Mark 15:39

15:33-41 There was a thick darkness over the land, from noon until three in the afternoon. The Jews were doing their utmost to extinguish the Sun of Righteousness. The darkness signified the cloud which the human soul of Christ was under, when he was making it an offering for sin. He did not complain that his disciples forsook him, but that his Father forsook him. In this especially he was made sin for us. When Paul was to be offered as a sacrifice for the service saints, he could joy and rejoice, Php 2:17; but it is another thing to be offered as a sacrifice for the sin of sinners. At the same instant that Jesus died, the veil of the temple was rent from the top to the bottom. This spake terror to the unbelieving Jews, and was a sign of the destruction of their church and nation. It speaks comfort to all believing Christians, for it signified the laying open a new and living way into the holiest by the blood of Jesus. The confidence with which Christ had openly addressed God as his Father, and committed his soul into his hands, seems greatly to have affected the centurion. Right views of Christ crucified will reconcile the believer to the thought of death; he longs to behold, love, and praise, as he ought, that Saviour who was wounded and pierced to save him from the wrath to come.

Mark 15:39-41 . When the centurion saw that he so cried out, and gave up the ghost — Cried out with such strength of voice, and such firm confidence in God, even at the moment when he expired, he said, Truly this man was the Son of God — See this translation defended and explained, in the note on Matthew 27:54 . Who followed him and ministered unto him — Waited upon him, and provided him with necessaries.

Mark 15:39 . κεντυρίων , a Latinism = centurio , for which Mt. and Lk. give the Greek ἑκατόνταρχος .— ἐξ ἐναντίας ( χώρας ), right opposite Jesus, so that he could hear and see all distinctly. The thing that chiefly impressed him, according to Mk., was the manner of His death.— οὕτως ἐξέπνευσεν = with a loud voice, as if life were still strong, and so much sooner than usual, as of one who, needing no Elijah to aid Him, could at will set Himself free from misery. This was a natural impression on the centurion’s part, and patristic interpreters endorse it as true and important. Victor Ant. says that the loud voice showed that Jesus died κατʼ ἐξουσίαν , and Theophylact applies to the ἐξέπνευσεν the epithet δεσποτικῶς . But it may be questioned whether this view is in accord either with fact or with sound theology. What of the φέρουσι in Mark 15:22 ? And is there not something docetic in self-rescue from the pangs of the cross, instead of leaving the tragic experience to run its natural course? Mt.’s explanation of the wonder of the centurion, by the external events—earthquake, etc.—is, by comparison, secondary. Schanz characterises Mk.’s account as “schöner psychologisch” (psychologically finer).

39–41 . The Confession of the Centurion 39 . when the centurion ] in charge of the quaternion of soldiers. See above, Mark 15:24 . that he so cried out ] The whole demeanour of the Divine Sufferer, the loudness of the cry, and the words He uttered, thrilled the officer through and through. Death he must have often witnessed, on the battle-field, in the amphitheatre at Cæsarea, in tumultuous insurrections in Palestine, but never before had he been confronted with the majesty of a Voluntary Death undergone for the salvation of the world. The expression of a wondrous power of life and spirit in the last sign of life, the triumphant shout in death, was to him a new revelation. the Son of God ] In an ecstacy of awe and wonder “ he glorified God ,” he exclaimed, “ In truth this man was righteous ” ( Luke 23:47 ); nay, he went further, and declared, “ This Man was a (or the ) Song of Solomon of God .” It is possible that on bringing the Lord back after the scourging, which he superintended, the centurion may have heard the mysterious declaration of the Jews, that by their Law the Holy One ought to die, because He made Himself the Son of God ( John 19:7 ). The words made a great impression on Pilate then ( John 19:8 ). But now the centurion had seen the end . And what an end! All that he had dimly believed of heroes and demigods is transfigured. This man was more. He was the Son of God .

Together with the centurion at Capernaum (Matthew 8) and Cornelius at Cæsarea (Acts 10) he forms in the Gospel and Apostolic histories a triumvirate of believing Gentile soldiers. The words, I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto me , had been already fulfilled in the instance of the penitent malefactor. They are now true of this Roman officer. The “Lion of the tribe of Judah” was “reigning from the Tree.”

Verse 39. - And when the centurion, which stood by over against him ( ὁ παρετηκὼς ἐξ ἐναντίας αὐτοῦ ) saw that he so gave up the ghost. The words, "so cried out," are not in the most important authorities. It was the business of the centurion to watch all that took place, and to see that the sentence was executed. He must have been standing close under the cress; and there was that in the whole demeanour of the dying Sufferer, so different from anything that he had ever witnessed before, that it drew from him the involuntary exclamation, Truly this man was the Son of God . He had observed him through those weary hours; he had noticed the meekness and the dignity of the Sufferer; he had heard those words, so deeply impressed upon the faith and reverence of Christians, which fell from him from time to time as he hung there; and then at last he heard the piercing cry, so startling, so unexpected, which escaped him just before he yielded up his spirit; and he could come to no other conclusion than this, that he was in very deed God's Son. It has been supposed by some that this centurion was Longiuus, who was led by the miracles which accompanied the death of Christ, to acknowledge him to be the Son of God, and to be a herald of his resurrection, and was ultimately himself put to death for the sake of Christ in Cappadocia. St. Chrysostom repeats the common report, that on account of his faith he was at last crowned with martyrdom. Mark 15:39