As All Christadelphians Know, the Bible says nothing about an immortal soul. Nor does it teach that men and women go to heaven when they die. Sooner or later as we preach Bible truth to others,
we make these points abundantly clear. And sooner or later – usually sooner – many to whom we preach raise the stock question: “What about the thief on the cross? Didn’t Jesus promise him that they would be together in paradise that day?”
In heaven? On the surface it seems a tough question. How are we to answer it?
For years I’ve done what many others have done: change the placement of the comma in Luke 23:43. This allowed me to read the words of Jesus as if he were telling the thief, “Assuredly, I say to you today, you will be with me in Paradise” (Luke 23:43 NKJV, with my punctuation and emphasis). This usually would allow me to shift the attention away from heaven going and let me focus discussion on the future kingdom of God. Only recently have I come to realize how terribly much I have missed by failing to query the meaning of paradise.
What is paradise?
A much richer understanding of Jesus’ answer grows out of considering what he meant by paradise. Or course when we ask such a question, out comes the concordance. But we don’t get a lot of help. The Greek word for paradise,paradeisos, occurs just three times in the New Testament. Once in the gospels: the passage in question; once in Paul’s letters: 2 Corinthians 12:4, and once in the Revelation: Revelation 2:7.
In some respects Paul’s reference to paradise creates as many questions as it answers. Paul equated paradise with “the third heaven,” and this immediately begs another question: “What is the third heaven?” In the Revelation, Jesus promised that he who overcomes will be given “to eat from the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God.” This, of course, is a clear echo of the garden in Eden. We are, in fact, getting somewhere when we equate paradise with the garden in Eden, but it is not easy to build an answer to a challenging question on a single Bible passage, especially when the passage is figurative in its own right.
So let’s step back and recognize a couple of things before we go any further. If Jesus had wanted to tell the thief that they would be together in heaven that day, he could have done so in plain words. He didn’t. More than this, if Jesus had wanted to tell the thief that day — i.e., then and there — that they would be together in the future kingdom of God, he could have said this too. The latter at least would have been in keeping with the thief’s appeal — “Lord, remember me when you come into your kingdom” (Luke 23:42).
Jesus did not say this either. Instead, the Lord deliberately chose the word paradise — the only time the word is used in the gospels — almost certainly because it had a special relevance to the matter at hand that day: our Lord’s death on the cross.
The Old Testament background
One other thing is helpful to recognize. Jesus certainly would have drawn his concept of paradise from the Old Testament, and I believe he would have expected the thief to also understand the concept of paradise based on Old Testament teaching.
This immediately suggests a further line of investigation. What does the Old Testament say about paradise? The Septuagint (Greek Old Testament) is especially valuable in this connection because it allows us to directly determine if there is an Old Testament history behind the Greek word that is used in the New Testament.
And there is. The Greek word for paradise is used 27 times in the Septuagint. The first thirteen times are in Genesis 2 and 3, all references to the garden in Eden, of course. The next occurrence is in Genesis 13:10 and it, too, is a reference to the garden in Eden.
Occurrences of the Greek word in Numbers 24:6, 2 Chronicles 33:20; Nehemiah 2:8; Ecclesiastes 2:5, Song of Solomon 4:13, Isaiah 1:30, and Jeremiah 29:5 are all references to gardens. (This is especially clear in an English translation of the Septuagint.) Ezekiel 31: 8 and 9 use the Greek word for paradise in a parable that draws much of its language from the garden in Eden.
Israel restored
Joel 2:3 speaks of the land of Israel, before the onslaught of an invading army, as though it were like the garden in Eden — paradise. After the army had swept through the land it was like a desolate wilderness. Joel is interesting in this respect He establishes a precedent for likening the land of Israel to paradise — the garden of God. Isaiah 51:3 is especially poignant. God will restore Zion to be as delightful as Eden.
In none of these Old Testament passages is paradise equated with heaven in the orthodox sense of the word. Instead, paradise is the garden of God in Eden, and it comes to have special application to the restored
kingdom of Israel. This, in itself, reminds us of the thief’s appeal to Jesus — “Lord, remember me when you come into your kingdom.”
The way to the tree of life
Now let’s shift our perspective to the original garden itself. It is abundantly clear from Genesis 3:22 that man was not inherently immortal before sin entered the world — and he certainly did not gain immortality by sinning! Man was banished from the garden in Eden lest he take of the tree of life and eat and live forever. Death — the total cessation of life — became inevitable.
God placed cherubim and a flaming sword at the east of the garden to keep the way of the tree of life. The very fact that the way of the tree of life was kept, rather than obliterated altogether, gave man hope. Perhaps it could be hoped, in the mercy of God, that the way to the tree of life in the midst of the garden — the paradise of God! — would one day be again opened up for man.
That day came, and Jesus identified it: “Today you will be with me in paradise.”
It is well worth taking a few minutes, with concordance in hand, to see how the way of the tree of life finds resonance in the New Testament. The Septuagint uses the Greek word hodos for way in Genesis 3:24. The same Greek word is used nearly a hundred times in the New Testament, and some of these carry identifiable echoes of Genesis 3.
Matthew 7:13-14: “Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it.”
In reality, only one sinless man ever found the way that leads to life: the Lord Jesus Christ. We must find it through him. “Jesus said to him (Thomas): ‘I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me'” (John 14:6).
The Lord spoke these words on the eve of his crucifixion. The way into the presence of the Father — in the garden, if you will, or beyond the veil — is through the crucified Lord Jesus Christ. Other examples of the use of “way” (hodos) in connection with the way to life are in Matthew 20:17-19; Mark 10:17-21, Hebrews 10:19-23, etc.
The way into the presence of God, and to eternal life itself, that was preserved after the fall of man, has been opened up for us through the crucifixion of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Luke 23 and echoes of Genesis 3
With these things in mind, the development of Luke’s crucifixion account is wondrous. Here are just a few things to recognize and in which we can marvel.
Luke 23:33: “And when they had come to the place called Calvary, there they crucified him, and the criminals, one on the right hand and the other on the left.” Calvary: the Greek word is kranion, the skull. At Calvary, the serpent’s head was bruised by the woman’s seed (Gen. 3:15).
Luke 23:42-43: “Then he (the criminal at Christ’s right hand) said to Jesus, ‘Lord, remember me when you come into your kingdom.’ And Jesus said to him, ‘Assuredly I say to you today you will be with me in Paradise.'” The faithful thief was literally crucified with Christ. He was with Jesus that day, and he watched through pained but marveling eyes as the Lord Jesus died next to him, and for him, to consecrate a new and living way into the Holiest place (Gen. 3:24). Yes, the repentant thief will be with the Lord when he comes into his kingdom, because the Lord made it possible — that day! — by his death on the cross.
Luke 23:44-45: “Now it was about the sixth hour, and there was darkness over all the earth until the ninth hour. Then the sun was darkened, and the veil of the temple was torn in two.” The meaning of this will not be lost on devoted brothers and sisters who regularly read the word of God. The veil of the temple barred the way into the most holy place, the symbolic presence of God Himself.
Into the veil were woven the figures of cherubim (Gen. 3:24 again). Beyond the veil only the high priest could venture on the Day of Atonement, taking with him the blood for himself and the sins of the people. As Jesus died, the veil of the temple was torn from top to bottom. By this we are to understand that the power of sin had been taken away and nothing now stood between man and the presence of God. The cross of Jesus had become our tree of life.
The Origin of the Organic World – Part One