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Remember me (Luke 23:42)

10/28/2017

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Ironically, I believe the thief that spoke these words to Christ is one of the most remembered saints in all of scripture. Evidently, no friends or family stood by his cross. To all around, he died in shame. Yet he was with the Savior. In every way, in himself, he was like the other thief. As the other thief, he also joined the unbelieving crowd that railed on Jesus and “cast the same in His teeth” (Matt. 27:44). They committed the same crime. They were condemned to the same death. They both hung next to the one Mediator between God and men, the Son of God in our nature. They both heard the words of the crowd and rulers of the Jews, “If thou be the Son of God.” They heard them say, “He saved others.” They heard them say, “If He be Christ, the Chosen of God.” They heard them mock Him, “He trusted in God.” They saw the writing, “This is Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews.” And they heard the accusation against Him as the Substitute for sinners, “Himself He cannot save.” They heard His prayer, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” The crowd unwittingly spoke the truth about Jesus in taunt and mock and accusation. And the Spirit of God extracted and guided the truth from their words to this man’s soul, to give life to him (Rom. 10:16-17; 1 Pet. 1:23; John 6:63). He believed the truth the entire world denied. He confessed the Savior against the world. This thief was made to know what it was to fear God. He knew he was guilty. He knew that he deserved to die. He knew that his condemnation was just. He knew it and owned it all (Luke 23:39-41). His guilt and condemnation was all that he had: a guilty, shameful man, dying a shameful, cursed death. But in spite of all this, he learned what was worth more than worlds to realize. The Father drew Him to Christ (John 6:44-45)! The Spirit of God opened his heart to see Christ crucified as the Mediator, the Chosen of God, the Christ of God, the Son of God, the Lord of all, the Lamb of God (John 3:14-15)!

Note well what the Spirit of God moved this man to do: he spoke to Jesus. The other thief raised accusation against Jesus with the denying, “If!” The other thief demanded Jesus prove His word, prove He was the Truth, by delivering him from the immediate suffering and death of the cross on which he hung. Such pride overflowed from him in hatred for the Son of God! The unbelieving thief reveals the heart of the natural man. I see myself in him! But the believing thief asks Jesus one thing: “Remember me!” If we are led to Christ, if we are made to see Him as our only and complete Savior, we will also ask Him to save us (Ezek. 36:37; 2 Sam. 7:25; Luke 18:13; Rom. 10:13).

In these two men we see a compressed, condensed account of every man. The one died as he lived. He lived in sin and he died in sin (Rev. 22:11). Even while he suffered the just punishment of his own death, even with the Savior of sinners next to him, he remained blind and hardened in his sin. This is me and this is you by nature! "But God(!), for His great love wherewith He loved" this other thief from the foundation of the world (Jer. 31:3; Eph. 2:4) commanded the light to shine into his dark heart (Acts 16:14; 2 Cor. 4:7; Gal. 1:15)! The Lord opened his heart to hear the words and see and believe Jesus to be the Christ, the Son of God, and so believing, to have life through His name (John 6:40; 20:31). It was the time for Christ to make known His love to this sinner (Ezek. 16:8)! The Lord was pleased to reveal His Son in this also guilty, this also justly condemned, this also enemy of Christ, but this one who also from eternity had been the object of divine love and unfailing grace (Jer. 31:3; Hosea 11:8; Acts 13:48). God made the difference (1 Cor. 4:7; Rom. 11:33-36). He alone can. He alone does (Acts 28:24; 2 Cor. 2:14-16). The same sun that melts the wax, hardens the clay. It seemed good to the Father that it be so (Matt. 11:25-27; Matt. 16:15-17). We are utterly dependent on His grace (John 3:8; Rom. 11:5-6). Grace teaches us that it is so.

