Mark 10:33 Commentary and Bible Study

‘We go up to Jerusalem; and the Son of man’ – that is his favourite expression for himself: ‘The Son of man.’ It's in all the Gospels. He uses it more than any other term to describe himself. We say Messiah, Saviour, Lord. He says, ‘the Son of man’, the representative man. It comes from the great prophecy in the Book of Daniel of how he would come. Every Jew knew what it meant; it was a reference to the Messiah, and he took it to himself. ‘The Son of man shall be delivered.’ The Greek is ‘surrendered’. ‘Delivered’ is a perfect translation;. ‘Surrendered’ is an alternative. In other words, he freely, willingly, voluntarily himself gave up to trial and death. He could have resisted it. He had done that many times. He had walked through the crowds. They had been utterly unable to take him and carry out their intentions. But this time he would go to Jerusalem and surrender himself, deliver himself – ‘be delivered unto the chief priests.’ It is Jerusalem where the chief priests, the scribes, and the Pharisees are. ‘And they shall condemn him’ – the phony trials, the unjust trials! ‘Condemn him to death.’ But of course they couldn't put him to death. There was a Roman occupation, and Roman law did not allow the Jews to inflict the death penalty. So they would hand him over to Pontius Pilate and the Romans, and persuade them to kill him. ‘And they shall condemn him to death.’ He knows exactly what will take place; he goes up to Jerusalem to face it voluntarily, to fulfil all Scripture. It must be done; he must go through with it for that is why he has come into the world. It is all in the prediction – ‘and shall deliver him to the Gentiles’, the Roman authorities.