WWUTT 2513 Today You Will Be With Me in Paradise (Luke 23:39-43)

There was a thief who said to Jesus as he hung on his cross, remember me when you come into your kingdom. And Jesus said, I say to you today, you will be with me in paradise. What powerful words when we understand the text.

This is when we understand the text, a daily Bible study in the word of God that we may comprehend with all the saints, how wide, how high and how deep is the love of Christ. Tell all your friends about our ministry at www .wtt .com.

Here once again is Pastor Gabe.

Luke 23:39-43 and the Third Saying of Jesus on the Cross

Thank you, Becky. In our study of the gospel of Luke, we come back to chapter 23. We've been reading this week of the crucifixion of Jesus and we'll finish up the passage that we've been studying. Let me read once again, verses 39 to 43.

Hear the word of the Lord. One of the criminals who were hanged, railed at Jesus saying, are you not the Christ? Save yourself and us. But the other rebuked him saying, 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. And he said, Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom. And he said to him, truly, I say to you today, you will be with me in paradise. This is now the third saying of Jesus regarding his crucifixion that only Luke records.

We don't find it recorded in the other three gospels. The first was an address to the daughters of David in the city of Jerusalem. As Jesus was being led away to be crucified, he addressed those women who were behind him weeping and said to them, do not weep for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children.

And this was with regards to the destruction that would come upon Jerusalem and the temple 40 years after the events that we're reading about here. Next, as Jesus was hung on his cross, he prayed, father, forgive them for they know not what they do.

We considered those words yesterday that we find in verse 34. And again, that unique to Luke's gospel, we don't see it in Matthew, Mark, or in John. And here, this exchange that Jesus has with the criminals that he is hanging between, this is only in Luke's gospel as well.

The Thief's Repentance and Faith in Christ

The thief on one side of him that we refer to throughout history as the good thief. I know that seems a little bit contradictory, but that's how he's often spoken of. The good thief who said, Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.

And Jesus saying to him, truly, I say to you, today, you will be with me in paradise. There have been some doubts about those words that Jesus said and what they really meant. There's also been apocryphal texts that have given a name to this particular thief, though we don't find it in scripture anywhere.

And yet, church history would hold that he has a certain name. So we'll consider those things even as we come to this. But most of all, what these words mean for us, the promise of eternal life that is given to us in Christ is even in this assurance that Jesus gives to this criminal.

So let's come back to verse 39. One of the criminals who were hanged railed at him saying, are you not the Christ, save yourself and us. Now, the other gospels record that the thieves Jesus was hung between did also mock him as well.

In Matthew chapter 27, when we read of Matthew's account of the crucifixion and Jesus being hung between two criminals, it says in verse 44, that the robbers who were crucified with him also reviled him in the same way, just like the chief priests, just like the Romans.

So the robbers that he was hung between also mocked him. Now, does that mean that Luke is in contradiction because one of these criminals obviously defended him and even proclaimed him, Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.

Well, remember once again, that Jesus hung on his cross for six hours. And those two criminals along with him hung at the same time. They lived a little bit longer than he did. He gave up his spirit to the father.

We will read of that next week as we come into the next portion of this passage in Luke 23. But those criminals continued to hang until the Roman guards broke their legs so that they would asphyxiate and die faster.

I don't know if I mentioned this yesterday or not when we were talking about crucifixion, but the way that most people died when they were crucified was asphyxiation. Some of them bled out if the Roman soldier would have pierced a main artery or something like that.

But most of the time, that long suffering that happened on the cross, the criminal would die by asphyxiation. Jesus doesn't die that way. He just gives up his spirit to the father because once again, as he had said, even to the chief priests and the scribes, I have the authority to lay down my life and to take it back up again.

So he gives his life, yields his spirit to the hands of the father. But these criminals that are hanging on either side of him, again, this lasts for six hours. So there may have been at some point when both of them were mocking him.

But then later, as one of those criminals is beholding everything, as he's hearing all that's being said and seeing all that's being done, apparently he has a change of heart. You will recall that even one of the centurions who was there, who had ordered Jesus to be hung on his cross, even he had a change of heart.

We'll get to that next week. Verse 47, when the centurion saw what had taken place, he praised God saying, certainly this man was innocent. Surely this man was the son of God. So in that period of time, even one of these criminals changed his mind about Jesus and saw that he was an innocent man.

He was not guilty of the things that these two thieves were guilty of. They were surely guilty and deserve their condemnation, but Jesus was innocent and did not deserve to be there dying. Yet this criminal was aware that he was gonna come into his kingdom.

And so he asks him, Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom. And you know, that was something that not even the disciples understood in this particular moment. Remember that when Jesus was arrested in the garden of Gethsemane, they all fled.

And that was in fulfillment of prophecy that when the shepherd was struck, the sheep would scatter. And so when Jesus was arrested, they all ran away. The only disciple who is there to witness all of this that is going on is John.

The others are in hiding. The disciples did not understand what all of this meant. Jesus said they wouldn't understand what it meant. He said to Peter, we read this in the previous chapter, when Peter said, I will go with you even to your death.

