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Luke 23:1-56

Jesus is brought before Pilate, who finds no fault in him but ultimately gives in to the crowd's demand for his crucifixion. Jesus is mocked and ridic...

¹And the whole multitude of them arose, and led him unto Pilate.

²And they began to accuse him, saying, We found this fellow perverting the nation, and forbidding to give tribute to Cesar, saying that he himself is Christ a King.

³And Pilate asked him, saying, Art thou the King of the Jews? And he answered him and said, Thou sayest it.

⁴Then said Pilate to the chief priests and to the people, I find no fault in this man.

⁵And they were the more fierce, saying, He stirreth up the people, teaching throughout all Jewry, beginning from Galilee to this place.

⁶When Pilate heard of Galilee, he asked whether the man were a Galilean.

⁷And as soon as he knew that he belonged unto Herod’s jurisdiction, he sent him to Herod, who himself also was at Jerusalem at that time.

⁸And when Herod saw Jesus, he was exceeding glad: for he was desirous to see him of a long season, because he had heard many things of him; and he hoped to have seen some miracle done by him.

⁹Then he questioned with him in many words; but he answered him nothing.

¹⁰And the chief priests and scribes stood and vehemently accused him.

¹¹And Herod with his men of war set him at nought, and mocked him, and arrayed him in a gorgeous robe, and sent him again to Pilate.

¹²And the same day Pilate and Herod were made friends together: for before they were at enmity between themselves.

¹³And Pilate, when he had called together the chief priests and the rulers and the people,

¹⁴Said unto them, Ye have brought this man unto me, as one that perverteth the people: and, behold, I, having examined him before you, have found no fault in this man touching those things whereof ye accuse him:

¹⁵No, nor yet Herod: for I sent you to him; and, lo, nothing worthy of death is done unto him.

¹⁶I will therefore chastise him, and release him.

¹⁷(For of necessity he must release one unto them at the feast.)

¹⁸And they cried out all at once, saying, Away with this man, and release unto us Barabbas:

¹⁹(Who for a certain sedition made in the city, and for murder, was cast into prison.)

²⁰Pilate therefore, willing to release Jesus, spake again to them.

²¹But they cried, saying, Crucify him, crucify him.

²²And he said unto them the third time, Why, what evil hath he done? I have found no cause of death in him: I will therefore chastise him, and let him go.

²³And they were instant with loud voices, requiring that he might be crucified. And the voices of them and of the chief priests prevailed.

²⁴And Pilate gave sentence that it should be as they required.

²⁵And he released unto them him that for sedition and murder was cast into prison, whom they had desired; but he delivered Jesus to their will.

²⁶And as they led him away, they laid hold upon one Simon, a Cyrenian, coming out of the country, and on him they laid the cross, that he might bear it after Jesus.

²⁷And there followed him a great company of people, and of women, which also bewailed and lamented him.

²⁸But Jesus turning unto them said, Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me, but weep for yourselves, and for your children.

²⁹For, behold, the days are coming, in the which they shall say, Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that never bare, and the paps which never gave suck.

³⁰Then shall they begin to say to the mountains, Fall on us; and to the hills, Cover us.

³¹For if they do these things in a green tree, what shall be done in the dry?

³²And there were also two other, malefactors, led with him to be put to death.

³³And when they were come to the place, which is called Calvary, there they crucified him, and the malefactors, one on the right hand, and the other on the left.

³⁴Then said Jesus, Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do. And they parted his raiment, and cast lots.

³⁵And the people stood beholding. And the rulers also with them derided him, saying, He saved others; let him save himself, if he be Christ, the chosen of God.

³⁶And the soldiers also mocked him, coming to him, and offering him vinegar,

³⁷And saying, If thou be the king of the Jews, save thyself.

³⁸And a superscription also was written over him in letters of Greek, and Latin, and Hebrew, THIS IS THE KING OF THE JEWS.

³⁹And one of the malefactors which were hanged railed on him, saying, If thou be Christ, save thyself and us.

⁴⁰But the other answering rebuked him, saying, Dost not thou fear God, seeing thou art in the same condemnation?

⁴¹And we indeed justly; for we receive the due reward of our deeds: but this man hath done nothing amiss.

⁴²And he said unto Jesus, Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom.

⁴³And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, To day shalt thou be with me in paradise.

⁴⁴And it was about the sixth hour, and there was a darkness over all the earth until the ninth hour.

