Mark 15:16

Mar 15:16-19. And the soldiers led him away — The soldiers, knowing that it was a Roman custom to scourge prisoners just before they were put to death, interpreted Pilate’s order on this head as a declaration that he was immediately to be crucified; therefore they led him to the hall, called the Pretorium — As being the place where the pretor, a Roman magistrate, used to keep his court, and give judgment; but in common language, the term was applied to the palace in general. And they call together the whole band, &c. — Or cohort, to insult and torment him, not being concerned to keep any measures with a person whom they looked upon as entirely abandoned to their will. And they clothed him with purple — As royal robes were usually purple and scarlet, Mark and John term this a purple robe, Matthew a scarlet one. The Tyrian purple is said not to have been very different from scarlet. They clothed Jesus in this gaudy dress that he might have something of a mock resemblance to a prince. And platted a crown of thorns, &c. — Still further to ridicule his pretensions to royalty, which they considered as an affront to their nation and emperor; and began to salute him — In a ludicrous manner, as if he had been a new-created prince, and this his coronation-day. And they smote him on the head —

And so, as it were, nailed down the thorns on his forehead and temples, occasioning thereby as it may be reasonably supposed, exquisite pain, as well as a great effusion of blood. And did spit upon him — Even in his very face; and bowing their knees, worshipped him — Did him reverence in a scoffing and insulting manner: all which indignities and cruelties this holy sufferer bore with the utmost meekness and composure, neither reviling nor threatening them; but silently committing himself to the righteous invisible Judge, 1Pe 2:23. See note on Mat 27:27-31, where these particular circumstances of his humiliation are enlarged upon.

Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

CRITICAL AND EXEGETICAL NOTES

Mar_15:16. See R.V.

Mar_15:17. Render: And they invest Him with “a purple”—the official robe of gs and rulers, no matter what its colour.

MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.—Mar_15:16-20

(PARALLEL: Mat_27:27-31.)

The Son of God mocked and wounded.—Solar eclipses are not miraculous appearances. Men acquainted with the situations and revolutions of the celestial orbs foretell these appearances. The humiliation of the Son of God is the eclipse of the Sun of Righteousness. Infamy and reproach covered Him in the days of His flesh, and toward the end of these days intercepted His rays, hiding, like a dark body, the brightness of His glory from the eyes of the world. Foreseeing this, a prophet says, “His visage was so marred more than any man,” etc.; and relating this, an apostle says, “Who being in the form of God,” etc. The obscuration of the Sun of Righteousness in His humiliation was not, however, a total eclipse. A prophet foretells one day that shall be “not day nor night,” the light being not clear nor dark, but a mixture of both qualities. So is the light of the Sun of Righteousness in His humiliation; and in looking down to Him at this period, we behold an unparalleled mixture of light and shade, of glory and infamy, of honour and dishonour, and of beauty, meanness, and shame.

I. Concerning the Sufferer.—

1. The Sufferer is the Son of the Highest. “The Highest” is one of the lofty titles which distinguish and exalt the living and true God; and “the Son of the Highest” is a glorious title, with which, according to the prediction of Gabriel, the Saviour of the world is honoured. The real import of it is given by the apostle when he affirms Him to be “the brightness of glory, and the express image of the Father.” Every perfection essential to the Father dwells bodily and essentially in the Son; and the singular titles, “Own Son,” “Dear Son,” “Beloved Son” “Only Begotten Son,” exalt Him above creatures, and equal Him to the Highest.

2. The Sufferer is the Kinsman of the human race. To a part of our race the Lord Jesus bears a special relation, but He dwells in the nature common to the whole. Partaking of flesh and blood, of which all, as well as the children, are partakers, every man under heaven, upon the revelation of Him, is warranted to call Him kinsman.

3. The Sufferer is the Undertaker for the elect. All that the precept of the law of works required to be done by them He undertook to perform, and what its penalty denounced He engaged Himself to bear. Nor hath He failed in either. The satisfaction which by suffering and dying He made is the shield that protects them from its vengeance.

4. The Sufferer is the Horn of Salvation which God raised up in the house of David. The horn of an animal is its weapon, both for defence and vengeance. With this it defends itself, and with this it pushes down the enemy. In some prophecies horn is an emblem of the power of a king and the strength of his kingdom, and with the highest propriety is transferred to the Lamb of God, in whose office the powers of salvation and destruction are vested, and in whose administration these powers are exerted. The horns of the bulls of Bashan were not able to break the horn of the Lamb,

5. The Sufferer is the Author and Finisher of faith. In His own exercise He is the Prince and Leader who goes before believers, and who, in trusting and hoping Himself, leaves them a finished and perfect pattern of trust and hope.

6. The Sufferer is the Sun of Righteousness, or Light of the World. In His birth He was deeply obscured. From His agony and seizure in the garden to His death and resurrection this glorious Sun was thought to be totally eclipsed. His visage was marred, His face discoloured with spittle, His head crowned with thorns, His back furrowed with cords, and His hands and feet pierced with nails. But under this darkness the title Sun of Righteousness existed, and through it light beams upon the world.

II. Concerning the indignities which our lord suffered.—These are related in the text without colouring and without reflexions. The holy writer neither praises the fortitude and glory of the Sufferer, nor reprobates the baseness and inhumanity of the wicked by whom He was abused. Facts are truly stated in the relation, and simplicity is rigidly observed.

1. When made under the law, our Lord subjected Himself to the suffering of these indignities.

2. In suffering the insolences of the ungodly our Lord was not ashamed and confounded. Behold the Sufferer, not a desponding and cowardly but a bold and mighty Sufferer, whose back, furrowed by the lash, and covered with the scarlet robe, upheld the universe—whose countenance, marred with shame and spitting, was harder than flint and bolder than Lebanon—and whose faith, assailed and affronted by every indignity, stood firmer than the pillars of heaven and earth! Trusting in God, and beholding the joy set before Him, He despised the shame, endured the pain, and triumphed over the diversion and wantonness of wickedness and inhumanity.

3. The Lord Jesus suffered these indignities for and instead of the elect. Indignation at the rudeness and brutality of the soldiers is not the only passion which the record of these abuses should kindle in our breasts. Rather it should kindle indignation against ourselves, for whose iniquities He submitted to abuse.

4. The suffering of these indignities was a part of the ransom which our Kinsman gave for the redemption of the elect. Redemption is an expensive undertaking; none but Himself was equal to it, and it cost Him dear.

5. In suffering these indignities our Lord Jesus left us an example that we should follow His steps.

III. Concerning the glory of Christ in suffering these indignities—The sacred writer relates His sufferings without revealing His glory. But by the light of other parts of Scripture we behold it; and without a display of it the knowledge of the fellowship of His sufferings could not be attained.

1. In suffering these indignities the glory of His faith and trust appears bright and resplendent. Unmoved, undismayed, unashamed, He stood firm, and without fainting held fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm unto the end.

2. In the common hall, where the Lord Jesus suffered the indignities, the glory of His love appears in splendour and dignity. Observe the scarlet robe, the reed, and the crown of thorns; behold the vilest ruffians bowing the knee, striking, reviling, and spitting upon the Blessed and Only Potentate, and say, “Behold how He loved us!”

3. In suffering the reproaches and indignities of the ungodly glory appears in the zeal of our Lord Jesus Christ.

4. In suffering the indignities and insolences of the wicked the humility of the Lord Jesus is glorious. Found in fashion as a man, they treated Him not as a man, but trampled on Him as a worm. Astonishing humiliation! Astonishing, indeed, when we consider that He humbled Himself so low to declare the righteousness of God, in “raising up the poor out of the dust, and lifting up the beggar” and the criminal “from the dunghill, to set them among princes, and to make them inherit the throne of glory.”

5. In suffering the insolences of brutish men the meekness of Jesus Christ is glorious. The testimony of the false witnesses He heard in silence. The rudeness of the wicked, who spit in His face, and buffeted Him, and smote Him with the palms of their hands, He endured with composure. The derision and pain in the common hall He suffered with boldness and mildness. Nothing defective appeared in His temper, His language, nor in His behaviour.

6. In suffering the insolences and abuses of men the patience of Jesus Christ is glorious. “He suffered, but threatened not with stoical apathy and sullen and philosophical pride, but with bold tranquillity and reverential and humble and holy composure.

7. In suffering the resignation of the Lord Jesus is glorious. As the hour of suffering approached a conflict was felt—a conflict not between sin and grace, but between the weakness of His human nature and the strength and glory of His grace; while at the same time resignation triumphed (Joh_12:27). Another conflict was in His agony, when resignation also triumphed (Mar_14:36). The palm, the scourge, the reed, the thorn, the purple, the spittle, the cross, and the nails were bitter and painful infusions; yet these, all these dregs, He submitted to wring out and drink.

Lessons.—

1. The harmony between the predictions of prophets and the relations of evangelists concerning the sufferings of Christ is obvious and striking.

2. In His person and office the Lord Jesus is inconceivably glorious. “Brightness of Glory” is one of His distinguishing titles.

3. The grand design of revelation is to manifest the glory of Christ in His person—God-man.

4. The various representations which have been made of the person, sufferings, and glory of Christ are suitable means of working in believers a lively frame of heart for shewing His death at His table.

5. The various representations exhibited of the person, sufferings, and glory of our Lord Jesus Christ lead to the satisfactory answer of a question of the highest importance to the unbelieving, the ungodly, and the unholy. “What must we do to be saved?” Behold, O perishing and helpless creatures! behold the Doer and the Sufferer! To the Doer and Sufferer thou must be united, betrothed, and joined, and married. Obey His voice, and receive His grace; believe in His name, and rejoice in His salvation.—A. Shanks.

OUTLINES AND COMMENTS ON THE VERSES

Mar_15:17-19. Lessons from the mockery of the soldiers.—

1. Notice in the conduct of the tormentors of Jesus the abuse of one of the gifts of God. Laughter is a kind of spice which the Creator has given to be taken along with the somewhat unpalatable food of ordinary life. But when directed against sacred things and holy persons, when used to belittle and degrade what is great and reverend, when employed as a weapon with which to torture weakness and cover innocence with ridicule, then, instead of being the foam on the cup of the banquet of life, it becomes a deadly poison. Laughter guided these soldiers in their inhuman acts; it concealed from them the true nature of what they were doing; and it wounded Christ more deeply than even the scourge of Pilate.

2. It was against the kingly office of the Redeemer that the opposition of men was directed on this occasion. The soldiers considered it an absurdity and a joke that one apparently so mean, friendless, and powerless should make any such pretensions. Many a time since then has the same derision been awakened by this claim of Christ. He is the King of nations. But earthly kings and statesmen have ridiculed the idea that His will and His law should control them in their schemes and ambitions. Even where His authority is nominally acknowledged, both aristocracies and democracies are slow to recognise that their legislation and customs should be regulated by His words. Most vital of all is the acknowledgment of Christ’s kingship in the realm of the individual life; but it is here that His will is most resisted.

3. In what Jesus bore on this occasion. He was suffering for us. Thorns were the sign of the curse. And does not the thorn, staring from the naked bough of winter in threatening ugliness, lurking beneath the leaves or flowers of summer to wound the approaching hand, tearing the clothes or the flesh of the traveller who tries to make his way through the thicket, burning in the flesh where it has sunk, fitly stand for that side of life which we associate with sin—the side of care, fret, pain, disappointment, disease, and death? In a word, it symbolises the curse. But it was the mission of Christ to bear the curse; and as He lifted it on His own head, He took it off the world.

4. Christ’s sufferings are a rebuke to our softness and self-pleasing. It is not, indeed, wrong to enjoy the comforts and the pleasures of life. God sends these, and if we receive them with gratitude they may lift us nearer to Himself. But we are too terrified to be parted from them, and too afraid of pain and poverty. Many would like to be Christians, but are kept back from decision by dread of the laughter of profane companions or by the prospect of some worldly loss. But we cannot look at the suffering Saviour without being ashamed of such cowardly fears.—J. Stalker, D.D.

