Then are crucified with him two robbers, one on the right hand and one on the left.
Matthew puts a robber on each side of Jesus, and the middle cross is His. Men meant this as a last insult. It also fulfilled an old prophecy, and it set the stage for the saving of one of the two men.
The men who arranged the three crosses were not thinking about Scripture. One writer shows that they fulfilled it anyway.
They had to add one more insult, so that the words of Isaiah might be fulfilled: "and was numbered with the transgressors" (Isa. 53:12). "Two others, who were criminals, were led away to be put to death with him." What a sight! He who was God, walking with two thieves to that place. There the great work of the preparation day had to be done — the work that would bring lost sinners into the sabbath, the rest of God.
The two men beside Him were not picked at random.
That morning they searched the prison cells of Jerusalem for the worst of all the criminals that city held. They led them out to die along with Jesus. These men had been guilty of appalling crimes. That is why they picked them to hang one on His right hand and the other on His left, and why they put Him on the centre and highest cross. They meant to proclaim by their well-considered and malicious plan that He was the worst of the three.
The other Gospel writers record the two robbers too. One writer draws out what the shame could not touch.
Mark, like Matthew, mentions the robbers — in fact all the Gospel writers do. It is a testimony to the complete humiliation of God's Servant and Son on the cross. Men would not even give Him that place by Himself. He was indeed alone in the grace and moral glory of the cross. But to increase the shame of it they crucified these two robbers with Him, one on His right hand, and the other on His left.
People often assume one robber was the better man from the start. One writer answers that from what both men were doing on their crosses.
It proves, beyond all question, that there was no difference between the two thieves. They were both condemned criminals. And more than that: when they were on the very edge of the eternal world, both were busy with the awful sin of reviling the blessed Son of God.
The scene is also a verdict on the world that staged it.
The cross is the only perfect measure of man — of the world — of sin. If we really want to know what the world is, we must remember this. It preferred a robber to Christ. It crucified between two thieves the only perfect man who ever lived.
Men set up the crosses to shame Him. One writer shows what God did with that.
God's sovereign power and grace was over this. He used it to bring one of these men to genuine repentance and faith in the Lord Jesus. He used it, too, to show the solemn fact that Christ crucified is the great Divider between the lost and the saved.
That division is not limited to Calvary. It runs through everyone.
The two thieves represent the two great classes into which mankind has been divided. God's Christ is the one great and all-deciding test in every case. Every shade of moral character, every level of social life, every caste, class, sect and party into which the human family has been, is, or ever will be divided — all are absorbed in this one momentous point: "In or out of Christ."
The thief's story holds two different things side by side.
The work of grace for us and the work of grace in us are not the same thing. Take the thief. The death of Christ for him, and the change inside him that made him stop blaspheming and own Jesus, were not one and the same thing either. The first is outside of us, and was in and by CHRIST. The second is in ourselves, though worked there by grace.
- Numbered. Men added the two robbers as a final insult. In doing so they fulfilled the prophecy that He would be numbered with the transgressors.
- Centred. Men gave Him the middle and highest cross to mark Him as the worst of the three. They would not even let Him die alone.
- Equal. Both robbers reviled Him. There was no difference between them until grace made one.
- Measured. The world preferred a robber to Christ and hung the one perfect man between two thieves. That is the measure of it.
- Divided. The centre cross that measured the world now divides it. Every person stands on one side or the other: in or out of Christ.
But the passers-by reviled him, shaking their heads
The people mocking here are not the priests or the soldiers. They are ordinary travellers on the road, and their sneer raises two questions: why did they throw His own words back at Him, and why did He say nothing in reply?
One writer sets these travellers beside the disciples, and finds the same corruption in both:
Those who passed by were mere travellers along the road, men left in the distance, or as far as they were concerned. They revile Him, venting helpless hatred, like so many Shimeis in the day of David. And disciples, a people brought near and privileged, show the same common corruption. They take part in this scene of shame to man. They heartlessly abandon their Lord in the hour of danger, when He had looked for some to stand by Him.
