Nagy follows the consultation in the morning, after the Lord had been already condemned “to be guilty of death.” The result is that the chief priests, the elders, the scribes, the whole council, and indeed the whole people consenting, agreed to deliver Jesus to Pilate, the representative of the civil power. Jesus must be condemned by man in every capacity—the religious and civil, the Jews under the name of religion having the chief guilt and being the instigators of the civil authorities, morally compelling them to yield contrary to conscience, as we find in the mock trial before Pilate. Thus we see He was “despised and rejected of men.” It was not only by one, but by every class of men. We shall find that as the priests, so the people, and as the governor, so the governed, down to the basest of them, all joined in vilifying the Son of God.
“And Pilate asked him, Art thou the King of the Jews? And he answering said unto him, Thou sayest it.” It was His good confession. It was the truth; and He came to bear witness of the truth, which is particularly mentioned in the Gospel of John, where we have not merely what Christ was according to prophecy, nor even what he was as the Servant and Great Prophet, doing the will of God and ministering to the need of man, but what He was in His own personal glory. Christ alone is the truth in the fullest sense, save that the Holy Ghost is also called “truth” (1 John 6), as being the inward power in him that believes for laying hold of the revelation of God and realizing it. But God as such is never called the truth. Jesus is the truth. The truth is the expression of what God is and what man is. He who is the truth objectively must be both God and man to make known the truth about them. Neither is the Father ever said to be the truth, but Christ, the Son, the Word. He is not only God, but the special One who makes known God; and, being man, He could make known man; yea, being both, He could make known everything. Thus we never know what life is fully, save in Christ, and we never know what death is, save in Christ. Again, who ever knows the meaning of judgment aright save in Christ? Who can estimate what the wrath of God is, save in Christ? Who can tell what communion with God is, save in Christ? It is Christ who shows us what the world is; it is Christ who shows us what heaven is and by contrast what hell must be. He is the Deliverer from perdition; and He it is who casts away from His own presence into it. Thus He brings out everything as it is—even that which is most opposed to Himself—Satan's power and character, even up to its last form—Antichrist. He is the measure of what Jews and Gentiles are in every respect. This is what some ancient philosophers used to think of man. They said, though falsely, that man is the measure of all things. It is exactly true of Christ, the God-man.
He is the measure of all things, though most immeasurably above them, as being supremely God, even as the Father and the Holy Ghost also.
Here, however, before Pilate, our Lord simply owns the truth of what He was according to Jewish expectation.” Art thou the king of the Jews? And he answering said unto him, Thou sayest it.” This was all; He had no more to say here. The chief priests accused Him of many things, but He answered nothing. He was not there to defend Himself, but to confess who and what He was. “And Pilate asked him again, saying, Answerest thou nothing? behold how many things they witness against thee. But Jesus yet answered nothing; so that Pilate marveled.” His silence produced a far graver effect than anything that could be uttered. There is a time to be silent as there is to speak; and silence now was the more convincing to the conscience. He was manifestly superior, morally, to His judge. He was manifesting them all, whatever they might say or judge of Him. But in truth they judged nothing but what was utterly false, and they condemned Him for the truth. Whether it was before the high priest or before Pontius Pilate, it was the truth He confessed, and for the truth He was condemned by man. All their lies availed nothing. Hence it was not on the ground of what they brought forth, but of what He said, that Jesus was condemned. Only in John's Gospel the Lord states the terrible fact that it was not Pilate himself, but what he was put up to by the Jews. We learn further in John, that what frightened Pilate specially, was that the Jews told him that they had a law, and that by this law He ought to die, because He made Himself the Sun of God. His Sonship is affirmed, and Pilate feared it was true. His wife too had a dream which added to his alarm, so that God took care there should be a double testimony—the great moral testimony of Christ Himself, and also a sign and token, which suited the Gospel of Matthew, an outward mark given to Pilate's wife in a dream. Our gospel is much more succinct, and keeps to the order of facts without detail.
