Opening illustration: If you were to look at Rembrandt’s painting of The Three Crosses, your attention would be drawn first to the center cross on which Jesus died. Then as you would look at the crowd gathered around the foot of that cross, you’d be impressed by the various facial expressions and actions of the people involved in the awful crime of crucifying the Son of God. Finally, your eyes would drift to the edge of the painting and catch sight of another figure, almost hidden in the shadows. Art critics say this is a representation of Rembrandt himself, for he recognized that by his sins he helped nail Jesus to the cross.
Let us turn to Luke 23 and catch up with the story of the three crosses and the ones they were ascribed to … what they mean to us will help us relate to each one of them in our lives … Let us ponder, retrospect and reflect to see whether we can see ourselves in any one of them.
Introduction: People never cease to amaze us. One area of fascination, to us at least, is the way in which people view themselves and God. There are those (few) who say there is no God, but these are few I think. The majority of folks believe there is a God, and yet find a way to avoid Jesus Christ as either Savior or Lord. If some of these folks were honest, they would say they have rejected the claims of Christ, not because He claimed to be God and not because He was not God. Their reason, I think, would be because they believe that man is not nearly as bad as God’s Word says, nor is God is not nearly as good as His Word says. Put even more crassly, they would say that man is kind, compassionate, and good, while God is cruel and evil.
It is said that man may, from time to time, deviate from his intrinsic goodness, but this may be explained by a bad background, or a bad environment, and certainly by bad institutions. God, on the other hand, has a lot of explaining to do. If God is both good, and powerful, and all-knowing, then why is there so much suffering to be seen, and much of it happening to the innocent? What of the heathen in Africa, who are destined to hell, yet have never heard the name of Christ or of Christianity? What of the children who die cruelly at the hand of disease, war, or abuse? No, many will have nothing to do with a God who fails to “rise” to the level of their expectations and demands. “If that is the kind of God who is there,” they would tell us, “then I don’t want anything to do with Him.” They would rather eternally protest in hell, with other good folks, than to live in heaven with God, and with hypocritical saints.
This kind of thinking is not only popular - whenever men are honest enough to admit to it - but it is also dead wrong. When we come to the crucifixion of our Lord, all would have to admit that this is, without question, the worst moment in the life of our Lord. We all justify our own unacceptable actions by saying that, “it was a bad time for me” or something similar. Surely, if there was ever a “bad time” for Jesus, when acting out of character would have been understandable, it would have been at this point in His life. And yet what we will find is that even at this moment, Jesus continued to act fully “in character.” This incident, on the road to Calvary, and then at the sight of the crucifixion itself, reveals both God and man as they truly are. It exposes man as incredibly cruel, and God as amazingly kind and compassionate. It is man who is evil, and God who is good, not only in this text but everywhere in the Bible, and throughout all of life as well. Let us look at our text with this in focus.
What do we learn from the 3 crosses @ Calvary?
1. Cross of Rejection (v. 39)
Let us keenly look at some important things about the thief on this cross ~
• Did not admit his guilt
• Did not want to admit that he was wrong
• He was just mad that he got caught
• Has only worldly sorrow
• Apparently no sorrow at all for offending God and sinning against Him
• He is sorry that he got caught red-handed
The Bible tells us of worldly sorrow in: 2 Corinthians 7: 10; James 1: 15; Romans 6: 23.
• Here is a man reaping what he is sowing and doesn’t like it
• All his life he only sowed in the flesh (Galatians 6: 8)
Observe this thief’s skepticism and unbelief ~
• He says to Jesus, “If Thou be Christ …” The devil was talking. Remember Matthew 4: 3 and Genesis 3: 1
• Behind every skepticism and unbelief you will find the devil behind that door.
• He is the author of confusion
• He desires people to doubt God’s Word, specially the act of salvation so that they would end up at the same destination he is going – hell! (2 Thessalonians 2: 11; John 8: 44)
• Hebrews 11: 6 tells us how we are to come to Christ
• Revelation 21: 8 tells us the eternal destiny of unbelievers
Observe the lack of humility ~
• Luke 23: 39 tells us how he railed on Jesus
• He used reproaches, scoffed and insolent language
• Isn’t this what happens most of the time when you try to witness for Christ
• His pride was already declaring his destination
• Pride goes before a fall
• He needed God desperately but rejected Him blatantly
• James 4: 6 tells us that “… God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble.”
• Pride is what sends a person to hell
• Attitude of a prideful heart: “I don’t need God, I can save myself.”
