Introduction

From the opening pages of Scripture, humanity is preoccupied with going up. We reach, climb, build, conquer, and exalt ourselves, believing that greatness is found by ascending above others. Yet the story God tells about Himself moves in the opposite direction.

Rather than remaining distant from the world He created, He repeatedly draws near to it. He enters deserts, slave camps, battlefields, exile, and homes. He seeks the forgotten, hears the oppressed, and pursues the wandering.

By the time Jesus arrives, this pattern has become unmistakable. His life does not introduce an unfamiliar picture of God—it brings into full view what God has been revealing all along. God had consistently shown Himself to be the One who draws near, seeks the lost, and enters the brokenness of His creation.

Anyone who wasn't expecting the kind of Messiah Jesus was hadn't been looking closely enough at who God had proved Himself to be since He was walking in the garden of Eden in the cool of the day, and called to the man, “Where are you?”

I. The Price of a Slave 💰

The connection between Matthew 26:15 and Exodus 21:32 is one of the most sobering intertextual echoes in Scripture. Matthew is not merely recording the amount Judas received. He is inviting the reader to remember the Torah.

Judas asks:

Matthew 26:15 - "What are you willing to give me if I hand Him over to you?" They weighed out thirty silver coins for him."

The amount is oddly specific. Matthew could simply have said "they paid him." Instead, he preserves the exact figure because it carries theological significance.

Exodus 21:32 - "If the ox gores a male or female slave, the owner must give the slave's master thirty shekels of silver, and the ox must be stoned."

Under the Mosaic Law, thirty shekels was the legal compensation paid for the death of a slave. Thus, Jesus is valued by Israel's leaders at exactly the compensation prescribed for the accidental death of a servant.

Jesus the Servant

This fits Matthew's portrait of Jesus. Matthew repeatedly identifies Jesus as the promised Servant foretold in Isaiah.

• He comes "not to be served, but to serve" (Matthew 20:28).
• He fulfills the Servant Songs of Isaiah (especially Isaiah 42, explicitly quoted in Matthew 12:18–21).
• He humbles Himself rather than asserting earthly power.

Ironically, Israel's leaders unknowingly assign Him the legal value of a slave. They intend an insult. God reveals the truth. Jesus truly is the Servant of the LORD.

Worth Versus Valuation

Notice the distinction. The thirty pieces of silver do not reveal Christ's worth, they reveal humanity's valuation of Him.

Throughout Matthew, people continually misjudge Jesus.

• Nazareth rejects Him.
• Religious leaders accuse Him.
• Crowds abandon Him.
• Judas sells Him.

✨ The price exposes not Christ's value but the blindness of sinful humanity. ✨

The One through whom all things were made is appraised at the compensation owed for a dead servant.

The Irony of Justice

Exodus 21 concerns justice after an ox (a beast) kills a slave. Matthew presents something far greater. The innocent Servant is intentionally delivered over to death. The irony deepens:

• In Exodus, the slave is an unfortunate victim.
• In Matthew, the Servant willingly embraces death.
• In Exodus, thirty shekels compensate a human master.
• In Matthew, thirty silver coins purchase the betrayal of the Master Himself.

The Law's compensation becomes the betrayal price of the Lawgiver.

Zechariah Brings the Picture into Focus

Matthew expects readers to remember another passage:

Zechariah 11:12–13 - "So they weighed out my wages, thirty pieces of silver... Then the LORD said to me, 'Throw it to the potter'—the magnificent price at which they valued Me!"

In Zechariah, the rejected shepherd sarcastically calls thirty pieces of silver the "magnificent price" at which God's people valued Him. Matthew later alludes directly to this prophecy when Judas throws the money into the temple and it is used to buy the potter's field (Matthew 27:3–10).

Thus Matthew combines two Old Testament ideas:

• Exodus 21 supplies the legal value of a slave.
• Zechariah 11 supplies the prophetic picture of God's rejected Shepherd being valued at that same amount.

Together they proclaim that:

✨ Jesus is both the suffering Servant and the rejected Shepherd. ✨

Judas' Role

Judas becomes a tragic inversion of Joseph's brothers in Genesis. Joseph was sold into slavery by his brothers for silver, yet God used the betrayal to preserve life.

Jesus is betrayed by one of His own disciples for silver, and God uses that betrayal to accomplish the salvation of the world.

Human greed, envy, and hatred becomes instruments of divine redemption.

The Servant's True Worth

The New Testament later answers the question Matthew leaves hanging. What is Jesus actually worth? Everything. Paul writes that Christ,

Philippians 2:7 - "emptied Himself by assuming the form of a servant,"

and because of that obedience,

Philippians 2:9 - "God highly exalted Him and gave Him the Name that is above every name."

The leaders estimate His price at thirty silver coins. The Father gives Him the highest Name in heaven and on earth. One valuation comes from blind humanity. The other comes from God.

A Interesting Echo

There is one more literary irony worth noticing. In Exodus 21, thirty shekels are paid because a slave has died. In Matthew 26, thirty silver coins are paid so that the Servant may be put to death.

