Luke 23:32-49: What Jesus Said on the Cross
Short answer: Luke 23:32-49 records Jesus crucified between two criminals, praying for his executioners, promising one criminal that he would be with him in Paradise, and committing his spirit to the Father before breathing his last. The passage shows the cross as both an act of human injustice and the place where God's mercy meets sinners. Luke 23:34 says, "Father, forgive them, for they don't know what they are doing." Luke 23:43 says, "Assuredly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise." The centurion's response in Luke 23:47, "Certainly this was a righteous man," closes the scene with a Gentile voice. Luke does not explain the atonement theory here; he narrates events and lets readers hear the words.
The setting: two criminals and a place called The Skull
Luke begins the scene by placing Jesus among condemned men. Luke 23:32 says, "There were also others, two criminals, led with him to be put to death." This detail matters because crucifixion was a Roman punishment for the lowest offenders, not a Jewish religious ritual. Jesus is numbered with lawbreakers in the most literal way. The place is called The Skull, and Luke notes the soldiers cast lots for his clothing (Luke 23:33-34). Every element is ordinary for a Roman execution. Nothing in the setting is staged for drama. The gospel writers do not embellish the horror; they report it plainly and let the words of Jesus carry the weight.
The crowd stands watching, and the rulers scoff. Luke 23:35 says, "He saved others. Let him save himself, if this is the Christ of God, his chosen one!" The mockery is not random cruelty; it targets the exact claim Jesus had made about himself. If he is the Christ, why is he dying? The taunt assumes that divine favor and suffering are opposites, that a true Messiah would never end up here. That assumption runs through the whole scene, from the rulers to the soldiers to one of the criminals. Luke lets each group say essentially the same thing: save yourself, and prove who you are.
A superscription was placed above him, and Luke 23:38 records it as an accusation rather than a confession: "This is the King of the Jews." Rome meant it as a warning to rebels. Yet the title is true, though not in the sense the soldiers intended. Luke has already told his readers who Jesus is; now the cross puts that identity under a sign that everyone can read. The soldiers offer sour wine and mock him as a king (Luke 23:36-37). Luke's arrangement of the scene is careful: the mockery surrounds Jesus from every side, and yet the first words out of his mouth are not a curse or a defense but a prayer for the people doing this to him.
Readers often rush past the setting to get to the sayings. But the setting is what makes the sayings startling. A man being executed by a brutal empire, mocked by religious leaders and soldiers alike, has no obvious reason to speak words of forgiveness or promise. Luke places Jesus' mercy inside the machinery of state violence. He does not escape the cross; he speaks from it. That is the plain sense of the text, and it is enough to hold our attention before we move to what each saying means.
Father, forgive them: mercy spoken into mockery
Luke 23:34 says, "Father, forgive them, for they don't know what they are doing." This is the first of Jesus' words from the cross in Luke, and it is a prayer, not a pronouncement. He addresses the Father and asks for forgiveness on behalf of those acting against him. The text does not specify exactly who is included; the soldiers, the rulers, and the crowd are all present in the scene. Luke does not tell us whether the prayer was answered or how. He simply records that Jesus prayed it. The words echo his earlier teaching about loving enemies, now enacted at the cost of his life.
The phrase they don't know what they are doing is difficult, because the rulers and soldiers seem to know exactly what they are doing. They are executing a man. But Scripture often speaks of ignorance in a deeper sense: people can act with full intent and still fail to understand the meaning of their actions. Peter will later say something similar to the crowd in Acts 3:17. The point is not that the executioners were innocent; the point is that Jesus asks for mercy rather than vengeance. He does not minimize the wrong. He asks the Father to forgive it. That is a harder and more specific thing than simply ignoring an offense.
Some early manuscripts of Luke omit this verse, and some translations mark it with a note. This is worth saying plainly because it is true. The verse is well attested in the manuscript tradition, but not every ancient witness includes it. Even if a reader sets the textual question aside, the same theme appears elsewhere in Luke: Jesus teaches forgiveness and prays for his enemies. The verse fits Luke's portrayal of Jesus, and most Bibles include it. If you are reading a translation that omits it, you have not lost the substance of the passage. The question the verse presses on us is not textual but personal: do we pray for those who wrong us, or do we rehearse the wrong?
