Luke 23:39-43
In this lesson we meet a man who went from prison to paradise on the same day.
Skeptics question so-called "deathbed conversions." After all, they say, there are no atheists in foxholes. Because there are no guarantees in life, every person faces the prospect of death daily. The wise person is the one who embraces eternal life at the very first opportunity.
If there is one story in the Bible that we should give to anyone who thinks they are too far gone to be saved by God, it is the story of the man we meet in this lesson: The dying thief on the cross. At a moment when he probably thought all hope was gone�he was beyond death row, in the midst of his execution, his life slipping away�he met the Savior of mankind and went into eternity a new creature in Christ (Luke 23:39-43).
The dying thief brought more "baggage" with him than any of those we have studied so far. Nicodemus brought power and prestige; the Samaritan woman brought immorality; the rich young ruler brought idolatry of wealth, and Zacchaeus brought greed and self-interest. But the thief brought his dying breaths to Jesus. After a lifetime of crime, or one serious mistake, we do not know. We only know that as he hung between heaven and earth, he was more desperate than anyone Jesus ministered to during His three years on earth. He was moments from dying and entering a Christless eternity.
But the thief's needs were not beyond Jesus' ability. As He did with everyone who came seeking Him sincerely, He reached out and welcomed the thief to Himself. Amazingly, the thief came to faith in Christ amidst a cacophony of voices on that dark day at Calvary. Somehow, he heard all that was said and kept his eyes and his understanding fixed on Jesus. He is an example of one who would not be deterred in his search for ultimate meaning in life.
THE RESPECTED MAJORITY: APATHY (23:35A)
There were many who gathered at the cross when Jesus was crucified. First, there was the respected majority who simply stood "looking on." They were average citizens, or the "silent majority" as they are known in modern political-speak. Like many people today, they were indifferent to the claims of Christ and stood beholding the most important event in history, not even aware of what was happening. The defining moment of time and eternity was taking place right in front of them, and the Scripture says they stood and stared.
There are many today who find themselves most comfortable as members of the silent majority They have been around the Lord and heard the message of the Gospel, but have never really understood who He is and what He has done. They just stand looking on.
THE RELIGIOUS LEADERS: MOCKERY (LUKE 23:35B)
In two separate accounts in the Gospels, we are given the words of the religious leaders of Jesus' day who mocked Him while He was on the cross. It was this mocking that the thief on the cross heard, but had faith in spite of.
An Initial Statement of Insult and Mockery (23:35)
Among the crowd witnessing the crucifixion of Christ were some of the "rulers" who mocked Jesus, challenging Him to save Himself if He really was the Son of God. While they appear willing to acknowledge His saving ability, they are without understanding of their own need to be saved.
A Second Statement of Insult and Mockery (Matthew 27:39-43)
Matthew's record of the religious rulers' mockery included words from the crowd, the chief priests, the scribes, and the elders. In other words, the entire religious leadership of Israel was gathered at the foot of the cross mocking and challenging Jesus to demonstrate His power as a king and the Son of God. These weren't just individual challenges; these were institutional challenges. The entire religious community was casting aspersions upon Jesus at the moment of His greatest suffering.
Modern times have not changed this. We have witnessed the grossest forms of blasphemy in modern times from some in the art community, and we even have political leaders making mocking statements about Ihe weakness of those who choose to follow Christ. Just as the thief on the cross had to listen to this mocking, and try to filter it out, so those who seek Christ today find their search complicated by the modern mockery of many in our society.
THE ROMAN SOLDIERS: BRUTALITY (23:36-37)
Along with the religious leaders, the Roman soldiers were a second group who actively stepped forward and mocked the Lord Jesus while He hung on the cross. Instead of compassion while Christ suffered, they demonstrated contempt for even His human needs by offering Him sour wine to drink. While the wine did have gall mixed in it (Matthew 27:34), presumably as a pain killer, Jesus refused to drink it so as to remain conscious throughout His ordeal. Matthew also tells us that the soldiers even gambled among themselves to see who would get His clothing (verse 35}.
