39One of the criminals who was hanged insulted him, saying, “If you are the Christ, save yourself and us!”
40But the other answered, and rebuking him said, “Don’t you even fear God, seeing you are under the same condemnation?41And we indeed justly, for we receive the due reward for our deeds, but this man has done nothing wrong.”42He said to Jesus, “Lord, remember me when you come into your Kingdom.”
43Jesus said to him, “Assuredly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise.”
Where did Jesus go when he died?Luke 23:43 has Jesus promise the repentant criminal that they will be together in paradise that very day, implying Jesus went to paradise.
Revelation 2:7(v43)He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the assemblies. To him who overcomes I will give to eat from the tree of life,…
Psalms 50:15(v43)Call on me in the day of trouble. I will deliver you, and you will honor me.”
1 Timothy 1:15-16(v43)The saying is faithful and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief. However,…
Luke 19:10(v43)For the Son of Man came to seek and to save that which was lost.”
Psalms 32:5(v43)I acknowledged my sin to you. I didn’t hide my iniquity. I said, I will confess my transgressions to Yahweh, and you forgave the iniquity…
Show all 66 cross-references
John 14:3(v43)If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and will receive you to myself; that where I am, you may be there also.
Hebrews 7:25(v43)Therefore he is also able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, seeing that he lives forever to make…
John 17:24(v43)Father, I desire that they also whom you have given me be with me where I am, that they may see my glory, which you have given me, for you…
Philippians 1:23(v43)But I am hard pressed between the two, having the desire to depart and be with Christ, which is far better.
2 Corinthians 12:3-4(v43)I know such a man (whether in the body, or outside of the body, I don’t know; God knows), how he was caught up into Paradise, and heard…
Isaiah 65:24(v43)It will happen that before they call, I will answer; and while they are yet speaking, I will hear.
Job 33:27-30(v43)He sings before men, and says, ‘I have sinned, and perverted that which was right, and it didn’t profit me. He has redeemed my soul from…
Micah 7:18(v43)Who is a God like you, who pardons iniquity, and passes over the disobedience of the remnant of his heritage? He doesn’t retain his anger…
2 Corinthians 5:8(v43)We are courageous, I say, and are willing rather to be absent from the body and to be at home with the Lord.
Isaiah 1:18-19(v43)“Come now, and let’s reason together,” says Yahweh: “Though your sins are as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow. Though they are red…
Luke 15:4-5(v43)“Which of you men, if you had one hundred sheep, and lost one of them, wouldn’t leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness, and go after the…
Isaiah 55:6-9(v43)Seek Yahweh while he may be found. Call on him while he is near. Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts. Let…
Matthew 20:15-16(v43)Isn’t it lawful for me to do what I want to with what I own? Or is your eye evil, because I am good?’ So the last will be first, and the…
Isaiah 53:11(v43)After the suffering of his soul, he will see the light and be satisfied. My righteous servant will justify many by the knowledge of…
Romans 5:20-21(v43)The law came in that the trespass might abound; but where sin abounded, grace abounded more exceedingly; that as sin reigned in death, even…
Acts 16:31(v42)They said, “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved, you and your household.”
Romans 10:9-14(v42)that if you will confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be…
1 John 5:11-13(v42)The testimony is this, that God gave to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He who has the Son has the life. He who doesn’t have…
Luke 15:20-24(v43)“He arose, and came to his father. But while he was still far off, his father saw him, and was moved with compassion, and ran, and fell on…
1 Corinthians 6:10-11(v42)nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor slanderers, nor extortionists, will inherit God’s Kingdom. Some of you were such, but you…
Luke 12:8(v42)“I tell you, everyone who confesses me before men, the Son of Man will also confess before the angels of God;
Matthew 27:44(v39)The robbers also who were crucified with him cast on him the same reproach.
Mark 15:32(v39)Let the Christ, the King of Israel, now come down from the cross, that we may see and believe him.” Those who were crucified with him also…
Luke 18:13(v42)But the tax collector, standing far away, wouldn’t even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a…
Acts 20:21(v42)testifying both to Jews and to Greeks repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus.
1 John 5:1(v42)Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God. Whoever loves the Father also loves the child who is born of him.
Leviticus 26:40-41(v41)“ ‘If they confess their iniquity and the iniquity of their fathers, in their trespass which they trespassed against me; and also that…
Luke 23:35(v39)The people stood watching. The rulers with them also scoffed at him, saying, “He saved others. Let him save himself, if this is the Christ…
Ezra 9:13(v41)“After all that has come on us for our evil deeds, and for our great guilt, since you, our God, have punished us less than our iniquities…
Psalms 106:4-5(v42)Remember me, Yahweh, with the favor that you show to your people. Visit me with your salvation, that I may see the prosperity of your…
Isaiah 9:6-7(v42)For a child is born to us. A son is given to us; and the government will be on his shoulders. His name will be called Wonderful Counselor,…
Daniel 7:13-14(v42)“I saw in the night visions, and behold, there came with the clouds of the sky one like a son of man, and he came even to the ancient of…
Luke 23:37(v39)and saying, “If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself!”
1 Peter 2:6-7(v42)Because it is contained in Scripture, “Behold, I lay in Zion a chief cornerstone, chosen and precious: He who believes in him will not be…
2 Chronicles 28:22(v40)In the time of his distress, he trespassed yet more against Yahweh, this same king Ahaz.
Psalms 36:1(v40)A revelation is within my heart about the disobedience of the wicked: “There is no fear of God before his eyes.”
Jeremiah 5:3(v40)O Yahweh, don’t your eyes look on truth? You have stricken them, but they were not grieved. You have consumed them, but they have refused…
Matthew 27:4(v41)saying, “I have sinned in that I betrayed innocent blood.” But they said, “What is that to us? You see to it.”
Matthew 27:24(v41)So when Pilate saw that nothing was being gained, but rather that a disturbance was starting, he took water, and washed his hands before…
Luke 12:5(v40)But I will warn you whom you should fear. Fear him who after he has killed, has power to cast into Gehenna. Yes, I tell you, fear him.
Luke 17:34-35(v39)I tell you, in that night there will be two people in one bed. One will be taken and the other will be left. There will be two grinding…
Luke 24:26(v42)Didn’t the Christ have to suffer these things and to enter into his glory?”
John 1:49(v42)Nathanael answered him, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are King of Israel!”
John 20:28(v42)Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!”
Ephesians 5:11(v40)Have no fellowship with the unfruitful deeds of darkness, but rather even reprove them.
1 Peter 1:19(v41)but with precious blood, as of a lamb without blemish or spot, the blood of Christ,
Revelation 15:4(v40)Who wouldn’t fear you, Lord, and glorify your name? For you only are holy. For all the nations will come and worship before you. For your…
Leviticus 19:17(v40)“ ‘You shall not hate your brother in your heart. You shall surely rebuke your neighbor, and not bear sin because of him.
Joshua 7:19-20(v41)Joshua said to Achan, “My son, please give glory to Yahweh, the God of Israel, and make confession to him. Tell me now what you have done!…
2 Chronicles 33:12(v41)When he was in distress, he begged Yahweh his God, and humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers.
Nehemiah 9:3(v41)They stood up in their place, and read in the book of the law of Yahweh their God a fourth part of the day; and a fourth part they…
Isaiah 53:10-12(v42)Yet it pleased Yahweh to bruise him. He has caused him to suffer. When you make his soul an offering for sin, he will see his offspring. He…
Daniel 9:4(v41)I prayed to Yahweh my God, and made confession, and said, “Oh, Lord, the great and dreadful God, who keeps covenant and loving kindness…
Matthew 27:19(v41)While he was sitting on the judgment seat, his wife sent to him, saying, “Have nothing to do with that righteous man, for I have suffered…
Matthew 27:54(v41)Now the centurion, and those who were with him watching Jesus, when they saw the earthquake, and the things that were done, feared…
Luke 15:18-19(v41)I will get up and go to my father, and will tell him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in your sight. I am no more worthy to be…
Luke 22:69-70(v41)From now on, the Son of Man will be seated at the right hand of the power of God.” They all said, “Are you then the Son of God?” He said to…
James 4:7(v41)Be subject therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
1 Peter 1:11(v42)searching for who or what kind of time the Spirit of Christ, which was in them, pointed to, when he predicted the sufferings of Christ, and…
1 John 1:8-9(v41)If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous to…
Revelation 16:11(v40)and they blasphemed the God of heaven because of their pains and their sores. They didn’t repent of their works.
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this passage (21 sources)
Historical commentary, presented as a primary source — not an endorsement.
Geneva Bible translators1599 · Public DomainOn vv39, 41, 43Therefore either we must take that spoken by Synecdoche…
Therefore either we must take that spoken by Synecdoche which Matthew saith, or that both of them mocked Christ. But one of them at length overcome with the great patience of God, brake forth into that confession worthy all memory.
Christ, in the midst of the humbling of himself upon the cross, showeth indeed that he hath both power of life to save the believers, and of death to revenge the rebellious.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp1656 · Public DomainOn vv39–4339 And one of the malefactors which were hanged…
39 And one of the malefactors which were hanged railed on him, saying, If thou be Christ, save thyself and us.
Ver. 39. Which were hanged, railed, &c.] Sic plectimur a Deo, nec flectimur tamen (saith Salvian), corripimur, sed non corrigimur. There are many, quos multo facilius fregeris, quam flexeris, saith Buchanan. Monoceros interimi potest, capi non potest. The wicked are the worse for that they suffer, and will sooner break than bend.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
William Burkitt1703 · Public DomainOn vv39, 43Here we have a further aggravation of our Lord’s…
Here we have a further aggravation of our Lord’s sufferings upon the cross, from the company he suffered with, the two thieves who reviled him with the rest. St. Matthew and St. Marks say, they both reviled him; St. Luke says one of them reviled; possibly both of them might do it at first, and one of them repents; which, if so, increases the wonder of the penitent thief’s conversion.
From the impenitent thief’s reviling of Christ, when he was at the very point of death, and even in the suburbs of hell, we learn that neither shame nor pain will change the mind of a resolute sinner; but even then, when he is in the suburbs of hell, will he blaspheme.
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From the penitent thief’s confessing of Christ, and praying to him, Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom; we learn, both the efficacy and freeness of divine grace.
1. The efficacious power of it: oh how powerful must that grace be, which wrought such a change in an instant, which supplied that heart in a moment, which had been hardening in sin for so many years.
2. The freeness of it; which takes hold of his heart, when he was at the height of sin, and was not only void of grace, but seemed past grace. Oh the powerful efficacy and adorable freeness of the heart changing grace of God in this vile person; it disposed him to own his sin; to confess the justness of his punishment, to justify Christ’s innocency, to reprove his fellow companion, to pray to a crucified Christ, and to intercede with him, not for present deliverance from death, but for a place in Christ’s kingdom.
Where we learn,
1. That true conversion is never too late for obtaining mercy and salvation.
2. That true conversion, how late soever, will have its fruits: the fore-mentioned fruits of faith and repentance were found with this penitent thief; yet must not this extraordinary case be drawn into example. This extraordinary and miraculous grace of God is not to be expected ordinarily: we have no warrant to expect an overpowering degree of God’s grace to turn our heart in an instant at the hour of death, when we have lived in forgetfulness of God, and in a supine neglect of our soul’s concerns all the days of our life; for it is evident as to this case of the penitent thief’s conversion at the last hour.
1. It is an example without a promise.
2. It is but a single example.
3. It is an example recorded but by one evangelist: the Spirit of God, foreseeing what an ill use some would make of this instance, leaves one example upon record, that none might despair; and but one, that none might presume.
4. This thief probably had never any knowledge of Christ before.
5. This thief improved his time at last, as never did any before or after; for he believed Christ to be the Saviour of the world; when one disciple had betrayed, another denied, and all had forsaken him; he owned him to be the Son of God, the Lord of life, when he was suffering the pains of death, and seemingly deserted by his Father: he proclaims him Lord of paradise, and disposer of the kingdom of heaven, when the Jews had condemned him, and the Gentiles crucified him as the vilest of impostors. He feared God, owned the justice of his punishment; was solicitous, not for the preservation of his body, but for the salvation of his soul; yea, not for his own only, but of his brother’s that suffered with him; so that he glorified Christ more at the moment of his death, than some do in the whole course of their lives.
6. This was a miracle, with the glory whereof Christ would honor the ignominy of his cross: so that we have no more ground to expect such another conversion, than we have to expect a second crucifixion. This converted person was the first fruits of the blood of the cross.
From whence we learn, that God can, and sometimes does, though very seldom, prepare men for glory, immediately before their dissolution by death. His grace is his own, he may dispense it how, and when, where, and to whom he pleases; yet this is no more warrant to neglect the ordinary, because God does sometimes manifest his grace in an extraordinary way. True, in this conversion, we have a pattern of what free grace can do; but it is a pattern without a promise: where we have not a promise to encourage our hope, our hope is nothing but presumption.
William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
John Gill1763 · Public DomainOn vv39–43And it was about the sixth hour,.... Or twelve…
And it was about the sixth hour,.... Or twelve o'clock at noon; and so the Ethiopic version, when it was noon; See Gill on Mat 27:45.
.
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Luke 23:45
luk 23:45
luk 23:45
luk 23:45And the sun was darkened,.... There was an eclipse of it, which was preternatural, it being now full moon, and lasted three hours, and so total, as to darken the whole earth; and now was the prophecy in Amo 8:9 literally fulfilled: and the vail of the temple was rent in the midst. The Persic version renders it, "the gate of the temple"; and so the Syriac version, "the face of the gate of the temple"; See Gill on Mat 27:51.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley1765 · Public DomainOn vv39, 40, 42, 43And one of the malefactors reviled him - St.…
And one of the malefactors reviled him - St. Matthew says, the robbers: St. Mark, they that were crucified with him, reviled him. Either therefore St. Matthew and Mark put the plural for the singular (as the best authors sometimes do) or both reviled him at the first, till one of them felt "the overwhelming power of saving grace."
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke1810 · Public DomainOn vv39, 40, 42, 43Verse 39. One of the malefactors which were hanged.]…
Verse 39. One of the malefactors which were hanged.] It is likely that the two robbers were not nailed to their crosses, but only tied to them by cords, and thus they are represented in ancient paintings. If not nailed, they could not have suffered much, and therefore they were found still alive when the soldiers came to give the coup de grace, which put a speedy end to their lives. Joh 19:31-33.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson1811 · Public DomainOn vv39, 42, 43Luk 23:39-41. And one of the malefactors railed on…
Luk 23:39-41. And one of the malefactors railed on him — The word κακουργος, here rendered malefactor, does not always denote a thief, or robber, but was a term likewise applied to the Jewish soldiers, who were hurried by their zeal to commit some crime, in opposition to the Roman authority. As Matthew and Mark represent both the malefactors here spoken of as reviling our Lord, we must either suppose that they both did so at first, and that afterward one of them, by divine grace co-operating with the extraordinary circumstances in which he was now placed, was brought to repentance; or that those evangelists put the plural number for the singular, as the best authors sometimes do. This seems most probable, because, if this malefactor, while on the cross, had been guilty of reviling Christ, it is likely that, when he rebuked his fellow-criminal, he would have confessed his sin in that particular, and have assigned some reason for so suddenly altering his opinion of Christ. But, indeed, it is by no means certain that his repentance did not commence till he hung on the cross. For any thing we know to the contrary, he might have repented and turned to God long before; his condemnation to death, and his sufferings in prison, being made, through divine grace, the means of producing that effect. Or, he might have heard our Lord preach in the course of his ministry, and have seen some of his miracles, and from a consideration of both joined together, might have been solidly convinced that he was the Messiah. And, with regard to the crime for which he was condemned to die, it might have been committed before such conviction took place, though not discovered till some time afterward. Or, like many professors of religion in every age, holding the truth in unrighteousness, he might have been overcome by temptation, so as to commit some gross act of wickedness, by which he had forfeited his life, but of which he had afterward sincerely repented. This supposition would account for his declaration concerning Christ, that he had done nothing amiss — Ουδεν ατοπον, nothing improper, disorderly, or out of place, as the words signify: a declaration which he certainly could with no propriety have made, unless he had firmly believed Jesus to be the true Messiah, and therefore innocent of those things which the Jews laid to his charge. Be this as it may, at whatever time, and in whatever way he was brought to repentance, he now gave evident proof, indeed all the proof which in his circumstances could be given, that his repentance was genuine; bringing forth all such fruits as were meet for repentance: 1st, In publicly confessing his guilt, and desert of the punishment inflicted on him. 2d, In reproving his fellow-criminal. 3d, In bearing an honourable testimony to Christ, and that at a time when the chief priests, scribes, and elders, and all the multitude, were condemning and reviling him; and he was in such disgraceful circumstances as stumbled even his own disciples. 4th, In professing, and evidently possessing, faith in a future state, and in the righteous retributions thereof, evidently manifested when, in reproving his fellow-sinner, he said, Dost thou not fear God? that is, fear his vengeance in another world; for they had nothing to fear in this, beyond the crucifixion which they were now suffering. 5th, By reposing his confidence in Christ, as the Lord of that world, at a time when his enemies were triumphing over him, and he himself, abandoned by most of his friends, was expiring on a cross. In short, as Dr. Whitby observes, “This thief improved his time at last in such an extraordinary manner, as, perhaps, no man ever did before, or will do hereafter. He then believed Christ to be the Saviour of the world, when one of his disciples had betrayed, another had denied him, and all of them had forsook him! to be the Son of God, the Lord of life, when he was hanging on the cross, suffering the pangs of death, and seemingly deserted by his Father! he proclaims him the Lord of paradise, when all the Jews condemned him, and the Gentiles crucified him as an impostor and malefactor! He feared God, acknowledged the justice of his punishment, and with patience submitted to it. He condemned himself, and justified the holy Jesus, declaring that he had done nothing amiss. He was solicitous, not for the preservation of his body, but the salvation of his soul; nor only for his own, but the salvation of his brother thief, whom he so charitably reprehends, so earnestly requests not to proceed in his blasphemous language, so lovingly invites to the fear of God. So that the glory which he did to Christ by his faith and piety, upon the cross, seems such as the whole series of a pious life in other men can hardly parallel.” Upon the whole, this penitent malefactor was a remarkable instance of the power of divine grace, especially if his conversion was effected while he hung on the cross. But this gives no encouragement to any to put off their repentance till they are on their death-beds, in hopes they shall then find mercy; for though it is certain that true repentance is never too late, it is as certain that late repentance is seldom true. None can be sure they shall either have time or grace to repent when they are sick and dying; but every man may be sure that he cannot have the advantages which this penitent thief had, whose case was altogether extraordinary, and who was placed in the midst of scenes and circumstances of the most affecting kind. He heard the blasphemous reproaches and revilings cast upon him whom he, now at least, if not before, knew to be not only a righteous man, but the true Messiah, the Son of God; beheld the barbarous cruelties exercised upon him, the unparalleled patience with which he suffered, and the benevolent and forgiving spirit which he manifested toward his murderers: not to mention the preternatural darkness which had begun to take place, sufficient, one would have supposed, to produce astonishment and dread in all whose hearts were not perfectly hardened. To which may be added, that the conversion of this sinner was designed to be a singular instance of the power of Christ’s grace, and to put a peculiar glory upon him when he was now in his lowest estate of humiliation and suffering.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes1834 · Public DomainOn vv40–43Dost not thou fear God ... - You are…
Dost not thou fear God ... - You are condemned to die as well as he. It is improper for you to rail on him as the rulers and Romans do. God is just, and you are hastening to his bar, and you should, therefore, fear him, and fear that he will punish you for railing on this innocent man.
