Pilate's first question went to the charge of kingship. The council had condemned Jesus for blasphemy (Mark 14:64), but the question that reaches Pilate is about a king. Mark does not record the charge the chief priests brought, but Pilate's first words show what he had heard. Luke says they accused Jesus of "forbidding to give tribute to Caesar, saying that he himself is Christ a King" (Luke 23:2). A claim to be king could be heard as a challenge to Caesar (John 19:12). Gill allows two possibilities: Pilate had heard the claim before, or the title was "what the Jews now suggested to him as his crime." Either way, Pilate does not seem to have seen Jesus as a real threat, for "he knew that the chief priests had delivered him for envy" (Mark 15:10).

Jesus answered, "Thou sayest it" (Mark 15:2). Gill explains this is "all one as if he had said, I am." It was the last thing He said to Pilate in Mark's account. Matthew Henry notes that Christ "gave Pilate a direct answer, but would not answer the witnesses." When the chief priests "accused him of many things," He "answered nothing" (Mark 15:3), and even Pilate's next question drew no reply (Mark 15:4-5). John records a longer exchange, in which Jesus explains, "My kingdom is not of this world" (John 18:36).

Pilate was the Roman governor of Judea (Luke 3:1). The council could condemn Jesus by its own law, but it took Him to Pilate in the morning and delivered Him over (Mark 15:1). Mark records Pilate pronouncing the sentence (Mark 15:15).

The title "King of the Jews" runs through the whole chapter. Pilate uses it with the crowd (Mark 15:9, 12). The soldiers mock Jesus with it, "Hail, King of the Jews!" (Mark 15:18). And it becomes the written charge over the cross: "THE KING OF THE JEWS" (Mark 15:26).

Pilate asked the right question, though he did not understand the answer. Jesus really is the King, and He said so plainly before the most powerful man in the land. Yet He was a King who would be crowned with thorns (Mark 15:17) and lifted up on a cross under a sign bearing His title (Mark 15:26).

In Mark, everyone around Jesus uses this title, but almost no one means it. Pilate uses it with doubt, the soldiers with mockery, and the chief priests with scorn: "Let Christ the King of Israel descend now from the cross, that we may see and believe" (Mark 15:32). The irony is that every mocking use of the title was true.