"Well, what
about the thief on the cross? he wasn't baptized, and he went to heaven."
How often have our brethren been confronted with this assertion when
emphasizing the doctrine that without baptism no man or woman can be saved in
the kingdom of God. The elder thus assailed generally answers the objection by
proving from the words of the risen Redeemer to Mary that he did not go to
heaven, therefore the thief did not. But suppose the objector could prove that
the penitent thief did go to heaven, what proofs has he that the thief had not
been baptized? Most certainly the scripture does not say so.
Now it is not our
purpose to affirm that the thief was baptized, our argument is simply that
taking the scriptures alone, the weight of testimony is in favor of that
proposition. Let us first examine the writings of the evangelists.
Matthew, Mark and
Luke give more than the customary details when they narrate the ministry of
John, the forerunner of the Messiah. Matthew says:
In those days came
John the Baptist, preaching in the wilderness of Judea, and saying, Repent ye:
for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. * * * Then went out to him Jerusalem, and
all Judea, and all the region round about Jordan, and were baptized of him in
Jordan, confessing their sins. But when he saw many of the Pharisees and
Sadducees come in his baptism, he said unto them, O generation of vipers, who
hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bring forth therefore fruits
meet for repentance. (Matt. 3:1, 2, 5-8)
Mark confirms
Matthew's testimony in the following words:
John did baptize in
the wilderness, and preach the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins.
And there went out unto him all the land of Judea, and they of Jerusalem, and
were all baptized of him in the river of Jordan, confessing their sins. (Mark
1:4-5).
Luke also testifies
with regard to John's reproof to many of those who sought baptism at his hands:
Then said he to the
multitude that came forth to be baptized of him, O generation of vipers, who
hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bring forth therefore fruits
worthy of repentance. (Luke 3:7, 8).
From these passages
we learn that "all the land of Judea, and they of Jerusalem," to use
the language of Mark, or, to quote the words of Matthew, "Jerusalem, and
all Judea and all the region round about Jordan" went out to John and
"were baptized of him in Jordan, confessing their sins." That all
sorts of conditions of men went out is evident from the fact that members of
the two great contending religious factions of the Jews—the Pharisees and
Sadducees—are particularly mentioned, and they and their following would
embrace by far the greater part of the Jewish people. Now, allowing that all
can be asked for oriental exaggeration or hyperbole (if the writers of the
Gospels need any such allowance), when the inhabitants of all Jerusalem,
Judea, and the regions round about are said to have been baptized, we must
reasonably admit that the great majority of the people received this ordinance.
And if this be the case why should we assert that the thief was one of the few
that were not baptized, when there is not the least warrant in other parts of
the scriptures for that assertion? To the contrary, we esteem the testimony of
Luke with regard to his conduct on the cross as strong presumptive evidence
that, though a malefactor and a sinner, the thief was or had been a member of
the church. Let us read and consider Luke's statement:
And a superscription
also was written over him in letters of Greek, and Latin, and Hebrew, THIS IS
THE KING OF THE JEWS. And one of the malefactors which were hanged railed on
him, saying, If thou be Christ, save thyself and us. But the other answering
rebuked him, saying, Dost not thou fear God, seeing thou art in the same
condemnation? And we indeed justly; for we receive the due reward of our deeds;
but this man has done nothing amiss. And he said unto Jesus, Lord, remember me
when thou comest into thy kingdom. And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto
thee, today shalt thou be with me in paradise. And it was about the sixth hour,
and there was a darkness over all the earth until the ninth hour. (Luke 23:
38-44).
Here we have in the
expressions of this poor culprit a most sublime manifestation of faith in the
person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. Search the scriptures through, from
beginning to end, and we believe no nobler example can be found of unwavering
faith. Let us think of the conditions. Jesus, his companion in humiliation and
suffering, was hanging on a cross by his side, condemned as a criminal, if
not as a traitor; all the hopes that he had held out to his disciples crushed
and vanished. Apparent failure of the completest kind was closing his life's
work, and a death of torture, intensified by ignominy and insult, was the end
of all the promises he had made to his followers as the King of Israel and the
Savior of mankind. Yet in this the darkest of all dark hours, when himself
racked with the torments of the cross, this poor offender raised his protest
when the other thief reviled, and defended the character of Christ as best his
circumstances permitted. His very question, "Dost not thou fear God?"
shows that he himself did, even though he had fallen into transgression. His
confession—"we indeed die justly: for we receive the reward of our deeds,
but this man hath done nothing amiss"—proves that he had repented of his
own sins, and that he was not a believer in the many charges brought against
the Savior. Then turning to Jesus he said, "Lord, remember me when thou
comest into thy kingdom." Here in the midst of circumstances the most
untoward, the most disheartening, he recognizes Jesus, as "Lord," and
asks Him for remembrance when He comes into His kingdom.
