"Today you will be with me in paradise"

[AI translation] The last words of people who are dying are particularly long remembered by their relatives. Death always has a special sanctity and dignity. The words spoken at such a time are always very solemn, quiet, sincere and untruthful. Jesus spoke seven times on the cross just before he died. All seven times very briefly. It could not be otherwise in the midst of unbearable physical and spiritual suffering. There is no rhetoric in such times, only the bare minimum. But however brief a sentence may be, it is of terrible weight, for it contains almost the whole content of his redemptive work.Of the seven words Jesus spoke on the cross, we will now take only one, the one he said to the crucified man next to him: "Today you will be with me in paradise." How much love, how much overflowing grace, how much power, strength and holiness flow from these words! He himself was tormented by the strangling embrace of approaching death and yet he could give life to a dead soul. He was drinking the last drops of the cup of God's wrath, and yet he was able to offer a cup of grace to a penitent. His hand was nailed to the cross, yet with full power he held in it the key of heaven and opened the gate to let in a repentant soul. Never in all his life on earth was there a moment when his royal power shone through the servile form he had assumed, as when he thus spoke: "Verily I say unto thee, Thou shalt be with me this day in paradise!"
1) Thus Jesus answered the sincere repentance of a miserable man. A moving confession of sin is made there by the cross: one crucified sinful man says to another, "Do you not fear God? For you are under the same judgment! And we are justly punished for our deeds: and this one has done nothing unworthy!" (Lk 23,40-41) I could almost say that this is the hardest thing in a man's life: to descend to the depths where he can honestly say: I am justly under God's judgment! I have been justly punished for my deeds. That is true repentance! That is, when I am unable to gloss over the sin even with a single word, but unapologetically accept the full weight of it. It is not a superficial repentance, which is done only to escape punishment, but without admitting the horror of the sin itself! But a full recognition and acceptance that God is just! I deserve nothing but the most severe punishment!
I think the greatest common sin of our church today, of which we are all individually guilty, is that it has not come to this full repentance! We cannot say with honest faith that "we are justly", that is, rightly, righteously under God's judgment! We still have the thought that we are unjustly, unjustly wronged! And if there is any penitential emotion in us, it is rather to secure for ourselves a sparing from further judgment and wrath. So we even repent from a purely selfish point of view. We still cannot bow humbly under God's justice-doing judgment, we still protest against it! Yet how much grace there is in the historic justice with which God has judged His people, His Church! For us, what this lator said does not apply, "We take the just punishment for our deeds", because if we - we, the Reformed Church, we personally - had taken the just punishment for our deeds, we would not be here! And yet, once a person truly realizes, with the force of reality, that he deserved a punishment far more severe than the one he received, he is filled with gratitude to the mercifully judging God, and in this gratitude he regains his equilibrium, his zest for life, his activity, his orientation, even under the weight of judgment. And God does not lighten this weight until we come to the point of saying, "We deserve it!"
Only under the cross of Calvary can one come to this full repentance: it is under the innocence of Christ that one can truly see one's own sin! It is in seeing His innocent, unjust suffering that the soul is enabled to confess: 'I am justly! Like the torturer, he came to this poignant realization that he was justly, because he saw beside him the One who suffered unjustly! To this repentance Jesus responds: "Today you will be with me in paradise!" Here there is no more reproach, no more accusation. Whatever has gone before is forgiven. It is as if a heavenly light were shining forth from Jesus' words, opening up a new perspective in this utter hopelessness, as if an air of eternity were breathing through his words, giving new life even to the dying body of the soul. It is worth everything, judgment, suffering, death! But it is not only possible to die thus, but also to begin life anew, and it is always only where, in the depth of complete repentance, one receives liberating forgiveness that life can begin again!
2) "Verily I say unto thee: Today you will be with me in paradise." This is how Jesus responded to the trust of a sinful man. On what basis did this wicked man, turning to God in the last moments of his life, dare to ask what he asked to be remembered by Jesus when He comes in His kingdom? Such, then, could only be asked by true faith, by naked, naked faith! When everyone mocks Jesus, scorns Him, mocks Him, when He Himself is at His most miserable, His most miserable, when His divine power is least seen, yet this man, by faith, sees something of that otherworldly power and glory which shines through even the misery of the man of sorrows! This man dares to believe that the miserable, wretched fellow-sufferer here beside him is really the Son of God, dares to believe that he is really the King of Heaven, who is so rich that he can even give him a crumb of it, can even have mercy on him, because he is rich enough!
