One would like to know something more of the penitent malefactor whose earthly journey ended on Calvary's hill. What was his history? How had he fallen into evil ways? What knowledge of the Scriptures had he? Had he ever seen Jesus before? These details would interest the mind of man, but they might have interfered with the divine purpose his cross was to serve.
He was, in God's plan, simply a type of a penitent sufferer, of an evil doer receiving from =men the just reward of his deeds. Yet in the hour in which he was to pass to the judgment of God, he was delivered from condemnation and assured of a place in Paradise.
Could anything better illustrate the simple power of faith, the change which is meant by being justified freely by God's grace, the immediateness with which Christ makes a penitent sinner welcome, or the completeness with which He makes that sinner safe for all eternity?
The circumstances of this man, a dying thief, were peculiar. He is the very last we would have thought likely to become a believer at such a time. In his own case and that of his companion, he accepted judgment as right in their condemnation. Yet, beholding the holy One on that middle cross, he judged both Jewish and Gentile rulers to have been egregiously and impiously wrong. He believed that this despised One was the Prince of life.
He had to believe this when even all who had believed in Him had fled from Him. What a miracle of faith was his! Grace not only here saves to the uttermost, but faith rises to the uttermost, giving sublime expression to its new-born trust in that confident cry: "Lord, remember me when Thou comest into Thy kingdom.”
Here is the type of a sinner saved in the midst of suffering justly for his deeds. He was saved at the cross, when others were fleeing in terror from it—when many, looking on, were saying: "He saved others, Himself He cannot save!" He was saved after he had doubted, not after he had been assured of Paradise. He was saved simply by looking unto Jesus, and trusting in His grace. This teaches how direct and simple and infallible faith is. No past doing need be a hindrance to one being saved—nor present suffering, nor shame, nor faithlessness on the part of His followers. No impossibility of proving faith by the afterlife need interfere with instant, assured, eternal salvation. It is simply by believing in Jesus Christ and Him crucified.