Same condemnation - Condemnation to death; not death for the same thing, but the same “kind” of death.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary1859 · Public DomainOn v43I say to thee: This day thou shalt be…
I say to thee: This day thou shalt be with me in Paradise; i.e. in a place of rest with the souls of the just. The construction is not, I say to thee this day, &c., but, thou shalt be with me this day in the paradise. (Witham) --- In paradise. That is, in the happy state of rest, joy and peace everlasting. Christ was pleased by a special privilege, to reward the faith and confession of the penitent thief with a full discharge of all his sins, both as to the guilt and punishment, and to introduce him, immediately after death, into the happy society of the saints, whose limbo (that is, the place of their confinement) was now made a paradise by our Lord’s going thither. (Challoner) --- The soul of the good thief was that same day with Jesus Christ, in the felicity of the saints, in Abraham’s bosom, or in heaven, where Jesus was always present by his divinity. (St. Augustine) --- St. Cyril, of Jerusalem, says he entered heaven before all the patriarchs and prophets. St. John Chrysostom thinks that paradise was immediately open to him, and that he entered heaven the first mankind. (Tom. v. homil. 32.)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures1864 · Public DomainOn v39c. THE PENITENT THIEF (Luk_23:39-43)
c. THE PENITENT THIEF (Luk_23:39-43)
39And one of the malefactors which were hanged railed on him, saying, If thou be Christ [Art not thou the Christ?15], save thyself and us. 40But the other answering rebuked him, saying, Dost not [even16] thou fear God, seeing thou art in the same condemnation? 41And we indeed justly; for we receive [are receiving17] the due reward of our deeds: but this man hath done nothing amiss. 42And he said unto Jesus, Lord, [he said, Jesus, remember, V. O.18] remember me when thou comest into [in] thy kingdom. 43And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, To-day shalt thou be with me in paradise.
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EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
Luk_23:39. And one of the malefactors which were hanged.—According to Mat_27:44, and Mar_15:32, our Lord is mocked by both robbers; according to Luke, only by one. The different harmonistic attempts to remove here all appearance of contradiction are familiar. See Lange, Matthew, p. 525. The view of Lange, that we must make a distinction between ὀνειδίζειν and βλασφημεῖν in the following manner, namely, that the latter could be said only of the impenitent, the former also, on the other hand, of the better-minded robber, who had begun as well as his fellow to urge our Lord to leave the cross, but had soon given up this earthly-minded expectation—this view diminishes the difficulty without doubt, but yet does not wholly remove it. For even in this way the psychological objection cannot be refuted as to how so sudden a conversion could all at once have arisen in the soul of the penitent thief, and as to whether it is not in contradiction to the nature of an unfeigned conversion, when the penitent begins his conversion with rebuking a fellow-sinner on account of an act which he himself had only a few moments before been committing. We rather assume (Ebrard), that Matthew and Mark express themselves indefinitely; that they meant only to give the genus, but not the number of the last class of the scoffers, and that it was reserved for Luke to instruct us more fully about a particular which, in the Pauline Gospel of justification by free grace, is so very peculiarly in its place.
Luk_23:40. Dost not even thou fear God?—It is not, therefore, the blaspheming of Jesus in itself which gives occasion for this outspoken rebuke, but the frivolous forgetfulness of God, the lack of the fear of God which manifests itself in the words of a man who is now suffering the same punishment with Jesus, whom he blasphemes, and who, therefore, now at least ought to have exhibited a more serious temper. But now the powerful antithesis with this word: ἐν τῷ αὐτῷ κρίματι, comes before his awakening consciousness of faith, and he expresses, as strongly as possible, the heaven-wide distinction which exists between the Saviour and the companions of His fate.
Luk_23:41. And we indeed justly, sc. ἐν τῷ κρίματι ἐσμεν.—He knows himself to be before God a man as guilty as the companion of his fate, although he censures his blasphemy.
This man hath done nothing amiss, οὐδὲνἄτοπον.—Nothing censurable, evil. Comp. 2Th_3:2. “The mild expression denotes innocence the more strongly.” (Meyer). Even had the robber said nothing more than this, yet he would awaken our deepest astonishment, that God—in a moment wherein literally all voices are raised against Jesus, and not a friendly word is heard in His favor—causes a witness for the spotless innocence of the Saviour to appear on one of the crosses beside Him. This murderer is the last man who before Jesus’ death deposes a testimony in honor of Him. But now he soon shows a yet clearer and firmer faith, while he directs his look upon the middle cross, and now begins to speak no longer of, but to, Him Himself.
Luk_23:42. Jesus, remember me.—He desires no instantaneous liberation from the cross, on which he on the contrary is convinced that he must die, but he desires solely and singly that our Lord in grace may remember him, and receive him into His kingdom. Undoubtedly he is not wholly free from earthly Messianic expectations, and here is thinking not of the heaven in which our Lord after His death would be, but he represents to himself the moment when the Messiah comes in His kingly glory to erect His kingdom upon earth, and desires that he then, awakened from the grave, may enter in with Him into the joy of his Lord. Comp. Mat_16:28. But even on this interpretation his prayer is assuredly one of the boldest and most surprising that has ever been utrered. A crucified malefactor, the first that has fully understood the deep sense of the superscription over the cross, and becomes the herald of the royal dignity of our Lord, in the same instant in which the Messianic hope of the apostles themselves was most vehemently shaken—of a truth this phenomenon may be called one of the brightest points of light in the history of the last hours in the life of our Lord! And even if we assume that he had previously heard and seen our Lord; that he, although a murderer, could not yet have been a hardened felon; that he attentively observes Jesus in the last hours, and that the approach of death had filled him with the deepest seriousness, yet all this clears up for us only a part of the riddle, which finds singly and solely its full solution in the faith of God’s free grace, which has in this very moment in fullest abundance glorified itself in the robber, while it had, we may believe, even previously prepared him by all the circumstances of his life for this courageous faith and this sincere conversion, which comes to light here in him in so surprising wise. An examination of the history of the psychological development of his inner life, which commends itself by great originality, see in Lange, Leben Jesu, ii. p. 1568. Only in this way does it become explicable how he in clearness of knowledge, in strength of faith, as well as in courageousness of confession, could be so far prominent above all others, and behold now a source of life and a royal throne in the cross, that even for the most advanced disciples was a stone of stumbling and a rock of offence. [Trench’s conjecture appears to be a reasonable one, that this robber may have been a companion of Barabbas, and that both these λῃσταί may have belonged to that class of turbulent zealots for freedom who had already begun to appear in the Jewish land, and who, like the Greek Klephts in Turkish times, united audacious wickedness with a perverted but ardent feeling of devotion to their country. The fact that Barabbas had just about this time “made a sedition,” which implies accomplices, who were not like himself released, but doubtless punished, lends weight both to the conjecture that some vague Messianic longings may have been mixed up with his crime, and that this man may have been a participant of it. A nature led through the very strength of noble impulses into crime, might well be more receptive of Divine grace in the hour of utter disenchantment and of mortal agony, than that of a common ruffian. Of course, this must remain only a conjecture, but I think we may be free to say, a not improbable conjecture.—C. C. S.]
Luk_23:43. And Jesus said unto him: To-day.—We can but faintly guess what, for the suffering Saviour, a word like this must have been. Over against all the voices of blasphemy He has observed steadfast silence; but such a petitioner He permits not to wait a moment for an answer. He promises to him something much higher than he had desired—the highest that he could pray or conceive—Paradise, and that even to-day, and in fellowship with Him. Senseless is the combination To-day with λέγω σοι, of which Theophylact already speaks, and which is vindicated in particular by Roman Catholic exegetes, in order as much as possible to weaken the proof which has always been derived from this word on the cross against the doctrine of Purgatory. It is self-evident that our Lord spoke to-day, not yesterday; never has He so pleonastically expressed Himself; moreover, on this interpretation the so thoroughly definite promise would lose all precision. But now there is implied nothing less in it than first the assurance that the murderer should die even to-day, and that with the Saviour, while He had perhaps feared that he should have to languish slowly away, hanging yet one or several days upon the cross [as we know was frequently the case in crucifixion, before death ensued.—C. C. S.]; a promise which was fulfilled a few hours later by the crurifragium. But at the same time our Lord promises him Paradise, a word whose whole sweetness in such a mouth, for such ears, could only be experienced if one had himself hung there with the Saviour upon the cross. We have, however, by this Paradise to understand not the heavenly Paradise, 2Co_12:4; Rev_2:7, but that part of Sheol which is opposed to Gehenna, and which was also named Paradise, and moreover, apparently, “Abraham’s bosom.” Nothing else could the forgiven one understand, who unquestionably had grown up entirely within the sphere of the Israelitish popular expectations; nothing else could the Saviour have had in view, since He undoubtedly from His death-hour to the resurrection morning, must abide in the condition of separation. “Dubium non est, quin Christus ita locutus sit, quomodo sciebat, a latrone intelligi.” Grotius. In the assurance of a being with the Lord in this Paradise, there is at the same time included for the Penitent Thief the promise of the resurrection of the just, and of further participation in the blessings of the Messianic kingdom. Respecting the Jewish popular conception of the future state, comp. Sepp, iii. p. 557 seq.
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
1. The history of the Penitent Thief may in the fullest sense of the word be called an Evangelium in Evangelio. The inner truth and beauty of this account of Luke strikes the eye with special clearness, when we compare it with that which the Apocryphal Gospels have to relate about this man, whom tradition has named varyingly, Titus, Demas, Vicinus, and Matha. According to the Arabic Evangelium Infantiœ, Luke 23, see Thilo, Cod. Apocr. I. p. 93, the man had already protected the child Jesus on the flight to Egypt, against the wickedness of the second robber, and our Lord then for a reward therefor, foretells to His mother with childish lips, what thirty years afterwards should take place on Calvary with these two. The Gospel of Nicodemus, Luke 26, even proceeds to tell us about the meeting of this man with Enoch and Elijah in Hades. Does there now exist between these narratives and the account of Luke no other distinction than between secondary and primary myth-formations?
2. The beatitude uttered upon the Penitent Thief appears to have preceded the commendation of Mary to the disciple John (Joh_19:25-27), so that we have here before us in Luke, not the third, but the second word on the cross.—According to the course of the Synoptical representation, the mockery follows so quickly upon the crucifixion, and the scene between our Lord and the Penitent Thief so quickly upon the mockery, that it appears forced to insert the Johannean account between the one and the other event. On internal grounds, moreover, we consider it as much more probable that our Lord provided for His mother only after He had previously saved this sinner, than the reverse; the spiritual at every time with Him preceded the natural. The first word on the cross was for His enemies, the second for a penitent sinner, only the third for His sorrowing mother, while then finally the fourth reveals to us His own anguish of soul; thus does the circle draw ever closer together.
3. Brief as the utterance of the Penitent Thief was, yet there is nothing lacking to it that belongs to the unalterable requirements of a genuine conversion,—sense of guilt, confession of sin, simple faith, active love, supplicating hope,—all these fruits of the tree of the new life we see here ripen during a few moments. The address of our Lord, on the other hand, comprehends, as it were, in a short summary, the whole riches and the glory of redemption. The first word on the cross gives us a view into His High-priestly heart. His kingly character reveals itself in the second. Grace and majesty suddenly diffuse their bright beams through the night of the deepest humiliation. We wonder not that history gives us no account of an answer of the forgiven robber to the promise of the Saviour. On a cross there is not long or much speaking, and how, moreover, could he have found words for his thanks! But without doubt the consolation of this promise illumined his last hours, and he stands forth before our eyes as the first fruits of the millions of subjects whom the King of the kingdom of God has won even on His cross, and through the same.
4. The possibility of a conversion even in the last moments is undoubtedly established by the example of the Penitent Thief; the impenitent companion of his fate, however, proclaims quite as powerfully by his terrible end, how dangerous it is to postpone conversion so long.
5. The second word of our Lord on the cross contains a very significant intimation in respect to His Descensus ad Inferos, with which the yet further developed teaching of 1Pe_3:18; 1Pe_4:6, &c., is in no way in contradiction; but at the same time it renders not less than Php_1:23; Rev_14:13, and many other passages of the New Testament, a powerful testimony against the Roman Catholic doctrine of Purgatory.
6. The two robbers on the cross, the representatives of the whole human race in its diverse behavior towards Jesus. The crucified Jesus also the fall and the rising of many, Luk_2:34. The beatitude pronounced upon the Penitent Thief a type of the great judgment day.
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
The three crosses.—The hill of death a place of triumph.—Calvary shows us: 1. The triumph of stubborn wickedness; 2. the triumph of penitent faith; 3. the triumph of redeeming love.—The view of death cannot of itself break the froward heart.—The rebuke of the sin of our neighbor a difficult but holy duty.—The different ways in which two sinners proceed towards the terrors of eternity.—The desperate cry for help and the believing petition for redemption.—How the penitent looks upon the Saviour, how the Saviour looks upon the penitent: 1. The sincere penitent is a. humble in the acknowledgment of guilt, b. eager for salvation in coming to Christ, c. courageous in the confession of the Saviour; 2. the Saviour, a. accepts the confession of guilt, b. hears the humble prayer, c. crowns the courageous hope.—The theatre of judgment changed into a working place of grace.—How penitent faith may expect after the hour of death: 1. The joy of Paradise; 2. the joy of Paradise with Jesus; 3. the joy of Paradise immediately after death.—As the Father so also the Son does exceedingly, abundantly, above all that we can ask or think, Eph_3:20.—Conversion in the hour of death: 1. Possible, certainly; 2. but yet rare; and 3. only to be expected when one does not stubbornly and presumptuously strive against the drawings of the prevenient grace of God.—Wonderful guidance of God, which at the boundary of life: 1. Gives the sinner yet to find his deliverer; 2. gives the King of the kingdom of God even yet to find one of His subjects.—For God’s grace no sinner too vile.—Salvation and damnation in a certain sense already decided before the hour of death.
Starke:—Men are not of one kind, as not in life, so not in death.—Brentius: It is an infallible token of a sound and true repentance when one acknowledges God’s judgment upon himself as righteous, and publicly praises the same.—The Christian is under obligation to deliver the innocence of the innocent.—How profitable it is to talk with the suffering Jesus.—The eye of hope must look farther than upon the visible things of this world, 1Co_15:19.—It is not the “with Me,” that comes first, but the “through Me.”—God’s acceptance of a fervent prayer is not delayed.—Brentius:—Christ has again opened the closed Paradise.—Man will after death be either with Christ or with the devil.—Whoever remains in his suffering steadfastly united with Jesus, will also remain united with Him in His glory.—Heubner:—The suddenness of this conversion should excite no doubt, for: 1. It is bound to no conditions of time; 2. there was found in the thief everything that precedes conversion; 3. undoubtedly there was here a miracle of grace in order to reveal the power of the death of Christ, even to coming generations.—This is what every poor sinner should daily pray: Lord, remember me.
Compare the well-known inscription on the grave of Copernicus: “Non parem Paulo veniam requiro, gratiam Petri neque posco, sed quam in cruris ligno dederis latroni, sedulus oro.”—The sermon of Chrysostom, De latrone, and that of Melanchthon in Bretschneider, Corpus Reform, ii. pp. 478–487.—The Passion Week’s sermons of Rieger, p. 641–643.—Saurin:—Sur les deux brigands, p. 403.—T. Theremin:—The Cross of Christ, the third sermon.—F. Arens, Preacher in Osnaburg:—The value of the grace on Calvary set forth in one of the crucified thieves.—Thomasius:—Our own death-hour in the light of this history.—Dr. J. J. Rambach: 1. The prayer of the malefactor; 2. the answer of the Saviour.—Palmer:—Christ between the robbers.—Krummacher:—The robber: 1. A look into the heart of both robbers; 2. into the great kingly word of Immanuel.
[15]Luk_23:39.—According to the reading of Tischendorf, [Meyer, Tregelles, Alford]: οὐχὶ σὺ εῖ̓; after B., [Cod. Sin.,] C.1, L., Versions. The Recepta comes from Luk_23:37.
[16]Luk_23:40.—That is, “any more than the mockers around, who at least have not a fellow-suffering to restrain them from impious cruelty towards a dying man.”—C. C. S.]
[17]Luk_23:41.—Revised Version of the American Bible Union.—C. C. S.]
[18]Luk_23:42.—The κύριε of the Recepta is wanting in B., C.1, D., [Cod. Sin.,] Cursives, &c. Ἰησοῦ is supported by the authority of B., C.1, L., [Cod. Sin.,] Origen, and the Coptic and Sahidic Versions.
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown1871 · Public DomainOn vv39–43THE TWO THIEVES. (Luk 23:39-43)
THE TWO THIEVES. (Luk 23:39-43)
railed on him--catching up the universal derision, but with a turn of his own. Jesus, "reviled, reviles not again"; but another voice from the cross shall nobly wipe out this dishonor and turn it to the unspeakable glory of the dying Redeemer.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon1874 · Public DomainOn vv39–4339. One of the malefactors—As to the question whether…
39. One of the malefactors—As to the question whether both thieves at first reviled Jesus, we refer to our notes on Mat_27:44; Mat_27:49.
Railed—The miraculous darkness and relentings of heart had already commenced. One of the malefactors is earliest to feel the solemn influences, while the other continues his mockeries of Jesus.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges1878 · Public DomainOn vv39–4339-43. The Penitent Robber.
39-43. The Penitent Robber.
39. one of the malefactors] In St Matthew and St Mark we are told that both the robbers “reviled” Him. Here then we might suppose that there was an irreconcilable discrepancy. But though the Evangelists sometimes seem to be on the very verge of mutual contradiction, no single instance of a positive contradiction can be adduced from their independent pages. The reason of this is partly that they wrote the simple truth, and partly that they wrote under divine guidance. The explanation of the apparent contradiction lies in the Greek words used. The two first Synoptists tell us that both the robbers during an early part of the hours of crucifixion reproached Jesus (ὠνείδιζον), but we learn from St Luke that only one of them used injurious and insulting language to Him (ἐβλασφήμει). If they were followers of Barabbas or Judas of Galilee they would recognise no Messiahship but that of the sword, and they might, in their very despair and agony, join in the reproaches levelled by all classes alike at One who might seem to them to have thrown away a great opportunity. It was quite common for men on the cross to talk to the multitude, and even to make harangues (for instances see my Life of Christ, ii. 409, n.); but Jesus, amid this universal roar of execration or reproach from mob, priests, soldiers, and even these wretched fellow-sufferers, hung on the Cross in meek and awful silence.
