Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals

Mark: Who would you consider to be the luckiest person in the world? Someone with a lot of money or maybe a football player with a couple of Super Bowl rings? How about someone who came to trust Jesus at the last possible moment of his life? Turn in your Bible to the Gospel of Luke and prepare to hear the story of the luckiest man in the world.

Guest (Male): Welcome to Every Last Word, a radio and internet program with Dr. Philip Ryken, teaching the whole Bible to change your whole life. Today's message focuses on the life and death situations of the two people dying on the crosses right next to Jesus. We'll find out the right way to ask for salvation.

Mark: Phil, today you'll talk about the thief on the cross and how he came to saving faith just before his death. Is it really ever too late to accept Christ as Lord and Savior?

Philip Ryken: No, Mark, it's never too late. If anyone proves it, it's the thief on the cross. If anyone even begins to think that it's too late for him or for her, that must be the devil talking because where there's life, there's hope. Even to the very last moment of life, there is still an opportunity to repent of sin and turn to Jesus Christ. Not that we should wait until then, though. The best time to come to faith in Christ, Mark, is right now while there's still time.

Mark: Well, that thief on the cross wasn't able to do many good Christian things after his conversion. What do our good works get us after we've been converted?

Philip Ryken: There were one or two things that the thief on the cross was able to do. He was able to testify to the perfection of Jesus even to the other thief on the other side of the cross. But it's true, he didn't have an opportunity to go to church or put any money in the offering plate or anything like that. Thankfully, his salvation and our salvation do not depend on anything that we do for God, but on what Jesus has done for us. Any good works we do, that's just out of gratitude for the grace that we have in Jesus.

Mark: All right, thank you, Phil. Let's turn in our Bibles now to Luke chapter 23, verses 39 through 43, and listen together to Dr. Ryken.

Philip Ryken: Please turn in your Bibles to the Gospel of Luke, chapter 23, where we consider verses 39 to 43. Now, what do you suppose that we should call this man who died on the cross next to Jesus? People usually call him the thief on the cross, which is true as far as it goes. The man was a thief, and everyone knew it, including the man himself.

But that is only true at the beginning of this story, not at the end because by that point this man had put his faith in Jesus Christ and he was on his way to paradise. I'm not sure it would be fair at that point still to call him the thief. Maybe better to call him at that point the convert on the cross.

Or if you believed in luck, which I personally don't, you might say that this was the luckiest man alive. At the time that he was crucified, he was well on his way to hell. But of all the criminals on all the crosses outside all the cities in the entire Roman Empire, he happened to get crucified next to Jesus. As a result, he had an opportunity to get saved before he died.

Really, how lucky can you get? So lucky that he is still the luckiest man alive. He's still alive today. He is with Jesus in paradise. That's the promise that Jesus makes at the end of this story. But that other thief on the other side of Jesus was almost as lucky. He was crucified next to Jesus too, and that gave him one last chance to get saved before dying.

Yet for all of the opportunity he had, that man never repented, never trusted in Jesus, never prayed the sinner's prayer, and never made it to paradise. Here we see two men making two different decisions about Jesus and reaching two very different destinations as a result. I think the story really compels us to make a choice of our own because like them, we too can see Jesus on the cross, and now we have a decision to make about him.

In his sermon on this passage, Richard Phillips went so far as to describe this scene as a rehearsal for the final judgment. Will you end up on the right side of Jesus, like the convert on the cross, or on the wrong side of Jesus, like the other thief who never believed?

Luke tells the story of these two men in four parts: the rage of a thieving sinner in verse 39, the rebuke of a penitent thief in verses 40 and 41, the request of a dying sinner in verse 42, and the reward of a gracious Savior in verse 43. Let's begin with the rage of a thieving sinner. I call him a thieving sinner because Matthew tells us as much in his Gospel that this man was a robber.

Luke in his Gospel has described both of these men simply as criminals and tells us in verse 39 that one of the criminals who were hanged railed at him, saying, "Are you not the Christ? Save yourself and us." People who don't have a saving relationship with God sometimes console themselves with the thought that they will have time for God later, whenever later is.