• On this cross of rejection hung the unrepentant thief
• He had no guilt or shame for his wrong doings
• He did not believe in God or …
• He had no humility for his predicament
• He condemned Christ and all others around him
• He was selfish by asking Christ to come down from the cross and save him (physically, even after his wrong-doings)
2. Cross of Repentance (v. 40-42)
Let us keenly look at some important things about the thief on this cross ~
• He feared God. ‘Fear of God is the beginning of wisdom.’
• He had Godly sorrow
• He knew that God controlled his destiny
• He knew that God was judge of all things
• He realized that he was a condemned man with no earthly way out
• Acknowledgement of one’s sin is the first step of getting saved
• A person must first acknowledge that they are a sinner
• He acknowledged that he deserved this sentence
• He clearly understood that he was reaping what he sowed
• He was sorry for his sin, not that he got caught but because he sinned against God
• He acknowledged that Christ did not deserve to be on the cross for His Goodness
• He recognized Jesus’ sinlessness
• He admitted he was a sinner and deserved to die
Steps of someone getting saved ~
• Praised God
• Turned to the Cross of Christ for his redemption
• Called Jesus Lord! (title of deity)
• Romans 10: 9-10 “… whoever calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved.”
• Was not skeptical or doubt Jesus Christ
• He came to Christ humbly, admitted his sin, accepted the sentence of death and cried out to God for mercy
• John 1: 12 says, “But as many as received Him … even to them that believe on His Name.”
3. Cross of Redemption (vs. 32-38, 43)
• To redeem means ‘to buy back’
• Jesus buys back from the slave market of sin, eternal death to everlasting life
• God demands even more than perfection and punishment. He also demands a price be paid
• When we look at our ruined lives we can see that we no longer belong to God, we belong to Satan
• The redeeming work of Christ – Romans 3: 24; Galatians 3: 13; Colossians 1: 14 & 1 Peter 1: 18
• Jesus’ response to the thief on the cross of repentance – v. 43 (Paradise = Good News!)
• Only Christ in Christianity can make that promise because it is based on the man on that third cross – the cross of redemption
• The Redemption relates to the purification and healing of Humanity
• It is usually interpreted to mean that by the death of the Master there was something accomplished for humanity which had as its resultant the Forgiveness of Sin
• For He is believed to have wrought out Salvation for the race, delivering all Souls from the just judgments of the Divine Righteousness by satisfying something in the Divine Nature, thus reconciling the race to GOD
• Our only hope would be to find someone able to pay a price in exchange for our souls
• That is not so hopeless as it sounds, because there is such a one. It is Jesus, and the price is his blood
• Jesus does not have to give anything in exchange for his soul, because he is perfect
• So when he gave his own precious blood, God deemed that a suitable price so to cancel Satan’s claim upon us, if we wish
• Thus the severity of God falls upon Jesus, and the goodness of God falls upon us
Application: There were many forms which the rejection of Jesus took, as seen there at the cross of Christ, but all of them were cruel. They all had this in common. And they had other elements in common as well. They all rejected Christ as what He Himself claimed to be, the “King of the Jews,” the “Messiah,” the “Son of God.” They rejected Jesus as what He claimed to be. And this rejection was not based on the fact that Jesus was guilty of any sin, or even of any crime, but rather of failing to meet men’s expectations of how Messiah should - indeed, how Messiah must - perform in order to be accepted. All of those present at the cross who rejected Jesus insisted that if He were the Messiah, He should first of all save Himself. What they failed to grasp was that the only way He could save others was not by saving Himself, but by giving up His life, as the once-for-all sacrifice for the sins of men. He was innocent, but He died in the sinner’s place, so that the sinner might be forgiven. Jesus may not have acted in accordance with men’s expectations or demands, but He did act in the only way possible to save sinners, by His substitutionary death, in the place of the sinner, bearing his, or her, punishment.
What then of those who say they reject God and His salvation, because God is really cruel, while man is really kind? They are ignorant. More than this, they are blinded—blinded by Satan, who keeps men from seeing things as they are, and thus justifying their own sin, they pave the way for their own destruction (cf. 2 Corinthians 4:4). It is only as the Spirit of God enlightens the minds of lost men, and as He quickens them to repent of their sin and to believe on the sinless Son of God and to accept His compassion, that men can be saved. Have you acknowledged your cruelty, your sin—and His kindness? I urgently must tell you that the kindness of God has limits. It is limited to a period of time in which men are given the opportunity to repent and to believe. And then, it will consummate in the wrath of God, such as that of which Jesus spoke to the women of Jerusalem, such as that which God brought on Jerusalem through the wrath of the sinful Roman army. The final outpouring of God’s wrath is yet to come, and it will be experienced by men for all eternity, if they reject the salvation which Christ made possible on the cross of Calvary. Will you receive Christ and His salvation today?