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If thou be Christ] or, Art thou not the Christ? א, B, C, L.
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Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers1878 · Public DomainOn vv39–43(39) And one of the malefactors.—The incident that follows…
(39) And one of the malefactors.—The incident that follows is singularly characteristic of St. Luke. If we ask how he came to know what the other Gospels pass over, we may, I think, find his probable informants once more in the devout women who followed Jesus to the place of Crucifixion, and who stood near enough to the cross to hear what was then spoken. The word for “hanged” is used by St. Luke (Act_5:30; Act_10:39) and St. Paul (Gal_3:13) as applied to crucifixion.
Railed on him.—Literally, was blaspheming, but in the sense in which that word signifies the “reviling” of which man, and not God, may be the object. He, too, catches up the taunt of the rulers and the soldiers.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary1880 · Public DomainOn vv39, 42, 43Vers. 39, 40. And one of the malefactors which…
Vers. 39, 40. And one of the malefactors which were hanged railed on him, saying, If thou be Christ, save thyself and us. But the other answering rebuked him, saying, Dost not thou fear God? In the first two synoptists we read how, shortly after they were nailed to their crosses, both thieves "reviled" Jesus. The Greek word, however, used by SS. Matthew and Mark is wneidizon (reproached). The word used by St, Luke in this place of the impenitent one is eblasfhmei , "began to use injurious and insulting language a much stronger term. Farrar suggests that at first, during the early hours of the Crucifixion, in the madness of anguish and despair, they both probably joined in the reproaches levelled by all classes alike at One who might seem to them to have thrown away a great opportunity. They, no doubt, knew something, possibly much, of Jesus" career, and how he had deliberately prevented more than once the multitude from proclaiming him King. Watching him as he hung bravely patient on his cross, only breaking the dread silence with a low-muttered prayer for his murderers to his Father, one of these misguided men changed his opinion of his fellow-Sufferer, changed his opinion, too, of his own past career. There, dying with a prayer for others on his lips, was the Example of true heroism, of real patriotism. If thou be Christ. The more ancient authorities read, Art thou not the Christ ? But the other. In the Apocryphal Gospel of Nicodemus the names of the two are given as Dysmas and Gysmas, and these names appear still in Calvaries and stations in Roman Catholic lands. Seeing thou art in the same condemnation. His words might be paraphrased, "How canst thou, a dying man, join these mere lookers-on at our execution and agony? we are undergoing it ourselves. Dost thou net fear God? In a few hours we shall be before him. We have at all events deserved our doom; but not this Sufferer whom you revile. What has he done?
Vers. 39-43. True penitence.
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These verses narrate what we may call a standard fact of the gospel of Christina fact to which appeal will always be made, as it has always been made, in reference to a late repentance. We have to consider
I THE BREVITY WITH WHICH A GREAT" SPIRITUAL REVOLUTION MAY BE WROUGHT IN A HUMAN MIND. Twelve hours before, this man was a hardened criminal, habituated to a life of rapacious and murderous violence; his counterpart is to be found to-day in the cells of a penal establishment. And now, after a short companionship with Jesus, after hearing him speak and seeing him suffer, his heart is purged and cleansed of its iniquity, he is another man, he is a child of God, an heir of heaven. There are great capacities in these human souls of ours, which do not come often into exercise, but which are actually within us. Powerful speech, imminent peril, great emergencies, sudden inspiration from God, these and other things will call them forth; there is a brilliant flash of remembrance, or of emotion, or of realization, or of conviction and resolution. And then that which is ordinarily wrought in many days or months is accomplished in an hour. The movements of our mind are not subject to any time-table calculations whatsoever. No man can define the limit of possibility here. Great revolutions can be and have been wrought almost momentarily. Not slowly toiling upward step by step, but more swiftly than the uprising of the strongest bird upon fleetest wing, may the human soul ascend from the darkness of death into the radiant sunshine of hope and life.
II THE THOROUGHNESS OF THIS MAN"S CHANGE AS EVIDENCED BY HIS WORDS.
1. He recognizes the existence and the power and the providence of God (ver. 40).
2. He has a sense of the turpitude of his own conduct, a due sense of sin (ver. 41).
3. He recognizes the innocence and excellence of Jesus Christ (ver. 41).
4. He believes in his real royalty, though it is so hidden from sight, and though circumstances are so terribly against it (ver. 42).
5. He believes in the pitifulness as well as the power of this kingly Sufferer, and he makes his humble but not unhopeful appeal to his remembrance.
6. He does the one thing for Christ he can do as he is dying on the cross he remonstrates with his companion in crime, and seeks to silence his cruel taunts. Here is penitence, faith, service, all springing up and in earnest exercise in this brief hour.
III A SUDDEN TRANSITION FROM THE LOWEST TO THE HIGHEST ESTATE. (Ver. 43) "What a day to that dying man! How strange a contrast between its opening and its close, its morning and its night! Its morning saw him a culprit condemned before the bar of earthly judgment; before evening shadowed the hill of Zion he stood accepted at the bar of heaven. The morning saw him led out through an earthly city"s gates in company with One who was hooted at by the crowd that gathered round him; before night fell upon Jerusalem the gates of another city, even the heavenly, were lifted up, and he went through them in company with One around whom all the hosts of heaven were bowing down as he passed to take his place beside the Father on his everlasting throne" (Hanna). In view of this most interesting fact we gather two lessons.
1. One of hopefulness. It is never too late to repent; in other words, repentance, when real, is never ineffectual. None could be more undeniably impenitent until within a few hours of his death than this malefactor, and no man"s penitence could be more decisively availing than his. It was real and thorough, and therefore it was accepted. It is a great thing for those who speak for Christ to be warranted, as they are, in going to the dying and despairing, and telling these departing ones, that true penitence, however late, avails with God; that his ear is not closed against the sigh of the contrite, even at the last hour of the day; that up to the last there is mercy to be had by them who truly seek it. But there is another lesson to be learnt.
2. One of warning and of fear. There is every reason to hope that true though late repentance is always accepted; but there is grave reason to fear that late repentance is seldom real and true. How often does experience prove that men in apparently dying hours have believed themselves to be penitent when they have only been apprehensive of coming doom! The dread of approaching judgment is far from being the same thing as repentance unto life. Not the last hour, when a selfish dread may be so easily mistaken for spiritual conviction, but the day of health and strength, when conviction can pass into action and honest shame into faithful service, is the time to turn from sin and to seek the face and the favor of the living God. Let none despair, but let none presume. C.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator1887 · Public DomainOn vv39, 42And one of the malefactors which were hanged railed…
Luk_23:39-43
And one of the malefactors which were hanged railed on Him
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The impenitent malefactor
I.
THIS MANS TREATMENT OF CHRIST suggests several things for our consideration. He railed on Him.
1. What inhumanity. The suffering of Jesus ought surely to have moved his heart to pity.
2. The friendlessness of the majestic Sufferer touched him not.
3. His like condition to the Sufferer by his side touched no chord of sympathy in his breast.
II. THE MALEFACTOR WAS AN UNBELIEVER. He had probably never seen Christ before. On this account he was less guilty than many at Calvary that day; and less guilty than thousands who hear the gospel to-day, but still reject Christ. According to light and privileges is our responsibility. But this robber had ground enough to warrant his belief in Christ. His companion bad, yet he joined those who railed upon Jesus.
III. CHRISTS TREATMENT OF THE MALEFACTOR. Pitying silence. He will answer no mans prayer to prove His power. His word, His Church, the Christian, are the miracles that must testify to His power to save. (G. E. Jones.)
The impenitent thief
I. HUMAN LIFE ENDING AN UTTER MORAL WRECK.
II. HUMAN LIFE ENDING ON THE GALLOWS.
III. HUMAN LIFE ENDING IN SIGHT OF THE CROSS.
IV. HUMAN LIFE ENDING IN DESPAIR. (The Lay Preacher.)
The two malefactors
I. REFLECTIONS. Here we have a true picture of human nature as it appears amidst difficulties, and dangers, and sufferings, the appropriate fruits of sin. A care to avoid pain is universally prevalent, but a care to avoid sin is comparatively of rare occurrence. Of this conduct one of the malefactors crucified with Christ afforded a lamentable example. But the other, however bad he had previously been, however much hardened or debased, was brought to true repentance. There was an invisible energy touching his soul and melting it into contrition; the power of the cross of Christ was felt, and it proved the Redeemer to be great in sufferings. Yes, this criminal became humble, his heart believed, and his faith penetrated the vail of the incarnation, realizing what was concealed from an eye of sense, even a ground of hope for his guilty soul.
II. APPLICATION.
1. Let us see the greatness and the glory of the Saviours character. What power I what grace! what dominion over the invisible world!
2. The language of the text supplies a plain proof of the separate and happy existence of the spirits of just men after death.
3. The sufficiency of the sacrifice for sin made by the death of Christ, is illustrated by the case we have considered. He contemplated sinners, the chief of sinners, when he offered Himself to God.
4. What different effects may result amidst a sameness of circumstances and opportunities. Here were two of similar character, both exceedingly wicked, with death in immediate prospect; one becomes a penitent seeking his salvation, the other remains hardened in his sins.
5. The subject suggests the language of encouragement and of caution. (Essex Remembrancer.)
The two robbers
To defer the time of conversion, and as a pretext for persevering in the ways of sin, the worldly-minded flatter themselves with three principal delusions.
1. One delays his conversion because he imagines that a time of sickness and suffering will present a more favourable opportunity to think of it. He flatters himself that he will not be carried away by a violent or sudden death; that a long and slow malady, during the course of which he will have time to reflect, and to make an account of his ways, will permit him to prepare himself for the meeting with his God. But how does he know whether a malady, under the weight of which the very organism of the constitution sinks, will not oppress his senses, dull his spirit, take from his mind its energy, and paralyze his faculties? Who can be ignorant that, in such a case, nothing is more usual than hesitations, adjournments, and delays, seeing the man has accustomed himself to the deceitful hope of a recovery, sooner or later?
2. A second reason, as I said, for which the worldly-minded defer their conversion is, that they suppose that at the hour of death Providence will work miracles of salvation, other and more efficacious than those which they have been able to enjoy during their life; and that the most pressing invitations of grace, the most irresistible attractions of the Holy Spirit, the most powerful manifestations of Divine love will be afforded. Where has God promised such manifestations? Nowhere. But so be it; what does this prove? When the heart is hardened by a long course of sin, will it not resist the evidence of truths the best established, and facts the most palpable, even the most powerful miracles of salvation?
3. Lastly, impenitent sinners defer their conversion upon the pretext that, at the time when they shall see death to be near, love of the world will disappear from the heart, carnal passions will be extinguished, and the soul will open itself to the influence of the truths of the Word of Life. But if the experience of many centuries is not sufficient to attest that such a time has not upon the soul that regenerating power which is supposed; that, instead of detaching himself from the things of earth, the unregenerated man will strive to attach himself more, and to cling more strongly, to measures which may prolong his existence in this world; that so far from becoming more susceptible to the beauty of truth and love, a long course of resistance renders the heart incapable of feeling their attractions, surely the example of the dying robber will be sufficient to dispel for ever those fatal delusions. Not only is this robber not touched by the truth, but he repels it; not only does he continue to sleep in the security of sin, but he is incensed against the Word; and whilst shame and remorse should have closed his lips, he unites with the multitude to insult the Saviour of the world: and to all his other sins he adds an impudent irony against the Son of God; he crowns all his crimes by blasphemy. After that, will you still count, O all you who defer your conversion, on the changes that accompany death, as if they could miraculously break the chain of your sins, or promote your eternal salvation? Three things have struck us in the history of the unconverted robber: first, that death was not startling; second, that extraordinary succour of grace was not received; third, that he aggravated his condemnation and hardened himself in circumstances, which it seems should have ameliorated his state. The conversion of his companion in iniquity presents to us reflections of quite another nature. And can you doubt, that if in this moment some one had been able to bring down the converted thief from the cross, had been able to lavish upon him the succours of art, and, in the end, cicatrize his wounds: if one could have contrived to arrest the fever to which he was a prey, to give him the use of his members; to restore him to life; can you doubt that, such being his feelings, the remainder of his earthly existence would have been other than a noble demonstration of the power of the faith and love which lived in his soul? (Dr. Grandpierre.)
The crucified malefactors
I. Let us consider WHEREIN THESE TWO MALEFACTORS WERE ALIKE.
1. They were alike in respect to depravity of heart.
2. They were alike in respect to their knowledge of Christ.
3. They were alike in practice--both malefactors.
4. They were alike in condemnation.
II. WHEN THEY BEGAN TO DIFFER. Apparently it was when the darkness began. And we can easily believe that such an unexpected and solemn miracle, on such an awful occasion, did make a deep impression upon the minds of all the spectators of the crucifixion of the Lord of glory, and more upon some than others.
III. WHEREIN THEY EVENTUALLY AND FINALLY DIFFERED. Here it may be observed--
1. That one realized the wrath of God abiding upon him, whilst the other did not. This poor, perishing criminal was thoroughly awakened from his long and habitual stupidity, and clearly saw his dangerous condition; which is usually the first step to conversion. He might, however, have seen and felt such danger, and with his eyes open gone to destruction. But--
2. His awakening was followed with conviction. He not only realized that he was exposed to everlasting misery, but was convinced, in his conscience, that he deserved it.
3. He renounced his enmity to God, and became cordially reconciled to His vindictive justice.
4. Having exercised true love, repentance, and submission towards God, he exercised a saving faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Thus the two malefactors began to differ while hanging on the cross; and they continue to differ as long as they lived, and will continue to differ as long as they exist.
What has been said in this discourse may serve to throw light upon some important subjects which have been supposed to be dark and difficult to understand.
1. It appears from the conduct of the penitent malefactor, that the doctrine of unconditional submission is founded in fact. He really felt and expressed a cordial and unreserved submission to God, when he expected in a few moments to sink down into the pit of endless destruction.
2. It appears from the views and exercises of the penitent malefactor, that the doctrine of repentance before faith is founded in fact.
3. It appears from the views and feelings of the penitent malefactor, that the doctrine of instantaneous regeneration is founded in fact.
4. It appears from the conduct of God towards the two malefactors, that He acts as a Sovereign in renewing the hearts of men.
5. The conduct of the impenitent malefactor shows that no external means or motives are sufficient to awaken, convince, or convert any stupid sinner.
6. It appears from the fate of the impenitent malefactor, that impenitent sinners have no ground to rely upon the mere mercy of Christ in a dying hour. It is, therefore, presumption in any sinners to live in the hope of a death-bed repentances.
7. It appears from the conduct and the condition of the penitent malefactor, that sinners may be saved at the eleventh or last hour of life, if they really repent and believe in Christ. (N. Emmons, D. D.)
Lessons from the three crosses on Calvary
I. THE WAGES OF SIN IS DEATH.
1. Death to the sinner--the death of the body, and afterwards the death of the soul in hell.
2. Death to the Saviour, who knew no sin, but bears our iniquities on the cross.
3. Death to the saint; for though on him the second and more awful death, the death of the soul, hath no power, yet he cannot escape the death of the body; for all saints since Abel have had to pass through the river Jordan, save two, Enoch and Elijah. God must be just; and nothing short of death is sins just recompense. Oh that you would turn to Him whose gift is eternal life, through Jesus Christ our Lord!
II. Another lesson we learn from this solemn scene is, that THE UNCONVERTED GROW WORSE AND WORSE. Perhaps the lost thief was brought up by pious parents; most likely he was taught to kneel before God by his mother, and was led up to the temple, and heard the sweet music echo among its marble arches, when the worshippers sang Gods praises. Often had he wondered, and perhaps wept, when hearing the history of Joseph, and Samuel, and Daniel. But, alas! he was led away by little and little, adding sin to sin, until sinning became a habit, and habit became confirmed and strengthened, till he walked openly with the ungodly, stood in the way of sinners, and at last sat down in the seat of the scorner; and though rebuked, remained hardened, and went down a doomed man to hell. You cannot indulge one sin without opening the door for others. The man who begins by walking in the downhill path of sin, goes on to running, until he falls headlong into hell.
III. THERE ARE NONE TOO BAD TO BE FORGIVEN. Art thou a thief? As the thief on the cross was saved, so mayest thou; take heart, and cry to Jesus. Art thou a blasphemer? The blasphemer, Bunyan, was saved, and so mayest thou; take heart, and cry to Jesus. Art thou a harlot? The harlot, Mary, was saved, and so mayest thou; take heart, and cry to Jesus. Art thou a murderer? There may be some such here; for God knows there are not only murders that never saw the light, but he that hateth his brother is a murderer. But oh! the murderer David was saved, and so mayest thou; take heart, and cry to Jesus. Saul of Tarsus, whose hands were dyed with the blood of Stephen, was washed with the blood of Jesus. I saw, not long since, lying on the bed of sickness and death, a poor outcast woman, whose spirit has since departed. She spoke to this effect to a dear friend of mine:--I have been, not five, not ten, not fifteen, but twenty years living in open and loathsome sin; but I have found that Christ will cast out none--no, not the most hell-deserving sinner who cries to Him. And now I amdying; but I am happy, for the blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanseth me from all sin. And when I am gone, let these words be written on my tombstone--So foolish was I, and ignorant, I was as a beast before Thee. Nevertheless I am continually with Thee: Thou hast holden me by my right hand. Thou shalt guide me with Thy counsel and afterward receive me to glory. Oh, whoever you are, Christ can save you!
IV. Learn, too, from Calvary that WHEN A SINNER IS SAVED, IT IS BY FAITH IN JESUS. How can I prove to you the faith of the penitent thief? By his wonderful prayer. (H. G. Guinness, B. A.)
Dost not thou fear God?--
The restraining principle
And what is this fear? This fear is a solemn dread of the creature in presence of the Creator. Well, then, with real thought on the Passion, why must we feel, as a prominent principle, a fear of God?
1. The Cross, my brothers, witnessed to two things--Gods awful and necessary judgments on human sin. It must be so. God could not be God if it were otherwise. The atonement is nothing else but the fearful statement of Divine holiness in relation to sin. Our first clear intimations of God, it has been truly argued, are not conclusions from reasoning on final causes, or evidences from the harmonies of a material world. No; they are the voice of conscience, and the self-evident consistency of the moral law. It is always possible to conceive, so it has been wisely said, all sorts of changes in the structure of the material world, and we find no difficulty to the intellect, whatever may be said about the imagination in the revelation of its final transformation by fire--that unimagined and yet inevitable catastrophe. But one thing is impossible--we cannot conceive right being otherwise than right, and wrong than wrong; we cannot imagine created dissonances in the harmony of the moral law, and what is that but saying that there are eternal necessities in the being of our Creator? And if so, being good, His judgment must be severe, must be awful, on persistent sin. We say so in our saner moments, but how are we to feel the truth of our saying? The answer is--Calvary.