I hope my wife and children and loved ones remember me when I die. I hope their memories will be kind and forgiving. But really, what can their memory do for me? My great desire is not that they remember me, but that they remember the words of the Lord Jesus. That is the memory I want for them! But this man, this dying thief, desires the one thing that will make a difference! He desires the Lord, the Son of God, the Chosen of God, the Christ of God, the King of glory, the interceding Mediator, to remember him! He doesn’t ask for his present suffering and death to end. He knows he will soon die. That is why he speaks of a future time after his death to the Savior, “Remember me.” So do all believing sinners! This thief was fully persuaded that he, in himself, was only guilty and justly condemned. He had nothing in himself but sin. All opportunities for him to do good had passed. He is the epitome of all unrighteousness. Yet he sees all help in Christ. “All my help from thee I bring.” This thief was drawn by God the Father to look only to Christ on the ground of His atoning blood and righteousness and truth and power and saving grace: all that was in Him! Brought to the end of himself and his life too, He found his all in Christ!

God graciously enabled him to express the thought that God put in his heart (Matt. 12:34). Here is something most blessed and amazing. From his mouth and heart, he expressed the truth that was in Christ’s heart. His need was the desire Christ came to fill (Ps. 81:10; John 4:34; 7:37-38). It was in Christ’s heart for this thief come to Him and ask Him to do what was His will to do from all eternity. I don’t know how to say it, but the Lord who saved him, put into this man’s heart the desire for Christ to think on him in mercy, as it was eternally already in Christ’s heart to do. Our desire for Christ to desire us is but the expression of the desire of His heart, that desire which He puts in ours. Salvation and eternal life is entering into a deep, intimate communion of soul between the heart of a sinner and his sin-atoning Savior (John 17:3, 23-24; John 6:56).

Though the memory of those who love me can do nothing for me after I die, nor can my memory of them, it is not so with the Son of God! He is not the God of the dead, but of the living (Matt. 22:32). If He who is life remember me, if He who does all that is in His heart (Ps. 33:11) think on me, then I will not only live (Ps. 40:17; John 14:19; Rom. 8:10-11), but I will be with Him where He is (John 14:1-3). He will never leave me nor forsake me (Heb. 13:5). “Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints” (Ps. 116:15). Saints are those made holy before God by the one offering of Christ’s own self for them (Heb. 10:10; 13:12; 1 Cor. 1:2; Rom. 8:28; 2 Tim. 1:9). And they are made holy in their souls by the sanctifying call of the Spirit of Christ who lives in them and gives them faith in the crucified, risen, reigning Savior (Gal. 1:15; 2:20; Eph. 4:24). “The memory of the just is blessed: but the name of the wicked shall rot” (Prov. 10:7). The just are those who have been justified by Christ's precious blood (Rom. 5:9), and who, by the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus, therefore live and walk by faith in Him (2 Cor. 5:7; Hab. 2:4; Rom. 8:1-4; Heb. 10:38).

What did this man mean when he asked Jesus, “Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom” (Luke 23:42)? I believe he meant that he wanted Jesus not only to remember him when He came again, but that He would remember him at all times. Remember me, Lord, as you hang there on that cursed tree, bearing the sins and shame of your people. Remember me in your prayer, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” Remember me when you cry in agony, “My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me!” Remember me when you cry in triumph, “It is finished!” Remember me when you lay down your life and commit the keeping of your spirit to your Father (John 10:15-18; Luke 23:46). Remember me when you enter heaven with your own blood, and obtain eternal redemption for your people (Heb. 9:12). Remember me when you take up your life again (John 10:18), when you roll away that stone, and when you ascend in your glorified body to sit on heaven’s throne. Remember me when you administer every detail in this world (Eph. 1:10; Rom. 8:28) to build your Church, to call and bring your sheep to yourself in glory (Matt. 16:18; John 10:16, 27-29). Remember me in mercy and preserving grace when you pour out your wrath on this world (Hab. 3:2; Rev. 20:3). Remember me when you judge this world in righteousness (Acts 17:31). And remember me when you sit on the throne of your glory and tell the ungodly to depart into everlasting punishment while you tell your people to enter into the inheritance prepared for them from the foundation of the world (Matt. 25:34, 46).

