What is the meaning and significance of the crown of thorns?

Crowned with thorns and mocked. Verses 16-21

Oh! the heart piercing scenes of this section of our Gospel! They led Him away to heap the greatest indignities upon the Holy One. That is man's answer to that service of love and power He so unceasingly had rendered. After the cruel scourging they clothed Him with a purple robe in mockery. Matthew reports a scarlet cloak. This is not a discrepancy. "A scarlet military robe was made to represent the imperial purple, hence the designation, a purple robe. And because this is the symbolic import of the robe, there is no discrepancy" (Lange). The scarlet cloak was used to represent in mockery the imperial purple robe. The crown of thorns was made to inflict cruel pain upon His brow. Thorns came on account of man's sin; they are the signs of the curse. He took the curse upon His own head. Mark tells us most definitely who Simon the Cyrenian was, who was compelled to bear His cross, the father of Alexander and Rufus (see Romans 16:13). God did not forget this service; Simon's sons became believers.

"Then came Jesus forth, wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe." Why does John only record this appearance of the Lord thus arrayed before the people? Matthew and Mark tell how the whole band of soldiers was called together to the mock coronation, and Luke wrote that "Herod and his men of war set Him at nought and mocked Him, and arrayed Him in a gorgeous robe, " but makes no reference to the crowning with thorns. There must be a reason for the prominence that John gives to this special suffering and shame endured by the Lord. What is it?

In our Gospel He is not presented to us as the Son of David, the King of Israel as in Matthew, nor as the faithful servant of man's need and God's glory as in Mark, but as the Word, the Creator of the world, who had come into it to be its Saviour. The world belonged to Him for He made it, and as the Son in the eternal Bosom He was the Heir to it, but it was under the curse, man's disobedience had brought the curse upon it, and thorns were the product and abiding evidence of the curse. He had come to redeem the world; to remove the curse and bring in the blessing, and to do this He must bear the curse. He has "redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree" (Gal. 3:13), but the original curse fell upon Him, and the sign of this was the crown that He wore. "Then came Jesus forth wearing the crown of thorns." Oh the shame and the glory of it! Shame to man, who crowned Him: to us all, for we all had our part in it, but glory to Him who in divine compassion for God's glory and our salvation took the curse upon Him that by His death He might remove it.

And now we understand the full meaning of Pilate's cry "Behold the Man." He knew not what he said, but we know, for then there came forth the representative Man, the Son of Man, our Substitute. He had spoken thus of Himself. "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, " and now we "Behold the Man" consecrated to our cause and crowned with our curse. But who is this Son of Man? Hear His own words. "For God so loved The world that He gave His only-begotten Son" The thorn-crowned Man is the only-begotten Son of God. It is thus that John reveals Him in his Gospel to our astonished gaze and we understand why the crowning with thorns is so prominent in it.

"The Word became flesh, " and having come thus into manhood He could take no other way than this. He was sinless; He was holy; He was as holy in His manhood, wearing the crown of thorns as He ever was in His Godhead glory, hence the curse had no reference to Him personally, but having espoused the cause of the ruined race, be must bear the curse, if not He would have remained a solitary man for ever, and God's purpose for man would have failed and Satan would have triumphed. In the hope of holding mankind under the perpetual curse of God Satan offered to Jesus every crown under the sun, and men would have made him king when He fed them with bread, but He would take no crown from Satan or from men, but this crown, the crown of thorns. Every other crown was tarnished; there was not a kingdom of righteousness on earth over which He could reign. One crown alone the earth could give that He could take — the crown of thorns. If He was to be the Blesser He must bear the curse.

"Then the soldiers of the governor, having taken Jesus with them to the praetorium, gathered against Him the whole band, and having taken off His garment, put on Him a scarlet cloak, and having woven a crown of thorns they put it on His head; and a reed in His right hand; and bowing the knee before Him, they mocked Him, saying, Hail, King of the Jews! And having spit upon Him, they took the reed and beat Him upon His head. And when they had mocked Him, they took the cloak off Him, and put His own clothes on Him, and led Him away to be crucified" (verses 27-30.

