In the history of the crucifixion as given by Matthew all is dark-unrelieved by the faintest streak of light—till after the Lord Jesus had given up the ghost. In the history of what then took place as revealed by Luke, there are rays of brightness at the beginning, in the middle, and at the end of that wondrous hour.
In Matthew we have no utterance of our blessed Lord recorded, from the time that He stood before Pilate and acknowledged that He was the King of the Jews till He cried with a loud voice, “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani.” But in Luke we read of what He said to His Father, and the words which He addressed to the thief, and these sayings it is which shed a gleam of light and sunshine on what is otherwise a picture of midnight darkness, enwrapped in the murky clouds of human wickedness and brutality. In Matthew, as Emmanuel and as Messiah, He is seen rejected but suffering for men; in Luke, as Son of Man, He is presented, suffering as Man, yet caring for men. Thus we read in Luke, how on His way to the cross, He took notice of the company of the women which bewailed and lamented Him, and bid them not weep for Him but for themselves and their children, for the consequences which would follow His cutting off as Messiah. With the cross before Him He was concerned for the sufferings, justly deserved indeed, of those who would be visited for the great crime about to be perpetrated. For, if Bush things were done in the green tree (Himself), what would be done in the dry (the Jewish nation, fruitless, sapless, fit only for the burning).
On the cross the same spirit was displayed when He interceded with His Father for His murderers, and assured the penitent thief of the immediate future before him. It was others He thought of, commiserated, prayed for; or announced the welcome news of companionship with Himself in paradise. From Matthew we learn what God thought of the sacrifice; in Luke we discern who it is that suffered, for He could speak to God as His Father, and yet hold intercourse with the convicted thief. Equal to the Father as touching His Godhead, yet one with whom the thief would be that day in paradise. He accepted the prayer of the man dying by His side, and granted him more than he had asked. He prayed, and yet answered prayer. He prayed to the Father as the Son, and answered prayer as God. He prayed for others, “Father, forgive them,” and spoke to the Father about Himself, “Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit.” God and yet man, the Son from all eternity having life in Himself, yet surrendering up life on the cross, in obedience to the Father’s will, He died in love for sinners-He entreated for them forgiveness. Where before had such language been used? —where had such a spirit been manifested? The Jews might righteously ask for judgment on their enemies—He sought divine forgiveness for His, for a new epoch had commenced on earth, and a spirit very different to that which was consistent with Judaism was now displayed.
If anything could have softened man’s heart, or stopped him in his mad career, surely we might have thought that this prayer for His murderers would have had such an effect. But they gave Him hatred for His good will, hating Him without a cause.
They heard His prayer, yet paused not in their course, for we read in the sentence following it, “and they parted His raiment, and cast lots.” The evangelist, by this manner of telling what took place, brings out, in striking contrast, the difference between His spirit and theirs. He had thought of others; the soldiers, intent only on gain, concerned themselves with their share of His garments; and the chief priests and people availed themselves of the opportunity to display the bitter enmity of their hearts.
They were ignorant of the heinousness of their guilt; but He interceded for them, and by His intercession showed His sense of the enormity of their crime. For why ask forgiveness if they had never needed it, why pray for them if they could have procured it for themselves? His act testified of their sin; and His words told of His relationship to God, against whom they had offended.
They were ignorant of what they were doing, therefore He prayed for them; yet their ignorance was no solid plea for acquittal in God’s sight, so that the Lord’s intercession was needful: God does show mercy to those who sin grievously in ignorance of that which is pleasing in His sight. Witness Paul, who thought he ought to do many things contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth. “I obtained mercy,” he writes, “because I did it ignorantly in unbelief.” God could be gracious, but He could not gloss over his iniquity; so with them who crucified His Son. And the Lord, by His prayer, showed what their guilt was, whilst He offered up Himself as the true sacrifice, and petitioned the Father for their forgiveness.
Besides addressing His Father, He gave ear to the penitent thief. Had we only His communication to the thief apart from all else, the grace He therein manifested must have struck the most cursory reader but, reading it in close connection with His prayer to His Father, its value is enhanced. He had rightly gauged the measure of their sin who then took part against Him, amongst whom must be classed the thief, now penitent, but lately a reviler, for which, as for his lawless acts, he had need of divine forgiveness. A trophy of grace, when the chief priests and people were still deriding the Lord, and the other thief reviling Him, he stood out before all, in the very agonies of death, as a disciple of the crucified and rejected One, by his side. He rebuked his companion, acknowledged the justice of their sentence, but fully justified. the Lord. “We receive the due reward of our deeds, but this man hath done nothing amiss.” And turning to Him, he owned Him as no common man, even the only One who had a kingdom on earth, of which death could never deprive Him. “Lord, remember me, when thou comest in thy kingdom.”