⁴⁵And the sun was darkened, and the veil of the temple was rent in the midst.

⁴⁶And when Jesus had cried with a loud voice, he said, Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit: and having said thus, he gave up the ghost.

⁴⁷Now when the centurion saw what was done, he glorified God, saying, Certainly this was a righteous man.

⁴⁸And all the people that came together to that sight, beholding the things which were done, smote their breasts, and returned.

⁴⁹And all his acquaintance, and the women that followed him from Galilee, stood afar off, beholding these things.

⁵⁰And, behold, there was a man named Joseph, a counsellor; and he was a good man, and a just:

⁵¹(The same had not consented to the counsel and deed of them;) he was of Arimathea, a city of the Jews: who also himself waited for the kingdom of God.

⁵²This man went unto Pilate, and begged the body of Jesus.

⁵³And he took it down, and wrapped it in linen, and laid it in a sepulchre that was hewn in stone, wherein never man before was laid.

⁵⁴And that day was the preparation, and the sabbath drew on.

⁵⁵And the women also, which came with him from Galilee, followed after, and beheld the sepulchre, and how his body was laid.

⁵⁶And they returned, and prepared spices and ointments; and rested the sabbath day according to the commandment.

About this chapter

Luke’s crucifixion scene makes the clearest case for grace by putting a promise of paradise in the mouth of a dying man who can’t do one more “good work” if he tried.

The thief on the cross is saved with nothing -- no works, no knowledge, no time to prove anything. Luke's account of salvation requires absurdly little from the person being saved.

Central idea

Luke 23 is about a world that punishes the innocent and excuses the guilty, and about God answering that injustice with mercy instead of merit. The chapter keeps showing salvation arriving at the last possible moment, to people with nothing to offer except a turning glance toward Jesus.

Luke sets up the cross as a public exchange where innocence loses and guilt walks free, so “deserving” never gets to be the currency. Before anyone lifts a hammer, Luke makes us sit in a courtroom where the right verdict is spoken and then treated like background noise. Pilate looks at Jesus and says, “I find no fault,” and the sentence hangs there like it should stop everything. It does not. The crowd keeps pushing, and the officials keep giving way, until the process starts to feel almost orderly in its wrongness. Luke even names the swap out loud. A man whose violence is established, the one jailed for insurrection and murder, is released back into the city. Jesus, the one repeatedly declared innocent, is handed over to be executed. When Luke puts those two outcomes side by side, “deserving” becomes a word you cannot comfortably use. The chapter has already decided that the obvious moral math will not run the story. Then Luke repeats that same pattern on a smaller scale at the cross, and he makes one criminal say what the whole chapter has been showing. One of them turns suffering into a dare. If Jesus is who people claim, he should prove it by saving himself, and while he is at it, save them too. The other criminal does something blunt and strangely restrained. He rebukes the first, admits, “we indeed justly,” and then points at Jesus and says, “nothing amiss.” Luke does not dress this up into a grand turnaround. There is no repaired life, no restitution, no vow to do better tomorrow, because tomorrow is not coming. What Luke gives him is a tiny, clear-eyed surrender: he calls his own punishment fitting, and he names Jesus as innocent in the middle of shared humiliation. And then Luke narrows the whole scene to one small request, “Lord, remember me.” It is not a bargain. It is not a deal. It is the kind of plea you make when you have nothing left to offer except the truth. Luke’s surprise is that this “absurdly little” is also a kind of sight. The thief does not ask to come down; he asks to be remembered “when thou comest into thy kingdom,” which means he is looking at a bleeding, mocked man and still seeing a king who has a future. That is the twist Luke wants to land: faith here is recognition at the worst moment, when everything looks kingless. Jesus replies with a certainty no one else in the chapter can manage, and he attaches the promise to himself, not to the thief’s potential. The patristic line about a throne hidden inside an execution fits Luke’s angle, because Luke shows the first entrance into paradise coming from a cross, not a temple. Even the Roman centurion, a professional witness to death, ends up praising God and calling Jesus righteous. The cross becomes the place where people finally see straight, and salvation looks like being brought into the kingdom of the one they almost missed.

Key verses

23:4Pilate’s words put an official Roman “not guilty” stamp right up front, which makes everything that follows feel like a tragedy of truth getting steamrolled by power.

23:9Jesus refuses to answer Herod, which reads like a refusal to be entertainment and a kind of quiet judgment on curiosity that won’t turn into repentance.

