“Save Thyself and Us”

Luke tells the crucifixion mockery the other Gospels tell, and the saving verb runs through it in the same sense — escape from the cross. But Luke does something the others do not: he gives the taunt a third voice, a dying criminal, and then answers it with the most famous act of mercy in the Gospels.

Three Voices, One Demand

Luke builds the mockery in three waves, and each uses the saving word.

And 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.

Luke 23:35

Then the soldiers: “If thou be the king of the Jews, save thyself.” And then, astonishingly, one of the men being crucified beside Him: “If thou be Christ, save thyself and us.”

Sōson seauton — save Thyself. Rulers, soldiers, and a fellow-sufferer, all reaching for the same word, all meaning the same thing: come down, escape, stay alive. The criminal adds and us, folding his own rescue into the demand. It is the mockery of Matthew and Mark, extended down to the two crosses on either side.

By the third voice the taunt has reached the bottom. A man dying the same death, with nothing left to lose, spends his last breath railing at the one beside him to perform an escape for them both. The demand for self-rescue is total; it comes from the top of the social order and from the very gallows.

The Other Criminal

Then Luke turns, and the whole scene pivots on a single dissenting voice.

But the other answering rebuked him, saying, Dost not thou fear God, seeing thou art in the same condemnation? And we indeed justly; for we receive the due reward of our deeds: but this man hath done nothing amiss.

Luke 23:40–41

The second criminal does three things the mockers never do. He fears God. He confesses his own guilt — we indeed justly. And he declares Jesus innocent — this man hath done nothing amiss. In a scene where everyone is demanding rescue, this man asks for nothing of the kind. He does not say save Thyself and us. He says something far smaller and far greater:

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

Luke 23:42

It is a stunning request in its setting. He looks at a man being executed beside him and calls Him Lord, and speaks of His kingdom — as though this dying man had a throne coming. He asks not for escape from the cross but only to be remembered on the far side of it. He has grasped what the mockers could not: that Jesus is a king, that His kingdom is real, and that the cross is not the end of Him.

The Promise

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

Luke 23:43

The demand for rescue, made three times, is never granted. Jesus does not save Himself, and He does not bring the criminals down from their crosses. But to the one who asked only to be remembered, He gives immeasurably more than the escape the others demanded: To day shalt thou be with me in paradise.

Notice everything packed into the answer. To day — not at some distant resurrection, but this very day. With me — the destination is not merely paradise but the presence of Christ. And paradise — the restored garden, the presence of God. The man asked to be remembered when Jesus came into His kingdom, imagining some future; Jesus tells him the kingdom is nearer than that. Today.

This is the answer to the whole ironic cluster. The mockers wanted salvation defined as coming down from the cross alive. The dying thief received salvation defined as being with Christ — and he received it precisely because Jesus did not come down. Had Jesus saved Himself, there would have been no paradise to promise. The refusal of the escape the mockers demanded is what secured the deliverance the thief was given.

Why Luke Tells It This Way

Luke’s addition of the second criminal turns the mockery inside out. The others record the demand; Luke records both the demand and its answer, side by side, on adjacent crosses. One man says save Thyself and us and receives nothing. The other says remember me and receives paradise that day. The difference is not that one asked and the other did not; it is what they asked, and in whom they were willing to hope.

The railing thief wanted a Christ who would prove Himself by escape. The believing thief wanted a Christ whose kingdom lay beyond the cross, and was willing to entrust himself to a dying man on the strength of it. Luke sets the two responses at the point of death, stripped of everything, so the reader sees the choice in its purest form.

What the Word Means Here

In the mockery — rulers, soldiers, and the railing criminal — save means physical escape from the cross, exactly as in Matthew and Mark. It is demanded three times and never given.

But Luke frames that shallow sense with the deep one. The believing thief does not use the saving verb at all; he asks only to be remembered. And he receives what the word means at its fullest — to day … with me in paradise. Luke’s contribution to this gateway is to place the counterfeit and the true within arm’s reach of each other, on two crosses, so that the demand for self-rescue and the gift of true salvation can be seen in a single glance. The rescue the mockers wanted never came. The salvation the thief was given could only come because it did not.

This study is part of What Does It Mean to Be Saved?, an examination of every New Testament use of saving language in context, within Resource Cluster 3: Life in Christ. 91 of 91 passage studies are complete — see every occurrence.