Christ was intended for the whole world.—Let us see the Divine intention in the Crucifixion. In that are mingling lines of glory and of humiliation. The King of humanity appears with a scarlet camp-mantle flung contemptuously over His shoulders; but to the eye of faith it is the purple of empire. He is crowned with the acanthus wreath; but the wreath of mockery is the royalty of our race. He is crucified between two thieves; but His Cross is a judgment-throne, and at His right hand and His left are the two separated worlds of belief and unbelief. All the Evangelists tell us that a superscription, a title of accusation, was written over His Cross; two of them add that it was written over Him “in letters of Greek, and Latin, and Hebrew” (or in Hebrew, Greek, Latin). In Hebrew,—the sacred tongue of patriarchs and seers, of the nation all whose members were in idea and destination those of whom God said, “My prophets.” In Greek,—the “musical and golden tongue which gave a soul to the objects of sense and a body to the abstractions of philosophy”; the language of a people whose mission it was to give a principle of fermentation to all races of mankind, susceptible of those subtle and largely indefinable influences which are called collectively Progress. In Latin,—the dialect of a people originally the strongest of all the sons of men. The three languages represent the three races and their ideas,—revelation, art, literature; progress, war, and jurisprudence. Wherever these three tendencies of the human race exist, wherever annunciation can be made in human language, wherever there is a heart to sin, a tongue to speak, and eye to read, the Cross has a message.—Bishop Wm. Alexander.

Mar_15:17. The crown of thorns.—The imposition of the mock crown was only one among many indignities. It was not only a mock crown, but a circlet of torture.

I. To wear this crown Christ had laid aside that of Divine majesty.—We can pity the fallen and weep for the great who are degraded, or who are made to feel the hardship of reversed fortune—we can measure the depth of the descent because they are human; but we have no power to gauge the height from which He came when He “humbled Himself and became obedient unto death.”

II. By wearing this crown of mockery Christ added a glory to that He wears eternally.—He conquered suffering, sorrow, death, for us, and now every branch and spike of the mock crown is a jewel inwrought with that of His Divine majesty. Thus the very scorn of man Christ transforms into the sign of Divine regal power.

III. By wearing the mock crown Christ gained the further right to bestow a crown of life on all the faithful.

IV. Consider the power Christ gained over human souls by wearing that mock crown.—

1. Men are led to mourn the guilt that brought Him such pain.

2. He gains such intense affection as He could have obtained in no other way. We should not have loved mere majesty or power, however great; but Jesus we can love as God manifest in the flesh. “The love of Christ constraineth.”—Anon.

The crown of thorns.—In the thorns composing the Redeemer’s crown we see reflected—

1. The true character of sin as the deadly curse in the life and history of man.

2. The triumphant conquest and carrying away of sin.

3. The glorious transformation of the consequences of sin.

4. A symbol of Christ’s work. Crowned with thorns! Oh the deep disgrace to those who did it! Yet what so pathetically appropriate, what so beautifully significant, that at the close and climax of such a life as His, full of travail of soul and agony of spirit, bitterness and reproach of men and devils and sin’s burden, there should be placed on His head a crown such as should be the expression and picture of it all! Jesus Christ, the ideal King of humanity, who shall yet be historic King, found His kingdom “lying in the beast” of prejudice and passion, and ever since with kingly courage He has been engaged in lifting it into the “beauty of the Lord”—bitter, heart-breaking, thorny work.—W. B. Melville.

The crown of thorns.—

I. Jesus Christ claimed the highest dignity: “King.”—Proved by—

1. His own words and deeds.

2. The service of angels.

3. The dread of demons.

4. The phenomena of nature.

5. The appearance of the departed.

6. The acknowledgment of God.

II. The claim of Christ to the highest dignity was treated with contempt.—“Crown of thorns.”

1. Its reason.

(1) Its ordinary human appearance.

(2) The spirituality of His kingdom.

(3) The preconceived notions of men.

2. Its form. Mockery and pain. This arose from—

(1) A cruel occupation: “soldiers.”

(2) Servile obedience.

(3) Heathenish cruelty.

(4) Example of superiors.

(5) Sinful excitement.

III. Contempt for the claim of Christ to the highest dignity was overruled to the advantage of Christ.—

1. Suffering revealed His greatness. Love, patience, forgiveness.

2. Greatness gave value to His sufferings. Sufferings of the God-man, dignity of Godhead, and sufferings of manhood-atonement. The “curse” represented by the “thorns” becomes a blessing represented by the “crown of thorns.—B. D. Johns.

ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER 15

Mar_15:20. Christ mocked.—A strange illustration of the scene is afforded by what happened only a few years afterwards at Alexandria, when the people, in derision of King Agrippa I., arrayed a well-known maniac in a common door-mat, put a papyrus crown on his head, and a reed in his hand, and saluted him as “maris” (lord).—A. Edersheim, D.D.

The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.

6. Jesus on Golgotha.—His Death, and the Death signs. a. The Mockings and the Lord’s Silence. b. The Crucifixion; and Blasphemy against, and Silence of, the Lord. c. The World Darkened; the Anguish-cry, and the Silence of Victory; the Death-shriek, and the Death silence of the Lord. d. The Rent in the Temple-vail, and the Silence of God upon the End of the Old Covenant. Mar_15:16-38.

(Parallels: Mat_27:27-53; Luk_23:26-46; Joh_19:17-30.)

A. Mar_15:16-19

16And the soldiers led him away into the hall called Prætorium; and they call together the whole band. 17And they clothed him with purple, and platted a crown of thorns, and put it about his head, 18And began to salute him, Hail, King of the Jews! 19And they smote him on the head with a reed, and did spit upon him, and, bowing their knees, worshipped him.

B. Mar_15:20-32

20And when they had mocked him, they took off the purple from him, and put his own5clothes on him, and led him out to crucify him. And they compel one Simon a Cyrenian, who passed by, coming out of the country, the father of Alexander andRufus, to bear his cross. 22And they bring him unto the place Golgotha, which is, being interpreted, The place of a skull. 23And they gave him to drink6wine mingled withmyrrh: but he received it not. 24And when they had crucified him, they parted his gar ments, casting lots upon them, what every man should take. 25And it was the third hour; and they crucified him. 26And the superscription of his accusation was written over, THE KING OF THE JEWS. 27And with him they crucify two thieves; the one on his right hand, and the other on his left. 28And the scripture was fulfilled, which saith, And he was numbered with the transgressors.729And they that passed by railed on him, wagging their heads, and saying, Ah, thou that destroyest the temple, and buildest it in three days,830Save thyself, and come down9from the cross. 31Likewise also the chief priests, mocking, said among themselves, with the scribes, He saved others; himself he cannot save. 32Let Christ the King of Israel descend now from the cross, that we may see and believe. And they that were crucified with him reviled him.

C. Mar_15:33-37

33And when the sixth hour was come, there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour. 34And at the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?10which is, being interpreted, My God, my God, why hast thouforsaken me? 35And some of them that stood by, when they heard it, said, Behold, he calleth Elias. 36And one ran and filled a spunge full of vinegar, and put it on a reed, and gave him to drink, saying, Let alone; let us see whether Elias will come to take him down. 37And Jesus cried with a loud voice, and gave up the ghost.

D. Mar_15:38

38And the vail of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom.

EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL

Comp. the parallels in Matthew and Luke.—Mark points out more distinctly the ironical consciousness with which the cowardly Pilate yielded to the demands of the populace. With Matthew, he employs φραγελλώσας παρέδωκε, in which the thought is involved that the surrender was decided in the scourging. In describing the mocking, he omits, like John, the mention of the reed, which the soldiers, according to Matthew, forced into the Lord’s hand, or sought to force, and with which they struck Him (probably because He let it fall). Mark designates Simon of Cyrene the most particularly: he is the father of Alexander and Rufus. The address of the Lord to the daughters of Jerusalem, as they were following, which Luke reports, is omitted by Mark, as well as by Matthew. The bitter wine he names myrrh-wine. He makes the crucifixion to begin at the third hour. The quotation of Jesus from Isa_53:12, which we consider genuine, is given by him alone. The address of Jesus to Mary and to John, beneath the cross, is passed over by him as by the other Synoptics; also the repentance of the thief, in which he agrees with Matthew. He describes more graphically than the other Evangelists the mockery of the passers by, using the word οὐὰ for this purpose; the derision and irony of the priests is given in their own words. He records in the original Syriac, Eloi, Eloi, etc. Of the man who gave the Lord vinegar to drink, he says indefinitely, “A certain one,” and that he called to the others, “Let alone.” Of the seven sayings of the Crucified, he records, like Matthew, only the Eli, Eli, and the last loud, piercing cry of Christ, without stating what the Lord expressed in it.

Mar_15:16. Into the hall (within, into the inner court).—Comp. Note on Mat_27:27. They conducted Him into the palace-court, which we may easily suppose was surrounded by the neighboring buildings of the governor’s palace, forming a kind of barracks.

Mar_15:17. A scarlet military mantle (see on Mat_27:28) was made to represent the imperial purple; hence the designation a purple (πορφυραν), a purple robe, as Mark and John describe it. And because this is the symbolic import of the robe, there is no discrepancy. The scarlet military cloak no more required to be a real purple, than the crown of thorns required to be a real crown, or the reed a real sceptre; for the whole transaction was an ironical drama, and such a one, too, that the infamous abuse might be readily perceived through the pretended glorification. The staff must be a reed, the symbol of impotence; the crown must injure and pierce the brow; and so too must the purple present the symbol of miserable, pretended greatness: and this was done by its being an old camp mantle.

Mar_15:21. And they compel.—Upon the term ἀγγαρεύειν, comp. Note on Mat_5:41.—The father of Alexander and Rufus.—These men must have been well-known persons in the then existing Church; and they testify to the personal, lively recollection and originality of Mark, as does his “Timæus, the son of Bartimæus.” It is most natural to regard them as persons well known to the Church at Rome. On this account, Rufus, whom Paul greets, Rom_16:13, may well be this Rufus. The Alexander, however, who is spoken of in the Acts of the Apostles, Act_19:33, appears not to have been a Christian, but to have belonged to the hostile Judaism. (Lange’s Apostol. Zeitalter, ii p. 275 f.) Whether he was the same person as Alexander the coppersmith, who was the enemy of Paul, cannot be positively made out. Meyer: “But how common were these names, and how many of the then well-known Christians are strangers to us. In ‘Actis Andreœ et Petri’ both are mentioned as the companions of Peter in Rome.” They are, of course, here brought forth from the treasures of the evangelical tradition.—Coming out of the country.—Meyer will have it, that this fact, mentioned likewise by Luke, is a proof that Jesus was not crucified on the first day of the feast. But in this opinion, no attention is paid to the circumstances: 1. That the country, or the country-seat as it might be termed, from which Simon was coming, might have lain within an easy Sabbath-day’s journey of Jerusalem (Meyer maintains,—If so, it must have been stated!); 2. that in case the Passover began with Friday, the second day, as Sabbath and Passover together, would be the chief festival-day; 3. that it is by no means historical to admit no contraventions of the Sabbath-law, and, furthermore, that it would be the very thing to turn the attention of the multitude to Simon, if there was anything remarkable, anything offensive, in his appearing at such a time. Such results are by no means uncommon in the similar instances of multitudes running together; so that the notice rather supports the view which adopts the first feast-day as the one. Jesus was crucified under the pretext that He was the great Sabbath-breaker. The people, in their witticism, might perhaps say, See, there comes another Sabbath breaker from the country; let him suffer a little along with the other.

Mar_15:22. Golgotha.—Meyer makes Golgotha genitive11(as if, Golgotha’s place). Because the translation is κρανίου τόπος. But the question is, Has not τόπος in the first instance a more general import,—the place (Golgotha)? John retranslates κρανίου τόπος into Hebrew, Golgotha; Matthew also names the place, Golgotha; Luke simply, Skull. No doubt it is strange that Mark has τόπος following Golgotha. Probably the place was called sometimes Skull, and sometimes Place of a Skull, and Mark gives the more exact designation. See on Mat_27:33.

Mar_15:23. They gave Him; that is, they offered Him myrrh-wine. This myrrh-wine cannot, from the different descriptions of Mark, be identical with the vinegar, or the wine-vinegar, of which a drink was at a later period given to Jesus. Most likely the wine was in each case the same, but the narcotic intermixture was omitted in the second instance.

Mar_15:24. Parted his garments.—John gives the more exact description. The prevailing point of view among the first three Evangelists was the making the division an occasion for gambling. Comp. Note on Mat_27:35. The form of the play is not closely described. Meyer: “We must leave unsettled the question, Whether the lot-casting was performed with dice, or the lots were shaken in some vessel (a helmet), and that which first fell out decided in favor of him to whom it belonged.”

