Luke 23:39-43.
THE occasion was unique. It was just the moment for God to make manifest His grace. Man's iniquity was complete. And when all classes, the high and the low, were alike implicated in pouring scorn upon God and His Son, it was of no use to be drawing distinctions. It was due to the Son of God that His Father should show the efficacy of His blood for any—the immediate and abiding value of His blood.
The moment gave a striking opportunity; for there was a man openly a sinner, a criminal, a malefactor of the darkest dye. Indeed there were two; and we have no ground whatever for supposing that he who repented and believed was less a criminal than the man who died in impenitent rebellion against God. Still less is there any ground to suppose that the man who there confessed the Savior had been under previous process, or that any deep work had been going on in his soul before he hung upon the cross. Scripture, as far as it speaks, is distinctly against such a thought. Matthew and Mark speak of the robbers railing upon Him; not of one only, but of both. We know that men try to get rid of this, and would make out the one to be something not so bad as his fellow. A good deal has actually been made of the fact that they were not thieves, but robbers! Is it not extraordinary that men should think there was any difference to signify? A thief may be a sneaking robber, and a robber a bold thief; but one would think that when sin is weighed in the presence of God, it is not very much worth talking of the difference between them. For one thing is very clear—that they were both suffering as robbers. That is, they were not merely dishonest men, purloining what was not their own, but they accompanied it as usual with boldness rather than treachery, with violence or even murder. Barabbas certainly did so; and these at any rate were both of them robbers.
The difference between them does not lie there at all; and they would have been no better or worse if they had been thieves and not robbers. We must not lose ourselves by letting slip the grand truth of the grace of God through Christ toward the lost. But there was an expression produced not merely in the feelings, but in the conscience, of one of these robbers; and we can well understand that the wonderful spectacle of the Holy Sufferer, which had impressed Pilate when He was not in the depth of His sufferings but only in the outer circle of them, should have deeply impressed the dying man. Even such a hardened soul as Pilate, accustomed to condemn so many to death, and historically known to have been a man of desperate character, and most unscrupulous—even he had his feelings, and shrank (I do not say with really righteous indignation) from the suggestion of the priests. He morally condemned them, and evidently felt how false they were, and hypocritical and bloodthirsty. He wanted to let Jesus off, not wishing to add one more crime to the long list of his life's villainies.
But there was more than this, and quite different from it, dawning on one of the robbers; and what brought it out was the continued railing of his fellow. “If thou be the Christ, save thyself and us.” The conviction evidently pierced the soul of this penitent robber that here was a Man who differed not so much externally as morally and essentially.
No circumstances made such a difference. Education, religion—as people call it, or whatever they like—none of these things made the difference. The robber had heard Him, for faith cometh by hearing, not by seeing. It was not the sight of Jesus, for thousands saw the same thing that he saw; but he heard the Holy Victim for sin on the cross say, “Father, forgive them.” One may not say that these were the words to sink so deep into his soul; but how calculated they were to go right through the conscience of the man, and to act on his heart!
So it is written “There is forgiveness, that Thou mayest be feared.” Yes, “forgiveness with Thee that Thou mayest be feared!” not fear of being lost merely, that he knew. No Jew could be without more or less knowing the danger of ruin if a man die in his sins. But “there is forgiveness with Thee, that Thou mayest be feared.” And here was that most solemn moment, when never were so many, not merely of the rabble but of the greatest in the land, and those that occupied officially the highest religious places, animated with one implacable desire for the destruction of this most holy Man! and this most holy Man uttered not one word of judgment, but at that awful crisis pleaded that His Father would forgive them! A new light dawned upon the dying robber. Samuel did not so pray, nor David, nor Solomon. Who ever before? You must wait for Christ that you may have such a prayer: then only is everything in perfection.
It was the proof of this perfection of the Lord Jesus, along with His wonderful words, His looking for and counting upon mercy for others, which touched the heart of the robber. Who could He be? There was but One Person conceivable. The woman of Samaria, although she was utterly dark and ignorant, knew quite well that “when the Messiah cometh, He will tell us all things.” Every Jew of course knew that. Now this poor crucified robber sits in judgment on himself, and wholly refuses the railing in which he had up to that moment himself participated.
“Dost not thou fear God?” said he. He feared God then. He is astonished at the other robber. He cannot tell why the words that had won his own soul to God had not won his fellow. “Dost not thou fear God, seeing that thou art under the same condemnation?” They were all alike crucified; but, oh, how different each! The Messiah crucified; hardened, unbelieving, robbers crucified. But in one, as he hung upon the cross, there was such a new-born sense of grace that it produced “fear of God,” horror of sin, faithful dealing with it, reproving his fellow with whom he had joined, not dreading a retort, nor afraid of being asked— “Who are you? what do you pretend to? Why, you have been railing, too!” What then produced such an entire change of feeling in the man? Faith. Yes, it always produces repentance when it is itself genuine. Faith makes a man willing to see sin as he never saw it before, and makes him see it because God is revealed to him. We never can see sin, except through the cross of Christ, in the light of God. It was Christ crucified Who brought the light of God into the man's conscience. How exceeding sinful must his sins be to bring down the Son of God to die for them.
The very effort to please God makes a conscientious renewed man feel his inability, and sin becomes increasingly sinful. There is nothing that brings out the hideousness of sin so deeply, and so prominently, without destroying confidence before God, as the grace of Christ. Law does it in measure. Christ does it far better than law, as was the case with this poor robber. It was not law, but Christ that made him thus judge himself, and form a sound estimate of the sin of his fellow— “Dost not thou fear God, seeing that thou art in the same condemnation? and we, indeed, justly.” His conscience was purged. When a man has a purged conscience, he can afford to confess his sins. He now tells all out exactly now, even to men. He had been with God in the secret of his heart. It might be only just before, but he had been with God. No man is ever true before men that is not true before God; and truth before God must come previously to truth before men. It was the Lord Jesus that stripped him of all the disguises of his soul. It was His grace to the guilty that gave him confidence to make a clean breast to God, no longer hiding his sins, but assured that God would receive him by the blood of Jesus.
“Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven; whose sin is covered.” But he is not a blessed man who covers his own transgressions; and such is the way of the unbelieving man. The believer has God to cover him, and God covers his sin with the blood of His own Son. The blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanseth us from every sin. Such was the real secret of this converted robber; and now he takes all the shame to himself. He owns his guilt, and says to his fellow— “We indeed justly; for we receive the due reward of our deeds; but this man hath done nothing amiss.” Who told him so? He had never heard it from the lips of man. On the contrary, men had been condemning Christ; not least those who paid mock honor. Pilate would have let Him off. Herod found nothing to call for death. It was the chief priests—the High Priest above all—the religious heads of God's ancient people, who would crucify the Lord Jesus; and the voices of the crowd gave their loud approval. Had public opinion been his guide, had he listened to the great men of the nation, he would have come to a different conclusion. Just apply it to yourself. Are you not influenced by to-day's opinion? Are you not influenced by what great men think? Evidently, you must see, man does not change. The world is just the same world substantially as it was then. There may be superficial changes, but the world, as such, is the same.