Saying, I have sinned
Here was a confession, and yet no true repentance; for he
confessed, but not to the right persons; not to God, nor Christ,
but to the chief priests and elders; nor over the head of the
antitypical scape goat, not seeking to Christ for pardon and
cleansing, nor did he confess and forsake sin, but went on adding
sin to sin, and so found no mercy. The same confession was made
by a like hardened wretch, Pharaoh, ( Exodus 9:27 ) . He
proceeds and points out the evil he had committed:
in that I have betrayed innocent blood,
or "righteous blood"; so the Vulgate Latin, and Syriac versions,
and Munster's Hebrew Gospel read, and some copies; that is, have
betrayed an innocent and righteous person, and been the occasion
of his blood being about to be shed, and of his dying wrongfully.
So God, in his all-wise providence, ordered it, that a testimony
should be bore to the innocence of Christ, from the mouth of this
vile wretch that betrayed him; to cut off the argument from the
Jews, that one of his own disciples knew him to be a wicked man,
and as such delivered him into their hands: for though Judas
might not believe in him as the Messiah, and the Son of God, at
least had no true faith in him, as such; yet he knew, and
believed in his own conscience, that he was a good man, and a
righteous and innocent one: and what he here says is a testimony
of Christ's innocence, and what his conscience obliged him to;
and shows the terrors that now encompassed him about; and might
have been a warning to the Jews to have stopped all further
proceedings against him; but instead of that,
they said, what is that to us? see thou to
that:
signifying, that if he had sinned, he must answer for it himself;
it was no concern of theirs; nor should they form their
sentiments of Christ according to his: they knew that he was a
blasphemer, and deserving of death; and whatever opinion he had
of him, it had no weight with them, who should proceed against
him as an evildoer, let him think or say what he would to the
contrary; and suggest, that he knew otherwise than what he said:
so the Syriac and Persic versions render it, "thou knowest", and
the Arabic, "thou knowest better".
