Luke 23:35-43
Turn in your Bibles to Luke 23, Luke 23. Today we have the very special privilege of looking at a, a text that I think is a favorite to many, especially those who know their sins, know that they are sinners in need of God’s rich mercy and without his mercy they would be condemned for all eternity into Hell. And so for people like that, who, who know what it is to be lost, to know what it is to have a deep, deep need, this text in particular has to rank as one of the most encouraging sections in all the Bible, the salvation of a condemned man on the cross.
A few moments ago we read from Romans 5 and we see, the Christ died for the ungodly. Christ died for sinners. He died for the enemies of God. All those terms, ungodly, sinners, enemies of God, those are not separate categories. All the same category, different words describe the same people. He died to reconcile the ungodly sinners and enemies of God to him through his death.
Those terms, ungodly, sinners, enemies of God and they’re not flattering, are they? But they are literal, they are accurate, and they describe each and every one of us. And once we admit that, having seen ourselves as rightly condemned before, a pure and holy God, it’s then and only then that we are in the right frame of mind, that we see ourselves in light of God’s perfect truth. We see our, our dependence on him.
We recognize our deep, deep need for the savior. And at that point we are willing, eager to humble ourselves. Why would we boast? We’re eager to come to God, confessing our sins. We’re eager to come to him, seeking his forgiveness and lest anyone, any sinner, be overwhelmed with his sins, intimidated maybe to come and seek an audience before this holy God.
God is pleased to provide in his Holy Word inducements to come and seek him; encouragements to push past what seems to be impossible. That we, though ungodly sinners and enemies of God, though we should be cast into outer darkness where there’s nothing but weeping and gnashing of teeth, yet we’re bid to come. Because as powerful as the wrath of God is, equal in power is his kindness and his mercy, that he has compassion on sinners and the very worst of sinners as well. And we have one such example put before us in this text.
This condemned criminal, he turned to Jesus and prayed. And if he can turn and pray, so can you, and so can I. I gave several outline points in the sermon last time and we were able to cover the first two points, substitution and intercession. I’m going to review those couple of points briefly, and then we’re going to see how sin in the third and fourth point, we’re going to see how sin was aggravated at the cross, guilt was aggravated at the cross, and then how Jesus absolved that guilt and that sin.
Let’s start by putting the text before us and start reading in Luke 23, verse 32. “Now two others also, who were criminals, were being led away to be put to death with Him. And when they came to the place called The Skull, there they crucified him and the criminals, one on the right and the other on the left. But Jesus was saying, ‘Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they’re doing.’ And they cast lots, dividing up His garments among themselves. And the people stood by looking on.
“And even the rulers were scoffing at Him, saying, ‘He saved others; let Him save Himself, if this is the Christ of God, His chosen one. And the soldiers also mocked Him, coming up to Him, offering Him sour wine and saying, ‘If You’re the King of the Jews, save Yourself! Now there was also an inscription above Him, ‘This is the King of the Jews.’ One of the criminals hanging there was blaspheming Him, saying, ‘Are you not the Christ? Save Yourself and us!’
“But the other answered, and rebuking him, said, ‘Do you not even fear God, since you’re under the same sentence of condemnation? And we indeed are suffering justly, for we are receiving what we deserve for what we’ve done; but this man has done nothing wrong.’ And he was saying, ‘Jesus, remember me when You come in Your Kingdom! And He said to him, ‘Truly I say to you, today you shall be with Me in Paradise.’
Luke shows Jesus was numbered with the transgressors in verses 32 and 33. That gave us our first point, in this kind of larger outline, over the two weeks: the substitution. The substitution. Luke really is narrating in these couple of verses what is an allusion. It amounts to an allusion to Isaiah 53:12 and Mark, in his Gospel, he makes that connection explicit, saying they crucified two robbers with him, one on his right, one on his left, and the scripture was fulfilled.
That’s Isaiah 53:12, the scripture which says he was numbered with the transgressors. So as Jesus is condemned with these two other criminals, he literally takes the place of Barabbas. He substitutes himself for that man, and in his place he dies. He’s nailed to the middle cross, which was the cross where Barabbas would have been nailed, where he would have died. Jesus is crucified between two criminals who were likely the partners in crime with Barabbas.
It’s a perfect picture painted here that Jesus died as a substitute for sinners. As 1 Peter 3:18 says, “Christ also died for sins once for all.” And here’s the substitution, “that just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God.” So this is his high priestly ministry. His high priestly ministry, where the priest himself doesn’t bring another sacrifice. He puts himself there as a sacrifice. He offers himself as a substitute, a lamb in place of, as it was pictured in Genesis 22, in place of Isaac, Abraham’s son, who was offered.
He is the Lamb of God who takes the ways sin of the world. He is the high priest, but he offers himself as the sacrifice, the substitute. His high priestly ministry also features in the second point. We had in verse 34, even clearer, our second point, which we said was the intercession, the intercession. This is the high priestly intercession of Jesus Christ for his people. Luke showed us very clearly in Luke 22, Luke 23, that the really, the whole world is pictured as turning against Jesus.
Even his friends left him. One of them, the most loyal of them, denied even knowing him three times. His enemies, even worse, they’re cruel, they’re relentless. They don’t rest until Jesus is condemned, crucified, and utterly humiliated, stripped naked, and hung on a cross. And yet Jesus prays in verse 34, “Father forgive them for they do not know what they’re doing.”
He’s a sympathetic high priest. He knows that some of these people, even, who are numbered among the people there at the foot of the cross, people who are speaking vile things, things that in time they will regret, they will mourn, but among them are some particular people, those whom the father had chosen, those whom the father had given to him from before the foundation of the world.
There’s some in this watching crowd, there’s some who had passed by, even hurling insults at him. There are even some among the mocking leaders, as Acts, I believe it’s chapter 6, verse 7, will show, even some of the priests were converted, even some among the soldiers, such as the centurion in verse 47. Some of these are his people and he prays, “Father forgive them, they don’t know what they’re doing.”
Prays, he asked the Father to forgive, even though, now, at this moment, they are persecutors, and crucifiers, and tormentors. And his prayer finds its first target in one of the condemned, a man at his side being crucified with him. And before we see this great salvation, as incredible as it is, Luke goes even further to show us the depth of depravity that’s all around in this scene, because it’s only against this dark, dark backdrop that we see the bright light of his salvation.
