Comforting and Assuring Words

It was a lovely word of comfort and assurance that our Lord gave the dying thief, when He told him that that very day he would be with Him in paradise.

It was a word of super-abounding grace towards that man and, in a very real sense, must have exceeded all the expectation at what he had asked for in the first place. His original request, you remember, was that the Lord would "remember" him when He came into his kingdom. – or, when He came in His kingdom. In all probability, that man was looking towards the day of resurrection, and to the fulfilment of the Messianic kingdom of this Lord and King in whom he had exercised his faith in a remarkable way. He was not to be disappointed in his request, of course, and we may be assured from the whole narrative of the dying thief that when the resurrection morning comes that man will be among those who rise unto "the resurrection of life". What our Lord also assures that man of, however, is that he isn't going to have to wait until some far-distant time at the end of this world of ours for a blessing to his soul but that right there and then – that very day – his blessedness was to begin with his Lord and his Saviour in paradise. In a very real sense, then, that old penitent thief was permitted to anticipate the knowledge that the Apostle Paul arrives at in his epistle to the Ephesians, namely, that God is able to do "exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think". It should always be a comfort to our hearts to realise that whatever we ask, or whatever we think concerning eternity, both our requests and our thoughts will be outstripped and out measured by what the Lord will finally give to us and grant to us.

It should comfort our hearts, also, to realise that as the Lord knows all about our eternity, He also knows all about our "times".

Just a few hours after our Lord spoke those words to the penitent thief, a request was put to Pontius Pilate by the leaders of the Jewish nation that he would send out a party of his soldiers to break the legs of the three prisoners that had been crucified that day. This was the normal way of bringing death by crucifixion to a comparatively merciful and speedy end. The crucified person's feet rested on a small block of wood, or a sloped platform, on the upright beam of the cross; this helped to bear the weight of the body. If after three or four days the crucified person had not died (and this was normal), the executioner might be inclined to order the breaking of the legs as a merciful measure. When the legs were broken, of course, all support for the body was removed, and as the body collapsed on the cross all remaining vestiges of life were crushed within it. It was excruciating, but swift.

It was not out of any sense of mercy, of course, that the Jewish leaders requested Pilate to have the legs of Christ and the two malefactors broken; they had an entirely different reason. The Bible tells us that the next day was "an high day". In fact, it was the Sabbath of the Passover Feast in Jerusalem. That being the case, then, those leaders of the nation no doubt thought it would be uncomely in the light of their Law to have those crucified men – especially this pretended Messiah – still hanging on their crosses on such an occasion; hence their request.

As we know, of course, when the soldiers came to Jesus He was "dead already". That was a remarkable thing. Even Pilate himself was struck by the information that any one crucified on a cross should have died so soon. The two malefactors, however, were not dead, and so, the soldiers proceeded to break their legs and thus usher them into their respective eternities – that day – that very day! Oh yes, those Jewish leaders were filling up their hearts' desire, to get that one, Jesus of Nazareth, out of their sight that very day – before the Passover Sabbath would arrive the next day. But in filling up their own desire, they but filled up the Saviour's unerring word to that penitent soul – "Verily I say unto thee, today shall thou be with me in paradise". Not tomorrow, or the next day; but today.

It should always comfort our hearts to know that not only is our eternity in God's hands, but all our "times" that but lead us unto that eternal day are there as well.

Undoubtedly the greatest comfort and assurance that the penitent thief must have experienced in his soul, was the realisation from the lips of the Saviour, of what the sum and substance of "paradise" really consisted of. We should realise the same. Our Lord indeed, assured that man that he would be "in paradise"; he assured him that he would be in paradise that very day; but we are never to overlook what stands connected with both of those assurances, and makes them full in all their fulness. Says our Saviour to the penitent thief, "Verily I say unto thee, Today shalt thou be with me in paradise". In paradise, indeed; in paradise that very day; but thou shalt be "with me" in paradise, says our Lord, and that makes it "grace upon grace".

Needless to say, it is a pointless and a fruitless exercise to try and figure-out how the Saviour could be with that penitent thief in heaven that day when He was going to be lying in Joseph of Arimathea's new tomb; or, indeed, preaching to the "spirits in prison", that Peter tells us about. His Omnipresence covers it all, and our souls need not be perplexed for on moment. What that man was to know is what all the saints of God, with the apostle Paul, can rest assured of, namely, that to be "absent from the body", is to be "present with the Lord". The glories of the resurrection are yet to come, but as that same apostle Paul was inspired to tell us, to "depart" this life is to be "with Christ".

There are a few lines in that famous hymn that was woven around the words of Samuel Rutherford that appear puzzling at first glance, but which very readily fall into place in the light of the incident of the dying thief.

Rutherford's own last words explain the lines:- "There is nothing now between me and the resurrection", he said, "but 'This day thou shalt be with me in paradise'." That day his body fell asleep in Jesus until the day of the resurrection, but that day he was to be with Christ in paradise. That's what the penitent was told; that's what all the saints may rest on and stand on.