There was really nothing else on which this sinful soul could rely but the grace of Christ alone! For it was only a few moments before his death that he was saved. Now he had not even time to do any good before he came before God! He can no longer accumulate merit, can no longer glorify his Saviour with a life consecrated to Him, can no longer weep with the weepers, rejoice with the rejoicers, study the Scriptures, or even pray, or meditate on the things of eternity, for his bodily pains will soon rob him of his consciousness. Just a word of confession! A sigh of faith! A short prayer! That is all! That's all he can do! Indeed: if ever a man went into eternity empty-handed, utterly without merit and without any truth of his own, that man went thus! Mere, naked, alone with Jesus - and that was enough! He was not disappointed! Therefore he was not disappointed.
Jesus justified this believer's confidence when He said to him, "Today you will be with me in paradise!" What this means, Brother, is that it's not too late, it can still be for you! And no matter how long you have lived without such faith in Christ, and no matter how long you have lived, you are free to begin to believe in Him now, as this evildoer dared to believe in Him! In fact, let me say, that is the only way you must believe in Him! That is, that nothing counts for salvation, no merit, no virtue, no goodness of my own, no matter what I have suffered, endured, excelled: only the Lord Jesus Himself counts, His grace, His merit! His redeeming death! That is all that matters! That's why you can count on Him, I can count on Him! That is why we must walk the earth already now: working, serving, suffering, loving, forgiving, living as those who have this great promise of grace, that we will be with Christ in Paradise.
3) And how good it will be to die with this promise! For Jesus said, "Today you will be with me in paradise!" He answered the plea of a dying convert. The biggest problem for all of us is death! Our own death, that is our inevitable fate. And we know for sure that our hour will come! It will surely come! It may not be long now. Perhaps unexpectedly, like the thief. No warning of his coming, he just swoops in at once! And then what? The apostle Paul so aptly says, "when our tabernacle on earth shall fall." (2Cor 5,1) Yes, that is the essence, the power, the work of death: it breaks down, it dissolves, it tears apart all bonds. It breaks down, dissolves, breaks the bonds of death, breaks down, breaks down all that is between the body and the soul, between our hearts and the hearts of our loved ones, between ourselves and the work of our lives, between ourselves and the earth. All that has been familiar, tried and tested is left behind and we set off on a road never traveled, which once again looks frighteningly dark. Where will we be when we leave the body? Who hasn't had these thoughts?
And hear what Jesus says to a converted dying man, "Today you will be with me in paradise!" Every word has weight. "Today!" Today!" - so that there is no long, dark road on which the soul who leaves here must wander until, after many hardships, it reaches happiness and rest, but immediately, that way, the departure from here is also the entrance into it. Where to? To paradise!" says Jesus. Paradise in the Bible is the place and state of joy, happiness, innocence, purity, and happiness with God. It is the lost world that Christ's death and resurrection has reopened to us. We don't know much about it, where it is, what it is like, what it is like, but we can know most about it, because Jesus says: "you will be with me in paradise." Together with the glorified Christ! Can there be more? Isn't that enough to know? And that there may be no doubt about it: he even confirms, gives emphasis to his words, "Truly I say to you." Yes: Jesus says to you and to me! To us! To all who look up to Him in repentance, trust and supplication, as He hangs there on the cross!
What a glorious thing is this! You would think hatred and hell would celebrate their triumph over the Son of God. The immeasurable depth of human evil swirls around the cross - but it is only an illusion! In the midst of all this swirling horror, the dying Jesus offers forgiveness and eternal life to an evildoer, a reprobate! And not only then. Even today! For us too!
Come, let us stand in spirit around His cross and express our repentance, our trust, our supplication in this song:
All that has hurt, all that has been hurt,
I myself have brought to Thee;
Lord, for this suffering
My soul burns with guilt.
Deserving a word of reproof
Here I stand, poor me,
And I beseech the grace of thy soul
Shine upon me.
Be my shield and my hope,
When in doubt,
May I carve deep in my heart
Your death on the cross.
Let me look at you, unceasingly,
And when my heart stops,
Let my soul embrace you
To die so: a good death.
(Canto 341, verses 3 and 7)
Amen
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