Sometimes this does happen, and the convert on the cross is a famous example of someone who was saved later. But God doesn't always give people one last chance to repent. Even people who do get one last chance sometimes squander it. They are perhaps just as likely to waste it, and that's what this man did. Rather than treating Jesus with reverence and coming to him with repentance, he was on the wrong side of the cross using his dying strength to treat Jesus with sarcasm and contempt.

He had heard perhaps these priests and soldiers making fun of the man on the cross next to him, and he knew that he wasn't quite at the bottom yet. He saw that Jesus was even lower than he was, and that gave him an opportunity to rage against him. What we see about the fallen nature in this man's example. This is the way people are, isn't it? You feel bad about your situation, you'd like to take your anger out on somebody else, especially somebody who's in a worse situation than you are.

No matter how low you go, you look for someone lower that you can put down. That's what this man did. He also demanded Jesus to save him on his own terms. This too is the way of fallen sinners. When we don't get what we want out of life, we start telling God what he has to do to get back our allegiance.

What this man wanted was for Jesus to get him down from the cross. He wasn't interested in having a relationship with Jesus. He didn't want to actually deal with the eternally important problem of his sin. He only wanted what he needed in that situation: salvation in the very limited sense of escape from imminent death.

This is what many people want from God. Practical help in temporary emergencies, a deity who can work a few miracles but not a God who demands a life of service and obedience. When our circumstances get desperate, we demand for God to intervene, but then once the crisis is over, we go back to living the way that we were living before. I wonder, what kind of relationship do you want to have with Jesus? Are you looking for a cosmic easy button, or do you want to know Jesus in a way that will change your life forever?

The first man here, raging against Jesus, wanted Jesus on his own terms. The spiritual problem was that he had neither faith nor repentance. These are the two things that God requires for us to have a relationship with him: being sorry for our sins and trusting in Jesus. This man wouldn't do that. Rather than confessing his crimes, he angrily attacks Jesus.

He won't repent; he'll simply go on sinning. Even though he asks for Jesus to deliver him in some sense, he doesn't believe that Jesus really has the power to save. He doesn't confess Jesus as the Christ; he questions whether Jesus is the Christ at all. That's what you see in verse 39; there's a question mark at the end of his sentence.

The truth is that Jesus does have the power to save us. He is able to take us to the everlasting paradise of God, and we'll see that by the time we get to the end of this story. But we have to come to Jesus on his terms, repenting of sin, trusting in him for salvation, or else we will never be saved at all.

There are two convicted felons in this story. At the beginning of the crucifixion, neither one of them was ready to come to Jesus. We know this from the Gospel of Matthew. We read there in chapter 27, verse 44, that the robbers who were crucified with him also reviled him in the same way. Matthew uses the plural there; it's the robbers who were crucified with him that were reviling him, indicating that both of these men were railing against Jesus.

The thieving sinner on the other side of the cross, the one who became the convert, actually started out just as angry as the man quoted in verse 39, his partner in crime. Here you have two low-life criminals; both of them ridicule Jesus. I suppose if you could have seen them on that day, they must have seemed like the most unpromising candidates for salvation in the entire world.

Both of them abusing the Son of God in his dying hour. Both of them deserving to die for the crimes that they had committed. Yet as unlikely candidates as they may have seemed for salvation, one of them had a change in his life that changed his life forever. We don't know exactly what may have moved this man from ridicule to repentance.

Of course, we know it ultimately was the gracious work of the Holy Spirit. But what was it in that situation that the Holy Spirit used to bring this man to faith? Maybe the gentle patience of Jesus as he suffered all of this ridicule and injustice and the pains of the cross and did all of that without responding with any anger of his own.

Maybe it was that prayer of forgiveness that we saw back in verse 34, offered to his enemies. Whatever it was, sometime during his dying hour, the convert on the cross came to Jesus with repentance and faith. We see his repentance in the words he spoke to the criminal on the other side of the cross. Listen to the rebuke of this penitent thief as we find it in verses 40 and 41: "Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we indeed justly, for we are receiving the due reward of our deeds; but this man has done nothing wrong."

As I read these words, I couldn't help but think of what John Calvin said about true wisdom. He said that nearly all wisdom—this is how he opens his famous Institutes of the Christian Religion—that nearly all wisdom that we possess, true and sound wisdom, consists of two parts: knowledge of God and knowledge of ourselves. By that standard, this convert on the cross had true wisdom because he came to know both God and himself.

