The Seven Sayings of the Saviour on the Cross-17

6. Here we see the destination of the saved at death.

In his splendid book, The Seven Sayings of Christ on the Cross, Dr Anderson-Berry has pointed out that the word "Today" is not correctly placed in the rendering of our King James version, and that the designed correspondence between the thief’s request and Christ’s response requires a different construction of the latter. The form of Christ’s reply is evidently designed to match in its order of thought the robber’s petition. This will be seen if we arrange the two in parallel couplets thus:

And he said unto Jesus
And Jesus said unto him
Lord
Verily I say unto thee
Remember me
Shalt thou be with me
When thou comest
Today.
Into thy kingdom
In paradise.

By arranging the words thus we discover the correct emphasis. "Today" is the emphatic word. In our Lord’s gracious response to the thief’s request we have a striking illustration of how divine grace exceeds human expectations. The thief prayed that the Lord would remember him in his coming kingdom, but Christ assures him that before that very day had passed he should be with the Saviour. The thief asks to be remembered in an earthly kingdom, but Christ assures him of a place in Paradise. The thief simply asks to be "remembered" ,but the Saviour declared he should be "with him". Thus doeth God abundantly above all that we ask or think.

Not only does Christ’s reply signify the survival of the soul after the death of the body, but it tells us that the believer is with him during the interval which divides death from the resurrection. To make this the more emphatic, Christ prefaced his promise with the solemn but assuring words "Verily I say unto you". It was this prospect of going to Christ at death which cheered the martyr Stephen in his last hour and therefore did he cry, "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit" (Acts 7:59). It was this blessed expectation which moved the apostle Paul to say, I have a "desire to depart and to be with Christ, which is far better" (Phil. 1:23). Not unconsciousness in the grave, but with Christ in Paradise is what awaits every believer at death. Every "believer" I say, for the souls of unbelievers, instead of going to Paradise, pass to the place of torments, as is clear from our Lord’s teaching in Luke 16. Reader, whither would your soul go, if this moment you were dying?

How hard Satan has striven to hide this blessed prospect from the saints of God! On the one hand he has propagated the doleful dogma of soul-sleep, the teaching that believers are in a state of unconsciousness between death and the resurrection; and on the other hand, he has invented a horrible purgatory, to terrify believers with the thought that at death they pass into fire, necessary to purify and fit them for heaven. How thoroughly the word of Christ to the thief disposes of these God-dishonoring delusions! The thief went straight from the cross to Paradise! The moment a sinner believes, that moment is he "made meet to be a partaker of the inheritance of the saints in light" (Col. 1:12). "For by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified" (Heb. 10:14). Our fitness for Christ’s presence, as well as our title, rests solely on his shed blood.