And Jesus says to him, no, before the rooster crows, you'll deny me three times. The devil has asked to sift you like wheat, but I have prayed for you. So that when you turn again, you will strengthen your brothers.

That was in Luke 22, verse 32. So at this particular time, the disciples aren't even there. They thought Jesus coming into his kingdom meant that he was gonna go into the palace, meant that he was going to raise up an army that was gonna overthrow the Romans.

We've got this emancipator, this King David that has come to us, and Israel is going to be a great empire once again, that all of the nations will cower before. This is the way those prophecies would be fulfilled.

That's what the disciples thought. And yet here is Jesus being hung on a cross. This is not the way that we thought the kingdom of God was going to come in. But apparently this thief understood it. That is wild to think about.

The disciples didn't get it. They were looking for the kind of earthly military advancement that a great kingdom should demonstrate. But even as Jesus was hanging there on his cross, dying, this thief believed he was gonna come into a kingdom and this thief wanted to be part of it.

Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom. And my friends, every one of us, when we come into the kingdom of God, unless Jesus returns before our death, we will come into the kingdom of God the same way.

Now you're a citizen of that kingdom now if you have faith in Jesus Christ, most definitely. As the apostle Paul says to the Philippians in Philippians chapter three, our citizenship is in heaven and from it we await a savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.

So we are citizens of that kingdom now. Set your minds on things that are above where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God, for you have died and are hidden with Christ in God. That's Paul in Colossians chapter three.

So we do have that citizenship now. First John 3, one, how great is the love of the father that he has lavished upon us that we might become the children of God. And so we are, even now we are promised heirs of the kingdom of God with Christ.

But there's a not yet to this. We're already citizens, but we're not yet in that kingdom, right? And on that day, when we come into that kingdom, it will be the same way this thief goes. We will have been unworthy sinners even when we die.

We've been made righteous by Christ certainly, but we were never perfect in life until we come into the presence of God when that sanctification is finally complete and we will be with him in his glorious kingdom forever.

As Paul talks about in first Corinthians chapter 15, we will all be changed. Flesh and blood that we have right now cannot inherit the kingdom of God, but we must be changed and become something else.

And when we come into that kingdom, we will have died imperfect and we will be raised perfect. And so this thief saying, Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom. I hope that's even my last words as I'm dying on my deathbed, that I would say, Jesus, remember me.

Remember me that I may be brought into your kingdom. So again, you have this thief next to Jesus who's mocking him saying, are you not the Christ? Save yourself and us. You know, these thieves actually have names according to church history.

This is entirely apocryphal. It's not in the Bible at all. The good thief, again, I know that's kind of a contradiction, but the good thief, his name is Dismas. And that comes about in the, I believe it's the gospel of Nicodemus, which was written in the third or fourth century.

So that's an apocryphal text, comes hundreds of years later when they give the good thief a name. The bad thief is called Gizmos. And again, all that's just made up. We don't find any of that in the Bible, but these are some of the legends that have kind of developed throughout church history.

Now, Gizmos, if you've ever seen the movie, The Passion of the Christ, if you'll remember in that film, Mel Gibson put in there that after Gizmos mocked Jesus, a raven came and pecked out his eyes. Now, where does that come from?

Well, that comes from an old legend that crows will take the souls of the damned to perdition. That's a medieval tradition that believed that. So sometime in the middle ages, in the medieval times, where they came up with this idea of crows taking the souls to perdition, and so therefore that's what happens with Gizmos.

That was what Gibson was trying to symbolize there with the crow that was pecking out his eyes on the cross. Of course, we don't see that in the biblical narrative anywhere, nor is it said that this man's name is Dizmos, and it's believed that he's the first saint.

So after Jesus dies and goes to heaven, he takes Dizmos with him, and there's even a holiday to commemorate him, one of the feast days, I think it's March 25th or somewhere in there, the Feast of Dizmos.

Again, all of this is apocryphal. We don't find any of this in scripture. It's not necessary to have to believe any of that. But then there are also those who will cast doubt on the words that Jesus said.

He says, truly I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise. Well, some have said, because there's no commas in the Greek. Remember the Gospel of Luke is originally written in Greek. It's been translated into English for us, for our benefit.

But there are those who will say that in Greek, there's no commas. So the statement that Jesus made to this man was really, truly I say to you today, you will be with me in paradise. Not today you will be with me in paradise, but I say to you today.

Now, why would they say that? Why would they interpret the words this way? Because they don't believe that souls go immediately to be with God. There are those, especially of the Hebrew roots movement that will say that there is no soul and body.

We're all just the same. And so we don't really rise to go be with the Lord in glory until the day of resurrection. So when you die, you just kind of enter a stasis and you don't know whether you're alive or dead or anything like that.

You're just unconscious in that state. And it won't be until Jesus raises those bodies from the dead that then we will finally go and be with the Lord in glory and his perfect heaven. But scripture is clear that when the body dies, there is a soul that goes to one of two places, either heaven or hell.

