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What Did the Thief Know?
What Did the Thief on the Cross Know?
There is a video circulating about how the thief “made it” to heaven despite what he did not do or know: “He never had been in a Bible study, had never been baptized, and didn’t know a thing about church membership”.
His overall point is righteous, that when we go to heaven if we are asked why we should be let in, that if we answer in the first person – “because I had faith, because I was baptized” – then we are wrong.
I understand the point, but taken too far, and one can be saved without faith, with even knowing!
But do we underestimate what the thief knew?
Notice Luke 22:40-42 – But the other answered, and rebuking him said, “Do you not even fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we indeed are suffering justly, for we are receiving what we deserve for what we have done; but this man has done nothing wrong.” And he was saying, “Jesus, remember me when You come in Your kingdom!”
What did the thief know?
1. The thief knew unrepented sinners need to be rebuked.
2. The thief knew there was a God who viewed condemnation for crimes as just.
3. The thief knew God should be feared.
4. The thief might have even confessed Jesus’s divinity since he said the two thief were under the same condemnation.
5. The thief knew Jesus was to be a king.
6. The thief knew Jesus’s kingdom was coming.
7. Thief knew Jesus had the right to grant access into his kingdom.
8. The thief knew Jesus would live even though he would die.
Now does this sound like the thief had never heard of Jesus before? Most likely, the thief had been a former faithful disciple of either John the Baptist or Jesus. And if he had been, based on everything he knew, can anyone say with certainty, “He never had been in a Bible study, had never been baptized, and didn’t know a thing about (kingdom) membership”?
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