Mark 15:43 Commentary and Bible Study

There was someone prepared by God, and provided by him. Joseph Hall, one of the Puritans, used to say, ‘There was a Joseph for the Jews in Egypt, and there was a Joseph for Christ on Calvary’ – ‘Joseph of Arimathea, an honourable counsellor.’ Clearly he was a member of the Sanhedrin Council of the Jews, the seventy. But ‘an honourable counsellor’ suggests that Joseph of Arimathea was one of the three or four people who would have sat as special advisers and councillors to the Roman procurator, Pontius Pilate. That is possibly the case. ‘Which also waited for the kingdom of God.’ He was a believer under the old Jewish order. He believed the prophecies; he believed Messiah would come; he believed there would be a great deliver for Jewish people. Possibly he was affected by the teaching of the day that the Messiah would be a political deliver, but he was a believer in the coming Messiah. He was probably a priest himself to occupy such high positions; the old writers all thought so. The other Gospels say he was a disciple of Christ. He believed no doubt that when Messiah came, somehow there would be something done which would take away the guilt of sin. Through the Old Testament they had the prophecies; they had the sacrifices. They were symbolic tokens only, and the Jews of old were to trust that they would be forgiven their sin on account of what would one day be achieved by Messiah when he came. People like Joseph of Arimathea believed Messiah would do something which opened the door, and gave access to Almighty God. ‘Joseph of Arimathea … came, and went in boldly.’ If he was a councillor to Pilate, he would have this access; that would account for it. But he went in boldly, not so much because he was afraid of Pilate – though that might have been a part of it – but because what he was about to do would certainly lose him his position in society. We read in the Gospels that the chief priests and the scribes threw out of the temple, and excluded from the synagogues, all who followed Christ, and that would include members of the Sanhedrin Council. He had already put himself in a bad light because when they voted together at the final trial of Christ to have Christ executed, Joseph of Arimathea had withstood that; he did not support them; he resisted and abstain from voting with them (Luke 23:51). All the bigotry of the chief priests and most of the scribes and the Pharisees towards Christ would have fallen upon him. So he went in boldly to Pilate, not only on account of Pilate, but in facing the consequences of what he was about to do. ‘And craved [asked for] the body of Jesus.’ This was most unusual. It had probably never happened before: that an honourable Sanhedrin counsellor had asked for the body of a criminal.But Joseph had not always exhibited such boldness. He was a secret disciple ‘for fear of the Jews’ (John 19:38), that is to say, the Jewish leaders. He has never before come out into the open. He has been afraid. What, someone so influential? Yes, because he knows the hatred of the majority of the council. He is in a tiny majority, a minority perhaps as small as he and Nicodemus. Maybe they were the only two on the Jewish council; maybe there were a handful of others. When he hears the rant against Christ and the fury, he stands cowered and silent. They could destroy his wealth, his business, his family, his standing. His riches and his status have made him rather cowardly, and he doesn’t want to put them at risk.