THE DYING THIEF AND THE GREAT PHYSICIAN

THE DYING THIEF

Matt 27:44; Luke 23:39-43

            The account of the dying thief shines with a wonderful radiance amid the most appalling gloom. During the ministry of our Lord, as we have seen, many had committed themselves unto Him, some unworthily, as John points out, when he said that many trusted to Him, but He did not trust Himself to them. Many had committed themselves with full purpose of heart, and He had responded to them by committing Himself to them completely.

            The account of the dying criminal is the last we have of any committing himself to Christ prior to His death. It gives the account of one who committed himself to Christ completely, and of one, therefore, to whom Christ immediately committed Himself in all fullness.

            It was indeed a lonely hour in the history of our Lord. There are senses in which His had been a lonely pilgrimage throughout, while in other senses He had never been alone, as He Himself said: "I am not alone, because the Father is with Me."

            On the level of human friendship and companionship, however, He had been strangely lonely. Even those who had committed themselves to Him sincerely, those nearest to Him, that little band of chosen men, never really came close to Him in the days of His flesh. They were unable either to understand or to follow. In this hour Jew and Gentile had united against Him. His disciples had all forsaken Him, and fled. Round about that lifted Cross priests, elders, scribes, and impaled thieves were mocking Him. Matthew and Mark distinctly tell us that at first both these malefactors railed on Jesus.

            So as we reverently watch in this hour of strange and awful loneliness, something happened in a most remarkable way. A man on one of the crosses first spoke for Him, defending Him, and then spoke to Him, committing himself to Him. He on the Cross, in the midst of all the vulgar behavior of the surroundings, answered that man in language full of august majesty and authority. It was a remarkable breaking in upon the loneliness, a happening of radiant beauty.

            As we look at this dying thief we have to say that we know practically nothing about him, except what is revealed in the account. Legendary lore has been busy with him, but we know nothing of his parentage. Two things which resolve themselves into one are revealed. Matthew and Mark describe him as leistes, that is a robber or in other words, a thief or bandit, or outlaw. Luke uses another word, which nevertheless exactly covers the same ground. He speaks of two kakourgoi. The kakourgos was a criminal, a man of the criminal order. How long this man had been so living we cannot tell. It may be that he had passed into this class as the result of training, or lack of training. It may be that some mother's heart had been broken over him. All that we do not know, but we are face to face with him in the hour when he is seen, one of the marauders prevalent at the time in the district. This is the man we see hanging by the side of Jesus. He was a man who ignored God. I am not prepared to say he denied God. Indeed, at this point we see he referred to Him; but in the practices of his life he had put God out of his mind. He had dared the laws and had broken them. He had no regard for his fellow-men. The central principle of his life was that he was self-centered.

            We recognize at once that it is a terrible condition. When a man sinks so low as to ignore God, and exploit his fellow men in order to enrich himself, he is certainly in a terrible situation. In passing I may say I am inclined to think there is a yet more terrible condition. There are men who are self-centered just as much as the bandit is, but who use God and man in their own interests. They do not ignore God. They may even go to Church. They do not rob men by open violence, but they rob them in sweated labor. I sometimes wonder which is the most despicable I think I would rather be the bandit.

            But to return. We have seen all sorts and conditions of men as we have followed the account of our Lord's contact with them. Here we are in the presence of a man who, from the human standpoint is in the most hopeless condition in that only broken law, but the law has now broken him.

            The marvel of the account is that of its revelation of Christ's contact with this man. So far as we know, his only contact with Jesus was made in this hour. It is impossible to say that he had never seen Jesus or that he had never heard Him; but we have no evidence that he had done either. He had been caught, condemned, crucified. So had Jesus. That, of course, is to speak in the terms of the time and occasion on the human level.

            As we read the account of the crucifixion it is quite evident that Jesus was the first one they nailed to His Cross. What, then, we ask, had this man probably seen or heard before he spoke? Undoubtedly he had watched the crucifixion, perhaps his own heart filled with terror as he looked forward to his own experience. Watching, he had seen the One Who was being crucified, pass through the excruciating agony without any complaint, without any word of angry protest; led as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep, before her shearers is dumb. He opened not His mouth.

            Then he had heard Him speak once, saying that amazing thing, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do."

            I cannot read this account without feeling that both these facts had their bearing on this man's attitude toward Jesus. Not immediately, because as we have seen, in the earlier part of his tragic and dreadful hours, he, in company with the other of the malefactors, railed upon Jesus. He had seen Him then, in awful silence, suffer without a complaint, and had heard that cry escape Him, uttered to the God of the universe by the name Father, asking Him to forgive the men who were causing His suffering.