So we come to a third point, and this is kind of getting into what we want to talk about today. The third point: the aggravation, the aggravation. You can put the aggravation of guilt, the aggravation of sin. There is sin already there, but it’s aggravated even further. It goes even further as a greater sin, a greater aggravation of guilt before God. In verses 34 to 37, we see several categories of sinners, all of whom aggravated their guilt before God in how they treated his son.
We see callous soldiers there at the end of verse 34. We see a cautious crowd in verse 35, as well as blasphemous religious leaders. And then in verses 36 and 37, the soldiers, again, cruel as ever. The criminals who are here crucified with Jesus, they’re in the same category. In fact, that’s what Luke’s briefer account makes plain.
The soldiers, the crowd, the rulers, they’ve all defiled themselves incredibly here. They’ve degraded themselves, and they’ve really put themselves on the same moral plane as these two condemned criminals. I mean, think about the people in the highest social ranking here at the cross, the religious rulers, the most respected people in society and you could say, if I could put it this way, they’re basically swearing like sailors. They’re cursing Jesus, blaspheming him, deriding him. It is a scandal.
All these people are stooping and joining the same moral plane as these two condemned criminals. And So what we see illustrated here is that well known saying that all ground is level at the cross. And if you think yourself above it, please reconsider. See what the Bible says about you and me, and humble yourself because all ground truly is level at the cross.
We’re all equally guilty, equally separated from God. We so desperately need his mercy and forgiveness and that’s what is found by this criminal at his side. But first we see the aggravation in several points here. We see first that sin is aggravated by the callous distribution. The callous distribution as the soldiers divide up Jesus’ clothing, verse 34, they cast lots. They were rolling dice, basically dividing up his garments among themselves. They’re playing a game of chance and rolling the dice to see who gets what.
In John’s Gospel, John 19:23, he elaborates the scene even further. It says when they crucified Jesus, they took his outer garments and made four parts, a part for every soldier. That doesn’t mean they tore up the outer garments. It means that there were four outer garments. Edersheim lists the items. There’s the headgear, what he wore on his head. There’s the outer cloak like garment, there’s a girdle, and there are sandals, four parts, four pieces to the outer garment. And they would, as Edersheim says, “They differ little in costs.”
And so the soldier gambled for those things with his companions. These are what these soldiers felt at the crucifixion detail. These are the spoils that are due to them for having to be in the unpleasant business of crucifying criminals. Yes, they’ve got to nail the guy up there and hang out there in the hot sun until that guy expires and sometimes they could take quite some time. But at the end of the day, whatever that guy brought with him into this trial, that’s his.
When it came to the inner garment, according to John’s Gospel, the tunic, John said that piece was seamless. It was woven in one piece, and so they didn’t want to tear up the tunic. They couldn’t divide that equally among themselves. And that presumes that there are four soldiers at this crucifixion detail.
They couldn’t divide up the tunic without destroying it among themselves. So they would make it valueless, useless. So John tells us, they said therefore to one another, “Let’s not tear it, let’s cast lots for it, decide whose it shall be. And this is that the Scripture might be fulfilled.” As John says, “They divided my outer garments among them, and for my clothing they cast lots.”
Therefore, the soldiers did these things. The soldiers are making decisions, and then they’re leaving the rest to chance. No, no, no, that’s not the case at all. Therefore, the soldiers did these things so that the Scripture might be fulfilled. Who is sovereign here? Who’s in charge of all these events, even down to the details of who gets what? It’s God. Unwittingly, they fulfill Psalm 22:18, that says, “They divide my garments among them, and for my clothing they cast lots.”
Psalm 22 is a Messianic Psalm, prophetic interpretation at the cross by David about his greater son Jesus. That well known opening line is in the other two Gospels, Matthew and Mark. “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Some ridicule that statement coming from Christ, as if Jesus just denied God on the cross. That’s foolish. What they don’t understand is Jesus is intentionally quoting that line to point every single hearer at the cross back to Psalm 22, so they could see that yes, he, the human Jesus, is rejected by the God who ought to protect him.
Why? Not because of his own sin, he’s not rejected, because of any sin of his own, he is the innocent, perfect, spotless Lamb of God. No, he’s rejected because he carried the burden of our sins to the cross. He’s rejected, because of us. He acts as a substitute for us. He put himself up there in our place to receive the wrath that we deserved. And so he cries out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” So that everybody there can go back to Psalm 22 and remember. Oh, this is prophesied, a thousand years before this event ever happened.
This is what is predicted and you see the details fulfilled right there in the events of the cross. Amazing. We don’t have time to go into it, but read it for yourself. Psalm 22, it details, the aggravations of guilt and sin by Jesus’ tormentors; all of them fulfilled at the cross. So here are these callous soldiers, they’re down there, distributing the clothes of a dying man right in front of a dying man. They’re gambling for his inner tunic, rolling the dice.
They even get the chance, fulfilling prophecy; they don’t know that. What a contrast is painted here, isn’t it? They show him no pity whatsoever. Being nailed to the cross, he’s as good as dead. He doesn’t even exist to them anymore. And yet, there he is with his final breath, pitting them, praying for them. Some of them will become his disciples before the day has ended.
Second, we see sin aggravated by cautious indecision. Sin is aggravated by a cautious indecision. And we see that in the people who are at the beginning of verse 35. There are onlookers there at the cross, and what do they do while the soldiers show such disregard for this one who’s crucified merely for being their king, what do they do? How do they respond to that callousness of the soldiers? Says that the people stood by looking on.
These people are from the larger crowd of verse 27, they that followed the procession to Skull Hill. Here they are again. They’re just standing there, just watching. They’re passively observing. Not even a week earlier, some of these people, maybe many of them, cheered Jesus loudly and passionately when he entered into Jerusalem on a donkey’s colt. They all, they had all sided with him then. They were all happy to stand tall with him then, caught up in a messianic enthusiasm.
Why are they so quiet now? Could it be that their original enthusiasm was nothing more than some kind of fleshly sentiment, a momentary excitement caught up in the fervor? Perhaps it’s because they weren’t rooted in the truth, really. Perhaps it’s because their thinking isn’t grounded in righteousness. They’re not people of conviction. They’re just people of feeling.
