How should we interpret ‘Lord, lay not this sin to their charge, because they know not what they do’ (see Luke 23:34)?

This text is from a transcript of a talk by David Gooding, entitled ‘Four Journeys to Jerusalem’ (2009).

It's Luke that records this. Wouldn't it be marvellous to be able to get up and expound the details of each story of the four records of the crucifixion in their context? Luke is concerned with the moral issues involved in the crucifixion. When our Lord said, 'Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do,' he was talking of the soldiers that had just nailed his hands and feet to a cross. They certainly didn't know what they were doing; they were just carrying out their orders. If they hadn't done it, they'd have been executed themselves.

Luke's emphasis on the moral issues raised by the crucifixion of Christ

So how should we interpret the words, 'Father, forgive them'. Stephen, when he was being stoned to death said, 'Do not hold this sin against them' (Acts 7:60). He personally didn't hold what they were doing against them. And we are allowed to take that view before God: 'I don't hold this against them, Lord, so please don't lay this charge against them.' But it seems to me to be very important to put what Luke says in its context.

Our Lord was going on the way to crucifixion and carrying his cross, and the women came out of Jerusalem. The dear souls were moved to tears and were wringing their hands: 'Oh, poor young man. He's going to be crucified, and he's such a nice young man!' and they were weeping. Our Lord said, 'Stop that. You can stop that right now. Don't you weep for me! It's not I that has got the wrong end of this stick; it's you. For the days will come when they will cry to the mountains to fall on them and in which they will congratulate women that never had any children. For if they do these things in the green tree, what shall be done in the dry?' (see Luke 23:27–31). If in a society that had more or less stable government and moderately decent laws they were prepared to execute and crucify an innocent man, what do you suppose will happen in 'a dry tree'?

Peter tells us that our Lord, when he suffered, did not threaten. Why not? 'He committed himself to him that judges righteously.' Our Lord went to Calvary, not calling down curses on people, but committing the whole thing to the judge who one day would judge righteously. So Peter says. And because he was content to hand it over to God to judge righteously, then he was free himself to 'bear our sins in his body on the tree, that we might pass away from sin and live unto righteousness'. But he did it in the confidence that one day God would judge righteously (see 1 Peter 2:23–24 RV).

Then there were two brigands crucified with him. We read of them here in Luke 23. And one said, 'You're the Christ? Get us down from here!' It is a typical worldly response: 'If you're the Christ, get us free of the penalty and the punishment that we have brought on ourselves, then we'll believe in you!' But Christ didn't attempt to bring them down. Christ wasn't there just to rescue people from the temporal punishment of their misdeeds, emptying the prisons, and saying people shouldn't be punished. That's a lot of nonsense.

The other criminal who at first had joined in, then came by gradual stages to repentance, and he rebuked the first chap. He said, 'Do you not fear God?'

'Why should I?'

'Seeing you are in the same condemnation.'

The same condemnation as whom? Well, not the same as his fellow criminal.

'Why don't you fear God, seeing you are under the same judgment as this man here in the middle of us? For this man has done nothing wrong.'

How is that the ground for fearing God?

Well, think about it! If it is the fact that there is a God at all up in heaven, and here is an innocent man that has done nothing wrong who is being crucified by the authorities—if there is a God at all, there will be a judgment, a final judgment. If in a world where the innocent suffer and very often are killed and persecuted by violent sinners, there is going to be a judgment, if there is a God at all.

And do you know what? This second criminal began to wish there was going to be a final judgment. He hadn't done that most of his life! But these rotters down here: the priests and other hypocrites, and all the rest of them going by here, who had put him on the cross anyway, were a lot of scoundrels themselves. I think he began to hope there would be a final judgment, because if there wasn't, these chaps had won!

If there's no final judgment, Hitler won, didn't he?

You say, 'He killed himself.'

Well, so he did, but he won—he got away with millions of murders, if there's no final judgment.

'There is going to be a final judgment,' says the second thief, and then he had a spectacular thought: 'This Jesus, yes, he's the King of the Jews. He will come in his kingdom! There is going to be a life after death.' And having heard the Lord pray: 'Father forgive them', he ventured to request it. He didn't say, 'Lord, forgive my sins.' He said what for him was a remarkable thing: 'Lord, would you let me come into your kingdom?'

That was a conversion, wasn't it? He hadn't been in anybody's kingdom. He'd been a freebooter, a brigand and a political anarchist. Now he is asking the favour of being allowed to come into the kingdom of the rule of Christ! That is repentance, you know. In the story of the crucifixion, Luke's Gospel is very heavily concerned with the moral issues involved in it.

And then there came a good counsellor (Joseph of Arimathea), and he hadn't been consenting to the deeds that the others did, and he was 'a righteous man'. Oh yes, he was. How would you know that? Because now, at the cross of Christ, he saw that the time had come when he must make his stand. The highest authority in his land, for him as a Jew, had sentenced Christ to crucifixion. He hadn't agreed with them, but he'd remained in the shadows. He couldn't do it any longer! He was a just man. He must come and take his side with Christ. And he went and asked permission of Pilate, and buried him (see Luke 23:50–56). How's that for taking a stand against the Sanhedrin?

And as for the ordinary centurion? Well, they were big men in their way, and some of them were very wealthy. One of them had built a synagogue for the Jews out of his own spare cash (Luke 7:1–10). They were quite wealthy, and centurions were the backbone of the Roman army. And the man in charge at the crucifixion, 'when he saw that he so cried out: "Father, into your hands I commit my spirit"' he thought, 'Well, somebody who could do that when the earth was quaking . . .' He said, 'This man is right.' This centurion had met a lot of religious people, you know, and seen a lot of people die. The way this man died? The centurion said, 'This man is right' (see Luke 23:44–47).

Luke is concerned with the moral issues that are raised by the crucifixion of Christ. But you mustn't take my word for it. Those are suggestions, but look into it for yourself.