Mark 14:63-65

V. 63. Then the high priest rent his clothes and saith, What need we any further witnesses? V. 64. Ye have heard the blasphemy; what think ye? And they all condemned Him to be guilty of death. V. 65. And some began to spit on Him, and to cover His face, and to buffet Him, to say unto Him, Prophesy; and the servants did strike Him with the palms of their hands.

The high priest had gained his object; he thought he had a word now which he could use to establish a case. In order to get the proper dramatic effect, he took hold of his mantle and perhaps both of his tunics, and tore them open, ripped them to pieces at the top.

That was a sign of deep. grief, of intense suffering. He meant his act to. imply that it hurt him more than words could express to hear the prisoner make such a statement. He rejected all further testimony as useless; had they not all heard the blasphemy that this man claimed to be the Son of God?

There was but one question to ask yet: What is the fitting penalty, in your opinion, for such a transgression? And with great unanimity the well-instructed hypocrites took their leaders' cue and condemned Christ to be guilty of death.

"Therefore Christ is put to death, not in a tumult, nor by rebels, also not by them that did not possess the proper authority, but by those was He killed that had the proper authority. Just. as it is done in our days: all the harm that is done to the Christian Church is done by those having the proper authority. Just as we must confess and say of our persecutors that they are princes, bishops, rulers that have power, even from God, both as concerns worldly dominion and also the power which they might have in the Church by God's Word, if they would only use it correctly. Such as have the full and proper authority are now persecuting the Gospel" (Luther, 13b, 1773).

The finding of the court and the sentence based upon it was the signal for a general abandonment of restraint; for with the sentence of death hanging over Him Christ had become an outcast, Lev. 24, 16. The counselors themselves began the cruel mockery, and the servants were only too willing to follow their example. They spat upon Him as an object of utter contempt; they covered a cloth around and over His head and beat Him with their fists, asking meanwhile in a jeering tone that He should prophesy and designate the offenders. And the servants added to the shame of their masters by receiving Him with slaps of the open hand — a cruel and painful torture.

"This, then, is the hearing and the accusation which was done in the house of the high priest Caiaphas. And all this is written for our learning that we may know that Christ humbled Himself so deeply for our sake and permitted Himself to be accused, condemned, and killed as the greatest criminal; though He is altogether innocent, so that even His adversaries are obliged to confess secretly, feeling it in their heart that there was no cause of death to be found in Him" (Luther, 13b, 1783).