Mar_15:25. And it was the third hour.—Upon the apparent discrepancy between this declaration of Mark and Matthew, and the statement of John, Joh_19:14, comp. Note on Mat_27:45. We cannot avoid, however, drawing attention to the striking relation subsisting between the third and the sixth hour. At the third hour, by the crucifixion of Jesus, the endurance of the cross for His people was decided, as it meets us in the superscription, The King of the Jews, and is represented in the crucifixion of the thief (and the later deridings of the chief priests, etc.). But when the sixth hour came, and the darkness spread over the whole land—literally, over the whole world and earth—then was the judgment of the whole world decided. The third hour was the dying hour of Judaism: in the sixth hour, the dying hour of the old world was present to the view in typical signs. We have here, also, to carefully note the relation between the superscription, which according to Mark was decided upon about the third hour, and the declaration of John, that it was about the sixth hour: “And he saith to the Jews, Behold your King! But they cried out, Away with Him, away, crucify Him.” When the third hour had come, and it was advancing to the sixth, then was the crucifixion of Jesus decided in His being scourged, in accordance with the judgment of the people and of Pilate; but in this was, also, the crucifixion of the Jewish people themselves determined, which was first made apparent in the crucifixion of the two thieves in company with Jesus. About the sixth hour, according to John, the judgment of the world was decided along with that of Judaism—the presage of the dies iræ presented itself; that is to say, John has made this sign of the third hour to be the decisive, universal symbol, and has, on this account, probably brought it into connection with the sixth hour.

Mar_15:27. And with Him they crucify.—As to the alleged difference between the accounts of Mark and Luke, consult Note on Mat_27:38; Mat_27:44.

Mar_15:34. Eloi.—See Note on Mat_27:46.

Mar_15:36. Let alone; let us see.—According to Meyer, this is contradictory to the account given by Mat_27:49. But it is not to be overlooked, that there is no reason why, in this moment of the intensest excitement, two divisions might not make the same exclamation, and that, too, in different senses,—the one mocking, the other speaking more earnestly. (Comp. the scene in Shakespeare’s Macbeth after the murder.) If this sympathizer meant it humanely with his cry, “Let alone,” perhaps the idea shot through him, that Elias might interpose in the last extremity.

DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL

1. The death.—The death of humanity in its life-germ is here completed in the death of Jesus. Considered in this light, Christ’s death is prophetical of the great dissolution of the world, to ensue at the end of all things. The extinction of the primary life: Christ condemned, His rights unacknowledged; derided, and by this derision looked upon by the world as destroyed; led forth, robbed, crucified, and in this act rejected in His person, and with His work, as the curse of the world; blasphemed, and so made to pronounce sentence of death upon the obdurate; Christ dead upon the cross. Hence there is announced, in presages, the future extinction of the derivative life, (i. e., the death of the world): The sun of the old world darkens at mid-day; the holy of holies of the divine ordinance in the old human world vanishes like a vision of the night, when the temple-vail rends asunder. All is now over with the old world; it has but to live out its remnant of life. It has judged itself; and in that self-condemnation lay God’s condemnation,—a condemnation which nothing but the conquering love of Christ could turn into a blessing.

HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL

See Matthew; also the preceding reflections.—Christ was, notwithstanding, the King of the Jews the whole crucifixion through. This is seen: 1. In the accusation of His enemies; 2. in the impression produced upon Pilate, and in his decision; 3. in the kingly ornaments which the soldiers placed upon Him; 4. in the train which bore Him forth with them out of Jerusalem; 5. in the superscription on the cross; 6. in the terror which breaks forth in the blasphemy of His foes; 7. in the miracles accompanying His death.—The great dying on Golgotha: 1. There dieth the King of the Jews; 2. there dieth the Son of God; 3. there dieth the old world; 4. there dieth old sin; 5. there dieth old death.—Simon of Cyrene and his sons; or, the everlasting memory of the cross-bearers and their children.—Simon; or, how man becomes unconsciously separated from his common-placeness, and involved in the great history of the cross.—The terrifying world-darkness at bright mid-day forms a symbol of the terrifying world darkness spread over mankind by their blindness of heart.—Christ the clear light of the world in this night of the world.—His heart and His eye are fixed most earnestly on God during this world judgment; and that preserves the world, which is lost in itself, from sinking into the abyss.—The unholy and the holy Golgotha: 1. The unholy: men of violence, drunkards, gamblers, thieves, blaspheming priests. 2. The holy: the great Sufferer, the temperate One in holy clearness of soul and knowledge, the Laborer, the Warrior of God, the Supplicant.—[The potion rejected and the potion accepted, or holy refreshment in the conflict of suffering enjoyed after the example of Christ: 1. As refreshment at the right time; 2. in the right place; 3. in the right measure 4. in the right consecration.]—The despair in the seeming triumph, and the triumph in the seeming despair: 1. In the conduct and mockery of the enemies; 2. in the supplicatory cry of the Lord: My God, etc.—The signs of hellish madness in the blasphemies with which the chief priests end their work.—Let alone, let us see; or, how, at the life-flame of the dying Jesus, a new life has kindled in the dying world: 1. From the horrors of His death springs the horror of the world; 2. from His trust in God, the world’s belief; 3. from His pity, the compassion of the world.—Let alone, let us see: or, this history is not yet completed; it is only beginning at the time when it seems to approach its completion.—The death-shriek of the Lord is the great waking call to a new life for the world of man.

Starke:—Quesnel:—Christ, by becoming the derision of His creatures, has atoned for the criminality of the creatures in mocking God and religion.—Many would willingly pass by the cross of Christ; but, before they are aware of it, they are laid hold of, and forced into companionship with Christ in suffering.—Participation with Jesus in the cross, is that which alone makes our name in truth eternally renowned, and prevents it from passing into forgetfulness.—At the end, the world is bitter as gall, but heaven is sweet.—Hedinger:—View, O my soul, in faith this picture of martyrdom!—Christ has been reckoned with the transgressors; hence we may console ourselves, that we shall come to God’s blessed companionship, and the company of the holy angels.—The understanding, in its wisdom, is offended at the cross of Christ.—He succeeds ill in the faith, who must see (Joh_20:29), and who will believe when he pleases (Joh_6:44).—Christ died for thee; be thou ready to die for Him.—When the true Lamb of God was offered, all the Levitical offerings found their completion.

Braune:—They caught him, and cast him out of the vineyard, and slew him, Mat_21:39.—God’s wrath is heavier to bear than Christ’s cross.—Isa_53:12.—“My God,” etc. Let us imitate Him in the employment of the Holy Scriptures; also, that, whet in the anguish of our hearts we cannot pray any more in our own words, we may allow the Spirit, whose work the holy word is, to represent us with groanings that cannot be uttered.

Brieger:—And they that passed by. So thoroughly helpless was Jesus upon the cross, that this crowd easily persuaded themselves that all was deception that they had seen and heard of Jesus.—The chief priests. So spake Satan, too, in the wilderness: If Thou be the Son of God, command that these stones, etc. To self-help he there challenged the Holy One of God: here he does the same through his well-approved servants.—Psa_2:5.—The darkness. God must witness against these murderers.—In the destruction of the holy of holies, Jehovah destroyed the temple itself. The Most Holy was taken forth from the city of Jerusalem and laid outside the gate upon Golgotha. There, too, was a vail rent, even the flesh of Christ (Heb_10:20).—Gossner, on Mar_15:30 :—Self-help.—One might often free oneself by a mere word. But if the truth and the honor of God suffer by that word, one may not speak it.—His death was the rising sun for the spirit-world; and therefore the world’s natural sunlight veiled itself before Him. (Lampe:—The sun set over Christ, and rose for me.)

Footnotes:

[5][Mar_15:20.—Codd. B., C., Lachmann, Tischendorf read αὐτοῦ instead of τὰ ἴδια (A., Receptus).]

[6][Mar_15:23.—Codd. B., C.*, L., Tischendorf omit πιεῖν.]

[7]Mar_15:28.—This verse is wanting in A., B., C., D., X.; and Griesbach and Tischendorf have decided against it. But it is found in P., in Origen, Eusebius, and the Versions. The verse has probably been omitted, because it was supposed to involve a discrepancy between Mark and Luke, as in Luk_22:37 the quotation is referred to the apprehension of Jesus. (Lange might have added, as supporting his view, L., Δ., 1, 13, 69. Alford’s remark, [which Meyer also makes,] that Mark rarely quotes from prophecy, however, is deserving of attention.—Trs.)

[8]Mar_15:29.—The best MSS. read οἰκοδομῶν τρισὶν ὴμέραις.

[9]Mar_15:30.—Codd. B., D., L., Δ., Lachmann, Tischendorf read καταβάς instead of κατάβα (Receptus).]

[10]Mar_15:34.—The words ἐλωί̈, &c., are differently written in the MSS. Lachmann reads λεμὰ σαβαχθανι: Tischendorf, λεμὰ σαβακτανεί (ed. 1865); Fritzsche, λιμᾶ; Receptus, λαμμα σαβαχθανί.]

[11][Tischendorf (ed. 1865) reads ἐπὶ τὸν γολγοθᾶν.—Ed.)

Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Section 3. (Mar 15:16-47.)

The Cup drunk.

1. Now we approach the drinking of the cup. He is crowned with thorns, the sign of the curse, as in Matthew, clothed with the purple, but without the reed-sceptre: that only smites Him. And it is indeed but a reed that smites the Rock; yet presently, through the marvelous working of God, the waters will flow out; and the waters will become a great river, going forth on all sides to gladden the earth.

Notice that the robe is purple* here, not scarlet, as in Matthew. The blood-color is here, but mingled: as we have seen; even the precious blood of atonement, that it might sanctify the people, must be that of a sacrifice offered outside the camp (Heb 13:11-12). And "so Jesus, that He might sanctify the people with His own blood, suffered without the gate." Here is the true sin-offering, and here is the purple, the composite color, - the blood, the death-penalty taken; but with that, the heavenly side also, that is, the blue. For that was heaven’s side, the consequence of sin laid upon Him, the hiding of the face of God from Him, - for us heaven opened.

{*"A scarlet military mantle," says Lange, "was made to represent the imperial purple: hence the designation, a purple (porphuran) a purple robe, as Mark and John describe it. And because this is the symbolic import of the robe, there is no discrepancy. The scarlet military robe no more required to be a real purple than the crown of thorns required to be a real crown, or the reed a real sceptre; for the whole transaction was an ironical drama, and such an one, too, that the infamous abuse might be readily perceived through the pretended glorification. The staff must be a reed, the symbol of impotence; the crown must injure and pierce the brow; and so too must the purple present the symbol of miserable, pretended greatness; and this was done by its being an old camp-mantle."

But how, through all this, God was working, to turn all to the bringing out His glory as infinitely higher than that of earthly potentates, we may surely see clearly.}

These are both royal colors also, as we plainly see; the scarlet of Matthew and the purple of Mark, just as the crown of thorns, the crown of curse, for Him was really a crown. The Sufferer reigns as that, in the Kingdom peculiarly His; and so only could He have, among the sinners of man’s race, such a throne as could satisfy Him.

2. The impressment of Simon the Cyrenian upon the road, to bear His cross, is recorded here, as in Matthew; but with an addition here which shows Simon, the "hearkener" and cross bearer, as the father of Alexander and Rufus, God’s grace being fruitful in him. Is not this the true way of fruitfulness ever, to hearken and bear the cross?

Golgotha, the place of a skull, is reached, and then the vinegar and gall are offered Him, only to be rejected: Mark gives "wine mingled with myrrh;" the former, the sour wine of common use, much like vinegar; the latter is probably a different thing from "gall," which would hardly seem a fitting term to describe it. The parting of His garments, according to the view that has been given of it,* is as naturally found in all the Gospels as the particularization as to it suits and is found in John. The mockery of the bystanders, and especially of the heads of the people is given almost exactly as in Matthew.

{*See Notes on Matthew.}

3. And now from the sixth to the ninth hour, there falls a darkness over all the land. We have already considered its meaning generally, but every particular specified has surely its importance. The three hours, as such, speak naturally of the manifestation of what is hidden; and may most simply speak of the opening of the sanctuary, which takes place at its close. It is the blood of the sin-offering which on the day of atonement in Israel opened it for the moment to let in the high priest, the representative of the people. But that was but for a moment: the characteristic of the legal dispensation was in the veil which hung continuously before the presence of God, so that from man’s point of view He dwelt in the thick darkness. It was a darkness forbidding man’s approach, and speaking of sin unmet, spite of the hecatombs of victims dying for it. And the true Sacrifice having now come, He must find His way through the darkness, laden with the sin which had forced God thus into distance from the creature of His love.