2. But this fear is also a serious apprehension of the dreadfulness of evil in itself. The Cross showed the intensity of the love of God, and, by the form of the revelation, was revealed His knowledge of our fearful danger. The genius of Michael Angelo made the Sibyls splendid on the ceiling of the Sistine from the magnificence of proportion quite as much as from the softness of colour. Proportion is the secret of lasting charm. It is holy fear that is the principle of proportion in the relation of the creature--the fallen creature--to his Creator. To see God in suffering is, by grace, to have a proportionate affection. By it we are restrained, by it we are awed and solemnized, by it we act as men should in the felt presence of their Maker, by it we learn, in fact, our proper place. (Canon Knox Little.)
The fear of God gives harmony to life
As the glow of a solemn sunrise gives to the tracts of impenetrable vapour a splendour which illumines and transforms, changing into awful beauty the cloud-folds of the slate-grey morning on the mountains, which were otherwise but the draperies of a sulking storm, so the fear of God gives harmony and colour to the more murky cloud]ands of the inner life. It is, it is indeed, to each of us a distinct and necessary element in that solid and faithful perseverance to which, and to which alone, is promised the reward of victory. Amidst the mysteries and miseries of this lower life; amidst its simple joys, its unspeakable sorrows; amidst the delirium of ambition, the intoxication of pleasure, the heart-corroding of daily care, the numbing frosts of encroaching worldliness, the blinding mists of severe temptations, we may be--if we will to realize its meaning--we may be arrested by the spectacle of the Passion; and among its fruitful and tremendous lessons, it teaches restraint of the tempest of our lower desires, brings us some sense of the vast issues of eternity, and says to us in accents which we may hear above the surge of the surf and the breaking of the billows, Look to your Representative; contemplate the dignity, the mystery of His sorrow; whether high in rank or among (what the world calls) the dregs of society, whether with great gifts or with few attainments, walk as a creature in presence of his Creator; have a care what you are doing; live as those who live, but who have to die, or those who now in time must soon feel the pressure of eternity. Child, child of such an awful, such a splendid sacrifice, fear God! (Canon Knox Little.)
Nothing amiss
The dying thiefs testimony to our Lord
Nothing amiss--what does that mean, as used here? Literally, it means nothing out of place--unsuitable, unbecoming, improper. Does it mean, then, He has not been guilty of crimes like ours--of robbery, violence, insurrection, murder? With nothing of that sort was He ever charged; and none in the city, good or bad, could be a stranger to the one charge brought against Him; for the whole country, as well as the crowded streets of the metropolis, was full of it. He was dying under the charge of high treason against heaven--of blasphemy--of not only laying claim to royal honours, but malting Himself equal with God. I take it, therefore, that in saying, This Man has done nothing amiss, his words must mean, He has made no false claim: He said, I am the Christ, but in that He did nothing amiss; I am the King of Israel, but in that He did nothing amiss; He called Himself the Son of God, the Light of the world, the Rest of the weary, the Physician of the sick at heart, but in this He did nothing amiss. Not that I for a moment suppose that this penitent criminal had knowledge enough to say all this as I have said it; but I feel confident that he had gleams of it, and that I have not gone beyond the spirit of his testimony to the innocence of our Lord. Amidst the buzzings about this new kind of criminal--innocent, by universal consent, of all the ordinary crimes, yet charged with a crime never before laid to the charge of any--some account of the marvellous works ascribed to Him, and of the words of heavenly grace He was said to have uttered, might easily reach this mans ear; and just as the wind bloweth where it listeth, so that grace which is the Spirits breath upon the soul might send what he heard like arrows into a softened breast--as not seldom it does even still. (D. Brown, D. D.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Alexander MacLaren1905 · Public DomainOn vv42–43
Luke
WORDS FROM THE CROSS
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THE DYING THIEF
Luk 23:42.
There is an old and true division of the work of Christ into three parts-prophet, priest, and king. Such a distinction manifestly exists, though it may be overestimated, or rather, the statement of it may be exaggerated, if it be supposed that separate acts of His discharge these separate functions, and that He ceases to be the one before He becomes the other. Rather it is true that all His work is prophetic, that all His work is priestly, and that His prophetic and priestly work is the exercise of His kingly authority. But still the division is a true one, and helps to set before us, clearly and definitely, the wide range of the benefits of Christ’s mission and death. It is noteworthy that these three groups round the Cross, the third of which we have to speak of now-that of the ‘daughters of Jerusalem,’ that of the deriding scribes and the indifferent soldiers, and this one of the two thieves-each presents us Christ in one of the three characters. The words that He spoke upon the Cross, with reference to others than Himself, may be gathered around, and arranged under, that threefold aspect of Christ’s work. The prophet said, ‘Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for Me, but weep for yourselves, for the days are coming.’ The priest said, ‘Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. ‘The king, in His sovereignty, ruled the heart of that penitent man from His Cross, and while the crown shone athwart the smoke and the agony of the death, the king ‘opened the gates of the kingdom of heaven unto all believers’ when He said, ‘This day shalt thou be with Me in Paradise!’ We shall not attempt, in dealing with this incident, to paint pictures. I have a far more important thing to do than even to try to bring vividly before your minds the scene on that little hill of Calvary. It is the meaning that we are concerned with, and not the mere externals. I take it for granted, then, that we know the details:-the dying man in his agony, beginning to see dimly, as his soul closed upon earthly things, who this was-patient, loving, mighty there in His sufferings; and using his last breath to cry, ‘Lord, remember me!’-and the sufferer throned in the majesty of His meekness, and divinity of His endurance; calm, conscious, full of felt but silent power, accepting homage, bending to the penitence, loving the sinner, and flinging open the gates of the pale kingdoms into which He was to pass, with these His last words.
First, then, we see here an illustration of the Cross in its power of drawing men to itself. It is strange to think that, perhaps, at that moment the only human being who thoroughly believed in Christ was that dying robber. The disciples are all gone. The most faithful of them are recreant, denying, fleeing. A handful of women are standing there, not knowing what to think about it, stunned but loving; and alone {as I suppose}, alone of all the sons of men, the crucified malefactor was in the sunshine of faith, and could say ‘I believe!’ As everything of the future history of the world and of the Gospel is typified in the events of the Crucifixion, it was fitting that here again and at the last there should be a prophetic fulfilment of His own saying, ‘I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto Me.’
But mark, here we have a striking instance of the universal law of the progress of the Gospel, in the two-fold effort of the contemplation of the Cross. By its foot was to be seen the derision of the scribes and the stupor of the soldiery; and now here are the two thieves-the one chiming in with the universal reproaches; and the other beholding the same event, having the same circumstances displayed before him, and they influence him thus. Brethren, it is just the history of the Gospel wherever it goes. It is its history now, and among us. The Gospel is preached equally to every man. The same message comes to us all, offering us the same terms. Christ stands before each of us in the same attitude. And what is the consequence? A parting of the whole mass of us, some to one side and some to the other. So, when you take a magnet, and hold it to an indiscriminate heap of metal filings, it will gather out all the iron, and leave behind all the rest. ‘I, if I be lifted up,’ said He, ‘will draw all men unto Me.’ The attractive power will go out over the whole race of His brethren; but from some there will be no response. In some hearts there will be no yielding to the attraction. Some will remain rooted, obstinate, steadfast in their place; and to some the lightest word will be mighty enough to stir all the slumbering pulses of their sin-ridden hearts, and to bring them, broken and penitent, for mercy to His feet. To the one He is ‘a savour of life unto life, and to the other a savour of death unto death.’ The broadest doctrine of the universal adaptation, and the universal intention too, of the Gospel, as the ‘power of God unto salvation,’ contains hidden in its depths this undeniable fact, that, be the cause what it may {and as I believe, the cause lies with us, and is our fault} this separating, judging effect follows from all faithful preaching of Christ’s words. He came to judge the world, ‘that they which see not’ {as He Himself said} ‘might see, and they which see might be made blind,’ And on the Cross that process went on in two men, alike in necessity, alike in criminality, alike in this, that Death’s icy finger was just being laid upon their heart, to stop all the flow of its wild blood and passion, but different in this, that the one of them turned himself, by God’s grace, and laid hold on the Gospel that was offered to him, and the other turned himself away, and derided, and died.
And now, there is another consideration. If we look at this man, this penitent thief, and contrast him, his previous history, and his present feelings, with the people that stood around, and rejected and scoffed, we get some light as to the sort of thing that unfits men for perceiving and accepting the Gospel when it is offered to them. Remember the other classes of persons who were there. There were Roman soldiers, with very partial knowledge of what they were doing, and whose only feeling was that of entire indifference; and there were Jewish Rabbis, Pharisees, Priests, and people, who knew a little more of what they were doing, and whose feeling was derision and scorn. Now, if we mark the ordinary scriptural representation, especially as to the last class, we cannot help seeing that there comes out this principle:-The thing of all others that unfits men for the reception of Christ as a Saviour, and for the simple reliance on His atoning blood and divine mercy, is not gross, long profligacy, and outward, vehement transgression; but it is self-complacency, clean, fatal self-righteousness and self-sufficiency.
Why was it that Scribes and Pharisees turned away from Him? For three reasons. Because of their pride of wisdom. ‘We are the men who know all about Moses and the traditions of the elders; we judge this new phenomenon not by the question, How does it come to our consciences, and how does it appeal to our hearts? but we judge it by the question, How does it fit our Rabbinical learning and subtle casuistical laws? We are the Priests and the Scribes; and the people that know not the law, they may accept a thing that only appeals to the common human heart, but for us, in our intellectual superiority, living remote from the common wants of the lower class, not needing a rough outward Gospel of that sort, we can do without such a thing, and we reject it.’ They turned away from the Cross, and their hatred darkened into derision, and their menaces ended in a crucifixion, not merely because of a pride of wisdom, but because of a complacent self-righteousness that knew nothing of the fact of sin, that never had learned to believe itself to be full of evil, that had got so wrapped up in ceremonies as to have lost the life; that had degraded the divine law of God, with all its lightning splendours, and awful power, into a matter of ‘mint and anise and cummin.’ They turned away for a third reason. Religion had become to them a mere set of traditional dogmas, to think accurately or to reason clearly about which was all that was needful. Worship having become ceremonial, and morality having become casuistry, and religion having become theology, the men were as hard as a nether millstone, and there was nothing to be done with them until these three crusts were peeled off the heart, and, close and burning, the naked heart and the naked truth of God came into contact.
Brethren, change the name, and the story is true about us. God forbid that I should deny that every form of gross, sensual immorality, ‘hardens all within’ {as one poor victim of it said}, ‘and petrifies the feeling.’ God forbid that I should seem to be speaking slightingly of the exceeding sinfulness of such sin, or to be pouring contempt upon the laws of common morality. Do not misapprehend me so. Still it is not sin in its outward forms that makes the worst impediment between a man and the Cross, but it is sin plus self-righteousness which makes the insurmountable obstacle to all faith and repentance. And oh! in our days, when passion is tamed down by so many bonds and chains; when the power of society lies upon all of us, prescribing our path, and keeping most of us from vice, partly because we are not tempted, and partly because we have been brought up like some young trees behind a wall, within the fence of decent customs and respectable manners,-we have far more need to tell orderly, respectable moral men-’My brother, that thing that you have is worth nothing, as settling your position before God’; than to stand up and thunder about crimes which half of us never heard of, and perhaps only an infinitesimal percentage of us have ever committed. All sin separates from God, but the thing that makes the separation permanent is not the sin, but the ignorance of the sin. Self-righteousness, aye, and pride of wisdom, they-they have perverted many a nature, many a young man’s glowing spirit, and have turned him away from the Gospel. If there be a man here who is looking at the simple message of peace and pardon and purity through Christ, and is saying to himself, Yes; it may fit the common class of minds that require outward signs and symbols, and must pin their faith to forms; but for me with my culture, for me with my spiritual tendencies, for me with my new lights, I do not want any objective redemption; I do not want anything to convince me of a divine love, and I do not need any crucified Saviour to preach to me that God is merciful!-this incident before us has a very solemn lesson in it for him. And if there be a man here who is living a life of surface blamelessness, it has as solemn a lesson for him. Look at the Scribe, and look at the Pharisee-religious men in their way, wise men in their way, decent and respectable men in their way; and look at that poor thief that had been caught in the wilderness amongst the caves and dens, and had been brought red-handed with blood upon his sword, and guilt in his heart, and nailed up there in the short and summary process of a Roman jurisprudence;-and think that Scribe, and Pharisee, and Priest, saw nothing in Christ; and that the poor profligate wretch saw this in Him,-innocence that showed heavenly against his diabolical blackness; and his heart stirred, and he laid hold of Him in the stress of his mighty agony-as a drowning man catches at anything that protrudes from the bank; and he held and shook it, and the thing was fast, and he was safe! Not transgression shuts a man out from mercy. Transgression, which belongs to us all, makes us subjects for the mercy; but it is pride, self-righteousness, trust in ourselves, which ‘bars the gates of mercy on mankind’; and the men that are condemned are condemned not only because they have transgressed the commandments of God, but ‘this is the condemnation, that light came into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.’
And then {and but a word} we see here, too, the elements of which acceptable faith consists. One does not exactly know by what steps or through what process this poor dying thief passed, which issued in faith-whether it was an impression from Christ’s presence, whether it was that he had ever heard anything about Him before, or whether it was only that the wisdom which dwells with death was beginning to clear his eyes as life ebbed away. But however he came to the conviction, mark what it was that he believed and expressed,-I am a sinful man; all punishment that comes down upon me is richly deserved: This man is pure and righteous; ‘Lord, remember me when Thou comest into Thy kingdom!’ That is all-that is all. That is the thing that saves a man. How much he did know-whether he knew all the depth of what he was saying, when he said ‘Lord!’ is a question that we cannot answer; whether he understood what the ‘kingdom’ was that he was expecting, is a question that we cannot solve; but this is clear-the intellectual part of faith may be dark and doubtful, but the moral and emotional part of it is manifest and plain. There was, ‘I am nothing-Thou art everything: I bring myself and my emptiness unto Thy great fullness: fill it and make me blessed!’ Faith has that. Faith has in it repentance-repentance has in it faith too. Faith has in it the recognition of the certainty and the justice of a judgment that is coming down crashing upon every human head; and then from the midst of these fears, and sorrows, and the tempest of that great darkness, there rises up in the night of terrors, the shining of one perhaps pale, quivering, distant, but divinely given hope, ‘My Saviour! My Saviour! He is righteous: He has died-He lives! I will stay no longer; I will cast myself upon Him!’ Once more-this incident reminds us not only of the attractive power of the Cross, but of the prophetic power of the Cross. We have here the Cross as pointing to and foretelling the Kingdom. Pointing out, and foretelling: that is to say, of course, and only, if we accept the scriptural statement of what these sufferings were, the Person that endured them, and the meaning of their being endured. But the only thing I would dwell upon here, is, that when we think of Christ as dying for us, we are never to separate it from that other solemn and future coming of which this poor robber catches a glimpse. They crowned Him with thorns, and they gave Him a reed for His sceptre. That mockery, so natural to the strong practical Romans in dealing with one whom they thought a harmless enthusiast, was a symbol which they who did it little dreamed of. The crown of thorns proclaims a sovereignty founded on sufferings. The sceptre of feeble reed speaks of power wielded in gentleness. The Cross leads to the crown. The brow that was pierced by the sharp acanthus wreath, therefore wears the diadem of the universe. The hand that passively held the mockery of the worthless, pithless reed, therefore rules the princes of the earth with the rod of iron. He who was lifted up to the Cross, was, by that very act, lifted up to be a Ruler and Commander to the peoples. For the death of the Cross God hath highly exalted Him to be a Prince and a Saviour. The way to glory for Him, the power by which He wields the kingdom of the world, is precisely through the suffering. And therefore, whensoever there arises before us the image of the one, oh! let there rise before us likewise the image of the other. The Cross links on to the kingdom-the kingdom lights up the Cross. My brother, the Saviour comes-the Saviour comes a King. The Saviour that comes a King is the Saviour that has been here and was crucified. The kingdom that He establishes is all full of blessing, and love, and gentleness; and to us {if we will unite the thoughts of Cross and Crown} there is opened up not only the possibility of having boldness before Him in the day of judgment, but there is opened up this likewise-the certainty that He ‘shall receive of the travail of His soul and be satisfied.’ Oh, remember that as certain as the historical fact-He died on Calvary; so certain is the prophetic fact-He shall reign, and you and I will stand there! I durst not touch that subject. Take it into your own hearts; and think about it-a kingdom, a judgment-seat, a crown, a gathered universe; separation, decision, execution of the sentence. And oh! ask yourselves, ‘When that gentle eye, with lightning in its depths, falls upon me, individualises me, summons out me to its bar-how shall I stand?’ ‘Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness before Him in the day of judgment,’ ‘Lord, remember me when Thou comest into Thy kingdom.’
Finally. Here is the Cross as revealing and opening the true Paradise.-’This day shalt thou be with Me in Paradise.’ We have no concern at present with the many subtle inferences as to the state of the dead, and as to the condition of our Lord’s human spirit before the Resurrection, which have been drawn from these words. To me they do seem fairly to bear the broad and single conclusion that the spirits of the saved do enter at death into a state of conscious presence with their Saviour, and therefore of joy and felicity. But beyond this we have no firm ground for going. It is of more practical worth to note that the penitent’s vague prayer is answered, and over-answered. He asks, ‘When Thou comest’-whensoever that may be-’remember me.’ ‘I shall stand afar off; do not let me be utterly forgotten.’ Christ answers-’Remember thee! thou shalt be with Me, close to My side. Remember thee when I come!-this day shalt thou be with Me.’
And what a contrast that is-the conscious blessedness rushing in close upon the heels of the momentary darkness of death. At the one moment there hangs the thief writhing in mortal agony; the wild shouts of the fierce mob at his feet are growing faint upon his ear; the city spread out at his feet, and all the familiar sights of earth are growing dim to his filmy eye. The soldier’s spear comes, the legs are broken, and in an instant there hangs a relaxed corpse; and the spirit, the spirit-is where? Ah! how far away; released from all its sin and its sore agony, struggling up at once into such strange divine enlargement, a new star swimming into the firmament of heaven, a new face before the throne of God, another sinner redeemed from earth! The conscious immediate blessedness of the departed-be he what he may, be his life whatsoever it may have been-who at last, dark, sinful, standing with one foot on the verge of eternity, and poising himself for the flight, flings himself into the arms of Christ-the everlasting blessedness, the Christ-presence and the Christ-gladness, that is the message that the robber leaves to us from his cross. Paradise is opened to us again. The Cross is the true ‘tree of life.’ The flaming cherubim, and the sword that turneth every way, are gone, and the broad road into the city, the Paradise of God, with all its beauties and all its peaceful joy-a better Paradise, ‘a statelier Eden,’ than that which we have lost, is flung open to us for ever.
