What did Jesus mean in the discussion with the Thief on the Cross?

[Hobie]

We have this text that has been used to say we go directly to heaven on death, so lets go over it.
Luke 23:43
And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, Today shalt thou be with me in paradise
So the question it poses is what was Jesus's intention to communicate to the thief. Was it that he would be in his kingdom eventually in the future, or that he would be in paradise that day.

Look closely at the resurrection of Christ after He lay in tomb, we see that Christ did not go to heaven when He died and went to the tomb, but not until after the resurrection.

John 20:16-17
16 Jesus saith unto her, Mary. She turned herself, and saith unto him, Rabboni; which is to say, Master.
17 Jesus saith unto her, Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended to my Father: but go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God.

So we can see that Jesus did not go to Paradise after His death that day either, as He was buried and remained in the tomb until His resurrection. The day of His resurrection He appeared to Mary, stating that He had “not yet ascended to My Father” but that now He was ascending to "My Father and your Father, and to My God and your God”. So what is in the text with the thief on the cross has punctuation that was not given in the original.
Luke 23:43
And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, Today shalt thou be with me in paradise.

The obvious implication is that He could not have promised the thief that He would be with him in Paradise on Friday. and Jesus and the thief did not die at the same time as Jesus died Friday and the thief was still alive, and his legs were broken to keep him from escaping as it usually took several days for those who were crucified to die.

And we see Jesus taken up into Heaven..
Acts 1:6-10
6 Then they gathered around him and asked him, 'Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?'
7 He said to them: 'It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority.
8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.'
9 After he said this, he was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid him from their sight.
10 They were looking intently up into the sky as he was going, when suddenly two men dressed in white stood beside them. 11 'Men of Galilee,' they said, 'why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven.'

Jesus ascended literally, bodily, in full view of His disciples and followers. As they watched Him go up, two angels appeared and said He would come back "in like manner" as He went up. So lets look even deeper.

 

[Hobie]

Lets take a closer look on whether the dead go straight to heaven at death on this post by my close buddy Palehorse in his study on the state of the dead....
So, when do we get our reward?
Matthew 16:27 - For the Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father with his angels; and then he shall reward every man according to his works.
Matthew 5:12 - Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you.
Matthew 6:1 - Take heed that ye do not your alms before men, to be seen of them: otherwise ye have no reward of your Father which is in heaven.
Luke 6:23 - Rejoice ye in that day, and leap for joy: for, behold, your reward is great in heaven: for in the like manner did their fathers unto the prophets.
Revelation 22:12 - And, behold, I come quickly; and my reward is with me, to give every man according as his work shall be.

Notice that the reward comes when Jesus comes back not before and not after. Nor does it make a lick of sense that if people were already in heaven that Jesus would send them back to earth to re-resurrect them. That would serve no purpose at all and the Bible simply does not teach that. That is a fairytale and I challenge anyone to produce any scripture in favor of that teaching.

Lets look at Christ's example on the cross and Ill include the thief in this point since many cite this as a reason to believe that we go immediately to heaven or hell following death:
Luke 23:42, 43 - And he said unto Jesus, Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom. And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, To day shalt thou be with me in paradise.
Luke 23:46 - And when Jesus had cried with a loud voice, he said, Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit: and having said thus, he gave up the ghost.
So, as we learned earlier the word spirit (ruach) simply means His breath. But now we will verify many of the things established in this paper:

1) Did Jesus ascend to heaven that day? No.
Remember, Jesus died on a Friday (day of preparation, Luke 23:54), laid dead in the sepulchre all of Saturday (Sabbath , again Luke 23:54), rose on Sunday, and
John 20:1 - The first day of the week (Sunday still) cometh Mary Magdalene early, when it was yet dark, unto the sepulchre, and seeth the stone taken away from the sepulchre.
(Luke 24:21 further verifies it was three days)
John 20:17 - Jesus saith unto her, Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended to my Father: but go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God.
Jesus was dead and rose on the third day and still had not yet ascended to heaven.

2) Did the thief die that day? No.
In fact, the Jews didnt want anyone hanging on the cross during their Sabbath day so the Romans broke the legs of the thief and the other (neither of which had died yet) so that when they took the crosses down they wouldnt run away (John 19:31-33).

3) Did the thief even ask to be taken to heaven that day? No. The thief knew his theology what did he ask?
Luke 23:42, 43 - And he said unto Jesus, Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom...

The thief did not ask to be taken to heaven when he died but when Christ would return. This is very important to understand, don't miss it.

