The Innocent Blood that Saves

If you are new to us or have been here awhile you have noticed that we have been studying the gospel of Matthew for quite some time and that is because I as a preacher I aim to preach verse by verse through the books of the bible. Now Matthew has been quite the study in fact when I thought about this book this week we have as now two churches lived in this book for quite sometime I preached my first sermon in this book in the year 2023, so all of 2024, all but 1 Sunday in 2025 and now in the beginning of 2026 we have walked with Jesus Christ, and many of those sermons included so many wise words from our Lord, and the one we are looking at today sees Jesus say nothing. Yet I was blown away as I looked at this text and read from several commentaries just how powerful it is.

Let me read you God’s Word this morning.

Matthew 27:1–10 “1 When morning came, all the chief priests and the elders of the people took counsel against Jesus to put him to death. 2 And they bound him and led him away and delivered him over to Pilate the governor. 3 Then when Judas, his betrayer, saw that Jesus was condemned, he changed his mind and brought back the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and the elders, 4 saying, “I have sinned by betraying innocent blood.” They said, “What is that to us? See to it yourself.” 5 And throwing down the pieces of silver into the temple, he departed, and he went and hanged himself. 6 But the chief priests, taking the pieces of silver, said, “It is not lawful to put them into the treasury, since it is blood money.” 7 So they took counsel and bought with them the potter’s field as a burial place for strangers. 8 Therefore that field has been called the Field of Blood to this day. 9 Then was fulfilled what had been spoken by the prophet Jeremiah, saying, “And they took the thirty pieces of silver, the price of him on whom a price had been set by some of the sons of Israel, 10 and they gave them for the potter’s field, as the Lord directed me.””

If you are taking notes this morning the main idea is this..

Main idea:

Though betrayal brings deep guilt and painful consequences, God offers forgiveness and restoration through the innocent blood that saves.

I will get into more details about Pilate next week but we see that Jesus in the minds of the Jews is as good as dead he is guilty. They sent him off for this final verdict. And in this text we see these Chief priests and elders this council are very active yet they are not in control, and though they think they are in the right we see time and time again they are in the wrong yet still fulfilling the scriptures as they go.

Few thoughts I think we have to take away the first is this..

Men cannot undo wrong doing only God can.

I think this text drives this point home. We have Jesus betrayer in the moment. See the actions he took, see Jesus condemned and now comes to this place where he literarily changes his mind. But not in the way we hope he would. When I was looking at the text and looking at the language used see see that the remorse of Judas demonstrates that someone realizes that Jesus condemnation is unjust and Once Judas sees the consequences of his betrayal, he changes] his mind (v. 3) but This is not repentance; the verb is meta-mel-omai, which typically means to change ones feelings or to feel remorse or regret. (It occasionally means repent, but the normal term for repentance is met-anoed.)He knows he has sinned, but he confesses it to men, not God.

When you read the gospels I think in moments like these we try to picture the scene. we get very few words for this important turn in the gospel. You know you can picture Judas standing alone in the Temple courtyard. The noise of the trial echoes in the distance—voices raised, accusations flying. He hears the verdict forming before it’s ever spoken. And suddenly, it hits him. This isn’t leverage. This isn’t pressure. This is death.

The silver in his hands now feels heavier than it ever did before. Not because of its value—but because of its guilt. Thirty coins, each one a reminder of a kiss that betrayed innocent blood.

And this gospel of Matthew tells us Judas changed his mind—but not his heart.

He sees Jesus condemned and realizes the injustice of it all. He knows he has sinned. The Greek word matters here. This is not metanoia—a turning toward God. This is metamelomai—a sinking remorse, a crushing regret, a sorrow that looks backward but never upward.

Judas runs—not to God—but to men.

He says in this very text.. “I have sinned,” . And for a moment, we think, This might turn differently.

But the priests don’t offer mercy. that should not surprise us because of how they just dealt with Jesus. They don’t offer forgiveness. They don’t offer hope.

What do they say… “What is that to us?” they say. “See to it yourself.”

what a tragedy that these men cannot see that they need God to rectify.

Judas is standing in the one place on earth where sacrifices for sin are made—yet he never brings his sin to God. He throws the silver on the floor, hoping that if he can just get rid of the money, he can get rid of the guilt.

But guilt doesn’t disappear when coins hit the ground.

The silver scatters across the stone floor, I bet rolling in every direction—just like his soul. Judas learns too late what we all must learn sooner or later:

Men cannot undo wrongdoing. Religious systems cannot undo wrongdoing. Self-punishment cannot undo wrongdoing. Only God can.

