The Sayings of Jesus On The Cross Part 1

In the four Gospels—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John—seven sayings of Jesus on the cross are recorded. None of the Gospels has all seven. Three are only in Luke; three only in John; and one is just in Matthew and Mark. Why, you may wonder, aren’t all seven sayings in all four Gospels? After all, the crucifixion was the climactic event of the whole Jesus story to that point. Mightn’t we expect the Gospel writers (or at least, later redactors) to try to coordinate the accounts: make them consistent, to promote their authenticity? Actually, it’s more reasonable to think the opposite is true: differences add authenticity. Eyewitnesses to events always see and hear—and then remember—different things, especially from an event that lasted six hours (the time that Jesus was on the cross), with people no doubt coming and going. There’s no reason to think that wouldn’t have been true of the Gospel writers’ sources. Let’s look at each one in turn, in the traditional order:

1. “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” Luke 23:34.

Is the “they” here the Roman soldiers who were carrying out the crucifixion, or everyone who participated in getting Jesus executed? And in each case, what didn’t they know?

In the case of the soldiers, they were following orders; so far as they were concerned, they were executing several criminals who had been sentenced to death by the appropriate Roman authorities. They would have had no basis to question it (no awareness of Jesus’ innocence) and face discipline for questioning it. So in its narrowest construal (that Jesus is speaking of the soldiers), that would make sense: gracious, but understandable.

More gracious still—but far less understandable—is if Jesus is asking the Father to forgive the Roman governors and Jewish religious leaders for their part in the sentencing. So what did they know and not know?

There’s a legal concept that what a person “knew” extends to what they reasonably should have known—you can’t choose to “not know” what should have been obvious to a reasonable person in the circumstances.

If we apply that to Jesus’ innocence, certainly of any criminal (as opposed to religious) crimes, then all of those authorities did know. To cut to the chase, did any of them know (or reasonably ought to have known) that Jesus was the divine Son of God? I don’t think so; it took the early church some time to figure that one out. We can’t attribute (read back into the story) subsequent knowledge.

Taking it down a notch, did they know or reasonably ought to have known that Jesus was the Jewish Messiah? The Romans would have cared less either way, save insofar as talk of him being a Messiah in “Son of King David” terms (along with all that “coming of the Kingdom” stuff) would make him a potential insurrectionist. That would be enough to get him eliminated.

With the Jewish religious leaders, it’s a little more complicated. What, at the root, was their problem with Jesus? In a sense, it depends who you ask and when you ask them: different stories in the Gospels speak to different issues they had with him. It also will depend on how sympathetic we are to their perspective at the time. Some (for example, Nicodemus, and Gamaliel—both leading Pharisees) were genuinely unsure about Jesus. Some Pharisees were followers of Jesus; others were deeply irritated by him.

The religious leaders’ complaints against Jesus mainly fall into the following categories: (1) disdain for personal holiness—he spent time and shared hospitality with the wrong kinds of people (“sinners”); (2) disdain for Torah and/or the religious leaders’ interpretations of Torah (which they took to be the same thing)—he presumed to follow his own interpretations and encouraged his disciples to do so; (3) he was guilty of blasphemy for appearing to identify himself too closely with God at times (albeit, in the Synoptics, his messianic identity is generally concealed; less so in John); (4) in the same vein, he was perceived to be a false prophet; and (5) though you would think his miracles and exorcisms would have been seen as affirming that God was with him, his opponents believed them to be through magic, which was associated with demons and the occult (and of course, strictly forbidden for good Jews).

You may think that none of the above justifies any sympathy for the Jewish religious leaders; all I would say is that some elements (at least) are surely understandable. They are surely in the “actually, they really didn’t know what they were doing” category. What’s easy for us as Christians in hindsight would have been far less easy for them at the time.

