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I read your post at 67 and it's more of straining at gnats and swallowing camels. The thief was saved by his faith and by God's sovereign mercy and grace. The blood that Christ was pouring out beside that thief was for the sins of all men who would simply believe that Jesus was the son of God. You complicate that which is is really quite simple.

Abraham "saw Christ's day and was glad" according to Christ, yet how could that be since God hadn't even given the Mosaic LAW yet...? Could it be that the Church is a transtemporal reality that exists across the centuries forward and backward?

What-ever the Times and Dispensations, it has and always shall remain that a man is justified by faith in God thru the death and Resurrection by his son Jesus Christ. The thief knew this when he rebuked the other thief..."we have done wrong but this man has not...LORD, REMEMBER ME WHEN YOU COME INTO YOUR KINGDOM!"

The thief acknowledged Christ as LORD...he acknowledged him as having A KINGDOM...he doesn't even ask Christ to save him...just that he would "REMEMBER" him. It was his faith that saved him, his acknowledgement of Christ as LORD and Saviour, just as are all men who acknowledge Him as Saviour! Christ...the new reality..pronounced this man saved...saved by his own blood!