Where did this man
learn to acknowledge Jesus as Lord? When and where had he received the
assurance of the coming and perpetuity of his kingdom? whence did he obtain his
un- quenchable faith, that shone amid the overwhelming darkness, when even the
apostles were thinking of "going a fishing?" (John 21:3).
He had not learned these things nor acquired this faith as he hung upon the cross. It was not a sentiment of momentary growth. No, it was strong and enduring, and shows that though a backslider and a culprit, he had been a disciple, or at least a believer. Then, the answer of the Redeemer gives further strength to the idea that he was a member of the church: "Verily I say unto thee, Today shalt thou be with me in paradise." It was an answer of recognition, of consolation and of hope. Jesus did not speak to him as a stranger, did not announce to him any principle of the gospel, or suggest faith and repentance; but he gave him the most gracious of all promises, that that very day he should be with Him, his Lord, in the world beyond the grave.
And where did Jesus that day go? We know from his statements to Mary three days later that he had not yet ascended to his Father. If the place where God dwells, as we all believe, is heaven, then he did not go to heaven, and if the thief went with him, he did not go there either. Therefore, when Jesus said paradise, if he did say paradise, he did not mean heaven. But we know from the testimony of Peter the apostle one place where Jesus did go. He went to a prison in the spirit world, where the antediluvians, who had rejected the preaching of the gospel by Noah, and others of a like kind were held in bondage. But was that the only place where Jesus went during the three days his body was in the tomb? On this point the scriptures are silent, but we think the inference is consistent that He visited other parts of the spirit world besides the prison in which the rebellious antediluvians were confined. Jesus said, in my father's house are many mansions; and of all those mansions, did He only enter one, and that one, we may believe, the lowest, the darkest of all? Indeed, we suggest that the prophecies regarding the work of the Savior could not be fully fulfilled without he did go elsewhere. Isaiah says: "The spirit of the Lord God is upon me; because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek: he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound" (Is. 61: i). "That thou mayest say to the prisoners, Go forth; to them that are in darkness, Show yourselves" (Is. 49: 9). "To open the blind eyes, to bring out the prisoners from the prison, and them that sit in darkness out of the prison house" (Is. 42: 7).
These prophecies
received only a very partial fulfillment if the prison of the antediluvians was
the only place in which He ministered. The deliverance promised the captives,
the opening of the prison to those that were bound, was something more than the
preaching the way of deliverance, through faith and repentance, to these once
hardened sinners. To fulfill the prophecies in all their glorious intent, the
deliverance promised must be one nigh at hand, not a conditional one, at best
afar off. It must be the flinging wide open of the prison gates that those who
were prepared to come out into the light of day could do so. We are told by the
sacred historians that many, both on this continent and at Jerusalem, rose from
their graves immediately following the resurrection of Christ and were seen by
many (Matt. 27: 52; III. Nephi 23: 6-12). Are we not justified in believing
from the teachings of the modern servants of God that these could not have
taken their bodies from the grave without Christ had carried to them the keys
of the resurrection. If this be so, when did He visit them? It could not have
been before His death; it was not after His resurrection, for they arose
practically at the same time; therefore He must have visited them while His
body lay in the sepulchre.
Now we do not assert
that the penitent thief was resurrected. Of that we are in entire ignorance,
but we do not think that he went with Christ to the region where the ante-
diluvians were imprisoned. We hold this opinion for two reasons. In the first
place, the thief did not need to have faith and repentance preached to him. He
already had the strongest faith in Christ and his mission and he had repented
and confessed his wrong-doing. In the second place this prison does not agree
with our conceptions of paradise nor with the description given of it in Holy
Writ. Alma (who, we must remember, lived before the advent of the Savior, and
consequently his description directly applies to the righteous then dead) says:
The spirits of those
who are righteous, are received into a state of happiness, which is called
paradise; a state of rest; a state of peace, where they shall rest from all
their troubles and from all care, and sorrow, &c. (Alma 40: 12).
Nephi also speaks in
the same strain, (II. Nephi 9: 13).
In neither of these passages can we draw the slightest inference that any but the righteous inhabited paradise, or that it in the least degree resembled a prison where the spirits of the wicked were confined. But it is possible we have a strained translation of the original Greek word, given us as paradise, and that to be absolutely correct all the Savior's promise to the thief amounted to was that that day he should be with Him in the spirit world. Let this be so and we are still justified in believing that the Savior took the penitent malefactor to that part of the world beyond mortality for which, according to the condition of his mind and heart, he was, at the time of his death, most fitted. (George Reynolds, "The Thief on the Cross," Improvement Era 1, no 4. [February, 1898]: 225-30)
Further Reading
"Does the Thief on the Cross Refute
Baptismal Regeneration," in my book, "Born of Water and of the
Spirit": The Biblical Evidence for Baptismal Regeneration, pp. 18-23
(for those who want a PDF for free, drop me an email at
ScripturalMormonismATgmailDOTcom)