Feelings come, feelings go, feelings rise, and feelings drop down into the depths, and they follow their feelings. Many people like that today aren’t there. Maybe some of them, maybe some of them did believe Jesus was the Messiah. Maybe they saw the signs in his miracles. Maybe they heard about his miracles.
Maybe some did appreciate his teaching, found it encouraging and illuminating. They listened, took notes, talked about it, had discussion groups. But now that the tide of popular opinion has turned, now that the stakes have been raised, now that the controversy has truly become costly. Well, now they’ve halted their support. They paused. They’re going to wait and see who comes out on top. Jesus or the rulers.
After all, some might reason, our rulers are wise men. We’ve known them for longer than we’ve known this guy. Maybe they have a point. Let’s just wait and see what happens. Let’s just be wise and cautious, kind of weigh things out here. Let’s just see whether this Jesus comes down off that cross like they’re saying. So the people wait. They refuse to take sides; whatever conviction that they thought they had just melted away.
Jesus said, “Whoever confesses me before men, I’ll confess before my Father who’s in heaven.” You think confessing before men is going to be comfortable? Think it’s going to be easy? If there were any who had a confession that would come from the heart of conviction, they would have walked right up to those soldiers and said, put those things down. He’s going to need those clothes when he rises from the dead. But they wait, refusing to take sides.
I don’t want to take sides. I hear that a lot. I don’t want to say I know there’s a conflict and a Contra. I just don’t want to take sides. Makes them sound like they’re above it. Best not to get involved. They congratulate themselves for their wisdom, of their caution, but it’s for no good and righteous reason that they shy away from this controversy. It’s no, it’s for no good and righteous reason that they don’t demonstrate a firm loyalty to this Jesus, who is clearly in the right.
What’s another name for this, what I’ve called cautious indecision? When the caution doesn’t come from righteous wisdom, but when it comes from the fear of man. You know what this cautious indecision is called? It goes by another name. It’s called cowardice. This is cowardly unbelief. Unless we feel ourselves superior to these watching onlookers, we have to admit, don’t we? Haven’t we all fallen prey to this insidious and subtle little sin of cowardly unbelief. Haven’t we failed to stand when we should have stood? Haven’t we failed to rebuke the sinner who deserves to be rebuked because we don’t want to get involved?
So we’ve seen a couple of, maybe, passive forms of guilt aggravated before God because of how they’ve treated Jesus. Now we see a couple of active forms of aggravated guilt. Third, sin is aggravated by blasphemous desecration. Blasphemous desecration, as the soldiers are here dividing Jesus’ clothing as the people are standing by and watching.
What are the rulers of the Jews doing? They arrive in verse 35 and they immediately set about scoffing and taunting him. The LSB says even the rulers were sneering at him, which could imply, on that reading, it could imply that the rulers were joining the people as if the people were already in progress of sneering at Jesus. That’s actually the sense we do get from Matthew and Mark. They both show that the scoffing starts with people, not rulers, but they’re the passersby,
The passersby, it says in Matthew 27, verse 39 that those passing by were hurling abuse at him, wagging their heads, and saying, “You who are going to destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, save yourself. If you’re the Son of God, come down from the cross.” Then it says this in verse 41, Matthew 27, “In the same way, the chief priests also, along with the scribes and the elders were mocking him.”
So those in Matthew 27, Mark 15, who are passing by and hurling abuse of Jesus, they are not the same people that Luke is describing in verse 35. Those people are not passing by, they are standing there. They have followed Jesus in the procession to Skull Hill, and they passively stand by looking on. And Luke is here not casting them in a hostile light. Instead, they are cast in the light of, as I said, indecision, cowardice, unbelief.
In fact, all through this account, there’s no appeal to them. It’s almost like Luke is trying to push them toward a verdict, the right verdict, to put faith in Jesus Christ. I think the ESV and the NET translations have this right. They allow the, the conjunction there to have its contrastive force. And so they connect the word, even, to the sneering, not to the people, but rather to the rulers. They show that the, the people stand by passively, but the rulers are there too, not passively watching, but instead as it says there. “But the rulers were even sneering at him, saying he saved others, let him save himself. If this is the Christ of God, his chosen one.”
Luke makes a distinction there. Luke is providing a summary of what the rulers said in their sneering. Matthew, in his account he goes even further. He records more of their vitriol that the rulers say, “He saved others, he cannot save himself. He’s the king of Israel. Let him come down now from the cross and we shall believe in him. He trusts in God. Let him deliver him now if he takes pleasure in him. For he said, I am the Son of God.”
Interesting that if you trace that out, you see more and more references that go right back to Psalm 22. They can’t help but again fulfill scripture even in their sneering and their scoffing. Why are they so aggressive here though? Haven’t they won already? I mean, Jesus is on the cross, right? So why not just hang back? Let death happen, let nature take its course, and they will have maintained their dignity.
They don’t stoop to this sneering and scoffing and mocking. They’re not going to get so worked up about all this. And then they’ll continue on with the Jesus problem solved, him dead and gone. Can’t they just move on? What’s all this aggressive slandering about? Well, first of all, it’s very common, very common to see those who have a guilty conscience, they keep on rehearsing their own narrative.
It’s as if they got to convince themselves that they’re right and so they just keep trying to make their case. They got to, re, keep reinforcing the lie to suppress their own sense of shame and guilt over what they’ve done. They’re always self-justifying. They want to justify their words and their behaviors. Nobody’s even asking. It keeps coming out, keeps coming out, keeps coming out. It’s because our conscience is bothering them.
We needed to see the aggravation of sin as Luke set that up for us; the sins of the people, sins of the rulers, sins of the soldiers, because that helps us appreciate, really appreciate what Jesus came to do; to forgive when he died on the cross for sins.” Travis Allen
You ever wonder in the whole current controversies over the sexual revolution, the LGBTQ, why is it that they demand not just to be tolerated, accepted, now they want to be celebrated? Because your approval, your celebration, will help to silence their accusing conscience. They can’t live with themselves. They know before God that they’re wrong. Nature teaches them that they’re wrong. They’ve got a law of God written in their heart.