Never has the misplacement of a comma ever caused so much trouble. Remember, neither Greek nor Hebrew contains any form of punctuation nor capitalization, the translators put those in when they translated to English.

Is it possible they were swayed by a preconceived notion? Maybe so.
Are they inspired as the writers of the Bible were? No, certainly not.
Were they just being consistent? YES! Check it out; any time in the Bible where Jesus says verily I say unto thee there is always a comma immediately following the phrase. The translators were merely being consistent in their translation and I can't fault them for that - but this time it was at the expense of the true meaning of what Jesus actually said.

Am I wrong? Well let's test that. Let's see if there are examples of misplaced commas in other places in the Bible just to see if this is possible:
Acts 19:12 - So that from his body were brought unto the sick handkerchiefs or aprons, and the diseases departed from them, and the evil spirits went out of them.
Now ask yourself, were the handkerchiefs sick? Did they have evil spirits in them? No. According to the way this sentence is written then they were, right? Doesn't it stand to reason that the comma is misplaced? I would think so.
Lets see another example:

Genesis 16:1 - Now Sarai Abram's wife bare him no children: and she had an handmaid, an Egyptian, whose name was Hagar.
Was Sarai Abram his name? No. The commas are missing between the names, it should read 'Now Sarai, Abrams's wife, bare him'. There are many others, the point is that punctuation mistakes DID happen and the example of the thief on the cross is merely another one that can easily be corrected if people would correlate the meaning to the plain teachings found in the rest of the Bible. The Bible does not contradict itself but sometimes one must look a bit deeper than the surface to see that. There are other punctuation mistakes; check out 2 Peter 3:12 (it's a statement, not a question) & Hebrews 4:8 (it's a question, not a statement).

Let's get two more examples that further show people do not go to heaven or hell upon death:
2 Peter 2:9 - The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations, and to RESERVE the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished.
Acts 2:29-34 - Men and brethren, let me freely speak unto you of the patriarch David, that he is both dead and buried, and his sepulchre is with us unto this day Therefore being a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him, that of the fruit of his loins, according to the flesh, he would raise up Christ to sit on his throne; He seeing this before spake of the resurrection of Christ, that his soul was not left in hell (grave), neither his flesh did see corruption. This Jesus hath God raised up, whereof we all are witnesses. Therefore being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, he hath shed forth this, which ye now see and hear. For David is not ascended into the heavens: but he saith himself, The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand,
What Paul is saying here is simple and yet vital; David is still dead and buried and has not ascended to heaven even though David was promised to do so by God Himself. If David is not in heaven even years after his death (and with the promise from God) then what makes people think they will go to heaven immediately after death? The Bible simply does not teach that.

Job understood well what happens after death and how/when the resurrection takes place; lets see what he says:
Job 14:10-14 - But man dieth, and wasteth away: yea, man giveth up the ghost, and where is he? (yes, that is the very question at hand - where is he?) As the waters fail from the sea, and the flood decayeth and drieth up: So man lieth down, and riseth not: 1) till the heavens be no more, they shall not awake, nor be raised out of their sleep. O that thou wouldest hide me in the grave, that thou wouldest keep me secret, 2) until thy wrath be past, that thou wouldest appoint me a set time, and remember me! If a man die, shall he live again? all the days of my appointed time will I wait, till 3) my change come.

I numbered those parts for a reason. When we break down the references of what he says here we find the following:
1. 2 Peter 3:10 - But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.
2. Revelation 15:1-2 - And I saw another sign in heaven, great and marvelous, seven angels having the seven last plagues; for in them is filled up the wrath of God. And I saw as it were a sea of glass mingled with fire: and them that had gotten the victory over the beast, and over his image, and over his mark, and over the number of his name, stand on the sea of glass, having the harps of God.
3. 1 Corinthians 15:51-54 - Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory.
Here is another example of the sequence of events that occur; we experience death, get buried and stay there until Jesus returns, then we are raised up and given glorified bodies (if we are righteous), then we meet Christ in the air. It is very simple.

Lastly, let's look at what Jesus Himself had to say about this:
John 14:1-3 - Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.

Was Christ lying? Has Christ come again yet and received us?
No. If He had come then the world would have been utterly destroyed (see 2 Peter 3:10)

 

[CrowCross]

And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, Today shalt thou be with me in paradise

....and the thief was in Paradise immediately after he died.
Where do you think "Paradise" was? ....by the dashboard lights?