And they stripped him, and put on him a scarlet robe.
After His condemnation and before He was led away to be crucified, soldiers in the judgment hall stripped Him to the waist, laying bare His bleeding scourged back, and put an old tattered kingly scarlet robe upon Him to deride His claim to be king. This was part of a fuller ritual of mock homage, with a crown of thorns pressed to draw blood, a reed placed as a mock scepter, kneeling and hailing Him as King of the Jews, then spitting, blows, and smiting His head with the reed. The cruelty was stirred by Satan working through priests, rulers, and the crowd, while angels witnessed in sorrow and marveled that He restrained divine power and uttered no complaint that would have broken the plan of salvation. Even stripped, bleeding, and derided He remained patient, gentle, and faithful without sin, bearing as the just for the unjust the heaviest humiliation for fallen humanity that His blood might redeem men to God. Those who mocked and struck Him will see Him again in kingly majesty as King of kings and seek to flee His gaze, and the shame He bore now calls believers to undivided consecration, humility, and patience under suffering.
The Mocking Before Crucifixion
The soldiers stripped Jesus and put the scarlet robe upon Him as a humiliation inflicted after His condemnation and before He was led away to be crucified. He was delivered by betrayal into the hands of wicked men to be mocked and abused by His persecutors, then scourged and crucified. The stripping left Him exposed to the waist, revealing the long, bleeding stripes of the scourging with blood flowing from them.
The robe mocked His claim to be king, for it was put on Him in derision and contempt as an insulting show of honoring Him. It was an old, tattered purple kingly garment, once worn by a king. Clothed in that purple robe He was treated with contempt amid scourging, the crown of thorns, and the mocking salute as King of the Jews, displaying the rejection, insult, and suffering He endured before His death.
The robe belonged to a fuller ritual of mock homage in which they bound His sacred head with a crown of thorns, put a reed in His hand as a mock scepter, and bowed before Him mockingly saluting Him as King of the Jews. With impious hands they placed the mimic scepter in His unresisting hand, then took the reed from His hand and smote Him upon the head, causing the thorns to penetrate His temples so that blood trickled down His face and beard. To the purple robe and thorny crown and bowing in blasphemous mockery were added smiting and spitting upon Him and blows, deriding His claim to be the Son of God.
It took place in the judgment hall, whose agony was preceded by a night of prayer to His Father, amid betrayal, condemnation, agony in Gethsemane, and movement toward the cross. There He was delivered to a clamorous people crying for His blood and for crucifixion, subjected to cruelty and mockery while remaining without murmur and faithful to His Father's will. The crowd's insults ridiculed His humble birth and life and His claim to be the Son of God, and He was then delivered to the people to be crucified. His own nation took the most active part in heaping contempt upon Him, urged on by Herod and the priests who encouraged the insults and jeered at His royal title, while friends and even His own brothers denied and forsook Him and those who had professed to love Him turned from Him in His trouble.
Christ's Endurance and Sacrifice
The cruelty of the scarlet robe was set in operation at the instigation of an apostate angel. Satan and his angels worked through the chief priests and elders and leaders, stirring Jewish minds and the crowd against Jesus. Human feeling and sympathy were destroyed until the very atmosphere of the judgment hall was heavy and polluted by their influence. Under the deceiver's rule people became liars and murderers.
Heavenly angels came to witness the scourging and abuse heaped on their Commander. In sadness they laid off their glittering crowns and recorded every insult and cruelty and pang of anguish. They marveled at the mystery that He held back righteous indignation and divine power that could have sealed the lips of scoffers and paralyzed the smiting hand. They beheld His scourging and cruel treatment in His humiliation before death.
Satan hoped that shame and mockery and violence would draw complaint or murmur from the Son of God. He hoped to provoke Him to manifest His divine power and wrench Himself from the grasp of the multitude. By that failure of endurance the plan of salvation would fail.
Even stripped to the waist and bleeding from the scourging, crowned with thorns and derided in the scarlet robe, His patient and gentle and dignified character remained evident. He made no murmur and remained faithful to His Father's will. He endured without being defiled by sin. In this He stood in sharp contrast to Barabbas.
