Luke 23:32-43 - The Thief: "Jesus, I want you to know/remember me."
Notes
Transcript
32 Two others, who were criminals, were led away to be put to death with him. 33 And when they came to the place that is called The Skull, there they crucified him, and the criminals, one on his right and one on his left. 34 And Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” And they cast lots to divide his garments. 35 And the people stood by, watching, but the rulers scoffed at him, saying, “He saved others; let him save himself, if he is the Christ of God, his Chosen One!” 36 The soldiers also mocked him, coming up and offering him sour wine 37 and saying, “If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself!” 38 There was also an inscription over him, “This is the King of the Jews.” 39 One of the criminals who were hanged railed at him, saying, “Are you not the Christ? Save yourself and us!” 40 But the other rebuked him, saying, “Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? 41 And we indeed justly, for we are receiving the due reward of our deeds; but this man has done nothing wrong.” 42 And he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” 43 And he said to him, “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise.”
Jesus has been betrayed by Judas, denied by Peter, left by his disciples, tried by the Pharisees, and condemned by Pilate.
Now Jesus is being led away for the sentence to be carried out.
Jesus had been condemned to die by crucifixion
All for being who He was—The Son of God, who come to save His people from their sin.
We often miss the weight of what Jesus took on to save us.
We take Jesus for granted in so many ways.
He was condemned to die for our sins.
He took your sin and my sin to the cross.
So what? I’ll tell you so what.
Crucifixion is the method of execution in which a person is nailed to a wooden post, a tree, or a cross and left to die.
It was a form of punishment practiced by the Roman Empire.
There were many ways for criminals to be humiliated before all the people
Crucifixion was the reserved for the worst of the worst.
Crucifixion made a statement.
Crucifixion was the most embarrassing sentence anyone could experience.
Crucifixion was used for torture.
It was the most gruesome, gut-turning, inhumane kind of torture.
Victims would often undergo pre-crucifixion torture, which Jesus did.
The Bible tells us that Jesus was flogged
He was beaten with rods, whips, and the cat of 9 tails.
They tore his body to shreds.
After they finished beating Him, He was unrecognizable.
Then to conclude the pre-crucifixion festivities, they would make you carry the cross or the center beam of the cross through a massive crowd of people showing them what was about to happen.
When they reached their destination, in Jesus’s case “The Skull” or you might have heard it called “Calvary” or “Golgotha”, they would be nailed to the cross and lifted high into the air for all around to see.
It was the most shameful way to be executed.
Now, hanging from the earth, wasting away in pain, and watching the blood flow out of His body, Jesus begins to pray for the people executing Him (v. 34)
“Father, forgive them.”
Jesus did nothing to deserve this torture.
We deserved this because of our sins against God.
We deserved to take every bit of God’s wrath.
Jesus was crucified for what we did wrong.
Even while undergoing this pain and agony, Jesus is still praying for us and His executioners.
The Bible said this was going to happen long before Jesus was even born.
Isaiah wrote about Jesus being crucified hundreds of years before Jesus was born.
Isaiah 53:11-12 “11 Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied; by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities. 12 Therefore I will divide him a portion with the many, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong, because he poured out his soul to death and was numbered with the transgressors; yet he bore the sin of many, and makes intercession for the transgressors.”
Because Jesus died, He made many to be accounted righteous
That means that God doesn’t look at us as guilty sinners anymore.
He took our sin from us and gave us His love and righteousness.
This means that we get to be with God again!
We don’t have to go to hell because Jesus took our punishment!
The soldiers mocked Jesus before and during His execution
They beat Him and spit on Him during the torture, then they ripped His clothes off Him and tore them then played a gambling game for them (v. 34)
The Bible said they would do that. Psalm 22:18.
The whole Old Testament leads up to this moment.
Jesus’s death to atone for our sin.
We see a couple of conversations take place during Jesus’s crucifixion.
The Pharisees
They are the one’s that lied to the governor about Jesus and had Him condemned to die.
They thought Jesus was a liar about being the Son of God and called blasphemy on Him.
