Mark 15:3 Commentary and Bible Study

Since Pilate was still unimpressed by the charge, the chief priests accused him of many things. Three things in particular are identified in the four Gospels. ‘Perverting the nation’ (Luke 23:2) – that meant a number of things. Making it unruly, unreliable; disturbing it so that the Roman authority would be without any power and influence, and ultimately rejected. Turning the Jews into revolutionaries. Of course, that is a false charge and Pilate sees through it because Christ has said, ‘My kingdom is not of this world.’ He knew that couldn’t be true. He was an effective Roman ruler. He knew what was going on in the country. It would not be unknown to him if Christ was preaching insurrection, stirring up the people to sedition or anything of the kind. You can almost hear Pilate saying, ‘Where is his army? Where are his people? Where are his weapons? How is he doing this, planning and stirring up a rebellion?’Luke adds a second charge – ‘We found this fellow perverting the nation, and forbidding to give tribute to Caesar, saying that he himself is Christ a King’ (Luke 23:2) – in other words he is not only a rival to Cesar, but he is guilty of insurrection in encouraging the people to refuse to pay taxes. We know that was an outright lie. Christ taught the opposite: ‘Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's’ – pay your worldly taxes and dues and expenses. The Pharisees and Herodians had attempted to trap the Lord with their question about paying taxes to Cesar, and they had been staggered by his brilliant answer, which prevented them laying a finger on him. He had distinguished between paying taxes to Cesar which was their duty, and rendering their hearts to God. But their grudging admiration for this answer soon gave way to further scheming and deception, and now they are ready to present an outright lie to Pilate. They lied in many ways, and brought false witnesses to turn him into a criminal, if they could. Pilate rather no doubt thought to himself, ‘I haven’t had reported to me any drop in the revenues by those who collect them. Nobody has made any complaint about this to me or to any authority’ and he realised that this was nonsense. The third thing is the claim to be king or ruler. They accused him of many things. But apart from the explanations that he gave to Pilate, as provided by the other Gospels, he refused to answer any of those specific charges. Christ bore himself with great dignity and Pilate marvelled. ‘Why is this man’, he no doubt said to himself, ‘not cringing and pleading? I can terminate his life. I'm being called upon to do that, to execute him in the most terrible and painful way. Why isn’t he defending himself and pleading? Is he a king. He has the bearing of a king; he has complete calm. This is something which he is expecting, and he is at peace with it, and he has such dignity.’