The path of sin and the way of the righteous.
The passage treats of the miserable end of the traitor apostle and of the elevation of Matthias to the office from which "Judas by transgression fell." We are reminded of—
I. THE PATH OF SIN. (Acts 1:16-20.) This is a gradual descent. "No one ever became most vile all at once," wrote the Roman; and he was right. Some men descend much more rapidly than others the path of folly and of sin, but no one leaps at once from the summit to the foot. We do not suppose that one day Judas was devoted to Christ and the next day Began to think how he should betray him. Probably his evil course was this: first, surprise at the Lord's slower and more quiet method of ministering; then impatience and even positive dissatisfaction with him; then growing doubt of his claims; then cupidity; then treachery; then remorseful despair; then suicide, and the "going to his own place" (Acts 1:25). Those who from being virtuous become vicious men, fall in the same way, i.e. by degrees; more or less slowly: first, the harboring of one evil thought and another; then laxity in word; then carelessness and looseness of action; then occasional transgression; then habitual vice; and then the miserable end. Similarly the passage from godliness to absorbing worldliness is through weakening of a sense of obligation; decline of sacred joy; relaxation of holy habits; grooving abandonment of devotional exercises; losing the soul in temporal anxieties and passing pleasures. In all such oases as that of Judas there is:
1. A gradual withdrawal of the soul from sympathy and intercourse with its Lord.
2. Acts which pain and injure him.
3. A disastrous end—death; the reprobation of the good and true, the retribution of the righteous Judge.
II. THE WAY OF THE RIGHTEOUS. (Verses 21-26.) In the course of Peter, Matthias, and the other ten apostles, there were three things exceptional and peculiar to their position.
1. Bodily attendance on the Lord Jesus Christ (verse 21).
2. Consequent witness-bearing to the facts of his life and his resurrection (verse 22).
3. Appointment by direct Divine selection: in the case of the eleven by the Lord himself at the commencement of his work, and in the case of Matthias by appeal to supernatural guidance (verses 23-26). But though these features were not meant to be perpetual, there are those of which they are suggestive which ought to characterize all true and earnest followers of Christ.
HOMILIES BY E. JOHNSON