The repentant thief was saved, was he not? He was in Paradise that day along with Jesus, not in the flesh, but in Spirit for both of them. There is one Lord and one salvation. There is one Way to be saved, so what was good for the thief is what works for any malefactor, should it not?
Many disagree on what it takes to
be saved, and even when the moment of salvation is. To sort things out,
salvation must be considered firstly; Jesus said to the repentant sinner (named
Dismus according to history), “Today shall you be with Me in Paradise” (Luke
23:43). What did the thief do to deserve Paradise? Nothing; it is by
grace that you and he are saved’ “For by grace are you saved through faith; and
that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God.” (Ephes 2:8)
Dismus received a gift from Jesus
even though he did not deserve reprieve. He never pleaded innocent nor made any
excuses. Dismus was guilty as charged and trusted Jesus to judge him. So, the
first thing toward salvation is admission of guiltiness. To admit wrongdoing requires
nothing but humility, “For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God” (Rom
3:23). Since everyone has sinned, what is the big deal about confessing your
own sins? Are you a god or something and without sin? Obviously not!
Children and immature adults make
excuses for their actions. We… none of us, have an excuse for our wrongdoings
(Rom 1:20). We sin just because we exist. Our very existence infringes on God’s
a priori Existence. To put it simply, we cannot see God, but we infringe
upon His space.
The best example of that is that
Jesus died so that we need not. The crucifixion was mankind infringing the
space of God. We should not have been there, we were, but He took our place. If
you and I had been crucified for our own sins, that would have been an
infringement on God’s place to do that.
So, Dismus never made any excuses
nor made any defense for his innocence; he was guilty as charged. Jesus looked
at Dismus, knew that He was guilty and did something remarkable; the sins of
Dismus were not only forgotten, but Jesus took Dismus’s sins upon Himself. That
is how Dismus infringed upon Jesus. Sin is infringement, better known as ‘trespassing.’
The Cross is the symbol of the
Tree of Life, and the way to it is guarded (Gen 3:24). Dismus could not go
there himself, so Jesus went there for him. No longer was Dismus trespassing
but authorized to go there. Where is the Tree of Life? Paradise.
John wrote the words of God, “To
him that overcomes will I give to eat of the Tree of Life, which is in the
midst of the Paradise of God” (Rev 2:7). What did Dismus overcome? The world.
He could have made excuses, perhaps, Sorry, Jesus; I was born this
way. He did not do that. He looked at Jesus and knew that Jesus had the
power to bare him again (John 3:16).
Here, we need to talk about love.
Dismus probably did not love Jesus in an emotional sense; he seemed to be
empathetic because he figured that Jesus was innocent and was paying the price
for Dismus’s own sins. As such, Dismus had goodwill for Jesus; perhaps that
Jesus would go to Paradise or escape punishment. Rather than worry about
himself, his thoughts were on the unfair agony of Jesus.
Dismus, although dangerous to
Judea, was humane to Jesus. He had just enough of the Image of God in Him
(grace) that he worried about the condition of Jesus more so than himself. That
is ‘goodwill’ and that is essentially the meaning of agape-type love of scripture.
The instant that Dismus believed
that Jesus was indeed God and trusted Him for His future was the moment that something
drastic happened within his person — Jesus got into him. We don’t understand
how, but Jesus sorted it out for us when he said to, “Marvel not; you must be
born again” (John 3:7).
Nicodemus thought of rebirth as
entering the womb of the mother again. Not so! It is God reimaging sinners.
In the beginning, “God created man in his own Image, in the Image of God
created He him” (Gen 1:27). Dismus was a ‘mutant’ version of the first man; time
and sin had taken its toll. He was a sinner the moment he was born. Like King
David, Dismus was “shapen in iniquity” (Psalm 51:5) — depravity.
God breathed life into Adam to make
him, not God, but like God (Gen 2:7). God took the material that He had and
breathed — His ‘air’ — from Himself into Adam.
That Image is Selem in the
Hebrew — literally a ‘Shadow’ of God but interpreted to be a ‘Phantom.’