Their next line misquotes Him. He had said, "Destroy this temple," and He meant something they never guessed:
The Gospel writer's quiet remark settles the meaning of His reply. "He spoke," he tells us, "of the temple of His body."... When first spoken, the Jews thought He was talking about the building they were standing in. Later, on the cross, they taunted Him with His supposed statement: "You who would destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, save yourself." They still thought He meant the temple building. So they put into His mouth what He had never said. "Destroy this temple," He did say. "You who destroy the temple," they assumed He had said, so misquoting His words and getting it thoroughly wrong.
The irony is that the very saying they were sneering at stood on the edge of coming true:
His words were turned against Him, not only at His trial, but in His dying moments... How little they knew that His very words were now on the point of being completely fulfilled!
Their ridicule belonged to the sufferings marked out for the Messiah long before:
It is sad that such ridicule from man fell within the appointed sufferings of the Messiah. But it was written of Him, "All who see me mock me" (Ps. 22:7), and the fulfilment of this scripture reached its climax at the cross. He was the Servant whom man despised and the nation abhorred (Isa. 49:7).
They were fulfilling that psalm as they mocked. Why could they not see it?
The gospels note this wagging of the head by those passing by. They also note the very words of the psalm, used by the chief priests with the scribes and elders as they mocked Him. On the surface it might look as if God's rule over events had supplied them with this reproach. In fact it was their own hardness. They had no sense of what they themselves deserved, nor of the holiness and mercy of God. That is what blinded them to the meaning of the scriptures they were so plainly fulfilling.
They wanted Him to use power and save Himself. One writer hears the wilderness tempter behind that demand:
Without knowing it, they use the very language of the tempter himself in the wilderness: "If you are the Son of God." Satan may have been tempting Him again. But he could no more move Him to come down from the cross than to make bread out of the stones or to throw Himself down from the temple.
Behind the sneer lies an assumption about what Sonship means:
Power displayed would in their eyes be proof of His divine Sonship. He gave no reply to their taunt. But because He was God's Son, He stayed on the cross... "Save yourself." Those words showed where their thoughts ran: self, not the Father's will, should be the rule for how people live.
Matthew records no answer from Him to any of it:
There is none to pity in the scene before us. He is alone, cruelly mocked, and He must have felt the reproach as only one who is absolutely holy could feel it. He was reviled but He did not revile in return. Our Gospel does not report a single word from His lips.
- Blindness. Hard hearts, and no sense of what they themselves deserved, kept the mockers from seeing the scriptures they were acting out.
- Misquotation. Blindness twists His words. He said "Destroy this temple," and meant His body; they threw back a saying He never spoke.
- Prophecy. Their blindness still served God's word. Psalm 22 had described those shaking heads long before that day.
- Temptation. "Save yourself" was the wilderness challenge again: power as proof of Sonship. He answered by staying on the cross.
- Silence. Blind mockery met no reply; Matthew records not one word from Him in return.
and saying, Thou that destroyest the temple and buildest it in three days, save thyself. If thou art Son of God, descend from the cross.
The crowd throws two taunts at the crucified Jesus: a twisted version of His words about the temple, and a dare to come down and prove He is God's Son. Both show how badly they misread Him — and both point at what He was really doing.
These words go back to the start of Jesus' public ministry. The crowd had mangled them on the way. One writer traces the path of the misquotation:
When He first said this, the Jews thought He meant the building they were standing in. Later, on the cross, they taunted Him with what they thought He had said. They still thought He had meant the temple building itself, so they credited Him with words He had never said. "Destroy this temple," He did say. "You who would destroy the temple," they assumed He had said. They misquoted His words, and so got it completely wrong.
Their demand assumes that a real Son of God would break free by force. The truth ran the other way. The same writer shows what being the Son meant:
Power displayed would in their eyes be proof of His divine Sonship. He gave no reply to their taunt; but, because He was God's Son, He stayed on the cross. They linked power with Sonship. He accepted that obedience was part of that relationship. He showed perfect obedience to His Father's will by staying on that cross… "Save yourself." That kind of talk showed the way their minds ran: self, not the Father's will, should guide how a person lives. Without realising it, they were defending the sin of Adam and Eve. They proved they were descended from them, born in Adam's likeness.
Jesus had heard that opening word once before, in the desert. Those who follow Him still hear it:
Here is the echo of the old desert temptation, "If you are the Son of God." And here too is the constant temptation of God's people in every age — if — why? If you are a child of God, why is this allowed to come upon you? If you do trust Him, why are you left in this condition or circumstance?
