And after that they had mocked him, they took the robe off from him, and put his own raiment on him, and led him away to crucify him.
Ver. 31. Put his own raiment on him] God's hand was in this, that all men seeing him to suffer in his own habit, might acknowledge that it was very he, and not another that suffered in his stead. Mahomet in his Koran speaks very honourably of Christ, except only in two things: 1. He took up the Arian heresy, to deny his Deity. 2. He denied that he was crucified, but that some one was crucified for him. But what saith St Peter? "He his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree," &c.,1 Peter 2:24 .
They led him away] Quite out of the city, Ut vera piacularis victima et καθαρμα pro nobis fieret, Hebrews 13:12,13. This was a mystery hardly understood by any of the faithful before Christ; neither could we well have told what to make of it, but that the apostle hath there opened it to us, by the instinct of the Holy Ghost. "Let us therefore" (as he adviseth) "go forth unto him without the camp, bearing his reproach," accounting it our crown, as those apostles did that rejoiced in their new dignity of suffering shame for Christ's name, Acts 5:41; "It was their grace to be so disgraced." Est et confusionis gloria, et gloriosa confusio. (Ambr.)