Ecclesiastes 12, seven, even in the old Testament, it says, the dust returns to the earth as it was and the spirit returns to God who gave it. So there is a distinction between body and soul, but whatever we did in the body will affect where our soul goes.

And then of course, there's the promise that even our bodies will be raised and be made imperishable on the last day. The apostle Paul talking about this in first Thessalonians four, the dead in Christ will rise first.

We will be reunited with our souls and then our lowly bodies, Philippians chapter three again, our lowly body will be transformed to be like his glorious body by the power that enables him to subject even all things to himself.

So indeed it is right for us to read because nowhere else in the gospel of Luke did Jesus speak this way. If he was saying, truly, I say to you today, he doesn't say that anywhere else in Luke. So we understand it in this way.

Truly I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise. And this is the purgatory killer right here. Like this man's a thief. If there's anyone who deserves to go to purgatory and have all of his sins burned off for a thousand years, it's this guy.

There is no purgatory. This false doctrine of the Roman Catholic church that when you die, you have to go to a place of fire and have your sins burned off before you can actually be made holy and enter into the place of God.

No, Christ's death is sufficient. There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. And so by faith in Christ, if you die now, you go be with him. There's no purgatory. And right here, Jesus saying to the thief next to him, truly I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise.

Baptism doesn't save. It's by the word of Christ. Should you be baptized? Yes, you must, because it's a command of God. You must also love your neighbor. But this thief can't jump off the cross and be baptized.

And yet Jesus declares of him, today you'll be with me in my kingdom. You've surely heard the clip from Alistair Begg where he's talking about this. Where the thief is there. There he is in the kingdom.

And the angel's looking at him and going, how did you get here? And another angel comes over and says, can you articulate for me the doctrine of justification by faith? The thief says, I've never heard of it.

So they say, have you been baptized? No, I've never been baptized. I didn't even know I was supposed to be. They go through all of these questions. And the angel says, I just don't understand how you could be here.

And finally the thief says, look, the man on the middle cross said I can come. And it's not by anything that we have done that we get there. It's because of what Christ has done for us. Let me make one more point about this before I close.

So I mentioned the thieves are hanging there with Jesus for six hours. This man is dying a criminal. His life is over. Because he did wickedly. And not just sinning and breaking the law of God, which of course is the greater offense, but he had done something that upset the Roman establishment.

So Rome is putting him to death. And it's possible that they were thieves that had stolen from their masters because they were the most common kind of crucifixion in this day, at this day in time. We don't know anything about their background.

I'm just presenting that as a possibility. But it could have been that they were servants, they were slaves who had stolen from their masters. And the sentence for that was death and they would be crucified.

And so these men have stolen, they have done wickedly and now they're suffering punishment, condemnation for this. One thief says to the other, do you not fear God since you are under the same sentence of condemnation?

And we indeed justly, he totally acknowledges his sin. We deserve it. We are receiving the due reward for our deeds. But this man, Christ is innocent. This man has done nothing wrong. The man confesses his own sin.

He confesses Jesus is the Christ, the sinless son of God. And he says to Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom. This man whose life is ending as nothing. Nobody cares about this guy. There's probably, there may not even be anyone there who's weeping for them.

There are people who are weeping for Jesus, but whose family is showing up weeping for these criminals, whose lives have amounted to nothing. They live their lives in such a way that now they're dying at the hands of the Romans, but dying a sentence that they deserve according to this thief that is next to Jesus.

And yet he says to Jesus in his dying moments, remember me when you come into your kingdom. And Jesus assures him that it will be today. Today, you'll be with me in paradise. These six hours that this criminal hung next to Jesus were the best six hours of his entire life.

He's dying. He's suffering. Worst suffering he's ever been through in his life. And it's the best time of his life that he's ever had because he hung next to the savior who promised him eternity. And he believed and was saved.

And my friends, we all go through very, very difficult times, very, very difficult suffering. And yet God can use even that suffering to bring you to himself. As we read in Romans 8 .28, it's the verse in Romans that I'm next preaching on.

Romans 8 .28, we know that for those who love God, all things work together for good for those who are called according to his purpose. Even your darkest moments, God is using to shape something great in you.

And when you come into his kingdom, it will be all the more glorious because you know what God has delivered you from. So rejoice. And may we be able to say together, Lord, please remember me in your kingdom.

Prayer and Closing Benediction

Heavenly father, we thank you for what we've read regarding this thief. Regarding this account that we've heard many, many times before, but how much have we considered ourselves and what we are guilty of, and yet Jesus has saved us from that we may come into the kingdom of God, not as criminals, but as righteous, clothed in the righteousness of Jesus Christ, that we may inherit eternity with him.

Remember us in your kingdom. It's in Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.

You've been listening to When We Understand the Text with Pastor Gabe Hughes. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, Gabe will be going through a New Testament study. Then on Thursday, we look at an Old Testament book.

On Friday, we take questions from the listeners and viewers. Tomorrow, we'll pick up on a Old Testament study, When We Understand the Text.