They know they’re wrong, and so they just go farther and farther and get louder and louder and demand, not just that you accept, but that you celebrate. They’re trying to do what Romans 1 says, “suppress the truth in unrighteousness,” and they just get louder and more repetitive. That’s these people too. Sin is the same. When people don’t confess their guilt and come before God and ask him, for their, for his forgiveness, the suppression of their guilt causes great, great psychological problems. They’re killing themselves. These men, their conscience is bothering them, so they come and they decry him.
Secondly, though, remember what we saw in John 19, how irritated the rulers were over the wording that Pilate’s inscription had. “This is Jesus of Nazareth, the king of the Jews.” They did not like that at all. Pilate wrote that in Hebrew and Aramaic for the Jews. He wrote it in Latin for the Romans and he wrote it in Greek, the international trade language, so that everybody, whoever was travelling through, Koine Greek was the merchant language, the trade language.
So everybody could see this inscription that Pilate had written onto this placard, was hung around Jesus’ neck. When that procession departed from the praetorium in Jerusalem and carried on to Skull Hill. After arriving they crucified him. They took that little placard and nailed it up above his head to the cross so that everybody could see.
The Jewish leaders were furious about this. “Don’t say this is the king of the Jews. Say this man said he was the king of the Jews.” Pilate said. What I’ve written, I’ve written. Remember they had forced him into a position that he did not want to be in. He tried several times protesting Jesus’ innocence. Tried several times to get Jesus out of it, and they cornered him.
They trapped him. Now before God, he could have escaped the trap. The fear of man brings a snare, but the fear of God is an escape. He could have escaped through the fear of God. He didn’t fear God, he feared man. And so he was trapped. He was stuck. He was forced into doing their bidding. So he condemned him, sent him to the cross.
But now Pilate has his last laugh at the Jews. He mocks them as he crucifies this man, their king. I’m going to put your king up above everybody. Humiliated, naked, battered, bruised, torn, bleeding, that’s your king. So they hurry off to Skull Hill, these rulers, to prevent any misguided sentiment from rising up among the ignorant masses.
Can’t have them feeling sorry for this king of the Jews, thinking this is the king of the Jews. And So what are we going to do about this, folks? They don’t want that happening. They’re going to stifle any popular support, quell any sympathy for Jesus, and so they come pouring scorn and contempt, aggravating all their sins. This is way beyond profanity here. This is sacrilege.
They treat this innocent Jesus with such disdain, they blasphemy, they desecrate God’s son. There’s a verb used here, ekmuktērizō. The root of that verb is, muktēr, which is nostril, and nostril has a preposition Ek on the front of it. So it’s from the nostril, out of the nostril. Paints a pretty vivid picture, doesn’t it? Snorting is the idea.
They’re forcefully blowing out of their nose, this putrid air, that’s what Jesus is to these rulers. He is the stench of death, as Paul puts it in 2 Corinthians. Notice the taunt, the nature of the taunt. “He saved others. Let him save himself.” They’re not acknowledging here that Jesus did save anyone; they’re not recalling how Jesus gave sight to the blind, how he cleansed the lepers, eradicated disease and sickness from the entire land, how he cast out demons, how he raised the dead. They’re not recalling any of that here. This is just a taunt.
He saved others; that’s intended to provoke scorn among the entire people. Why is that? Because the people, like the rulers, the people expected the Messiah to overthrow the Romans, drive them out, take his seat on David’s throne, usher in another Solomonic golden age. None of that had happened, not according to what the people were expecting. So he saved others. That’s just a way to fuel and feed public discontentment, to remind them, hey, folks, where do you see the salvation? You see the Romans packing up and moving. You see them taking off? No.
They want to incite grumbling among the people complaining. They’ve got good, good historic basis for inciting, grumbling, complaining among the Israelites, because what did they do all through their exodus from Egypt, against Moses, grumbled and complained. These people are known for it. So they try to turn the people away from this Jesus. He’s just another disappointing Messiah, nothing but another messianic tragedy. Nothing but another national embarrassment. Just another failed attempt to save.
And so they go even further. They offer a test. One last test here, folks. “He saved others, let him save himself. If this one is the Christ of God, the chosen.” That’s a first-class conditional sentence. First-class conditional sentence means they assume for the sake of argument, they assume the truth of what they’ve said. So we’ll assume that this Jesus is the Christ, just for the sake of argument. But if so, let him save himself first. Impress us, extract yourself from the cross. Show us a miracle. Do what we expect.
Save yourself first, and then we’ll believe you. No, they won’t. He did miracles. He raised the dead. They didn’t believe him; so the rulers sneer, scorn. They want the people to conclude that this Jesus belongs on the cross. This guy deserves to die. And then, in fact, it’s fitting that he’s crucified with two other criminals, insurrectionists, because all three of them are failed deliverers. It’s rather fitting that they are condemned together and that they are crucified and die together.
Well, these rulers succeeded in influencing some, but not at first their target audience. We see next that the soldiers chime in. And here’s a fourth aggravation of sin, fourth: sins’ aggravated here by cruel derision. Cruel derision. The soldiers, they’ve, they’ve crucified the three victims and, and at the time after their crucifixion, they just, they sat down and started parceling out what was theirs, divvying up the goods.
They were benign at that point. They were just waiting for time to pass; dividing up the clothing, sharing in the spoils they thought they deserved. They gambled for the inner tunic. But now, having been incited by the Jewish rulers, they get in on the game themselves. What better way to pass time for a bunch of bored soldiers, then a little mockery, a little game, little fun. They start treating Jesus as a joke. They mock and they, they show this foe respect, as if there’s some kind of a theater is being performed in front of them.
The soldiers, it says, also mocked him, coming up to him and offering him sour wine. The verb there, mock, empaizō, is to make fun of, to turn into an object of ridicule, to turn this person into a laughingstock. So they have a, a showed or pretended show of honor. And to them, Jesus is just nothing more than a court jester with a big dunce hat on. He, he plays the part of a king, but the joke here is he’s impaled on his own throne. Isn’t that funny? He’s a laughing stock.
So they come up to him playing the part of the servants in the throne room, approaching the great throne, offering this king of the Jews his wine. Here, have some of this. Want some of our grog. Total derision. And then they add to, very similar to the rulers, they add in verse 37, “If you are the king of the Jews,” save yourselves, “Save yourself.” They’re following their rulers’ example.
