The Bible Book

266

REMEMBER ME

WHEN YOU COME

INTO YOUR KINGDOM

LUKE 23:42, THE REPENTANT THIEF

IN BRIEF

PA S SAGE

Luke 23:39–43

THEME

It is never too late

for salvation

SETTING

c. 29 ce Golgotha, a hill

outside the walls of Jerusalem,

during Jesus’s crucifixion.

KEY FIGURES

Jesus The Messiah and Son

of God, who is crucified by

the Roman authorities in place

of the criminal, Barabbas.

The repentant thief The

criminal to Jesus’s right:

although unnamed in the

Gospels, later Christian

tradition calls him “Dismas”

or “Demas.”

The unrepentant thief

A fellow revolutionary who

taunts Jesus; later tradition

named him “Gestas.”

As Jesus hangs on the cross, the

crowds taunt Him and tell Him to

come down if He really is God’s

chosen king. The criminal on

Jesus’s left joins in: “Aren’t you the

Messiah?” he asks. “Save yourself

and us!” (Luke 23:39). As far as the

thief is concerned, Jesus cannot

be the savior if He is unable to put

an end to their suffering.

The thief calls out

However, the second condemned

man realizes Jesus really is the

savior. He sees now that the violent

attempts of Barabbas and his

comrades to resist Roman

occupation had been misguided,

and that God desires something far

deeper than political nationalism: a

kingdom of people who follow Him

through humility and service.

Calling over to the first man, the

repentant thief tells him to stop

mocking Jesus: while the two of

them are hanging on their crosses

for real offenses, Jesus—despite

dying in the place of a criminal—

J

esus is crucified between

two criminals on the hill of

Golgotha, overlooking one

of the roads into Jerusalem. The

two men on either side of Him are

“robbers” (Matthew 27:38) who

may well have been comrades

of Barabbas, a resistance fighter

against Roman occupation of

Judea. Jesus, who is Himself

being crucified on the charge of

rebellion, has taken Barabbas’s

place in execution, and occupies

the central of the three crosses.

The penitent thief’s soul is carried

into paradise by angels in James

Tissot’s 1897 illustration. Tissot aimed

to portray the people and setting of the

Gospels as faithfully as possible.

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267

See also: The Divinity of Jesus 190–93 ■ The Crucifixion 258–65 ■ Salvation Through Faith 301 ■

The Power of the Resurrection 304

THE GOSPELS

“has done nothing wrong” (23:41).

The thief then asks Jesus to

“remember me when You come

into Your kingdom” (23:42). The

Jewish faith had long spoken about

a kingdom beyond death, in which

God’s faithful people would enjoy

everlasting life. This, he realizes,

is the kingdom of which Jesus is

king. Jesus replies with assurance:

“Truly I tell you, today you will be

with me in paradise” (23:43).

Deathbed salvation

The repentant thief illustrates a

vital aspect of the Christian faith.

Acceptance into God’s kingdom

is not dependent upon good works

or a blameless life, since the thief

clearly had no time to amend his

ways. Instead, Jesus freely gives

places in His kingdom to those who

recognize that He is their only hope.

Jesus’s promise to the thief, just

moments before his death, is also

part of the rationale for the later

practice of deathbed confession

and absolution, or last rites. In this,

a dying person is given assurance

in their final moments that their

sins have been forgiven by God;

it is never too late to repent. ■

Dressed as a Roman soldier,

a man carries a replica of a Roman

whip in a Good Friday procession

in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico.

Crime and punishment in the time of Jesus

Like any society, Jesus’s world

had a complex system of law

and punishments. In Jewish

law, the practice of reparation—

giving back what was taken

with interest—was typical.

Stoning to death was the form

of capital punishment favored by

the Jews for serious offenses.

However, the Romans—the

occupying overlords—routinely

used crucifixion to execute

criminals who were not Roman

citizens, especially those who

resisted their authority or slaves

found guilty of wrongdoing.

Crucifixion was a humiliating

death, in which the victim was

stripped, flogged, and then

nailed to a horizontal beam of

wood through the wrists, and an

upright beam through the ankles.

Jews detested it because of one

of their laws, which said “anyone

... hung on a pole is under God’s

curse” (Deuteronomy 21:23).

Jesus forgives many types of sins

The sinful

woman

“Her many sins have

been forgiven ... whoever

has been forgiven

little loves little.”

Luke 7:47

The repentant thief

“Truly I tell you, today

you will be with me

in paradise.”

Luke 23:43

The tax collector

“Today salvation

has come to this

house, because this

man, too, is a

son of Abraham.”

Luke 19:9

Romans and Jews

at His crucifixion

“Father, forgive them, for

they do not know what

they are doing.”

Luke 23:34

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