However, what is not understandable—and almost in the unforgivable category, you would think, and certainly on the part of religious leaders who are supposed to care about righteousness (doing the right thing, whatever the personal cost)—is the extent to which they were happy to make protecting their personal power and status in their little religious world more important than protecting the innocent from abuse: turning a blind eye to what they knew or ought reasonably to have known and cared about in their heart of hearts. Why? For the simple reason that to speak up might be damaging to the religious careers of them and their friends.

Sadly, the Christian world continues to see such unrighteous behaviour, as it has throughout its history. Jesus wasn’t the first to be “thrown under the bus” like that (he said so himself, concerning the prophets before him: Luke 11:47; Matthew 23:37), and he won’t be the last. Religious leaders don’t literally crucify people any more, but sadly some still do metaphorically and for the same self-interest reasons. Like all of us, they will have to stand before God and give an account for that. Let’s hope that the gracious generosity of Jesus’ prayer in this first saying from the cross extends to them.

2. “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.” Luke 23:43.

This saying is addressed to one of the criminals being crucified beside Jesus. It was in response to the man’s “statement of faith.” Or, sort of . . . Clearly, Jesus was (somewhat surprisingly) unaware of the necessary components for anyone praying The Sinner’s Prayer in order to be saved. So far as we know, Jesus didn’t first explain the Four Spiritual Laws, either. And, he couldn’t have walked him through The Romans Road to salvation because Paul hadn’t written Romans yet. In fact, Jesus said nothing whatsoever to the man before making that promise.

So what was the man’s “statement of faith” to which Jesus was responding? It was a bit shorter than most evangelical versions. It had just three points: (1) “We deserve to die for our crimes,” (2) “This man hasn’t done anything wrong,” and (3) “Jesus, remember me when you come into your Kingdom.” Not quite the same components as the evangelical altar call.

It would be foolish to propose one biblical conversation, even one that features Jesus, as a model for suggesting that believing the right things doesn’t matter. But the reason that knowing and believing the right things matters is to enable us to better understand—to be better informed about—the God we are believing and trusting in. Salvation is relational, not doctrinal. The good news is a Person to know, not a set of beliefs to know. That is the moral of the story in this conversation.

The use of the word “paradise” (Greek: paradeisos) is interesting. It’s the only place it appears in the Gospels (though it’s also found in 2 Corinthians 12:4 and Revelation 2:7). Essentially, it’s speaking of “heaven” (as you’d assume) but more literally means a “paradise garden” like Eden.

3. “Here is your son . . . Here is your mother.” John 19:26-27.

To make sense of this we need to look at the whole passage: “When Jesus saw his mother there, and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to her, ‘Woman, here is your son,’ and to the disciple, ‘Here is your mother.’ From that time on, this disciple took her into his home.” It is almost certain that Jesus’ adoptive father, Joseph, had long passed away. The last mention of him by name is in the temple story when Jesus is 12 years old. For a widow or single woman to be on her own in those times was to be potentially in dire straits, with no father, husband, or sons, to provide for and protect her. We do know that Jesus had brothers, however, so there must have been some reason, that we don’t know, why Jesus would ask “the disciple whom he loved” (see also, John 13:23) to take Mary into his home. Even in his darkest moment, in excruciating pain, Jesus is thinking of his mother and making sure that she is looked after when he is gone. To God, people really matter, and relationships really matter. 

This disciple is traditionally thought to be the Apostle John, who wrote this Gospel, the Johannine letters, and the book of Revelation (though their authorships are uncertain). Be that as it may, Jesus is not saying he didn’t love the other disciples; it’s simply saying that Jesus was particularly close to him, in a “best friends” kind of way. Just because Jesus was God as well as man doesn’t mean he couldn’t be closer to some than to others (in fact, to be fully human, like us, would suggest that would inevitably be the case).

Finally, don’t read Jesus addressing Mary as “woman” the wrong way (see also, John 2:4). He wasn’t being rude, or dismissive. In the Greek, it was a term of affection and respect.