The Thief on the Cross: Did He Go Straight to Heaven?

 

The Thief on the Cross

Luke 23:43 (NKJV): "And Jesus said to him, “Assuredly, I say to you, today you will be with Me in Paradise.” "

It appears that Jesus told the thief on the cross who was repentant that he would meet Jesus, today, in Paradise.

Is that really what that verse is telling us? Again, as in the previous example, we must study this carefully.

We could look at punctuation, but this commentary will not do that. Why? Because there was no modern punctuation in The Bible's original writings. So playing around with punctuation can only lead others to not trust The Bible translations.

After all, if we can put a comma in a verse we don't like, what gives us the right to tell another that they cannot do the same thing in return to us?

Our best choice is to come to an honest, logical conclusion.

In Luke 20:37 (NKJV), Jesus says this:

"But even Moses showed in the burning bush passage that the dead are raised, when he called the Lord ‘the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’ "

Let's now look at another quote from Jesus in Matthew 22:32 (NKJV):

" ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’... God is not the God of the dead, but of the living.”

The Bible makes it clear that those three men were buried and rested with their forefathers. But Jesus considers them alive. When a righteous person dies, they are not "dead" to Jesus. Only sleeping.

God only gives living promises. Jesus is the living water. Anyone and anything in the KIngdom of God is not dead, but living. God has never made a dead promise. Even if that promise is thousands of years old, it is alive and well.

Galatians 3:29 (NKJV): "And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise."

The minute we belong to Jesus, we become citizens of the Kingdom of God. This kingdom is not full of dead people. We are alive in Christ.

Jesus could only be telling the thief next to Him that his salvation was at hand, and today he will indeed be part of that living promise.

That promise is to be with Jesus....in Paradise. When Jesus made that statement He was also telling us that He had full faith in God the Father to be resurrected. His mission was accomplished. Jesus emphatically implies that the thief will join Him in that living, eternal kingdom....on this day!

We have another thought, although it is part of the next day's lesson. When we die in Christ, and are awoken for the resurrection, it will seem as if no time has passed. It will be as if death and resurrection happened at the very same time. In essence, when we die, immediately to us, we will be in, "Paradise."

The majority of Christians believe that Jesus spent 3 days in the grave after dying on the cross. So the only logical conclusion would be that Jesus was not talking about physically being with anyone in Paradise on the very day He died.