Luke 23:42 And he said to Jesus, Lord, remember me when you come into your kingdom. It was a wonderful request. What a faith did it exhibit! He recognized a King in the dying Man, and saw that the Cross was the high road to His throne; he felt and proclaimed his own immortality, and knew himself no destructible thing, though the ministry of death was breaking down the fleshly tabernacle; but once assured that he had yet to enter on untried and unlimited destinies, he therefore asked to be remembered when all this sin and suffering should have passed away, and another and a wider range of being should spread before him. And "remember me." He only asked to be remembered; but it was the memory of a King, trod that King Messiah, Lord of the invisible world, in whose chambers he solicited a place; and thus he evinced a thorough faith in the saving power of Jesus. What advantage in the being remembered by Jesus, unless Jesus could procure for him that pardon which He had been asking for His crucifiers? What advantage the being remembered by a king, except that as king he must have authority to portion out allotments of happiness? So that it is no overwrought or exaggerated statement that the dying thief exhibited all the tokens which can ever be demanded of a genuine conversion. There was confession of sin, there was spirituality of mind, there was anxiety for others, there was the fullest recognition of Christ's power to deliver, and there was a mighty faith which, nothing daunted by all the circumstances of apparent helplessness and defeat, were sufficient to confound and overcome distance, sprang beyond the line of death and shame, and seemed to gaze on the palace and the crown; and though he had not an opportunity of showing by an altered life that his heart was renewed, yet his faith in Christ was so stupendous an act, that no one can doubt that, had space been allowed for development, every action would have proved its reality. (H. Melvill B. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: And he said unto Jesus, Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom.WEB: He said to Jesus, "Lord, remember me when you come into your Kingdom." |
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