38 Then two robbers were crucified with him, one on the right and one on the left. 39 And those who passed by derided him, wagging their heads 40 and saying, “You who would destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, save yourself! If you are the Son of God, come down from the cross.” 41 So also the chief priests, with the scribes and elders, mocked him, saying, 42 “He saved others; he cannot save himself. He is the King of Israel; let him come down now from the cross, and we will believe in him. 43 He trusts in God; let God deliver him now, if he desires him. For he said, ‘I am the Son of God.’” 44 And the robbers who were crucified with him also reviled him in the same way.
There would surely be general agreement if we described the mockery of these verses as diabolic, but it is as well to see, on closer inspection, just how diabolic it is. The derisory challenge, 'If Thou be the Son of God, come down from the cross' is in fact the echo of the satanic temptation in the wilderness to aim at a Messiahship without a cross, to find some other way of doing the will of God. It was a temptation that came again and again to Jesus - on the mount of Transfiguration (cf 'Get thee behind me, Satan' in answer to Peter's protest against His teaching about the cross at Caesarea Philippi, and his subsequent rebuke on the mount when he wanted to bask in the glory of the transfiguration instead of going down to the sufferings that were to come), as also in the Garden, where part of our Lord's agony lay in the fact that it was still possible to refuse to drink the cup. And even at this late hour it was still possible for Him to have invoked the help of the legions of angels to bring Him down from the cross. But His Messiahship and Saviourhood depended precisely on His not coming down from the cross, and it is only a Saviour who does not come down that men can believe in unto salvation (42).