Throughout scripture, the Spirit of God recorded the words that He put into the hearts of all of His saints in their request that the Lord remember them.
  • “In wrath remember mercy” (Hab. 3:2).
  • “Remember me, O LORD, with the favour that thou bearest unto thy people: O visit me with thy salvation; That I may see the good of thy chosen, that I may rejoice in the gladness of thy nation, that I may glory with thine inheritance” (Ps. 106:4-5).
  • “Remember your holy covenant” (Luke 1:72), for Christ’s sake, with whom you made that covenant before the world began, and who fulfilled that covenant in His own blood (Gen. 8:1; 9:15-16; 19:29; Ex. 2:24; 32:13; Lev. 26:42; 2 Tim. 1:9; Heb. 13:20; 1 Pet. 1:20; Rev. 13:8; 2 Cor. 1:20; Isa. 42:6; 49:8; Gal. 3:26-29; 4:28; Heb. 13:20; Matt. 26:28; Heb. 9:15-17; John 6:37-40).
  • In remembering Christ, “Remember my sins and iniquities no more” (Heb. 10:17-18). “O, remember not against me former iniquities” (Ps. 79:8; Rev. 18:5).
  • “Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee. Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands; thy walls are continually before me” (Isa. 49:15-16).
  • “Thou shalt call, and I will answer thee: thou wilt have a desire to the work of thine hands” (Job 14:15).
  • “Remember, O LORD, thy tender mercies and thy lovingkindnesses; for they have been ever of old. Remember not the sins of my youth, nor my transgressions: according to thy mercy remember thou me for thy goodness' sake, O LORD” (Ps. 25:6-7).
  • “Remember the word unto thy servant, upon which thou hast caused me to hope” (Ps. 119:142).

As every child of God is convinced by the Spirit of God to do, this thief pinned all of his hope for life and eternity on what Jesus thought and what He remembered, what He spoke in His word, and how He remembers His saints for good, in mercy, and does not remember their sins (Neh. 13:22, 31; Ps. 116:115; Prov. 10:5). But there is something most precious in this request that words fail to express. To have the Lord of glory, the Son of God, remember me in covenant love, in redeeming blood, in full supply with Himself, in life from the dead and in full disclosure of His heart; in this intimate communion of eternal life, enjoyed now by faith, and to be with Him and know that He thinks on me in love and mercy for His name's sake, and there to lay my head on His bosom, is all I want for eternity.​
Rick Warta
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The Accounting of the Cross