Do not trust a death-bed repentance, my brother. I have stood by many a death-bed, and few indeed have they been where I could have believed that the man was in a condition physically {to say nothing of anything else} clearly to see and grasp the message of the Gospel. There is no limit to the mercy. I know that God’s mercy is boundless. I know that ‘whilst there is life there is hope.’ I know that a man, going-swept down that great Niagara-if, before his little skiff tilts over into the awful rapids, he can make one great bound with all his strength, and reach the solid ground-I know he may be saved. It is an awful risk to run. A moment’s miscalculation, and skiff and voyager alike are whelming in the green chaos below, and come up mangled into nothing, far away down yonder upon the white turbulent foam. ‘One was saved upon the Cross,’ as the old divines used to tell us, ‘that none might despair; and only one, that none might presume.’ ‘Now is the accepted time, and now is the day of salvation!’
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
C. I. Scofield1917 · Public DomainOn vv42–43(See Scofield "Mat 3:2").
kingdom
(See Scofield "Mat 3:2").
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann1924 · Public DomainOn v39The penitent malefactor:
The penitent malefactor:
v. 39. And one of the malefactors which were hanged railed on Him, saying, If Thou be Christ, save Thyself and us.
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v. 40. But the other answering rebuked him, saying, Dost not thou fear God, seeing thou art in the same condemnation?
v. 41. And we indeed justly; for we receive the due reward of our deeds; but this Man hath done nothing amiss.
v. 42. And he said unto Jesus, Lord, remember me when Thou comest into Thy kingdom.
v. 43. And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, Today shalt thou be with Me in paradise.
During the first hour of the excruciating agony of the crucifixion, both malefactors had joined the surging throngs in Revelation ling and cursing and mocking the man hanging in the middle between them, Mat 27:44. But the example of wonderful patience, together with the words which fell from the lips of the Sufferer, gradually caused one of the criminals to become silent. His heart was pierced by thoughts of sorrow and repentance, he acknowledged Jesus as his Savior. When, therefore, the other malefactor continued his objurgations, sneeringly asking Jesus to save Himself and them also, the man on the right hand rebuked him. It is difficult to say in just what way he brought out the emphasis, but he probably meant to express: Isn’t there even fear of the holy, just God in thy heart, not to speak of any other feeling of commiseration and sympathy! He reminded the other that they both were suffering justly, receiving payment in full for the sins which they had committed, exactly what their deeds were worth. But they were the only ones in that class; for this Man, this Jesus, had done nothing out of place, nothing wrong, nothing wicked. So this malefactor acknowledged his great guilt before God and accepted his punishment as a just payment of divine wrath. He was heartily sorry for his sins. And this sorrow was supplemented and completed by faith. Turning to Jesus, he begged Him: Remember me when Thou enterest into Thy kingdom. The Lord should in grace and mercy think of him and receive him into His kingdom, at the time when the Messiah would return in glory. The poor outcast thus made a splendid confession of Christ; he recognized in Him the King of heaven. He knows that he is not worthy of the mercy of this King, but upon this very mercy he relies, his trust in that gives him the strength to make his petition. This faith was a miracle of divine grace. It is always a triumph of grace if God gives to a poor criminal and outcast of human society who has served sin all his life, grace unto repentance in the very last hour of his earthly existence. And Jesus bestowed upon this malefactor the very fullness of His divine pardon. He gave him the assurance, with solemn emphasis, that he would be with Him in paradise that very day. There was no waiting for a future glory necessary, neither was there a purgatory for him to pass through, but the glory, the happiness of paradise would be his as soon as he had closed his eyes in death. For all sinners in the whole world the Lord has opened the doors of paradise by His life, suffering, and death, and whosoever believeth on Him has complete salvation as soon as he dies. That is the glorious fruit of the Passion of Christ: forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0On vv39, 42insulted him
insulted him
"insulted Jesus"
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Are you not the Christ? Save yourself
The criminal uses a question to mock Jesus. AT: "You claim to be the Christ. Save yourself" or "If you really were the Christ, you would save yourself" (See: Rhetorical Question)
Save yourself and us
The criminal did not really think that Jesus could rescue them from the cross. (See: Irony)
the other rebuked him
"the other criminal rebuked him"
Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence?
The criminal uses a question to scold the other criminal. AT: "You should fear God, because they are punishing you the same way they are punishing him" or "You must have no fear of God, since you mock him while you are hanging on a cross the same as he is" (See: Rhetorical Question)
We indeed ... for we ... we deserve
These usages of "we" refer only to the two criminals, and not to Jesus or the other people. (See: First, Second, or Third Person)
Tyndale Open Study Notes2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0On vv42–4323:42 remember me when you come into your Kingdom:…
23:42 remember me when you come into your Kingdom: The criminal was perhaps thinking of the resurrection at the end of time, when Jesus would be raised up and vindicated by God.
GEBible — Godless Engineer's Bible App
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv39, 41, 43 Therefore either we must take that spoken by Synecdoche…
Therefore either we must take that spoken by Synecdoche which Matthew saith, or that both of them mocked Christ. But one of them at length overcome with the great patience of God, brake forth into that confession worthy all memory.
Christ, in the midst of the humbling of himself upon the cross, showeth indeed that he hath both power of life to save the believers, and of death to revenge the rebellious.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv39–43 39 And one of the malefactors which were hanged…
39 And one of the malefactors which were hanged railed on him, saying, If thou be Christ, save thyself and us.
Ver. 39. Which were hanged, railed, &c.] Sic plectimur a Deo, nec flectimur tamen (saith Salvian), corripimur, sed non corrigimur. There are many, quos multo facilius fregeris, quam flexeris, saith Buchanan. Monoceros interimi potest, capi non potest. The wicked are the worse for that they suffer, and will sooner break than bend.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
William Burkitt 1703 · Public Domain On vv39, 43 Here we have a further aggravation of our Lord’s…
Here we have a further aggravation of our Lord’s sufferings upon the cross, from the company he suffered with, the two thieves who reviled him with the rest. St. Matthew and St. Marks say, they both reviled him; St. Luke says one of them reviled; possibly both of them might do it at first, and one of them repents; which, if so, increases the wonder of the penitent thief’s conversion.
From the impenitent thief’s reviling of Christ, when he was at the very point of death, and even in the suburbs of hell, we learn that neither shame nor pain will change the mind of a resolute sinner; but even then, when he is in the suburbs of hell, will he blaspheme.
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From the penitent thief’s confessing of Christ, and praying to him, Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom; we learn, both the efficacy and freeness of divine grace.
1. The efficacious power of it: oh how powerful must that grace be, which wrought such a change in an instant, which supplied that heart in a moment, which had been hardening in sin for so many years.
2. The freeness of it; which takes hold of his heart, when he was at the height of sin, and was not only void of grace, but seemed past grace. Oh the powerful efficacy and adorable freeness of the heart changing grace of God in this vile person; it disposed him to own his sin; to confess the justness of his punishment, to justify Christ’s innocency, to reprove his fellow companion, to pray to a crucified Christ, and to intercede with him, not for present deliverance from death, but for a place in Christ’s kingdom.
Where we learn,
1. That true conversion is never too late for obtaining mercy and salvation.
2. That true conversion, how late soever, will have its fruits: the fore-mentioned fruits of faith and repentance were found with this penitent thief; yet must not this extraordinary case be drawn into example. This extraordinary and miraculous grace of God is not to be expected ordinarily: we have no warrant to expect an overpowering degree of God’s grace to turn our heart in an instant at the hour of death, when we have lived in forgetfulness of God, and in a supine neglect of our soul’s concerns all the days of our life; for it is evident as to this case of the penitent thief’s conversion at the last hour.
1. It is an example without a promise.
2. It is but a single example.
3. It is an example recorded but by one evangelist: the Spirit of God, foreseeing what an ill use some would make of this instance, leaves one example upon record, that none might despair; and but one, that none might presume.
4. This thief probably had never any knowledge of Christ before.
5. This thief improved his time at last, as never did any before or after; for he believed Christ to be the Saviour of the world; when one disciple had betrayed, another denied, and all had forsaken him; he owned him to be the Son of God, the Lord of life, when he was suffering the pains of death, and seemingly deserted by his Father: he proclaims him Lord of paradise, and disposer of the kingdom of heaven, when the Jews had condemned him, and the Gentiles crucified him as the vilest of impostors. He feared God, owned the justice of his punishment; was solicitous, not for the preservation of his body, but for the salvation of his soul; yea, not for his own only, but of his brother’s that suffered with him; so that he glorified Christ more at the moment of his death, than some do in the whole course of their lives.
6. This was a miracle, with the glory whereof Christ would honor the ignominy of his cross: so that we have no more ground to expect such another conversion, than we have to expect a second crucifixion. This converted person was the first fruits of the blood of the cross.
From whence we learn, that God can, and sometimes does, though very seldom, prepare men for glory, immediately before their dissolution by death. His grace is his own, he may dispense it how, and when, where, and to whom he pleases; yet this is no more warrant to neglect the ordinary, because God does sometimes manifest his grace in an extraordinary way. True, in this conversion, we have a pattern of what free grace can do; but it is a pattern without a promise: where we have not a promise to encourage our hope, our hope is nothing but presumption.
William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv39–43 And it was about the sixth hour,.... Or twelve…
And it was about the sixth hour,.... Or twelve o'clock at noon; and so the Ethiopic version, when it was noon; See Gill on Mat 27:45.
.
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Luke 23:45
luk 23:45
luk 23:45
luk 23:45And the sun was darkened,.... There was an eclipse of it, which was preternatural, it being now full moon, and lasted three hours, and so total, as to darken the whole earth; and now was the prophecy in Amo 8:9 literally fulfilled: and the vail of the temple was rent in the midst. The Persic version renders it, "the gate of the temple"; and so the Syriac version, "the face of the gate of the temple"; See Gill on Mat 27:51.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv39, 40, 42, 43 And one of the malefactors reviled him - St.…
And one of the malefactors reviled him - St. Matthew says, the robbers: St. Mark, they that were crucified with him, reviled him. Either therefore St. Matthew and Mark put the plural for the singular (as the best authors sometimes do) or both reviled him at the first, till one of them felt "the overwhelming power of saving grace."
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv39, 40, 42, 43 Verse 39. One of the malefactors which were hanged.]…
Verse 39. One of the malefactors which were hanged.] It is likely that the two robbers were not nailed to their crosses, but only tied to them by cords, and thus they are represented in ancient paintings. If not nailed, they could not have suffered much, and therefore they were found still alive when the soldiers came to give the coup de grace, which put a speedy end to their lives. Joh 19:31-33.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv39, 42, 43 Luk 23:39-41. And one of the malefactors railed on…
Luk 23:39-41. And one of the malefactors railed on him — The word κακουργος, here rendered malefactor, does not always denote a thief, or robber, but was a term likewise applied to the Jewish soldiers, who were hurried by their zeal to commit some crime, in opposition to the Roman authority. As Matthew and Mark represent both the malefactors here spoken of as reviling our Lord, we must either suppose that they both did so at first, and that afterward one of them, by divine grace co-operating with the extraordinary circumstances in which he was now placed, was brought to repentance; or that those evangelists put the plural number for the singular, as the best authors sometimes do. This seems most probable, because, if this malefactor, while on the cross, had been guilty of reviling Christ, it is likely that, when he rebuked his fellow-criminal, he would have confessed his sin in that particular, and have assigned some reason for so suddenly altering his opinion of Christ. But, indeed, it is by no means certain that his repentance did not commence till he hung on the cross. For any thing we know to the contrary, he might have repented and turned to God long before; his condemnation to death, and his sufferings in prison, being made, through divine grace, the means of producing that effect. Or, he might have heard our Lord preach in the course of his ministry, and have seen some of his miracles, and from a consideration of both joined together, might have been solidly convinced that he was the Messiah. And, with regard to the crime for which he was condemned to die, it might have been committed before such conviction took place, though not discovered till some time afterward. Or, like many professors of religion in every age, holding the truth in unrighteousness, he might have been overcome by temptation, so as to commit some gross act of wickedness, by which he had forfeited his life, but of which he had afterward sincerely repented. This supposition would account for his declaration concerning Christ, that he had done nothing amiss — Ουδεν ατοπον, nothing improper, disorderly, or out of place, as the words signify: a declaration which he certainly could with no propriety have made, unless he had firmly believed Jesus to be the true Messiah, and therefore innocent of those things which the Jews laid to his charge. Be this as it may, at whatever time, and in whatever way he was brought to repentance, he now gave evident proof, indeed all the proof which in his circumstances could be given, that his repentance was genuine; bringing forth all such fruits as were meet for repentance: 1st, In publicly confessing his guilt, and desert of the punishment inflicted on him. 2d, In reproving his fellow-criminal. 3d, In bearing an honourable testimony to Christ, and that at a time when the chief priests, scribes, and elders, and all the multitude, were condemning and reviling him; and he was in such disgraceful circumstances as stumbled even his own disciples. 4th, In professing, and evidently possessing, faith in a future state, and in the righteous retributions thereof, evidently manifested when, in reproving his fellow-sinner, he said, Dost thou not fear God? that is, fear his vengeance in another world; for they had nothing to fear in this, beyond the crucifixion which they were now suffering. 5th, By reposing his confidence in Christ, as the Lord of that world, at a time when his enemies were triumphing over him, and he himself, abandoned by most of his friends, was expiring on a cross. In short, as Dr. Whitby observes, “This thief improved his time at last in such an extraordinary manner, as, perhaps, no man ever did before, or will do hereafter. He then believed Christ to be the Saviour of the world, when one of his disciples had betrayed, another had denied him, and all of them had forsook him! to be the Son of God, the Lord of life, when he was hanging on the cross, suffering the pangs of death, and seemingly deserted by his Father! he proclaims him the Lord of paradise, when all the Jews condemned him, and the Gentiles crucified him as an impostor and malefactor! He feared God, acknowledged the justice of his punishment, and with patience submitted to it. He condemned himself, and justified the holy Jesus, declaring that he had done nothing amiss. He was solicitous, not for the preservation of his body, but the salvation of his soul; nor only for his own, but the salvation of his brother thief, whom he so charitably reprehends, so earnestly requests not to proceed in his blasphemous language, so lovingly invites to the fear of God. So that the glory which he did to Christ by his faith and piety, upon the cross, seems such as the whole series of a pious life in other men can hardly parallel.” Upon the whole, this penitent malefactor was a remarkable instance of the power of divine grace, especially if his conversion was effected while he hung on the cross. But this gives no encouragement to any to put off their repentance till they are on their death-beds, in hopes they shall then find mercy; for though it is certain that true repentance is never too late, it is as certain that late repentance is seldom true. None can be sure they shall either have time or grace to repent when they are sick and dying; but every man may be sure that he cannot have the advantages which this penitent thief had, whose case was altogether extraordinary, and who was placed in the midst of scenes and circumstances of the most affecting kind. He heard the blasphemous reproaches and revilings cast upon him whom he, now at least, if not before, knew to be not only a righteous man, but the true Messiah, the Son of God; beheld the barbarous cruelties exercised upon him, the unparalleled patience with which he suffered, and the benevolent and forgiving spirit which he manifested toward his murderers: not to mention the preternatural darkness which had begun to take place, sufficient, one would have supposed, to produce astonishment and dread in all whose hearts were not perfectly hardened. To which may be added, that the conversion of this sinner was designed to be a singular instance of the power of Christ’s grace, and to put a peculiar glory upon him when he was now in his lowest estate of humiliation and suffering.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv40–43 Dost not thou fear God ... - You are…
Dost not thou fear God ... - You are condemned to die as well as he. It is improper for you to rail on him as the rulers and Romans do. God is just, and you are hastening to his bar, and you should, therefore, fear him, and fear that he will punish you for railing on this innocent man.
Same condemnation - Condemnation to death; not death for the same thing, but the same “kind” of death.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On v43 I say to thee: This day thou shalt be…
I say to thee: This day thou shalt be with me in Paradise; i.e. in a place of rest with the souls of the just. The construction is not, I say to thee this day, &c., but, thou shalt be with me this day in the paradise. (Witham) --- In paradise. That is, in the happy state of rest, joy and peace everlasting. Christ was pleased by a special privilege, to reward the faith and confession of the penitent thief with a full discharge of all his sins, both as to the guilt and punishment, and to introduce him, immediately after death, into the happy society of the saints, whose limbo (that is, the place of their confinement) was now made a paradise by our Lord’s going thither. (Challoner) --- The soul of the good thief was that same day with Jesus Christ, in the felicity of the saints, in Abraham’s bosom, or in heaven, where Jesus was always present by his divinity. (St. Augustine) --- St. Cyril, of Jerusalem, says he entered heaven before all the patriarchs and prophets. St. John Chrysostom thinks that paradise was immediately open to him, and that he entered heaven the first mankind. (Tom. v. homil. 32.)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures 1864 · Public Domain On v39 c. THE PENITENT THIEF (Luk_23:39-43)
c. THE PENITENT THIEF (Luk_23:39-43)
39And one of the malefactors which were hanged railed on him, saying, If thou be Christ [Art not thou the Christ?15], save thyself and us. 40But the other answering rebuked him, saying, Dost not [even16] thou fear God, seeing thou art in the same condemnation? 41And we indeed justly; for we receive [are receiving17] the due reward of our deeds: but this man hath done nothing amiss. 42And he said unto Jesus, Lord, [he said, Jesus, remember, V. O.18] remember me when thou comest into [in] thy kingdom. 43And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, To-day shalt thou be with me in paradise.
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EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
Luk_23:39. And one of the malefactors which were hanged.—According to Mat_27:44, and Mar_15:32, our Lord is mocked by both robbers; according to Luke, only by one. The different harmonistic attempts to remove here all appearance of contradiction are familiar. See Lange, Matthew, p. 525. The view of Lange, that we must make a distinction between ὀνειδίζειν and βλασφημεῖν in the following manner, namely, that the latter could be said only of the impenitent, the former also, on the other hand, of the better-minded robber, who had begun as well as his fellow to urge our Lord to leave the cross, but had soon given up this earthly-minded expectation—this view diminishes the difficulty without doubt, but yet does not wholly remove it. For even in this way the psychological objection cannot be refuted as to how so sudden a conversion could all at once have arisen in the soul of the penitent thief, and as to whether it is not in contradiction to the nature of an unfeigned conversion, when the penitent begins his conversion with rebuking a fellow-sinner on account of an act which he himself had only a few moments before been committing. We rather assume (Ebrard), that Matthew and Mark express themselves indefinitely; that they meant only to give the genus, but not the number of the last class of the scoffers, and that it was reserved for Luke to instruct us more fully about a particular which, in the Pauline Gospel of justification by free grace, is so very peculiarly in its place.
Luk_23:40. Dost not even thou fear God?—It is not, therefore, the blaspheming of Jesus in itself which gives occasion for this outspoken rebuke, but the frivolous forgetfulness of God, the lack of the fear of God which manifests itself in the words of a man who is now suffering the same punishment with Jesus, whom he blasphemes, and who, therefore, now at least ought to have exhibited a more serious temper. But now the powerful antithesis with this word: ἐν τῷ αὐτῷ κρίματι, comes before his awakening consciousness of faith, and he expresses, as strongly as possible, the heaven-wide distinction which exists between the Saviour and the companions of His fate.
