Commentary - Matthew 27:27-32

Bird's-eye view

In this passage, we are brought into the Praetorium to witness one of the most profound and stomach-turning scenes in all of Scripture. The Lord of glory, having been condemned by the religious authorities and handed over by a feckless politician, is now subjected to the cruel sport of hardened Roman soldiers. This is not just random barracks brutality; it is a satanic parody of a coronation. Every action is freighted with a dark, inverted symbolism. They dress the true King in a mock royal robe, crown Him with a diadem of pain, and place a reed in His hand as a pathetic scepter. They then offer Him feigned worship, kneeling and hailing Him as king, all while spitting on Him and beating Him. What the devil and his pawns intend for ultimate humiliation, God intends for ultimate glorification. This scene is a graphic depiction of the humiliation of Christ, where He bears the full weight of human scorn and rebellion. It climaxes with the King being led away to His enthronement on the cross, and the first of His subjects, Simon of Cyrene, being conscripted into the fellowship of His suffering.

The central theme here is the nature of true kingship. The world's idea of power is coercion, opulence, and the ability to command respect through fear. Christ's kingdom is established through the opposite means: submission, suffering, and the bearing of shame. The soldiers think they are mocking His claim to be a king, but in reality, they are unwittingly acting out the liturgy of His installment. They are dressing the sacrificial lamb in the colors of royalty and sin, crowning the victor with the curse of the ground, and bowing the knee in a gesture that will one day be repeated by every creature in heaven and on earth, but then in genuine adoration. This is the scandal of the gospel in miniature: the power of God displayed in what appears to be utter weakness.

Outline

Context In Matthew

This scene immediately follows Pilate's final capitulation to the Jewish leaders and the crowd, where he washed his hands and handed Jesus over to be crucified (Matt 27:24-26). The political and religious trials are over. The verdict has been rendered, not by justice, but by mob envy and political expediency. Now, Jesus is in the hands of the Roman military, the instrument of imperial power. This section forms the immediate prelude to the crucifixion itself. It is the final stage of His degradation before being led out to Golgotha. Thematically, it serves as a crucial bridge. Having been rejected by His own people as their king, He is now mockingly enthroned as that king by the Gentiles. This fulfills His own prophecies about being handed over to the Gentiles to be mocked and scourged and crucified (Matt 20:19). It is the world's final, definitive statement on who they think Jesus is, which God is about to overturn in the most spectacular way imaginable.

Key Issues

The Coronation of the King

It is essential that we see this scene for what it is. This is a coronation. Of course, it is a coronation dripping with demonic mockery and human cruelty, but it is a coronation nonetheless. The soldiers of the governor, representing the pinnacle of worldly power, gather the whole cohort. This is an official affair. They are installing a king. In their minds, it is a joke, a way to pass the time and vent their contempt on another Jewish pretender. But in the economy of God, they are court officials performing their assigned liturgical roles. Satan, the prince of this world, is trying to stage a parody to discredit the true King. But like a tone-deaf buffoon trying to mock Mozart by playing all the right notes in the wrong spirit, he only succeeds in broadcasting the melody of redemption.

Every element of a royal installment is present. There is the stripping of the old garments and the clothing with a royal robe. There is a crown. There is a scepter. There is kneeling, a posture of worship. There is a royal proclamation: "Hail, King of the Jews!" The tragedy for these men is that they are blind to the reality of what they are doing. They are in the presence of the King of the universe, the one who spoke galaxies into being, and all they can see is a helpless victim for their sport. This is a picture of the spiritual condition of every unregenerate man. We are blind to the glory of Christ and, left to ourselves, our only response to His majesty is scorn.

Verse by Verse Commentary

27 Then when the soldiers of the governor took Jesus into the Praetorium, they gathered the whole Roman cohort around Him.

The action moves from the public square to the inner sanctum of Roman power, the Praetorium. This was the governor's headquarters. Jesus, the true governor of the cosmos, is taken into the counterfeit governor's house. The soldiers, instruments of Caesar's authority, gather the "whole cohort." A cohort could be up to 600 men. While it may not have been every single man, the point is that this was not a small, back-alley affair. This was a formal gathering, an assembly. They gathered around Him, placing Him in the center. He is the focus of all their attention, just as He is the focus of all history.

28 And they stripped Him and put a scarlet robe on Him.

The first act of this mock investiture is to strip Him. This is an act of utter humiliation, removing from Him the last vestiges of His own identity and dignity. He is made naked before His enemies. Then they put a "scarlet robe" on Him. Mark calls it purple. The colors were similar, and both were associated with royalty and wealth. This was likely a soldier's thick cloak, a cheap imitation of a king's robe. But in the divine irony, they are clothing Him in the color of blood, the color of sin (Isaiah 1:18). They are unwittingly dressing the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world in the very sins He came to bear. He is being robed in our guilt before He pays for it.