Same pattern as scoffing, another first-class conditional sentence, “If you are the king of the Jews,” and we’re going to assume it’s true for the sake of argument. So if you are the king of the Jews, well, what do kings do? They deliver, they’re powerful, save yourself, start there. You want to be taken seriously, you the provider and protector of your people. You got to start with yourself.
And in the end, this brings us to verse 38, and Pilates inscription; the charge that put Jesus on the cross, “And there was also an inscription above him. This is the king of the Jews.” Happens to be, by the way, the same reason that God put Jesus on the cross. And here’s the message. God’s chosen king came to die for his people. That’s how he protects them. That’s how he provides for them by dying for them.
God’s chosen King, the one who will serve his people, very unlike any worldly king and every other worldly king recruits your sons and daughters and sends them off to war to do the fighting. This God sends his king to do the dying first. This is how our God protects his people. This is how our God provides for his people. He sends his only beloved son, not somebody else’s.
Sends his only beloved son to die for them. Protect them from what? Protect them from the infinite fury of God’s righteous wrath. Provide what? Righteousness, which they don’t possess, redemption which they desperately need, reconciliation with God to satisfy every longing. So sinners can rail against him, mock him, wail on him, persecute him, even crucify him, but the settled purpose of God still stands. In Christ, God magnifies his mercy and his grace. He glorifies his love, wisdom, and his saving power.
That aggravation of sin, that point may have been brief, but we wanted to hurry on to this fourth major point to see this love, wisdom, and power of God on full display and at work in a fourth point, the absolution. Point number four: the absolution. This is really the heart in the center of this crucifixion narrative. I mean, just noting it, where it starts in say verse 26 and going to verse 49. You can see just in the text how this occupies the heart of the text. Jesus in the penitent criminal. And by this point, it should come to us as a refreshing breeze, as if coming through a stuffy, putrid room. It’s like a a warm ray of bright sunshine that cuts through a dark and ominous and foreboding sky to give hope and light.
We needed to see the aggravation of sin as Luke set that up for us; the sins of the people, sins of the rulers, sins of the soldiers, because that helps us appreciate, really appreciate what Jesus came to do; to forgive when he died on the cross for sins. Keep in mind the aggravated guilt that we just witnessed. Both criminals actually shared in the same kind of reviling. Both criminals, profane men, they were casting the same aspersions at Jesus.
Let’s go back; it’s been a bit. So let’s go back to verse 39 and read that section again and then I’ll come back and make a few comments. “And one of the criminals who were hanging there was hurling abuse at him.” Actually, just pausing there, we know from Matthew 27:44 and Mark 15:32, it was both of the criminals who were hanging there, were insulting Jesus, not just one of them. Luke sets aside the sins of the one criminal. He focuses on just the other criminal hurling abuse at him.
So one of the criminals, and there’s a reason for that, we’ll come to it. “One of the criminals hanging there was blaspheming him, saying, are you not the Christ save yourself and us? But the other answered in rebuking him, said, do you not even fear God since you’re under the same sentence of condemnation? And we indeed are suffering justly, for we are receiving what we deserve for what we’ve done. But this man has done nothing wrong. And he was saying, ‘Jesus, remember me when you come in your Kingdom.’ And he said to him, ‘Truly, I say to you today you shall be with me in paradise.’”
If these two criminals were partners, which is likely, in league with Barabbas, then they were part of the same failed insurrection. And then it’s easy to see why they felt contempt for Jesus, why they, they joined in with the hurling insults. They had a political reason, because they had put themselves on the line for an insurrection to drive the Romans out. So they, up on the cross, they made that trade already.
They already knew what this could cost them if they tried to oppose the Romans. Here they are. Didn’t work out for them and they’re dying. But they feel proud, this man dying in the place of Barabbas, their leader. He’s supposed to be some Messiah. Well, unlike them, he made no attempt to resist the Romans. Never picked up a sword, never drove them out, never did anything. All he did is preach love, and gospel, and peace. And what’s what is with this? There’s no power in that. It’s weak. The only thing these Romans listen to is power. That’s all they’ll answer to.
We got to be crucified next to this guy, this meek and gentle savior. Well, there’s a lot of people think like that today, aren’t there? Despise Jesus. That was actually Nietzsche’s complaint against Christianity. Frederick Nietzsche thought Christianity isn’t just wrong, it’s vile, it’s absolutely folly, because what Christianity does, by glorifying a weak crucified savior, is it empowers all the weak and overthrows the structures that ought to protect the strong.
Nietzsche thought it was completely unfair. Powerful, the wise, the strong, they’d earned their place. The weak, they’re just a bunch of people who parade their victimhood and try to get over on the strong. What folly, what stupidity. This criminal on the cross, he thinks a lot like that. We know, according to Matthew and Mark, as I said, both criminals were hurling those insults at Jesus. And Luke skips over that detail that both of them were hurling insults because he wants to focus attention on what ultimately characterizes each man.
The one man, by hurling abuse and scorn will come to be characterized that because he never repents, so these are his dying words. The other man, the repentant one, when he becomes to be characterized by these words, all of his past sins are forgotten. Christian, you who know yourself to be a sinner, is that a comfort to you? Are there sins that you wish that your memory never held in the mind?
You know what? When you repent and turn to Christ, God separates your sins as far as the East is from the West. He knows them no more. And you’re not defined or characterized by your sins anymore. You’re characterized instead by faith in Christ, that is a comfort. Luke wants to skip the details so that he focuses on what characterizes each man, but he also streamlines the complaint of the unrepentant criminal, so that we hear very clearly, he sounds a whole lot like the soldiers who were mocking and the rulers before them. He’s just joined league with them and they with him.
Unlike the rest of them, the soldiers, the rulers, this man’s concern is actually a lot more dire, isn’t it? I mean, more immediate. And they’re all walking around freely, waving arms, moving about, mobility. This man’s nailed to a cross. He can’t move at all. He can’t get down. He’s stuck until he’s dead. So when he says save yourself and us, he’s like, get us off these crosses. I agree with those guys, but my complaint is not theoretical. My, my complaint here is not, I’m not philosophically pondering, I’m not trying to get down to, you know, philosophy 101; I’m dying.
