Mark 14:61

‘Again the high priest asks him and says to him, “Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed?”

‘The High Priest asks Him.' Matthew adds, “I adjure you by the living God.” This was requiring testimony from the prisoner under an oath before God. But while the inquisitor had the right to adjure witnesses in this way, who were then bound to reply and tell the truth under threat of severe penalty, it is very questionable whether it was legal to do the same to make a man incriminate himself. There were probably a number there who raised their eyebrows at his behaviour. But as it was not an actual trial it was seemingly not protested against, and to Mark it is irrelevant.

‘The Messiah, the son of the Blessed.' The question went beyond just asking whether He was the Messiah. Claiming to be the Messiah, while frowned on, would not necessarily have been looked on as blasphemy. But ‘Son of God' was not a prominent Messianic title, although occurring in the Psalms of Solomon and in isolated references at Qumran. The idea may have been picked up from the parable of the wicked tenants (Mark 12:1), from Jesus' statement in Mark 12:35 that the Messiah would be not only David's son but David's Lord, and from Judas himself who may well have contributed information. It was a clever and leading question. A Messianic claimant could easily have said ‘yes' thinking in terms of adoption by God as ‘His son' as kings of Israel had been before him (Psalms 2:7), and then found himself unwittingly embroiled in a charge of blasphemy.

Mark does not mention the ‘adjuration'. As far as he was concerned the question was asked and Jesus gave a straight answer. To him that was the important point. He was concerned to bring out that Jesus clearly declared before the leaders of Judaism that He was the Messianic King. (Mark was not concerned about the legitimacy of the trial. He was concerned with its results).