The three hours of darkness were to Him the measure of what to any other would have been an infinite hopeless distance. The cry of desertion interpreted the darkness. The veil rent from top to bottom proclaimed that it was traversed and removed. The sixth hour speaks of the barrier-limit reached; the ninth, of perfected manifestation.

The agonizing question shows the nature of the darkness, which is not outward but within upon His soul. The quotation from the twenty-second psalm gives us the clue to find the answer which the psalm gives to the question. If a holy God is to abide among the praises of a people taken from among sinful men, He under the weight of that sin must declare that holiness in God’s judgment of it. God is glorified in this redemption-work beyond the possibility of all man’s sin to cloud again for ever. The light bursts forth now, and as never yet. God is in the light. The separating veil is rent from top to bottom.

To the mockers around the cross, the darkness is as dense as ever. They exclaim that He is calling for Elias. And while one brings to Him upon a reed the vinegar for His thirst, he joins in the cry they raise, to wait and see if Elias will come to take Him down. But Jesus cries again with a loud voice, and expires.

Through all this account we have already seen how, by the omission of particulars recorded by Matthew, Mark emphasizes the sin-offering character of Christ’s sacrifice.* But there are positive testimonies, also, that we have noted. And now, as we go on to the after events of the book, we shall find the same character attaching to it, until we see the glorious Risen Man seated in heaven at the right hand of God. The veil is passed, but never closed again: He is gone in, our Forerunner, and we walk in the light as God is in the light.

{*See Introduction, pp. 26-28.}

4. Before we have left the Cross and its glory of sorrow, intimation is given of victories which it is to achieve, and changes resultant. The first voice, save that of the dying robber, which, in the midst of Jewish blasphemy and dishonor, owns the supreme glory of the Son of God, is that of the Gentile centurion. Christ already has His own among the uncircumcised, the beginning of the great host that are soon to follow Him.

Then this company of ministering women gathered by His cross, and to be the first heralds of His victory over death, is not without significance. "The Lord gave the word; great was the company of the women that published it" (Psa 68:11). The victory is so achieved, that not the men of might are needed, but the feebleness of women was abundantly enough. Indeed the men of might, the fighters on the Lord’s behalf, had not found their hands. But now the battle was over: He had fought alone, and of the people there were none with Him: with the last great shout of the battle-field, the cry of victory and not of exhaustion; He had entered into His rest. The women are now free to minister. The shadow of the Cross is but the shadow of the sheltering wings of divine love.

It is this victory-shout which, according to Mark, impresses the soldier: "when the centurion saw that He so cried out and expired, he said, Truly this man was the Son of God." He had seen death upon the battlefield, perhaps in many a shape, but never a death like this. If we take John’s account, it is the cry that has rung through so many hearts since then, Tetelestai, "It is finished." If it be not the great cry itself, it certainly went with it; and how has that become for Gentile faith the gospel-utterance! It has assured of peace made with God, stilled to rest the tumult of other things, and subdued the heart to Jesus, to the Son of God who loved and gave Himself for the sons of men.

5. "They assigned Him His grave with wicked men; but with the rich man when He had died." So had Isaiah long before predicted, and now we have the fulfilment of it. The malefactor’s grave which would have naturally followed the death of the cross could not be permitted Him. That substitutionary work was accomplished which alone had made Him to be numbered with transgressors. In that character He could appear no more; and the righteousness of God, which He had declared in His death, claimed now divine intervention in His behalf. While He yet slept He must sleep in honor, and as it has been well said, the One born of a Virgin-womb could only be fittingly honored in a virgin-tomb. He who could not see corruption; could not lie in a tomb which corruption had defiled. Thus all was in harmony, and God silently controlling all things before visible intervention could take place. Joseph of Arimathea, inspired with a boldness he had not yet shown, goes in to Pilate and asks of him the body of Jesus. Pilate, finding from the centurion that He is indeed already dead, commands it to be given; and in the new tomb, awaiting its predicted resurrection on the third day, that sacred body rests.

Subdivision 3.

Resurrection; and Heaven really opened.

As every one knows, doubt has been cast upon the authenticity of the last twelve verses of this Gospel; and if they are, as Meyer calls them, but an "apocryphal fragment," a waif without parentage known; introduced into Mark we know not how, to mend the ragged end of his mutilated or unfinished work, doubt would naturally be cast on more than its authenticity, and most of all for those who are slow to believe in inspiration moving after this fashion. We need not, however, discuss it here, as the authority for the full text is abundant in both MSS. and Versions. The spiritual relationship of the closing verses to the Gospel as a whole is perfect; and this, if proved, is a better argument of itself in favor of authenticity than all besides that has ever been produced against it.

Moreover there is reason of an internal kind for the difference that in fact exists between the two parts of this last chapter, - the first, which gives the promise from the (unseen) Lord to meet His disciples in Galilee: a promise of which Mark gives no fulfilment: while the second briefly relates His actual appearances in and around Jerusalem, and His sending them forth with signs attesting their commission to preach the gospel in all the world. These two parts we have now to consider in their scope and connection with one another.

1. In the first part we have then promise which, as far as Mark’s account of it goes, is not fulfilled. Jesus does not meet them in Galilee; and the end for them, the account closing abruptly, is in fear and trembling, rather than the joy and gladness we should have expected from it.

If, then, nothing is without a purpose here (and we at least are not going to question this), there must be for us some meaning in this non-fulfilment, this fear instead of joy. If we think, also, of the disciples as what they were undoubtedly till after (and a good while after) the resurrection, - a Jewish remnant, with hopes still clustering round the Old Testament promises, we can see something very like what Mark pictures here. Christ is come, Christ is risen; there is a promise for believing Israelites which to them as such is not fulfilled; and in short their history, and that of the ministry to the circumcision; with which especially is connected Peter’s name (ver. 7, Gal 2:7; Gal 2:9), is just such a broken fragment as is here presented to us. It will be completed, but only in another dispensation, after the parenthesis of the Church’s history shall be over, and the "remnant of" the King’s "brethren shall return to the children of Israel" (Mic 5:3): that is, when Israelites converted to God shall again be partakers in the hopes and promises of the nation.

This, I doubt not, is what is intimated in the first verses of Mark’s closing chapter. We shall find similar things in the close of John’s Gospel, and more fully brought out there: things hard to he uttered, indeed, when the meaning, even of divine history, is so generally considered to be merely in the letter, and when belief in the inspiration of God’s word - in any proper sense of inspiration - is being so largely given up. That cannot affect the truth itself, nor its importance for those that have ears to hear.

2. The second part begins once more with the resurrection, and is of another character. Here the Lord Himself appears, and first to one who had been delivered from the power of Satan; which had completely possessed her. This supremacy of power over the whole array of the enemy - seven demons - characterizes the full salvation which is now to be proclaimed. The message given her we find only in John; here only that at first it was disbelieved. The very men who are to be the heralds of it in the world are at first incredulous as to what they long to receive. As Luke says of what took place afterwards, "they believed not for joy": it was, according to the common phrase, "too good to be true."

The appearance to the two on the road to Emmaus, next referred to, is still incompetent to bring conviction; and the Lord then Himself appears to the eleven - the company now spoken of as that number, though Thomas, as we know, was not among them at the first, - and upbraids them with their unbelief and hardness of heart.

The commission that follows is entirely different from that in Matthew, though some have represented it as but another version of it. They were given at different times and places clearly; while they reflect each the character of its respective Gospel. Matthew, whose subject is the Kingdom, gives the mode of reception into it by baptism and teaching. This supposes Mark’s commission as being already acted on, - the "what shall we do?" of those already wrought upon by the good news proclaimed. Mark’s view of the sin-offering is the basis of the gospel: this blessed work accomplished, the going forth of the good news naturally results.

Faith, therefore, which is implied in the commission in Matthew, is insisted on here: "he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved." On the other hand, "he that disbelieveth" - no baptism affecting the case of such an one - "shall be condemned."

The signs that follow those who believe introduce us into a region of controversy in different quarters. It is plain, however, that even in the apostles, days they were not signs which necessarily followed in every individual. "Have all the gifts of healing? do all speak with tongues?" implies the negative. But the apostle asks moreover, "Are all workers of miracles?" - any kind of miracles? - and this must have a similar answer (1Co 12:29-30).

Here then is what at once destroys any argument founded upon the universality of such gifts as these. It could not be said of any Christians that as such they would have them. The question was a much simpler one, - a question of fact: who have them? who have them not? If no one in a generation had them, we could not say they ought to have had, according to the Lord’s words. As "signs," the apostle’s words as to one of them might apply to others, or to all, "wherefore tongues are for a sign; not to those that believe, but to those that believe not" (1Co 14:22); and if unbelievers ceased, we might even expect that these would cease.

But miracles do not produce faith; though they may produce conviction. Those who "believed in His Name when they saw the miracles that He did," He "did not commit Himself to, because He knew all men, and needed not that any should testify of man, for He knew what was in man" (Joh 2:23-25). It was but an intellectual conviction; quite possible to men without divine work at all; so that if this were accomplished - if only the gospel were going out amidst a people who accepted Christianity as true - one still would not expect these signs to follow.

Thus we are brought very near to the actual condition of things that obtains in Christendom today. Nor do the Lord’s words make that condition a hard matter to reconcile with them. The signs did follow, and fulfilled the object for which they were designed. As Christianity became known; and the truth came to get hearing, the miraculous accompaniments ceased, after the manner of all such whenever their purpose was fulfilled. Miracles have always been temporary, gathering around certain crises in the divine history of mankind, times of special divine intervention, and then passing away; and Christianity is no exception to the rule. As to power for conviction; where the word of God is once fairly before men; the Lord Himself has assured us that, if they believe not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead.

That which comes first among these signs has special significance. Satan had possessed himself of the world largely by means of the religions of men; the perversions of that original worship which through successive generations became ever more corrupt. "The things which the Gentiles sacrifice," says the apostle; "they sacrifice to demons, and not, to God" (1Co 10:20). And as in Egypt, when God brought out His people, the delivering judgments fell upon their gods, so now in Christianity. "They shall cast out demons in My Name" is the proclamation of Christ’s supremacy over the religious rulers of the heathen world.

The gift of new tongues was grace surmounting the judgment of Babel, while yet the primitive "one speech and one language" could not be restored.

The taking up of serpents and the innocuousness of any deadly draught would fence round life from the insidious attack of the destroyer; while the miraculous healings were a manifestation of power over the power of death in others. All together testified to the Lord’s victory over Satan; over death, and over sin: for sin was that which gave power to both death and Satan. Nothing could affect these which had not gone to the bottom of the question of sin.

Thus, then, were the messengers of salvation equipped for their work.

3. And now, His end achieved, the shadow taken from the face of God, the sanctuary opened to all seekers of Him, the Servant-Son returns up where He was before. But He returns not as He was before. He returns with the humanity that He has taken: sure pledge that though He has changed the sphere of His service, the service itself He has not given up. He takes humanity itself up to the throne of God, and sits down there with it at the right hand of God.

He has been in the lowest place: He receives the highest. It is the same Gospel which fitly shows Him to us in both. The blood of the sin-offering opens the sanctuary; but more, He who has shed it has entered heaven in the power of it; has entered it a Man, and with this link of Manhood connecting Him thus with others who are men, and for whom He offered Himself.

The consequences of this are not pursued in this Gospel. They must be sought in after-communications of divine grace, which has traced for us His path step by step from lowest humiliation to glory, and how we are concerned in every step. The place at the right hand of God is, of course, peculiar to Himself; but not only does His heart still abide with His people here, but His hand also works for them and with them; and thus Mark presents Him at the close as One whose love makes Him still the Servant of man’s need. For "they went forth, and preached everywhere, the Lord working with them, and confirming the word with signs following."

F. W. Grant, The Numerical Bible (4th ed., 1903) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

15:16-41 The crucifixion account is one of the most historically certain accounts of ancient history. Why would the early church create a story in which the object of their faith was crucified? This story was and still is an offense to Jews and absurd nonsense to Gentiles (1 Cor 1:23).

15:16 The entire regiment (literally cohort, one-tenth of a legion) was about 600 men. Those called out were probably all the soldiers currently on duty in the Praetorium.

Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Mar 15:16. Αὐλῆς, the hall) The Greek word is put before its Latin synonym, Prœtorium.