The iniquity of the Jews, however, appears everywhere. “Now at that feast he released unto them one prisoner, whomsoever they pleased. And there was one named Barabbas, which lay bound with them that had made insurrection with him, who had committed murder in the insurrection. And the multitude, crying aloud, began to desire him to do as he had ever done unto them.” So it was the multitude that wished to mark still more their complete subjection to the wicked priests by preferring Barabbas and sealing the death of Jesus. He might still have been delivered, but the infatuated multitude would not hear of it. “But Pilate answered them, saying, Will ye that I release unto you the King of the Jews? For he knew that the chief priests had delivered him for envy. But the chief priests moved the people that he should rather release Barabbas unto them,” or, as John's Gospel puts it, “Not this man, but Barabbas. Now Barabbas was a robber.” He was a robber and a murderer—yet such was man's preference to Jesus. “And Pilate answered and said again unto them, What will ye then that I shall do unto him whom ye call the King of the Jews? And they cried out again, Crucify him.” Pilate, cruel and hardened as he was, still remonstrates: “Why, what evil hath he done? And they cried out the more exceedingly, Crucify him.” They could find no evil, they only imagined it out of the murderous evil of their own hearts. Pilate, utterly without the fear of God, but “willing to content the people, released Barabbas unto them, and delivered Jesus, when he had scourged him, to be crucified.” So true it was that, even in this last scene, Jesus delivers others at His own cost and in every sense. He had just before delivered the disciples from being taken; He is now the means of delivering Barabbas himself, wicked as he was; He never saved Himself; He could have done it, of course, but it was the very perfection of the moral glory of Christ to deliver, bless, save, and in all at the expense of Himself.
But further, every indignity upon the way was heaped upon Him. “The soldiers led him away into the hall called Pretorium, and they call together the whole band. And they clothed him with purple, and platted a crown of thorns and put it about his head. And began to salute him, Hail, King of the Jews!” There was no contempt too gross for Him. “They smote him on the head with a reed, and did spit upon him, and, bowing their knees, worshipped him. And when they had mocked him, they took off the purple from him, and put his own clothes on him, and led him out to crucify him.” And now, in the spirit of the wickedness of the whole scene, “they compel one Simon a Cyrenian, who passed by, coming out of the country, the father of Alexander and Rufus (cf. Rom. 16), to bear his cross.” It would appear that these two sons were afterward well-known converts brought into the Church. Hence the interest of the fact mentioned. God's goodness, I suppose, used this very circumstance, wicked as it was on man's part. He would not allow that even His Son's indignity should not turn to the blessing of man. Simon, the father of these two, then, was compelled to bear His cross by those who held the truth, if at an, in unrighteousness.
“And they bring him unto the place Golgotha, which is, being interpreted, The place of a skull. And they gave him to drink, wine mingled with myrrh: but he received it not.” The object of giving this was to deaden anguish, the excessive lingering pain of the cross, but He refused. “And when they had crucified him, they parted his garments, casting lots upon them, what every man should take.” This, we know from elsewhere, was the distinct accomplishment of divine prediction, as it was the human sign of one given up to capital punishment. “It was the third hour, and they crucified him. And the superscription of his accusation was written over, The King of the Jews.” The terms are exceedingly brief in Mark's Gospel. He only mentions the charge or accusation, not (as I conceive) all the formula. The other gospels give different forms, and it is possible they were written in various languages—one in one language and one in another. If this be the case, Mark only gives the substance. Matthew would naturally give the Hebrew form, Luke the Greek (his Gospel being for Gentiles, as Matthew's was for Jews), while John would give the Latin, the form of that empire under which he himself suffered later on. As that kingdom smote the servant, he records what it had done to the Master, and this in the language of the empire. There is a slight difference in each, which may thus arise from the different languages in Which the accusation was written. At any rate, we know that we have the full divine truth in the compared matter; and of all ways of accounting for their shades of distinction, none more unworthy of God, nor less reasonable for man, than the notion that they are to be imputed to ignorance or negligence. Each wrote, but under the power of the Spirit; and the result of all is the perfect truth of God.