He could have done what they asked. Power was never what kept Him there:
If it were only a question of power, He might have stepped in. The holy Sufferer could have come down from the cross with ease. It was even part of His suffering at that moment to be challenged by a dying criminal to do so — what did He not suffer? But we must see this: no act of power could atone.
Another writer points to the name He received at birth:
His name, given at His birth, means Saviour… They did not understand the meaning of His name. Because He was Jesus, He could not come down from the cross. If He had come down, He would have given up His name. He would have denied Himself, for He could not have been Jesus any more. If He was to bear that name for ever, He had to die, for only by His death could He be the Saviour of those who lay under death's power.
He answers none of it. And the three days they laughed at turned out to be a timetable:
They revile Him, and He does not revile back. Our Gospel does not report a single word from His lips… He is silent under the cruel and vile mockeries, born in the pit, the very breath of Satan. Once more they hold the old accusation up against Him. They had no idea that they were fulfilling that very word about destroying the temple. The third day, when He would rise as the mighty victor, was not far off.
- Misquoted. The taunt rests on words Jesus never said. He had said, "Destroy this temple" — they turned it into a charge that He would destroy it Himself.
- Mistested. They made raw power the proof of divine Sonship. He made obedience to His Father the meaning of Sonship, and stayed where they told Him to leave.
- Retested. "If you are the Son of God" is the desert temptation coming back. Believers still hear it in hard times: if God is your Father, why this?
- Refused. Coming down was well within His power. But it was outside His purpose. No display of power could atone, and a Jesus who saved Himself would have given up the name Saviour.
- Reversed. The three days they laughed at were the three days He kept. Without knowing it, the mockers announced the resurrection they were laughing at.
[And] in like manner the chief priests also, mocking, with the scribes and elders, said,
At the crucifixion, insults came at Jesus from every side. This verse names the group hardest to explain: the religious leaders of the nation, standing at an execution to mock a dying man in words truer than they knew.
Matthew lists the mockers in layers: the passers-by, then the leaders, then the criminals beside Him. One writer draws out how unusual that is.
Verses 39-44 show us how all classes united in reviling Him as He was dying on the cross. Hardened criminals have had to listen to stern words when they were condemned to death. But we have never heard of even the worst and most depraved being mocked while they died in agony. Yet this is what happened to Him who was perfection itself, Divine as well as human. The only difference was the kind of language used. "Those who passed by" were ordinary people going about their business. "The chief priests … with the scribes and elders" were the upper classes. "The thieves also … threw the same insults at Him." They were the lowest, the criminal class; but they were only following the fashion, in their own crude and vulgar way.
The leaders said He rescued others but could not rescue Himself. That was true, though not in the way they meant.
They wagged the head, saying, "He saved others: himself he cannot save." What words! They admitted that His power had been fully displayed, they rejected what was divine, they declared that they had driven God out from among them! In fact, He could not save Himself, because He could not think of Himself: the love which had saved others went farther and gave Himself for us. Perfect love for His Father, obedience to His commandments, His perfect love to us, hindered His saving Himself. He might have had His twelve legions of angels, but He had come for others, not for Himself.
Their taunt went further: they offered to believe if He came down from the cross. That offer was worthless on two counts. First, it mistakes how faith comes, and what His staying on the cross achieved:
What they add is completely false, for they say, "Let the Christ, the King of Israel, come down now from the cross, so that we may see and believe." Faith comes by hearing, not by sight. Besides, if He had come down from the cross, belief would have been pointless. We would still be in our sins.
Second, their later conduct showed what they would do with proof:
In their wicked glee, they promise to believe in Him if He would come down from the cross and so prove Himself the King of Israel. Sadly, when His resurrection from the dead gave them a mightier proof, they could bribe the Roman soldiers to hide the dreaded truth.
These were the men trained to teach God's word, and the demand they made had no backing in it.
They acknowledged His works done on behalf of others, yet refused to accept the claims those works proved. Those acts showed that He was God's servant, the Christ, as the men who claimed to teach God's word should have known. Yet after all they had heard and seen, they asked Him to settle His claim to be the Messiah by coming down from the cross at once. Power used for the good of others was a proof that He was the Messiah. Power used to save Himself from death on the cross was never predicted as a proof that the King of Israel was on earth.
