Did Jesus promise a dying thief a free ticket to heaven?

When Jesus was executed there were two other men executed at the same time…  criminals of some sort …thieves, agitators. One of them started to rail on Jesus or blasphemeo… saying “if you’re the Messiah why don’t you save yourself and save us?”

The other guy told him to stop… saying we’re up here because we deserve it. This guy [Jesus] doesn’t deserve what’s happening to Him. Don’t you have any respect or fear of God considering that you are condemned to death. Then he turned to Jesus and said “remember me when you come into your kingdom”.

Jesus answered ‘truly I tell you today you shall be with me in paradise”. According to the scriptural  record it’s the second last thing Jesus ever said before He died…  Luke 23:39-43

There is a lot packed into this short exchange of words. Jesus says something profound…but what? Is He promising this regretful and fearful criminal that he will wake up in heaven?

The answer is no. Here is  why:

The Preponderance of Scripture

The overwhelming majority of scripture indicates that when we die our spirit returns to God and we are in a state the bible likens to sleep. In this state there is no conscious thought. A couple of good scriptures are: 1 Corinthians 15:51, 1 Thesselonians 4:13-18, Ecclesiastes 9:5-6.

True... but such and argument opens up potential criticism that scripture is contradictory. Which it isn't... so let's dig deeper.

The Power of Punctuation

When originally written the verse did not have punctuation. Writers didn’t use punctuation until later in history. You teens and tweens might think “cool, a world without punctuation… less stuff to get marked wrong on my writing assignments”. Back then they didn’t even use spaces between words. This all made life very difficult for anyone attempting to read (very few people did so it was not in high demand).

The punctuation we have today was inserted around the time after the invention of the printing press. The KJV places a comma before the word TODAY… making Jesus’ words sound like this:

Truly I tell you… today you shall be with me in paradise.

But move the comma over one word and you get:

Truly I tell you today… you shall be with me in paradise.

The people who translated the bible into English added punctuation based on their reading of the context and generally do a good job. Not so with this verse. Here’s a reason why:

Jesus reply, “Truly I say to you today” was a “common Hebrew turn of phrase used to add a more serious tone to what is being said” For example:  Deuteronomy 30:18 (“I announce to you today that you shall surely perish”) and Acts 20:26 (“Therefore, I declare to you today that I am innocent of the blood of all men”. I believe the English translators put the comma were they did to create a verse that seemed to back up their non-biblical belief that after people die they go to heaven.

Again I refer you back to the previous argument: the preponderance of scripture.

Bad Punctuation Leads to Bad Theology

If you accept the arbitrary punctuation and teach Jesus words to mean that by the end of the day the criminal on the cross would go to heaven with Jesus then you would also be teaching that upon His death Jesus did not go into and stay in the grave for three days and three nights as other scriptures plainly indicate… including the sign Jesus gave to prove who He was…  Matt 12:38-40

If Jesus goes to heaven by the end of the day then:

1. a)      You have to question whether Jesus ever really died at all (or did He just change location from earth to heaven)… and if you go there then Jesus didn’t actually die for your sin… and if the penalty for your sins is not paid… then you have no future.
2. b)      You would have to ask why even after His resurrection… even after the 3 days and 3 nights Jesus told Mary that He had not yet ascended to heaven to present himself before the father. John 20:17

The teaching that humans go to heaven upon death is a man-made, non-biblical idea. People try to read the concept into God’s word but it just isn’t really there. Adding a jot or tittle here and there try and make scripture say something it never intended is bad practice and shouldn’t be the basis for belief.

Comma Shmomma

We don’t want to base our understanding of this  verse on a mere comma either do we? If we put aside the whole comma issue is there other stuff in this verse we can use to determine the real meaning? …Yes there is!

Read the verse again and notice that Jesus does not use the word heaven. He uses the word PARADISOS. The word paradisos is an Oriental word meaning a type of idyllic park, a garden of Eden, a place of future happiness on earth. The word paradisos is only used in two other places in the NT:

Revelation 2:7 which speaks of the tree of life that is in the midst of the paradise of God. This makes a clear connection between the word paradise and Eden in Gen 3:22. Notice that Eden is an earthly place that is beautiful perfect and unspoiled where God and man may dwell together.

II Corinthians 12:4 where Paul speaks of a vision so real that according to verse 3 he could not tell if it was a vision or an actual occurrence in space and time. Presumably the vision was of the same paradise of God referred to in Revelation 2:7 which must have given him a tremendous sense of the reality of God’s promises and plan for a future time and place where God and man could dwell peaceably together.

This is exactly what the criminal on the cross will experience as part of the second resurrection described in Revelation 20:5. He will  be resurrected to an earth that has been under the direct rule of Christ for 1,000 years. The earth will be restored to a state of incredibly beauty under the Christ. But not only physical beauty… social justice, an end to oppression and war, and righteous judgment. 

Read Isaiah 9:1-7

Conclusion: Jesus told that wretched, desperate dying man “you will be with me in paradisos”. Jesus was not telling him a little white lie to comfort and ease the man’s despair. Jesus words were not a promise of both their lives moving from their physical bodies to a place in heaven. A promise like that is contrary to the word of God… Jesus was giving him the truth… The truth of the resurrection. Not the resurrection of Christ… not the resurrection of the holy people (which is a resurrection to spiritual bodies)… but the flesh and blood resurrection planned for all who have ever lived and died.

A final  resurrection when that man on the cross (and the rest of humanity) will truly be with Christ in Paradise.