Mark 15:3 The chief priests began to accuse Him harshly.

After Jesus’ affirmative response to Pilate’s question as to whether Jesus is the King of the Jews, what do the chief priests begin to do?

“to accuse Him harshly” (Mark 15:3).

• κατηγόρουν (katēgoroun) (“to accuse") 3P Imperfect Active Indicative of κατηγορέω, “nearly always as legal technical term: bring charges in court…accuse someone of a thing” (BDAG, 533).

• πολλά (polla) (“harshly”) Adverbial Accusative of πολύς, “πολλά in the accusative used adverbially greatly, earnestly, strictly, loudly, often etc” (BDAG, 849).

(“The NT occurrences of πολλά adverbial are given by Hawkins HS²₃₅ thus: 1.  Mk 1:45 3:12 5:10. 23. 38. 43 6:20 9:26 15:3. He regards all other instances as accusatives. . . The free use of the adverbial accusative in Greek removes this from the category of Semitisms. See LS s.v. πολύς. The disproportionate use of πολλά in the second Gospel is a Marcan mannerism which may be due to Aramaic influence” [Moulton, James Hope, and Wilbert F. Howard, A Grammar of New Testament Greek: Accidence and Word-Formation, Vol. 2, p. 446].)

• What have the chief priests and whole Council been seeking?

“to obtain testimony against Jesus to put Him to death” (Mark 14:55).

• Why did the Sanhedrin deliver Jesus over to Pontius Pilate, the Roman prefect, to be tried for treason under Roman law after their own early dawn guilty verdict of blasphemy under Jewish law?

“Though the Sanhedrin could pronounce a death sentence it could not exercise capital punishment. So a condemned prisoner had to be turned over to the Roman authorities for a death sentence to be carried out (cf. John 18:31; TDNT, s.v. ‘synedrion,’ 1:865-6). The Roman governor could either ratify or rescind the Sanhedrin’s death sentence (cf. John 19:10). If rescinded, a new trial had to be conducted before a Roman court in which the Sanhedrin had to prove that the defendant had committed a capital crime under Roman law. Since the charge of blasphemy (cf. Mark 14:64) was not punishable by Roman law it was not mentioned in the following trial. In its place the Sanhedrin substituted a charge of treason, turning Jesus’ acknowledgement that He was the messiah into a traitorous political claim that He is ‘the King of the Jews’ (cf. 15:2, Luke 23:2). The Roman court surely could not ignore that charge” (John F. Walvoord, and Roy B. Zuck, Dallas Theological Seminary, The Bible Knowledge Commentary: An Exposition of the Scriptures, V. 2, p. 185).

Father, You made Jesus who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. Guiltless Jesus endured the condemnation of guilty men so that we could be declared not guilty.  All  have sinned and fall short of Your glory, being justified by Your grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom You displayed publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith. This was to demonstrate Your righteousness, because in Your forbearance You passed over the sins previously committed; for the demonstration of Your righteousness at the present time, so that You would be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.