A Thief's Request and Jesus' Response from the Cross

In Luke's account of the crucifixion he tells us about a conversation Jesus has with a thief on a cross beside him. In response to a particular request from the thief, Jesus promised him a wonderful assurance of salvation and eternal life. 

In this article I want to focus on the request of the thief and the response of Jesus, as well as possible implications for both which you may not have considered. And both are from my ever deepening understanding of Scripture emerging from an ever growing awareness of the depth of the dynamics of honour and shame in Scripture.

The Request: 'Remember me'

So why is a thief asking Jesus to remember him?

Discipling others is good ground for growing in our own faith, especially when those we are discipling ask interesting questions we may not have thought deeply about before. I was recently asked about how we know the thief on the cross beside Jesus (Luke 23:42) was really looking to Jesus for salvation from what he said, because if he is just asking Jesus to 'remember him', isn't that just a kind of hope that Jesus will have a memory of him? 

But we have to ask ourselves about what is going on in our hearts when we want someone to remember us? Maybe to help us recognise the realities of these words, we need to ask ourselves how we feel if we are not remembered—when we are forgotten or ignored?…and thus what this thief's request might really mean. He is not merely asking that Jesus have some pleasant feint past recollection of him.

Most commentators and preachers I have encountered, have spoken about the thief's request and Jesus' response in relation to either how he shows that we can't 'do' anything to earn our salvation, because the thief had no time to 'do' anything because he almost immediately died, or how that we don't even need to be baptised to secure our salvation, or even that its never too late to repent. Yet, this thief on the cross beside Jesus maybe has some more things to teach us.

When we think about what the thief said, we need to be alert to the context in which he said it.

The main context for his request is obvious - this guy is hanging on a cross in agony, about to die for punishment for his sins! 

But what does hanging on a cross mean? 

That might not be quite so obvious to a person in the 21st century.

A crucifixion death was not like a quiet back room electric chair death, or a back of a prison-yard firing squad, or even like in Botswana - a private prison hanging. This was a very prolonged and very public execution, of ultimate shame, rejection, mockery and scorn, before the eyes of all the passers by. It had multiple relational and psychological elements embedded in it, in addition to the physical pain we think about:

Outside the city = rejection from citizenship and excluded from belonging

Naked = totally shamed and exposed to the greatest degree

All Public = everyone to see as they pass by and stand and stare 

Mocked = insulted, ridiculed, shamed by everyone from leaders to children

No way to hide = stretched out and nailed to a cross

Family suffering = not only were the family not able to give a proper burial and grieve in the usual ways, but the whole family would be shamed by the shame of the criminal, and thus the criminal would be usually there to die alone with no-one wanting to be seen as 'with' them and have shame by association.

Long, slow death = not only painful but prolonged shaming

No burial, body to be thrown on the continually burning rubbish heap = not worthy of a burial, thus seen as less worth than a regular normal person and even not worthy of being considered as having human value, excluded from basic care of the body in death, and ultimately never remembered by future generations.

This criminal was in a place lower than the lowest, being crucified made him a nothing, a nobody, to be seen as shamed and no more than a lump of rubbish and never remembered in the future.

So when he says to Jesus 'remember me', he is seeking a recognition, status, and honour, that he doesn't have, and that he knows he doesn't deserve. We see this when on the cross he rebukes the other thief who had tried to join the mockers of Jesus. That mockery by the other thief toward Jesus (who was the one being despised the most by the crowd), may have served to elevate himself in his own mind, at least above Jesus who was the most mocked one of the three of them, but the 'remember me' thief realised he had no right to mock Jesus. In fact he had earlier referenced the fact that ultimately he and the other thief were in judgement before God and should have shown some right fear of God. 

However, what else is he really saying when he says 'remember me'?

The word in Greek that is translated into English as 'remember' comes from a word μνάομαι (mnaomai, 3415 Strongs) meaning to recall, remember or be mindful of, and is noted on Biblehub in the Lexical Summary as not only meaning to 'bear in mind' but also it says: '(by implication) to reward or punish'. He was already in the midst of punishment, but is now asking Jesus for something beyond his present situation and what he knows he deserves. 