The other man speaks up and he doesn’t say to his friend, man, you got a point. I get it. I’m crucified here too. I get it, I want to be saved. None of that. He shows no sympathy to the sinner. He shows sympathy to the savior. You know what? That’s what characterizes a Christian. We don’t sympathize with sinners, even though we ourselves are numbered among them.
Our first sympathy is to Christ, to God, to his causes. And so this man, when he answers in verse 40, he points out a few things his friend forgot, some facts that escaped this man’s attention. He reminds his friend and, and Luke calls it here a rebuke. The rebuke comes across kind of as an evangelistic appeal to his friend. This man is speaking very sincerely, this man who’s rebuking his friend and then pleading with Christ. He, he speaks right from his heart, right from his, his soul.
It’s a beautiful picture filled with pathos here. But it’s interesting to see that even in how he speaks here, his rebuke is stated in something of an upside-down syllogism. When you say Sylla-what? A syllogism, that’s just a fancy word, philosophical word, refers to a deductive argument, and it’s an argument that deduces one thing, then another thing, and then has a conclusion.
Okay, so syllogism, every syllogism has a pattern, two premises. What’s a premise? A premise is a statement, it’s a proposition, it’s what’s proposed. So two premises, follow, followed by a logical conclusion that follows from the premises. So that’s what we find here. The penitent man starts in verse 40 with the conclusion. He says you don’t fear God, do you? He puts it in the form of a question.
Softening that a bit, turns it into appeal. Do you not even fear God? But don’t mistake it, that’s a conclusion. He follows his conclusion with two premises, a major premise, a minor premise, both of them supporting the conclusion. The major premise is this: you’re under the same sentence of condemnation. And then there’s the minor premise, verse 41 “We are suffering justly receiving what our deeds deserve. But this man has done nothing wrong.” Logical conclusion: Apparently, you do not fear God. You do not even fear God.
Now, what justifies this little syllogism? What justifies this logical argument? What makes it? It is valid. It’s a logically valid syllogism. But the truth of the conclusion is based on the truth of the major and the minor premise. So what’s the truth value for each premise here? Start with the first premise, the major premise. You are under the same sentence of condemnation. Is that true?
Repentant man rebukes his unrepentant partner for failing to recognize not just that he’s crucified, but to understand the real nature of his predicament, to understand the real reason that he is up there. He points out, this is not about sentencing by the state. It’s not merely a political issue. He’s speaking as a Jew to a fellow Jew, a man who knows what the Mosaic law says, Deuteronomy 21:23, that, he who is hanged on a cross, “he who is hanged on a tree, is accursed,” not by the state, accursed by God.
Luke sets us up to see that very clearly in verse 39. He introduces one of the criminals, doesn’t he, in verse 39 as hanging there. That’s not a insignificant detail. He’s hanging there as if under a curse. So that’s this man. He is a cursed man, and here he is blaspheming another man under the same curse.
Now, whether either man is hanging there justly, that is the point of the minor premise. We indeed are suffering justly, for we’re receiving what we deserve for what we’ve done. But this man has done nothing wrong. The word wrong is even broader than just moral right and wrong. He’s not speaking of just evil and righteousness here.
The word for wrong there is talking about what is fitting or unfitting. This man hasn’t even done anything that’s inappropriate. He hasn’t done anything unfitting. He’s done everything appropriate. Not only is he free from any moral guilt, you can’t find any blame in his public demeanor and how he’s acted and how he’s interacted. If you go where only God can go, you can’t even find anything wrong in his thought life. Not one sinful imagination, not one errant lust, nothing. This man has done nothing wrong.
Okay, so is that minor premise true? Without question. Absolutely, yes it is. I mean, as readers of this Gospel, we know for certain Jesus is innocent. Manifestly so. He was declared so by Pilate. We’ve already done the study to justify the conclusion that this man has done nothing wrong. Not only has he committed no sin, nor was any evil found in his mouth, but he’s done nothing unfitting and inappropriate.
He has been most appropriate, most fitting at every point. And at any point, if anyone judged him unfitting, they’re the ones in the wrong, as we’ve seen. What about the first part of the minor premise? Well, we know that to be true also because the repentant criminal, he adds his own testimony. It amounts to a personal confession. He says they’re both guilty for what they’ve done.
Let’s not mistake that. They’ve been sentenced, condemned and hang there together and it’s just. How do we know that? The unrepentant man accepts this. He says nothing, no response from the unrepentant criminal. That means the argument from the repentant silenced the unrepentant; the one silenced his friend. So we can consider the minor premise true as well. Therefore, when the unrepentant demands, “save us”, you know what he’s doing; he’s making a demand against justice.
Justice means he should get what his deeds deserve. That means save us on what basis? He ought to stay there, nailed to that cross. He ought to be crucified for his crimes against the state, and really, he’s hanging there as a curse for his sins against God. Even a just cause done in an unjust way, brings your sin against a holy God, who wants not only the end, but the means to conform to his righteousness.
In the end, the unrepentant man aggravated his guilt even further. Not only did he justify himself, save us without any repentance, without any confession of sin, without any acknowledgement of his guilt; save us, that’s unjust. But he’s gone even further, blaspheming Jesus. What has he done there? He’s condemned the just. This just man hangs there unjustly. Remember Proverbs 17:15. “He who justifies the wicked and he who condemns the righteous, both alike are an abomination to the Lord.”
On both counts, the unrepentant criminal just abominated himself before God. He’s aggravated his guilt and his sin. But we see the major premise is true, the minor premise true as well. Thus the conclusion is true. Valid syllogism, but also true argument justifying the conclusion. Do you not even fear God? It’s a rhetorical question, no answer required. Conclusion is clear and obvious, you do not fear God, so you should just keep your mouth shut.
Where did this repentant criminal get this logical moral clarity? Like a lot of guys at state penitentiary? Was studying all the law books, get himself off the hook? Some kind of philosophy theological professor before he got involved in this insurrection? No, not at all, because as I said, not one hour before he shared his own partner’s point of view. Both were casting insult at Jesus.
But now look at him, verse 42. Now look at him. Something’s happening, something’s changed. And now he’s saying, “Jesus, remember me when you come in your Kingdom.” Remember me, not even a hint of what the other said, “Save yourself and us.” Why not? Because he knows he’s getting exactly what he deserves. His punishment is just. He ought to hang there.
