"And Jesus said unto him, Verily, I say unto thee, Today shalt thou be with me in paradise" (Luke 23:43). Then we read in verses 50-53 where Joseph of Arimathea "went to Pilate, and begged the body of Jesus. And he took it down, and wrapped it in linen, and laid it in a sepulchre that was hewn in stone, wherein never a man had laid."
James said, "The body without the spirit is dead" (James 2:26). Death is that state or condition resulting when the spirit is no longer in the body. Life is the union of body and spirit.
"And it came to pass, as her soul was in departing, (for she had died)" (Genesis 35:18).
"And the Lord heard the voice of Elijah; and the soul of the child came into him again, and he lived" (I Kings 17:22).
Therefore we understand when Jesus said, "Today shalt thou be with me in paradise," he was talking about their soul, because their bodies were buried. Yet their spirits continued to live.
But one might ask: "Where is paradise?" It is evidently a department of hades, the unseen realm of righteous spirits. In hades, there are two departments: One place for the wicked known as "tartarus" in the Greek language, and the place for the saved known as "paradise."
In the King James Version of the Bible, one English word "hell" is used with different meaning. This confuses many people, for they think of the word "hell" only as a place of torment. But the Hebrew word "sheol" and the Greek "hades" translated into English "hell" do not necessarily signify the destiny of the soul, but only the unseen realm of the departed spirits.
All people who die go into Hades; or according to the English word used, "hell." "He, seeing this before, spake of the resurrection of Christ, that his soul was not left in hell" (Acts 2:31). Obviously Christ did not go into the place of torment. But he did go to "hell," the place of departed spirits.
Then one might ask: "Are heaven and paradise the same place?" It is true heaven is a paradise, but not every paradise is heaven. The word "paradise," originally a Persian garden, and then figuratively a place of blessing, is descriptive of heaven. Because heaven is such a place, it does not mean every place of blessing is heaven.
Jesus said, "Today shalt thou be with me in paradise." But we know that was not heaven, because after his resurrection from the dead, he told Mary "Touch me not; for I am not ascended to my father: (John 20:17). Jesus had been "in paradise" but he had not yet ascended to heaven.
Then in John 3:13, "And not man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven even the Son of man which is in heaven."
"For David is not ascended into heaven" (Acts 2:34).
Then we read in Hebrews 9:27, "And it is appointed unto man once to die, but after this the judgment."
"If any man speak let him speak as the oracles of God" (I Peter 4:11).
Don H. Noblin
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