Mark 15:5 Commentary and Bible Study

He wouldn’t answer to any charge other than that he was a king: the one thing that is true. He is the King of Glory, the King of Heaven. He is the Son of God, the Messiah, who has come to take away the sins of all those who will be redeemed and to that alone he will acknowledge, yes, he is a king. Otherwise, he is silent before the people. ‘He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth’ (Isaiah 53:7).So there is the first hearing before Pilate, when he dismisses the charges. There is the second hearing, when they bring specific new charges. Among the accusations the Jews throw at Christ is that ‘he stirreth up the people, teaching throughout all Jewry, beginning from Galilee to this place’ (Luke 23:5). It is on hearing this that Pilate decides to send Jesus to Herod (Tetrarch of Galilee) as Luke records. He breaks that off and sends him to Herod (that is not recorded in Mark), and Herod interrogates him and he makes no reply, and the result is that Herod and his military abuse Christ terribly. They punch him and insult him; they subject him to mock worship and spit upon him. All that is the second time it has happened. The high priests indulged in that in their interrogation, their second hearing and now Herod’s people indulge in the same. In fact, it is going to happen a third time with the Roman guard a little later on On receiving Jesus back from Herod, Pilate again says he finds him to be innocent. ‘And Pilate, when he had called together the chief priests and the rulers and the people, ¹⁴ Said unto them, Ye have brought this man unto me, as one that perverteth the people: and, behold, I, having examined him before you, have found no fault in this man touching those things whereof ye accuse him: ¹⁵ No, nor yet Herod: for I sent you to him; and, lo, nothing worthy of death is done unto him. ¹⁶ I will therefore chastise him, and release him’ (Luke 23:13-16). The suggestion that he would release him relates to the custom of releasing one prisoner at the time of the feast which Mark describes next.