Two criminals were crucified with Christ. One was saved; do not despair. One was not; do not presume. ~Augustine
You can find just about anything on the Internet you’re looking for anymore. Every day the information available with a few keystrokes and the click of a mouse only widens. And with the increase of information, every once in while you’re bound to stumble upon something you weren’t looking for.
Yesterday, I was looking up Augustine’s words quoted above and what I found caught me by surprise and puzzled me at the same time. A religious website, which has all of a sudden disappeared, states, “As St. Augustine put it: ‘Don’t despair, the good thief was saved. Don’t presume, the bad thief was not.'”
That is not offensive. It’s gospel-less. And that’s not quite how Augustine put it. Actually, the website has it all backwards.
What makes us so prone to want to rob the gospel of its punch? If the gospel doesn’t offend you, it’s not the gospel. If you listen that is.
The account of the thief a few breaths shy of passing from life to the inevitable fright of the next and picked up off the mat at the bell deals a deathblow to the notion that we must do something to be rescued from the devastating and eternal consequences of our personal sins. In other words, living a respectable life can’t save a flea.
There are those who wish to make the redeemed criminal—a good thief. And the criminal who wasn’t spared the everlasting torment that awaited him—a bad thief. A good thief, hmm, that’s an oxymoron if there ever was one. Thieves aren’t angels, they are thieves, last I heard.
I have a hunch as to why it’s important to twist the story and make a criminal who simply turned to Christ, good. We want at least one shred of something, no matter how minute, to offer God—we want to give him a hand in redeeming our unredeemable souls. And that is why a dirty thief who gets grace, having done nothing good to merit grace and not a snowballs chance in hell to earn his way to God—irratates us to the nth degree.
Both thieves on crosses beside Jesus were on deaths doorstep and an earshot from the Savior, in the presence of Salvation and an arms length from damnation. One thief knew who he was a rat and could smell the smoke. He saw Jesus as the Light. The other thief refused to own his darkness and turned to curse Jesus. He saw Jesus as a common thief. The bad thief was right and the good thief was wrong. One realized he was hopeless, the other was so full of himself he couldn’t recognize the Son of God. One embraced grace while the other despised it. Read the text.
One of the criminals hanging beside him scoffed, ‘So you’re the Messiah, are you? Prove it by saving yourself—and us, too, while you’re at it!’ But the other criminal protested, ‘Don’t you fear God even when you have been sentenced to die? We deserve to die for our crimes, but this man hasn’t done anything wrong.’ Then he said, ‘Jesus, remember me when you come into your Kingdom.’
And Jesus replied, ‘I assure you, today you will be with me in paradise.’ ~Luke 23:39-43, NLT
They’ll always be those with itching ears who’ll find preachers repulsive who preach and treasure the gospel—like the “good” thief on the cross, they’ll ridicule Jesus and those who trust in his grace ’till the cows come home.
It should go without saying that the masses want a religion which ultimately makes them feel good about themselves, not about God. And that’s what religion is about—good thieves getting the short end of the stick makes no good sense.
Mark Driscoll says, “The problem with religion is this: It leads to pride or despair. Pride meaning, I feel like I did enough. Despair meaning, I don’t think I did enough. Religion never leads to hope, confidence, joy and peace—because the assumption is you need to do something that God will love you. Likewise, vague spirituality and the assumption that you are good enough is nothing more than pure pride. Furthermore, it is an absolute sense of overriding self-righteousness that you look at all the people and just assume you’re better than most. That is the pinnacle of arrogance.”
Those who rely on their works as some sort of badge of honor to present God with ought to consider the thief who couldn’t do a thing to be saved. Because, in the end, there’s not a single thing any of us can do to save ourselves.
Deathbed conversions say more than what appears to the naked eye, it doesn’t mean just wait until you’re dying to turn to Christ. Deathbed conversions speak to our self-righteousness more than anything. We’re all good thieves at best, and in the grand total, that’s not gonna be good enough.
Religion might need a good thief, but it’s only the real thieves that Jesus reaches out and saves.