Luk_23:41. And we indeed justly, sc. ἐν τῷ κρίματι ἐσμεν.—He knows himself to be before God a man as guilty as the companion of his fate, although he censures his blasphemy.
This man hath done nothing amiss, οὐδὲνἄτοπον.—Nothing censurable, evil. Comp. 2Th_3:2. “The mild expression denotes innocence the more strongly.” (Meyer). Even had the robber said nothing more than this, yet he would awaken our deepest astonishment, that God—in a moment wherein literally all voices are raised against Jesus, and not a friendly word is heard in His favor—causes a witness for the spotless innocence of the Saviour to appear on one of the crosses beside Him. This murderer is the last man who before Jesus’ death deposes a testimony in honor of Him. But now he soon shows a yet clearer and firmer faith, while he directs his look upon the middle cross, and now begins to speak no longer of, but to, Him Himself.
Luk_23:42. Jesus, remember me.—He desires no instantaneous liberation from the cross, on which he on the contrary is convinced that he must die, but he desires solely and singly that our Lord in grace may remember him, and receive him into His kingdom. Undoubtedly he is not wholly free from earthly Messianic expectations, and here is thinking not of the heaven in which our Lord after His death would be, but he represents to himself the moment when the Messiah comes in His kingly glory to erect His kingdom upon earth, and desires that he then, awakened from the grave, may enter in with Him into the joy of his Lord. Comp. Mat_16:28. But even on this interpretation his prayer is assuredly one of the boldest and most surprising that has ever been utrered. A crucified malefactor, the first that has fully understood the deep sense of the superscription over the cross, and becomes the herald of the royal dignity of our Lord, in the same instant in which the Messianic hope of the apostles themselves was most vehemently shaken—of a truth this phenomenon may be called one of the brightest points of light in the history of the last hours in the life of our Lord! And even if we assume that he had previously heard and seen our Lord; that he, although a murderer, could not yet have been a hardened felon; that he attentively observes Jesus in the last hours, and that the approach of death had filled him with the deepest seriousness, yet all this clears up for us only a part of the riddle, which finds singly and solely its full solution in the faith of God’s free grace, which has in this very moment in fullest abundance glorified itself in the robber, while it had, we may believe, even previously prepared him by all the circumstances of his life for this courageous faith and this sincere conversion, which comes to light here in him in so surprising wise. An examination of the history of the psychological development of his inner life, which commends itself by great originality, see in Lange, Leben Jesu, ii. p. 1568. Only in this way does it become explicable how he in clearness of knowledge, in strength of faith, as well as in courageousness of confession, could be so far prominent above all others, and behold now a source of life and a royal throne in the cross, that even for the most advanced disciples was a stone of stumbling and a rock of offence. [Trench’s conjecture appears to be a reasonable one, that this robber may have been a companion of Barabbas, and that both these λῃσταί may have belonged to that class of turbulent zealots for freedom who had already begun to appear in the Jewish land, and who, like the Greek Klephts in Turkish times, united audacious wickedness with a perverted but ardent feeling of devotion to their country. The fact that Barabbas had just about this time “made a sedition,” which implies accomplices, who were not like himself released, but doubtless punished, lends weight both to the conjecture that some vague Messianic longings may have been mixed up with his crime, and that this man may have been a participant of it. A nature led through the very strength of noble impulses into crime, might well be more receptive of Divine grace in the hour of utter disenchantment and of mortal agony, than that of a common ruffian. Of course, this must remain only a conjecture, but I think we may be free to say, a not improbable conjecture.—C. C. S.]
Luk_23:43. And Jesus said unto him: To-day.—We can but faintly guess what, for the suffering Saviour, a word like this must have been. Over against all the voices of blasphemy He has observed steadfast silence; but such a petitioner He permits not to wait a moment for an answer. He promises to him something much higher than he had desired—the highest that he could pray or conceive—Paradise, and that even to-day, and in fellowship with Him. Senseless is the combination To-day with λέγω σοι, of which Theophylact already speaks, and which is vindicated in particular by Roman Catholic exegetes, in order as much as possible to weaken the proof which has always been derived from this word on the cross against the doctrine of Purgatory. It is self-evident that our Lord spoke to-day, not yesterday; never has He so pleonastically expressed Himself; moreover, on this interpretation the so thoroughly definite promise would lose all precision. But now there is implied nothing less in it than first the assurance that the murderer should die even to-day, and that with the Saviour, while He had perhaps feared that he should have to languish slowly away, hanging yet one or several days upon the cross [as we know was frequently the case in crucifixion, before death ensued.—C. C. S.]; a promise which was fulfilled a few hours later by the crurifragium. But at the same time our Lord promises him Paradise, a word whose whole sweetness in such a mouth, for such ears, could only be experienced if one had himself hung there with the Saviour upon the cross. We have, however, by this Paradise to understand not the heavenly Paradise, 2Co_12:4; Rev_2:7, but that part of Sheol which is opposed to Gehenna, and which was also named Paradise, and moreover, apparently, “Abraham’s bosom.” Nothing else could the forgiven one understand, who unquestionably had grown up entirely within the sphere of the Israelitish popular expectations; nothing else could the Saviour have had in view, since He undoubtedly from His death-hour to the resurrection morning, must abide in the condition of separation. “Dubium non est, quin Christus ita locutus sit, quomodo sciebat, a latrone intelligi.” Grotius. In the assurance of a being with the Lord in this Paradise, there is at the same time included for the Penitent Thief the promise of the resurrection of the just, and of further participation in the blessings of the Messianic kingdom. Respecting the Jewish popular conception of the future state, comp. Sepp, iii. p. 557 seq.
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
1. The history of the Penitent Thief may in the fullest sense of the word be called an Evangelium in Evangelio. The inner truth and beauty of this account of Luke strikes the eye with special clearness, when we compare it with that which the Apocryphal Gospels have to relate about this man, whom tradition has named varyingly, Titus, Demas, Vicinus, and Matha. According to the Arabic Evangelium Infantiœ, Luke 23, see Thilo, Cod. Apocr. I. p. 93, the man had already protected the child Jesus on the flight to Egypt, against the wickedness of the second robber, and our Lord then for a reward therefor, foretells to His mother with childish lips, what thirty years afterwards should take place on Calvary with these two. The Gospel of Nicodemus, Luke 26, even proceeds to tell us about the meeting of this man with Enoch and Elijah in Hades. Does there now exist between these narratives and the account of Luke no other distinction than between secondary and primary myth-formations?
2. The beatitude uttered upon the Penitent Thief appears to have preceded the commendation of Mary to the disciple John (Joh_19:25-27), so that we have here before us in Luke, not the third, but the second word on the cross.—According to the course of the Synoptical representation, the mockery follows so quickly upon the crucifixion, and the scene between our Lord and the Penitent Thief so quickly upon the mockery, that it appears forced to insert the Johannean account between the one and the other event. On internal grounds, moreover, we consider it as much more probable that our Lord provided for His mother only after He had previously saved this sinner, than the reverse; the spiritual at every time with Him preceded the natural. The first word on the cross was for His enemies, the second for a penitent sinner, only the third for His sorrowing mother, while then finally the fourth reveals to us His own anguish of soul; thus does the circle draw ever closer together.
3. Brief as the utterance of the Penitent Thief was, yet there is nothing lacking to it that belongs to the unalterable requirements of a genuine conversion,—sense of guilt, confession of sin, simple faith, active love, supplicating hope,—all these fruits of the tree of the new life we see here ripen during a few moments. The address of our Lord, on the other hand, comprehends, as it were, in a short summary, the whole riches and the glory of redemption. The first word on the cross gives us a view into His High-priestly heart. His kingly character reveals itself in the second. Grace and majesty suddenly diffuse their bright beams through the night of the deepest humiliation. We wonder not that history gives us no account of an answer of the forgiven robber to the promise of the Saviour. On a cross there is not long or much speaking, and how, moreover, could he have found words for his thanks! But without doubt the consolation of this promise illumined his last hours, and he stands forth before our eyes as the first fruits of the millions of subjects whom the King of the kingdom of God has won even on His cross, and through the same.
4. The possibility of a conversion even in the last moments is undoubtedly established by the example of the Penitent Thief; the impenitent companion of his fate, however, proclaims quite as powerfully by his terrible end, how dangerous it is to postpone conversion so long.
5. The second word of our Lord on the cross contains a very significant intimation in respect to His Descensus ad Inferos, with which the yet further developed teaching of 1Pe_3:18; 1Pe_4:6, &c., is in no way in contradiction; but at the same time it renders not less than Php_1:23; Rev_14:13, and many other passages of the New Testament, a powerful testimony against the Roman Catholic doctrine of Purgatory.
6. The two robbers on the cross, the representatives of the whole human race in its diverse behavior towards Jesus. The crucified Jesus also the fall and the rising of many, Luk_2:34. The beatitude pronounced upon the Penitent Thief a type of the great judgment day.
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
The three crosses.—The hill of death a place of triumph.—Calvary shows us: 1. The triumph of stubborn wickedness; 2. the triumph of penitent faith; 3. the triumph of redeeming love.—The view of death cannot of itself break the froward heart.—The rebuke of the sin of our neighbor a difficult but holy duty.—The different ways in which two sinners proceed towards the terrors of eternity.—The desperate cry for help and the believing petition for redemption.—How the penitent looks upon the Saviour, how the Saviour looks upon the penitent: 1. The sincere penitent is a. humble in the acknowledgment of guilt, b. eager for salvation in coming to Christ, c. courageous in the confession of the Saviour; 2. the Saviour, a. accepts the confession of guilt, b. hears the humble prayer, c. crowns the courageous hope.—The theatre of judgment changed into a working place of grace.—How penitent faith may expect after the hour of death: 1. The joy of Paradise; 2. the joy of Paradise with Jesus; 3. the joy of Paradise immediately after death.—As the Father so also the Son does exceedingly, abundantly, above all that we can ask or think, Eph_3:20.—Conversion in the hour of death: 1. Possible, certainly; 2. but yet rare; and 3. only to be expected when one does not stubbornly and presumptuously strive against the drawings of the prevenient grace of God.—Wonderful guidance of God, which at the boundary of life: 1. Gives the sinner yet to find his deliverer; 2. gives the King of the kingdom of God even yet to find one of His subjects.—For God’s grace no sinner too vile.—Salvation and damnation in a certain sense already decided before the hour of death.
Starke:—Men are not of one kind, as not in life, so not in death.—Brentius: It is an infallible token of a sound and true repentance when one acknowledges God’s judgment upon himself as righteous, and publicly praises the same.—The Christian is under obligation to deliver the innocence of the innocent.—How profitable it is to talk with the suffering Jesus.—The eye of hope must look farther than upon the visible things of this world, 1Co_15:19.—It is not the “with Me,” that comes first, but the “through Me.”—God’s acceptance of a fervent prayer is not delayed.—Brentius:—Christ has again opened the closed Paradise.—Man will after death be either with Christ or with the devil.—Whoever remains in his suffering steadfastly united with Jesus, will also remain united with Him in His glory.—Heubner:—The suddenness of this conversion should excite no doubt, for: 1. It is bound to no conditions of time; 2. there was found in the thief everything that precedes conversion; 3. undoubtedly there was here a miracle of grace in order to reveal the power of the death of Christ, even to coming generations.—This is what every poor sinner should daily pray: Lord, remember me.
Compare the well-known inscription on the grave of Copernicus: “Non parem Paulo veniam requiro, gratiam Petri neque posco, sed quam in cruris ligno dederis latroni, sedulus oro.”—The sermon of Chrysostom, De latrone, and that of Melanchthon in Bretschneider, Corpus Reform, ii. pp. 478–487.—The Passion Week’s sermons of Rieger, p. 641–643.—Saurin:—Sur les deux brigands, p. 403.—T. Theremin:—The Cross of Christ, the third sermon.—F. Arens, Preacher in Osnaburg:—The value of the grace on Calvary set forth in one of the crucified thieves.—Thomasius:—Our own death-hour in the light of this history.—Dr. J. J. Rambach: 1. The prayer of the malefactor; 2. the answer of the Saviour.—Palmer:—Christ between the robbers.—Krummacher:—The robber: 1. A look into the heart of both robbers; 2. into the great kingly word of Immanuel.
[15]Luk_23:39.—According to the reading of Tischendorf, [Meyer, Tregelles, Alford]: οὐχὶ σὺ εῖ̓; after B., [Cod. Sin.,] C.1, L., Versions. The Recepta comes from Luk_23:37.
[16]Luk_23:40.—That is, “any more than the mockers around, who at least have not a fellow-suffering to restrain them from impious cruelty towards a dying man.”—C. C. S.]
[17]Luk_23:41.—Revised Version of the American Bible Union.—C. C. S.]
[18]Luk_23:42.—The κύριε of the Recepta is wanting in B., C.1, D., [Cod. Sin.,] Cursives, &c. Ἰησοῦ is supported by the authority of B., C.1, L., [Cod. Sin.,] Origen, and the Coptic and Sahidic Versions.
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv39–43 THE TWO THIEVES. (Luk 23:39-43)
THE TWO THIEVES. (Luk 23:39-43)
railed on him--catching up the universal derision, but with a turn of his own. Jesus, "reviled, reviles not again"; but another voice from the cross shall nobly wipe out this dishonor and turn it to the unspeakable glory of the dying Redeemer.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv39–43 39. One of the malefactors—As to the question whether…
39. One of the malefactors—As to the question whether both thieves at first reviled Jesus, we refer to our notes on Mat_27:44; Mat_27:49.
Railed—The miraculous darkness and relentings of heart had already commenced. One of the malefactors is earliest to feel the solemn influences, while the other continues his mockeries of Jesus.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv39–43 39-43. The Penitent Robber.
39-43. The Penitent Robber.
39. one of the malefactors] In St Matthew and St Mark we are told that both the robbers “reviled” Him. Here then we might suppose that there was an irreconcilable discrepancy. But though the Evangelists sometimes seem to be on the very verge of mutual contradiction, no single instance of a positive contradiction can be adduced from their independent pages. The reason of this is partly that they wrote the simple truth, and partly that they wrote under divine guidance. The explanation of the apparent contradiction lies in the Greek words used. The two first Synoptists tell us that both the robbers during an early part of the hours of crucifixion reproached Jesus (ὠνείδιζον), but we learn from St Luke that only one of them used injurious and insulting language to Him (ἐβλασφήμει). If they were followers of Barabbas or Judas of Galilee they would recognise no Messiahship but that of the sword, and they might, in their very despair and agony, join in the reproaches levelled by all classes alike at One who might seem to them to have thrown away a great opportunity. It was quite common for men on the cross to talk to the multitude, and even to make harangues (for instances see my Life of Christ, ii. 409, n.); but Jesus, amid this universal roar of execration or reproach from mob, priests, soldiers, and even these wretched fellow-sufferers, hung on the Cross in meek and awful silence.
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If thou be Christ] or, Art thou not the Christ? א, B, C, L.
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Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv39–43 (39) And one of the malefactors.—The incident that follows…
(39) And one of the malefactors.—The incident that follows is singularly characteristic of St. Luke. If we ask how he came to know what the other Gospels pass over, we may, I think, find his probable informants once more in the devout women who followed Jesus to the place of Crucifixion, and who stood near enough to the cross to hear what was then spoken. The word for “hanged” is used by St. Luke (Act_5:30; Act_10:39) and St. Paul (Gal_3:13) as applied to crucifixion.
Railed on him.—Literally, was blaspheming, but in the sense in which that word signifies the “reviling” of which man, and not God, may be the object. He, too, catches up the taunt of the rulers and the soldiers.
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The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv39, 42, 43 Vers. 39, 40. And one of the malefactors which…
Vers. 39, 40. And one of the malefactors which were hanged railed on him, saying, If thou be Christ, save thyself and us. But the other answering rebuked him, saying, Dost not thou fear God? In the first two synoptists we read how, shortly after they were nailed to their crosses, both thieves "reviled" Jesus. The Greek word, however, used by SS. Matthew and Mark is wneidizon (reproached). The word used by St, Luke in this place of the impenitent one is eblasfhmei , "began to use injurious and insulting language a much stronger term. Farrar suggests that at first, during the early hours of the Crucifixion, in the madness of anguish and despair, they both probably joined in the reproaches levelled by all classes alike at One who might seem to them to have thrown away a great opportunity. They, no doubt, knew something, possibly much, of Jesus" career, and how he had deliberately prevented more than once the multitude from proclaiming him King. Watching him as he hung bravely patient on his cross, only breaking the dread silence with a low-muttered prayer for his murderers to his Father, one of these misguided men changed his opinion of his fellow-Sufferer, changed his opinion, too, of his own past career. There, dying with a prayer for others on his lips, was the Example of true heroism, of real patriotism. If thou be Christ. The more ancient authorities read, Art thou not the Christ ? But the other. In the Apocryphal Gospel of Nicodemus the names of the two are given as Dysmas and Gysmas, and these names appear still in Calvaries and stations in Roman Catholic lands. Seeing thou art in the same condemnation. His words might be paraphrased, "How canst thou, a dying man, join these mere lookers-on at our execution and agony? we are undergoing it ourselves. Dost thou net fear God? In a few hours we shall be before him. We have at all events deserved our doom; but not this Sufferer whom you revile. What has he done?
Vers. 39-43. True penitence.
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These verses narrate what we may call a standard fact of the gospel of Christina fact to which appeal will always be made, as it has always been made, in reference to a late repentance. We have to consider
I THE BREVITY WITH WHICH A GREAT" SPIRITUAL REVOLUTION MAY BE WROUGHT IN A HUMAN MIND. Twelve hours before, this man was a hardened criminal, habituated to a life of rapacious and murderous violence; his counterpart is to be found to-day in the cells of a penal establishment. And now, after a short companionship with Jesus, after hearing him speak and seeing him suffer, his heart is purged and cleansed of its iniquity, he is another man, he is a child of God, an heir of heaven. There are great capacities in these human souls of ours, which do not come often into exercise, but which are actually within us. Powerful speech, imminent peril, great emergencies, sudden inspiration from God, these and other things will call them forth; there is a brilliant flash of remembrance, or of emotion, or of realization, or of conviction and resolution. And then that which is ordinarily wrought in many days or months is accomplished in an hour. The movements of our mind are not subject to any time-table calculations whatsoever. No man can define the limit of possibility here. Great revolutions can be and have been wrought almost momentarily. Not slowly toiling upward step by step, but more swiftly than the uprising of the strongest bird upon fleetest wing, may the human soul ascend from the darkness of death into the radiant sunshine of hope and life.
II THE THOROUGHNESS OF THIS MAN"S CHANGE AS EVIDENCED BY HIS WORDS.
1. He recognizes the existence and the power and the providence of God (ver. 40).
2. He has a sense of the turpitude of his own conduct, a due sense of sin (ver. 41).
3. He recognizes the innocence and excellence of Jesus Christ (ver. 41).
4. He believes in his real royalty, though it is so hidden from sight, and though circumstances are so terribly against it (ver. 42).
5. He believes in the pitifulness as well as the power of this kingly Sufferer, and he makes his humble but not unhopeful appeal to his remembrance.