The payment that once followed a slave's death now precedes the death of the true Servant.

The Law that established compensation for a servant's loss becomes, in God's providence, a foreshadowing of the price placed upon the One who came in the form of a servant.

Yet unlike the slave of Exodus, Jesus' death is not merely compensated—it becomes the means by which He purchases redemption for others. The Servant valued as a slave pays the ransom that no amount of silver could ever buy.

II. The Slave Before the Slave Price

When Matthew later records Judas accepting thirty pieces of silver, readers already know something Judas has just witnessed (assuming familiarity with the Gospel tradition): Jesus willingly embraced the role of a slave.

That raises an intriguing possibility.

Judas may have already concluded that Jesus was not the kind of Messiah he expected. Rather than seizing power, Jesus repeatedly embraced humiliation.

His final private demonstration before the betrayal was not taking up a sword, but taking up a towel.

If Judas viewed greatness through the lens of political triumph or earthly authority, the foot washing could have confirmed his growing disillusionment. "If He insists on acting like a servant," Judas may have reasoned, "then perhaps thirty pieces of silver—the legal value of a slave—is an appropriate price."

Scripture never tells us Judas thought this but Matthew's and John's narratives together certainly make the irony striking.

Jesus Accepts the Lowest Place

The foot washing also re-frames the meaning of the thirty pieces of silver. The religious leaders value Jesus as a slave. Jesus has already valued Himself as a slave. The lowest of slaves, even.

Not because He is worth so little, but because He willingly descended so low. This is the paradox echoed in Paul's words:

Philippians 2:7 - He emptied Himself by taking the form of a servant...

Humanity says, 'He's worth the price of a slave.' Jesus says:

Matthew 20:28 - "The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve."

The same external image—the servant—carries completely opposite meanings. For Judas and the chief priests, servanthood is grounds for contempt. For Jesus, servanthood is the very expression of divine glory.

A Tragic Contrast

At the supper, Jesus places His hands on Judas' feet in an act of humble service. Soon afterward, Judas stretches out his own hand to receive thirty silver coins. One pair of hands gives. The other receives. One stoops to cleanse. The other closes around the price of betrayal.

The towel and the silver become symbolic opposites. Jesus demonstrates that true kingship is revealed through self-giving service. Judas responds by assigning that Servant the market value of a slave.

Whether or not Judas consciously connected the amount to Exodus 21:32, Matthew invites the reader to see the profound irony: the One who willingly took the place of the lowest servant is officially valued at a servant's price.

III. In Search of Many Schemes

Rather than treating the incarnation as an isolated event, Scripture presents God's "coming down" as one of His defining characteristics. Jesus does not introduce a new way for God to act—He perfectly reveals the way God has always acted.

The Bible repeatedly portrays humanity's instinct as to ascend, while God's movement is to descend. From Genesis onward, fallen humanity seeks exaltation.

• Adam and Eve reach upward to become "like God/gods."
• Cain builds a city to establish his own name.
• The builders of Babel say, "Let us make a name for ourselves."

The irony of Babel is almost humorous. The people construct a tower "with its top in the heavens." Yet the narrator says:

Genesis 11:5 - "The LORD came down to see the city and the tower..."

Their greatest achievement is still so small that God must "come down" to inspect it. The satire dismantles humanity's illusion of self-exaltation. God is never reached by our climbing. Not just because of our lack of ability, the bigger issue is our lack of interest.

Ecclesiastes 7:29 - This only have I found: God created mankind upright, but they have gone in search of many schemes.”

God Goes Where the Broken Are

Hagar

Hagar flees into the wilderness. She is not looking for God. God seeks her. The Angel of the LORD finds the forgotten servant, speaks to her, and makes promises normally reserved for covenant figures.

The first person in Scripture to give God a name is an abandoned slave woman:

Genesis 16:3 - "You are the God who sees me."

God came down.

Israel in Egypt

When Moses meets God/The Angel of the LORD at the burning bush, God declares:

Exodus 3:7 - "I have certainly seen the misery of My people... I have heard... I know... and I have come down to rescue them."

The verbs are beautiful. He sees. He hears. He knows. He comes down. Compassion is never mere emotion, it moves toward suffering.

David

Psalm 23 ends with a surprising image. Many translations say:

Psalm 23:6 - "Surely goodness and faithful love shall follow me..."

But the Hebrew verb (radaph) usually means to pursue, chase, or hunt down. It is often used of enemies chasing their victims. David turns the word upside down.

Instead of enemies pursuing him, God's covenant love relentlessly pursues him. God comes after His people.

The Prophets

Again and again the prophets describe God bending toward His people. Even when Israel rebels, God says through the prophets:

Hosea 11:1-2 - “When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called My son. But the more they were called, the more they went away from Me.”

Hosea 11:8 - “How can I give you up, Ephraim? How can I hand you over, Israel? My heart is changed within Me; all My compassion is aroused.”

Jeremiah 3:12 - “Return, faithless Israel,’ declares the Lord, ‘I will frown on you no longer, for I am faithful,’ declares the Lord, ‘I will not be angry forever.”

