Mark 15:15 - Meaning and Application

Here, Pilate handed Christ over to be crucified to please the Jews and calm their anger (Mark 15:15). The word means he was trying to satisfy the crowd enough to keep them quiet. He released Barabbas, who had been a disgrace and trouble to the nation, and gave Jesus over, who was the honor and blessing of the nation.

Pilate had already had Jesus whipped, hoping that would satisfy them. He had not planned to go as far as crucifixion, but once he gave in that far, the rest followed. When a man can persuade himself to punish someone innocent (Luke 23:16), he can slowly talk himself into much worse.

Christ was crucified because this was, first, a bloody death, and without blood there is no forgiveness (Hebrews 9:22). Blood represents life (Genesis 9:4). It carries the life of the body, so when the blood is poured out, life is poured out with it. Christ was to give his life for us, so he shed his blood.

Blood also made atonement, which means it paid for sin and turned away guilt, for the soul (Leviticus 17:11). That is why, in sacrifices for sin, special care was always given to pour out the blood and sprinkle it before the Lord. Christ shed his blood to fulfill all those patterns and signs.

Second, crucifixion was a painful death. The suffering was sharp and severe, because death attacked the body through its most sensitive parts. Christ died in a way that let him feel his dying, since he was both the priest and the sacrifice. He was active in his death, because he was offering his soul for sin.

Tully called crucifixion "a most terrible punishment." Christ met death in its greatest fearfulness and still conquered it. Third, it was a shameful death, the death usually given to slaves and the worst criminals, at least among the Romans. The cross and shame are joined together in Scripture.

Since human sin had insulted God’s honor, Christ made satisfaction for that honor. He did this not only by humbling himself and setting aside, for a time, the visible honor due to his divine nature, but also by submitting to the greatest shame and disgrace that human nature could bear. Yet even this was not the worst part.

Fourth, it was a cursed death. The Jewish law marked a hanged man as cursed by God (Deuteronomy 21:23). It was the kind of death Saul’s sons were given when the guilt of Saul’s bloody house had to be answered (2 Samuel 21:6). Haman and his sons were also hanged (Esther 7:10; Esther 9:13).

We do not read of the Old Testament prophets being hanged. But now that Christ has been hanged on a tree, the shame and curse tied to that kind of death have been taken away. So it should not trouble the comfort of those who die innocently or in repentance. Nor should it lessen, but rather increase, the honor of martyrs who die for Christ, to die in the same outward shame as he did.

Pilate also handed Jesus over to the Roman soldiers, who wanted to mock him while they prepared for the execution. They gathered the whole regiment on duty and took him into an inner hall. There they treated our Lord Jesus with shame, pretending to honor him as a king, just as the servants in the high priest’s hall had already mocked him as a Prophet and Savior.

Do kings wear purple or scarlet robes? Then they clothed him in purple. This should remind Christians not to make fine clothing their pride (1 Peter 3:4). Should a purple or scarlet robe be a mark of vanity for a Christian, when it was a mark of shame for Christ?

Do kings wear crowns? Then they twisted together a crown of thorns and put it on his head. A crown of straw or rushes would have been mockery enough, but this also caused pain. He wore the crown of thorns we deserved, so that we might wear the crown of glory he earned.

Let those thorns teach us to hate sin and feel uneasy under it. Let them also make us love Jesus Christ, who is here like a lily among thorns. If we are ever troubled by a thorn in the flesh, let it comfort us that our high priest understands our weaknesses, since he himself knew what thorns felt like.

Do kings receive the cheers of their people, "Long live the king"? The soldiers mocked that too, saying, "Hail, King of the Jews." Such a king, and such a people, seemed fit for one another in their scorn.

Kings are also given a scepter, a sign of rule, just as the crown is a sign of honor. To imitate that, they put a reed in his right hand. Those who treat Jesus Christ’s authority as something not to be obeyed, who ignore his commands and his warnings, are in effect putting a reed in his hand. Worse still, they strike him on the head with it, as these soldiers did, showing their insult.

Subjects used to kiss their ruler when they swore loyalty. The soldiers offered that too, but instead of kissing him, they spit on him. Kings were also honored by kneeling, and they turned that into a joke as well. They bent the knee and worshiped him in scorn, only to amuse themselves and each other.

By sin, we had made ourselves liable to endless shame and contempt. To rescue us from that, our Lord Jesus accepted shame and contempt for us. They mocked him in another man’s clothes, not his own, to show that he suffered not for his own sin. The guilt was ours, the shame was his.

Those who claim to submit to Christ, but actually give themselves to the world and the flesh, do much the same thing. They are like those who bowed the knee to him in mockery and shouted, "Hail, King of the Jews," while saying, "We have no king but Caesar." Those who bow their knees to Christ but not their hearts, who honor him with their lips while their hearts stay far away, do the same kind of insult.

When the time came, the soldiers led him away from Pilate’s judgment hall to the place of execution (Mark 15:20). He went like a sheep to the slaughter, and he was led out with wrongdoers, even though he had done no sin. But since they wanted his death under the weight of the cross he was to carry, they forced Simon of Cyrene to carry it for him.

Simon had been passing by, coming in from the country or the fields, and had no idea this would happen. We should not think it strange if crosses come on us suddenly and catch us by surprise.

The cross was a very heavy and awkward burden. Yet the man who carried it for only a few minutes was honored by having his name written in God’s book, even though he was otherwise unknown. So wherever this gospel is preached, this will be told as a memorial to him. In the same way, even though no suffering or cross feels joyful at the time, only painful, it later brings a crown of glory to those who are trained by it.