Matthew 26:25

Matthew 26:22 , Matthew 26:25

(with John 13:25)

I. In the first form of the question: "Is it I?" we have an example of that wholesome self-distrust, which a glimpse into the possibilities of evil that lie slumbering in all our hearts ought to teach every one of us. Every man is a mystery to himself. In every soul there lie, coiled and dormant, hybernating snakes evils that a very slight rise in the temperature will wake up into poisonous activity. And let no man say, in foolish self-confidence, that any form of sin which his brother has ever committed is impossible to him. The identity of human nature is deeper than the diversity of temperament, and there are two or three considerations that should abate a man's confidence that anything which one man has done it is impossible that he should do. (1) All sins are at bottom but varying forms of one root selfishness. (2) All sin is gregarious; is apt not only to slip from one form to another, but any evil is apt to draw another after it. (3) Any evil is possible to us seeing that all sin is but yielding to tendencies common to us all. (4) Men will gradually drop down to the level which before they began the descent, seemed to be impossible to them.

II. We have here an example of precisely the opposite sort, namely, of that fixed determination to do evil, which is unshaken by the clearest knowledge that it is evil. Judas heard his crime described in its own ugly reality, he heard his fate proclaimed by lips of absolute love and truth; and notwithstanding both he comes unmoved and "unshaken with his question." The dogged determination in the man that dares to see his evil stripped naked, and is not ashamed, is even more dreadful than the hypocrisy and sleek simulation of friendship in his face.

III. We have in the last question an example of the peaceful confidence that comes from communion with Jesus Christ. It was not John's love to Christ, but Christ's love to John, that made his safety. He did not say, "I love thee so much that I cannot betray thee." For all our feelings and emotions are but variable, and to build confidence upon them is to build a heavy building upon quicksand; the very weight of it drives out the foundations. But he thought to himself or he felt rather than he thought that all about him lay the sweet, warm, rich atmosphere of his Master's love, and to a man that was encompassed by that, treachery was impossible.

A. Maclaren, Christian Commonwealth,March 5th, 1885.

References: Matthew 26:24. Preacher's Monthly,vol. i., p. 269; E. Mason, A Pastor's Legacy,p. 386.