Dismas-and-Gestas
Short answer: Luke 23:39-43 records two criminals crucified on either side of Jesus. One joins the crowd in mocking him. The other rebukes his companion, confesses that they are receiving what their deeds deserve while Jesus has done nothing wrong, and asks Jesus to remember him when he comes into his kingdom. Jesus answers with a promise given that same day: the man will be with him in paradise. Scripture never calls the two men Dismas and Gestas; those names come from later Christian tradition and are not in the biblical text. The passage does not explain how a deathbed confession works, nor does it set aside the rest of the New Testament's teaching on repentance, faith, and the church. It shows a condemned man taking hold of a dying king, and a king answering him before either of them draws another breath.
Two criminals, one crucifixion scene
All four Gospels mention that Jesus was crucified between two criminals. Luke gives the most detail, but he is not the only witness. Matthew writes that two robbers were crucified with him, one on his right hand and one on the left, as Matthew 27:38 reports. Mark says essentially the same thing, that with him they crucified two robbers, one on his right hand, and one on his left, as Mark 15:27 puts it. John places the whole scene outside the city at a place he identifies carefully.
The shared detail matters. Luke is not telling a private story that only he knew. He is giving the inside of a scene the other evangelists also record from the outside. All of them agree on the basic facts: two men, both criminals, both crucified, one on each side of Jesus. That is the ground floor of the account. Everything else in this article builds on what the text actually says rather than on what later tradition added to it.
Luke also tells us the men were led with Jesus to be put to death, as Luke 23:32 states. They are not volunteers or bystanders. They are condemned men under Roman sentence, sharing the same method of execution as Jesus, at the same time, in the same place. Luke's Gospel has already shown a consistent interest in outsiders and sinners, and this scene is one of its sharpest examples.
Why the traditional names Dismas and Gestas are not in the Bible
The two men have been called Dismas and Gestas for many centuries, but those names do not appear anywhere in Scripture. Luke calls them simply the criminals, and Matthew and Mark call them robbers. The names come from later Christian tradition, preserved in apocryphal writings and devotional retellings, and they eventually became common in preaching, art, and even in some calendars of saints. A reader who has heard the names all their life can easily assume they are biblical.
This is worth stating plainly because the topic is often taught as if the Bible named them. It did not. Luke does not give the penitent thief a name, and neither does any other Gospel writer. The silence is not an accident or an oversight. The Holy Spirit saw fit to leave the men anonymous, and the effect is instructive: the repentant criminal is identified by his response to Jesus, not by a label. Anyone can see themselves in him.
Nothing is wrong with Christians using the traditional names in preaching, art, or conversation, as long as they are honest that the names are tradition and not Scripture. The danger is subtler: once you name a man, you begin to imagine his backstory, and imagination quietly becomes the teacher. The safer path is to stay with the text. Call them what the Bible calls them, one of the criminals who was hanged and the other, and let the text shape the lesson.
The first criminal's mockery echoes the crowd
Luke records the first criminal's words directly: one of the criminals who was hanged insulted him, saying, If you are the Christ, save yourself and us, as Luke 23:39 reports. Notice what the man does not do. He does not ask for mercy. He does not confess anything. He tries to use Jesus. His demand is the same taunt the rulers, the soldiers, and the crowd have already thrown at the cross, and he is joining in with them from his own cross.
The mockery is religious in form. It appeals to the title Christ, the promised deliverer, and it dares Jesus to prove the title by escaping the nails. The logic is simple and terrible: if you are who you claim, get down, and take us with you. It treats Jesus as a resource to be spent rather than a Lord to be trusted. The man is dying and still trying to manage the situation, still bargaining, still demanding a sign.
Matthew and Mark tell us that those crucified with him also reproached him, so the mockery was not only from one criminal at one moment. The first thief is not a uniquely wicked man. He is a picture of what unbelief looks like when it is finally cornered: it does not repent, it demands. Luke's account lets us hear that demand in its own words, and it lets us hear the other man answer it.
The second criminal's rebuke and the fear of God
The second criminal does the opposite of joining in. Luke says he rebuked the other man and asked, Do you not even fear God, seeing you are under the same condemnation? That question is the hinge of the whole scene. He is not pretending to be better than his companion. He knows they are both under the same sentence, and that is exactly why he speaks. The fear of God, not self-righteousness, has taken hold of him.
He goes on to say that they are receiving what their deeds deserve, but that this man has done nothing wrong. That is a remarkable confession from a condemned criminal. He agrees with the justice of his own sentence. He also defends the innocence of Jesus at the exact moment when nearly everyone else is treating Jesus as a fraud or a failure. The dying man is not confused about who deserves what.
Luke has already shown that the centurion at the cross would glorify God and say that this man was righteous. Here, before that, one of the condemned says something similar. The scene is a study in contrast. One thief mocks with the crowd, and one thief fears God alone. The difference between them is not their crimes, their sentence, or their pain; it is what they do with Jesus while there is still time.
Remember me when you come into your kingdom
The second criminal's request is short and specific. He asks Jesus to remember him when he comes into his kingdom. He does not ask to be taken down from the cross. He does not ask for a place of honor or a date for the kingdom. He asks to be remembered. That request assumes two things that almost no one else at the cross was willing to assume: that Jesus is a king, and that Jesus has a future beyond his death.
This is faith in a very unusual form. There is no evidence of a long process of instruction. There is no public confession formula. There is no baptism, no church, no good works, no chance to make restitution to anyone he wronged. There is a dying man asking a dying man to remember him. Everything visible says that Jesus is finished. The thief asks anyway, and he asks as one who believes the kingdom is still coming.
