The Thief’s Good Works

In 2006, Alistair Begg preached a sermon titled “Blind from Birth.” He reflected on the free gift of salvation offered through Christ’s death, and to illustrate this, he referenced the thief on the cross:

You know, I always think about this in relationship to the thief on the cross when he arrives at the portals of heaven. You imagine that interview process?

“What are you doing here?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, who sent you here?”

“What? No one sent me here. I . . . I . . . I’m here!”

“Well, are you . . . Have you been justified by faith? Do you have peace with God?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, do you know anything?”

“Yeah.”

“What do you know?”

“The man on the middle cross said I could come here.”

Begg rightly notes the thief was saved by Christ alone, not by good works, good theology, or any other merit. After all, the thief’s spiritual résumé would’ve been short.

In this illustration, Begg used the repentant thief to emphasize salvation without works. But other Christians in church history have used the thief’s story to highlight other truths. Theodore Beza (1519–1605), for example, used the thief to remind his readers that while good works don’t save us, they necessarily accompany the faith that does.

Beza’s Little Book of Christian Questions and Answers

French Reformed theologian Beza served as the first rector at the Academy of Geneva founded by John Calvin (1509–64). As Ryan McGraw notes, Reformed scholastics like Beza gave their scholarly endeavors a pastoral dimension. As scholar-pastors, they studied for the church. This is especially evident in Beza’s 1570 work A Little Book of Christian Questions and Responses.

In a section on sanctification, Beza explores the relationship between faith and works. He argues that “good works do not justify, but [follow] the one who believes and is already justified in Christ, just as good fruits do not make a tree good, but a tree is known to be good by its good fruits” (A 152).

The connection between faith and works leads Beza’s imaginary interlocutor to raise a poignant question: “Therefore, you say that good works are necessary to salvation?” Beza responds with an affirmative syllogism: “If faith is necessary to salvation, and works necessarily flow out of true faith, (as that which cannot be idle), certainly also it follows, that good works are necessary to salvation.” “Yet,” Beza clarifies, “not as the cause of salvation (for we are justified, and thus live, by faith alone in Christ), but as something necessarily attached to true faith” (Q/A 154). For Beza (who cites Rom. 8:14; 1 John 3:7; and James 2:21), faith necessarily produces good works not as the source but as the vital consequence and companion of salvation.

Beza on the Thief

Beza’s imagined dialogue partner next raises a question about the repentant thief: “What if someone is not endowed with faith until the very moment of death itself. For this seems to have happened to the thief hanging on the cross. What kind of good works will someone of this type have brought forth?” (Q 155). As a pastor-theologian, Beza was attuned to the questions and theological needs of normal Genevan believers. This question wasn’t therefore a matter of academic speculation.

Faith necessarily produces good works not as the source but as the vital consequence and companion of salvation.

Geneva was home to a libertine movement. This group, spearheaded by the Perrin, Favre, and Berthelier families, opposed the leadership of Calvin and his colleagues, and especially their emphasis on the need for church discipline. The libertines denied the necessity of good works in a Christian’s life, making them forerunners of the champions of “cheap grace” that Dietrich Bonhoeffer opposed. The question “What about the thief on the cross?” was probably a common objection raised by the libertines.

In response, Beza asserts, “No, the faith of that thief was in that brief time unspeakably active.” He then lists five good works performed by the thief prior to his death:

1. “He rebuked the blasphemes and wickedness of the other thief.” Beza argues that while the unrepentant thief joined the crowd in taunting Jesus (Luke 23:39), the repentant thief “rebuked him” by asking, “Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we indeed justly, for we are receiving the due reward of our deeds; but this man has done nothing wrong” (vv. 40–41). He acknowledged both the blaspheming thief’s sin and Christ’s innocence.

2. “He detested his own crimes.” In the verses cited above, the thief also recognized his execution was fair because he’d sinned. In this, argues Beza, he displayed humility over his lawlessness.

3. “With a plain and marvelous faith he acknowledged Christ as the eternal king while he was in the very disgrace of the cross.” In verse 42, the thief said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” By acknowledging that Jesus has a kingdom, the thief affirmed Christ’s lordship. Beza notes he didn’t do this during a time when Christ was popular and performing powerful miracles but while he was experiencing the shame of the cross.

4. “As all the disciples kept silent, he invoked [Jesus] as his Saviour.” Beza observes that the Gospel accounts emphasize how the disciples scattered, with only John remaining at the cross. None of the Twelve spoke on Jesus’s behalf or testified to their faith as he was crucified; this good work was performed by the thief alone.

5. “He openly reproved the cruelties and ungodly voices of the Jews.” Returning to his first point, Beza highlights how the unrepentant thief echoed the words of the crowd, who cried, “He saved others; let him save himself, if he is the Christ of God, his Chosen One!” (v. 35). By rebuking the unrepentant thief, the repentant thief also critiqued the crowd surrounding the crosses.

Beza concedes that while death prevented the thief from performing the works in the law’s second table, he did perform “the most excellent works of the first Table.” In the case of the thief, “faith is not to be considered idle” (A 155). The thief had faith, so he necessarily performed good works. Considering the short stint of his earthly Christian life, his five good works are all the more marvelous.

Bridging Beza and Begg

The wonderful truth of the gospel is that both Beza and Begg are right. While the thief did perform good works that necessarily flowed from his faith, he was welcomed into paradise solely through the merits and invitation of “the man on the middle cross.”

In the case of the thief, ‘faith is not to be considered idle.’

This story simultaneously illustrates the free offer and the transformative power of the gospel. As we reflect on the thief on the cross, we can remember not only that “the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people” but that this grace is also “training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions” and to make us “zealous for good works” (Titus 2:11–14).