29 And after twisting together a crown of thorns, they put it on His head, and a reed in His right hand; and they knelt down before Him and mocked Him, saying, “Hail, King of the Jews!”

The parody continues with the crown and scepter. A king needs a crown, so they fashion one from what is at hand. They twist together thorns. This is a diadem of the curse. When Adam sinned, God cursed the ground, saying "thorns also and thistles it shall bring forth to thee" (Gen 3:18). Here, the second Adam, the one undoing the work of the first, literally wears the curse of the fall upon His head. The very symbol of man's rebellion is pressed into the brow of the one who came to redeem him from it. They place a reed, a weak and flimsy stalk, in His right hand, the hand of power and authority. This is their comment on His kingship: it is fragile, worthless, a joke. And then, with all the mock regalia in place, the homage begins. They kneel, feigning submission. And they speak the words of acclamation, "Hail, King of the Jews!" This title, meant as an insult, is the absolute truth. It is the very title that will be nailed over His head on the cross. They are blind men stumbling into a profound confession of faith.

30 And they spat on Him, and took the reed and began to beat Him on the head.

The pretense of worship quickly dissolves into raw, visceral contempt. Spitting on someone was, and is, an act of ultimate disdain. It is a gesture of utter rejection. They are treating the image of the invisible God like filth. Then they take the mock scepter from His hand and use it to beat Him on the head. This serves to drive the thorns of His crown deeper into His scalp, adding physical agony to the humiliation. The symbol of His supposed authority becomes the instrument of His pain. This is what the world does with the authority of Christ. It takes His word and His law and uses it to attack Him and His people.

31 When they had mocked Him, they took the scarlet robe off Him and put His own garments back on Him, and led Him away to crucify Him.

When their cruel game was finished, "when they had mocked Him," the ceremony is concluded. The mock coronation is over. They strip Him again, taking back the scarlet robe. His brief, farcical reign in the Praetorium is done. They put His own simple garments back on Him. Why? Because a man was crucified in his own clothes or naked, not in a soldier's cloak. He is being prepared for the next and final stage of His enthronement. And they "led Him away to crucify Him." This is the procession. The King, having been robed and crowned, is now led to the place where His throne has been prepared.

32 And as they were coming out, they found a man of Cyrene named Simon, whom they pressed into service to bear His cross.

On the way to Golgotha, the physical effects of the sleepless night, the trials, and the brutal scourging take their toll. Jesus, in His humanity, is unable to carry the heavy patibulum, the crossbeam. The soldiers, impatient to get the job done, do what occupying forces always do. They compel a bystander into service. They find a man named Simon, a foreigner from Cyrene in North Africa, likely a Jewish pilgrim in Jerusalem for the Passover. They "pressed into service" this man, forcing him to carry the instrument of execution. And in this, we see the first picture of Christian discipleship after the cross. Jesus had said, "If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me" (Matt 16:24). Simon is the first to do so, albeit unwillingly at first. He is brought into the fellowship of Christ's suffering, bearing the shame and the burden of the King. He walks the path to Golgotha with Jesus, a living parable of what it means to be a follower of this mocked and crucified Lord.

Application

This passage forces us to confront the sheer ugliness of our sin. The mockery of the soldiers was not an isolated incident perpetrated by a few bad apples. This was humanity's response to God in the flesh. This is what is in our hearts, apart from grace. We see the glory of God, and we want to spit on it. We see the authority of Christ, and we want to beat Him with it. We see the majesty of the King, and we want to dress Him in rags and laugh. We must see ourselves in that cohort, either as active mockers or as silent consenters. Our pride, our self-righteousness, our rebellion, it all culminates here.

But the application is not to wallow in our guilt. It is to marvel at the King who endured this for us. He took the crown of thorns so that we might receive a crown of glory. He wore the robe of shame so that we might be clothed in His righteousness. He received the mock worship so that we might be enabled to offer true worship. He was spat upon so that we might be washed clean. He was led away to die so that we might be led into eternal life. The world threw its worst at Him, and He absorbed it all. He took the full force of our contempt and hatred into Himself and exhausted it on the cross.

And finally, we are called to be like Simon. We are called to bear His cross. This means we are called to a life that the world will find just as foolish as it found our King. It means being willing to be associated with His shame, to bear the reproach of His name. It means understanding that the path to glory runs straight through Golgotha. The world still mocks the kingship of Jesus, and when we identify with Him, it will mock us too. But we follow a King who turned a crown of thorns into a victor's wreath, and who transformed a Roman cross from a symbol of shame into the throne of the universe. Therefore, we do not shrink from the mockery, but count it all joy to be considered worthy to suffer for the sake of the name.