Faith First Media

Paradise, Today?

by Dr. John H. Roller

Working as a newsletter and magazine editor has renewed my interest in the importance of correct spelling, punctuation, grammar and formatting. Several times, I’ve run head-on into the misunderstandings that can be created by a simple typographical error. For example, failure to hit the space bar can change the comforting statement “He is now here” into the distressing statement “He is nowhere.” Credit goes to my friend Roger Byrd for the following examples of what re-punctuation can do to a biblical text:

“I would not have you, ignorant brethren” (Romans 1:13, Byrd Re-emphasized Version).

“Let him that stole, steal. No more… let him labor” (Ephesians 4:28, BRV).

Even mere placement on a page can make a difference, as is pointed out in the introduction to the Contemporary English Version. The following examples are given:

WRONG:

He brought me out into a broad

place.

RIGHT:

He brought me out

into a broad place. (2 Samuel 22:20)

WRONG:

With the loyal you show yourself

loyal.

RIGHT:

With the loyal

you show yourself loyal. (2 Samuel 22:27)

WRONG:

The Lord my God lights up

my darkness.

RIGHT:

The Lord my God

lights up my darkness. (2 Samuel 22:29)

Keep this in mind as we study a key objection to the teaching of “Soul Sleep” that can easily be overcome by simply putting a comma where it really ought to be instead of where some biased translators put it hundreds of years ago.

Jesus of Nazareth had claimed to be the Messiah (Mark 14:61-62). This claim enabled the jealous leaders of the Jews to haul him before the Roman Governor, Pontius Pilate, and accuse him of treason against Caesar (John 19:12), because the definition of “Messiah” is “King of the Jews” (Luke 23:38). Pilate ordered his soldiers to crucify Jesus along with two other criminals (Luke 23:32). While the three men were hanging on three crosses, one of the two criminals joined the crowd in taunting Jesus (Luke 23:39), but the other rebuked him and made a truly amazing request of Jesus: “Lord, remember me when you come into your kingdom” (Luke 23:42). It is Jesus’ answer to that request that has been seriously misinterpreted into a basis for denying the sleep of the dead (which is taught in dozens of passages of Scripture, as I have shown in E-Tract #3, titled “Soul Sleep”).

“Jesus said to him, Truly I say to you, Today you shall be with me in paradise” (Luke 23:43).

“There it is!” say many who oppose the doctrine I’ve been explaining. “Jesus told the thief on the cross that he would go directly to Heaven the moment he died! It’s right there in the Bible!” But is it? Without quibbling about the fact that Luke calls this criminal a “malefactor” (in the King James Version) rather than a “thief” (as he is called in Matthew 27:38) – although the Romans were not in the habit of crucifying mere robbers – can we notice the fact that the word “heaven” doesn’t occur anywhere in the passage? If Jesus meant to promise this criminal a trip to Heaven, why didn’t he say “heaven” instead of “paradise”?

Paradise, in fact, is an entirely different place than Heaven; it was never in Heaven, and it never will be in Heaven. Paradise was (and will again be) on Earth. The word “paradise” came into the Aramaic language (the language Jesus and the criminal spoke) as a loan-word from Old Persian (the ancestor of modern Farsi, the language spoken in Iran): in that language, it was the name given by the Old Persians to what is called in the Bible “the Garden of Eden.” Wherever the Garden of Eden was (there is no way now to tell, no matter what legends you may have heard), one thing is for sure: it was on Earth, not in Heaven. It doesn’t exist anymore – it was destroyed in the great flood in Noah’s day – but it will exist again, when God creates “a new heaven and a NEW EARTH” (Revelation 21:1). The Tree of Life will grow there (Revelation 2:7 and 22:2), as it did in the original Paradise (Genesis 2:9). Trees grow on Earth, not in Heaven.

What had the criminal asked of Jesus? He wanted to be “remembered” (favorably) when Jesus “comes into his kingdom.” When will that be? Did Jesus come into any kingdom the day he was crucified? No, the Bible clearly teaches that Jesus will “come into his kingdom” when Paradise is restored – when he returns to Earth in clouds of glory (see E-Tract #1, titled “Jesus Shall Return!”). That didn’t happen the day he was talking to the “thief.” It would be irrelevant for Jesus to respond to the criminal’s request for favorable remembrance in a future kingdom by assuring him that in a few hours they would both be in a place that hadn’t existed for thousands of years and wouldn’t exist again for thousands more!