The hardened Roman soldiers who mocked and smote Him to please the priests and rulers acted in comparative ignorance. They did not know He was the Sent of God, lacking the abundant light given to the Jewish nation and unacquainted with Old Testament history, and with that light they would not have treated Him so cruelly. The greatest guilt and heaviest responsibility belonged not to Pilate nor to Herod nor to the ignorant soldiers but to those in the highest places of the nation who basely betrayed their sacred trusts.
Though Pilate declared Him without fault, and no occasion for fault could be found in Him or in His teachings, He was given up to death because His reproof and sinless character were hated. He was beaten with rods, crowned with cruel thorns that pierced His brow, mocked with a robe, hung on the cross with nails driven through His hands and feet, killed and laid in the tomb. Angels rolled away the stone and He came forth proclaiming Himself the resurrection and the life. The penitent thief acknowledged Him, asking to be remembered when He came into His kingdom, and received the promise of paradise.
This was among the heaviest humiliations borne in behalf of poor fallen humanity, part of His suffering and sacrifice for humanity. The just suffered for the unjust, bearing the burden of the world's sins. His blood was shed so that it could redeem people to God.
Future Glory and Present Call
Those who mocked, struck, and rejected Him will see Him again in kingly majesty and glory as King of kings and Lord of lords. The very men who derided His claim to be the Son of God, who with impious hands put the purple robe upon His form with the thorny crown upon His brow and the mimic scepter in His unresisting hand, bowing in blasphemous mockery while smiting and spitting upon Him, will behold Him sitting on the right hand of power. They will recognize Him as the one they crucified and recall the act with terror and remorse. Speechless before His glory, they will turn from His piercing gaze and seek to flee from the overpowering glory of His presence.
He foresaw the betrayal, condemnation in the judgment hall, humiliation, agony in Gethsemane, and crucifixion as a most trying ordeal for His disciples, when the multitude who had hailed Him as king would hiss, revile, hoot and scorn Him and cry for His crucifixion while those who had professed to love Him turned from Him in His trouble. He therefore deliberately brought an earlier crisis to sift out unbelieving, weak, undecided, and faint-hearted followers while He was still present to comfort and strengthen the chosen. Their apostasy in that hour of horror, grief, and ruined hopes would then not overwhelm the twelve nor carry the rest away. The faithful few would be unsurprised at the insult, tested against the inconstant favor of the world, and not hanging faith on the opinions of others.
The sight of their beloved Teacher in the hands of a cruel mob, crowned with thorns and treated with derision, insult, mockery and contempt, dressed in a robe by His tormentors and persecutors, filled His followers with affliction and agony. It killed their hope that He would deliver Israel. Seeing Him suffer and die tested their faith, hope, and courage and gave them cause to mourn and fast. This mocking suffering led to the climax when He was stretched upon the cross at Calvary as a malefactor and died as a criminal.
The shame He bore, clothed in that old purple kingly robe to ridicule His kingship amid coarse jest and cruel mocking by an infuriated mob on His way to the judgment hall, exposes all human self-denial as nothing beside what He gave up. It answers the complaint that the narrow way is too strait and too self-denying with the question of what He gave up. It demands undivided affections, entire consecration, and transformation by the renewing of the mind through separation from the world and from dead, heartless professors instead of conformity to them. Joined with His conflict in the wilderness of temptation, His life of self-sacrificing love, His soul agony in Gethsemane, and His agony upon the cross, His cruelty in the judgment hall teaches self-sacrifice, patience under affliction, solemn consecration to God, and fitting preparation for holy work. One called to sacred work must put all energies into it and make every other consideration secondary.
Believers can go to no greater depths in humility than He went in behalf of fallen humanity, though declared without fault and with no fault found in Him or His teachings, yet given up to death because His reproof and sinless character were hated. If partakers of His divine nature they must be partakers of His sufferings in hard places. This means recognizing Jesus as Saviour and Helper, loving Him, being willing to do anything He requires, and praying for grace to go through trials so as to see Him in His kingdom, as acknowledged when the penitent thief asked to be remembered at His coming and received the promise of paradise and as vindicated when He came forth as the resurrection and the life.
