I have answered this question I don't know how many times in this one thread alone. The thief on the cross was not under the New Covenant, as we are today, because Christ had not died yet. Also, the church was not established until Pentecost, after Christ had risen from the dead and ascended to heaven. Jesus had the power to save anyone He wished while on the Earth. Case closed.
Okay, but I still see two problems:
1) If the thief died under the "old" covenant, wouldn't he need to offer an animal sacrifice to be cleansed of his sins? Or, if faith without baptism made one righteous before God as it did in the case of Abraham (Gen. 15, Rom. 4), why would it become an added condition under the new?
2) Baptism for repentence was instituted by John the Baptist, not Jesus:
And he said to them, "Then to what were you baptized?" And they said, "To John's baptism." And Paul said, "John truly baptized with the baptism of repentance, saying to the people that they should believe into Him coming after him, that is, into Jesus Christ." --Acts 19:3-4Therefore, if baptism is required for repentence rather than being a sign of it (which is the predominant Christian view), the thief was still hosed by not receiving it, since it had been instituted by God through John over three years before.
I have responded biblically to your comments on the thief and the new covenant and have shown biblically the rationale that says the thief WAS under the New Covenant.
John the Baptist was the last prophet of the Old Covenant.
Jesus the Christ was the first preacher of the New Covenant. His own words during his ministry to a non-believing Nicodemus (early in the Book of John) were "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life."
This message was given to Nicodemus well BEFORE Jesus' death, burial, and resurrection. Jesus was the Lamb who was slain from the foundation of the world.