Worse, they took the words of their sneer straight from a psalm written about this very sufferer:
It is astonishing that these cultured religious men, in their fearful blindness, quoted Scripture as they gazed at Him. David had written Psalm 22 by the Spirit, the great prophetic psalm of the suffering One, and they knew it well. In that psalm the wicked enemies of the great sufferer speak. It even gives the words they would use to revile Him in the presence of the forsaken sufferer: "He trusted in the Lord that He would deliver Him; let Him deliver Him, since He delighted in Him." These very words the sneering chief priests, elders and scribes spoke before the cross.
Seen from outside — by a Roman officer, say — the scene judged the men who staged it.
Think of the Roman centurion watching the leaders of the Jewish nation come out to mock a poor criminal as he died — for that is how it looked. There was the religion and the learning of the nation, busy at this work. The two high priests, the elders and the scribes were degrading themselves, even in human eyes. The enmity expressed was against God Himself; but see how deep its display had sunk poor man!
- Everyone — passers-by, rulers and criminals all mocked Him. Only the language changed with the class; the hatred did not.
- "Cannot" — He could not save Himself because love for His Father and for us held Him there. Twelve legions of angels were His for the asking, and He never called them.
- Condition — "Come down and we will believe" was a promise they never meant. A greater sign came at the resurrection, and they paid to have it hidden.
- Blindness — the men who claimed to teach God's word asked for a proof no prophet ever promised. They mocked Him in the words of the very psalm they were fulfilling.
- Verdict — the religion and learning of the nation stood at a cross and jeered. The shame was not His; it showed how deep man's enmity against God runs.
He saved others, himself he cannot save. He is King of Israel let him descend now from the cross, and we will believe on him.
The religious leaders shouted these words at a dying man to mock Him. Yet commentators say the first half of their taunt is true — so in what sense could the One who saved others not save Himself?
The leaders admitted the record of His life, but refused what that record proved:
They acknowledged His works done for others, yet refused to accept what those works proved. They knew His life on earth, and could speak of His acts of kindness and power. Those acts testified that He was God's servant — the Christ — as the men who professed to explain God's word should have known; yet they asked, after all they had heard and seen, that His claim to be the Messiah should be settled by His coming down from the cross at once.
They wanted a proof no prophet had ever promised. Power shown for others was the sign of the Messiah; power used to rescue Himself was not.
Read as the priests meant it, the second half of the sentence is a sneer at failure. Read rightly, it is His glory:
As has often been the case, the very insult they threw at Him is His glory. It was true in a way their spite never dreamed of: "He saved others; Himself He cannot save." That was not the "cannot" of weakness or inability. It was the "cannot" of divine love.
If it was not weakness, what was it? One writer answers that His own love and obedience made escape impossible:
In fact, He could not save Himself, because He could not think of Himself. The love which had saved others went further and gave Himself for us. Perfect love for His Father, obedience to His commandments, and perfect love for us kept Him from saving Himself. He might have had His twelve legions of angels, but He had come for others, not for Himself... If He was to save others, He could not save Himself.
Every other person dies because death has a claim on them. One writer points out that this was never true of Jesus:
He laid down His life for us. There was no other way we could be saved. More than that, He obeyed the Father at all cost, set on carrying out His will — even our sanctification. In that sense only He could not save Himself. Nothing in the nature of the Lord Jesus Christ made death necessary. All other men must die because of Adam; Christ did not have to... So He says plainly about His death: "I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again" (John 10:18).
His very name settled the matter. Coming down would have meant surrendering it:
He could not have come down from the cross, for His Name was Jesus. Had He come down, as their mocking demanded, He would have had to strip Himself of that Name. No sinner could then be saved, and He would never have done the work God gave Him to do.
The mockers offered a bargain: a miracle in exchange for their faith. One writer separates the true half of what they said from the false:
The chief priests joined the others in mocking the Lord. They said, "He saved others; Himself He cannot save." This was true, little as they realised it. But what they add is wholly false... Faith comes by hearing, not by sight. Moreover, had He come down from the cross, belief would have been in vain. We should still be in our sins.
Their promise was soon tested. Ridout notes that when a far greater proof came — His resurrection from the dead — they bribed the Roman soldiers to hide the truth they feared.
- Cannot — the leaders meant the word as a charge of weakness. Commentators read it as love. He had authority to lay His life down and to take it up again.
