Special Saturday Edition
Ethan Barton, Pastoral Resident, Tallowood Baptist Church
How do you think people get saved? We may answer that they have to be baptized, or be part of a certain denomination, or vote for the right people, or never commit a certain kind of sin, or believe all the right theological doctrines, or a number of other things. But the first person to ever die as a Christian did none of those. All he did was look at the man on the cross next to him and believe that he was the Messiah who brought God’s salvation. All of his life knew nothing but rebellion and wickedness. But he had faith, he repented, and he was saved.
Those that knew this thief probably saw him as the most hopeless person imaginable. In order to earn the punishment of crucifixion, he likely did something particularly evil—in fact, he had probably been deep in evil for his entire life. That is, until his last few hours. But the grace of Jesus is strong enough even for the most hopeless. Yes, even those most hopeless people today that probably any of us can think of by name; God’s grace is strong enough even for them.
Now, those other things are still important. We should still flee from sin, study God’s Word, and ingrain ourselves in his church. But those things don’t save us. Rather, they are natural outpourings of faith and repentance. If he had been able, the thief on the cross would have gladly done them. But as he was confined to a cross, he wasn’t even able to kneel before his king. Jesus preached about a redemption that reaches even the most lost, and all the lost thief could do was believe.
There’s a fascinating story in Numbers 21 in which the people of Israel were suffering and cried out to God, and so Moses built a bronze snake and set it up on a wooden pole in front of the people. Anyone who looked at it survived and was healed. Jesus has become that for us today. Just as the thief did, all we must do is look upon Jesus, who was hung on a plank of wood, and he will save us from death. What an incredible grace that he saves and redeems even the most hopeless among us! As Jesus says in Mark 1:15, “repent and believe in the gospel!”
