Consider this story I once heard during a Gospel Meeting... Abraham Lincoln never paid one dime in income taxes. Let's suppose you write a letter to the IRS telling them that you are not going to pay anymore income taxes because Abraham Lincoln never paid one dime in income taxes. You advise them that they have received your last check. No doubt you will receive a swift letter back from the IRS informing you that in view of the fact that Abraham Lincoln was never under an income tax law... in view of the fact that he lived and died before there ever was an income tax law... he could not have paid income taxes had he wanted to pay income taxes. We will be expecting your check by return mail.

If we can understand this analogy then we ought not have any problem understanding why the thief on the cross did not have to be baptized under the baptism of the Great Commission. The thief on the cross lived prior to the Great Commission while we live under the Great Commission. The thief on the cross lived before the consumation of the gospel of Christ... there is no possible way he could have obeyed the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ even had he wanted to.

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In Christ,
brother Sonnie

Jeremiah 6:16 Thus says the LORD: "Stand in the ways and see, And ask for the old paths, where the good way is, And walk in it; Then you will find rest for your souls. But they said, 'We will not walk in it.'