This 'remember me' thief did something different from the other thief. He:

acknowledged his sin = owned his shame and deserved punishment not just before man but before God

acknowledged God = by admitting the need to fear God

acknowledged Jesus as the holy one and true Messiah King = when he spoke of Jesus' coming 'Kingdom'

This thief is seeking the honour of the opposite of what he was enduring and what he knew he deserved, and seeking honour from the one the world was shaming even more than him. He is seeking favour from the one who he knew was the only one who mattered, the only one who could rescue him from eternal shame condemnation, of which his earthly experience was only a minuscule taste in comparison. He is seeking divine grace, which gives hope of undeserved reward in place of punishment.

I found a few commentators on Biblehub who did hint just a little further at some of these honour and favour contexts:

'remember me'

Barnes' notes on Biblehub says:

Remember me - This is a phrase praying for favor, or asking him to grant him an "interest" in his kingdom, or to acknowledge him as one of his followers. It implied that he believed that Jesus was what he claimed to be - the Messiah; that, though he was dying with them, yet he would set up his kingdom; and that he had full power to bless him, though about to expire.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible on Biblehub

And he said unto Jesus, Lord,.... Acknowledging him to be the Messiah, the King of kings, and Lord of lords; the Lord of all, and especially of his church and people, and his own Lord. ... he desired he might be remembered by him, have favour shown him, and he share in the glories and happiness of it. This was great faith indeed to be exercised on Christ at such a time as this, when he was under the greatest reproach and ignominy; while he was insulted and derided by all sorts of people; and when he was forsaken by his own apostles, and was suffering a shameful punishment, and now dying.

from Biblehub

• "It is a plea for gracious inclusion, not for earthly rescue. The thief seeks mercy beyond death (Psalm 106:4; 2 Timothy 1:12)."

But what kind of mercy does the thief seek? - the mercy of honour in the place of shame

Jesus' disciples (apart from John) had all apparently totally deserted him and didn't want to be publicly associated with him, yet this thief knew that his only hope was seeking to be publicly aligned with Jesus, the one almost everyone else was mocking.

The thief's request to Jesus is what he knows he needs most of all.

Jesus had warned in Matthew 7:23 that a time of judgement would come when some would hear —to their shock—God say the words to them: "depart from me I never knew you".

The Old Testament is filled with God warning his people that if they didn't turn from their sin that they would suffer punishment that included having all memory of them eliminated. 

They feared the shame of being a 'nobody' and having no ongoing name that would be well remembered among the people. So God would warn them if they didn't fear and obey him, they would suffer the consequence and condemnation of being 'cut off'; of having no descendants to remember them because of infertility; of their cities being reduced to rubble, dust, and ashes with no memory of their prior existence; of not being remembered. 

But the issue that was even more important than whether or not other people or nations remembered them, was—as Jesus reminded them—would God remember them on judgement day when he decided where people would go for eternity?

To be remembered by a person desiring to be with you and welcome you and love you, is to have received the honour of being valued, wanted, accepted, noticed, approved, and of worth to be remembered. If someone remembers your birthday or even your name after only meeting you once or your children's names, you feel like you are important to them.

To be remembered by Jesus the King as belonging to Him, 

is to be given the hope of honour 

instead of the sentence of shame. 

This is the assurance he wanted. 

And this is the core of what each of us longs for. 

The cross that paid for our sin, paid for it not as that being the ultimate purpose, but because it enabled the gift of grace that was the means of reconciliation to bring peace between us and God with whom we are otherwise at enmity, and thus gives us the restored honour of eternal welcome and belonging back in relationship with God through Christ with a place in His Kingdom forever. 

To gain this, though, we have to be willing like the thief to acknowledge the shame of our sin, our shameful state, and justified shameful condemnation, and put all our trust and hope in Jesus, by aligning—and publicly expressing and demonstrating our allegiance—to the one the world rejects but God accepts, and in whom we can be favoured with, and 'remembered' for, eternal kingdom honour we don't deserve.

This leads us to:

The Response of Jesus, and its Implication: 

A Repentant Thief is 

Unbaptised but Assured,

 

because the issue is 

Allegiance not Ritual.

