Passover in two days. The timing is crucial. It was the first Passover on the night before Israel left Egypt that a lamb without blemish was slain, and its blood applied to the doorposts to protect the firstborn as the Lord passed over Egypt. Around 1300 hundred years later, Jesus is about to fulfill the Passover by becoming the literal sacrifice pictured by that original Passover and leading up to that final Passover and the sacrifice of the Lamb of God.

The Jewish religious leaders handed Jesus over to the Romans because only the Romans had the power to execute the death sentence. In a spiritual sense, it was only in the Heavenly Father’s ability to hand over Jesus, which was God’s plan from the beginning, as we note in John 3:16: “For God so love the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” The most famous man in the history of the world wound up being crucified along with criminals.

Before we come to that section, we first need to turn to Jesus comments on the Passover that reveals other essential details. One of those details has been the confusion about what Day Jesus was crucified to meet the three days and three nights of the Jonah comparison. There are three theories: Some argue it was on Wednesday; others contend it had to be on Thursday, while the Day settled on historically is Friday, which has good reason for being accurate. The Jews had a different way of distinguishing days than we today; in those days, a new day began at 6 pm instead of midnight. Friday was the first Day on which Jesus was crucified and buried that afternoon. Then Jesus remained in the tomb Friday night through Saturday afternoon, Day two. Jesus then was in the tomb Saturday evening and rose on Sunday morning on the Third Day. Mark 15:42 upholds this traditional view.; this may seem unimportant to some, but being accurate is essential if we are to follow what the Bible teaches: “Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth,” 2 Timothy 2:15.  

So, we can have answers to our questions if we rely on God to reveal the truth to us through His Word; this is the method God approves. I don’t mean to insinuate that we have all the answers. God has withheld some things which remain a mystery to us. There also are traditions that don’t meet the criteria of Scripture, which some denominations continue to practice. If we can’t find Biblical proof to support our doctrines, we must abandon them.

Chapter 26 began with Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, and now the narrative moves to the home of Caiaphas, the high priest:

Matthew 26:3-5, “Then assembled together the chief priests, and the scribes, and the elders of the people, unto the palace of the high priest, who was called Caiaphas, 4And consulted that they might take Jesus by subtilty, and kill him. 5But they said, Not on the feast day, lest there be an uproar among the people.”

Caiaphas was the official high priest; he, along with other chief priests, convened a secret meeting with the elders of Israel, the Sanhedrin. These religious leaders ruled the nation of Israel even though they were under the control of the Romans. They operated as a government to enforce Jewish law, but they still needed the approval of Rome to carry out the punishment in most cases. Their meeting took place on Tuesday evening. Traditionally the high priest was a descendant of Aaron and inherited the position of the high priest. However, high priests were selected during Roman rule because of their loyalty to Rome. However, at this particular time, Rome had appointed the son-in-law of Annas in AD 18. Annas had once defied Roman law and was removed from office, but he was still living at this time, and many Jews remained loyal to him. 

In the meeting, Caiaphas initiates a plan to arrest Jesus during the Passover and kill Him. Jesus had rebuked the Jewish religion and its leaders and therefore had become a threat to them. They were also fearful that the followers of Jesus might try to appoint Jesus the king over Israel by force; this would cost the religious leaders their power over Israel and result in the retaliation by the Roman army. They were fearful of the large crowd of over a million pilgrims who had gathered at Jerusalem for the Passover. If they took Jesus during the daytime, it might cause an uproar, as is stated in verse 5. Therefore, rather than moving against Jesus in daylight when the crowds had gathered, they came after Him during the time of darkness.

Finding a single person in such a large group of people would be difficult, so this is why they welcomed the help of Judas, the betrayer of Jesus, when he came to them with the offer to lead them to Jesus, but before this was carried out, there was another evet that Matthew mentions:

Matthew 26:6-13, “Now when Jesus was in Bethany, in the house of Simon the leper, 7There came unto him a woman having an alabaster box of very precious ointment, and poured it on his head, as he sat at meat. 8But when his disciples saw it, they had indignation, saying, To what purpose is this waste? 9For this ointment might have been sold for much, and given to the poor. 10When Jesus understood it, he said unto them, Why trouble ye the woman? for she hath wrought a good work upon me. ₁₁For ye have the poor always with you; but me ye have not always. 12For in that she hath poured this ointment on my body, she did it for my burial. Verily I say unto you, Wheresoever this Gospel shall be preached in the whole world, there shall also this, that this woman hath done, be told for a memorial of her.”

Mattew begins his story on Saturday before as he relates the story leading up to Judas’ betrayal of Jesus. The scene starts in Bethany one day before Jesus enters Jerusalem on the day we refer to as Plam Sunday. At this time. Jesus was visiting the home of Simon, the leper. According to the Gospel of John, Martha, Mary, and Lazarus were present also. A woman appears with a valuable jar of perfume during the meal to anoint Jesus. The woman noted here and in the Mark is not mentioned by name, but in the gospel of John 12:2-3, it sounds like this was Mary the sister on Martha and Lazarus who did the anointing. It was as Jesus was reclining and eating at the table, which was the custom in those days, that Mary came to Him with the vile of perfume and began to anoint Jesus’ head and feet.