Our first sympathy is to Christ, to God, to his causes. Travis Allen
This man is not looking for temporal rescue; he’s seeking internal relationship. And that is the case for every true believer. Every true believer. It’s not about escaping circumstances, it’s not getting, about getting your best life now. It’s not about more money, the better job. It’s not about family, relationships, all working out. It’s about, I don’t care what happens in my life, to any of my circumstances, my health, my finances, I want Christ, it’s all I want.
Whatever happens to me, incidental, because if he knows me, I’m his forever. He’s not looking for temporal rescue; he’s seeking an eternal relationship. This man is clearly, here on the cross, become a believer. Whereas before he did not fear God, just like his friend, now he does. Whereas before he didn’t think he suffered justly, now he sees his sentence as just, right, fitting, totally appropriate. Whereas before he was politically oriented, concerned about matters of the state, now he’s theologically minded, vertically oriented. The only thing that matters to him is, what does God think? He makes no demands, comes with no expectations.
In humble sincerity, he just makes an appeal, purely on the basis of divine mercy: “Jesus, remember me.” Remember, meaning, Remember me for good. It’s an Old Testament expression. God, remember me, the song you can find in the Psalms, God Remember Me, Remember Me for good. Nehemiah said it as he led the people back from Persia, back into the land as a fulfillment of God’s restoration promises. Went back to the land and he had to deal with hard hearted, stubborn minded, sinful Israelites again.
And he had to lead through that, and he had to make hard decisions, and make hard calls, and every time he said, you can remember in Nehemiah, “God Remember Me for good.” I put it on the line. I believe you. I act according to what I believe. And even though everybody might turn against me and scorn me and put my head on a post because I’ve stood for you, all I want is that you, Remember Me for good. Call me to mind, he says, “Jesus, call me to mind and do so in a favorable way, not according to my deeds, but instead according to your royal mercy.” Be mindful of me. It’s all we want, isn’t it? It’s all we want.
Notice here what the man does not say according to every other voice, including his partner. They all tried to get Jesus to demonstrate his power to save by doing some amazing miracle to avoid the cross. Save yourself, escape the suffering, avoid the shame. You hear that? That’s the common theme running through all of their comments, all their, their insults.
Save yourself, escape the suffering, avoid the shame. You know who else spoke in that voice? That’s the same temptation the devil offered Jesus in the wilderness. No need to go through the suffering. Just bow down and worship me. Just a little head nod. Good enough. I’ll give you all the dominion or all the glory of the world and its kingdoms. No suffering, no cross, no humiliation, nothing but power and glory.
Religious, religious ruler said the same thing. Let him save himself, as this is the Christ of God. The soldier said, if you’re the king of the Jews, save yourself. The criminal said, save yourself and us. That’s the voice of their father, the devil. This man, no appeal to avoid the cross, no encouragement to come down off the cross. I mean, it’s impossible to know his mind exactly, but somehow this man intuited that Jesus needed to stay put and to endure the cross, despising the shame. And he also knew that this Jesus would conquer death and be able to save him and to have a mind to remember him.
Obviously, this man has changed radically, deeply, profoundly. He doesn’t know how it’s going to happen. He doesn’t even, he didn’t try to speculate, let alone dictate anything. He simply trusts in Jesus. Some suppose he comes to this point of faith because, he had previously in his life, in Jesus being very popular and known, people think that maybe it’s what he had heard about Jesus, what he’d heard of his teaching. It was seeds sown that came to fruition now and resulted in his salvation. And there may be some truth to that.
But even if he was tucked away in some hidden place until he burst forth with his partners to enact this, this insurrection, even if he heard nothing until this point, I think it’s enough to say that what he saw in Jesus and what he heard on the cross was enough. Not only the innocence and righteousness of Jesus, but also his mercy, praying to forgive his enemies. Who does that? That’s a royal bearing, that is a, a kingly dignity and form, crucified next to him.
Though, Jesus has both his hands spread out, nailed to the cross, his feet nailed beneath him. I mean, can you think of a more vulnerable position to be in and to be nailed up like that, spread out like that, without clothes? And yet somehow Jesus shows such power, such calm, he’s collected, at peace, in perfect control. Everybody here saw Jesus in exactly that way.
But of them all, this man read Pilate’s sign as a gospel tract. This man believed. This man put his trust in this Jesus as his savior and owned him as his king. What happened to this guy? He was born again, right there on the cross, right here. God granted him new life. What’s the evidence? He confessed with his mouth, believed in his heart. It’s not on the basis of any deeds he did in righteousness. His hands and feet were also nailed. Nothing to add, nothing to contribute. Shock of all shocks and wonder of all wonders, he wasn’t even baptized.
This man couldn’t have done anything. He’s pinned, but according to God’s mercy and by the washing of regeneration, Titus 3:5, “renewing by the Holy Spirit, whom God poured out on him richly through Jesus Christ his Savior.” This man was saved here. And so it is by divine grace through the instrumentality of faith in Jesus Christ, because of the regenerating power, the Holy Spirit, that God the Father justified this man.
God gave this man the blessed hope of eternal life in Christ. And thus in this trinitarian moment, all three members of the Trinity, the triune God at work here, the father answering the prayer of his beloved son that he had just prayed in verse 34, and the Spirit affecting salvation. This man saved. The father looked upon his son’s atoning work.
Jesus identifies with the sinner, substitutes himself, for his, for this sinner, even in the severe aggravation of his sins against God. Jesus stepped in, took this man’s place, and received, in his own body, the due penalty from God for this man’s sins. God looked upon his Jesus atoning work, accepted it, forgave this poor sinner, and declared him righteous in Christ.
And so Jesus, I got to think with a smile on his face, pleased that the father has so quickly answered his prayer, “Father, forgive them.” And in this case, yeah, I will. He says in verse 43, “Truly, I say to you, today you shall be with me in Paradise.” Truly, the word, amēn; solemn oath, pronouncement. And the emphasis again is on the relationship. It’s today with me. You said, remember me; okay, with me, not just in my mind, in my presence with me you shall be in paradise.
