19:1-3
Pilate has Jesus flogged. At first glance this might seem an odd thing to do, given that he has declared Him innocent. However, the situation becomes clearer if we look at the rest of this section, and also at Luke and Mark’s accounts of Jesus being flogged. The argument presented here is taken from Carson. Luke 23:13-16 saying Jesus has done nothing deserving of death, and so he will punish Him and then release Him, this punishment probably relating to the flogging here. Mark 15:15 says that Pilate released Barabas “and having scourged Jesus, he delivered him to be crucified.” Carson takes this as meaning the scourging in Mark took place after the crucifixion sentence, whereas in John Pilate still spends some time trying to release Jesus. So Carson (along with others) sees this as two floggings. I have to say I am not fully convinced of this. Mark 15:15 actually seems a little ambiguous. Also none of the gospels give every single detail and Mark in particular gives a condensed account. However, if we take Carson’s argument it goes as follows. There were three levels of floggings, from relatively mild (relative being the operative word!) to ultra severe, the one you have probably heard about in various sermons around Easter time. We see that Pilate wanted to release Jesus, so he gave Jesus the “mild” flogging, seeking to humiliate Jesus and present Him as a pathetic figure. The thinking being that the Jews will then agree to Jesus being released, seeing that this pathetic figure could not possibly be a king. The flogging, of course, was carried out by the soldiers, who also did other things to humiliate Jesus.
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