HEAVEN, HOW I GOT HERE
By Colin Smith
Christian Focus. 95 pages. £5.99
ISBN 978 1 781 915 585
There is a lot to be said for a short book. Subscribers to this newspaper may regularly devour massive theological tomes, but I suspect that within UK churches such avid readers are in the minority.
But here is a short book that is an easy read and a very good read. Do not dismiss it for its shortness. I hope it makes this excellent work accessible to a very wide range of people.
It is not short on imagination. This book takes the story of the thief on the cross and tells it from his point of view. He describes his last day on earth. Of course it contains some assumptions – that the thief was Jewish and had a Jewish upbringing, for example. But that is not unlikely. And for the purpose of the storytelling it assumes a lucid mind during the process of crucifixion. But it draws deeply on Scripture. The writer, Colin Smith, says his starting point was to note that the Bible says that Jesus was the first of the three crucified men to die. Which means that the others witnessed all that was said and done on the hill of Golgotha that day. The thief who trusted Christ had a few short hours to make sense of these events before he entered the promised paradise.
Truth told
Neither is this book short on theology. In a lively, clear and readable way huge doctrines of Scripture are explained: sin, repentance, faith, redemption, justification, substitutionary atonement, propitiation, heaven and hell. All are wonderfully unpacked from the point of view of a man who starts the day in the kingdom of darkness and ends it in the kingdom of light. There are very helpful comments on suffering and on the purpose of life itself.
Also, the book is not short on challenge. The thief writes out of a warm evangelistic heart pleading with the reader to recognise his need and trust Christ. For that reason, this book would be a great, and different, one to give to an interested non-Christian. But it makes an inspiring and stimulating read for any believer also, enabling the redeemed to ponder anew the glory and the shame of the cross.
Preacher at work
Colin Smith, the preacher, is veiled behind the dying thief. You see it in the many memorable antithetical parallelisms, e.g. ‘Don’t measure God’s love by what is happening to you. Measure it by what happened to Jesus.’ Or again, ‘Jesus did not slide into death as a victim. He marched into death as a conquering warrior.’
Short on words; long on truth.
