The innocent king crucified: Pilate, Herod, the cross and the tomb in Luke 23

Luke 23 is part of the third Gospel, which tradition from the second century assigns to Luke, the physician and companion of Paul (Colossians 4:14; Philemon 24). He is not named in the text, and some modern scholars doubt that he knew Paul personally. The Gospel is addressed to Theophilus and claims to rest on eyewitness reports and careful research (Luke 1:1-4). The date is debated. An early date of the early 60s AD is argued from the open ending of Acts, while most critical scholars place the Gospel between about AD 70 and 90. For the passion story, scholars disagree about Luke's sources. The most common view is that he used Mark and added material from his own sources, though some think he followed a separate passion account and drew on Mark only in places. The differences from Mark described below are best read with that debate in mind.

The chapter takes place in Jerusalem on the day before the Sabbath, at Passover time. Rome governed Judea through a prefect. Pontius Pilate held the office from about AD 26 to 36, and he is named by the Roman historian Tacitus as the man who executed Christ in the reign of Tiberius. Only the Roman governor could carry out a death sentence, which is why the council, having condemned Jesus in its own eyes at the end of chapter 22, brings him to Pilate. Herod Antipas, son of Herod the Great, ruled Galilee and Perea as tetrarch and was in Jerusalem for the feast. Crucifixion was a Roman punishment for slaves, rebels and those who defied the state, and it was meant to shame as well as kill.

Luke has a clear aim in this chapter. He shows that Jesus was not a rebel against Rome. Pilate declares him innocent three times, Herod finds nothing against him, the penitent criminal says he has done nothing wrong, and the centurion calls him righteous. For a Gentile reader like Theophilus, this answers the charge that the Christian movement began with a political criminal. For all readers, the innocence of Jesus is the ground of the claim that he died for others.

Luke 23 is narrative, and it is the climax of a story that has been moving toward Jerusalem since 9:51. The best way to read it is as a series of scenes in which several people see the truth about Jesus and respond. Pilate, Herod, the soldiers, the rulers, the crowd, the two criminals, the centurion and Joseph each take a stance, and Luke shows each in a few lines. The reader should watch how Jesus speaks almost nothing in his own defense and how nearly all his words are for others: for the women, for his enemies, for the dying man and for the Father.

The chapter is also a story told with the Old Testament open beside it. Luke mentions the division of the garments and the sneering of the rulers, which recall Psalm 22:7-8 and 18. He gives the last words from Psalm 31:5. And he has Jesus numbered among criminals, which fulfills Isaiah 53:12, a text Jesus himself applied to his death in 22:37. These are not proofs added by the writer. They show how the first Christians understood the crucifixion as God's plan, foretold in the Scriptures.

Two textual matters need attention. Some manuscripts omit Jesus' prayer 'Father, forgive them' in 23:34. The omission is in early manuscripts, and some scholars think the words were a later addition. Others think that they were removed because of a reluctance to see God's forgiveness extended to those who killed Jesus. The words fit Luke's teaching and Stephen's prayer in Acts 7:60, and many scholars hold that they are original. Some manuscripts add a verse 17 about the custom of releasing a prisoner at the feast, but most scholars take it as a later addition from the other Gospels.

Verses 1–5

The whole council takes Jesus to Pilate. They bring three charges that are not mentioned at the hearing in chapter 22: that he misleads the nation, that he forbids paying tribute to Caesar, and that he says he is Christ, a king. The second is false, since Jesus said to give to Caesar what is Caesar's (20:25), and the charges present a religious title as a political crime. Pilate asks if he is the king of the Jews. Jesus replies that Pilate himself says so. Pilate announces that he finds no guilt in him. The leaders insist that he stirs up the people from Galilee to Jerusalem.

Verses 6–12

On hearing 'Galilee', Pilate sends Jesus to Herod Antipas. Herod is glad, because he has long wanted to see Jesus (9:9; 13:31-32) and hopes for a sign. He questions Jesus at length, and Jesus answers nothing. The chief priests and scribes accuse him vigorously. Herod and his soldiers treat him with contempt, dress him in an elegant robe and send him back. Pilate and Herod, who had been enemies, become friends that day. Luke alone includes this scene.

Verses 13–25

Pilate calls the rulers and the people together. He says that neither he nor Herod found any basis for the charges, and he proposes to have Jesus flogged and released. The crowd cries out for Barabbas, a man jailed for an uprising in the city and for murder. Pilate speaks to them again, wanting to release Jesus, and a third time asks what evil he has done. The shouting for crucifixion wins. Pilate gives the verdict they demand, releases the man they asked for and hands Jesus over to their will. Luke does not say that Pilate washed his hands, as Matthew does.

