Mark 14:65 Commentary and Bible Study

Look at the cruelty and the humiliation of Christ. First the arrest, then the trial, now the beating and humiliation and suffering. They spit on him; they blindfold him; they buffet and punch him, and according to Matthew and Luke they mockingly say, ‘Prophesy unto us, thou Christ, Who is he that smote thee?’ (Matthew 26:68); prophesy to us, and tell us who it is that is hitting you. Mockery tries to reduce a person to nothing, and Christ let them do this. His Father would exalt him, and nothing that men could do would truly harm from him or take away from him. In allowing this, he revealed a part of his character which we would never have known otherwise. What patience the Son of God displayed in his humiliation! What confidence he had that God would glorify him. Don’t you think that by now he would say, ‘I am withdrawing from this. I am not going to die for these people; and not just these, but for all the people like them down the centuries. Look at their hatred for me! Look at their dismissal of me. Look at their indifference and their violence and their insults. Am I going to go on with this for them, for such people, people swallowed up in pride. They can’t bear to have a Saviour who secures salvation for them. They want to achieve everything by themselves and by their own vaunted merits and ideas.’ He not only obeyed having seen the extent of the punishment at Gethsemane, but now, in suffering their abuse at the time of his deep humiliation, he still determined to go ahead.This happened twice. It happened at the conclusion of the interrogation section of the Jewish, religious trial and it happened again in the Praetorium court among the Romans and where there would be Roman soldiers, anything up to 600 of them. There are the temple police and there is this abuse and violence and hatred. What an astonishing and awful scene! As each blow struck – every time he was spat upon, everything they said and did, the scorn and the jeering – they showed their hatred of him. They hated him because he had stolen the limelight: his miracles had attracted the attention of the people. They hated him because he preached about the need for repentance and remission of sins, and they felt themselves to be righteous. They hated him because he taught that it was by grace and mercy alone that you could be forgiven and saved. They wanted it to be by works: ‘What we do, what we accomplish.’ They hated him, because on two occasions, for a period, he had taken away their source of income and riches by casting out the tradesmen from the temple.