He knows God because he has reverence for God. He gives the other criminal this strong rebuke: "Do you not fear God?" Show some respect, he's saying. Or more literally, "Don't you even fear God?" Because even if a person won't respect anything else, he should at least fear God, who has the power over life and death, over heaven and hell.

The convert on the cross rebuked the angry, unconverted thief for showing irreverence to the Judge of all the universe. Not only did the convert on the cross have the proper fear of God, he also had a holy reverence for Jesus. That's part of knowing God; it's knowing Jesus and knowing who he is. He says at the end of verse 41 that this man has done nothing wrong.

He's not necessarily claiming that Jesus had never sinned—that's true, of course, but I'm not sure that the convert on the cross had a way of knowing that—but maybe saying something similar to what Pilate had said earlier: "I have found no guilt in this man deserving death." Somehow the convert on the cross sensed that this was true.

No crime was listed above his head on the cross. Surely this man with his gentle demeanor had done nothing to deserve such a degrading death. The man recognized the righteousness of the Savior's holiness, and he confessed it as well as he understood it: "This man has done nothing wrong." I wonder, what is your testimony about Jesus? The Jesus that you see on the cross?

Will you fear God? Will you have reverence for God? Will you honor the King by saying that he is the sinless Savior? Will you also see yourself, as this man did, and confess that you are not sinless like Jesus, and that this is why you need a Savior? Of all the important things to know in the world, one of the truest and most important things we need to know about ourselves is our sin.

The convert on the cross knew that. It's why he came to Jesus in God-fearing repentance. He had reverence for God; he had respect for his authority as the Judge. He admitted that he was in the wrong. It wasn't just that he was upset with the other thief for what he was saying, but he knew that he himself had to confess his transgression. "We are receiving what we deserve," he said. "This is the reward of our deeds," referring, I suppose, most specifically to that punishment that the government was carrying out on them for breaking the law.

But somehow we sense that something deeper was happening in this man's heart. He saw himself in comparison to Jesus, and he came under the conviction of his sin. He said, "I'm not like this man; there is something unholy about me." Maybe this is the most important lesson that this convert on the cross can teach us. Not that we can still be saved at the very last moment. That's true to teach, but foolish to count on, particularly to count on in advance.

The most important lesson here is that whenever we come to God, whether it's early or late, we have to come knowing that we deserve justice rather than mercy. I wonder, can you see yourself and your own spiritual situation in the thief on the cross? If so, are you ready to ask God to have mercy on your soul? It's never too late to come. But this story is not primarily about getting saved just in the nick of time; it's really about getting saved at all, which always includes repenting for all the things that we have done wrong.

As he thought about this passage, Donald Barnhouse said this must be the position of anyone who is going to be saved. As long as we cling to ourselves and think that there is even a shred of righteousness in ourselves that could satisfy the demands of a holy God, there is no possibility of salvation for us. But when we recognize that we have sinned, then we are in the position of those who may obtain mercy.

If we want to be in a position to obtain the mercy of our God, we would do well to pray the way that Nicolaus Copernicus prayed. When that famous scientist considered this passage from the Gospel, he humbly prayed, "I do not ask for the grace that you gave Saint Paul, nor can I dare to ask for the grace that you granted to Saint Peter. But the mercy which you did show to the dying robber, that mercy show to me." In other words, I can't say that I deserve the mercy that some of the famous men who have served God in the past have deserved. Maybe I at least could receive the mercy that a dying criminal received.

When we come with that kind of repentance, that's a prayer that Jesus loves to answer. Genuine repentance is always joined to saving faith, and that's a third part of this story in which we hear the request of a dying convert. We see it in verse 42. Rather than taking something that didn't belong to him the way he usually did, for once this thief asked if he could have something that he didn't deserve. He came making a humble request: "Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom."

This is one of the only times in the Gospel of Luke that someone addresses Jesus by his given name. How appropriate it is for the convert on the cross to use that name here because Jesus is the name of salvation. "Call him Jesus," the Christmas angel said to Joseph, "for he will save his people from their sins." That's the meaning of the name. It's a name that means "God saves," and that's what the man was asking for: Jesus to give him the salvation of God.