After His condemnation and before He was led away to be crucified, soldiers in the judgment hall stripped Him to the waist, laying bare His bleeding scourged back, and put an old tattered kingly scarlet robe upon Him to deride His claim to be king. This was part of a fuller ritual of mock homage, with a crown of thorns pressed to draw blood, a reed placed as a mock scepter, kneeling and hailing Him as King of the Jews, then spitting, blows, and smiting His head with the reed. The cruelty was stirred by Satan working through priests, rulers, and the crowd, while angels witnessed in sorrow and marveled that He restrained divine power and uttered no complaint that would have broken the plan of salvation. Even stripped, bleeding, and derided He remained patient, gentle, and faithful without sin, bearing as the just for the unjust the heaviest humiliation for fallen humanity that His blood might redeem men to God. Those who mocked and struck Him will see Him again in kingly majesty as King of kings and seek to flee His gaze, and the shame He bore now calls believers to undivided consecration, humility, and patience under suffering.
The Mocking Before Crucifixion
The soldiers stripped Jesus and put the scarlet robe upon Him as a humiliation inflicted after His condemnation and before He was led away to be crucified. He was delivered by betrayal into the hands of wicked men to be mocked and abused by His persecutors, then scourged and crucified. The stripping left Him exposed to the waist, revealing the long, bleeding stripes of the scourging with blood flowing from them.
The robe mocked His claim to be king, for it was put on Him in derision and contempt as an insulting show of honoring Him. It was an old, tattered purple kingly garment, once worn by a king. Clothed in that purple robe He was treated with contempt amid scourging, the crown of thorns, and the mocking salute as King of the Jews, displaying the rejection, insult, and suffering He endured before His death.
The robe belonged to a fuller ritual of mock homage in which they bound His sacred head with a crown of thorns, put a reed in His hand as a mock scepter, and bowed before Him mockingly saluting Him as King of the Jews. With impious hands they placed the mimic scepter in His unresisting hand, then took the reed from His hand and smote Him upon the head, causing the thorns to penetrate His temples so that blood trickled down His face and beard. To the purple robe and thorny crown and bowing in blasphemous mockery were added smiting and spitting upon Him and blows, deriding His claim to be the Son of God.
It took place in the judgment hall, whose agony was preceded by a night of prayer to His Father, amid betrayal, condemnation, agony in Gethsemane, and movement toward the cross. There He was delivered to a clamorous people crying for His blood and for crucifixion, subjected to cruelty and mockery while remaining without murmur and faithful to His Father's will. The crowd's insults ridiculed His humble birth and life and His claim to be the Son of God, and He was then delivered to the people to be crucified. His own nation took the most active part in heaping contempt upon Him, urged on by Herod and the priests who encouraged the insults and jeered at His royal title, while friends and even His own brothers denied and forsook Him and those who had professed to love Him turned from Him in His trouble.
Christ's Endurance and Sacrifice
The cruelty of the scarlet robe was set in operation at the instigation of an apostate angel. Satan and his angels worked through the chief priests and elders and leaders, stirring Jewish minds and the crowd against Jesus. Human feeling and sympathy were destroyed until the very atmosphere of the judgment hall was heavy and polluted by their influence. Under the deceiver's rule people became liars and murderers.
Heavenly angels came to witness the scourging and abuse heaped on their Commander. In sadness they laid off their glittering crowns and recorded every insult and cruelty and pang of anguish. They marveled at the mystery that He held back righteous indignation and divine power that could have sealed the lips of scoffers and paralyzed the smiting hand. They beheld His scourging and cruel treatment in His humiliation before death.
Satan hoped that shame and mockery and violence would draw complaint or murmur from the Son of God. He hoped to provoke Him to manifest His divine power and wrench Himself from the grasp of the multitude. By that failure of endurance the plan of salvation would fail.
Even stripped to the waist and bleeding from the scourging, crowned with thorns and derided in the scarlet robe, His patient and gentle and dignified character remained evident. He made no murmur and remained faithful to His Father's will. He endured without being defiled by sin. In this He stood in sharp contrast to Barabbas.
