Mark 15:1 Commentary and Bible Study

The Gospel of Mark comes to the very final stage of the Lord’s Jewish trial. He had a religious trial, a Jewish trial, and he had a civil trial, a Roman trial. Each one came in three stages and if we examine all the Gospels together, we can see that laid out clearly. Mark tends to abridge a little because he is writing something in the nature of an evangelistic tract and so we don't have the three Jewish hearing teased out for us, or the three hearings before Pilate. They are all really drawn together to make it easy for us. But this is the third hearing of the Jewish trial, in which is described in detail by Luke, in which Jesus is sentenced. ‘And straightway in the morning, the chief priests held a consultation with the elders and scribes and the whole council’ – the Sanhedrin Council of the Jews. They came together and they once again questioned him, the same questions that they had asked him before. They then confirmed their decision that he was guilty of blasphemy and determined that he should be sent on to Pilate for civil trial, in order that he may have a sentence of death, which is what they had been aiming at all along. They bound Jesus – he was already described as bound. but perhaps he was now bound all the more to show him to Pilate and the people, and to discredit him. Or perhaps this indicates their fear of him, even though he was apparently in their power.They wanted to get him to Pilate, as early as they possibly could, before the people came out on the streets, before the city would be aware of what was happening. They had to have him in Roman custody in apparent weakness and defeat. They had to break the awe that the people had for him, the mystique of the Saviour. They had to have him in such a position (and he would allow it to happen) so that he was seen as a defeated, broken person, in order to shatter his reputation in the eyes of the people.