Bengel's Gnomon of the New Testament — English translation (T&T Clark, Edinburgh, 1860) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Mar 15:16-20 . Mocked by the soldiers (Mat 27:27-31 ).

Mar 15:16 . The soldiers in charge of the prisoner conduct Him into the barracks ( ἔσω τῆς αὐλῆς , ὅ ἐστιν πραιτώριον = into the court, that is, the praetorium Weizsäcker), and call together their comrades to have some sport. ὅλην τὴν σπεῖραν : “a popular exaggeration” (Sevin); at most 200 men.

The Expositor's Greek Testament, edited by W. Robertson Nicoll (1897–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

16–20 a. THE MOCKERY BY PILATE’S SOLDIERS

Mat 27:27-31. Joh 19:2-3

16. Οἱ δὲ στρατιῶται. Some of the troops under the command of the Procurator, brought to Jerusalem to maintain order during the Feast. Again we have δέ to mark a change of subject; see on Mar 7:24, Mar 10:32, Mar 14:1, Mar 15:16.

ἔσω τῆς αὐλῆς. This implies that the scourging had been inflicted elsewhere; but whether inside the building, or outside, is not clear.

ὅ ἐστιν πραιτώριον. This loose conversational statement is quite in Mk’s style, and Blass’ proposal to substitute τοῦ πραιτωρίου is not needed. Whether the αὐλή was partly or wholly roofed, or not roofed at all, it is strange that it should be identified with the whole building. Probably the αὐλή was the only part that was open to the public, and therefore, when people spoke of the Praetorium, they meant its αὐλή. Or Mk in his conversational manner may be stating “I mean the praetorium-court”; but, even if we were sure of this, we should not be justified in altering his wording. It is perhaps possible that the soldiers’ quarters in the Procurator’s palace is meant. In A.V., πραιτώριον is translated in five different ways. In the Gospels it seems always to mean the residence of the Procurator. See on Joh 18:28.

ὅλην τὴν σπεῖραν. Again a loose conversational expression; it obviously means all the members of the cohort who were within hearing at the moment. The men on duty in connexion with the trial and the execution summon all who are near at hand to come and make sport of “the King of the Jews.” Possibly σπεῖρα does not mean a full cohort of 500 or 600 men.

Cambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge University Press, 1896; 21 vols, various authors incl. Carr, Maclear, Plummer, Farrar, Lumby, Moule, M. R. James, Simcox) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

(16) Into the hall, called Prætorium.—The same word is used by St. Matthew (Mat_27:27), but is there translated the “common hall.” See Note there as to the meaning of the word. Here, again, we have a Latin word.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

16–24. The Mockery of the Soldiers. The Way to the Cross

16. the hall, called Prætorium] “in to þe floor of þe moot hall,” Wyclif. The building here alluded to is called by three of the Evangelists the Prætorium. In St Matthew (Mat_27:27) it is translated “common hall,” with a marginal alternative “governor’s house.” In St John (Joh_18:28; Joh_18:33, Joh_19:9) it is translated “hall of judgment” and “judgment hall,” with a marginal alternative “Pilate’s house” in the first passage; while here it is reproduced in the English as “prætorium.” In Act_23:35 it is rendered “judgment hall,” and in Php_1:13, where it signifies “the prætorian army,” it is rendered “palace.” This last rendering might very properly have been adopted in all the passages in the Gospels and Acts, as adequately expressing the meaning. See Professor Lightfoot on the Revision of the New Testament, p. 49.

the whole band] In the palace-court, which formed a kind of barracks or guard-room, they gathered the whole cohort. The word translated “band” is applied to the detachment brought by Judas (Joh_18:3), and occurs again Act_10:1; Act_21:31; Act_27:1.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

And they clothed him with purple,.... Matthew calls it a "scarlet" robe; and the Persic version here renders it a "red garment": it was of a colour resembling purple; it was pretty near it, and therefore so called; which is what kings were used to wear; and so in derision of him, as a king, clothed him with this mock purple robe; and which was very likely one of the soldiers' old coats:

and platted a crown of thorns, and put it about his head; for a crown, and also a reed in his hand, instead of a sceptre, as Matthew relates; See Gill on Mat 26:28, Mat 26:29.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Called Praetorium - The hall of the “praetor,” or Roman governor, where he sat to administer justice.

Whole band - See the notes at Mat 27:27.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

16. Pretorium — The word Pretorium is derived from the Latin word Pretor, signifying leader, a word applied to very different officers — civil, judicial, and military — in different periods of Roman history. The Pretorium signified the place of the Pretor, and in military service it was the general’s tent. But in this present passage it seems to refer to the court, or part of the tower of Antonia, where the Procurator’s guard were stationed.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

And the soldiers led him away within the court, which is the Praetorium; and they call together the whole band. This was the principal court of the palace, where a large number of soldiers were always quartered. "The whole band" would be the "cohors praetoria" of Cicero; Pilate"s body-guard.

Vers. 16-20. Christ mocked.

During this awful night and morning our Lord thrice underwent the suffering and indignity of public and vulgar derision. First before the high priest, at the hands of the officers and servants of Caiaphas; then again when he was set at nought and mocked by the brutal soldiery of Herod Antipas; and now yet once more, when Pilate delivered him into the keeping of the Roman soldiers, a company of whom were about to lead him forth to crucifixion. Insult was added to insult, and his bitter cup ran over.

I THE MOCKERS. The whole band or cohort are said to have joined in the ribald sport in the Praetorium. What they did, it must be remembered, they did largely in ignorance. These Roman legionaries knew nothing of a Messiah, and were probably utterly unacquainted with the character and career of him whom Pilate had delivered over to them. Their insensibility to human suffering was equal to their indifference to human innocence and virtue. All they knew was that their master, though professedly convinced of Jesus" blamelessness, was yet content to give him up into their hands to ill treat and to put to a shameful death. We cannot, therefore, wonder at their insolence and cruelty. Yet we cannot read the sad story without feelings of shame and of sorrow, as we remember that persons belonging to our race, and sharing our nature, should have inflicted such indignities upon "the Holy One and the Just," upon the world"s Friend and Savior.

II THE MOCKERIES. These were many, base, and repeated.

1. Jesus was invested with a purple robe. Probably this was a military cloak, whose crimson hue might render it an emblem of the imperial purple.

2. He was crowned with a circlet of thorns, another symbol of royalty, doubtless roughly woven from the stem of a prickly shrub.

3. He was addressed as "King." Utterly incapable of understanding a moral sovereignty, a spiritual sway, these coarse soldiers, to whom force was all, insulted the meek and unresisting Sufferer by the use of a title which from their lips could be only derisive.

4. He was saluted with the semblance of honor and homage; they" bowed the knee, and worshipped him.

5. They smote his sacred head with the scepter-reed. How affecting this treatment! The very fact which should have been Christ"s claim to respect, confidence, and adoration his royal authority over the conscience and heart of humanity was turned into a ground of reproach and a matter of reviling. Thus men treated their Divine and rightful King.

III THE STERN REALITY TO WHICH THE MOCKERY WAS A PRELUDE AND A CONTRAST. Knowing what was before the Condemned, decency and humanity should have led them to spare him these insults. But when they were over, there was worse to come. The purple was stripped from his form; his own garments were placed on him; the beam of the cross was laid upon his shoulders; he was thrust into his place in the rude procession; and then was led away to crucifixion.

APPLICATION.

1. Admire the meekness of him "who, when reviled, reviled not again; when he suffered, threatened not." Never was sorrow like his sorrow, and never patience like his patience.

2. Recognize the true royalty which a spiritual judgment may discern underlying the mockery and derision here recorded. See in Jesus a King, though crowned with thorns.

3. Learn to confide in a Savior whose purpose to save was so resolute and so benevolent, as is apparent here. A salvation procured at such a cost is a salvation of which none should hear unmoved, and which none who needs it should hesitate or delay to accept.

Vers. 16-20, 29-32. The mockery of Jesus.

The scene, the courtyard of the governor"s residence; the actors, the Roman soldiery and the Son of God; and the awful fate that awaited the Sufferer, render this mockery one of the most impressive incidents in human history. It was deliberate, brutal, and inhuman.

I WHAT IT WAS IN HIM THAT WAS MOCKED. The crown and the purple and the sham homage are interpreted by the cry, "Hail, King of the Jews!

1. It was his kingly pretensions they ridiculed. So the Jews had laughed to scorn his prophetic office. To those Roman soldiers, impressed with the grandeur of the power they themselves represented, the claim to be king of a small and subject land like Palestine was very petty. They could afford, so they thought, to laugh at it; even as Pilate was not afraid to have released him who preferred it.

2. But even more did they despise his title as a theocratic King. How far these citizens of the empire of law were from realizing the true character of the kingdom of righteousness! Had he even been recognized by the Jews themselves as their ruler, the nation was too small, too insignificant in a political or military point of view, to be of any consequence. There was no suspicion in their minds of danger to the Roman empire, or of the influence which his moral and spiritual character was to wield in the new ages of the world. It is, although they knew it not then, by virtue of this same moral majesty and power that he, in turn, has become the Conqueror of mankind, and is maintaining and extending his sway in regions where mouldering ruins and obsolete statutes are all that remain to witness to Rome"s vanished greatness. It is the mockers themselves that are now ridiculous.

II HOW MEN MAY MOCK HIM STILL. There is a feeling of human tenderness that is outraged as we imagine the meek Sufferer amidst the brutal throng. But the true sentiment that ought to be awakened is that which concerns the principles of righteousness and truth, of which he was the embodiment and representative. It is for them he would have us solicitous even to jealousy. Men still wound and mock Christ:

1. When they reader to him a merely nominal homage. "When we pervert the truth of the Word for our own evil ends, we scourge the Son of man; when to justify our evils we fabricate a system of ingenious error, and thus exalt our own wisdom above the wisdom of Jesus, we plait a crown of thorns and put it on his head; when we substitute our own righteousness for the righteousness of Christ, we clothe him with a purple robe; when we are inwardly worshippers of self and outwardly worshippers of the Lord, our worship of him is a mocking salutation of "Hail, King of the Jews!" while every presumptuous sin we commit is a stroke inflicted on the Son of man" (W. Bruce).

2. When they ignore the moral nature of his power, relying on material and external means instead of spiritual. When they use the methods of business in a business spirit, or even the arts of diplomacy, to advance his kingdom. So men clothe Christ in the insignia of Herod. "The kingliest King was crowned with thorns!

3. When they would accept the advantages of his kingdom without observing its conditions. As when persons profess to enjoy the preaching and ordinances of the gospel, but do not carry its doctrines into practice; or when they are "straightway offended" at the tribulations and privations which true discipleship involves. M.

Vers. 16-32. The crucifixion: the human deed.

To the contemplation of that supreme fact in history, around which the thoughts, the hearts, of men gather more and more, we are directed by the few sad, solemn words, "Pilate... delivered Jesus, when he had scourged him, to be crucified." The preliminary incidents are minutely related. They describe the most solemn mockery ever perpetrated. The scourging first. He is stripped to the waist, his hands tied behind him; his bent back is beaten with leathern thongs weighted at the ends with bits of lead or sharpened bone. Bleeding, he is led within the court, "the Praetorium," where the whole cohort of soldiers vent their ingenuity in exposing their Victim to ridicule. They cast a purple-dyed military cloak over him; with their hard hands they twist twigs of nabk, with its long, hard, sharp spikes or thorns, into a mock-crown, and press it down upon his fever-heated brow. In his yielding hand they thrust a reed, and bow their knees in mock submission and homage, and with coarse gibes hail him "King of the Jews." Snatching the reed from his hand, they beat him with it on his bleeding head; they strike him with their fists or with rods; and in the direst indignity spit upon him. Then, "wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe," he is led out. To this uncomplaining Sufferer this smitten and forsaken One Pilate calls the attention of the multitude with words which, like those he wrote, float on through the ages, bearing their different message as the listening ears differed homo!" The echoing cry from the mingled voices of "the chief and the officers" arose above all others, "Crucify, crucify!" A miserable squabble between Pilate and the Jews ends in his Behold your King!" and their reply "Away with him; away with him, crucify him!... We have no king but Caesar." In the temple Judas is casting down "the thirty pieces of silver," making confession, in a repentance all too late, "I have sinned in that I betrayed innocent blood," and his agonized spirit seeks a vain relief in a hasty destruction of a life he cannot support Jesus "bearing the cross, is led away to be crucified, when, stoking, exhausted with suffering, beneath its weight, he is relieved by its being laid on "one Simon of Cyrene the first in a long line of lowly cross-bearers who endure the shame for Jesus" sake. "And they bring him unto the place Golgotha." One only spark of humanity is left. "They offered him wine mingled with myrrh." Then upon a cross symbol of the uttermost degradation and shame, and more than a symbol of the uttermost suffering they stretched his sacred, quivering limbs, piercing his hands and his feet with rough nails. Thus they crucified him. " Then from out of the most indescribable agony of body broke forth the gentle murmur of a loving heart in modest prayer, "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do." Ah! they crushed, they broke that heart; but it sent forth only the sweet fragrance of its love, as a crushed flower its perfume. But he is not alone. him they crucify two robbers, one on his right hand and one on his left." Thus is he "numbered with the transgressors." "Racked by the extremest pain, and covered with every shame which men were wont to heap on the greatest criminals; forsaken and denied by his disciples; no sigh escaped his lips, no cry of agony, no bitter or faltering word; only a prayer for the forgiveness of his enemies. They had acted in blindness, under the influence of religious and political fanaticism; for, to use St. Paul"s words, had they known it they would not have crucified the Lord of glory." Surely they could not know, or it would not have to be recorded in one sentence: "And they crucify him, and part his garments among them, casting lots upon them, what each should take. " So hard, so insensible! In presence of the central fact in the world"s history, men gamble!

