Matthew 27:54

54. The centurion The captain of a hundred men. He was doubtless the commander of the quaternion of soldiers who watched Jesus’s death. Pilate departed after having fixed the superscription. The chief priests had left after they had done mocking; perhaps during the supernatural darkness.

And they that were with him The soldiers under his command. They feared greatly A deep feeling came over them that they were engaged in a great crime against a good, nay, a divine being. Luke adds: “All the people that came down to that sight, beholding the things which were done, smote their breasts and returned.” This was the Son of God No doubt the centurion heard that the prisoner had during his trial laid claim to this title. It is possible that he was present at the trial of Jesus, and heard that announcement by the Jews, that they required his death for making “himself the Son of God.” John 19:7. There was something in this announcement which, as appears from the following verses in John, startled the pagan Pilate, and could very easily impress the memory of Pilate’s centurion. The centurion knew that he was executed for claiming to be Son of God; he now recognizes that, whatever that title meant, (and probably his conceptions in regard to it were very indefinite,) it was divinely attested by these supernatural phenomena. Jesus was the Son of God because he so claimed, and God has affirmed his claim. And this strikingly harmonizes with the centurion’s expression, as reported by Luke: “Certainly this was a righteous man.” He was righteous in that his claim, for which he was executed, was sustained by God. So then the innocence of Jesus is admitted by Pilate, by Judas, by Peter, by even the soldiers that slay him, and by all but the Jewish hierarchy who brought the charges against him.