What words were that day uttered at the cross? The Lord interceded for His persecutors, and the dying thief acknowledged his sin, yet desired to be remembered by the King in His Kingdom. Had he been innocent, such words would have been natural, but being guilty they must have sounded strange to any who heard them, for in the presence of his future judge he was not afraid to confess his guilt, nor desirous that it should lie in merited oblivion. How completely was he at ease with the Lord, of whom naturally he had every reason to be afraid. He was a sinner, and he acknowledged it. Where, then, was the sin-offering which, according to the law, he ought to have offered up to have his sins forgiven? Not a hint have we that he thought of it, and under the circumstances a sacrifice was impossible; for he could not have taken the offering to the altar, nor laid his hand on its head. And this service none could discharge in his stead. The sinner’s hand itself must be laid on the victim’s head. There was something, however, in the Lord which gave the thief unbounded confidence in His presence. He did not ask for any sacrifice to be offered upon his behalf, his prayer tells us that he did not feel the want of it, and the Lord’s answer shows us there was no need of it, “Remember me when thou comest in thy kingdom,” not into, but in it—i.e., in the royal pomp and power which belonged to Him who was then and is still the King. The thief looked on to a future day, and assuredly that prayer will be manifestly fulfilled; but the Lord, in answer, spoke to him of that day. “Verily, I say unto thee, Today shalt thou be with me in paradise.”
Nothing had been done by the dying man to put his sins away. On the cross he had added to the sins of his past life by reviling God’s well-beloved Son. But ere he breathed his last, and indeed immediately after he had given utterance to that petition, the communication was made to him to set at rest forever all doubts about the future, for the real sacrifice was being offered up by his side, and the effect of it to himself the Lord made known to his heart. “Today shalt thou be with me.” The convicted thief was in the company of the Saviour, and never should they part. But observe the language. There was a difference between them, and He would have the man know it. He did not say, “We shall be together,” but “Thou shalt be with me.” With Him was the portion of the converted soul, and in paradise. Here, then, we meet with the earliest possible example of the fruit of the atoning work applied to an individual, and the example is a fine one. Of the man’s guilt there was no doubt, of his everlasting blessing there can be no two opinions. His confession tells us of the one, the Lord’s words assure us of the other. In Gen. 4 we have the earliest possible teaching as to the standing before God of one born in sin; in Luke we have the earliest possible proof of the value of the sacrifice to a sinner, of which Abel’s lambs were types. So perfect was the work, so all-sufficient the sacrifice, that forever and ever this converted thief shall know companionship with the righteous One then by his side. What a public testimony this history is to the sufficiency of the Lord’s atoning work to make a sinner meet to be a partaker of the inheritance of the saints in light “with me.” Not merely saved, not simply a hope of heaven, but with Christ the Holy One of God.
“In Paradise.” There had been one on, earth, and Adam had walked in it. In the Old Testament, however, it is spoken of as connected only with what is past; in the New Testament we read of it as present and future. “With me in paradise,” were the words of the Lord to the thief that day; “To eat of the tree of life which is in the midst of the paradise of my God,” is the same gracious Saviour’s promise to those who shall overcome now. Ceasing to be found on earth, there is a paradise elsewhere, and the redeemed—not the innocent—shall enjoy it forever, eating of that tree in its midst which would have entailed everlasting misery on. Adam and his descendants had he partaken of it after the fall. The dying man was to enter it that day—Paul has been caught up into it, and the heavenly saints will one day be in it. Forfeited for himself and his descendants by the first Adam, it has been won, and is forever secured to the saints above by the obedience unto death of the. last Adam.
Are we wrong in saying, forever secured? It is true that the Lord did not say this to the thief. He spoke of the end of that day, but did not speak of the morrow. “Today,” were His words. He told him when that blessed condition would begin, for it must have had a beginning, but He spoke not of a time when it was to end. Cannot each one who reads that history draw the conclusion? He spoke not of its ending, for it never will end;—forever and ever will that believer be with His Lord, a witness of the exceeding riches of His grace, a vessel fitted to tell out His praise.
Singular must this soul ever be as the one who was converted when crucified by the side of the Lord. Yet his portion with Him is not peculiar to himself; it is for all, and will be shared by all, who like him shall have confessed. God’s Son during the time of His rejection on earth.