Judas confessed his sin—but to the wrong audience. He felt remorse—but not repentance. He saw the injustice—but not the Savior.

And tragically, the man who walked with Jesus for three years could not bring himself to walk back to Him for forgiveness.

Judas teaches us that remorse without repentance leaves us crushed, but repentance before God leads to mercy—even after the worst betrayal.

I want you to look at the chief priests actions for a moment. They take the money but in them taking it we see them still trying to justify themselves before God. Let us be careful to not be people who only want to follow God partially when it makes us only appear holy but inwardly we are dead.

Now why did these men say this? Why could not just put it back in the general fund. Well all your study bibles I am sure will say something list this.. The priests judge the money to be contaminated and ineligible for the temple treasury (Deut. 23:18), but they are blind to their own complicity* They gave the blood money to Judas. Ignoring their role, they take counsel again (cf. Matt. 27:1) and make a ruling that is technically correct but morally corrupt —harsh to Judas and malicious to Jesus. They determine to put the money to practical use and buy a potters field (probably after the supply of clay is exhausted and the ground useless for the burial of strangers. Henceforth it will be called a field of blood (vv. 7-8 AT.

And in doing so they fulfill prophesy.

Now church how this prophecy fulfilled in one that comes with great debate, because its hard to pinpoint what the actually point Matthew is trying to make here, but as best as I can I want to try to explain it to you from what I understand from my studies.

Matthew shows that Judas’s betrayal and the leaders’ actions were not random acts of evil but the latest chapter in a long biblical pattern—God’s faithful servant rejected by God’s own people, all unfolding according to God’s redemptive plan.

Matthew is not proof-texting. Though you get some liberal scholars who say so.

When Matthew tells us that Judas’s betrayal “fulfilled what was spoken by the prophet Jeremiah,” even though the wording comes largely from Zechariah, he is doing something deeply Jewish and deeply theological. He is not pointing to a single prediction but to a pattern God has been revealing for centuries. And when multiple sources in Jewish culture are cited they usually use the more well known books. Jeremiah major prophet, Zechariah minor prophet. They do this in a couple examples in the New Testament.

In Zechariah, a shepherd is sent by God to care for a doomed flock. Instead of receiving him, the people despise him. They value him at thirty pieces of silver—the price of a slave. Their rejection of the shepherd is, in truth, a rejection of the Lord Himself. The silver is thrown back into the house of the Lord, to the potter.

That same pattern reappears in Jeremiah. Again, God’s servant speaks faithfully. Again, priests and elders judge him unjustly. Again, the warning is given: If you kill me, you will bring innocent blood upon yourselves and this city. The leaders ignore the warning. Judgment follows.

Matthew wants us to see that what happens to Jesus is not new—it is tragically familiar.

Jesus, like Jeremiah and Zechariah before Him, stands before religious leaders who believe they are defending God while actually rejecting Him. Jesus is passive in their hands. Jesus is declared innocent—yet condemned. Jesus’s blood is shed—innocent blood, the very phrase Jeremiah warned about.

The silver, the field, the potter, the blood—none of it is accidental. Together they declare this truth: God’s people once again reject God’s shepherd.

And yet—this is the gospel tension—their rejection does not derail God’s plan; it fulfills it.

Matthew is telling us that even betrayal, corruption, and injustice are not outside God’s sovereign design. They are woven into the larger drama of redemption. What human beings mean for evil, God uses to bring salvation.

Jesus is not a tragic victim of history—He is the faithful Shepherd rejected by His people, exactly as Scripture’s pattern foretold, and precisely according to God’s plan.

All of this brings us to the unavoidable question the text forces on us: if everyone in this scene is guilty, then where does hope come from? Judas is guilty and cannot undo his sin. The priests are guilty and hide behind technical obedience. The elders are guilty and protect their power. The crowd will soon be guilty with their cries. Everywhere we look, we see remorse without repentance, religion without righteousness, and justice twisted by self-interest. And yet—right in the middle of all this guilt—Matthew keeps drawing our attention back to one repeated truth: Jesus is innocent.His blood is called innocent. His condemnation is unjust. Even His betrayer knows it. The leaders know it. Pilate will know it. And here is the hinge of the gospel: only an innocent man can bear the guilt of the guilty. If Jesus were merely another sinner, His death would mean nothing. But because He alone is righteous, because He alone is without sin, He is the only one who can do what Judas could not, what the priests would not, and what religion never can—save sinners by standing in their place. And that leads us to our next truth: only the innocent man can save.

Second point..

Only the innocent man can save.