After he had repented of his sin and acknowledged it by way of confession, he came and made this very deliberate request for salvation. He actually came to Jesus and trusted him for the free gift of eternal life. It's important in this passage to notice that both thieves on both crosses asked Jesus to save them. Yet only one of them actually was saved in the biblical sense.

What do you think the difference was? Why was only one man saved? The other man was lost forever. What was the difference here? Look at their two prayers. You see one of them in verse 39: "Are you not the Christ? Save yourself and us." But then you have a second prayer in verse 42: "Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom."

What are some of the differences between the prayers of these two sinners? It's important to know because you wouldn't want to come to Jesus and ask for the wrong kind of salvation. If you want salvation, you want to ask for the salvation he's actually giving, and so it's important to pray the right prayer. Their dying requests could hardly have been more different. One request was made in angry unbelief. The other was offered in humble faith.

One thief wasn't sure whether Jesus was the Christ or not, and so he asked Jesus to prove it first. The other man believed that Jesus could save him, and so he simply asked to be remembered. One man required Jesus to save himself first before he saved anyone else, but somehow the second man knew that Jesus had to die first, and only then would he be able to give a kingdom.

One man was hoping for immediate deliverance from physical suffering, while the other was looking for salvation beyond the grave. Somehow he knew he wouldn't be delivered from this cross; this was the punishment that he deserved. Nevertheless, there was every possibility of being delivered from the wrath of God and from the eternal penalty against his sin.

The prayer of the second man is an extraordinary example of saving faith. That's what's really remarkable about this man—not so much that he was saved so late in life, right at the very last moment. That's remarkable, but what's really remarkable is how much faith he had when he finally did come to Christ. This convert on the cross believed that Jesus was the King of a coming kingdom.

What was the man looking at when he had that faith and made that prayer? At the time, Jesus was surrounded by scoffers. Nobody was believing him or following him at all. He was bleeding a ghastly death. He hardly looked very kingly. He was crucified in weakness, emptied of all his royal glory.

Nevertheless, the convert on the cross believed that Christ would have his kingdom. He saw Jesus in all of this agony and death, and yet he believed in him as the King who would shortly come into a kingdom. We don't know exactly how this man knew that Jesus was the King. Maybe the idea came from that sign above the cross. That was a pretty good indication, wasn't it? "This is the King of the Jews."

Maybe he heard the taunts of the crucifying soldiers and inferred from that that Jesus was some sort of king. I'm not exactly sure what kind of kingdom he thought Jesus would rule. That's not clear from the story either. But wherever the idea came from, this man on the cross believed in Jesus and wanted to belong to his royal kingdom.

I think you can also see that he had a believing expectation in life after death. That was part of what he believed about the kingdom of God. He was speaking as one crucified man to another, and yet trusting that this was not the end for Jesus or for himself. What extraordinary faith it took to believe that. He believed in immortal life in the world to come.

I wonder if any man ever has had more faith than this man had. What can one dying man do for another dying man? Yet this dying man believed that that dying man could get him into the kingdom of God. He was witnessing the crucifixion and yet at the same time believing in the resurrection. He understood the whole Gospel. He understood it even before any of the apostles did.

I wonder, do you have as much faith as this man had? A crucified man trusting in a crucified Christ, confident for all eternity that he had everything that he needed in Jesus. All he needed simply was for Jesus to remember him, and then everything would be all right for him forever. Sometimes people have the idea that it must have been easier for this man to believe because after all, he was there at the crucifixion.

Really, how lucky can you get? But it took as much faith for him as it does for anyone, maybe even more faith. It always takes faith to see Jesus crucified and believe that in that cross there is the forgiveness of sins. It always takes faith to believe that Jesus has the resurrection power to give you eternal life. Certainly, it takes faith to rely on his memory for your destiny. It takes faith for anyone to pray what this old thief prayed on the cross: "Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom."

I tell you, Jesus will not forget. Anyone who prays to him in repentance and faith will be saved forever. Jesus tells us this here in the strongest possible terms as he promises the reward of a gracious Savior we find in verse 43: "Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise." Jesus was saying, "No, I will not forget. I will remember you."