No other name is used more as an object of swearing and cursing than the lovely name of Jesus. Why is this so? Why isn't the name of Abraham Lincoln, or Julius Caesar, or Mahatma Gandi used as the preferred vehicle for cursing? It is for the same reason that the soldiers and others cursed Christ when in His presence. In the person of Jesus Christ is found perfect purity, holiness, righteousness, and goodness. Sinful man is so convicted by His purity that our own emptiness is seen in stark contrast to Him. It is the natural reaction of sinful man to lash out, even subconsciously, at the One who makes our own inadequacies so evident. The pain of our own emptiness and longing for purity makes us lash out at the One who has what we have lost. It is not until we receive what He has, and what He offers to us�a new life filled with His person and presence�that our resentment toward Him is taken away.
In addition to those who attacked Christ as His enemies, one of His peers-in-punishment also lashed out at Him�the other thief on the cross.
THE RAILING THIEF: UNBELIEF (23:32, 39)
Luke tells us that two others were led out with Jesus to be crucified at the same time. Luke calls them criminals (evil-doers), but Matthew uses a more specific term to describe them: lestes, the word for robber. But this same word was used to describe Barabbas, the insurrectionist, whom Pilate released to the Jewish crowd in place of Jesus at His so-called trial. The word apparently means more than robbery only, but implies revolution or insurrection as well, something the Romans would not have tolerated for a moment.
Whatever their specific crimes, they were lifted up on crosses at the same time Jesus was. The anger and discontent that led them to their crimes was undoubtedlv magnified many times over by the pain and suffering they endured as they were nailed to their crosses on either side of Jesus. While they suffered the same excruciating pain of crucifixion as Jesus did, their responses could not have been more different than Jesus'. They must have cried out intensely cursing God, cursing the Romans, cursing the Jews, cursing their mother and father, and cursing the day they were born.
And the one thief never did stop cursing. He cursed his way into a Christless eternity. What a glimpse of the depravity of man. Faced with his death, you would think he would cry out to God in the hunger of his heart for mercy and grace. But it is possible, both then and now, to so harden oneself toward God that the more pain comes, the harder the heart becomes. This was brought home to me most clearly as I studied the Book of Revelation over a period of several years. The thing that amazed me most was the response of people to the suffering brought about by conditions during the Great Tribulation. Those who were sinful and blasphemous when the suffering began became more sinful and more blasphemous as their suffering continued. When the Lord offered them opportunity for relief, many of them held their fist in the face of God and said, "We will not have this Man to rule over us!" and they hardened their hearts in their sin. That's what happened to the railing thief. He had the same opportunity as the man on the cross on the opposite side of Jesus, but he railed against the Lord and would not have Him. That brings us to the subject of this lesson, the thief who actually met Christ in the final hours of his life.
THE REPENTANT THIEF: BELIEF (23:40-43)
This thief took his fellow criminal to task for mocking and blaspheming Jesus. Somehow. his eyes were opend to see Jesus for who He was.
He Perceived His Own Condition (23 :40b-41a)
That which sets this prisoner apart from the other most strikingly is that he took ownership of his guilt. Those in our church who work in prisons and with prison ministries report that the most common characteristic of prisoners is that they are all innocent. They often believe they were victims of circumstances over which they had no control. But this thief is different. He rebukes the first thief, telling him they are both getting what they deserve.
That is exactly where any person must begin with God. The biggest hurdle human pride has to get over is the hurdle of guilt before God. Every human being deserves to die because of the guilt of our sin. Our sin may not be as horrendous as that of some, but we are guilty of sin nonetheless. If we could project our thoughts forward to the end of our life, and see ourselves standing guilty for our sin before a holy God, we might be more willing to repent of our sin today and accept the punishment which God laid upon Christ. That's what the repentant thief on the cross did. He actually was in the last moments of his life, and He saw His guilt clearly.