Here we must find our lessons, in the contrasted intensity of interest in human salvation which is shown from above, and that careless, blind indifference which marks men "before whose eyes Jesus Christ is openly set forth crucified." The world must see itself represented in the actors on that dread evening; and each of us may see himself in one or other of the many surrounding the Man" on that day of darkness, doom, and death. Let each bring himself into presence of that cross the true judgment-seat of Christ, and there test his heart, and try and prove his life. And further, let each one learn how his hand is not wanting among those rude hands that smote that tender flesh; nor his words from those that fell on that quick ear; nor his sins from those that burdened that too heavy-weighted heart. "Our sins of spite were part of those that day, Whose cruel whips and thorns did make him smart; Our lusts were those that tired him in the way; Our want of love was that which pierced his heart: And still when we forget or slight his pain, We crucify and torture him again.

Vers. 16-41. Parallel passages: Mat_27:27-56 Luk_23:26-49 Joh_19:17-37. The closing scene.

I THE CRUCIFIXION AND ACCOMPANYING EVENTS,

1. The words of the Creed. The words of the Creed, "crucified under Pontius Pilate," are familiar to almost every young person who has been trained in the Christian religion. All down the centuries the name of this Roman knight, who was Procurator of Judaea under the Propraetor of Syria, has been associated with the greatest crime that has blotted and blackened the page of history since the beginning of the world. He was a descendant of the great Samnite general, C. Pontius Telesinus, and so belonged to the Pontian gens. His surname, Pilatus, is usually derived from pilum, a javelin, and so means "armed with a javelin;" though others connect it with pileatus, from pileus, a cap worn by manumitted slaves, implying that he had been a freedman, or the son of one. His head-quarters were at Caesarea, on the sea, but during the Jewish feasts, when such crowds assembled in Jerusalem, in discharge of his duty he came up to Jerusalem to keep order. In like manner Herod, whose usual residence was at Tiberias, had come up to Jerusalem to keep the feast, ostensibly in conformity to the Jews" religion, but more especially to conciliate the favor of the Jewish people. It thus happened that the tetrarch and Roman governor were both at Jerusalem at the same time the former occupying the old Asmonean palace, and the latter Herod"s Praetorium a palace of Herod the Great, or perhaps a part of Fort Antonia.

2. Pilate"s embarrassment and earnestness to secure the Savior"s acquittal. He had offended the Jews by bringing the Roman standards to Jerusalem, and had been obliged to retrace this step; he had quarrelled with them about secularizing the corban, or sacred treasury money, to provide a suitable water-supply for Jerusalem; he had been engaged in a deadly feud with the Samaritans; and had mingled the blood of the Galilaeans with their own sacrifices. He was thus on bad terms with the people of every province in the land, and could not, therefore, afford further to provoke their wrath. On the other hand, he had had three warnings the voice of his own conscience, the dream of his wife, Claudia Procula, and the announcement of Jesus" mysterious title of "Son of God." On the one side was the fear of the Jews whom he had so deeply offended, and fear also of compromising himself with the emperor, now that his patron Sejanus had fallen; on the other were his remaining sense of justice, his respect for Jesus as an innocent man, perhaps as something more so that Tertullian says of him, "Jam pro conscientia Christianus and the threefold warning already mentioned. In consequence he does his best, in his perplexing circumstances, to have Jesus released; for he sent him to Herod, then offered to release him as a favor, according to an established custom. Next he thought to substitute scourging for crucifixion; and when that had failed, he appealed to their pity. But all to no purpose. What was he to do? Why, assert, as he was bound to do, the power of the Roman law, maintain the cause of justice, and obey the voice of conscience at all hazards. But instead of this he vacillated at the beginning, temporized afterwards, and yielded to his fears in the end. Unhappily, he allowed fear for his personal safety to stifle the voice of conscience.

3. The crucifixion. Crosses were of different sorts and shapes. There was the crux simplex, or simple cross, which was rather a stake on which the body was impaled; there was the crux decussator, or St. Andrew"s cross, in the form of the letter X; there was the crux immissa, or Latin cross, in the form of a dagger with point downward & 8224; ; there was the cruz commissa, in the form of the letter T. On account of the inscription the form of the cross on which our Lord suffered is generally supposed to have been that of the third sort. And now we are arrived at the last sad scene in that shocking drama. Criminals usually carried their cross, or the cross-beams of it, as they went to execution; hence the term furcifer, or cross-bearer. Jesus, exhausted by all he had previously endured, and crushed beneath that heavy cross, sank by the way. Simon, an African Jew, is impressed into the service ( aggareuousi , send out a mounted courier, from the mounted couriers ready to carry the royal despatches in Persia; then force to do service, compel) and compelled to carry the Savior"s cross. Jesus is fastened to that cross; his hands and his feet are pierced with nails; the cross is hoisted, and with a rude and sudden dash it is sunk deep into the earth. There the bleeding Victim hangs, his bones disjointed, his veins broken, his wounds freshened, his skin livid, his face wan, his strength exhausted; blood flows from his head, blood from his hands, blood from his feet, blood from his opened side. There he hangs, wounded, tortured, fainting, bleeding, dying. There he hangs upon that cursed tree, the passers-by reviling him and wagging their heads, soldiers mocking him, rulers deriding him, malefactors railing on him, a fearful fourfold mockery. He is offered vinegar and gall (or wine and myrrh, i.e. wine myrrhed, or made acid), but, in the first instance, will not drink, lest it should blunt the pain of dying or cloud his faculties; "The cup that my Father gave me, shall I not drink it?" He suffers the withdrawment of his heavenly Father"s countenance, and in consequence exclaims, "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani? God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" At length, with a loud voice, he cries out, "It is finished!" and bows his head in death. We do not marvel at the accompanying circumstances, strange and marvellous as they were. No wonder the sun drew back from the spectacle, and shrouded his glorious rays in darkness, rather than gaze on such a scene. No wonder that dense darkness settled on the land for three long hours. No wonder earth trembled and quaked in horror at the foul deed that had been done. No wonder that rocks rent and graves opened, and the tenants of the tomb came forth as though in consternation, shocked at human sinfulness, and in sympathy with the heavenly Sufferer. No wonder the veil of the temple, strong and thick, is torn in twain from top to bottom, for the humanity of the Savior is torn with thorns, and smitings, and nails, and spear-thrust; while he is pouring out his life unto death.

4. The inscription. The main part of the superscription, viz. "The King of the Jews," is found in the record of each evangelist the same in all and correct in each. In one it is completed by the name, "Jesus," which a Roman, proud of the purity of his speech, and jealous of preserving it, naturally enough left out of the Latin title; in another it is supplemented by the name of the place, "Nazareth;" while the words "This is" are only introductory. Otherwise the inscription was trilingual, and exactly recorded as written in the three languages by three of the evangelists respectively, while St. Mark records the actual charge the superscription of his accusation aitiav common to them all; and this was the assumption of royalty.

5. The time of the crucifixion. The crucifixion really commenced at 9 a.m. The darkness began at noon; death took place at 3 p.m. The apparent discrepancy between the synoptists and Joh_19:14 is not to be removed by the similarity of the Greek numerals for six and three (v and g) respectively, and the supposed substitution or rather misreading of the former for the latter in the Johannean Gospel. The reconciliation is more probably effected by a difference of time-reckoning the synoptists adopting the Jewish and St. John the Roman method. Thus the delivery and preparations began at 6 a.m. according to the latter.

II THE DESIGN OF THE CRUCIFIXION.

1. Not for personal chastisement. The design could not in any sense be for personal chastisement, for Jesus had been holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners;" it is expressly stated, too, that he was "cut off, but not for himself." Neither could it be as an example, for the example of One perfectly innocent suffering so severely would only discourage the guilty, and might well drive them to despair; for if this were done to a green tree, what would be done to a dry if the guiltless suffered so fearfully, what might the guilty expect? Besides, if Christ suffered as an example, what possible good could his example do to those that lived before his day? Neither was it for confirmation of his teaching to confirm the doctrines which he taught and seal them with his blood; for some of the prophets had done this before him, several of the apostles did so after him, and the martyrs all down the ages have suffered in like manner. And yet, though thus entitled, according to the theory in question, to stand on the same platform with Jesus, of none of them could it ever be asked, with the expectation of an affirmative answer," Was he crucified for you?" Of no one in all the glorious company of the apostles, or in all the goodly fellowship of the prophets, or in all the noble army of martyrs, or in all the holy Church throughout all the world, could it be said, "He was crucified for you." How, then, are we to account for the unparalleled sufferings of the Son of God; for the indescribable distress that overwhelmed him during those sufferings? What reason can we render for the transcendent value ascribed to the gift of God"s Son that unspeakable gift; for the incomparable worth of the boon, so that all other benefits sink into insignificance when placed beside it? How are we to explain the fact that, amid the utmost chariness of human eulogy, we find the highest praises everywhere throughout this Book lavished on the Son of God? How comes it to pass that while we are instructed to "cease from man, for wherein is he to be accounted of?" we are invited to look up with greatest reverence to the Man Christ Jesus, as placed far above the proudest pinnacle of earthly grandeur, and his name raised high above every name, so that in honor of that name "every knee should bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father"? Even in heaven the Lamb, in the midst of the throne, as he had been slain, is still the marvel of the universe; while the key-note of the song sung by the redeemed in glory, and ever sounding along the arches of the sky, is," Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honor, and glory, and blessing," What is the solution of all this? We have no doubt, and feel no difficulty in giving a decided and definite answer to all questions of the sort proposed, for Scripture itself supplies that answer. It is because he "came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many;" it is because he "hath loved us, and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for sweet-smelling savor;" it is because he bare our sins in his own body on the tree," suffering, "the just for the unjust, to bring us to God;" it is because "he was made sin for us, though he knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him;" it is because in him "we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace," Why, again, are there so many Scriptures all bearing on this same subject? Just to exhibit it under its various aspects and from sundry standpoints; just to explain it more clearly and enforce it more fully; and, still more, to awaken our liveliest interest in it, and impress us with a due sense of its supreme and paramount importance.

2. The sufferings of the cross vicarious. Objections have been urged against the fairness of the holy suffering in the stead of the unholy, and the objectors strive to explain away the fact of such substitution. -To such objectors we reply If you object to the fairness of the holy suffering in the room of the unholy, and seek to explain it away, we object to the fairness of what you can never explain away of what you must admit, however reluctant, and cannot deny, however desirous. If you object to the holy suffering in place of the unholy, we object to the holy suffering at all; and yet you are bound to acknowledge that the Holy One has suffered, and cannot venture, so long at least as you credit the Gospel narrative, to gainsay the historic fact. But perfect holiness is justly entitled to happiness, and by the law of Heaven is (as it should be) entirely exempt from suffering; and therefore, unless the Holy One suffered in the room and stead of the unholy, his sufferings would not only be most unjust, but at the same time altogether meaningless.

