Today You Will Be With Me In Paradise Series

Perhaps it was Pilate’s orders. Maybe He thought this added insult would please those who he had decided to please with this unjust penalty. Maybe he thought if Jesus loved sinners so much he ought to die in between two of them.

Maybe this particular arrangement was the idea of the Jewish officials who had contrived the whole thing. Maybe, they wanted to leave a lasting impression that these were the only kind of people over whom this imposter-messiah reigned as king.

In any case this placement was a fulfillment of prophesy, for Isaiah had said that the Messiah would be “ number WITH the transgressors.” ( Isaiah 53: 12) God had decreed that He was MOST holy should die with those who were most UNHOLY.

Irwin Lutzer puts it this way, “ Jesus not only died AMONG criminals but was numbered as ONE of THEM, and therein lies the heart of the Gospel. God had His reasons for decreeing that Jesus should gracelessly hang between two thugs. He wanted to demonstrate the depths of shame to which His Son was willing to descend. At His birth Jesus was surrounded by beasts and now, in His death, by criminals.”

This should help us to realize how wrong we would be to say that God has stayed aloft from the brokenness of our fallen world! By no means in fact, He has descended to the depths so that we might ascend with Him to newness of life. He has come down to lift us up.

Well in verse 39, it says that one of the thieves climaxed their back and forth barrage of insults by saying, “ Are you not the Christ? Save yourself and us.” When he said this Jesus was silent. He gave no come back-just as Isaiah had also prophesied, “He was oppressed and afflicted yet He did not open His mouth.” (Isaiah 53:7) Jesus did not answer the taunting question that this first criminal had sarcastically posed.

But Luke says THE OTHER did. The OTHER answered. Now in Greek text the word “other” literally implies “ other of a different kind.” The scripture says in the being he was numbered with those who were shouting abuse including his partner and the others, so He was the same as them. But now he is being considered as one of another kind. I believe at this time he is being changed. He was becoming different because he told his compatriot , “ What’s the matter with you? Don’t you even fear God, since you’re under the same sentence of condemnation? Don’t you realize that we’re getting what we deserve, but this man is innocent?”

In other word, there came a point when one thief’s taunting turned to silence and silence turned to awareness and awareness turned to repentance.I guess as he watched Jesus, suffering all that abuse patiently, never reviling or insulting His tormentors, This thief began to see that the man on the center cross was indeed who He claimed to be. And when he did the thief turned to our Lord and said the most important sentence of his life, “ Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.”

I want you to know that in the Greek it is the imperfect tense. If you remember our first lesson we explained it is used to indicate repeated action in the past. So, this thief made this request to Jesus more than once. As he saw Jesus’ life and his own ebbing away, he prayed “ Remember me! Remember Me! Jesus, remember me when you come into Your Kingdom.”