Mark 15:23 Commentary and Bible Study

Wine, mingled with myrrh, bitter myrrh, was intended to deaden the pain somewhat, or to calm it. Matthew tells us that he tasted it, not to find out what was in it – he knew what was happening and that he was fulfilling Scripture – but to show us that this was a deliberate refusal to drink. ‘But he received it not’, because he was the Saviour of the world and he had to drink the cup of suffering; he had to feel the full agony and pain, not only in his body, but much, much more in his soul. A pain unknown to us of separation from his Father. Of course he was God, God the Son. He was God as well as man, and God cannot be separated from God. But in a way that we cannot look into, he had to experience the sensation of separation from the Father, which would have been an agony and suffering beyond the ability of human words to describe. So he received it not. Nothing must deaden the pain. He had to bear the eternal weight of punishment for his ransomed people, and he had to be seen to bear it, even in his body.