            We now remember that after our Lord was crucified these criminals suffered the same fate; and in the midst of the terror and agony they joined with the vulgar behavior of the priests and soldiers, and mocked Him. Then something happened in the soul of this man, and in his next speech we find evidence of a most remarkable upheaval and revolution, and contradiction of all he had been, and all that had brought him through the processes of law to the cross. Suddenly he ceased his railing, and addressed himself to the man on the other side of Jesus, saying: "Dost thou not even fear God, seeing thou art in the same condemnation? And we indeed justly; for we receive the due reward of our deeds, but this Man hath done nothing amiss."

            These words were spoken not to Jesus, but about Him, and they reveal the fact that suddenly his whole attitude toward life was changed. He had ignored God. He now remembered Him, "Dost thou not even fear God?" He had wronged his fellow-men, pitilessly, heartlessly, and he now said, we are suffering as we ought, for this is the just reward of our deeds. The final note of revolution is his confession there and then of the sinlessness of Jesus as he said, "This Man hath done nothing amiss."

            It is a perfect example of repentance. Repentance is infinitely more than sorrow for sin. A man may be sorry for his sin, and yet never repent as our last article states. The Roman theologians insisted that the chief element in repentance was sorrow, while the Protestant theologians claimed that its chief element is that of a changed mind. There is no doubt that this latter is the true meaning of the word. And this is exactly what had happened in the case of this man. He had changed his mind concerning his attitude towards God, and concerning his attitude to his fellow men.

            Perhaps at this point we may pause to say that the question may be asked as to why the other thief did not repent. The answer is that here we are face to face with the mystery of the human soul. Both had the same truth before them. Both had the same Christ in the midst. Both had seen Him submitting to His cross. Both had heard His prayer. One repented, and the other did not; and so it has ever been, and still is.

            He then spoke to Christ directly: "Jesus, remember me when Thou comest in Thy Kingdom."

            Familiar as we are with this account, it abides as a most arresting utterance. The very words prove a recognition on the part of the man, that the One hanging by his side, crucified as he was, numbered with transgressors, was nevertheless a King. He realized that the inscription written over Him meant more than it seemed to do. His cry, moreover, revealed a conviction that in spite of the fact that He was impaled upon the Cross, He was coming into His Kingdom.

            I claim that in all this I am not drawing on my imagination. To take that sentence in all simplicity is at once to recognize that this dying thief saw the One by his side as a King. There had come to him the profound and absolute conviction that in spite of His apparent defeat as He was impaled upon a Roman cross, He was inevitably passing to a Kingdom. Suddenly, this dying malefactor is seen as having a grasp of spiritual verities, seeing through the blood of the Cross to the gleaming glory of the crown. That unquestionably is the meaning of his cry: "Jesus, remember me when Thou comest in Thy Kingdom."

            It follows necessarily that it was far more than a recognition of Kingship. It was submission thereto. Said he, "Remember me," keep me in mind, think of me. He was not asking for pardon, though that undoubtedly was included in his thinking. He was not seeking for reward. He knew that he was going to die. He knew also that Jesus would die. Following upon the revolution which was repentance, there came the sense of eternity. He saw things lying out beyond the present, "when Thou comest in Thy Kingdom." It was a singularly remarkably correct apprehension of the nature of His rule. Confessedly he was justly condemned. He now made his appeal to the One Whom he had heard pray for His murderers. He had come to a conviction that there was a realm beyond that in which he was suffering the just rewards of his deeds, and that there was another tribunal other than the one that had condemned him. He had heard Jesus appeal to a Throne higher than Caesar's and now he made an appeal to Him. What he said may be described as the gasp of a dying man, but what a gasp it was. In it he gathered up his own personality, nailed to the cross as to bodily presence, and flung himself out into the realm of the spiritual, and asked to be remembered there.

            That was indeed an act of faith, and speaking without dogmatism, and merely from personal conviction, I do not find in all this New Testament record any faith that to me is more arresting, more amazing, more triumphant, and more complete, than that of this dying malefactor.

            Then we turn to consider how Christ dealt with this man, and we hear one sentence uttered: "Today shalt thou be with Me in Paradise."

            That was first of all response to faith, and involved within it there was the answer of repentance.