I submit that the Phantom of God
that God breathed into Adam was the same ‘Phantom’ that He breathed into
Dismus. The moment that Jesus breathed His last, He gave up the Ghost (Mark
15:37). I submit that God (Jesus) emanated the Holy Spirit that was in His ‘Cup’
(soul) and breathed it into the soul of Dismus. The mechanism for rebirth is
very well explained by the Holy Ghost leaving Jesus and accompanying Dismus to
Paradise.
Jesus had said to Dismus, “Today
shall you be with Me in Paradise.” The day was about over, and it would be the
Sabbath in a few minutes as dusk set in. Jesus in Person never went
anywhere, but in Spirit, Jesus was gone. He was in Dismus and entering Paradise
the moment that Dismus’s soul was released.
That should answer many questions.
Jesus did not save Dismus until Dismus died. Dismus was a believer to
the end, and what he had believed all his life was inconsequential. As Jesus promoted
with his parable, the one that came to the work last got the same pay as those
who had been there all day. Just as in the parable, it was not works that counted
but the generosity of the master.
What did Jesus save? He
saved, not the flesh of the man, but the soul. It was not just the mind of Dismus
that was saved, but his soul. He was not just saved from sin, but saved from
judgment by God, “Fear Him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell”
(Mat 10:28), therein limiting Satan’s ability for only the destruction of the
body. In other words, salvation is not of the mind, of the will, nor for the
requirement for good works; it is the soul that is saved.
Why was Dismus saved and where was he taken? He was taken immediately to Paradise in the realm of heaven. The reason and timing that Dismus was saved was explained quite well, better than I can, in Paul’s letter to Peter:
Whom having not seen, you
love; in whom, though now you see Him not, yet believing, you rejoice with joy
unspeakable and full of glory: receiving the end of your faith, even the
salvation of your souls, of which salvation the prophets have enquired and
searched diligently, who prophesied of the grace that should come unto you. (1 Pet 1:8-10)
Dismus had goodwill for Jesus. If
Jesus’s soul could not escape to Paradise, then neither could his! He desired
that Jesus no longer suffer, so that the voyage could begin.
When Jesus gave up the Ghost, the
Ghost went into Dismus, and it was him that was full of glory. The Holy Spirit
of Jesus went to Paradise in the soul of Dismus, taking him not only to safety
but to a safe haven.
Before Jesus could enter Dismus, his
soul required emptying. Jesus took the demonic spirit within Dismus to Hell along
with his sin with Satan cast there as well, to wit: “When He ascended up on
high, He led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men. Now that He ascended,
what is it but that He also descended first into the lower parts of the earth?”
(Ephes 4:8-9). Without proof, I believe that Jesus in the form of the Holy
Spirit descended to Hell before He ascended in Spirit tom Paradise. Dismus was
full of glory, meaning that he was filled with the Spirit that had just vacated
Jesus.
Death was the end of the faith of
Dismus. He was dead and dead men do not think. Faith is a thought process — mental
work — not dynamic work. Paul added to that, “even the salvation of your souls.”
It should be clear that salvation comes after the body dies, and the period between
the beginning of faith — rebirth — and the reward of faith (death as the gain
according to Paul), is an interval of safety so long as the “babe in
Christ” remains sober and vigilant (1 Tim 3:2).
Paul ends that passage by acknowledging
that it was not by the works of Dismus, but that grace came into him. That ‘grace’
was when the Holy Ghost — the Virtue leaving Jesus — left the Body of Jesus and
came into the soul of Dismus.
I believe that these explanations
not only explain the state (salvation) and timing, but the mechanism (Dynamis; “virtue”)
of Jesus as well.
Virtue left Jesus to make Dismus
whole. What was Dismus missing that made him an incomplete, inglorious man? The
Invisible Image of God within his person. Jesus was missing, and when Jesus was
glorified — released from His Body (John 7:39), He glorified the ‘Phantom’ of
Dismus that was within him.
You have the right to disagree but
do take the time to consider the meaning of scripture. I hope that I am saved
right now! That would be foolish not to wish that, but the Devil is out to get
me still, so it makes sense that, providing that I wear it, God has provided
for me the ‘Garment of Adam’ (Gen 3:17) for safety against the fiery darts of
the Wicked One.
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