VIII.

THE PENITENT ROBBER.

"And he said, Jesus, remember me when thou comest in thy kingdom. And he said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, To-day shalt thou be with me in Paradise."-Luke xxiii. 42, 43.

The story of the salvation of "the thief on the cross" will always excite in us a deep, deep interest. It is a reasonable interest. It is a healthy interest. Why should it not be? We see unmistakably an instance of death-bed repentance. A man guilty of crime, condemned, crucified, turns to God in the hour and article of death, and begs for mercy. Let us receive the story, and read it, in the spirit and purpose of its place in the Gospel narrative. We ought not straightway to pervert it into a battle-ground of theological debate, and lose sight of its soft light amid the smoke of controversy. It is a Scripture that may be wrested damagingly to sinners. Sure enough. But it was certainly written for the comfort and hope of humanity. Can you think of a different reason why it should be recorded? Is it not meant to magnify the mercy of God? Does it not exhibit His exceeding grace toward men in the Son of His love? Do we not see the heart of Christ opened from its deepest depths, to shelter guilty sinners from the wrath to come?

Consider the very fact that this story of death-bed conversion is found only in the narrative of Luke-in

Luke's Gospel, so felicitously called "the Gospel of humanity." It is very like Luke's style of gathering and reporting the incidents of the Saviour's life. He gives much not found in Matthew, or Mark, or John; and his characteristic narratives are soft and sweet with the pathos of humanity and the tender mercies of the Son of Man. It is Luke alone who tells of the lowly birth of Jesus, and of the bright scene of the boy Jesus in the temple; who records the tears and kisses of the outcast woman, as she knelt at the feet of Jesus in the Pharisee's house; who gives the story of the lost sheep, and the lost piece of money, and the prodigal son; who sets forth the parable of the good Samaritan, and narrates the radical repentance of the publican Zaccheus. And in Luke's Gospel, the Gospel of humanity, in Luke's Gospel only, we have the precious fact of a sinner's conversion, as he died in the agonies of crucifixion. Let us hold to the heart of the story-without controversy, and without perversion. The spirit and power of such a Gospel-that is what we want; so gracious, so pitiful, so saving. We desire to understand it in its positive lights, every line of it, every word of it, every throb of it; and surely if we drink in the full measure of hope there revealed, we shall be none the less prepared for lessons of warning. If, in this salvation of a criminal at the dying hour, in the very presence of Christ, who suffers with him, we feel the warm heart of God in His love for the world, perhaps if the fact strikes us and thrills us through and through with all its truth and power, it may solemnize us, and cause us to see, with mingled gratitude and awe, that, before such a scene, crime-the pains of death-an outcry for mercy-from a prison to Paradise

-the guilt and tears of a poor, undone sinner, and the love and promise of a Saviour, no one, indeed, need to despair, but-no one shall dare to presume.

Who is this criminal? What is his crime? What has brought him to this ignominious and painful death? According to the old version, he was a thief; and so the old hymn runs, "The dying thief." But the Revised Version is more accurate. Not a thief, but a robber. Henceforth, if we would read the Scriptures aright, we must say, "and with him they crucify two robbers; one on his right hand, and one on his left." There is no hair-splitting of words in the change. A thief is a coward, who does his naughty work by stealth, and by petty practices, and tries meanwhile to evade the law. A robber is bold, exhibits a certain open-handed courage, the courage of desperate wickedness though it be, as he defiantly breaks the law.

It was two robbers between whom the Saviour was crucified. They were Jews; and it was their nationality that had been the occasion of their crime. They had become a class in that day, becoming so as they chafed under the bondage of the Roman yoke, heated by patriotic fire, burning to deliver Israel from oppression, and at last driven to some insurrection that made them henceforth outlaws, when they would flee to mountain fastnesses, and live by murder and robbery. Sometimes the robber was "a notable prisoner," as Barabbas; and the Jews deemed it a favor, if some Pilate or Felix, at the Passover feast, would release one of these patriotic ringleaders. Two of these brigands there were, who, no doubt, like Barabbas, "for insurrection and murder had been cast into prison." Barab

bas went forth free; but Jesus was led out, to be crucified-the Son of God on his way to death, heading a strange procession, Simon of Cyrene bearing the cross after the weary Saviour, followed by a great multitude of the people, and of women in tears and lamentations, while close to Him, bearing their own crosses, were "two others, malefactors, led with him to be put to death.

The Saviour of the world, obedient unto death, yea, the death of the cross, and two robbers dying with Him, one on the right hand, the other on the left, one of these repenting at the door of death-this is the scene and the study before us. There are heights and depths about it that we might not suspect, if we did not look it carefully over. The time was short, only a few hours; but time may bring its crisis, in which a man's life may be filled with the significance of eternity. That one hour is as threescore and ten years, and threescore and ten years as one hour. What a man then sees, hears, knows and feels, crowds his whole life together, and shows him, in the electric light of truth, what he is, and what he ought to be. All the past stands out uncovered in the glare of conscience, and what the man has been doing, and what he has made of himself by his deeds, the totality of his habits and character, will now decidedly and decisively affect his destiny. It will make all the difference imaginable whether he is hardened in heart or not. The day will declare what he is in feeling, and to no person more unmistakably than to himself. He is bound to act himself out completely in this last scene of the drama of life. It is not a whim whether or not a wicked man will repent on his death-bed. It is not accidental one

way or the other. dread of Hell. desire of Heaven.

It

It is something more than a slavish is something more than a selfish The reality of life, the realness of that man's life, its inmost heart, all that makes him responsible before the judgment of God, will be revealed in a noontide light without a cloud.

It was such a crisis for those two robbers on the cross. Let us remember there were two of them—one of them penitent, the other impenitent. For we must properly follow Luke's record as both full and exact. The statement of Matthew and of Mark, that both of the robbers reproached Jesus, we must receive in the light of a free literary classification, where neither of the writers, as Luke, had any purpose of discrimination in narrating the repentance of one of the malefactors. In Luke's narrative, alone giving the repentance of one of them, giving it fully and minutely, we see revealed the inmost heart of the poor robber; we see a repentance not whimsical, not accidental, not sentimental, but thoughtful and strong and humble and prayerful beyond a doubt. All this we want to get before us, that we may magnify the mercy of God, while we verily show how dangerous is any presumption on the sinner's part.

Five significant facts shine out in the penitent robber's speech. They show how intelligent and wholehearted his repentance was.

"And one

I. He had a wholesome fear of God. of the malefactors which were hanged railed on him, saying, Art thou the Christ? save thyself and us. But the other answered, and rebuking him said, Dost thou not even fear God, seeing thou art in the same condemnation?" Mark the railing words, as they broke