Luke 23:39-46

3 d. Luke 23:39-46. Matthew and Mark ascribe the same jestings to the two thieves. The partisans of harmony at any price think that they both began with blasphemy, and that one of them afterwards came to himself. In any case, it must be assumed that Matthew and Mark did not know this change of mind; otherwise, why should they not have mentioned it? But is it not more natural to hold that they group in categories, and that they are ignorant of the particular fact related by Luke? How had this thief been touched and convinced? Undoubtedly he had been struck all at once with the contrast between the holiness which shone in Jesus and of his own crimes (Luke 23:40-41). Then the meekness with which Jesus let Himself be led to punishment, and especially His prayer for His executioners, had taken hold of his conscience and heart. The title Father, which Jesus gave to God at the very moment when God was treating Him in so cruel a manner, had revealed in Him a Being who was living in an intimate relation to Jehovah, and led him to feel His divine greatness. His faith in the title King of the Jews, inscribed on His cross, was only the consequence of such impressions. The words οὐδὲ σύ, not even thou (Luke 23:40), which he addresses to his companion, allude to the difference of moral situation which belongs to them both, and the railers with whom he is joining: “Thou who art not merely, like them, a spectator of this punishment, but who art undergoing it thyself.” It is not for him, who is on the eve of appearing before the divine tribunal, to act as the profane. ῞Οτι, because, refers to the idea contained in φοβῇ : “Thou at least oughtest to fear...; for...”

The prayer which he addresses to Jesus (Luke 23:42) is suggested to him by that faith in an unlimited mercy which had been awaked in him by hearing the prayer of Jesus for His executioners. It seems to me probable that the omission of the word Κύριε, Lord, in the Alex., arises from the mistake of the copyist, who was giving the prayer of the thief from memory, and that the transformation of the dative τῷ ᾿Ιησοῦ into the apostrophe (᾿Ιησοῦ) was the effect of this omission. The touching cry, Remember me! finds its explanation in that community of suffering which seems to him henceforth to establish an indissoluble bond between Jesus and him. Jesus cannot forget him who shared His punishment. The expression, coming in His kingdom, ἐν τῆ βασιλείᾳ (not for His kingdom, εἰς τὴν βασιλείαν), denotes His Messianic return with divine splendour and royal majesty some time after His death. He does not think of the possibility of the body of Jesus being raised.

In our Lord's answer, the word to-day stands foremost, because Jesus wishes to contrast the nearness of the promised happiness with the remote future to which the prayer of the thief refers. To-day, before the setting of the sun which is shining on us. The word paradise seems to come from a Persian word signifying park. It is used in the form of פַּרַדֵּס, H7236 (Ecclesiastes 2:5; Son 4:13), to denote a royal garden. In the form παράδεισος, it corresponds in the LXX. to the word פַּרַדֵּס, H7236, garden (Genesis 2:8; Gen 3:1). The earthly Eden once lost, this word paradise is applied to that part of Hades where the faithful are assembled; and even in the last writings of the N. T., the Epistles and the Apocalypse, to a yet higher abode, that of the Lord and glorified believers, the third heaven, 2 Cor. xi Luke 1:4; Revelation 2:7. It is paradise as part of Hades which is spoken of here.

The extraordinary signs which accompanied the death of Jesus (Luke 23:44-45) the darkness, the rending of the veil of the temple, and according to Matthew, the earthquake and the opening of several graves, are explained by the profound connection existing, on the one side between Christ and humanity, on the other between humanity and nature. Christ is the soul of humanity, as humanity is the soul of the external world. We need not take the words, over all the earth, in an absolute sense. Comp. Luke 21:23, where the expression ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς, a weaker one it is true, evidently refers to the Holy Land only. The phenomenon in question here may and must have extended to the surrounding countries. The cause of this loss of light cannot have been an eclipse; for this phenomenon is impossible at the time of full moon. It was perhaps connected with the earthquake with which it was accompanied; or it may have resulted from an atmospheric or cosmical cause. This diminution of the external light corresponded to the moral darkness which was felt by the heart of Jesus: My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me? This moment, to which St. Paul alludes (Galatians 3:13: “ He was made a curse for us ”), was that at which the Paschal lamb was slain in the temple.

It is difficult to decide between the two readings, Luke 23:45: “And the sun was darkened” (T. R.); “And the sun failing.” In any case, it is the cause of the phenomenon related Luke 23:44, mentioned too late. Luke omits the earthquake; he had other sources.