6. He does the one thing for Christ he can do as he is dying on the cross he remonstrates with his companion in crime, and seeks to silence his cruel taunts. Here is penitence, faith, service, all springing up and in earnest exercise in this brief hour.
III A SUDDEN TRANSITION FROM THE LOWEST TO THE HIGHEST ESTATE. (Ver. 43) "What a day to that dying man! How strange a contrast between its opening and its close, its morning and its night! Its morning saw him a culprit condemned before the bar of earthly judgment; before evening shadowed the hill of Zion he stood accepted at the bar of heaven. The morning saw him led out through an earthly city"s gates in company with One who was hooted at by the crowd that gathered round him; before night fell upon Jerusalem the gates of another city, even the heavenly, were lifted up, and he went through them in company with One around whom all the hosts of heaven were bowing down as he passed to take his place beside the Father on his everlasting throne" (Hanna). In view of this most interesting fact we gather two lessons.
1. One of hopefulness. It is never too late to repent; in other words, repentance, when real, is never ineffectual. None could be more undeniably impenitent until within a few hours of his death than this malefactor, and no man"s penitence could be more decisively availing than his. It was real and thorough, and therefore it was accepted. It is a great thing for those who speak for Christ to be warranted, as they are, in going to the dying and despairing, and telling these departing ones, that true penitence, however late, avails with God; that his ear is not closed against the sigh of the contrite, even at the last hour of the day; that up to the last there is mercy to be had by them who truly seek it. But there is another lesson to be learnt.
2. One of warning and of fear. There is every reason to hope that true though late repentance is always accepted; but there is grave reason to fear that late repentance is seldom real and true. How often does experience prove that men in apparently dying hours have believed themselves to be penitent when they have only been apprehensive of coming doom! The dread of approaching judgment is far from being the same thing as repentance unto life. Not the last hour, when a selfish dread may be so easily mistaken for spiritual conviction, but the day of health and strength, when conviction can pass into action and honest shame into faithful service, is the time to turn from sin and to seek the face and the favor of the living God. Let none despair, but let none presume. C.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On vv39, 42 And one of the malefactors which were hanged railed…
Luk_23:39-43
And one of the malefactors which were hanged railed on Him
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The impenitent malefactor
I.
THIS MANS TREATMENT OF CHRIST suggests several things for our consideration. He railed on Him.
1. What inhumanity. The suffering of Jesus ought surely to have moved his heart to pity.
2. The friendlessness of the majestic Sufferer touched him not.
3. His like condition to the Sufferer by his side touched no chord of sympathy in his breast.
II. THE MALEFACTOR WAS AN UNBELIEVER. He had probably never seen Christ before. On this account he was less guilty than many at Calvary that day; and less guilty than thousands who hear the gospel to-day, but still reject Christ. According to light and privileges is our responsibility. But this robber had ground enough to warrant his belief in Christ. His companion bad, yet he joined those who railed upon Jesus.
III. CHRISTS TREATMENT OF THE MALEFACTOR. Pitying silence. He will answer no mans prayer to prove His power. His word, His Church, the Christian, are the miracles that must testify to His power to save. (G. E. Jones.)
The impenitent thief
I. HUMAN LIFE ENDING AN UTTER MORAL WRECK.
II. HUMAN LIFE ENDING ON THE GALLOWS.
III. HUMAN LIFE ENDING IN SIGHT OF THE CROSS.
IV. HUMAN LIFE ENDING IN DESPAIR. (The Lay Preacher.)
The two malefactors
I. REFLECTIONS. Here we have a true picture of human nature as it appears amidst difficulties, and dangers, and sufferings, the appropriate fruits of sin. A care to avoid pain is universally prevalent, but a care to avoid sin is comparatively of rare occurrence. Of this conduct one of the malefactors crucified with Christ afforded a lamentable example. But the other, however bad he had previously been, however much hardened or debased, was brought to true repentance. There was an invisible energy touching his soul and melting it into contrition; the power of the cross of Christ was felt, and it proved the Redeemer to be great in sufferings. Yes, this criminal became humble, his heart believed, and his faith penetrated the vail of the incarnation, realizing what was concealed from an eye of sense, even a ground of hope for his guilty soul.
II. APPLICATION.
1. Let us see the greatness and the glory of the Saviours character. What power I what grace! what dominion over the invisible world!
2. The language of the text supplies a plain proof of the separate and happy existence of the spirits of just men after death.
3. The sufficiency of the sacrifice for sin made by the death of Christ, is illustrated by the case we have considered. He contemplated sinners, the chief of sinners, when he offered Himself to God.
4. What different effects may result amidst a sameness of circumstances and opportunities. Here were two of similar character, both exceedingly wicked, with death in immediate prospect; one becomes a penitent seeking his salvation, the other remains hardened in his sins.
5. The subject suggests the language of encouragement and of caution. (Essex Remembrancer.)
The two robbers
To defer the time of conversion, and as a pretext for persevering in the ways of sin, the worldly-minded flatter themselves with three principal delusions.
1. One delays his conversion because he imagines that a time of sickness and suffering will present a more favourable opportunity to think of it. He flatters himself that he will not be carried away by a violent or sudden death; that a long and slow malady, during the course of which he will have time to reflect, and to make an account of his ways, will permit him to prepare himself for the meeting with his God. But how does he know whether a malady, under the weight of which the very organism of the constitution sinks, will not oppress his senses, dull his spirit, take from his mind its energy, and paralyze his faculties? Who can be ignorant that, in such a case, nothing is more usual than hesitations, adjournments, and delays, seeing the man has accustomed himself to the deceitful hope of a recovery, sooner or later?
2. A second reason, as I said, for which the worldly-minded defer their conversion is, that they suppose that at the hour of death Providence will work miracles of salvation, other and more efficacious than those which they have been able to enjoy during their life; and that the most pressing invitations of grace, the most irresistible attractions of the Holy Spirit, the most powerful manifestations of Divine love will be afforded. Where has God promised such manifestations? Nowhere. But so be it; what does this prove? When the heart is hardened by a long course of sin, will it not resist the evidence of truths the best established, and facts the most palpable, even the most powerful miracles of salvation?
3. Lastly, impenitent sinners defer their conversion upon the pretext that, at the time when they shall see death to be near, love of the world will disappear from the heart, carnal passions will be extinguished, and the soul will open itself to the influence of the truths of the Word of Life. But if the experience of many centuries is not sufficient to attest that such a time has not upon the soul that regenerating power which is supposed; that, instead of detaching himself from the things of earth, the unregenerated man will strive to attach himself more, and to cling more strongly, to measures which may prolong his existence in this world; that so far from becoming more susceptible to the beauty of truth and love, a long course of resistance renders the heart incapable of feeling their attractions, surely the example of the dying robber will be sufficient to dispel for ever those fatal delusions. Not only is this robber not touched by the truth, but he repels it; not only does he continue to sleep in the security of sin, but he is incensed against the Word; and whilst shame and remorse should have closed his lips, he unites with the multitude to insult the Saviour of the world: and to all his other sins he adds an impudent irony against the Son of God; he crowns all his crimes by blasphemy. After that, will you still count, O all you who defer your conversion, on the changes that accompany death, as if they could miraculously break the chain of your sins, or promote your eternal salvation? Three things have struck us in the history of the unconverted robber: first, that death was not startling; second, that extraordinary succour of grace was not received; third, that he aggravated his condemnation and hardened himself in circumstances, which it seems should have ameliorated his state. The conversion of his companion in iniquity presents to us reflections of quite another nature. And can you doubt, that if in this moment some one had been able to bring down the converted thief from the cross, had been able to lavish upon him the succours of art, and, in the end, cicatrize his wounds: if one could have contrived to arrest the fever to which he was a prey, to give him the use of his members; to restore him to life; can you doubt that, such being his feelings, the remainder of his earthly existence would have been other than a noble demonstration of the power of the faith and love which lived in his soul? (Dr. Grandpierre.)
The crucified malefactors
I. Let us consider WHEREIN THESE TWO MALEFACTORS WERE ALIKE.
1. They were alike in respect to depravity of heart.
2. They were alike in respect to their knowledge of Christ.
3. They were alike in practice--both malefactors.
4. They were alike in condemnation.
II. WHEN THEY BEGAN TO DIFFER. Apparently it was when the darkness began. And we can easily believe that such an unexpected and solemn miracle, on such an awful occasion, did make a deep impression upon the minds of all the spectators of the crucifixion of the Lord of glory, and more upon some than others.
III. WHEREIN THEY EVENTUALLY AND FINALLY DIFFERED. Here it may be observed--
1. That one realized the wrath of God abiding upon him, whilst the other did not. This poor, perishing criminal was thoroughly awakened from his long and habitual stupidity, and clearly saw his dangerous condition; which is usually the first step to conversion. He might, however, have seen and felt such danger, and with his eyes open gone to destruction. But--
2. His awakening was followed with conviction. He not only realized that he was exposed to everlasting misery, but was convinced, in his conscience, that he deserved it.
3. He renounced his enmity to God, and became cordially reconciled to His vindictive justice.
4. Having exercised true love, repentance, and submission towards God, he exercised a saving faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Thus the two malefactors began to differ while hanging on the cross; and they continue to differ as long as they lived, and will continue to differ as long as they exist.
What has been said in this discourse may serve to throw light upon some important subjects which have been supposed to be dark and difficult to understand.
1. It appears from the conduct of the penitent malefactor, that the doctrine of unconditional submission is founded in fact. He really felt and expressed a cordial and unreserved submission to God, when he expected in a few moments to sink down into the pit of endless destruction.
2. It appears from the views and exercises of the penitent malefactor, that the doctrine of repentance before faith is founded in fact.
3. It appears from the views and feelings of the penitent malefactor, that the doctrine of instantaneous regeneration is founded in fact.
4. It appears from the conduct of God towards the two malefactors, that He acts as a Sovereign in renewing the hearts of men.
5. The conduct of the impenitent malefactor shows that no external means or motives are sufficient to awaken, convince, or convert any stupid sinner.
6. It appears from the fate of the impenitent malefactor, that impenitent sinners have no ground to rely upon the mere mercy of Christ in a dying hour. It is, therefore, presumption in any sinners to live in the hope of a death-bed repentances.
7. It appears from the conduct and the condition of the penitent malefactor, that sinners may be saved at the eleventh or last hour of life, if they really repent and believe in Christ. (N. Emmons, D. D.)
Lessons from the three crosses on Calvary
I. THE WAGES OF SIN IS DEATH.
1. Death to the sinner--the death of the body, and afterwards the death of the soul in hell.
2. Death to the Saviour, who knew no sin, but bears our iniquities on the cross.
3. Death to the saint; for though on him the second and more awful death, the death of the soul, hath no power, yet he cannot escape the death of the body; for all saints since Abel have had to pass through the river Jordan, save two, Enoch and Elijah. God must be just; and nothing short of death is sins just recompense. Oh that you would turn to Him whose gift is eternal life, through Jesus Christ our Lord!
II. Another lesson we learn from this solemn scene is, that THE UNCONVERTED GROW WORSE AND WORSE. Perhaps the lost thief was brought up by pious parents; most likely he was taught to kneel before God by his mother, and was led up to the temple, and heard the sweet music echo among its marble arches, when the worshippers sang Gods praises. Often had he wondered, and perhaps wept, when hearing the history of Joseph, and Samuel, and Daniel. But, alas! he was led away by little and little, adding sin to sin, until sinning became a habit, and habit became confirmed and strengthened, till he walked openly with the ungodly, stood in the way of sinners, and at last sat down in the seat of the scorner; and though rebuked, remained hardened, and went down a doomed man to hell. You cannot indulge one sin without opening the door for others. The man who begins by walking in the downhill path of sin, goes on to running, until he falls headlong into hell.
III. THERE ARE NONE TOO BAD TO BE FORGIVEN. Art thou a thief? As the thief on the cross was saved, so mayest thou; take heart, and cry to Jesus. Art thou a blasphemer? The blasphemer, Bunyan, was saved, and so mayest thou; take heart, and cry to Jesus. Art thou a harlot? The harlot, Mary, was saved, and so mayest thou; take heart, and cry to Jesus. Art thou a murderer? There may be some such here; for God knows there are not only murders that never saw the light, but he that hateth his brother is a murderer. But oh! the murderer David was saved, and so mayest thou; take heart, and cry to Jesus. Saul of Tarsus, whose hands were dyed with the blood of Stephen, was washed with the blood of Jesus. I saw, not long since, lying on the bed of sickness and death, a poor outcast woman, whose spirit has since departed. She spoke to this effect to a dear friend of mine:--I have been, not five, not ten, not fifteen, but twenty years living in open and loathsome sin; but I have found that Christ will cast out none--no, not the most hell-deserving sinner who cries to Him. And now I amdying; but I am happy, for the blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanseth me from all sin. And when I am gone, let these words be written on my tombstone--So foolish was I, and ignorant, I was as a beast before Thee. Nevertheless I am continually with Thee: Thou hast holden me by my right hand. Thou shalt guide me with Thy counsel and afterward receive me to glory. Oh, whoever you are, Christ can save you!
IV. Learn, too, from Calvary that WHEN A SINNER IS SAVED, IT IS BY FAITH IN JESUS. How can I prove to you the faith of the penitent thief? By his wonderful prayer. (H. G. Guinness, B. A.)
Dost not thou fear God?--
The restraining principle
And what is this fear? This fear is a solemn dread of the creature in presence of the Creator. Well, then, with real thought on the Passion, why must we feel, as a prominent principle, a fear of God?
1. The Cross, my brothers, witnessed to two things--Gods awful and necessary judgments on human sin. It must be so. God could not be God if it were otherwise. The atonement is nothing else but the fearful statement of Divine holiness in relation to sin. Our first clear intimations of God, it has been truly argued, are not conclusions from reasoning on final causes, or evidences from the harmonies of a material world. No; they are the voice of conscience, and the self-evident consistency of the moral law. It is always possible to conceive, so it has been wisely said, all sorts of changes in the structure of the material world, and we find no difficulty to the intellect, whatever may be said about the imagination in the revelation of its final transformation by fire--that unimagined and yet inevitable catastrophe. But one thing is impossible--we cannot conceive right being otherwise than right, and wrong than wrong; we cannot imagine created dissonances in the harmony of the moral law, and what is that but saying that there are eternal necessities in the being of our Creator? And if so, being good, His judgment must be severe, must be awful, on persistent sin. We say so in our saner moments, but how are we to feel the truth of our saying? The answer is--Calvary.
2. But this fear is also a serious apprehension of the dreadfulness of evil in itself. The Cross showed the intensity of the love of God, and, by the form of the revelation, was revealed His knowledge of our fearful danger. The genius of Michael Angelo made the Sibyls splendid on the ceiling of the Sistine from the magnificence of proportion quite as much as from the softness of colour. Proportion is the secret of lasting charm. It is holy fear that is the principle of proportion in the relation of the creature--the fallen creature--to his Creator. To see God in suffering is, by grace, to have a proportionate affection. By it we are restrained, by it we are awed and solemnized, by it we act as men should in the felt presence of their Maker, by it we learn, in fact, our proper place. (Canon Knox Little.)
The fear of God gives harmony to life
As the glow of a solemn sunrise gives to the tracts of impenetrable vapour a splendour which illumines and transforms, changing into awful beauty the cloud-folds of the slate-grey morning on the mountains, which were otherwise but the draperies of a sulking storm, so the fear of God gives harmony and colour to the more murky cloud]ands of the inner life. It is, it is indeed, to each of us a distinct and necessary element in that solid and faithful perseverance to which, and to which alone, is promised the reward of victory. Amidst the mysteries and miseries of this lower life; amidst its simple joys, its unspeakable sorrows; amidst the delirium of ambition, the intoxication of pleasure, the heart-corroding of daily care, the numbing frosts of encroaching worldliness, the blinding mists of severe temptations, we may be--if we will to realize its meaning--we may be arrested by the spectacle of the Passion; and among its fruitful and tremendous lessons, it teaches restraint of the tempest of our lower desires, brings us some sense of the vast issues of eternity, and says to us in accents which we may hear above the surge of the surf and the breaking of the billows, Look to your Representative; contemplate the dignity, the mystery of His sorrow; whether high in rank or among (what the world calls) the dregs of society, whether with great gifts or with few attainments, walk as a creature in presence of his Creator; have a care what you are doing; live as those who live, but who have to die, or those who now in time must soon feel the pressure of eternity. Child, child of such an awful, such a splendid sacrifice, fear God! (Canon Knox Little.)
Nothing amiss
The dying thiefs testimony to our Lord
Nothing amiss--what does that mean, as used here? Literally, it means nothing out of place--unsuitable, unbecoming, improper. Does it mean, then, He has not been guilty of crimes like ours--of robbery, violence, insurrection, murder? With nothing of that sort was He ever charged; and none in the city, good or bad, could be a stranger to the one charge brought against Him; for the whole country, as well as the crowded streets of the metropolis, was full of it. He was dying under the charge of high treason against heaven--of blasphemy--of not only laying claim to royal honours, but malting Himself equal with God. I take it, therefore, that in saying, This Man has done nothing amiss, his words must mean, He has made no false claim: He said, I am the Christ, but in that He did nothing amiss; I am the King of Israel, but in that He did nothing amiss; He called Himself the Son of God, the Light of the world, the Rest of the weary, the Physician of the sick at heart, but in this He did nothing amiss. Not that I for a moment suppose that this penitent criminal had knowledge enough to say all this as I have said it; but I feel confident that he had gleams of it, and that I have not gone beyond the spirit of his testimony to the innocence of our Lord. Amidst the buzzings about this new kind of criminal--innocent, by universal consent, of all the ordinary crimes, yet charged with a crime never before laid to the charge of any--some account of the marvellous works ascribed to Him, and of the words of heavenly grace He was said to have uttered, might easily reach this mans ear; and just as the wind bloweth where it listeth, so that grace which is the Spirits breath upon the soul might send what he heard like arrows into a softened breast--as not seldom it does even still. (D. Brown, D. D.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Alexander MacLaren 1905 · Public Domain On vv42–43
Luke
WORDS FROM THE CROSS
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THE DYING THIEF
Luk 23:42.