The request is also humble. He does not demand a throne. He asks for remembrance, the least a king could grant, and he leaves the form of it to Jesus. That is the shape of genuine repentance in this scene: an honest assessment of one's own guilt, a clear-eyed recognition of who Jesus is, and a request that throws itself on the mercy of the one being mocked by everyone else.
Today you will be with me in paradise
Jesus' answer is immediate and unconditional. He tells the man, today you will be with me in paradise, as Luke 23:43 records it. The word today matters. There is no waiting period, no purgatorial interval, no probation. The promise is tied to the same day on which both men are dying. The man who asked to be remembered in a future kingdom is told that he will be with Jesus that very day, in paradise.
With me is the heart of the promise. The thief does not merely receive a location; he receives a companion. Paradise in Scripture carries the sense of God's own blessed presence, the restored garden, the place of rest and fellowship with God. Jesus promises that the man will be there, and that he will be there with Jesus. For a criminal dying under Roman sentence, far from home and from any honorable burial, that is a staggering answer.
The timing also reveals something about Jesus' own confidence. He is hours from death, and he speaks of being in paradise that day. He does not say that he will remember the man someday. He speaks as the king who is about to enter his reign, and he gives the firstfruits of that reign to a condemned man at his side. The promise is not conditioned on the thief's remaining lifespan, because there is none left to speak of.
What this passage does and does not teach
The passage does teach that a person can be saved at the end of life, without the ordinary opportunities that most people have. The thief had no time to do good works, to be baptized, to join a church, or to repair the damage of his past. He had faith in Jesus, expressed in a confession and a request, and Jesus received him. This is a genuine comfort to anyone who fears that they have come to Christ too late.
The passage does not teach that repentance can be safely postponed or that a deathbed faith is somehow the easy path. The thief was saved while he was still a condemned man on a cross. Nothing in the text suggests he could have waited longer; he had no longer to wait. To use his story as an excuse for deliberate delay is to mistake the exception for the rule. The Bible never encourages anyone to presume on a future moment that may not arrive.
The passage also does not establish the details that later tradition attached to it. It does not name the men, describe their past crimes, or tell us what happened to the first thief after his death. Faithful Christians differ on how to connect this scene with the rest of Scripture's teaching on repentance and faith, and those differences should be handled with honesty. What the text gives is clear enough: a mocking man, a repentant man, and a Savior who answers before the day is out.
Biblical fidelity check
What Luke 23:39-43 establishes is straightforward. Two criminals were crucified with Jesus. One insulted him, joining the crowd's mockery. The other rebuked his companion, acknowledged his own guilt, affirmed that Jesus had done nothing wrong, and asked Jesus to remember him in his kingdom. Jesus promised that the man would be with him in paradise that same day. Those are the facts the text gives, and they are sufficient for the pastoral point the passage is making: Jesus receives a repentant sinner at the hour of death.
The text does not establish several things that are commonly read into it. It does not give the men names; Dismas and Gestas are later tradition. It does not describe the thief's former life, his family, or the crimes that brought him to the cross. It does not say he was baptized, and it does not say that baptism is therefore unnecessary for anyone else, since the ordinary pattern of Christian life in the New Testament includes it. A common misreading treats this scene as permission to postpone repentance until the end, reasoning that the thief waited until his last hour and was still saved. That is wrong because it reads a unique and unrepeatable situation as a normal pattern, and because it assumes a future that no one is promised. The text comforts the dying; it does not counsel the living to wait.
Other passages that speak to Luke 23:39-43
The themes in this scene are not isolated. The Gospel's insistence that a person can be cleansed from real guilt runs through texts like 1 John 1:9 Meaning: Confession, Forgiveness, and Cleansing, where confession and forgiveness are tied together. The reality of sin that makes forgiveness necessary is addressed in What Does 1 John 1:8 Mean? Context, Theology, and Application, which will not let us pretend we have no sin. The testimony about the word of life, which the criminal grasped even as Jesus died, is treated in What Does 1 John 1:1 Mean? Context, Theology, and Application. And the deeper question of what we love and trust, which the two thieves answer differently, is explored in What Does 1 John 2:15 Mean? Context, Theology, and Application. Read together, these passages show that the mercy shown at Golgotha is consistent with the whole apostolic message.
Frequently asked questions
Who were Dismas and Gestas in the Bible?
They are the traditional names given to the two criminals crucified with Jesus, but neither name appears in Scripture. Luke calls them the criminals, and Matthew and Mark call them robbers. The names Dismas and Gestas come from later Christian tradition and apocryphal writings, not from the biblical text. Using the names is not sinful, but teachers should be clear that they are tradition, because many people assume the Bible names the men. The text identifies them only by their response to Jesus: one mocked, and one repented.
Was the thief on the cross saved without baptism?
The text does not mention baptism in this scene, and the man had no opportunity for it because he was dying. His salvation rested on the mercy and promise of Jesus, who told him he would be with him in paradise that day. This shows that salvation is grounded in Christ, not in any ritual performed by the believer. It does not cancel the New Testament's ordinary pattern, in which believers are baptized, since this was a unique deathbed situation that cannot be repeated as a rule for others.
What does today you will be with me in paradise mean?
It means that Jesus promised the repentant criminal immediate fellowship with himself in the place of God's blessed presence. The promise was fulfilled on the same day, not after a long delay. The emphasis falls on being with Jesus, not merely on a location. Paradise in Scripture evokes the restored garden and the presence of God, where his people rest and rejoice. For a condemned man dying beside a condemned Savior, the promise was both instant and personal, and Jesus gave it without conditions beyond the man's plea.
