Brief and bright was the journey from the place of earth's deepest shame to that of heaven's highest glory, taken, as it was, by One, who, in His own Person, had right and title to be there, and by another who, because of his misdeeds, is known to us as the "dying thief," and who had therefore title, but to the judgment which man had awarded him, and to the farther judgment of God,- a judgment-of which he had the clear, but fearful presentiment, in the rebuke he administered to his fellow-malefactor of, "dost not thou fear God seeing thou art in the same condemnation and we indeed justly?" His confessed desert was the just judgment of God on account of his sins. Yet such an one accompanied the Lord Jesus in that bright victorious journey from Calvary to Paradise,-from shame to glory,-from the gibbet to the Throne!
Wondrous contrast, as wondrous as the way was brief, and the means divinely perfect.
Think, beloved reader, of a man in one and the same day standing on the brink of hell, and on the plains of heaven,-(for this is surely true in principle,) going to that cross a sinner, leaving it a saint; transfixed a willing captive of Satan, yet, whilst fastened there, wrenched from his fiend grasp, redeemed, released, and fitted for more than angelic company l-awarded that place by law, delivered from it by grace,-and that too, in a way that law could never dispute.
Think of a man, a thief, a malefactor, a sinner, whose heart, until that time, was set against God, and could revile His Son, casting all kinds of calumny in His teeth, appearing that very day with Christ in Paradise. Think of his demerit; think of God's mercy. Think of his fearful guilt; think of the grace which, on the ground of the expiation made by the sinless One, could take even him to the unsullied courts of glory.
But it is in this expiation, and in it alone, that we can find the ground or reason of this wondrous deliverance.
First, the man was a thief, a sinner, and as such, he merited the judgment of God,-hut Christ "came into the world to save sinners," bearing the judgment due to such.
Secondly, the man was at the point of death, and had no time for self-improvement, or a change of life, or a quantity of penitential good works. He must be saved on the spot, as he was, or be lost forever;-but Christ "came to seek and to save that which was lost."
Thirdly, if saved at all, he must be wholly and completely saved, so that he might be, then and there, fit for heaven-but such was the very kind of salvation he received, for, said the Savior, " To-day shalt thou be with Ale in Paradise."
And lastly, he must have sufficient authority for his hope-inasmuch as reason would that such a man, with innumerable bad works behind, and no chance for good works ahead, must have a warrant, and a title, which in itself should banish every fear, and dispel every doubt,-but this perfect authority he had in the unchallengeable words of the Savior, " Verily I say unto thee."
Glorious answer to every question,-the death of the Savior for the ground, and the words of the Savior for the authority of the salvation, then, there and forever, from the threshold of hell to the center of heaven, of this poor " dying thief."
Glorious achievement, too, on the part of Him, over whose apparent defeat Satan was chuckling with hellish delight, mocking and deriding Him, who, for our sakes, had come from Paradise to Calvary-when He snatched out of the paw of the lion his miserable prey, and not only so, but crowning His work with this trophy of victory, He placed him at His side in Paradise.
Oh! what a glad return to the Home He had vacated, and how rich the prize He carried.
Beloved reader,"
“The dying thief rejoiced to see,
That fountain in his day,
And there may you, the' vile as he,
Wash all your sins away."
J. W. S.