God says to me, “You are righteous.” By faith I see Jesus is sitting on the right hand of the majesty on high. When did He go there? “When He had by Himself purged our sins” (Heb. 1:3). Then I know my sins are purged before God. There is no progression here, no such thing as being fitted for heaven. There ought to be growth in us, if left here—progress in likeness to Christ—but it is never in Scripture connected with fitness for heaven. Christ is my title. There is growth, but it is never treated as our fitness. This robber was fit for Paradise at once; he went there, anyway, that day. I suppose he was fit for it, since he was fit to be with Christ! Suppose I were to make all the progress the most blessed saint ever made; could I say I was fit thus for Christ? God forbid! Yet I am fit. Death for the believer is simply that he has done with all that is mortal and sinful.

The Jews sent soldiers to break their legs: how little they thought they were sending the robber straight to heaven, to be the first companion (there were Old Testament saints, of course) that followed the blessed Lord!

It would be well for us if we were as close to Christ as that poor robber. When the veil was rent, the whole thing was changed. The Old Testament was a declaration that man could not go to God in the light: God did not come out, and man could not go in. The gospel now says that God did come out, and man can go in. We have “boldness to enter the Holiest by the blood of Jesus” (Heb. 10:19). If sin is there, how can I enter into the holiest? I am in Christ, not in the flesh. Our sins He bore; we have died with Him, and should enter into the holiest. Access is free, the veil being rent; we are accepted in the Beloved!