What about the Thief on the Cross?

Does the thief on the cross prove that baptism 

is not required for salvation?

Gary Hoge

Jesus hung on the cross between two thieves. One of them reviled him, but the other defended him, saying, “Don’t you fear God, since you are under the same sentence? We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve. But this man has done nothing wrong.” Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” Jesus replied, “I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise” (Luke 23:40-43).

Some Christians cite this exchange as if it refutes Catholic¹ baptismal theology. “Aha,” they say, “Baptism can’t be required for salvation because the thief on the cross wasn’t baptized, and yet Jesus said he was saved.” They draw the inference that because baptism wasn’t required for the salvation of the thief on the cross, it isn’t required for anyone. That’s called “making exceptions the rule.”

Often we Catholics try to explain away the thief on the cross as if these Christians have a point. We say, “Well, he obviously knew who Jesus was. Maybe he had been a follower at one time and had been baptized.” (That seems unlikely). Or we say, “He died under the Old Covenant, before the sacrament of baptism was instituted, so he doesn’t count.” (Jesus had people baptized as early as John 3:22², so the thief died after the sacrament was instituted).

But none of that matters. There’s no need to contort ourselves to explain the case of the thief on the cross. The Church has always understood that baptism is a normative requirement. That means that in the ordinary course of things, when a sinner turns to Christ in faith, that sinner is baptized. And baptism is the ordinary means by which his sins are washed away (Acts 2:38, Acts 22:16), he is regenerated (John 3:5, Titus 3:5), and he is incorporated into Christ (Romans 6:3, 1 Corinthians 12:13, Galatians 3:27).

But there are always edge cases like the thief on the cross, or a new believer who gets hit by a bus before he can be baptized. What happens in cases like that? Well, Jesus said, "Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned” (Mark 16:16). Notice that Jesus did not say, “whoever is not baptized will be condemned.” From this we can infer, as we said above, that baptism is a normative requirement, but not an absolute requirement.

The Church teaches that in the case of those who, through no fault of their own, can’t be baptized, “their explicit desire to receive [baptism], together with repentance for their sins, and charity, assures them the salvation that they were not able to receive through the sacrament.”³ In the case of those who didn’t know they were supposed to be baptized, “it may be supposed that such persons would have desired Baptism explicitly if they had known its necessity.”⁴

We are bound to follow the requirement to be baptized if we can, and that is usually how God confers to us the remission of sins, regeneration, and incorporation into Christ. But God, who is eager to give these gifts to us, is free to make exceptions for those who, like the thief on the cross, can’t be baptized. After all, he didn’t institute the sacrament of baptism to keep repentant sinners out of the kingdom on a technicality. He instituted it to aid our faith by making the invisible visible, and the intangible tangible.