10/3/2017

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Have you ever wondered why there is such detail in the account God gave of the arrest, trial, sufferings and death of His Son? He did not simply tell us that men crucified Christ, and that His death made atonement for the sins of His people. He has given great detail, specific details, while leaving out other details. Why? As I read and re-read the four Gospel accounts, I see that God has prominently set before us several things:
  1. It was God’s predeterminate, eternal will. Jesus prayed, “Not my will, but Thine be done” (Luke 22:42). The answer to the question, “Why did Jesus have to die?”, is first answered by this: because it was the will of God (Heb. 10:7; Acts 2:23). To do the will of God was Christ’s great desire. It was His food and drink! And it is our greatest blessing and honor to do the will of God. Believing Christ is doing God’s will (John 6:29, 39; 20:31; Rom. 1:5; 16:26; 10:16-17; 6:14, 17; 1 John 3:23). Believing Christ crucified is the gift of God. It is the mark of the new birth and the fruit of the Spirit of God dwelling in us (1 Pet. 1:21-23; John 1:12-13; 3:14-15). Believing Christ honors God because faith agrees with God that Christ alone could and did fulfill God’s eternal will (Matt. 5:17, 20; Rev. 5:1-13; Isa. 42:4). Christ’s death fulfilled the everlasting covenant, that everlasting will God made with Christ our covenant Head (Matt. 26:28; Heb. 10:14-18; 13:20; Heb. 9:15-17).
  2. Scripture cannot be broken. God the Word has spoken (John 1:1-3). It must therefore be done (Ps. 33:11). He has also brought it to pass (Isa. 46:10-11; Ps. 33:9; John 19:30). Every Gospel writer repeatedly prefaces or follows-up what Jesus did by these words “That the scriptures of the prophets might be fulfilled” (Matt. 26:56). “As it is written” (Matt. 26:24); “For it is written…” (Matt. 26:31). I think we will all be overjoyed to find that all God recorded in scripture and which we have believed has all been perfectly accomplished, precisely according to what was written before (Isa. 45:21).
  3. God required atonement. The crucifixion of Christ teaches us that He in whom the fulness of the Godhead dwells bodily as the Son of God and Son of Man, did Himself make atonement to God for the sins of His people (Heb. 5:1; 9:24-28; 10:10-14). God Himself made the atonement. He made it in the death of His Son (Gen. 3:21; 22:8; Rom. 5:10). The wisdom and truth and justice and righteousness and mercy and grace and faithfulness and condescending humility and patience of God (and more) is seen in this: He who was offended by our sin made up for that offence in the death of His Son (Rom. 5:10; Heb. 2:17-18). The Law-Creditor and Judge paid the crime-debt that rebels owed Him out of His own purse in the person of His Son. And having paid it, He forgave those lawfully imprisoned debtors (Gal. 3:13; Eph. 1:7; Heb. 9:12, 15). The offended God laid the sins of His offending enemies on His beloved Son, who was without offence, to remove the offence that those enemies’ sins were to Him (Rom. 5:6-11; Col. 1:20-22). The Just One died for the unjust ones to bring us to God (1 Pet. 3:18). The Holy One of God took upon Himself the form of a servant, was made in the likeness of men, and was made sin in that nature, that He might honor God’s law, so that we who were without righteousness might be made the righteousness of God in Him. God’s eternal will required Christ to make atonement for the sins of His elect people, and by that atonement, to bring them to God, sanctify them, justify them, perfect them forever in His one offering!
  4. The sinfulness of man. Wicked men took our Savior. They tried Him at man’s patently unjust bar. They mocked Him who alone is worthy of all honor. They hurled their worst insults and inflicted their greatest pains on Him who held their life and ways in His hand (Dan. 5:23). And they did all they could to humiliate Him whose glory is higher than the heavens! They used lies to put out the light of Him whose truth is brighter than the sun. Christ was crucified by wicked hands that fulfilled the will of wicked hearts (Acts 2:23). Oh, the exceeding sinfulness of man, that man would thus treat his Creator, the only One good! We feel justified if we impatiently lash out because we think we have been treated unjustly. But it was not a righteous motive that crucified Christ. It was a sinful motive that sprang from sinful hearts. Provoked only by His pure goodness, men committed the most heinous of crimes: they murdered the Just One (Acts 7:52), killed the Prince of Life (Acts 3:14-15), crucified the Lord of Glory (1 Cor. 2:8)!