The thief maybe received the most certain assurance of salvation of anyone recorded. At the point of death, he was personally assured by words spoken by Jesus himself, that he would be 'remembered' for reward together with Jesus in Paradise that very day!…yet he was not baptised.

Some Churches teach that unless you have been baptised you aren't yet 'fully' saved. It is a doctrine called 'Baptismal Regeneration'. It is based on verses such as Acts 2:38 that says:

 'And Peter said to them, "Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.' 

This might appear at first to say that unless you have both repented and been baptised you don't have your sins forgiven or the Holy Spirit's presence in your life.

However, as many have said, the thief on the cross beside Jesus was not baptised but had unquestionable divine assurance of eternal life.

The answer I would suggest is another of the many aspects of Biblical truth that I have come to have resolved and clarified by coming to an awareness and growing understanding of the honour context of Scripture and the gospel story of glory…and in this regard, how it relates to Baptism.

To gain the wider picture of this, we have to realise that Baptism isn't only a 'Christian' procedure. (see more about this here) We see it first in New Testament with John the Baptist baptising before Jesus was even revealed publicly to be the Christ. But if we do some more research the ritual or process of baptism come even earlier in the Jewish culture as a purification process in order to be identified as a Jew, alongside other rituals we are more familiar with such as circumcision. 

It was a public identity declaration. When John the Baptist was baptising, it wasn't in a private courtyard pool or baptismal pool in a building, it was out in public in the river. If a person chose allegiance to his message, it was a public allegiance for all to see, for any to mock, to all to keep you to account.

Baptism isn't meant to be a private ceremony, and maybe not even a ceremony only before Christians. It is meant to be public in which you are willing to forgo any popularity or acceptance with the world who looks on, and let it be publicly seen that your allegiance is to Christ in his death, burial and resurrection, even if others mock and scorn or persecute.

SO

While the thief on the cross beside Jesus wasn't immersed in the river or other deep enough pool of water, the purpose of a public baptism—that of publicly demonstrated allegiance to Christ and thus a willingness to endure public shame (loss of honour), for the gain of a greater gift of eternal honour in Christ's Kingdom—was what the thief demonstrated, and he demonstrated it publicly. 

You see, its not the ritual that saves, but the truth reality which the ritual represents. Baptism is simply the symbolic external testimony of the salvation that is a matter of the heart internally. God sees the heart, but God also knows we see people and people see us and what is truly happening in the heart will emerge in the behaviour. It is an outward declaration of the inner new alignment to Christ, new identification with Christ, new identity in Christ. (He also knows that an external act alone doesn't save without the internal heart allegiance change).

This is why there is need for both repentance and baptism. It is not because baptism saves, but that baptism externally demonstrates the internal change of allegiance mind-set. It is the same principle of 'believe in your heart' and 'confess with your mouth' (Romans 10:9)—one is the outward testimony of the inward reality. To publicly give allegiance especially in the face of earthly public shaming, is showing to whom you are going to give your ultimate honour—who you are going to hear, obey, submit to, seek to please and find approval, respect, value, etc. Baptism is commanded  (Matthew 28:19-20) but Peter preaches on another occasion about repentance and doesn't mention baptism (Acts3:11-26). The purpose of baptism is beyond a ritual.

The thief did the same thing that baptism demonstrates 

- he publicly declared his changed allegiance, 

even in face of further public shame in aligning with the One who was mocked and shamed. 

He let it be known to whom he would give his honour, despite public shame for doing so.

When Jesus tells the thief that the same day they would be together in Paradise, we have assurance that what was embedded in the thief's request was all that was necessary for guaranteed salvation. We also have the reminder that as the thief gave Jesus the ultimate honour, Jesus responded with assurance of the ultimate honour to receive—that of being known and remembered by the greatest King, Jesus Christ, forever in His Kingdom.

The thief's testimony teaches us both that the only honour worth seeking is that which is found in Christ and through Christ, AND that however shameful a life we have lived on earth, there is sure hope of restored honour to be found in Jesus, when we are willing to acknowledge our spiritual shame before God, endure shame on this earth for his name, putting our allegiance onto Christ alone as the ultimate King so as to be brought into his honour with him for all eternity. 

May we never forget this…and courageously share it!