It is easy to turn this prayer into a moral demand and hear it as a burden. But notice that Jesus prays it while he is suffering, not before. The prayer is not a rule imposed from a safe distance; it is a word spoken from the cross by someone who has every reason to withhold it. Luke does not tell us that we must feel forgiving before we can pray this way. He tells us that Jesus prayed this way. Christian readers have long found in it both an example and a source of hope. If the Son can ask the Father to forgive his executioners, then no one is beyond the reach of such a prayer.
The mocking criminal and the man who feared God
Luke 23:39 says, "One of the criminals who was hanged insulted him, saying, 'If you are the Christ, save yourself and us!'" The taunt repeats the rulers' words, but with a personal edge: save yourself and us. He wants rescue, not truth. The request is not faith; it is a demand for proof. Luke does not soften the criminal's unbelief. The man is dying, and he spends his last strength mocking a fellow prisoner. This is the atmosphere of the scene: the same challenge comes from rulers, soldiers, and now a condemned man. The cross was designed to humiliate, and the mockery is part of the humiliation.
The other criminal responds differently. Luke 23:40-41 says that he rebuked his companion and said, "Don't you even fear God, seeing you are under the same condemnation? And we indeed justly, for we receive the due reward of our deeds; but this man has done nothing wrong." This is a remarkable statement. He admits his own guilt, he acknowledges the justice of his sentence, and he declares Jesus innocent. He has no way to know the full story, but he has seen enough. His fear of God is not terror in the abstract; it is a sober recognition that he is about to stand before the judge of all the earth. Luke gives this man a voice that the rulers and soldiers do not have.
Then the criminal speaks to Jesus directly. Luke 23:42 says, "Jesus, remember me when you come into your Kingdom." The request is modest and bold at once. He calls Jesus by name, asks to be remembered, and speaks of a kingdom that Jesus will enter. He does not ask to be saved from the cross; he asks to be remembered beyond it. Notice that he does not claim any merit. He has nothing to offer. The text does not say he had been a follower or that he understood the nature of the kingdom. He simply asks. The whole scene turns on this one request from a man who has no time left to live a better life.
It is worth noticing that the two criminals are not presented as moral lesson characters. One mocks; one asks. Luke does not explain why they differ. He does not tell us what the first man thought or whether he later changed his mind. He records the conversation as it happened. The contrast does, however, make the promise that follows impossible to explain by the criminal's own worth. He is a condemned man asking a favor. Jesus answers with a gift. That is the shape of the gospel, and Luke tells it without adding a single word of explanation.
Today you will be with me in Paradise
Luke 23:43 says, "Assuredly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise." The word used for assuredly is a strong affirmation; Jesus is not offering a vague hope. He says today. He says with me. He says Paradise. The criminal asked to be remembered when the kingdom came; Jesus gives him the kingdom now, before death has even done its work. The answer exceeds the request. This is not a reward for a life well lived, because this man's life is ending in execution. It is grace, spoken by a dying king to a dying man.
Paradise is a word the Bible uses sparingly. It evokes a garden, a place of blessing, a restored fellowship with God. Jesus does not explain it here. He does not describe the afterlife in detail or answer the questions we would ask. He simply promises that the criminal will be with him there, today. The promise is intensely personal: with me. The man had just asked to be remembered; Jesus promises his presence. Whatever Paradise is, the text makes clear that Jesus will be there and that the criminal will be there with him. The wording is plain and it deserves to be read plainly.
This saying has often been used as evidence that salvation is by grace through faith and not by works. That is a fair inference, but the text itself does not argue the point. It narrates a conversation. The criminal's only act is a request made in faith. His death is happening because of his own crimes. If he were saved by works, he had no time for any. If he were saved by religion, he had no time for that either. He was saved by the word of Jesus. The church has always found comfort in this because it means that no one is too far gone to ask for mercy. The text does not say that everyone gets this answer; it says that this man did.
The promise also tells us something about Jesus' own mind as he died. He was not absorbed only in his own suffering. He was aware of the man beside him and answered him. He spoke of a kingdom while nailed to a Roman cross. He spoke of a future while his own was ending. He called the man to be with him, not merely to be forgiven. Christians throughout history have found in this exchange a picture of how Jesus receives sinners, and it is drawn by Luke in a few short sentences.
