John 19:1

CHRIST'S TRIAL BEFORE PILATE (John 19:1-16)

1. Then Pilate took Jesus and scourged him.

Scourging was the usual preliminary of the Romans to an execution, but Pilate still hoped to appease the Jews by the suffering and humiliation of Jesus, without his death. The Roman scourging was terribly cruel. The word used for scourging implies that it was done, not with rods, for Pilate had no lictors, but with what Horace calls the " horribile flagellum, " of which the Russian knout is the only modern representative. The person to be scourged was bound to. low pillar, that, bending over, the blows might be better inflicted. The scourge was made of several thongs with. handle; the thongs were made rough with bits of iron or bone, for tearing the flesh, and thus fitted, it was called. scorpion. See Psalms 129:3; Isaiah 53:5. It was our sins that made Christ suffer thus. Paul was scourged also more than once. See 2 Corinthians 11:24.

It would not be difficult for us to draw from the description of ancient eye-witnesses accounts of the scourging inflicted by the Romans, which would give us some idea of the shame and torture now endured by the Son of man, but perhaps it is better to look beyond the purely physical sufferings of our Savior. It is well to keep in mind, however, that. more brutal soldiery never existed in the world than the Roman. Even the Indian savage is not more unfeeling than was the soldier of the Roman legion. The national brutality which could choose for its sports the combats of gladiators in the arena, or of prisoners with ferocious beasts in the amphitheatre, reached its climax in the men whose trade was war. The laws, made in self-preservation, aimed to protect Roman citizens, but the prisoner of. subject race might as well have appealed for pity to the tiger of an Indian jungle. It is true that Pilate had become strangely interested in Jesus. There was something about the prisoner that excited his wonder and awe; his conscience had probably been stirred as never before, and he had made strenuous efforts to appease the Jewish clamor and to release. prisoner "in whom he found no fault at all." But while averse to decreeing an act of injustice, he had not that stern rectitude that would make him willing to sacrifice himself rather than do wrong, and he had therefore weakly yielded, after an ineffectual struggle. The delivery of Christ to his soldiers for the preliminary scourging, the cruel Roman method of preparing. prisoner for execution, would therefore be. signal to the ferocious men of war in his palace to expend their natural love of brutality on the Lord. Hence, we learn, not only that he was subjected to the scourge, but to the additional shame of mockery. When he was covered with blood and torn with stripes,. most pitiable object to human eyes, in mockery of his kingly claims they array him in the robes of royalty, crown him with thorns, and while pretending adulation, heap indignity on indignity. Oh, the wonders of his love and long-suffering!