- Cause — love for the Father, obedience, and love for us were what held Him there. Not the nails, and not any claim death had on Him.
- Cost — coming down would have meant giving up the name Jesus, and with it every hope of salvation for sinners.
- Condition — their offer to believe if He came down asked for a sign no prophet had promised. Faith comes by hearing, not by sight.
- Consequence — if He had answered their challenge, we would still be in our sins. The taunt they threw at Him is the exact reason we are saved.
He trusted upon God; let him save him now if he will [have] him. For he said, I am Son of God.
The men who mocked Jesus at the cross reached for religious language. Without knowing it, they quoted the very words a psalm had put in the mouths of His enemies. Their taunt raises the hardest question of the cross: if He really trusted God, why did no help come?
The leaders knew the Scriptures. They knew by heart the very psalm they were fulfilling.
It is astonishing to see these educated religious men, in their terrible blindness, quoting Scripture as they stared at Him... Israel's great king David had written by the Spirit that great prophetic psalm about the suffering One — Psalm 22, and they knew it well. In that psalm the wicked enemies of the great sufferer speak. The psalm gives the very words they would use to insult Him in front of the forsaken sufferer: "He trusts in the LORD; let him deliver him; let him rescue him, for he delights in him!" (verse 8). The sneering chief priests, elders and scribes spoke those very words in front of the cross.
The phrase they threw at Him pictures a man rolling his whole weight onto God. To them, the silence of heaven looked like God's verdict.
There is no help for Him in His God. Others had cried in their need, and God heard and answered them (Ps. 22:4-5). But now righteousness stands alone and unheard. His enemies read this — and in one solemn sense they read it rightly — as if God were against Him. They say, "He trusts in God" — literally, "rolled Himself on Jehovah"... They daringly claim God as on their side against His blessed Son.
Everything in the first half of their sentence was accurate.
The bitterness of its sting lay in the truth of the sneer, and in its apparent reasonableness. For no one ever trusted in God as this suffering One did. His whole life had been one of unwavering confidence in God, so that of no one else could it be said so truthfully and so emphatically, "He trusted in God."
What they built on that true statement was the accusation that He was a fraud.
Yet the scoffers around the cross meant an untruth even while they spoke the truth. Their taunt charged Him with being a real impostor, since God's word and human experience alike said that God had never failed to deliver anyone who truly trusted Him.
Their last words pointed past themselves, to who was really behind the taunt.
Consider the sneer flung into the sensitive heart of our Lord by the chief priests and scribes and elders, who could say, "Let God deliver Him now, IF He desires Him." "If He desires Him!" With these words in His ears, the lonely Sufferer hangs in silence, with no voice from heaven to answer for Him then. One further note reveals the real force ranged against Him — the voice of Satan — in their closing reminder: "For He said, 'I am the Son of God.'"
The mockers assumed that no help meant no delight. The opposite was true.
What was it for the Holy One of God to be forsaken by His God, when He cried and no answer came? To be forsaken by His disciples? To be despised by men and scorned by His own people, from the high priest down to the lowest of the Jews, and by the very robbers crucified beside Him, who deserved it? Yet at no time was He suffering so effectively for God's glory. At no time was He so fully the object of divine delight. And yet His God, who could not overlook sin in the slightest, did not deliver Him then. Instead He made Him, the sinless One, sin for us.
Deliverance was refused at the moment they demanded it, not refused altogether.
His trust in God remained unshaken, even when He cried, "My God, my God, why have You forsaken Me?" And right at the end, after He had met death in its full power, it is to God He cries: "Save me from the mouth of the lion! You have rescued me from the horns of the wild oxen" (Psalm 22:21). His trust in God to the very end was not put to shame. God answered His cry by raising Him from the dead.
That little word "if" did not die at Golgotha; it follows everyone who trusts God and is left waiting.
The Lord Jesus has left us an example, that we should follow His steps. God had one Son without sin, but none without suffering. The lesson of it all to our hearts is to trust Him at all times — despite the enemy, despite being misunderstood, despite our own hearts... Appearances were against Him. He met heart-breaking reproach, loneliness and desertion by nearly all. Still He trusted in God and finished the course without wavering.
- Trust stated. "He trusts in God" was the one thing they got right. No one ever leaned His whole weight on God as this Man did.
