Death and denial: the spectrum of discipleship

Now Peter was sitting outside in the courtyard. And a servant girl came up to him and said, “You also were with Jesus the Galilean.” But he denied it before them all, saying, “I do not know what you mean.” And when he went out to the entrance, another servant girl saw him, and she said to the bystanders, “This man was with Jesus of Nazareth.” And again he denied it with an oath: “I do not know the man.” After a little while the bystanders came up and said to Peter, “Certainly you too are one of them, for your accent betrays you.” Then he began to invoke a curse on himself and to swear, “I do not know the man.” And immediately the rooster crowed. And Peter remembered the saying of Jesus, “Before the rooster crows, you will deny me three times.” And he went out and wept bitterly.
When morning came, all the chief priests and the elders of the people took counsel against Jesus to put him to death. And they bound him and led him away and delivered him over to Pilate the governor.
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, saying, “I have sinned by betraying innocent blood.” They said, “What is that to us? See to it yourself.” And throwing down the pieces of silver into the temple, he departed, and he went and hanged himself. 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.” So they took counsel and bought with them the potter’s field as a burial place for strangers. Therefore that field has been called the Field of Blood to this day. 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, and they gave them for the potter’s field, as the Lord directed me.”
Now Jesus stood before the governor, and the governor asked him, “Are you the King of the Jews?” Jesus said, “You have said so.” But when he was accused by the chief priests and elders, he gave no answer. Then Pilate said to him, “Do you not hear how many things they testify against you?” But he gave him no answer, not even to a single charge, so that the governor was greatly amazed.

The narrative continues here with Peter picking up from v. 58, “And Peter was following him at a distance, as far as the courtyard of the high priest, and going inside he sat with the guards to see the end.”

Why should we see Jesus, Peter, and Judas together?

Matthew seems to be weaving the narrative to align these vignettes together. Peter’s denials happen concurrently with Jesus trial and they are narrated in a way that would suggest this. In the case of Judas though, his remorse and suicide happen as an interruption to the narrative and, in point of fact, cannot have happened in that chronological order. This recalls Matthew’s presentation of Jesus approach to Jerusalem. I think the ESV headings in this case do a good job of indicating this:

Jesus delivered to Pilate
Judas hangs himself
Jesus before Pilate

So why does Matthew break up the narrative following Jesus this way and particularly to record the death of Judas? We’ll get to that later but spoiler alert: Matthew has strong opinions on God’s role in the death of his Son.

If we are to see Jesus’ trial and Peter’s trial (so to speak) together, then what do we learn by it?

Notice the progressions in play. There’s an increasing specificity to the “accusations” of the people around Peter:

“You also were with Jesus the Galilean” (this recalls the dynamic at play in the triumphal entry and how much Jesus ministry was focused in Galilee).
“This man was with Jesus of Nazareth” (essentially this man was with the condemned, but also a callback to the the view of Nazareth in the 2:23)
“Certainly you too are one of them, for your accent betrays you” (not simply you were with Jesus, you are like him)

Peter’s responses also show a progression:

“he denied it before them all saying ‘I do not know what you mean’” (notice how Peter’s actions are described by Matthew, “he denied” the claim, the same word used in 10:33 ‘whoever denies me before men, I also will deny before my Father who is in heaven’) (this is οἶδα rather than vγινώσκω)
“he denied it with an oath, “I do not know the man” (recall Jesus’ teaching on oaths in the Sermon on the Mount, 5:34)
“he began to invoke a curse on himself and to swear, ‘I do not know the man.‘” (the verb curse here is usually seen as synonymous with the verb used by Mark-anathematizō-which given the construction suggests that Peter is invoking a curse on someone else, namely Jesus)

Lastly, notice the progression of Peter’s movement:

He starts in the courtyard for his first denial
He moves to the gate where he denies Christ the second and maybe third time
and finally he “went out” and wept bitterly

Do we have Peter the rock of the early church without Peter the denier?

The answer to this question has far-reaching and transformative import. If there is no Peter the rock without Peter the denier, what does that mean for my own failure? For my own suffering?

The outcome of Judas’ failure

Judas is remorseful but not repentant (metamelomai vs metanoeō) over his betrayal of “innocent blood”, an allusion to:

Deut. 27:25, Cursed be anyone who takes a bribe to shed innocent blood.’
1 Sam. 19:1-5, Why then will you sin against innocent blood by killing David without cause?”

Judas, being rebuffed by the chief priests and elders, throws down the the money in the temple and departs to hang himself.

Matthew may be interacting with a textual variant known in his day,