The man asked, “Jesus, remember me”, and I, I love it. This is the only one in the account who addresses Jesus by name. He speaks to him as a man to man. He sees in Jesus not a title. He sees in him a relationship, friend. When he asked Jesus, remember me for good, be mindful me, be mindful of me, Jesus went even further; he not only kept this man in his memory, he never took his mind off of him. In fact, he had his mind on him when he was first crucified and when he prayed.
The Savior would have this man’s fellowship and friendship from that moment and on into eternity. It’s a whole-sold-fellowship, that invests all of himself into all of this man. And this man, body and soul, will be with him forever. Temporarily, spirit separated from the body, but only for a time. He will await the reward of resurrection, which Jesus wins for all his people in three days time. But Jesus will have this man with him, not in three days time, but today, as in now, to be absent with the body is to be present with the Lord.
There is a mystery to the intermediate state, when the body and the spirit are separated. We don’t know exactly how that looks. I think we can look back at Enoch and Elijah. Enoch walked with God and was no more because God took him. He went there bodily. Elijah also transported by Chariots of fire into heaven, bodily. Elijah, along with Moses, came back to Jesus on the mountain of Transfiguration. They weren’t apparitions. They were there in body.
I don’t understand the mystery. I don’t know temporary bodies. I don’t know. The scripture doesn’t fully unpack that. We do know that the separation of the body and the spirit is a an abnormal state for a human being because to be human is to be body and spirit joined together, material and immaterial joined together. That’s how God created us and designed us.
And so this, really is, points to the penalty of death for sins that we are separated like that. That’s what death is ultimately, a separation; physical death, a separation of spirit from body; spiritual death, separation from God; eternal death, permanent separation from God. That’s what death is. But for this man, no death, no separation.
His body is going to die, be planted, but he will rise again along with all of us. But to be absent from the body for him is to be present with the Lord. Where? Where? Today they’ll be in paradise, paradeisos. It’s a Persian loanword, that means garden or park. You can think of like a Botanical Garden. Walking around there and seeing this groomed cultivated, beautiful, lots of money poured into that garden to make it beautiful, and alive, and thriving, and manicured, and cultivated, and beautiful. That’s the idea.
The picture here in that word, paradeisos. The Persian word was then pulled into the Hebrew and then used to refer back to the Garden of Eden and also pointed ahead to the paradise of God, Revelation 27. This is the place, the paradise of God, where Paul was transported by a vision, 2 Corinthians 12:4, the third heaven, the abode of God, the holy angels, all the saints. And now also, Jesus the Christ, and this man too, a forgiven sinner. He was once condemned, dead. Now he’s redeemed, very much alive, alive forevermore.
Paul said in Romans 10:9 and 10, “That if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you shall be saved.” Did this man do that? Clearly, he confessed with his mouth, Jesus, the word Jesus the name, as Lord. What’s he saying when he says, “Remember me when you come into your Kingdom.” Who’s over a Kingdom? A king. A king is a Lord. A Lord is a master.
He’s confessing Jesus as Lord by that confession right there. Clearly, he’s confessing here in the presence of all these people from a heart that believes, “for with the heart, man believes resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses resulting in salvation.” This man did that right? Confessed with his mouth, and he confessed when it was not easy. He confessed here against the tide of public opinion. He did so openly, vocally. He opposed popular, powerful people in Jerusalem.
He rebuked his friend. In rebuking his friend who was saying the same thing as they were. He rebuked everyone. His verbal confession was the true, sincere expression of his heart, which could not remain silent. He confessed Jesus before men. He did not deny him. And so he has the promise of Jesus that “whoever confesses me before men, I will confess before my Father in heaven and all the holy angels.”
You say, well, come on, wait a minute, he was dying. I mean, he had nothing to lose. Why not say that? And that’s just it, isn’t it? And we are so deceived, aren’t we, under the delusion that we’re living now when we’re actually dying, that we do have something to lose. We don’t. It’s a lie. Truth is, we’re all dying.
I don’t know about you. I mean, if I guess if you’re in your 30s and below, you don’t know what I’m talking about. But trust me, every day I wake up, I’m like, I am dying. Every time I look in the mirror, my wife says, you’re dying. We’re all dying. And the truth is we have nothing to lose.
This penitent criminal, he speaks for us. By the grace of God, he’s our brother. If we follow his pattern, if we confessed as he confessed, if we believe as he believed, if we want what he wanted, which is simply this, that our Lord would remember us, then he’s our brother, he’s our friend. Christ is our Savior. And this account for you, sinner, can be the most encouraging account in all of scripture. And today it can be your salvation. Let’s pray.
Our Father, thank you so much for your perfect plan. Jesus could have died on the cross for our sins, and nothing at all changed to the plan of redemption without having this conversation. And yet you were gracious to put this conversation before us. Luke being the only Gospel author to record it; we’re so grateful for the Gospel of Luke. We’re so grateful for our privilege that we have before us today to explore this and to consider that the pattern of this sinner, the way he came to you is the way we all come to you.
We don’t have anything to lose that’s not worth losing. The only thing we have to lose is you. If we don’t repent, if we don’t believe. In our father, we pray that if there are any here who don’t yet know you, that you would send your Spirit to provoke their hearts, cause them to reflect on their condition; help them to see that they too are dying, and they really have nothing to lose but everything to gain.
Pray for those who are here who do know you, who have repented and put their faith in Jesus Christ, who are like this penitent criminal who wanted nothing else except Christ. He is now defined not by his past sins, not by any failures, not by his errors, not by his mistakes, he’s defined by this confession of faith, this profession of truth and trust. A bold confidence, though he’s there, vulnerable, hanging, nailed to a cross. And yet he has moral conviction and strong rebuke for all who would condemn Christ. That’s our brother. That’s our friend.
I pray that you would embolden every believer here. Help us to confess you before men. Help us to do that when it’s unpopular, when it costs us. Help us not to shy away. Instead, help us to proclaim the glory of your gospel. Father, help us to hold up that placard, “This is Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews.” Help us to point everybody to him, because he is worthy and glorious, majestic and holy, and apart from him there is no salvation. We love You, father, and ask that you would bless every soul here. Those who don’t know you, that you will bring them to salvation; those who do, let them be encouraged and confident and bold and strong in this gospel. Amen.