Judas got the innocent part about Jesus right. But he missed so much more.The text shows us that we should never justify our sin never deflect our sin and never take our sinful actions and settle them on our own accounts all our sin is to be taken to Christ and dealt with by Christ so we can be forgiving and have clean hearts. The only way to deal with your sin is to go to the man who went to the Cross… To many of us try to atone for what Christ can only forgive.

I believe Judas instead of running to Jesus ran to man, and felt so guilty he killed himself. Listen to one scholar who said some powerful words.. Suicide is not the unpardonable sin—we must take into account mental illnesses (chemical imbalances), perceived military necessities (Saul's suicide in 1 Samuel 31:4, 5) and heroic self-sacrifices (Samson's suicide in Judges 16:28-30). However, suicide is always sinful. It breaks the sixth command-ment-"You shall not murder" (Exodus 20:13). Although Judas finds some sympathetic scholars such as Karl Barth who taught that God's all-powerful grace outshined Judas's dark rejection,? there is no reason for such thoughts. Matthew certainly doesn't portray Judas's final act as noble or heroic?

And Jesus himself seems to echo and expand upon the words of Deuteronomy 21:23—"for a hanged man is cursed by God"—when, at the Last Supper, he says of Judas, "woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It would have been better for that man if he had not been born" (26:24). If Judas is now in Heaven, Jesus' woe was wrong. But it was not wrong. Judas may not be in the lowest deeps of Dante's Inferno, but he is somewhere in God's Hell. are to see Judas's death as "a most disgraceful death"" and to tremble and cry at the sad, sad sight.

There is despair, damnable despair. Damnable despair turns away from Jesus. Judas not only lost all hope; he lost all hope in Jesus. He doubted God's mercy through Jesus. He believed Jesus was an innocent man, but he should have added that Jesus was the innocent Son of Man who came to shed his innocent blood for less-than-innocent sinners.l

We should follow him in acknowledging our sin and seeking to confess it. We should also follow him in acknowledging Jesus' is-nocence. From what Judas did wrong we are to learn not to despair over our sin but to fully repent of it.

Church, this is why the innocence of Jesus blood matters so much. When Scripture speaks about the blood of Christ, it is not being dramatic for effect—it is being precise about salvation. From the very beginning, God taught His people that life is in the blood, and that sin always demands death and in this moment in this text we see that sin lead to death. Under the old covenant, innocent blood was shed again and again—not because it was sufficient, but because it was pointing forward. Every sacrifice said the same thing: someone innocent must stand in the place of the guilty. Bulls and goats could cover sin for a moment, but they could never remove it. They reminded people of guilt—but they could not cleanse the conscience.

Judas conscience was struggling, we struggle we try to atone.And then Jesus comes. Not as another sacrifice among many, but as the once-for-all sacrifice. His blood was not temporary. His blood was not symbolic. His blood was sufficient. When Jesus shed His innocent blood, He didn’t just cover sin—He paid for it in full. That is why Scripture says we are justified by His blood. God does not ignore our sin. He does not minimize it. He judges it—fully and finally—on who believer Christ. And because Jesus is innocent, because He is without blemish or defect, God can be both just and the one who justifies sinners like us.

This is what Judas missed. He believed Jesus was innocent, but he never believed that Jesus’ innocence was for him. He did not trust the power of the innocent blood of Christ. Church, hear this clearly: you do not atone for your own sin; Christ already has. You do not justify yourself; God declares you righteous through faith. You do not clean your own heart; the blood of Jesus does that. Only the innocent man can save—and He already has for all who will come to Him.

How do we respond to that truth?

We must understand that guilt cannot be undone by remorse, religion, or self-effort—only the innocent blood of Jesus can deal with sin.

Judas knew Jesus was innocent. It broke him but not in the right kind of way.

The priests knew the money was blood money. they tried to use it on something else.

Everyone involved tried to manage guilt without trusting God we do that same. ( amen or ouch )

Yet Matthew keeps pressing one truth: Jesus alone is innocent, and therefore Jesus alone can save the guilty. His blood is not symbolic, temporary, or partial—it is sufficient, final, its effective. God does not ignore sin; He judges it fully in Christ. That is why sinners can be forgiven without God compromising His justice. If you need to know that is true look no further than the Word of God which says.. In several places these truths..

Matthew 27:4 — “I have sinned by betraying innocent blood.”

Hebrews 9:22 — “Without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins.”

Romans 3:26 — God is “just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.”

1 Peter 1:19 — “The precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish.”

Summary (Head): 👉 Only an innocent Savior can bear guilty sinners—and Jesus is that Savior.