3. The doctrine of substitution in both secular and sacred history. Of the very many instances of this doctrine of substitution met with in the pages of both sacred and secular history, a few examples may be here adduced. Judah intreated Joseph that he might be kept instead of Benjamin a bondman in his room. After an address of most pathetic and powerful pleading, he says, "Now therefore, I pray thee, let thy servant abide instead of the lad a bondman to my lord; and let the lad go up with his brethren. For how shall I go up to my father, and the lad be not with me? lest peradventure I see the evil that shall come on my father." In the days of King David an unnatural war broke out. Rebels banded themselves against their sovereign; his son became their leader. A disastrous battle was fought in the wood of Ephraim, and the young man Absalom was slain. One messenger follows on the heels of another, saying, "Tidings, my lord the king;" while his question is once and again the same, "Is the young man Absalom safe?" The king, it is plain, would rather have lost the battle than his son; he would have parted with his kingdom rather than his son; nay, he would have given life itself for his son"s life. For now, when he has learnt at length that that fair and favorite son had fallen by the hand of the martial but merciless Joab, "the king," we read, "was much moved, and went up to the chamber over the gate, and wept: and as he went, thus he said, O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! would God I had died for thee, O Absalom, my son, my son!" Even Caiaphas enunciated the doctrine, though ignorant of its true bearing and unconscious of the great truth it involved, when he "gave counsel to the Jews, that it was expedient that one man should die for the people." The sins of the whole people laid on the head of the scapegoat, the sins of the individual person transferred to the head of the sin offering, such acts as these symbolically teach the same. When we turn to the secular classics, we find that one of the sublimest poems and simplest tragedies of antiquity is based on the doctrine of substitution; it represents a deity suffering in the cause of humanity and on account of favors bestowed on man. Another instance, and one containing the most genuine example of conjugal affection in the old Greek drama, represents a wife giving her life a substitute for that of her husband. So familiar was this doctrine to the ancients. The great Theban poet, with wonted power, sketches in a few stirring sentences the loyalty and love of the brave Antilochus defense of his aged parent Nestor, the renowned knight of Pylos. Enfeebled by years and endangered by younger warriors, his horse wounded by the archery of Paris, his chariot impeded, and himself fiercely assailed by the Ethiop Memnon, the old man, in trepidation of spirit, called loudly on his son for succor; nor did he call in vain. Promptly was his call heard and heeded. The faithful son proved his devotion to his sire; he hastened to his side; he defended him from the strong spear of the assailant; he saved that site"s life, but not without the sacrifice of his own; he rescued his parent from ruin, but received his own death-blow; he averted the fate that impended over his father, but at the expense of his own heart"s blood. Hundreds of years have rolled". away since that deed of daring and devotedness was done, and still it is enshrined in the immortal verse of the Pindaric muse, and the hero"s memory embalmed among the younger men of ancient days as first in affection to his father. Again, we admire the Roman poet"s graphic delineation of the battle-scene in which the gallant son of Mezentius fell. We admire still more the filial affection of that son who, when the deadly blow had been aimed at his father, interposed himself in his father"s stead, received the blow, lost his own life, but saved his father"s. "By thy death I live, my son; by thy wounds I am saved!" the veteran warrior exclaimed. In like manner the Son of God took the sinner"s place, and stood in the sinner"s room; and in the words of inspiration, the sinner who trusts in him can say, "He was wounded for my transgressions, he was bruised for my iniquities: the chastisement of my peace was upon him; and with his stripes I am healed." For us the Savior hung upon that cross; for us that frame writhed in agony; for us those limbs quivered in torture; for us that ghastly paleness overspread his face; for us those eye-strings broke in death; for us that side was pierced with the rude soldier"s spear; for us he suffered and for us he died.

4. The power of the cross in conversion. The first convert of the Greenland mission was a robber-chief, called Kajarnak. That mission had long been unsuccessful; the missionaries had been sorely tried. At last, disheartened, they were about to leave the country, when one day the bandit, with his followers, came to rob the mission tent. On entering, he saw the missionary writing, and wondered what it meant; the missionary explained to him that, by the marks he was making on the paper, he could tell the thoughts that had passed through the mind of a man called John hundreds of years before. "Impossible I" exclaimed the savage chief. The missionary, who was finishing his translation of the Gospel of St. John, read to these heathen Greenlanders the record of the crucifixion as contained in the nineteenth chapter of that Gospel, on which he was then employed. The chieftain and his men were strangely interested in the narrative. At length Kajarnak, with much emotion, cried out, "What had the man done that they treated him so?" The missionary addressed him in reply, "That man did nothing amiss, but Kajarnak has done much wrong; Kajarnak murdered his wife; Kajarnak has robbed as well as murdered; Kajarnak has filled the land with violence; and that man was bearing the punishment; of Kajarnak"s sins that Kajarnak might be saved." Tears rolled down the cheek of the rude robber-chief., and he besought the missionary to read him all that over again, "for," he added, "I too would like to be saved." We do not wonder that the story of the cross had such a powerful effect on the first convert in Greenland.

5. Christ"s death on the cross a satisfaction. The death of Christ did not cause God to love us, but, on the contrary, was the expression of that love; it did not originate God"s love to man, but, contrariwise, was the effect and evidence of that love; and in accordance with this we read that "God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." A mighty debt was due to the government, law, and justice of God, as well as to his truth and holiness and purity; that debt was sin. This huge hindrance barred the way of access to communion and fellowship with God; but God himself appointed, accepted, and applied the means for the removal of that hindrance and the reopening of the way. Again, the sun is always shining, though we do not always see it; either clouds overspread the sky and cover the fair face of day, or earth rolls round upon its axis, and so during the hours of night we are turned away from the sun. Notwithstanding this, the sun is ever sending out his rays; and when the clouds scatter, or the earth rolls round again, his full-orbed brightness beams upon us, we see him in the splendor of his shining; and "a pleasant thing it is for the eyes to behold the sun." So the face of God is ever shining, but the clouds of sin darken the sky above us and separate between us and our God; by the death of Christ those clouds are driven away, and that severance ceases; we are brought back into the clear light of unclouded day, and bask in the bright effulgence of our heavenly Father"s face. The death of Christ on the cross thus bridged the chasm that sin had made; it spanned the gulf that iniquity had fixed; it opened the new and living way to you bright world above. By the cross is the way of safety and salvation; for by that cross our sins were expiated, by that cross propitiation was effected, by that cross atonement was made. By that cross, moreover, the Creator and his fallen creature were brought together; by that cross man and his Maker were reconciled; by that cross the offended Sovereign and the rebel sinner were set at one again. In that cross we see the vicarious suffering of one for many, the wondrous substitution of the just for the unjust, the punishment of the sinner inflicted on the Savior. Through that cross we see the Law magnified, justice satisfied, truth vindicated, government established, sin punished, God glorified, our debt cancelled, the handwriting against us blotted out, and the believing sinner saved. "Thus from the Savior on the cross A healing virtue flows; Who looks to him with lively faith Is saved from endless woes.

6. Double aspect of Christ"s death on the cross. The death of Christ on the cross is a purification as well as a propitiation; it is the source of sanctification and the ground of satisfaction. In reply to the question of the elder in Revelation, saying," What are these which are arrayed in white robes? and whence came they?" the answer is returned, "These are they which came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb." So, also, in Heb_9:14," How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?" There is a seeming incongruity in blood purifying. We speak-of being defiled with blood or stained with blood, but Scripture speaks of blood cleansing, which is the opposite. We may to some extent illustrate this by certain ceremonies that had to be gone through in olden times by a person who had committed homicide. Among the ancient Greeks the person in question forfeited life. The soul of the slain was supposed to demand life for life, but that life might be redeemed or bought off by the vicarious substitution of a victim. This victim was usually a ram, the slaying of which symbolically denoted the surrender of the guilty man"s own life. This was the ceremony of atonement to appease the soul of the slain, and was called hilasmoi. But another ceremony was needed a ceremony of purification to fit the man, whose guilt had been atoned by the propitiatory sacrifice just mentioned, for intercourse with his fellow-men. He then stood on the fleece of the ram of atonement or propitiation, in order to come into the closest possible contact and most intimate connection with the victim which had, as we have seen, vicariously represented him, when an animal of another kind was slaughtered as a victim of purification, and slaughtered in such a way that the blood which spurted, from the wound fell upon the hands of the homicide, and thus the human blood which still cleaved to his hands was conceived to be washed away by the blood of this second victim. This process was called katharmoi , and thus was he purified. The custom to which we have alluded, borrowed, like so many other heathen customs, from scattered and distorted fragments of Divine truth, shows, among other things, that the idea of cleansing by means of blood was familiar to the ancients. At the same time that we use this illustration we do not understand the blood of the cross in the gross literal sense, but understand by it the death of Christ upon the cross, and, as that was a bloody one, we are not surprised that it should be called in several Scriptures his blood. The death of Christ

(1) as a propitiation turns away the wrath of God, due to sin, from man: this is its propitiatory efficacy. It turns away man from sin: this is its purificatory effect. God loved us with an everlasting love, but sin he hates with an infinite and everlasting hatred. As a Friend God loves us, but as a Lawgiver he denounces our sin, as a Judge he condemns it, and as a King he must root it out of his dominions altogether. The love of God is like a mighty river. It has flowed from eternity in the majesty of its strength and in the glorious fullness of its stream; but sin rose as a vast. obstruction to the current it lay like a formidable boom across the stream. At length, in the fullness of time, the cross of Christ broke through the boom, forced aside the obstruction, and opened up the channel; and now the sinner, sheltered beneath the shadow of that cross, can say, Though thou wast angry with me, thine anger is turned away, and thou hast comforted me." "God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself." How? "Not imputing unto men their trespasses;" not charging us with those offenses by which we justly incurred his displeasure and merited his wrath; forgiving them, forgetting them, and so reconciled to us, and reconciling us to him, through the blood of the cross. But the death of Christ

(2) is a purification. It purifies the whole man; its purifying influence goes on, and is needed, till death. "The blood of Jesus Christ," we read, "cleanseth us from all sin." No doubt it cleanseth as a propitiation from the guilt of sin, but more especially it cleanseth as a purification from the filth of sin. It cleanseth the soul from the love of sin and the body from the practice of it; the faculties from thoughts of sin, the members of the body from works of sin. The hands are purified from deeds of darkness; they are fitted for and filled with works of faith and labors of love on earth, and thus prepared for sweeping the harps of gold and swelling the symphonies of heaven. The eyes are purified; they are cleared of scales, and opened to see the wondrous things of God"s Law, and the gracious things of both Law and gospel. Thus, too, are they prepared for gazing on the radiant splendor of the eternal throne and the glories of the upper sanctuary. The ears are opened to hear what God the Lord says to his servants, and are thus prepared at length for drinking in the music of the skies and for being charmed with the melodies of heaven. The feet are kept back from every false step and every wrong way, and furnished as though with wings to move readily and rapidly in the way of God"s commandments; and thus they are prepared at last to stand upon the glassy sea and tread the golden streets. The head is freed from every iniquitous scheme, and enlightened to comprehend the Divine counsels of mercy; and thus it is prepared to wear a crown, fair in its form, fresh in its coloring, brilliant in its lustre, unfading in its beauty, and amaranthine in its bloom. The heart is purified from every propensity to evil; it overflows with the love of God on earth, and waits to have that love still more intensified amid the raptures and ecstasies of heaven.

III LESSONS TAUGHT US BY THE CROSS.

1. God"s hatred of sin is seen in the cross. We trace the wrath of God in the waters of the flood that swept away the antediluvians; in the sin-ruined cities of which few fragments remain to tell where once they were; in the dreary waters that roll over the desolated plain where Sodom and Gomorrah once stood; in the peeled and scattered and sifted race whose fathers" awful imprecation, "His blood be upon us, and our children," called down the withering curse of Heaven; in that dark abode where the angels that kept not their first estate are reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day; in that region of despair where the finally impenitent are doomed to weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth, and where the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever. And yet the wrath of God, we think, is revealed in clearer light and blazoned in more glaring characters in the sacrifice of the cross, because "God spared not his own Son," when that Son undertook the penalty of our sin, "but delivered him up for us all.