The hardened Roman soldiers who mocked and smote Him to please the priests and rulers acted in comparative ignorance. They did not know He was the Sent of God, lacking the abundant light given to the Jewish nation and unacquainted with Old Testament history, and with that light they would not have treated Him so cruelly. The greatest guilt and heaviest responsibility belonged not to Pilate nor to Herod nor to the ignorant soldiers but to those in the highest places of the nation who basely betrayed their sacred trusts.
Though Pilate declared Him without fault, and no occasion for fault could be found in Him or in His teachings, He was given up to death because His reproof and sinless character were hated. He was beaten with rods, crowned with cruel thorns that pierced His brow, mocked with a robe, hung on the cross with nails driven through His hands and feet, killed and laid in the tomb. Angels rolled away the stone and He came forth proclaiming Himself the resurrection and the life. The penitent thief acknowledged Him, asking to be remembered when He came into His kingdom, and received the promise of paradise.
This was among the heaviest humiliations borne in behalf of poor fallen humanity, part of His suffering and sacrifice for humanity. The just suffered for the unjust, bearing the burden of the world's sins. His blood was shed so that it could redeem people to God.
Future Glory and Present Call
Those who mocked, struck, and rejected Him will see Him again in kingly majesty and glory as King of kings and Lord of lords. The very men who derided His claim to be the Son of God, who with impious hands put the purple robe upon His form with the thorny crown upon His brow and the mimic scepter in His unresisting hand, bowing in blasphemous mockery while smiting and spitting upon Him, will behold Him sitting on the right hand of power. They will recognize Him as the one they crucified and recall the act with terror and remorse. Speechless before His glory, they will turn from His piercing gaze and seek to flee from the overpowering glory of His presence.
He foresaw the betrayal, condemnation in the judgment hall, humiliation, agony in Gethsemane, and crucifixion as a most trying ordeal for His disciples, when the multitude who had hailed Him as king would hiss, revile, hoot and scorn Him and cry for His crucifixion while those who had professed to love Him turned from Him in His trouble. He therefore deliberately brought an earlier crisis to sift out unbelieving, weak, undecided, and faint-hearted followers while He was still present to comfort and strengthen the chosen. Their apostasy in that hour of horror, grief, and ruined hopes would then not overwhelm the twelve nor carry the rest away. The faithful few would be unsurprised at the insult, tested against the inconstant favor of the world, and not hanging faith on the opinions of others.
The sight of their beloved Teacher in the hands of a cruel mob, crowned with thorns and treated with derision, insult, mockery and contempt, dressed in a robe by His tormentors and persecutors, filled His followers with affliction and agony. It killed their hope that He would deliver Israel. Seeing Him suffer and die tested their faith, hope, and courage and gave them cause to mourn and fast. This mocking suffering led to the climax when He was stretched upon the cross at Calvary as a malefactor and died as a criminal.
The shame He bore, clothed in that old purple kingly robe to ridicule His kingship amid coarse jest and cruel mocking by an infuriated mob on His way to the judgment hall, exposes all human self-denial as nothing beside what He gave up. It answers the complaint that the narrow way is too strait and too self-denying with the question of what He gave up. It demands undivided affections, entire consecration, and transformation by the renewing of the mind through separation from the world and from dead, heartless professors instead of conformity to them. Joined with His conflict in the wilderness of temptation, His life of self-sacrificing love, His soul agony in Gethsemane, and His agony upon the cross, His cruelty in the judgment hall teaches self-sacrifice, patience under affliction, solemn consecration to God, and fitting preparation for holy work. One called to sacred work must put all energies into it and make every other consideration secondary.
Believers can go to no greater depths in humility than He went in behalf of fallen humanity, though declared without fault and with no fault found in Him or His teachings, yet given up to death because His reproof and sinless character were hated. If partakers of His divine nature they must be partakers of His sufferings in hard places. This means recognizing Jesus as Saviour and Helper, loving Him, being willing to do anything He requires, and praying for grace to go through trials so as to see Him in His kingdom, as acknowledged when the penitent thief asked to be remembered at His coming and received the promise of paradise and as vindicated when He came forth as the resurrection and the life.