In fact, he was saying even more than that. I think he was giving this convert on the cross far more than he asked or imagined. Consider all of the promises that are contained in this one short statement: "Today you will be with me in paradise." Jesus here is promising to save the man eternally. That's what paradise means. It refers back to the Garden of Eden, but it also looks forward to the place of eternal rest for the people of God.

Jesus said he would save the man immediately, not just eternally, but also immediately. He wouldn't have to wait until tomorrow or the day after that. He would earn his reward that very day. This helps to answer a question that nearly everyone asks some time or other. And that is the question: What will happen to me when I die? What will happen to me when they lay me in the ground?

For the believer in Christ, death is the entrance into glory. Yes, our bodies will be laid in the ground; they will wait there until the resurrection on the day of judgment. But our souls will immediately enter the presence of God. The Bible speaks about this; it says to be away from the body is to be at home with the Lord. That's the kind of promise that Jesus was giving to this man.

What hope it must have given to the convert on the cross. His simple faith gained him an immediate salvation. He would not have to wait until the end of days for his salvation. He would receive his reward sooner than he could even imagine. Even if he was in a way the last disciple to follow Jesus—at least in his earthly ministry—he would be the first one home to glory.

The moment after he took his last breath in this earth, he would find himself in paradise. This is our hope as well, if we are trusting in Jesus, that at the very moment we leave this life, we go to the eternal paradise of God. What else is contained in this promise? It's a promise that Jesus will save us eternally, a promise for this man on the cross that he would be saved immediately.

It's also a promise to save him personally. The convert on the cross had come to Jesus very personally to ask for salvation. He had called Jesus by name; he had made a very personal, deliberate request. Let me say, this is the only way that anyone is ever saved. We must come to Jesus; we can't just come to church and rely on that. We need to go to Jesus and say that we want the salvation that he has to give.

Jesus responds with a very personal promise for us of our salvation. Notice the way he responded to this man. He said, "I say to you." There's a personal transaction taking place; he is speaking as a friend to a friend. What is even more personal than that is the promise of his very personal presence. "I will be with you. You will be with me," Jesus says.

It's true because the Bible says it's true, that heaven is a wonderful place. But what makes paradise to be a paradise is being with Jesus. If Jesus had only said, "Today you will be in paradise," I suppose that would be almost enough. But what Jesus actually promised is infinitely better than that. He says, "Today you will be with me in paradise." In fact, I almost think that the last two words of that sentence are redundant. What other paradise do you need if you know that you will be with Jesus?

Somewhere in his personal narrative, the great theologian Jonathan Edwards gave a little glimpse of what it is like to be with Jesus. He described a time when he experienced unusual intimacy with his Savior. What he described as a sense of the excellent fullness of Christ. Edwards recounted the experience. He said once as I rode out into the woods for my health, having alighted from my horse in a retired place, I had a view that for me was extraordinary of the glory of the Son of God, full, pure, sweet, full of grace and love.

This grace that appeared so calm and sweet appeared also great above the heavens. The person of Christ appeared with an excellency great enough to swallow up all thought and conception. I felt an ardency of soul to be full of Christ alone, to love him with a pure and holy love, to trust in him, to serve him, to follow him, to be perfectly sanctified with a divine and heavenly purity.

Apparently, Jonathan Edwards had this experience more than once because he went on to say, "I have several other times had views very much of the same nature and which have had the same effects." If we have never had this kind of experience ourselves, we should not despair. Jonathan Edwards knew Jesus better than most people, and even he only had an extraordinary sense of Christ's presence on very rare occasions.

If it hasn't happened to us yet, one day it will, because Jesus has given us the same promise he gave to the convert on the cross: "You will be with me in paradise." We will share there that sense of intimacy and affection and glory and joy, everything that goes beyond anything you've ever experienced with Jesus in this life. That's the promise that Jesus himself gives to us.

Jesus saved this man immediately. He saved him eternally. He saved him personally. I should say as well that he saved him graciously. Consider how many promises are contained in this one simple expression that the man will be saved. We see here that there is a gracious salvation. It is by faith; it is apart from any works.