See this point as well.

We should feel the weight of our sin—and the relief of God’s mercy—without falling into despair.

There are two main feelings in this text. We see Judas’s despair — remorse without repentance. and the priests’ hardness — religion without humility without mercy.

Judas teaches us that sorrow alone is not enough. Feeling bad does not save. We feel bad about doing things all the time but that does not translate into salvation Running to people does not heal the conscience. I have talked about being accountable to people as something that is good, but it does not save. And hear me this morning no matter what you are going through self-punishment does not cleanse the heart. It does not quite the mind, it leads to death. Despair that turns away from Jesus is damnable despair.

What God calls for is not denial or despair—but repentance that runs toward Christ, trusting that His blood is enough even for betrayal, even for deep guilt, even for repeated failure hear me, we have a room full of sinners, a room for of broken people who do dumb things, who run to everything except for Christ when you are in your worst run to Jesus.

More scriptural evidence for you to rest on..

2 Corinthians 7:10 “10 For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death.”

Psalm 51:17 “17 The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.”  

Hebrews 9:14 “14 how much more Listen to that how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without and he means it without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God.”  

Summary (Heart): 👉 We grieve our sin honestly—but we trust Christ fully.

We must stop trying to atone for our sin ourselves and bring it honestly to Jesus in repentance and faith.

Church here me today.. Please hear me even those in back pews or online.. Don’t justify sin. Its a dangerous game to play. Don’t deflect sin. Don’t try to settle sin on your own account. Deal with it in the proper way..

Judas confessed—but to the wrong audience. The priests ruled correctly—but with corrupt hearts.

The right response for us is simple but costly: bring your sin to Christ, trust His finished work, and live as someone who has been justified by by what His blood by who Jesus Christ. That means we walk in humility, repentance, gratitude, and obedience—not to earn forgiveness, but because we have received it.

Church 3 different scriptures to rest your heart on with this powerful point.. 1 John 1:7–9 says.. “7 But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. 8 If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. 9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

Romans 5:1 “1 Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Hebrews 10:14 “14 For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.”

Summary (Hands): 👉 Confess to Christ, trust His blood, and live as forgiven people.

Let our Head: Believe that only the innocent man can save. our Heart to know to Refuse despair—trust the mercy found in Christ’s blood. and our Hands to lead to Stop atoning for your own sin and come fully to Jesus in repentance and faith.

Because Jesus is innocent, our guilt can be forgiven—and because His blood was shed, our lives can be made new.

Let me finish with a story.. a man was hiking alone through a mountain pass when a sudden storm rolled in. The path became slick, the fog thick, and before he knew it, he slipped and fell down a steep embankment. He landed hard—injured, bleeding, and unable to climb back up. He was guilty of one thing: he had gone farther than he should have, alone, and now the consequences were unavoidable.

As night fell, panic set in. He tried to fix it himself. He tried to climb. He tried to shout. He tried to stop the bleeding with his own hands. But everything he did only made things worse. The more he struggled, the weaker he became.

Eventually, exhausted and afraid, he did the one thing he had refused to do earlier—he stopped, and he cried out for help.

Hours later, a rescue team arrived. They lowered a rope and called out to him. But here’s the thing—the rope did not come with instructions on how to save himself. It did not ask him to climb out. It did not demand that he prove he deserved rescue. It required one thing: that he let go and trust the one pulling him up.

Church, Judas fell into the ravine of guilt—and instead of crying out to God, he tried to climb out on his own. He threw the silver away. He ran to religious leaders. He punished himself. But he never grabbed the rope of mercy extended to him in Christ.

And some of us are doing the same thing.

We confess our sin—to everyone except God. We feel bad—but we won’t repent which is turning away from sin. We punish ourselves—but we won’t trust Christ. We believe Jesus is innocent—but we struggle to believe His innocence is for us.

But hear this clearly: the rope is still extended.

Jesus does not stand at the top of the ravine telling you to climb harder. He does not shout instructions for self-salvation. He does not say, “See to it yourself.”

He comes down. He sheds innocent blood. He takes the weight of your guilt. And He says, “Come to Me.”

So the question this text leaves us with is not whether Jesus is innocent—we all know He is and if you dont you have not be listening. The question is whether you will stop trying to save yourself and run to Him.

Confess your sin to God—not to manage guilt, but to receive mercy. Trust the blood of Christ—not as a concept, but as your only hope. And then follow Him—not for a season, not halfway, but all your days.

Because remorse leaves you hanging. Religion leaves you empty. But repentance brings life.

And only the innocent man can save—and He already has for all who will come.