  5. The exceeding sinfulness of sin. It was not only evil men that crucified Christ, but it was for the sins of God’s elect, those sins God made His, that God required His Son to die on that cursed tree (Gal. 3:13; Rom. 6:23; Ezek. 18:4). Sinners required the Lord to die, when in envious hatred they cried, “Crucify, crucify Him” (Luke 23:21)! Yet because our sins were made His before the foundation of the world, God predetermined from eternity that our Substitute must die in the way that He did (Acts 2:23; 1 Pet. 1:20; Rev. 13:8). Men unjustly required it. But God righteously and graciously required it. Therefore, sin must be exceeding sinful, that God would require His Son to die to make atonement for it! How bad is sin? “It is Christ that died” (Rom. 8:34)!
  6. To show, by fulfillment of scripture, who Jesus of Nazareth truly is. He is the Son of God (Ps. 2), the Son of Man (Dan. 7:14; Matt. 20:28; Mark 14:61-62), the Lord’s Christ (John 20:31), the King of Righteousness (Jer. 23:5-6; Heb. 7:2), the King of Peace (Isa. 9:6), the King of Glory (Isa. 6:5; Ps. 24), the Lord of all (Rom. 14:9; Acts 10:36). Because He did the will of God and triumphed gloriously over God’s enemies, God highly exalted Him! He came to bear witness to the truth (John 18:37). By His death, He both upheld the truth and bore witness to it (1 Pet. 2:18-25). He reconciled and magnified God’s righteousness and peace, His mercy and truth (Ps. 85:10; Isa. 42:21; Ps. 119:142). Jesus of Nazareth was not an earthly king or an earthly captain, as apostate Israel so notoriously taught and stubbornly held to, to their own damnation. He is Immanuel (Isa. 7:14; Matt. 1:23), the Lamb of God (John 1:29), the one Mediator between God and men (Acts 4:12; 1 Tim. 2:5), God manifest in the flesh (1 Tim. 3:16)!
  7. Christ is the beginning, the end, the subject and fulfillment of scripture (Ps. 138:2; John 5:39; Heb. 10:7; Luke 24:25-27; 44-47; Rev. 1:1, 8, 11, 17-18). I love those words spoken prophetically in Psalm 40:7 by our Lord Jesus Christ, “In the volume of the book it is written of me” (Ps. 40:7). Jesus Christ fulfilled the law and the prophets and the Psalms by His death on the cross (Luke 24:44-47; John 19:30; Matt. 5:17). This is explicitly and repeatedly brought out throughout every Gospel account of Christ’s crucifixion.
  8. To show us our great need. Will we presume to contribute to your salvation?! May it never be! Judas betrayed Christ. Peter denied Him. All of the disciples forsook Him. The best of men failed. The pillars of the church could not watch one hour with Him. They all left Him alone. All failed, without exception, who had been with Him over three years and earnestly resolved not to fail! None failed to fail but Christ! Why? Because we have a great need and must know our need of our great Savior!! We are utterly unable to do one thing to save ourselves (Ps. 49:8). We must be saved by grace alone, not of works, lest any man should boast (Rom. 11:6; Eph. 2:8-9). Christ must have all the glory (1 Cor. 1:30-31; Isa. 2:11)! God foretold it (Ps. 55:12-13; Zech. 13:7). Oh, how we resist the truth about ourselves taught in scripture (Rom. 3:10-12)! Oh, how we must be taught and retaught the sad truth from God’s word and through the hard knocks of trouble! Yet the lesson, that Christ is all, is worth the pain! Why do men not call upon Christ? Why don’t we seek Him? Why do we cling to our own works and worth? It is because we don’t see our great need as sinners and don’t see Christ as God’s eternally appointed and anointed Savior?!
  9. Christ prevailed alone, by Himself. The great theme that rings from the Gospel accounts is that Christ, by Himself, for God’s elect, by His death, made atonement for their sins, purged their sins, obtained their eternal redemption, made full and eternal remission of their sins, sanctified and perfected them forever, made reconciliation for their iniquity and established their everlasting righteousness (Heb. 1:3; 1 Pet. 2:24; Heb. 9:12; 10:10, 14-18; 13:12, 20; 1 Cor. 1:30; Rom. 10:4). No man was with Him when He began to make atonement until He came out and had made atonement (Lev. 16:17). “I looked, and there was none to help; and I wondered that there was none to uphold: therefore mine own arm brought salvation unto me” (Isa. 65:3). He is the last Adam, the everlasting Father, who stood as our covenant Head. There is only one Head, only One Surety, only one Mediator who stands between God and man, who did all for God that He required for His glory, and all for His elect people that God required to bring them to Himself, in love, to make them holy and blameless (Eph. 1:4).