Verses 26–31

Simon, a man from Cyrene (a city in North Africa), is seized and made to carry the cross behind Jesus. A large crowd follows, including women who mourn. Jesus turns to them: do not weep for me, but for yourselves and your children. Days are coming when they will say that the barren are blessed, and people will beg the mountains to fall on them, language from Hosea 10:8. If this is done when the wood is green, what will happen when it is dry? The saying looks forward to the judgment that Jesus has already foretold for Jerusalem (19:41-44; 21:20-24).

Verses 32–43

They come to the place called the Skull (in Aramaic Golgotha), and crucify him between two criminals, which fulfills the word that he would be counted with transgressors. He prays that the Father will forgive those who do not know what they are doing. The soldiers divide his clothes by lot (Psalm 22:18). The rulers sneer that he saved others and should now save himself, if he is God's Christ, the Chosen One. The soldiers mock him and offer him sour wine, and the sign over his head says that this is the King of the Jews. One of the criminals joins the abuse. The other rebukes him, saying that they suffer justly but this man has done nothing wrong, and he asks Jesus to remember him when he comes into his kingdom. Jesus answers that today he will be with him in Paradise (a Persian loanword for a garden, used in Jewish writing for the place of the righteous dead). The promise is solemn ('Truly I tell you'), and Luke alone records it.

Verses 44–49

From noon until three o'clock darkness comes over the whole land and the sun's light fails. Because Passover falls at full moon, an eclipse of the sun is not a likely explanation. The curtain of the temple is torn in two, and in Luke this happens before Jesus dies, not after as in Mark. Jesus cries out with a loud voice, committing his spirit into the Father's hands in the words of Psalm 31:5, and dies. The centurion praises God and says that this man was righteous. In Mark the centurion's words are about the Son of God (Mark 15:39). The crowds beat their breasts and go home. Jesus' acquaintances and the women who followed him from Galilee stand at a distance and watch.

Verses 50–56

Joseph of Arimathea, a member of the council who had not agreed with its decision, asks Pilate for the body, wraps it in linen and lays it in a rock-cut tomb in which no one had yet been laid. It is the day of Preparation, and the Sabbath is beginning. The women from Galilee see the tomb and how the body is laid, and they prepare spices and perfumes, then rest on the Sabbath according to the commandment.

Luke 23 touches the heart of the Christian faith: the death of the Son of God. It teaches that the death is the result of human sin, in which a governor, a king, priests, soldiers and a crowd all share, and that it is also the fulfillment of God's plan, as Peter states in Acts 2:23 and 4:27-28. It teaches that the cross is a place of forgiveness, in Jesus' prayer for those who killed him, and of salvation, in the promise to the criminal. Salvation in this story depends on nothing the man has done. He asks to be remembered and is promised Paradise.

The release of Barabbas, a guilty man, while the innocent Jesus is condemned, is a picture of substitution. Luke does not make this point himself, but the pattern is the one stated elsewhere: Christ died for the ungodly (Romans 5:6-8), the righteous for the unrighteous (1 Peter 3:18). Luke's account also shows the temple curtain torn, a sign that the way into God's presence is opened, which Hebrews 10:19-20 explains in terms of the body of Christ. Jesus' death also brings judgment, as the warning to the daughters of Jerusalem shows. The same cross that opens forgiveness exposes those who refuse it. Finally, the chapter says something about death itself. Jesus dies with trust in the Father, and the promise of Paradise says that those who belong to him will be with him.

Luke presents Jesus as the righteous sufferer of the Psalms and the servant of Isaiah 53. He is counted with transgressors (Isaiah 53:12, applied to himself in Luke 22:37), and he intercedes for them, which is what Isaiah 53:12 also says of the servant. Psalm 22 shapes the picture of the mocking crowds and the division of his garments, and Psalm 31:5 supplies his last words. In Psalm 31 the speaker trusts God even in danger, and Jesus takes the words as his own at the last. The rulers' taunt that he should save himself, if he is the Christ and the Chosen One, repeats the temptation of the wilderness (4:1-13), and he refuses it because his way of saving others is not to save himself.

The cross is also where the claims of his kingship are seen most clearly. The sign over him says that he is the King of the Jews, and the dying thief calls him a king coming into his kingdom. Jesus accepts this and rules from the cross: he forgives, he promises, he receives the sinner. The centurion's confession of his righteousness completes the picture of a king without guilt. For the New Testament, this is how God's anointed saves: Paul calls Christ crucified the power of God (1 Corinthians 1:23-24), and Hebrews 2:9-10 describes the founder of salvation made perfect through suffering.