There is an old and true division of the work of Christ into three parts-prophet, priest, and king. Such a distinction manifestly exists, though it may be overestimated, or rather, the statement of it may be exaggerated, if it be supposed that separate acts of His discharge these separate functions, and that He ceases to be the one before He becomes the other. Rather it is true that all His work is prophetic, that all His work is priestly, and that His prophetic and priestly work is the exercise of His kingly authority. But still the division is a true one, and helps to set before us, clearly and definitely, the wide range of the benefits of Christ’s mission and death. It is noteworthy that these three groups round the Cross, the third of which we have to speak of now-that of the ‘daughters of Jerusalem,’ that of the deriding scribes and the indifferent soldiers, and this one of the two thieves-each presents us Christ in one of the three characters. The words that He spoke upon the Cross, with reference to others than Himself, may be gathered around, and arranged under, that threefold aspect of Christ’s work. The prophet said, ‘Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for Me, but weep for yourselves, for the days are coming.’ The priest said, ‘Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. ‘The king, in His sovereignty, ruled the heart of that penitent man from His Cross, and while the crown shone athwart the smoke and the agony of the death, the king ‘opened the gates of the kingdom of heaven unto all believers’ when He said, ‘This day shalt thou be with Me in Paradise!’ We shall not attempt, in dealing with this incident, to paint pictures. I have a far more important thing to do than even to try to bring vividly before your minds the scene on that little hill of Calvary. It is the meaning that we are concerned with, and not the mere externals. I take it for granted, then, that we know the details:-the dying man in his agony, beginning to see dimly, as his soul closed upon earthly things, who this was-patient, loving, mighty there in His sufferings; and using his last breath to cry, ‘Lord, remember me!’-and the sufferer throned in the majesty of His meekness, and divinity of His endurance; calm, conscious, full of felt but silent power, accepting homage, bending to the penitence, loving the sinner, and flinging open the gates of the pale kingdoms into which He was to pass, with these His last words.
First, then, we see here an illustration of the Cross in its power of drawing men to itself. It is strange to think that, perhaps, at that moment the only human being who thoroughly believed in Christ was that dying robber. The disciples are all gone. The most faithful of them are recreant, denying, fleeing. A handful of women are standing there, not knowing what to think about it, stunned but loving; and alone {as I suppose}, alone of all the sons of men, the crucified malefactor was in the sunshine of faith, and could say ‘I believe!’ As everything of the future history of the world and of the Gospel is typified in the events of the Crucifixion, it was fitting that here again and at the last there should be a prophetic fulfilment of His own saying, ‘I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto Me.’
But mark, here we have a striking instance of the universal law of the progress of the Gospel, in the two-fold effort of the contemplation of the Cross. By its foot was to be seen the derision of the scribes and the stupor of the soldiery; and now here are the two thieves-the one chiming in with the universal reproaches; and the other beholding the same event, having the same circumstances displayed before him, and they influence him thus. Brethren, it is just the history of the Gospel wherever it goes. It is its history now, and among us. The Gospel is preached equally to every man. The same message comes to us all, offering us the same terms. Christ stands before each of us in the same attitude. And what is the consequence? A parting of the whole mass of us, some to one side and some to the other. So, when you take a magnet, and hold it to an indiscriminate heap of metal filings, it will gather out all the iron, and leave behind all the rest. ‘I, if I be lifted up,’ said He, ‘will draw all men unto Me.’ The attractive power will go out over the whole race of His brethren; but from some there will be no response. In some hearts there will be no yielding to the attraction. Some will remain rooted, obstinate, steadfast in their place; and to some the lightest word will be mighty enough to stir all the slumbering pulses of their sin-ridden hearts, and to bring them, broken and penitent, for mercy to His feet. To the one He is ‘a savour of life unto life, and to the other a savour of death unto death.’ The broadest doctrine of the universal adaptation, and the universal intention too, of the Gospel, as the ‘power of God unto salvation,’ contains hidden in its depths this undeniable fact, that, be the cause what it may {and as I believe, the cause lies with us, and is our fault} this separating, judging effect follows from all faithful preaching of Christ’s words. He came to judge the world, ‘that they which see not’ {as He Himself said} ‘might see, and they which see might be made blind,’ And on the Cross that process went on in two men, alike in necessity, alike in criminality, alike in this, that Death’s icy finger was just being laid upon their heart, to stop all the flow of its wild blood and passion, but different in this, that the one of them turned himself, by God’s grace, and laid hold on the Gospel that was offered to him, and the other turned himself away, and derided, and died.
And now, there is another consideration. If we look at this man, this penitent thief, and contrast him, his previous history, and his present feelings, with the people that stood around, and rejected and scoffed, we get some light as to the sort of thing that unfits men for perceiving and accepting the Gospel when it is offered to them. Remember the other classes of persons who were there. There were Roman soldiers, with very partial knowledge of what they were doing, and whose only feeling was that of entire indifference; and there were Jewish Rabbis, Pharisees, Priests, and people, who knew a little more of what they were doing, and whose feeling was derision and scorn. Now, if we mark the ordinary scriptural representation, especially as to the last class, we cannot help seeing that there comes out this principle:-The thing of all others that unfits men for the reception of Christ as a Saviour, and for the simple reliance on His atoning blood and divine mercy, is not gross, long profligacy, and outward, vehement transgression; but it is self-complacency, clean, fatal self-righteousness and self-sufficiency.
Why was it that Scribes and Pharisees turned away from Him? For three reasons. Because of their pride of wisdom. ‘We are the men who know all about Moses and the traditions of the elders; we judge this new phenomenon not by the question, How does it come to our consciences, and how does it appeal to our hearts? but we judge it by the question, How does it fit our Rabbinical learning and subtle casuistical laws? We are the Priests and the Scribes; and the people that know not the law, they may accept a thing that only appeals to the common human heart, but for us, in our intellectual superiority, living remote from the common wants of the lower class, not needing a rough outward Gospel of that sort, we can do without such a thing, and we reject it.’ They turned away from the Cross, and their hatred darkened into derision, and their menaces ended in a crucifixion, not merely because of a pride of wisdom, but because of a complacent self-righteousness that knew nothing of the fact of sin, that never had learned to believe itself to be full of evil, that had got so wrapped up in ceremonies as to have lost the life; that had degraded the divine law of God, with all its lightning splendours, and awful power, into a matter of ‘mint and anise and cummin.’ They turned away for a third reason. Religion had become to them a mere set of traditional dogmas, to think accurately or to reason clearly about which was all that was needful. Worship having become ceremonial, and morality having become casuistry, and religion having become theology, the men were as hard as a nether millstone, and there was nothing to be done with them until these three crusts were peeled off the heart, and, close and burning, the naked heart and the naked truth of God came into contact.
Brethren, change the name, and the story is true about us. God forbid that I should deny that every form of gross, sensual immorality, ‘hardens all within’ {as one poor victim of it said}, ‘and petrifies the feeling.’ God forbid that I should seem to be speaking slightingly of the exceeding sinfulness of such sin, or to be pouring contempt upon the laws of common morality. Do not misapprehend me so. Still it is not sin in its outward forms that makes the worst impediment between a man and the Cross, but it is sin plus self-righteousness which makes the insurmountable obstacle to all faith and repentance. And oh! in our days, when passion is tamed down by so many bonds and chains; when the power of society lies upon all of us, prescribing our path, and keeping most of us from vice, partly because we are not tempted, and partly because we have been brought up like some young trees behind a wall, within the fence of decent customs and respectable manners,-we have far more need to tell orderly, respectable moral men-’My brother, that thing that you have is worth nothing, as settling your position before God’; than to stand up and thunder about crimes which half of us never heard of, and perhaps only an infinitesimal percentage of us have ever committed. All sin separates from God, but the thing that makes the separation permanent is not the sin, but the ignorance of the sin. Self-righteousness, aye, and pride of wisdom, they-they have perverted many a nature, many a young man’s glowing spirit, and have turned him away from the Gospel. If there be a man here who is looking at the simple message of peace and pardon and purity through Christ, and is saying to himself, Yes; it may fit the common class of minds that require outward signs and symbols, and must pin their faith to forms; but for me with my culture, for me with my spiritual tendencies, for me with my new lights, I do not want any objective redemption; I do not want anything to convince me of a divine love, and I do not need any crucified Saviour to preach to me that God is merciful!-this incident before us has a very solemn lesson in it for him. And if there be a man here who is living a life of surface blamelessness, it has as solemn a lesson for him. Look at the Scribe, and look at the Pharisee-religious men in their way, wise men in their way, decent and respectable men in their way; and look at that poor thief that had been caught in the wilderness amongst the caves and dens, and had been brought red-handed with blood upon his sword, and guilt in his heart, and nailed up there in the short and summary process of a Roman jurisprudence;-and think that Scribe, and Pharisee, and Priest, saw nothing in Christ; and that the poor profligate wretch saw this in Him,-innocence that showed heavenly against his diabolical blackness; and his heart stirred, and he laid hold of Him in the stress of his mighty agony-as a drowning man catches at anything that protrudes from the bank; and he held and shook it, and the thing was fast, and he was safe! Not transgression shuts a man out from mercy. Transgression, which belongs to us all, makes us subjects for the mercy; but it is pride, self-righteousness, trust in ourselves, which ‘bars the gates of mercy on mankind’; and the men that are condemned are condemned not only because they have transgressed the commandments of God, but ‘this is the condemnation, that light came into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.’
And then {and but a word} we see here, too, the elements of which acceptable faith consists. One does not exactly know by what steps or through what process this poor dying thief passed, which issued in faith-whether it was an impression from Christ’s presence, whether it was that he had ever heard anything about Him before, or whether it was only that the wisdom which dwells with death was beginning to clear his eyes as life ebbed away. But however he came to the conviction, mark what it was that he believed and expressed,-I am a sinful man; all punishment that comes down upon me is richly deserved: This man is pure and righteous; ‘Lord, remember me when Thou comest into Thy kingdom!’ That is all-that is all. That is the thing that saves a man. How much he did know-whether he knew all the depth of what he was saying, when he said ‘Lord!’ is a question that we cannot answer; whether he understood what the ‘kingdom’ was that he was expecting, is a question that we cannot solve; but this is clear-the intellectual part of faith may be dark and doubtful, but the moral and emotional part of it is manifest and plain. There was, ‘I am nothing-Thou art everything: I bring myself and my emptiness unto Thy great fullness: fill it and make me blessed!’ Faith has that. Faith has in it repentance-repentance has in it faith too. Faith has in it the recognition of the certainty and the justice of a judgment that is coming down crashing upon every human head; and then from the midst of these fears, and sorrows, and the tempest of that great darkness, there rises up in the night of terrors, the shining of one perhaps pale, quivering, distant, but divinely given hope, ‘My Saviour! My Saviour! He is righteous: He has died-He lives! I will stay no longer; I will cast myself upon Him!’ Once more-this incident reminds us not only of the attractive power of the Cross, but of the prophetic power of the Cross. We have here the Cross as pointing to and foretelling the Kingdom. Pointing out, and foretelling: that is to say, of course, and only, if we accept the scriptural statement of what these sufferings were, the Person that endured them, and the meaning of their being endured. But the only thing I would dwell upon here, is, that when we think of Christ as dying for us, we are never to separate it from that other solemn and future coming of which this poor robber catches a glimpse. They crowned Him with thorns, and they gave Him a reed for His sceptre. That mockery, so natural to the strong practical Romans in dealing with one whom they thought a harmless enthusiast, was a symbol which they who did it little dreamed of. The crown of thorns proclaims a sovereignty founded on sufferings. The sceptre of feeble reed speaks of power wielded in gentleness. The Cross leads to the crown. The brow that was pierced by the sharp acanthus wreath, therefore wears the diadem of the universe. The hand that passively held the mockery of the worthless, pithless reed, therefore rules the princes of the earth with the rod of iron. He who was lifted up to the Cross, was, by that very act, lifted up to be a Ruler and Commander to the peoples. For the death of the Cross God hath highly exalted Him to be a Prince and a Saviour. The way to glory for Him, the power by which He wields the kingdom of the world, is precisely through the suffering. And therefore, whensoever there arises before us the image of the one, oh! let there rise before us likewise the image of the other. The Cross links on to the kingdom-the kingdom lights up the Cross. My brother, the Saviour comes-the Saviour comes a King. The Saviour that comes a King is the Saviour that has been here and was crucified. The kingdom that He establishes is all full of blessing, and love, and gentleness; and to us {if we will unite the thoughts of Cross and Crown} there is opened up not only the possibility of having boldness before Him in the day of judgment, but there is opened up this likewise-the certainty that He ‘shall receive of the travail of His soul and be satisfied.’ Oh, remember that as certain as the historical fact-He died on Calvary; so certain is the prophetic fact-He shall reign, and you and I will stand there! I durst not touch that subject. Take it into your own hearts; and think about it-a kingdom, a judgment-seat, a crown, a gathered universe; separation, decision, execution of the sentence. And oh! ask yourselves, ‘When that gentle eye, with lightning in its depths, falls upon me, individualises me, summons out me to its bar-how shall I stand?’ ‘Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness before Him in the day of judgment,’ ‘Lord, remember me when Thou comest into Thy kingdom.’
Finally. Here is the Cross as revealing and opening the true Paradise.-’This day shalt thou be with Me in Paradise.’ We have no concern at present with the many subtle inferences as to the state of the dead, and as to the condition of our Lord’s human spirit before the Resurrection, which have been drawn from these words. To me they do seem fairly to bear the broad and single conclusion that the spirits of the saved do enter at death into a state of conscious presence with their Saviour, and therefore of joy and felicity. But beyond this we have no firm ground for going. It is of more practical worth to note that the penitent’s vague prayer is answered, and over-answered. He asks, ‘When Thou comest’-whensoever that may be-’remember me.’ ‘I shall stand afar off; do not let me be utterly forgotten.’ Christ answers-’Remember thee! thou shalt be with Me, close to My side. Remember thee when I come!-this day shalt thou be with Me.’
And what a contrast that is-the conscious blessedness rushing in close upon the heels of the momentary darkness of death. At the one moment there hangs the thief writhing in mortal agony; the wild shouts of the fierce mob at his feet are growing faint upon his ear; the city spread out at his feet, and all the familiar sights of earth are growing dim to his filmy eye. The soldier’s spear comes, the legs are broken, and in an instant there hangs a relaxed corpse; and the spirit, the spirit-is where? Ah! how far away; released from all its sin and its sore agony, struggling up at once into such strange divine enlargement, a new star swimming into the firmament of heaven, a new face before the throne of God, another sinner redeemed from earth! The conscious immediate blessedness of the departed-be he what he may, be his life whatsoever it may have been-who at last, dark, sinful, standing with one foot on the verge of eternity, and poising himself for the flight, flings himself into the arms of Christ-the everlasting blessedness, the Christ-presence and the Christ-gladness, that is the message that the robber leaves to us from his cross. Paradise is opened to us again. The Cross is the true ‘tree of life.’ The flaming cherubim, and the sword that turneth every way, are gone, and the broad road into the city, the Paradise of God, with all its beauties and all its peaceful joy-a better Paradise, ‘a statelier Eden,’ than that which we have lost, is flung open to us for ever.
Do not trust a death-bed repentance, my brother. I have stood by many a death-bed, and few indeed have they been where I could have believed that the man was in a condition physically {to say nothing of anything else} clearly to see and grasp the message of the Gospel. There is no limit to the mercy. I know that God’s mercy is boundless. I know that ‘whilst there is life there is hope.’ I know that a man, going-swept down that great Niagara-if, before his little skiff tilts over into the awful rapids, he can make one great bound with all his strength, and reach the solid ground-I know he may be saved. It is an awful risk to run. A moment’s miscalculation, and skiff and voyager alike are whelming in the green chaos below, and come up mangled into nothing, far away down yonder upon the white turbulent foam. ‘One was saved upon the Cross,’ as the old divines used to tell us, ‘that none might despair; and only one, that none might presume.’ ‘Now is the accepted time, and now is the day of salvation!’
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain On vv42–43 (See Scofield "Mat 3:2").
kingdom
(See Scofield "Mat 3:2").
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On v39 The penitent malefactor:
The penitent malefactor:
v. 39. And one of the malefactors which were hanged railed on Him, saying, If Thou be Christ, save Thyself and us.
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v. 40. But the other answering rebuked him, saying, Dost not thou fear God, seeing thou art in the same condemnation?
v. 41. And we indeed justly; for we receive the due reward of our deeds; but this Man hath done nothing amiss.
v. 42. And he said unto Jesus, Lord, remember me when Thou comest into Thy kingdom.
v. 43. And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, Today shalt thou be with Me in paradise.
During the first hour of the excruciating agony of the crucifixion, both malefactors had joined the surging throngs in Revelation ling and cursing and mocking the man hanging in the middle between them, Mat 27:44. But the example of wonderful patience, together with the words which fell from the lips of the Sufferer, gradually caused one of the criminals to become silent. His heart was pierced by thoughts of sorrow and repentance, he acknowledged Jesus as his Savior. When, therefore, the other malefactor continued his objurgations, sneeringly asking Jesus to save Himself and them also, the man on the right hand rebuked him. It is difficult to say in just what way he brought out the emphasis, but he probably meant to express: Isn’t there even fear of the holy, just God in thy heart, not to speak of any other feeling of commiseration and sympathy! He reminded the other that they both were suffering justly, receiving payment in full for the sins which they had committed, exactly what their deeds were worth. But they were the only ones in that class; for this Man, this Jesus, had done nothing out of place, nothing wrong, nothing wicked. So this malefactor acknowledged his great guilt before God and accepted his punishment as a just payment of divine wrath. He was heartily sorry for his sins. And this sorrow was supplemented and completed by faith. Turning to Jesus, he begged Him: Remember me when Thou enterest into Thy kingdom. The Lord should in grace and mercy think of him and receive him into His kingdom, at the time when the Messiah would return in glory. The poor outcast thus made a splendid confession of Christ; he recognized in Him the King of heaven. He knows that he is not worthy of the mercy of this King, but upon this very mercy he relies, his trust in that gives him the strength to make his petition. This faith was a miracle of divine grace. It is always a triumph of grace if God gives to a poor criminal and outcast of human society who has served sin all his life, grace unto repentance in the very last hour of his earthly existence. And Jesus bestowed upon this malefactor the very fullness of His divine pardon. He gave him the assurance, with solemn emphasis, that he would be with Him in paradise that very day. There was no waiting for a future glory necessary, neither was there a purgatory for him to pass through, but the glory, the happiness of paradise would be his as soon as he had closed his eyes in death. For all sinners in the whole world the Lord has opened the doors of paradise by His life, suffering, and death, and whosoever believeth on Him has complete salvation as soon as he dies. That is the glorious fruit of the Passion of Christ: forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv39, 42 insulted him
insulted him
"insulted Jesus"
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Are you not the Christ? Save yourself
The criminal uses a question to mock Jesus. AT: "You claim to be the Christ. Save yourself" or "If you really were the Christ, you would save yourself" (See: Rhetorical Question)
Save yourself and us
The criminal did not really think that Jesus could rescue them from the cross. (See: Irony)
the other rebuked him
"the other criminal rebuked him"
Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence?
The criminal uses a question to scold the other criminal. AT: "You should fear God, because they are punishing you the same way they are punishing him" or "You must have no fear of God, since you mock him while you are hanging on a cross the same as he is" (See: Rhetorical Question)
We indeed ... for we ... we deserve
These usages of "we" refer only to the two criminals, and not to Jesus or the other people. (See: First, Second, or Third Person)
We indeed are here justly
"Truly we deserve this punishment"
this man
This refers to Jesus.
translationWords
Christ
save
rebuke
fear
just
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv42–43 23:42 remember me when you come into your Kingdom:…
23:42 remember me when you come into your Kingdom: The criminal was perhaps thinking of the resurrection at the end of time, when Jesus would be raised up and vindicated by God.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.