  10. From first to last, God is sovereign and salvation is of God, in Christ, by His grace alone. The cross cries out, “Grace, grace, grace” (Zech. 4:7)! God, before the world began, loved His elect people. He hated those He did not choose. Why? For one reason: “that the purpose of God according to election might stand,” that salvation would be “not of works, but of Him that calleth” (Rom. 9:11). He eternally set His love on those He chose in Christ (Jer. 31:3; John 13:1; Eph. 1:4; 2 Thess. 2:13). He determined to leave the rest to receive the just reward of their works. God is just in both. By definition, God is just to those who receive only what they deserve. But God is also just to those for whom Christ stood and answered all to the glory of God’s holy, just and good law (Isa. 42:21). God is also merciful. Never is God’s sovereign mercy more brightly seen than when it shines on those who are the foulest among men (1 Tim. 1:15)! Thus, election is all of grace (Rom. 9:11). And redemption is all of grace. “Being justified freely by His grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 3:24). If redemption were not of grace, then the debtor in crime to God the Judge must pay some or all of his debt to God’s justice. But if that were true, Christ died needlessly (Gal. 2:21)! Redemption must be of grace not only because Christ did it alone, but because it was obtained before the redeemed were ever born. For those born before the cross, it was obtained in God’s eternal decree (1 Pet. 1:20; Rom. 3:25; Rev. 13:8). For those born after the cross, it was obtained in God’s eternal decree and at the cross (Heb. 9:12-15). Not only election and redemption, but life from the dead is all of grace. “But God, for His great love wherewith He loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Him, by grace ye are saved” (Eph. 2:4). “Of His own will begat He us by the word of truth” (James 1:18). “As many as received Him, to them gave He the power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name. Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God” (John 1:12-13). God’s grace chose Christ to be the covenant Head of His elect people. This is what Eph. 1:4 means when it says, “He [God the Father] hath chosen us in Him [Christ] before the foundation of the world” (Eph. 1:4). God’s grace appointed and anointed and gave Christ to be Redeemer (Heb. 2:14-17). And God required the full ransom price from Christ for our redemption (Matt. 20:28; John 10:15-18; Acts 20:28; Eph. 5:25). All that God did in election and redemption is entirely outside of our personal experience. But regeneration is also entirely of grace, though it is part of our experience (Eph. 2:1-10; Titus 3:3-7). Therefore, in the Gospels, this is greatly emphasized by the sin of man and the obedience of Christ. The Gospel accounts of Christ’s death show a completed redemption. Not Judas nor the soldiers nor the high priests nor the chief priests nor the elders nor the scribes nor the Pharisees nor the Gentile governors nor the senseless crowd, but Christ was the Victor! They who imagined themselves captors were captives to do the will of our great God and Savior (John 18:4-8).
  11. To show the death of death in the death of Christ, to parade the defeated and bound devil, the victory over the world, satisfaction to God’s justice and honor to God’s law (Col. 2:14-15; Rev. 12:9-10; John 12:31; Rev. 20:1-3).

In summary, the Gospel accounts of the death of Christ loudly declare these themes:
  1. God’s eternal will is fulfilled (Ps. 40:6-8; Heb. 10:5-18).
  2. Man’s sinful will is exercised to the fullest extent (Luke 23:25).
  3. The salvation of great sinners is finished, according to God’s great grace in Christ (John 17:1-4; 19:30).
  4. Christ is set forth to believing sinners as altogether lovely, because He is the LORD who has become our salvation (Isa. 12:1-3; Ps. 27:1; Luke 2:30; Acts 4:12; Matt. 1:21; Rom. 11:16-27). Christ is glorified in His grace! And what a glory it is for sinners to behold! May God give us faith to see Him!
Rick Warta
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