If ever there was a man whose works could not save him, it was the convert on the cross. His life was almost over; even if he wanted to do something of his own that would be good enough for God, he wouldn't be able to do it. His hands and his feet were nailed to the cross. He didn't even have the opportunity to receive any of the sacraments.

The only thing that he could do is to believe. And he did believe. Having repented of his sin, he trusted in Jesus and Jesus alone. This is the way of salvation for anyone. We can only be justified by grace through faith alone, and this is one of the most perfect examples of this in all of scripture. Finally, Jesus saved this man certainly, or you might say assuredly.

I think we can always count on anything that Jesus promises anyone. When Jesus begins a promise with the word "truly," you know that this is something you can count on for all eternity. Jesus is making a solemn and unbreakable vow. Here at the end of the Gospel, I have been calling the Gospel of knowing for sure, we see a man who knows for sure that he will be saved. He has the promise of Jesus, and so he is certain of his salvation.

I wonder, do you have the same assurance, the same sense of certainty? Do you know for a certain fact that if you yourself were to die today, you would go to be with Jesus in paradise? Charles Spurgeon said that he thought that Jesus took this convert on the cross with him to paradise as a kind of specimen of what he meant to do. As if he were saying to all of the heavenly powers, "I bring a sinner with me, and he is a sample of all the rest."

How Jesus loves to save sinners. He was doing it right up to the very end of his life, and he's been doing it ever since. I wonder, are you among the rest of those sinners that Jesus came to save? I think if he was willing to save on the cross, he is willing to save any of us. He was willing to save this man after all that he had done. Surely he is willing to save anyone who comes to him in repentance and faith.

It is sometimes said that there are two kinds of people in the world: people that say there are two kinds of people in the world and people who don't. I think Luke was the former kind of person, always giving us things in the Gospels in twos, making a comparison and a contrast. Here he is saying, "Don't you see there are two kinds of people in the world?" And not just in this world but also in the world to come.

Luke shows us these two people at the cross, one crucified on the left side of Jesus, the other crucified on the right. Many preachers have said that one thief was saved so that no sinner might despair, but only one so that no sinner might presume. We should consider carefully then, which story is really our story in this rehearsal for the final judgment.

Sometimes in his mercy and grace God saves people the way that he saved the convert on the cross. He saves them right before they die. But why would you wait until then? What better opportunity will you have to come to Jesus Christ than today? If you look at the story of these two men, you see how important it is not to think that you will come to Jesus later, that some opportunity for salvation will come along and you'll want to take it any more then than you will now.

Why would you think that? Here was a man who saw Jesus crucified. He heard and saw everything that the other man also heard and saw on the cross. Nevertheless, he still died in his sins, impenitent, unbelieving. It was only the man who repented and believed and prayed what you might call the sinner's prayer who was the only one who was saved.

This is the choice that every one of us must make. Will we confess our sins? Will we trust in Jesus? Will we come and ask for him to remember us? It's a wonderful prayer that Richard Burnham offered in the form of a poem. It's a good prayer for any sinner to pray who wants to be saved. It goes like this: "Jesus, thou art the sinner's friend. As such I look to thee. Now in the fullness of thy love, O Lord, remember me. Remember thy pure word of grace, remember Calvary's tree, remember all thy dying groans, and then remember me. Lord, I am guilty, I am vile, but thy salvation's free. Then in thine all-abounding grace, dear Lord, remember me. And when I close my eyes in death and human help shall flee, then then, my dear redeeming God, oh then remember me."

Our Father in heaven, we do pray that you would remember us for Jesus' sake. We believe that Jesus has a perfect memory, that he will remember that we have prayed for the forgiveness of our sins and entrusted to him the destiny of our salvation. We believe as well that you are a God who loves to honor the promises of your Son and that you will remember us for all eternity, for Jesus' sake. Amen.

Guest (Male): You are listening to Every Last Word with Bible teacher Dr. Philip Ryken, a listener-supported ministry of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals. The Alliance exists to promote a biblical understanding and worldview. Drawing upon the insight and wisdom of Reformed theologians from decades and even centuries gone by, we seek to provide Christian teaching that will equip believers to understand and meet the challenges and opportunities of our time and place.

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