Originally posted by ThinkOfOne
Try reading the following very slowly until you comprehend it:
The reality is that Jesus does not give His motivation or explain the criteria used for His judgment. [b]All attempts to do so are conjecture.
Given your track record, I imagine you'll be reading a very, very, very, very long time.[/b]It's not relevant what Jesus's motives were. It would be nice to know , but for the point I am making it doesn't matter.
Why?
Because we do know that Jesus grants salvation and we know that it cannot be because the thief meets his standards for righteousness.
The thief HAS NOT walked the walk. He HAS NOT lived a righteous life. All he did was talk to Jesus and admitted he wasn't that great a person.
The rest is a simple matter of a logical process of elimination.
You keep focussing on what we don't know , but what we do know is enough.
What we do know tells us that in this case this man was able to be saved without doing any particular good works or particularly living as Jesus had commanded.
Therefore , we know that it must have been something to do with the condition of his heart ( ie humble acceptance of his unrighteousness) and some kind of pardon or granting from Jesus.
But one thing we know for certain , this thief did not have much in the way of good works to offer NOR evidence of a righteous life. The only evidence we have strongly suggests that this was a desperate man pleading for his soul. It's also logical to think that if he was that righteous and humble he would have stopped thieving before he even got caught , rather than waiting until he was in a pickle before showing some humility.
Even so , God's grace saved him.
He didn't fit your criteria for eternal life. He reflected on his life and his own predicament and accepted he deserved to be on that cross. No righteous man would say that. He should have said that it was unfair he was on the cross.
I don't think you have any answer to this other than to come out with your feeble "conjecture" routine.
You would no doubt prefer that this awkward little story just wasn't in there.