Isaiah 44:22 - “I have swept away your offenses like a cloud, your sins like the morning mist. Return to Me, for I have redeemed you.”

Jeremiah 3:10 - “Judah did not return to Me with all her heart, but only in pretense,” declares the Lord.

Jeremiah 24:7 - “I will give them a heart to know Me, that I am the Lord. They will be My people, and I will be their God, for they will return to me with all their heart.”

Judgment itself is never presented as divine indifference, it is the painful work of a God unwilling to abandon His people.

This is shown to be true even beyond Israel:

Jonah 4:11 - “Should I not have concern for the great city of Nineveh, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left?”

Then Comes Jesus

None of this makes the incarnation unexpected. It makes it inevitable.

Matthew 9:35-36 - Many who saw them leaving recognized them and ran on foot from all the towns and got there ahead of them. When Jesus saw the large crowds, He had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. So he began teaching them many things.

Jesus shows He is the same God who let Jonah know He cares for people, even sinful, non-covenantal people, the same way He cares for sinful, conenantal people.

John 1:14 - "The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us. We have seen His glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth."

Philippians 2:7 - "Though existing in the form of God... He emptied Himself by taking the form of a servant."

Jesus is not changing God's character, He is revealing it.

Hebrews 1:3 - "The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of His being, sustaining all things by His powerful word."

When Jesus kneels with a towel, He is showing us what God has always been like. When He touches lepers, when He eats with sinners, when He welcomes children, when He weeps, when He washes feet...

God is not acting out of character, He is acting exactly like Himself.

The Cross Is the Lowest Descent

The movement reaches its climax at the cross. God does not merely come to earth, He enters humanity's deepest misery. Dust returns to dust. The Creator allows Himself to be laid in the ground from which Adam was formed.

There is no place so low that God refuses to enter it. As David says:

Psalm 139:8 - "If I make my bed in Sheol, You are there."

Bearing God's Image

This has enormous implications for what it means to bear God's image. We might imagine bearing God's image means exercising authority. Genesis certainly includes dominion. But Jesus shows how God's authority operates.

God's rule stoops. God's greatness serves. God's power lifts others. This explains why Jesus can say:

John 14:9 - "Whoever has seen Me has seen the Father."

Not because Jesus merely speaks for God. Because He perfectly embodies the divine character that has been on display since Genesis.

✨ The towel is just as revealing as the throne. ✨

An Inversion of Human Greatness

The world assumes greatness climbs upward.

Jesus teaches that greatness moves downward. The Son of God kneels, The Shepherd searches, The Father runs, The Spirit indwells, The King rides a donkey, The Creator washes dirty feet, The Savior dies between criminals.

This is not a temporary strategy. It is the eternal character of God made visible. That also explains Jesus' command immediately after washing the disciples' feet:

John 13:15-17 - "I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you. Very truly I tell you, no servant is greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them."

✨ Since Jesus is the exact image of God, then His foot washing is more than an act of humility—it is a revelation of divine glory. ✨

The One who eternally "comes down" now calls His people to reflect that same pattern. Bearing God's image is not fundamentally about climbing to positions of honor, but about willingly descending in love to seek, serve, restore, and lift others.

In doing so, the Church reflects the God who has always been pursuing humanity from Eden to the New Jerusalem.

Conclusion - The Humility of God

Humanity has often imagined itself as the hero of the story—the one searching for God, climbing toward heaven, or embarking on an epic quest for the divine. Ancient literature like the Epic of Gilgamesh reflects this impulse, portraying mankind as the great adventurer in pursuit of eternal answers.

Scripture tells the opposite story; it is not humanity that goes in search of God, it is God who goes in search of humanity.

From the moment He walked through the garden in the cool of the day and called, "Where are you?", God has consistently been the One who comes down. He descends to see Babel, He seeks Hagar in the wilderness, He comes down to rescue Israel from Egypt because He has seen their misery, heard their cries, and knows their suffering.

✨ Every descent throughout Scripture finds its fullest expression in Christ. ✨

God's goodness and faithful love pursue, i.e. chase down, David all the days of his life. Again and again, He enters the places where humanity is lost, broken, and unable to ascend to Him.

Then, in Jesus Christ, God descends farther than ever before. The eternal Son does not merely come in the likeness of man—that alone would be an unimaginable act of humility, He takes the form of a servant.

And as though that were not low enough, on the night of His betrayal He assumes the role of the lowest household slave, kneeling to wash the dusty feet of His own disciples. The Creator stoops before His creatures. The Master serves His servants. The Holy One enters the dust to cleanse those formed from it.

✨ This is the glory of God: His greatness is not diminished by His humility; it is revealed through it.✨

In a world obsessed with self-exaltation, the people of God are called to reflect the God who has always descended in love, whose glory is displayed not only from the throne, but also from the towel. When Jesus kneels to wash His disciples' feet, He is not temporarily setting aside God's majesty to teach a lesson in humility, He is revealing the majesty of God.