Father, into your hands I commit my spirit
Luke 23:46 says, "Father, into your hands I commit my spirit." These are Jesus' final words in Luke's account. He addresses God as Father, as he did in his first saying. He gives his spirit into the Father's hands. The prayer echoes Psalm 31:5, which calls God a faithful and trustworthy refuge. Jesus is not dying in despair; he is dying in trust. The wording is deliberate and calm. Luke does not say he cried out in confusion; he says he called out with a loud voice. He is dying as one who knows where he is going, even as the darkness covers the land.
The darkness deserves attention. Luke 23:44-45 says, "It was now about the sixth hour, and darkness came over the whole land until the ninth hour. The sun was darkened, and the veil of the temple was torn in the middle." The darkness is not explained. It may be a sign of judgement, a sign of grief, or simply a shroud over the scene. Luke does not tell us. What he does tell us is that the veil in the temple was torn. That veil separated the holy place from the most holy. Its tearing signals that the way into God's presence is no longer blocked. Luke does not spell out the meaning either; he reports the event and moves on.
Luke's account differs somewhat from the other Gospels. He does not record the cry of abandonment as Matthew and Mark do. He does not include the words about thirst that John records. Each Gospel writer selects and arranges material, and Luke chooses to end Jesus' speech with a prayer of entrustment. This is not a contradiction; it is a different portrait. Taken together, the Gospel writers give us more than any one account contains. Taken alone, Luke gives us a Jesus who forgives, promises, and commits himself to the Father. If you only had Luke, you would still have the cross as a place of mercy and trust.
Many Christians have used this verse as a model for their own dying. The phrase commit my spirit has been prayed at deathbeds for centuries. That is a good use of the text, but it is not what the text is about. Luke is telling us how Jesus died. The application follows: if the Son could hand his spirit to the Father in the middle of suffering, those who trust him can do the same. But the text itself is about Jesus, not about us. It shows us who he is and how he faced death. Any application that makes us the center of the story has missed the point.
The centurion and the crowd: the first witnesses
Luke 23:47 says, "When the centurion saw what was done, he glorified God, saying, 'Certainly this was a righteous man.'" A Roman centurion, likely one of the men overseeing the execution, gives the first human verdict after the death. He does not say that Jesus was the Son of God, as the centurion does in Matthew and Mark. In Luke he calls him righteous. That is a different word, but it is a true one. The man who had mocked and executed Jesus now glorifies God and declares him innocent. Luke does not tell us whether this was a full conversion. He tells us what the man said.
The crowd's reaction is also noted. Luke 23:48 says that when all the multitudes came together to see the sight, seeing the things that were done, they returned beating their breasts. That gesture signals grief and regret. These are the same crowds who had watched the spectacle; now they go home in sorrow. Luke does not say they repented or believed. He says they were moved. The death of Jesus had an effect on the people who saw it, and Luke records that effect without exaggeration. It is a sober ending to a brutal scene.
Luke 23:49 says that all his acquaintances and the women who followed him from Galilee stood at a distance, watching these things. The disciples are not named here. They are not standing near the cross in Luke's account. They are watching from far off. This detail is often overlooked, but it is important. The people closest to Jesus during his ministry are not close to him at his death. Only the women are mentioned alongside the acquaintances. The scene ends with Jesus dead, a centurion testifying, a crowd grieving, and his followers watching from a distance. Luke does not tidy up the ending.
The witnesses in this passage are an interesting mix: a mocking criminal, a believing criminal, soldiers, rulers, a centurion, and a grieving crowd. Luke gives each a line or a gesture. No one is fully explained, and no one is presented as a simple moral example. The passage is a report, not a sermon. It invites us to stand among the witnesses and hear what was said. The centurion's words are a good place to end: a Gentile, outside the covenant, declares the executed man righteous. The cross forces a verdict from everyone who sees it, one way or another.
What the cross accounts do not say
Luke does not give a theory of the atonement in this passage. He does not explain why Jesus had to die or what his death accomplished. He narrates the event. Other parts of Scripture, such as Isaiah 53, speak more directly about the meaning of the suffering servant's death. Luke 23 assumes that meaning without spelling it out. This is important for how we teach the passage. If we load the text with doctrinal explanations that are not there, we may miss what Luke is actually doing. He is showing us Jesus, and the meaning is drawn from the whole canon, not from this scene alone.