Hi Ken,
This one is very thought provoking. Latin is funny in the sense that the syntax is often backwards to English, so the Catholic translators above may have a leg to stand on with their watered down translation. However my heart tells me that the translation you picked is the only one that really makes sense.
The reason that people are so quick to arrive at the gospel-less version is that most, nearly all, religious people are operating from the flesh, they have never ventured into the realm of the Spirit which Jesus opened up for us all. So when a person is looking at things from a fleshly perspective all of the solutions they find are flesh based. Therefore to a fleshly person you must be good to be saved, to them there are no other alternatives, and the scandalous grace which Jesus exhibited wherever He went is a “mystery” too deep to fathom.
The sad part is that Jesus wants them to fathom these things, which they are so busy refusing. He wants them to seek Him in the Spirit and learn from Him. Not the shallow knowledge of the rational, but the deep understanding from the Spirit. We are not to spend our whole lives just doing what makes sense, because what He did seldom “makes sense” in fleshly terms.
So in Spiritual terms there is nothing wrong with God having mercy on a death bed convert. He is a God of mercy and He loves us. He also has the advantage over us in that He knows if the heart of the last minute convert is sincere, He cannot be fooled. And so what if the death bed convert is grasping at the chance of life over the certainty of death, did not Jesus do what He did to offer us life freely? If He throws a life ring to a drowning man what is that to us? Are we not revealing our contempt for those whom the Lord is choosing, and revealing our small mindedness and our narrow, non-Spiritual attitudes? In the language of His parables the last minute converts are the laborers who were hired late in the day. It makes perfect sense in the light of the things He has told us.
If we only look at what Jesus did in rational, human terms we are building a false image of Jesus which is in no way accurate. This false image would be a Jesus who always agrees with us, who approves of our every whim.
But the Jesus of the gospels, is a person who changed everything, who is teaching us to abandon our own understanding and seek His Spirit and wisdom. Only He can teach us His ways and lead us to walk in them. There is no human, rational equivalent.
I think the translation I quoted is the most widely accepted version of the quote, and like you, having read a little bit of Augustine, it makes the most sense. The translation I pick apart just goes counter to Augustine’s thought, as far as I can decipher. Your point about the laborers who came in late is spot on, who of us can boast if we were brought in at 3pm and labored moreso, we should just be thankful we were brought in at all and honored we were able to labor all the more.
just for kicks, here’s one more version of the quote I think is helpful… “There is one case of death-bed repentance recorded, that of the penitent thief, that none should despair; and only one, that none should presume.”
Hi Ken,
The “good” thief was anything but good and that just proves the power of God’s mercy as no other Scripture verse does.
What I found most compelling is that two gospels state that BOTH thieves were shouting curses to Jesus. Only here in Luke does it speak of the thief who asked Jesus to remember him.
Jesus said that no one can come to the Father except through him. He also said that no one comes to him except those that the Father calls. How amazing is grace? Somewhere in that three or so hours that it took that thief to die, the Father unveiled the eyes of a lost thief to know the Savior beside him!
This man probably led his whole life doing evil, never was a member of a church and certainly not baptized. (All the criteria of the Catholic Church to be saved) Yet, as he was near death, he stopped his cursing and asked Jesus to remember him in the kingdom. Imagine the love of our Savior, dying a painful death, rejected and alone, who turned to the man once cursing him and to say, ‘Today, you will be with me in Paradise!” This defies all the logic and understanding that we have in our finite minds. What kind of love is this? The thought of it humbles me to the ground in gratitude. Who can boast of anything?
I’ve read your comment a couple times now Marianne, I may be borrowing one or two of your thoughts, hope you don’t mind my doing so. Always appreciate your comments and encouragement.
As side note, I just got myself my own apartment and wish I could afford to adopt one of those dogs you post on FB… the rent’s gonna be a stretch unfortunately. Maybe one day.
Ken, keep up the good work. We’ll get you a little furry friend one day when you are able! Just want you to know that I pray for you!! (sorry about all the dog pics, I am a hopeless dog rescuer!!)
thank you, the prayers mean a lot.