The thief is brought up by everyone who wishes to deny that obedience in baptism is necessary for salvation. Baptism puts us in Christ - Galatians 3:27. We are baptized into his death - Romans 6:3. How can one be saved outside of Christ? How can one be saved by the blood if he has not had contact with His death?

First, as you request, a direct response, yes the thief was saved.

Now we need to talk about that thief a little more. When Jesus told the thief that he would be with him in paradise, it was before He died. There was no special condition made for the thief. Both Jesus and the thief died under the law of Moses.

We do not know that the thief was not baptized; the odds are good that he was. Mark 1:4-5 says: (I use the New King James Version)

John came baptizing in the wilderness and preaching a baptism of repentance for the remission of sins. Then all the land of Judea, and those from Jerusalem, went out to him and were all baptized by him in the Jordan River, confessing their sins.

John 4:1-3 says:

Therefore, when the Lord knew that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus made and baptized more disciples than John (though Jesus Himself did not baptize, but His disciples), He left Judea and departed again to Galilee

John's baptism was "a baptism of repentance for the remission of sins" as stated by Mark above. Until Jesus died and the gospel was preached that he was the Christ or Messiah, man could only live in hope of forgiveness. Christ is translated from the Greek, Messiah from the Hebrew; both refer to God's anointed.

The Jews by Moses and the prophets looked for a Messiah that would bring a kingdom of righteousness and forgiveness of sins. It was their hope that, when Messiah came, He would bring salvation and that they too would be saved. The thief lived and died subject to this hope. To be part of this salvation, they needed to serve God from the heart. It was never just a matter of obeying the law. See Romans 4:13-16.

Jeremiah 31:31-34 says:

"Behold, the days are coming," says the Lord, "when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah-- not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, though I was a husband to them, says the Lord. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days," says the Lord: "I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. No more shall every man teach his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, `Know the Lord,' for they all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more."

After Christ died and the Gospel was preached we live under the new covenant. The gospel is part of the new covenant, but was preached under the old covenant through the promise to Abraham, the continual offering of animal sacrifices for atonement, and the teaching of the prophets. By Christ's death, the law was finished. Colossians 2:13-14 says:

And you, being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He has made alive together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses, having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us. And He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross.

The new covenant is a matter of Faith. We obey because we believe, not because we are born a Jew and, as a Jew, obligated to keep the Law given by Moses. Belief is from the heart, Romans 10:10. Please note carefully Romans 10:16 as follows.

But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, "Lord, who has believed our report?"

In this verse we see that obedience is assumed as part of believing. Romans 6:16-17 says:

Do you not know that to whom you present yourselves slaves to obey, you are that one's slaves whom you obey, whether of sin leading to death, or of obedience leading to righteousness? 17 But God be thanked that though you were slaves of sin, yet you obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine to which you were delivered. 18 And having been set free from sin, you became slaves of righteousness.

In this passage was it their obedience though faith that set them free from sin or was it faith only?