The rending of the veil, mentioned by the three Syn., should probably be connected with this physical commotion. Is the veil referred to that which was at the entrance of the Holy Place, or that which concealed the Holy of Holies? As the second only had a typical sense, and alone bore, strictly speaking, the name καταπέτασμα (Philo calls the other κάλυμμα), it is more natural to think of the latter. The idea usually found in this symbolic event is this: The way to the throne of grace is henceforth open to all. But did not God rather mean to show thereby, that from that time the temple was no longer His dwelling-place? As the high priest rent his garment in view of any great offence, so God rends the veil which covers the place where He enters into communion with His people; that is to say, the Holy of Holies is no more; and if there is no Holy of Holies, then no Holy Place, and consequently no court, no altar, no valid sacrifices. The temple is profaned, and consequently abolished by God Himself. The efficacy of sacrifice has henceforth passed to another blood, another altar, another priesthood. This is what Jesus had announced to the Jews in this form: Put me to death, and by the very deed ye shall destroy the temple!

Jewish and Christian tradition has preserved the memory of analogous events which must have happened at this period. In the Judeo-Christian Gospel quoted by Jerome (in Matthew 27:51), it was related that at the time of the earthquake a large beam lying above the gate of the temple snapped asunder. The Talmud says that forty years before the destruction of Jerusalem the gates of the temple opened of their own accord. Johanan Ben Zacchai (יוֹחָנָן is חָנַן, H2858, Anna, with the name of Jehovah prefixed) rebuked them, and said: Temple, wherefore dost thou open of thyself? I see thereby that the end is near; for it is written (Zec 11:1), “Open thy doors, O Lebanon, that the fire may devour thy cedars.”

At the time of the eclipse mentioned above, a great earthquake destroyed part of the city of Nice, in Bithynia. This catastrophe may have been felt even in Palestine.

Those phenomena, which are placed by Luke before the time of our Lord's death, are placed by Matthew and Mark immediately after. Another proof of the difference of their sources.

Here should come the two sayings mentioned by John: I thirst, and: It is finished. Perhaps the words: When He had cried with a loud voice (Luke 23:46), include the saying, It is finished, which immediately preceded the last breath. But the participle φωνήσας has probably no other meaning than the verb εἶπε : “Raising His voice, He said.” The words: When He had cried with a loud voice, in Matthew and Mark, refer rather to the last saying uttered by Jesus according to Luke: Father, into thy hands...The latter expresses what John has described in the form of an act: He gave up His spirit.

The last saying is a quotation from Psalms 31. The fut. παραθήσομαι, I shall commit, in the received reading, is probably borrowed from the LXX. The fut. was natural in David's mouth, for death was yet at a distance; he described the way in which he hoped one day to draw his last breath. But the present is alone in keeping with the actual circumstances of Jesus. At the moment when He is about to lose self-consciousness, and when the possession of His spirit escapes from Him, He confides it as a deposit to his Father. The word Father shows that His soul has recovered full serenity. Not long ago He was struggling with the divine sovereignty and holiness (my God, my God!). Now the darkness is gone; He has recovered His light, His Father's face. It is the first effect of the completion of redemption, the glorious prelude of the resurrection.

Keim does not accept as historical any of the seven sayings which Jesus is said to have uttered on the cross. The prayer for his executioners has no meaning either in regard to the Gentile soldiers, who were merely blind instruments, or in respect of the Jews, to whom He had just announced divine judgment. Besides, silence suits Jesus better than a forced and superhuman heroism. The story of the thief is exploded by the fact, that it was impossible for him to have known the innocence and the future return of Jesus, and that Jesus should have promised him paradise, which is in the hand of the Father. The saying addressed to John and Mary is not historical; for those two were not at the foot of the cross (Syn.), and John never had a house to which to take Mary. The prayer: My God, my God, is only an importation of Psalms 22 into the account of the Passion; Jesus was too original to borrow the expression of His feelings from the O. T. The same reason disproves the authenticity of the last saying: Father, into Thy hands, borrowed from Psalms 31. The It is finished of John is only the summary expression of the dogmatics already put by the author into the mouth of Jesus in His last discourses. The historic truth is thus reduced to two cries of Jesus: one of pain, which John has translated, not without reason, into I thirst; and a last cry, that of death. This silence of Jesus forms, according to Keim, the real greatness of His death.

The prayer of Jesus and His threatening are not more contradictory than divine justice and human intercession. There is room in history for the effects of both.

The prophetic form in which Jesus clothes the expression of His thoughts takes nothing from their originality. They spring from the depths of His being, and meet with expressions which are familiar to Him, and which He employs instinctively.

John here, as throughout his Gospel, completes the synoptics.

We think we have shown how the prayer of the thief is psychologically possible. It is doing too much honour to the primitive Church to ascribe to her the invention of such sayings. If she had invented, she would not have done so in a style so chaste, so concise, so holy; once more compare the apocryphal accounts.