The perfume was a costly ointment imported from India. It was a relatively large amount of perfume, measuring about 11 ounces or a liter in Greek measure. John reported that this vial of perfume cost about three hundred denarii. One denarius was equivalent to a day’s wages. So, this amounted to nearly a year’s wages; this probably required the life’s savings of Mary to purchase this vial of perfume. It was used as a woman’s purification in preparation for marriage as well as anointing dead bodies for burial. Mary is giving it to Jesus in a gesture of love and to also anoint His body for His death. The perfume was sealed in an alabaster container, which must be broken to be opened and when opened it dissipated quickly. So, Mary emptied the entire content on Jesus, which in the minds of some of those present was extravagant. John said that Mary let down her hair to dry the feet of Jesus, which was a gesture of humility because it was counted as a shame for a woman to let down their hair in public in those days.

This anointment was used only on rare occasions. It was used for consecration services in the temple to anoint a man chosen to be set apart to serve God in a particular way as a prophet, priest, or king. It was sometimes applied to a sick person to appeal to God for healing and also used to anoint dead bodies for burial. In verse 12, Jesus said that Mary was anointing His body to prepare for His soon-to-be death, a burial anointing was ordinarily reserved for a king. What a commitment this was on the part of Mary to sacrifice her life’s savings to honor Jesus; this was equivalent to sacrificing $60,000 in today’s money. Indeed, there would be a question if this was the best way to use such a large amount of money. Mary had heard that Jesus was to be crucified, so motivated by her love for Him, she anointed Him with this expensive perfume. I wonder if most of us are prepared to make such a sacrifice to honor our Lord. Is it too much to ask of us to make a sacrifice for Jesus, who sacrificed His life on the cross for us? Jesus requested that we make a living sacrifice for Him who made a dying sacrifice for us.

Jesus gave Himself for us to the point of dying to provide us with eternal life; therefore, He makes this request. Asking us for a living sacrifice is beyond reasonable. The puny service many offer the Lord today is an insult to God. What is it that keeps many from dedicating all to Christ? Is it money, time, seeking pleasure, or bad habits? Certainly, those are among the things that keep us from the opportunity of witnessing the miracles that God wants to work in our lives. Mary gave Jesus her all. Everything it had taken a lifetime to gain. Today she is with God in heaven, reaping the rewards for her faithfulness. By her obedience, she glorified the Lord.

In verse 13, Jesus told Mary that because of her obedience, she would be known by everyone everywhere the Gospel went. It was a great honor to be honored in such a lasting way. Her sacrifice was great, but so was her reward. We do not know what her reward will be in the Kingdom, but I would imagine it will be a place of great honor. As expensive as the perfume she honored Jesus with, it pales compared to her eternal rewards. We often fail to realize the great things Jesus has in store for those who sacrifice for Him now.

Mary gave out of a heart of love, but she also understood that her dedication to Jesus was far more valuable than the costly anointment. Astonishingly, some of those present that day did not understand her motivation and objected to what she had done. We do not know the names of those who opposed except for one. John reveals that Judas Iscariot was the main objector. Judas claimed he was concerned about the poor, thinking the expensive anointment should have been sold and the money given to them,

John gives us the real reason for his objection. Judas was the treasurer of the funds and collected donations that came to the group to pay expenses as they traveled around the country in their mission endeavor. Judas was dishonest and took part of the funds for himself. He must have been very disappointed that he had missed the opportunity of collecting such a large amount of money. He did not love the poor any more than he loved Jesus and the rest of the disciples. John makes it evident by the end of John chapter 6 that Judas was an unbeliever even after being with the savior for three years and witnessing His miracles and healings. God knew Judas’ heart and selected him three years earlier to be the man who would help the religious leaders of Israel to locate Jesus at the appropriate time, which would otherwise have been difficult in such a large crowd of people.

That may be hard for us to understand why Judas being with Jesus for three years would not be a true believer. The Scripture clarifies it for us: “But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.,” 1 Corinthians 2:14. If you have been a believer for any length of time, you have known those who have placed a higher value on the things of this world rather than on the Holy things of God. 

Jesus comes to the defense of Mary: “Then said Jesus, Let her alone: against the Day of my burying hath she kept this. 8For the poor always ye have with you; but me ye have not always. 9Much people of the Jews therefore knew that he was there: and they came not for Jesus’ sake only, but that they might see Lazarus also, whom he had raised from the dead,” John 12:7-9.

The unbeliever’s expression of religion favors the world and its needs and not the ways of God because they do not understand the spiritual ways of God; they only understand the world. That is why we see the church becoming more and more like the world in these last days, which is the fulfillment of Scripture: Paul told Timothy, “For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; And they shall turn away [they’re] ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables, 2 Timothy 4:3-4. 

Today, the church has taken up the contemporary form of worship, which may be an improvement in some cases. Still, in other situations, when even unbelievers attend and say that going to church nowadays is like attending a rock concert with a darkened auditorium, colored lights, and smoke pots, it begs the question if maybe it has gone too far. The church is not a game to see how much like the world it can become to attract people to the services; this is a game that Christians need to be aware of and avoid lest the church becomes too distracted by trying to make this world into heaven. This world is passing away and is of little value compared to the new world to come when Jesus returns. So, the point is, we who are believers need to make sacrifices as did Mary if we want rewards when Jesus returns.