23:24-25This is the hinge of the whole story: the government releases a man tied to violence and kills the innocent Jesus, showing how crowds and rulers can trade justice for what feels safer. It also sets up the shape of a swap, where the guilty goes free and the innocent takes the sentence.

23:28On the way to his own death, Jesus still speaks like a prophet, turning people’s pity into a warning about disaster coming to Jerusalem, which many connect to the city’s fall in 70 CE.

23:34Luke highlights Jesus praying forgiveness from the cross, making mercy the heartbeat of his kingship. It also frames the killers as acting in real guilt but real ignorance, which becomes a theme again in Acts.

23:43Jesus tells the criminal who turns back that he will be with him in paradise “today,” which is immediate comfort and a clear picture of welcome based on trust, not status or a lifetime of achievements.

23:45-46The darkness and the ripped temple curtain tell you this death matters on a huge scale, not just as one execution. Jesus’ last words echo a psalm of trust, so he dies entrusting himself to the Father, not collapsing into despair.

23:47A Gentile soldier ends up publicly honoring God and calling Jesus righteous, which fits Luke’s pattern where outsiders see what insiders miss.

23:51Joseph embodies faithful Israel within the council, preventing a flat indictment of “all Jews” and showing that kingdom-waiting can resist institutional injustice.

Augustinian / Western Latin (atonement and the two cities)

Augustine hears this chapter as a collision between God’s reign and the world’s love of power: the innocent King gets crushed because leaders fear losing control and fear the crowd. Barabbas becomes a picture of humanity picking the wrong kind of “freedom,” and Jesus’ prayer for forgiveness shows God’s mercy reaching even people who hurt him without grasping what they’re doing.

Reformed / Calvinist (penal substitution with Lukan innocence)

Reformed readers lean hard on how often Luke says Jesus is innocent, because it makes the swap feel even sharper: the one who doesn’t deserve death receives the sentence, and Barabbas walks free. The criminal who turns back beside Jesus becomes the clearest case of being welcomed by trust alone, because he has nothing left to offer and still hears, “Today you’ll be with me.”

Thomistic / Catholic (satisfaction, virtues, and the exemplar of charity)

Aquinas treats Jesus’ death as both something that deals with sin and a pattern you can actually follow: patient endurance, mercy toward enemies, and steady trust in the Father. The torn curtain signals a shift in how access to God works, and Joseph’s careful burial underlines that Jesus is truly human and that bodies matter.

Orthodox / Patristic (Christus Victor, righteous martyr, and paradise opened)

Eastern teachers often read Luke 23 as victory hiding under humiliation: Jesus looks defeated, but he is opening paradise “today” and beginning the undoing of death’s grip. The thief who confesses is celebrated as the first to enter, and the torn curtain is read as a sign that what was hidden is being revealed and that evil’s accusations are being broken by the death of the truly righteous one.

Liberation theology (state violence, scapegoating, and the innocent condemned)

Liberation theology reads this chapter like a case study in state violence: powerful people steer legal systems, the crowd gets managed by fear, and the empire calls it “order” while killing an innocent man. Jesus stands with victims and refuses a violent rescue, while Barabbas shows the kind of strongman deliverer people often prefer, and the centurion’s words hint that even inside the machine someone can see what’s happening.

Feminist / women-as-witness hermeneutics

Feminist readers notice how Luke keeps putting women in the frame as clear-eyed witnesses: Jesus speaks directly to the “daughters of Jerusalem,” and the women from Galilee stay present when the male disciples fade out. Their choice to rest on the Sabbath shows faithfulness as steady community practice, not public dominance.

Historical-critical / Lukan redaction (Luke’s distinctive emphases)

Redaction critics argue Luke shapes inherited passion tradition to stress Jesus’ innocence and to present Christianity as non-seditious within the Roman world: Pilate’s triple “no fault,” Herod’s concurrence, and the centurion’s “righteous” verdict are Lukan emphases. Luke also adds distinctive sayings (to Jerusalem’s daughters; forgiveness; commending spirit) that portray Jesus as prophet-martyr in continuity with Israel’s righteous sufferers and as the model for Christian martyrdom in Acts.

The takeaway

Luke seems almost determined to remove every normal support people lean on, reputation, productivity, religious track record, so you can see what’s left when someone has nothing but need. In Luke 23, salvation comes attached to Jesus, not to a person’s remaining time, moral improvement plan, or ability to make it right.

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