Did the “thief” actually go to Paradise when the Roman soldiers broke his legs? Did he then find Jesus (who had already died before this took place, according to John 19:32-33) waiting for him there? For that to be true, Jesus would have to have lied on at least two major occasions: first, when he told his disciples he would spend “three days and three nights in the heart of the earth” (Matthew 12:40) – surely that’s not where Paradise is! – and second, when (after his resurrection) he told Mary Magdalene, “I have not yet ascended to my Father” (John 20:17). We have it from Jesus’ own lips that HE did not go to Heaven when he died! What makes us think anyone else will?

Perhaps you have heard that “paradise” was the Jews’ name for the “compartment” in Sheol/Hades (otherwise known as “Abraham’s Bosom”) where the righteous dead (of pre-Christian times) “rested in peace” until Jesus went there (after his crucifixion), preached the Gospel to them, then (after his resurrection) emptied the place out and took them all to Heaven with them when he ascended.

It’s a fascinating theory, except for a few minor details:

1. It’s never mentioned anywhere in the Bible.

2. It contradicts what IS mentioned in the Bible about Sheol/Hades.

3. If it’s true, King David wasn’t saved (Acts 2:29-36 tells us he didn’t go to Heaven).

Believe such a theory if you want to, but I prefer to stick with what the Bible says.

What DOES the Bible say?

It’s important to realize that no museum in the world has on display the original manuscript of any of the books of the Bible, handwritten by its author, who was inspired by God (and, therefore, in evangelical belief, infallible). What the museums do have are over 5,000 copies of copies of copies of the books of the Bible, handwritten by scribes who did the best job they could, but who occasionally made minor mistakes. We are more certain of the “original” text of the Bible than of the original text of any other book from ancient times (Homer’s “The Iliad” and “The Odyssey,” for example), but absolute certainty in every detail is beyond our present reach. Among other things, those scribes, attempting to copy lengthy texts as quickly as possible, didn’t record ANY punctuation for us: not chapter divisions, not paragraph divisions, not periods, not commas and not even spaces between words. In no manuscript of the Bible from before the invention of the printing press would you have been able to distinguish “He is now here” from “He is nowhere” except by studying the context. Actually, they would both have been written as “HEISNOWHERE.”

What does this “juicy” tidbit of trivia have to do with Jesus’ promise to the “thief”? Simply that we have no way of knowing whether Dr. Luke originally wrote, “Jesus said to him, Truly I say to you, Today you shall be with me in paradise” or “Jesus said to him, Truly I say to you today, You shall be with me in paradise.” We have to guess at what he wrote based on a careful study of the context of the statement. The context, as we have seen, does NOT support the traditional version. I believe the sentence makes a lot more sense if the comma is placed AFTER the word “today” (as it is, for example, in a very scholarly translation made back in 1902, known as Rotherham’s Emphasized Bible).

At least two other biblical writers used similar expressions. Moses told the Israelites, “I declare to you this day, that you will surely perish, and that you will not prolong your days in the land which you are passing over Jordan to go to possess” (Deuteronomy 30:18). Clearly, the comma in this sentence belongs after the expression “this day” rather than before it. The Apostle Paul told the elders of the church in Ephesus, “I take you to record this day, that I am pure from the blood of all men” (Acts 20:26). Again, it is clear that the comma in this sentence belongs after the expression “this day” rather than before it. If viewed this way, Jesus would be responding directly to the criminal’s request. The criminal asks to be “remembered” (favorably) when Jesus “comes into his kingdom” and Jesus replies, with a solemn oath, that his request will be granted – he (and all the others whose promise of eternal life Jesus was at that moment – “today” – in the process of purchasing) would be with Jesus when Paradise is restored.

So we see that it’s grammatically possible, contextually probable and theologically certain that Jesus DID NOT promise the criminal, “We’ll both be in Heaven in a few hours” – rather, he promised him exactly what he asked for: a seat at the Messiah’s inaugural banquet (Matthew 8:11, Luke 22:30) in the age to come (Mark 10:30 – notice, in that verse, WHEN “he shall receive . . . eternal life”).

Amazingly, Jesus – resurrected and (40 days later) ascended – is now able to make the same promise “TODAY” to anyone who will receive his free gift (Romans 6:23) of salvation. YOU, too, can know that “you will be with” Him “in paradise” and (if he doesn’t return before your lifetime ends) you can die with the same assurance in your heart that the “thief” on the cross had. You need only to turn to him with the same kind of faith the “thief” had, and pray, “Lord, remember me when you come into your kingdom.”

HE WILL!

In future e-tracts, I plan to deal with some of the other objections that are often raised against conditional immortality and the sleep of the dead. If you’d rather not receive those essays, simply email me and ask to be removed from my mailing list. On the other hand, if you have questions you’d like me to answer – either privately or in a “public” forum – I’d be happy to do that.

For more information, contact:

Dr. John H. Roller

johnroller@faithbiblechristian.com.