“Do you think Christ, as He hangs on the cross dying for our sins, is bound by your legalistic game of gotcha?”
Has nothing to do with a game, but it has all to do with the plan of salvation. If this is the plan of salvation, the literal Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day that was stated by Jesus a year before he died, and he gives no exception, especially when he sees most of his followers walking away, why then is it not the same requirement for the thief?
Obviously He DID give an exception.