Jacob, Esau and Two Thieves on a Cross<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />
 
 
            In Romans 9, Paul makes a crystal clear, rock-solid case that God's freedom to choose whom He will and reject whom He will is not based on any distinction in the persons themselves, for God chose Jacob and rejected Esau before they had done anything good or evil, before they were even born. 
 
God's freedom of choice is an application of His freedom of being.  LORD, or Yahweh, means "I AM THAT I AM."  This repetition indicates that God is free to be anything He chooses to be.  And because God is who He chooses to be, He is free to do as He chooses to do.  An application of His freedom is found in Ex. 33:19, which Paul quotes in Romans 9:15: "I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion."  In Ex. 3:14, when Moses asked God His name, God replied, "I AM THAT I AM."  Later, in Ex. 33:19, Moses asked God to show him His glory.  God replied to Moses, "I will have mercy on whom I have mercy."  I AM is His freedom of being.  "I will…" is His freedom of doing.  Out of His absolute unbounded freedom to be is His absolute unbounded freedom to do.
 
            Why two thieves on either side of Jesus?  The answer is parallel to the answer concerning Jacob and Esau.  Both were just as unworthy of God's electing grace.  Yet God, in His sovereign freedom, chose Jacob.  And God, in His sovereign freedom, chose one thief and not the other.  Here again, at the very center of redemptive history, at Calvary itself, we find God's freedom blasting forth in full force.  "I will have mercy on whom I have mercy."  God's Spirit regenerated the heart of one thief right there on a cross, even as the crowd hurled insults at Jesus.  He looked upon the crowd and he looked upon Jesus, and his heart was changed in an instant.  He saw the injustice and he fell, in a sense, on his knees at the feet of Jesus.  The other thief heard the same insults and blasphemies poured out toward the Son of God, but the Holy Spirit passed over him, leaving  him in his wickedness.  This thief even chimed in, joining in the mockery of Jesus.  One was stirred to repentance, the other toward the greatest evil of all, reviling God Himself.  And when the repentant thief could bear it no more, he rebuked the wicked thief, making his profession of faith right there on a cross.  And as he did, he summed up the doctrine of grace in one concise statement:
 
"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…"
 
This thief had been reborn, an act of God the Holy Spirit.  The veil had been lifted and he saw "the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ" (2 Cor. 4:6).  And seeing this, he saw his own wickedness, his own deserved condemnation, justly due him for his sins.  He recognized that even this cross he hung upon would not fulfill the sentence he rightly deserved.  What was due him was an eternal condemnation.  And with a broken and contrite spirit, he looked to the center and saw Jesus the justifier.  He looked closely and, with new eyes, saw his own sin being condemned in the flesh of the One beside him, the Man who knew no sin but became sin (2 Cor. 5:21a), so that God's fury against sin might fall upon Him in full measure.  He saw these things with a regenerated heart, and he believed, falling upon Jesus.
 
This thief's confession is the necessary confession of every person who has and ever will live – that we are under the same sentence of condemnation, and we will justly receive the due reward for our deeds.  All have sinned and fallen short of God's glory.  All have impending wrath and just judgment coming our way.  One thief received his due upon the cross and now in all eternity.  The other thief received mercy and fell upon Christ.  He received mercy and an entrance into eternal life because, in Christ, he became the righteousness of God (2 Cor. 5:21b).  Both deserved what one of them received; neither deserved what only one received.  For God in His divine wisdom and foreknowledge chose one and rejected the other.  And these two crosses on either side of Jesus's stand forever as a reminder of God's freedom to have mercy on whom He has mercy and to harden whom He hardens.