            It was response to faith. It was the word of the King. It was the word of One speaking with authority in the realm of the life that lay beyond. Soon the malefactor will be dead. Soon Jesus will be dead on the earth level. Soon evil will seem to have triumphed over good. The word of Jesus assumed the place of authority in the realm of life that lies beyond the earthly. "Today shalt thou be with Me in Paradise," was His answer to the faith and the repentance of the malefactor.

            We pause for a moment with the phrase, "In Paradise." The Hebrew people spoke of the world of departed spirits as Sheol, or Hades in the Greek. In all their thinking they divided this place of departed spirits into two realms, first that in which the unjust were imprisoned, and secondly, that where the just were existing with an non-passable gulf between. This was always referred to as Paradise. Thus Jesus adopted the language of their own theology as He addressed the dying malefactor. He declared in effect that this man should be with Him in the realm of the departed spirits, and in that realm where are the spirits of the just made perfect. In the language of today the declaration meant, today you shall be with Me in heaven for He took them with Him from that realm back to heaven.

            We now go a step further and ask what happened next? Jesus died before the malefactors. According to the custom of Roman law, they came towards sunset to break the legs of those who had been crucified. Different reasons for this could have been given. There are those who think that the breaking of the legs was an element of pity for the hastening of the end. Perhaps it was rather a brutal means of preventing their escape when taken down from the cross. In this connection we are distinctly told that when they came to break the legs of the crucified, Jesus was dead already.

            What had taken place between the moment in which Jesus had spoken to this dying man, and His death? The dying thief had heard Him almost immediately speak to His own Mother, and commit her to the care of John. He had hung there by the side of Jesus through three hours of darkness and of silence, when suddenly he had heard escape the lips of Jesus the words: "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabbacthani, My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?"

            It is impossible to attempt to interpret what he felt as he listened to that. Directly afterwards he had heard Jesus say, "I thirst." Then further, he heard Him say with a loud voice, "It is finished." He heard Him thus refer to some transaction that had been going forward in the darkness, when he heard Him declare that whatever it was was now accomplished. It was the cry of a great victory. Still, hanging there, he heard Jesus say: "Father, into Thy hands I commend My spirit."

            One can almost imagine, and I think the imagination is warranted, that so far as he was able; he turned to watch this dying One. At this time he saw His head fall, His eyes close, and knew that on the human level, He was dead. At this point there came the soldier, and brake his legs, and then he, too, was dead.

            Then we may still watch. He passed across the borderline.

            He left the earthly scene. He entered into that spiritual realm which is forever near, and yet of which we seem so little conscious. What happened then? There can be no doubt that the answer is that Jesus met him and he found himself with his King in paradise. Left on the other side of that non-passable gulf was his accompliss as well as Judas. An eternity without a vehicle called a body to fulfill lusts learned while alive on the earth. What a hell one can cook up for themselves!

            I repeat there is no more remarkable instance of faith on record. Its opportunity was created by Christ. In this connection we remember with all earnestness that there was another thief. He had the same opportunity, but he did not respond. This man might have continued his railing, but he did not. Thus we see the Cross dividing, ratifying the judgment which falls upon a man who lacks repentance, and canceling that judgment in the case of a man who repented and believed.

            This account is full of value in many ways. It proves that nothing more must be superimposed upon repentance and faith as necessary to salvation. He could not be baptized. He could not observe any rite. He could do no good works. He could not serve in any way. He had no opportunity of a period of holy living. All this simply means that however sacred these things may be, none of them constitutes a right of entry to the Paradise of God. Not of works, lest any man should boast.
(Eph. 2:9) That right is created only by that action of the soul in which in repentance and faith, it commits itself to the Lord.

            Such an article cannot close without our being reminded of things which our fathers so constantly said about the account. We have here the account of repentance and faith exercised in extremis. It is given in order that none may despair, but it is the only such account that none may presume.

            We need not despair. That couplet:

"Twixt the saddle and the ground,

Redemption sought, redemption found,"

is more true than we are inclined to think. At any rate it is well that we keep in mind that at the end we shall enter into the presence of the Lord having still to say:

"Nothing in my hands I bring,

Simply to Thy Cross I cling."

            If we pass below all the accidentals of this account, using that word accidentals in its highest sense, we may be inclined to say we are not criminal. Let us make no mistake. In the presence of the holy God, in the spiritual realm we are all criminal. There is only one way of deliverance, but thank God, there is one way.

"Ere since by faith I saw

the stream His dying wounds supply,

Redeeming love shall be my theme,

And shall be till I die."