He Prayed to Receive Forgiveness (23:42)
Verse 42 records perhaps the purest prayer of repentance and faith ever uttered. This thief captured something that even the disciples had failed to understand after spending three years with Jesus. He understood that Jesus was the Son of God, and that His life, and the thief's own life, were not going to end that day on Calvary. Though physically they would draw a final breath, the thief knew that Jesus was destined for the kingdom of God, and he was not unless he asked Jesus to take him there. This was an eschatological understanding, and a display of courage in the face of daunting circumstances, that we do not find in the disciples until after Jesus' resurrection. But this man had a flash of understanding and discernment unparalleled by any prior follower of Chlrist. And he humbled himself and acted on his understanding in time to receive eternal life.
He Was Pardoned by the Lord (23:43)
Jesus answered the request of the thief point by point. The thief asked for two things: To be remembered, and to be remembered specifically in the context of Jesus' destination�the kingdom of God. In verse 42, we find the thief's request, and in verse 43 we find Jesus' answer, or pardon, extended to the thief:
The Thief: "Remember me when you come into Your kingdom."
Jesus: "You will be with me in Paradise."
And in that moment of time, that thief met his Savior hanging on the cross next to him. And he entered into eternity to live forever with the Lord. Whatever bad things he had done were laid upon the Lord Jesus Christ who hung next to him. The penalty for all of his sin and for all of yours and for all of mine was nailed on that cross. He died and went to be with the Lord in Paradise that day. What a day that was for that man! He started out the day in prison, and he woke up in Paradise. Because, on the way, he hung on a cross next to his Savior.
It could be asked, "Why did God allow His Son, the Lord of Glory, to hang in such an ugly setting and to die between two convicted thieves?" There are at least three good reasons why this was God's plan:
1. To demonstrate the depths to which He would go for His own.
Perhaps He wanted to remind us again of how much He loved us and of the depths to which He would go to reach us. Have you ever thought about the fact that when Jesus was born He was surrounded by beasts? When He died, He hung between two thieves. You might say, "But I'm too awful, and I'm too low, and I've done too many bad things for Jesus to save me." Jesus Christ came into this world and stooped down, not just part of the way, but all the way down to reach us in our sin and in our misery. When he died on the cross between two thieves He showed us how much He loved us.
2. To do away forever with salvation by works.
He also died between too thieves so that no one would ever be able to say that salvation is by our works. The repentant thief was a man who was granted a pardon from Almighty God through His Son, Jesus Christ. This man was saved in his dying hour. What good work could he ever offer to Almighty God? His hands were nailed to the cross. He couldn't offer Christ anything in his hands. His life was ruined, his hope was gone. There was no way he could do anything for himself except give himself to Christ. Sometimes people today acknowledge that they are saved by faith, but feel they must also be baptized. While baptism is an important act of obedience for every believer, you do not have to be baptized to go to heaven. If it were necessary, the poor thief died and did not go to Paradise because he couldn't have been baptized. The only thing he was capable of doing was putting his faith in Almighty God. We are given no clearer evidence in the Bible that salvation is by faith, not by works, than the thief's salvation. The thief brought nothing, and in our hands we bring nothing to God.
3. To demonstrate the beauty of salvation for all to see.
Salvation is a beautiful gift of God, offered freely to all who will accept it. It is presumptuous for anyone to postpone the receipt of God's gift. As someone has said, "One thief was saved so that no one would ever be able to despair, and only one was saved so that no one would be able to presume.!"
With whom whould you have identified that day on Calvary? The silent majority? The religious rulers? The Roman soldiers? The hardened thief? If you have not already identified yourself with the repentant thief, I urge you to do so today. The gift he received is a gift Jesus offers to you as well.
Did you know...?
An almost incidental occurrence at Christ's crucifixion had great theological importance. John's gospel records how the Roman soldiers broke the legs of the thieves to hasten their death, but not of Christ, who had already expired (John 19:32-33). His timely death was in order that He might be "a [sacrificial, Passover] lamb without blemish and without spot" (1 Peter 1:19). Moses had commanded the Israelites on the night of the first Passover not "to break any bone" of the lamb (Exodus 12:46), and repeated that instruction later in Numbers 9:12. In Psalm 34:20, the suffering David declares prophetically that "[God] keeps all his bones, Not one of them is broken." So the Son of David fulfilled the role as a perfect Passover Lamb, sacrificed for the sins of the world, with not one of His bones broken.
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