A whole cohort of rough, barbaric soldiers are now taking hold of the willing victim. After that terrible scourging, the most awful indignities were heaped upon Him. First they tore His clothes from His outraged body, most likely in eager haste to have their sport with Him. Then they cast a scarlet cloak on Him. That garment was worn by kings, and the scarlet color was produced by the coccus cacti, the crushed insect. Then they wove a crown of thorns and put it on His blessed Head. The crown must have been put upon Him by these instruments of Satan, to inflict pain and to ridicule Him. The crown of thorns also points us back to the garden in which the first man fell. Thorns became the witnesses of the curse, as they are still in nature. The second Man, the Holy One, takes the curse upon His own head. They put a reed, a weak, perishable reed in His hand, the hand which upholds all things, the hand which had been outstretched in blessing over the weak, the erring, the sick, the blind and which had touched the leper; that mighty hand holds the reed, a scepter of mockery. And then the satanic drama of mockery and ridicule is complete. One after the other, these wicked men come and bow the knee before Him, they mock Him. "Oh Joy! or, Rejoice! King of the Jews." This was their greeting. But they get up from their position and spit upon Him and take the reed and beat Him on His head.

The cruel scourging, such as cruel Rome had invented, then took place. It often was so severe that prisoners died under the awful blows. What pen can ever describe the suffering and the shame He endured! Perhaps Pilate thought this awful scourging would satisfy the Jews, so that the Lord would be released. Then the mockery followed. The crown of thorns, the emblem of the curse of sin, was put upon His holy brow. The sin-bearer wore that crown for us, that we might wear a crown of glory. When He comes again He comes with many crowns. (Revelation 19:12.) They put the robe of purple, the imperial color, upon Him; ridiculed and smote Him. Then Pilate led Him forth and said: "Behold the Man. " Was it pity or contempt? Most likely both. But oh! the sight! To see Him, Who is the Life and the Light, the Holy One, the Creator, treated thus by the creature of the dust! Satan's power energized the chief priests and officers, and the answer they give as they behold "the Man of Sorrows" is "Crucify Him!" "He made Himself the Son of God" was their wicked accusation. He is the Son of God and because He had come in marvelous love to this poor lost world, He was condemned to die.

Every possible indignity He suffered at their blood-stained hands. They stripped Him of His raiment, clothing Him in a scarlet robe (emblem of royalty), and pressed upon that holy brow a crown of thorns—which bore solemn witness to the curse of God resting upon the earth on account of man’s sin, and emblematic surely of the curse He was now taking upon Himself to remove it from man.

Thorns are the sign of the curse which He was now taking to remove it from us.

In mockery they clothe Him as a king, but His crown woven of thorns, the symbol of the curse, little as they understood His own willing bearing of the curse of God on account of man's sins (Galatians 3:13). Their mockery too is accompanied by contempt, as they dare to spit upon the blessed Lord of glory; and violence also as they strike Him on the head. Can we imagine what dread dismay will be theirs when they see this same Man of sorrows sitting in judgment upon them?

We have also read in John 19, of that well-known moment, when Pilate brings Jesus out wearing the purple robe and the crown of thorns, and says to the multitude, "Behold the Man." Little did he know the import of what he said at that moment. He used the very phrase we have read in the prophet Zechariah, "Behold the Man." In verse 5 we read, "Then came Jesus forth." It does not say that Pilate brought Him forth, nor did the soldiers force Him forward; "Then came Jesus forth, wearing the crown of thorns, and the purple robe." We read in verse 17, "He bearing His cross went forth." In John's Gospel we see the Lord bearing the cross; the other Gospels show us what men did to Him. Here we see Him of His own volition moving onward to the cross, where He would accomplish the work whereby God could pardon the city, and whereby impotent men could be brought into the blessing of God. That work secures forgiveness, power, life and resurrection for those who, through sin and at a distance from God, were unfruitful in this world. This is the blessed Man who glorified God, and met the need of man.

The scarlet robe of Matthew would speak of the Son of David; the gorgeous robe of Luke (translated sometimes, white) His intrinsic purity; but here it is the Emperor character, the Son of Man, as He comes forth in that purple robe, and the crown of thorns, bearing the curse in order that God might be eternally glorified, and weak sinful man brought back for the pleasure of God.

Four times in the Gospels mention is made of another crown. It was the crown worn by our Lord Jesus Christ—THE CROWN OF THORNS. How intensely significant! In a book which speaks so often of crowns this is the only one mentioned in the four Gospels.

“And when they had platted a crown (stephanos) of thorns, they put it upon His head” (Matt. 27:29). Could irony and scorn have gone further? To put upon His head a crown indicative of winning a prize, of honour, of glory, not made of laurel or parsley or ivy, but of—THORNS; how complete was the dishonour done to God’s blessed Son, the delight of the Father’s heart, the joy of heaven.

In the neighbourhood of Jerusalem there can still be gathered the material from which this crown was made. Such thorns, so long and sharp, it would be difficult to find.