2. The highest morality comes from the cross. No theory of morals is so persuasive, no precepts so powerful, as the picture of dying love exhibited in the cross. "The love of Christ constraineth us," says the apostle; "because we thus judge, that one died for all, therefore all died; and he died for all, that they which live should no longer live unto themselves, but unto him who for their sakes died and rose again" (Revised Version); and also, "He gave himself for us, to redeem us from all iniquity, and to purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works;" and once more, "The life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me." Oh, how can we go on in sin if we reflect, as we.ought, that sin crucified the Lord of life and glory; if we reflect that it was sin inflicted those wounds upon him; if we remember that sin caused him that agony of soul as well as anguish of body, when, in the language of the prophet, he might well say, "Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by? behold, and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, which is done unto me, wherewith Jehovah hath afflicted me in the day of his fierce anger;" if we consider that our sin was laid upon him and borne by him when "he became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross," and when "he put away sin by the sacrifice of himself"? The way to purify our fallen humanity and elevate the standard of morality is not by moral lessons, however proper and useful in their own place, but by leading sinners to the foot of the cross, and by pointing to that cross as embodying three arguments, than which there is nothing more potent or more powerfully persuasive in all the universe besides. The first argument which the blood that flowed on that cross embodies is the mercy of God the Father, in reopening the channel of his love which sin had dammed up and closed. The second argument is the love of God the Son, in assuming our nature, in agonizing and sweating, in being smitten and scourged and spit upon and scorned, in being cruelly crowned and crucified; and all to "finish transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness." The third argument is the grace of God the Holy Spirit, in sprinkling the blood thus shed on the conscience, when he brings home the death of Christ, in the power and demonstration of faith, to the sinner"s heart. How is it possible to resist this triple argument? How is it possible to go on in sin, which caused our Lord such suffering, and when such love the love of the Trinity is constraining us to abandon it for ever?

3. The innocence of the Sufferer. Heaven and earth attested his innocence. Friend and foe bore witness to it. A noble Roman lady, wife of the governor, warned her lord, saying, "Have thou nothing to do with that just man." Pilate himself, the judge, informed chief priests and people, "I find no fault in this man." Again a second time, having assembled chief priests and rulers and people, he affirmed publicly and positively Jesus" innocence in the following strong terms: "Behold, I, having examined him before you, found no fault in this man touching those things whereof ye accuse him: no, nor yet Herod: for he sent him back unto us; and behold, nothing worthy of death hath been done by him" (Revised Version). Once more, for the third time, he asserted his innocence, saying, "Why, what evil hath he done? I have found no cause of death in him." Judas, the traitor, admitted the same thing, saying, "I have betrayed innocent blood." The Roman centurion, who superintended the execution, cried out, "Certainly this was a righteous man;" and again, after he had seen the earthquake and those things that were done, "Truly this was the Son of God." One of the malefactors, his companion in suffering, frankly acknowledged, "This man hath done nothing amiss." The whole record of his trial furnishes the plainest and most positive evidence of his innocence. Satan had tried him, and found nothing in him. God the Father had owned him three times by an audible voice from heaven. He had committed no offense against the religion of the land, no crime against the laws of his country, no sin against God. He went about continually doing good; he was acknowledged to have done all things well; he was "holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners." "We held him as condemn"d by Heaven, An outcast from his God, While for our sins he groan"d, he bled, Beneath his Father"s rod. "His sacred blood hath wash"d our souls From sin"s polluted stain; His stripes have heal"d us, and his death Revived our souls again.

4. His seven sayings on the cross. Of these three are recorded by St. Luke, other three by St. John, and the remaining one by both St. Matthew and St. Mark. The first of those seven sayings, or seven words, is a prayer for his murderers: "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do." There is no doubt that they were acting in ignorance and unbelief; yet they were not excusable on that account, for men are accountable for their belief, and especially so when they have abundant means of rectifying their misbelief or removing their unbelief. The spirit of forgiveness which this prayer breathes is truly wonderful. There is an entire absence of revenge and of all vindictiveness, and yet this was only the negative side; there was the positive feeling of love to his enemies, pity for his murderers, and prayer for those who used him so despitefully. Thus he practiced what he preached, and exemplified what he taught in the condition of the petition, "Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them that trespass against us.

The second of those words is a promise to the penitent sufferer beside him: "To-day shalt thou be with me in Paradise." At first it would appear that both malefactors had railed upon him, or the plural is used idiomatically for the singular. One became penitent, rebuking the railing of his fellow-sufferer. By faith he looked to the pierced One at his side, and mourned. His faith became marvelously strong in an incredibly short space. The right rendering of his prayer in the Revised Version makes this more manifest: "Jesus, remember me when thou comest in thy kingdom." The common rendering of into, as if it were eiv with the accusative, would imply that Jesus passed into his kingdom at the hour of his dissolution, so that faith would not have long to wait; but the expression "in thy kingdom" (en , with the dative) points not to the immediate future like the former, but to the more distant future when Jesus would come again in his kingdom; and still the faith that prompted the petition patiently looked forward to that far-off day. Thus there is no sinner beyond the reach of mercy; no time too late to seek salvation; and no prayers of faith rejected. The soul united to Jesus is safe in his arms, and admitted to glory soon as separated from the body. The third saying is a provision for his widowed mother in her sore bereavement: "Woman, behold thy son!" and to the disciple he said, "Behold thy mother!" It was to the beloved John the intimation was given to treat the Virgin mother as his own mother, while Mary was to regard and depend on John as her son. The hint was understood by both; the new relationship was accepted, John undertook the responsibility, and Mary confided herself to his care. Jesus, as he hung in agony, was thus mindful of his mother, making careful provision for her. What a lesson of filial love is taught us here! What a lesson of dutifulness to a parent, especially when that parent is bereaved and desolate! The fourth saying is a position of spiritual loneliness: "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" Here there is faith, but faith wanting the assurance of sense. There is faith in Jesus acknowledging God as his God; but a sense of the Divine presence is absent. The complaint of Divine abandonment is caused by that absence, and the deserted soul is in agony. The condition of the Christian is sometimes similar when, like Job, he goes forward, but God is not there; backward, but he cannot perceive him; and when he turns himself to every side, but cannot find him. But oh, how great the difference! Such a season of darkness is for the most part occasioned by sin; so in our Savior"s case it was indeed for sin, but not his own! The fifth is the pain of bodily suffering: "I thirst." The pain of thirst is worse to bear than that of hunger; when long continued it is distressing in the extreme. Men who have traveled in a desert district or under a tropical sun can realize the severity of this condition. In the case of our Lord there was a peculiar aggravation. Near the cross had been placed a vessel of sour wine (posca) for the use of the soldiers, the sight of which would increase the feeling of thirst and pain on the part of the Sufferer. Nor was that all; among the cruel mocking of our Lord in the earlier stage of the crucifixion was the circumstance that the soldiers tantalized him by raising to his lips their jar or sponge of vinegar, and then suddenly withdrawing it, for we read, "The soldiers also mocked him... offering him vinegar." The sixth is the perfection of his work: "It is finished." As has been beautifully said," Finished was his holy life; with his life his struggle, with his struggle his work, with his work the redemption, with the redemption the foundation of the new world." "Tis finished!" was his latest voice: These sacred accents o"er, He bow"d his head, gave up the ghost, And suffer"d pain no more. "Tis finish"d!" The Messiah dies For sins, but not his own; The great redemption is complete, And Satan"s power o"erthrown. "Tis finish"d!" All his groans are past His blood, his pain, and toils, Have fully vanquished our foes, And crown"d him with their spoils. finished!" Legal worship ends, And gospel ages run; All old things now are pass"d away, And a new world begun.

The seventh is presentation of his spirit to his Father: "Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit." Many a time have these words waked a corresponding sentiment in the dying Christian"s breast; many a time have they been used by the dying Christian to express his soul"s surrender to God. Similarly the proto-martyr"s "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit." Likewise in the language of ancient piety, "Into thine hand I commit my spirit: thou hast redeemed me, O Lord God of truth." Hence too we infer the immateriality of the soul, and its independence of the body. Here also we learn how to die, yielding our soul into the hand of our heavenly Father. J.J.G.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Praetorium - The inner hall, where the praetor, a Roman magistrate, used to give judgment. But St. John calls the whole palace by this name. Matt. xxvii, 27; John xix, 2.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

the hall

Or, the court which is the judgment-hall.

The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

The next part of our Saviour’s sufferings, consisted of cruel mockings; he had owned himself to be the King of the Jews; that is, a spiritual King in and over his church; but the Jews expecting that the Messiah should have appeared in the pomp of an earthly prince, and finding themselves disappointed of their expectation in our Saviour, they look upon him as a deceiver and imposter; and accordingly treat him as a mock-king,with all the marks of derision and scorn; for first they put a crown upon his head, but a very ignominious and cruel one, a crown of thorns; they place a sceptre in his hand, but that of a reed; a robe of scarlet or purple upon his body, and then bowed their knees before him as they were wont to do before their princes, crying, Hail, King.

Thus were all the marks of scorn imaginable put upon our dear Redeemer; yet what they did in jest, God permitted to be in earnest. For all these things were signs and marks of sovereignty; and Almighty God caused the regal dignity of his Son to shine forth, even in the midst of his greatest abasement; whence was all this jeering and sport, but to flout majesty? And why did Christ undergo all this ignominy, disgrace, and shame, but to shew what was due unto us for our sins? as also to give us an example to bear all the scorn, reproach, and shame imaginable for his sake; who for the joy that was set before him, despised the shame, as well as endured the cross.

William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

the courtyard (which is the government headquarters)

This was where the Roman soldiers in Jerusalem lived, and where the governor stayed when he was in Jerusalem. AT: "the courtyard of the soldiers' barracks" or "the courtyard of the governor's residence"

the whole cohort of soldiers

"the whole unit of soldiers"

They put a purple robe on Jesus

Purple was a color worn by royalty. The soldiers did not believe that Jesus was king. They clothed him this way to mock him because others said that he was the King of the Jews.

a crown of thorns

"a crown made of thorny branches"

Hail, King of the Jews

The greeting "Hail" with a raised hand was only used to greet the Roman emperor. The soldiers did not believe that Jesus was the king of the Jews. Rather they said this to mock him. (See: Irony)

translationWords

court

purple

robe

Jesus

crown

thorn

hail

King of the Jews

unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.

16-19.] Jesus mocked by the soldiers. Mat 27:27-30 (omitted in Luke). Joh 19:1-3. See notes on Matt.

16.] αὐλῆς, the court or guardroom, but open—see note on Mat 26:69.

Henry Alford, The Greek Testament (1849–1861) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

16-21. Jesus is delivered up to the Roman soldiers for the execution of the sentence against him. They have learned the nature of the charge against him, and proceed to make sport of it. For this purpose they take him to the palace, and gather the whole cohort on duty in the city at the time. There they clothe him in mock purple, and put a crown made of the twigs of the thorn bush on his head, and pay him mock homage, saying “Hail, King of the Jews.” Then they put on him his own garments, and lead him out to the place of crucifixion. As Jesus has been exhausted by the scourging, they press into the service one Simon a Cyrenian, the father of Alexander and Rufus,—probably names that afterwards became familiar in the circle of disciples,—and make him carry the cross.

16. τοῦ ἡγεμόνος—the procurator. Properly, it is the title of the “legatus Cæsaris,” the governor of an imperial province. But in the N.T., it is used of the procurator, Grk. ἐπίτροπος, διοικητής, a subordinate officer of the province, who became practically the governor of the district of the larger province to which he was attached. Judæa, being part of the province of Syria, Pilate was properly procurator, or ἐπίτροπος, but the N.T. gives him the title ἡγεμών, which belongs strictly to the governor of the whole province.1

ἔσω τῆς αὐλῆς—within the palace, which is the residence of the procurator during his stay in Jerusalem. The explanatory clause, which is the prœtorium, i.e. the residence of the Roman governor, makes that meaning certain here.2 σπεῖραν—this word is used exactly for the Roman cohort, or tenth part of a legion, numbering six hundred men. It accords with this, that χιλίαρχος, tribune, is used in the N.T. to denote the commander of the σπεῖρα.

International Critical Commentary — older volumes (1896–1929), various authors — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Into the hall called Pretorium. Mark, as usual, amplifies. Matthew has simply the Pretorium. The courtyard, surrounded by the buildings of the Pretorium, so that the people passing through the vestibule into this quadrangle found themselves in the Pretorium.

Band (speiran). Originally anything wound or wrapped round; as a ball, the coils of a snake, a knot or curl in wood. Hence a body of men - at - arms. The same idea is at the bottom of the Latin manipulus, which is sometimes (as by Josephus) used to translate speira. Manipulus was originally a bundle or handful. The ancient Romans adopted a pole with a handful of hay or straw twisted about it as the standard of a company of soldiers; hence a certain number or body of soldiers under one standard was called manipulus.

Marvin R. Vincent, Word Studies in the New Testament (1887–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.