Luke tells us two criminals hung on crosses that day, one on each side of Jesus. Both were dying. Both had, presumably, done enough to earn a Roman execution. And in the space of a few sentences, Luke shows us these two men heading in opposite directions.
One of them joined the crowd in mocking Jesus: “Are you not the Christ? Save yourself and us!” (Luke 23:39). The other rebuked him for it. “Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we indeed justly, for we are receiving the due reward of our deeds; but this man has done nothing wrong,” he said (Luke 23:40–41). Then he turned to Jesus and asked for only one thing: “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom” (Luke 23:42).
Jesus’ answer is the line most people know: “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise” (Luke 23:43).
No baptism. No church membership. No waiting period. Just a request and a promise. So the question people ask about this account is a fair one, and it deserves a real answer instead of a brush-off: if a dying criminal could be saved with nothing more than a word of faith, why insist that baptism matters today?
Jesus Could Forgive Sins in Person, on His Own Authority
While He was here on earth, Jesus forgave people face to face. He told a paralyzed man, “Son, your sins are forgiven” (Mark 2:5), and when that troubled the religious leaders watching, He told them exactly why He had the right to say it: “...that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins...” (Mark 2:10). He said something similar to a weeping woman who came to Him uninvited: “Your sins are forgiven” (Luke 7:48).
The thief received that same kind of direct pardon, from the same person, on the same basis. Jesus was still walking the earth, still exercising the authority to forgive sins Himself, in person, before anything about His death and resurrection had happened yet. That authority didn’t disappear later — but the terms under which people receive it did change. That change is really the whole point.
Something Changed at the Cross
Here is the piece that’s easy to miss: the terms God gives us today didn’t take effect until Jesus died. Hebrews describes it this way: “For where a will is involved, the death of the one who made it must be established. For a will takes effect only at death, since it is not in force as long as the one who made it is alive” (Hebrews 9:16–17).
The thief died while Jesus was still alive on the cross beside him. Whatever new arrangement Jesus’ death was about to put in place, it hadn’t taken effect yet.
Only after the resurrection did Jesus send His followers out with the instruction that governs us now: “Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned” (Mark 16:16). And on the day the church began, when people asked Peter and the other apostles what they should do, his answer was direct: “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins” (Acts 2:38). That instruction is for people living on this side of the cross and the empty tomb. The thief never heard it, because it hadn’t been given yet.
We Also Don’t Know the Whole Story
It’s worth being honest about the limits of what the text actually tells us. Luke never says the thief had not been baptized. John the Baptist had been baptizing large crowds all through that region for months, and it’s entirely possible this man had gone through the Jordan at some point in his life, long before that Friday.
Even so, that wouldn’t fully settle the question, because John’s baptism and Christian baptism aren’t quite the same thing. Later, in Acts 19, Paul meets a group of believers in Ephesus who had only received John’s baptism, and has them baptized again “in the name of the Lord Jesus” once they understand the fuller picture (Acts 19:1–5). John’s baptism pointed forward, in anticipation of a Messiah who was still coming. Christian baptism points back, to a Messiah who has already died and been raised.
But set the “was he baptized” question aside entirely, because it isn’t really what settles the matter. Whatever the thief’s past, he was pardoned by Jesus Himself, in person, under the arrangement still in force at that moment — one that ended a few hours later.
A Word on “Dismas”
If you’ve ever heard the repentant thief called by name — Dismas — that name isn’t in the Bible. It comes from a much later apocryphal text and centuries of legend that grew up around this account, not from Scripture itself. It’s a small thing, but a useful reminder: when we’re building our convictions, it matters to know the difference between what the Bible actually says and what tradition has added onto it, however old or well-meaning that tradition is.
What the Thief Really Shows Us
The thief on the cross isn’t a loophole around baptism. He’s a picture of how freely Jesus gives mercy to anyone who turns to Him — even at the very last moment, even with nothing to offer but a request. What he doesn’t do is rewrite the instructions Jesus gave afterward to everyone else.
Think of it this way: a person can be forgiven a debt in person, by the very one they owe, and that forgiveness is completely real. But it doesn’t rewrite the terms written down for everyone who comes later, under a different arrangement. We don’t get to reach back past the cross and claim terms that were never offered to us, while setting aside the ones that were.
One honest note belongs here. We’re an independent congregation, with no headquarters or denomination behind us, so we can only speak for ourselves. What’s laid out above is how we read this account. We can’t answer for how every other group handles it — only for what we hold to here.
Come Study It With Us
If baptism has become the sticking point for you, that’s worth sitting with rather than rushing past. Open the Gospels and read the thief’s story for yourself. Then read the book of Acts and watch what people actually did the moment they believed. We’d be glad to walk through it with you, at your pace, with your hardest questions welcome.
Here at Christians in Honesdale, we’re simply Christians, doing our best to follow the Bible and nothing added to it.
You can schedule a free Bible study, learn more about who we are, or reach out to plan a visit. You are always welcome to just come and listen.
When we gather:
We meet at 416 Main Street, Suite D, Honesdale, PA 18431. Please park and enter at the rear of the building.