Luke 23:35-38 “35 And the people stood by, watching, but the rulers scoffed at him, saying, “He saved others; let him save himself, if he is the Christ of God, his Chosen One!” 36 The soldiers also mocked him, coming up and offering him sour wine 37 and saying, “If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself!” 38 There was also an inscription over him, “This is the King of the Jews.””
The soldiers joined in laughing and mocking Jesus
“If you can save anyone, save yourself!”
Then they gave Him sour wine to drink, The Bible said they’d do that too. Hundreds of years before Jesus was born in Psalm 69:21.
There’s two other conversations, I want to spend the rest of our time focused on.
One criminal joined in with the soldiers and Pharisees, making fun of Jesus (v. 39)
This man was a thief, murderer, perhaps worse crimes.
He deserved to be on the cross for the things he had done.
Jesus wasn’t and the other thief recognized this. (v. 40-41).
“Yo, you and I deserve to be here! We’ve earned this! We got what was coming to us.”
But He recognizes Jesus has done nothing wrong.
This is interesting, because Matthew wrote that both robbers with insulting Him.
What did it for this thief?
What was it that turned the heart of this dying thief toward Jesus?
Something had to happen in order for him to go from insulting Jesus from the cross to defending him.
I’m sure no one preached a sermon to him at the foot of his cross.
No one gathered around his cross to pray for his salvation.
No one came and invited Him to trust in Jesus.
Yet something had to happen in order for this man to believe that Jesus is our Savior!
Maybe it was just the sight of Jesus.
He saw Jesus walking on the road to be crucified.
That criminal had been mixed in with the worst of society, but he had never seen a man like Jesus.
The thief likely heard the women weeping for Jesus, and wondered to himself “I wonder if anyone would ever weep for me.”
He saw Jesus being nailed to the cross in with hammers.
Jesus didn’t reply like anyone else.
The thief likely cussed at the soldier who nailed him to the tree, but not Jesus.
Jesus prayed for His murders.
He prayed such a loving, forgiving, Godlike prayer.
Who else would do that?
He saw the sign that hung above Jesus’s head (v. 38)
Could this be Him? The Savior we’ve been waiting for?
I mean, everyone else said “He saved others!” (v. 35)
The thief might have thought, “He saved others? Why couldn’t He save me?”
I think that could have been enough of the gospel to draw him to Jesus!
Perhaps, all this thief needed to see was Jesus hanging on the cross.
God called this man to Himself by seeing Jesus hanging on the cross.
Perhaps he understood what Paul would go onto write in Romans 5:8 “8 but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
The thief was hanging there, still a sinner and Jesus was dying there, still the Son of God!
Regardless of what it was that led this thief to saving faith, we can be assured that he was saved by Jesus.
Look at one of Jesus’s final conversations before He died.
The thief addresses Jesus (v. 42)
He didn’t ask Jesus to let him in.
He didn’t ask Jesus into his heart.
He simply asked Jesus to remember him once Jesus was in His Kingdom.
Jesus gives him one of the most welcoming verses in all the Bible.
These two are suffering together, dying the most shameful death.
This man asks Jesus to remember him and Jesus said, “You will be with me today in paradise.”
Earlier that morning, that man was going to hell.
He woke up that morning, not saved.
He died that night and is currently spending eternity with Jesus.
That must have been an amazing conversation once he got to heaven. Allistair Begg said,
I can’t wait to get to heaven and ask “how did that work out for you?!”
You’d never been in a Bible study, never been baptized, didn’t know a thing about church membership and yet, you made it!
That’s what the angel must have said!
Angel: “What are you doing here?” “I don’t know!” “What do you mean you don’t know?!”
Let me get my supervisor
“Just a few questions for you. Are you clear on the doctrine of justification by faith? Never heard of it.”
Do you know anything about the Bible?” “Nope.”
On what basis are you here?
“The man on the middle cross said I can come.”
You and I need to have this same conversation with Jesus.
Jesus, I want to be where you are with you.
Jesus, save me too. I want the faith the thief had.
I believe you are the Son of God, come to save me from my sin. I believe you died so that I can be forgiven. I know you can save me too!
If you’re here and you’re not a Christian, you can be!