III.
It is worth noting that it was not by words that Jesus converted this man. He did not address the penitent thief at all till the thief spoke to Him. The work of conviction was done before He uttered a word. Yet it was His work; and how did He do it? As St. Peter exhorted godly wives to convert their heathen husbands, when he wrote to them, "Likewise, ye wives, be in subjection to your own husbands, that, if any obey not the Word, they also may, without the Word, be won by the conversation (i.e., behaviour) of the wives, while they behold your chaste conversation coupled with fear." It was by the impression of His patience, His innocence, His peace, and His magnanimity, that Jesus converted the man; and herein He has left us an example that we should follow in His steps.
But His words, when He did speak, added immensely to the impression.
They were few, but every one of them expressed the Saviour.
The robber was thinking of some date far off when Christ might intervene in his behalf, but Christ says, "To-day." This was a prophecy that he would die that day, and not be allowed to linger for days, as crucified persons often were; and this was fulfilled. But it was, besides, a promise that as soon as death launched him out of time into eternity, Christ would be waiting there to receive him. "To-day thou shalt be with Me." All heaven is in these two last words. What do we really know of heaven, what do we wish to know, except that it is to be "with Christ"? Yet a little more was added—"in Paradise." Some have thought that in this phrase Christ was stooping to the conceptions of the penitent thief by using a popular expression for some happy place in the other world.[5] At least the word, which means a garden or park and was applied to the abode of our first parents in Eden, could not but call up in the consciousness of the dying man a scene of beauty, innocence and peace, where, washed clean from the defilement of his past errors, he would begin to exist again as a new creature. Even Christians have believed that the utmost that can be expected in the next world by a soul with a history like the robber's is, at least to begin with, to be consigned to the fires of purgatory. But far different is the grace of Christ: great and perfect is His work, and therefore ours is a full salvation.
This second word from the cross affords a rare glimpse into the divine glory of the Saviour; and it is all the more impressive that it is indirect. The thief, in the most solemn circumstances, spoke to Him as to a King and prayed to Him as to a God.[6] And how did He respond? Did He say, "Pray not to Me; I am a man like yourself, and I know as little of the unknown country into which we are both about to enter as you do"? This is what He ought to have answered, if He was no more than some make Him out to be. But He accepted the homage of His petitioner; He spoke of the world unseen as of a place native and familiar. He gave him to understand that He possessed as much influence there as he attributed to Him. This great sinner laid on Christ the weight of his soul, the weight of his sins, the weight of his eternity; and Christ accepted the burden.
[1] "To-day shalt thou be with Me in Paradise."
[2] So Augustin and many.
[3] Schleiermacher makes much of this; and, indeed, does everything in his power to minimise the moral miracle. The whole sermon is a specimen of his worst manner, when he rides away on some side issue and fails to expound the great central lessons of a subject.
[4] Tholuck.
[5] "In Biblical Hebrew the word is used for a choice garden but in the LXX. and the Apocalypse it is already used in our sense of Paradise."—EDERSHEIM.
[6] The word "Lord" in the robber's speech is, however, unauthentic.