The passage also does not tell us that everyone is forgiven automatically. Jesus prays, "Father, forgive them," but Luke does not report the Father's answer, and he does not say that all who mocked were saved. The promise to the criminal is addressed to that criminal. The centurion's confession is his own. Luke keeps the accounts particular. This should make us careful about drawing broad conclusions from individual reactions. The cross is the place where forgiveness is offered, but the text does not say that every person in the scene received it. It says that Jesus asked for it and that one man believed.
A common misreading is to treat the two criminals as a neat allegory in which one represents the Jews and the other the Gentiles, or one represents the law and the other grace. That is not what Luke says. He does not identify the criminals beyond their crimes. He does not say that their responses illustrate a pattern for nations or dispensations. They are two men dying next to Jesus. One mocks, one asks. The contrast is real, but it is a contrast between two individuals. Reading a system into it can make us miss the personal nature of the promise. Jesus spoke to a man, not to a category.
Another misreading is to make the centurion's words a full Christian confession. In Luke he says that Jesus was righteous, not that he was the Son of God. That is a true statement, and it is a remarkable one from a Roman soldier. But it is not the same as saving faith. Luke does not tell us what happened to the centurion afterward. We should let the text say what it says and not more. The same restraint applies to the crowd beating their breasts. Grief is not repentance. The passage leaves us with witnesses, not verdicts. It calls us to hear and respond ourselves.
Biblical fidelity check
The passage establishes several things plainly. Jesus was crucified between two criminals, prayed for his executioners, promised one criminal that he would be with him in Paradise that day, and committed his spirit to the Father before dying. Darkness covered the land, the temple veil was torn, a centurion declared him righteous, and the crowd grieved. Luke does not explain the atonement, does not describe the afterlife beyond the word Paradise, and does not tell us the final state of most of the people in the scene. The passage is a narrative, and it should be read as one. What it says, it says clearly; what it does not say, we should not supply.
A common misreading is to treat Jesus' prayer for forgiveness as if it meant the executioners were not responsible for their actions. But Luke does not say they were ignorant in a way that removed guilt; he records Jesus asking the Father to forgive them, which assumes there was something to forgive. The same misreading turns the criminal's promise into a universal guarantee. Jesus spoke to one man. The text is about mercy offered in a specific moment to specific people, and that is precisely where its power lies. It does not flatten the cross into a general principle; it shows us the Son of God dying and speaking words that still confront everyone who reads them.
Other passages that speak to Luke 23:32-49
Several other passages help us read this scene. The mockery and the darkness echo Psalm 22, which begins with a cry of abandonment and describes the suffering of a righteous man. Isaiah 53 speaks of a servant who bears sickness and suffering and is considered struck by God, which illuminates the cross even though Luke does not quote it here. John's Gospel gives additional words from the cross, including the care of Jesus for his mother and his final cry of thirst. Each account contributes something. For a comparison of the crucifixion accounts, see John Bible Study: Seeing Jesus in John. For the servant songs behind the cross, see Isaiah Bible Study: Seeing Jesus in Isaiah and Isaiah 53 Meaning: The Suffering Servant and Jesus. For how the apostles later preached this death, see 1 John Bible Study: Seeing Jesus in 1 John.
Frequently asked questions
Why did Jesus say the Father should forgive the soldiers?
Luke 23:34 records the prayer without explaining it. Jesus asks the Father to forgive those involved in his execution, saying they do not know what they are doing. The text does not say who is included or whether the prayer was answered in a visible way. It shows Jesus responding to cruelty with a request for mercy rather than revenge. This fits his earlier teaching about loving enemies. The verse is a prayer, not a doctrinal statement about universal forgiveness, and Luke leaves the outcome with God.
Was the criminal on the cross saved by faith alone?
Luke 23:42-43 shows the criminal asking Jesus to remember him and Jesus promising that he would be with him in Paradise that day. The man had no opportunity for good works, religious rituals, or a changed life. His only act was a request made in trust. The text does not use the phrase faith alone, but it does present salvation as a gift given in response to a plea. Many Christians see this as a clear example of grace. The passage itself simply records the promise.
Did Jesus really die, or did he only appear to die?
Luke 23:46 says that Jesus called out with a loud voice and said, "Father, into your hands I commit my spirit," and then breathed his last. Luke 23:49 describes his acquaintances standing at a distance watching these things. The text presents a real death, not a swoon or an illusion. The centurion's reaction and the crowd's grief assume that he was dead. The rest of the New Testament consistently speaks of Jesus' death and resurrection as real events. Luke gives no hint of a substitute or a pretense.