- Trust misread. From a true statement they drew a false verdict: no rescue, therefore an impostor. Right facts, wrong conclusion.
- Trust tested. "IF He desires Him" carried Satan's voice behind theirs, aimed at the Son of God at His worst moment.
- Trust honoured. Heaven's silence was not displeasure. He was never more the delight of God than in the hour when, made sin, He received no help.
- Trust vindicated. The answer they demanded "now" came at the resurrection. His trust was never put to shame, and neither is ours when we follow His example.
And the robbers also who had been crucified with him cast the same reproaches on him.
Two convicted criminals hang beside Jesus. They are dying the same death He is dying, yet they spend their strength mocking Him. Their taunts come last in a scene where everyone else has already turned on Him — leaders, soldiers and passers-by alike.
Matthew lists the insults in order. The robbers come last because they came from the bottom of society. One commentator traces the whole sequence:
Verses 39-44 show us how all classes united in reviling Him as He was dying on the cross. Hardened criminals have had to listen to stern words when a court condemned them to death. But we have never heard of anyone mocking even the most vicious and depraved while they died in agony. Yet this is what happened when He who was the embodiment of all perfection, Divine as well as human, was on the cross. There was no difference, except in the type of language used. "Those who passed by" were ordinary folk going about their business. "The chief priests, with the scribes and elders" were the upper classes. The robbers "also reviled him in the same way." They stood for the lowest class, the criminals. But they only followed the fashion in their crude and vulgar way.
No group was missing from that crowd:
The scenes around the cross expose the evil of fallen man in all its enormity. Every class is there — Jews and Gentiles, priests and people, the ruler and his soldiers, the passers-by and the criminals. Their political and social differences may be great, but they all share the same hatred and rejection of Christ.
"In the same way" means the robbers did not invent their own abuse. They picked up what was already in the air:
The thieves heard the revilings, and adopted them, for they threw the same taunts at Him. But an entire change came over one of them. Light broke in upon his soul, and in its case it was the light of life — eternal life.
One of the two later turned to Christ. Because of that, readers have looked for something better in him from the start. The record refuses it:
So it is completely useless for anyone to try to make a distinction between these two men. They were alike in their nature, in their guilt, in their criminality, and in their godless wickedness. There was no difference until the moment the arrow of conviction entered the soul of the one we call the penitent thief. The more clearly we see this, the more the sovereign grace of God shines out in all its blessed brightness. "There is no difference; for all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God."
(The ESV reads, "for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.")
That verdict reaches past the two men on the crosses:
But no sorrow, no shame, no suffering brings the heart too low to scorn Jesus; a crucified robber despises Him! In every unrenewed heart there is an instinct, so to speak, against Jesus. Not even the power of love that carried Him down into the deepest humiliation could silence it… Do not say that you are one bit better than this wretched man.
Matthew records no reply from Jesus to any of it. A commentator sets that silence beside Psalm 69, quoted here in an older translation:
We see still deeper sufferings of the Holy One… "Reproach has broken my heart; and I am full of heaviness; and I looked for some to take pity, but there was none; and for comforters, but I found none" (Psalm 69:20). No one pities Him in the scene before us. He is alone, and they mock Him cruelly. He must have felt the reproach as only one who is perfectly holy could have felt it. He was insulted, but He did not insult back. Our Gospel does not report a single word coming from His lips.
God saved one of these two mockers while he hung dying. The choice of such a man was deliberate:
Here God would give a testimony of His grace to man, suited to His Son and suited to the Cross. So He was pleased to choose what nature would call the most hopeless circumstances. He was delivering a soul that until then was steeped in guilt and degradation. The man was in the agonies of death, and he dreaded a far more solemn judgment, one that is eternal.
- Everyone. Rulers, soldiers, passers-by and criminals all mocked Him. Only their style of language differed, not their hatred.
- Borrowed. The robbers invented nothing. They heard the crowd's taunts and repeated them in their own crude way.
- Identical. Before his conversion the penitent robber was no better than the other. The two men were alike in nature, guilt and wickedness.
- Silent. He answered none of it, though as the holy One He felt the reproach more deeply than anyone else could.
- Chosen. God chose the most hopeless case possible: a dying criminal who was still insulting Him. His grace gets all the credit, not the man.