Last year around this time I was reading the crucifixion accounts in the Four Gospels and noticed something I had never seen before.
Read carefully:
Matthew 27:38, 44
Then two robbers were crucified with him, one on the right and one on the left. . . . And the robbers who were crucified with him also reviled him in the same way.
Mark 15:32
Those who were crucified with him also reviled him.
Now read Luke’s account:
Luke 23:32, 39-43
Two others, who were criminals, were led away to be put to death with him. And when they came to the place that is called The Skull, there they crucified him, and the criminals, one on his right and one on his left. . . . One of the criminals who were hanged railed at him, 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.”
So did both criminals revile and rail at Jesus—or only one?
The answer is Yes.
Both men attacked their Maker and King, but one man was changed while doing so.
God often gives preparatory grace before conversion, and I suppose (if asked) I always sort of assumed this was the case here. Both men were sinners; both were guilty of their crimes (probably robbery, perhaps insurrection). But I’ve tended to think that one was harder, one was softer. Perhaps dispositionally one was louder, one was softer. I’m not sure I would have explicitly put it this way, but I sometimes doubt the power of grace and assume that some are more likely to be saved than others.
But notice that according to Matthew and Mark, both men were mocking Jesus. Both were reviling him. Both were wagging their heads. Both used their remaining, dying energy to hurl verbal insult upon the only man who could save them.
But, in an instant, grace broke through.
As God open the one man’s eyes, he saw reality in new ways:
- He saw that God is to be feared in his holiness.
- He saw that he justly condemned for his sin.
- He saw that Jesus was innocent.
- He saw that Jesus was the king, ruling his kingdom from the cross.
- He saw that his only recourse was to appeal to Jesus and his mercy to be remembered in the kingdom.
May God grant each of us to see these truths afresh—whether for the thousandth time or for the first time.
