Luke 23:43

nick lunn nick_lunn at wycliffe.org
Wed Oct 2 21:17:58 EDT 2002


     Dear Iver,
     
     Thank you for your comments. I would like to respond in brief to a 
     couple of them.
     
     On Luke's use of SHMERON you wrote:
     It seems significant to me that those places where Luke has SHMERON 
     initially are very similar in content:
     4:21 Today this scripture has been fulfilled (the Messiah has come to 
     save) 
     19:5 Today in your house I must stay (because he was sent to save the 
     lost) 
     19:9 Today salvation has come to this house
     (23:43 Today you will be with me in paradise (he is saved))
     
     It is interesting that of these only 23:43 is in the future tense. The 
     only other place in Luke-Acts in which SHMERON appears with a future 
     clause is Luke 22:61:
     "Before the cock crows today (SHMERON), you will deny me three times."
     Here SHMERON clearly ends the first clause.
     
     
     On 'paradise' you wrote:
     As far as I know there was a shift in Jewish thinking in terms of 
     Sheol. In the early parts of the OT, everybody went to Sheol (Hades) 
     when they died, whether good or bad. It looks like this was still the 
     belief at the time of King David which Acts 2:27 refers to. At the 
     time of Jesus, it appears that only the bad ones went to Sheol 
     (Hades), and that is why it becomes synonymous with "hell". The 
     righteous ones/saved ones went to the "bosom of Abraham" or 
     "paradise".
     I see no problem with Jesus and the saved criminal going together into 
     that "bosom of Abraham" or "paradise". Once there in spirit, Jesus 
     apparently did make a trip in his spiritual existence into Hades and 
     back before his resurrection. Is it not significant that in 1 Pet 3:19 
     Jesus went to preach to the imprisoned spirits of the disobedient 
     people? Abraham, Isaac and Jacob would not be in that company. From 
     Eph 4:8-9 it appears that some of these people heeded the preaching 
     and were forgiven and released so that they were no longer imprisoned. 
     Jesus would then have brought these released spirit prisoners into the 
     "bosom of Abraham". We know so little about this, that I cannot be 
     dogmatic, but I do not see point 5 as an argument against Jesus first 
     going to "paradise" in his spiritual existence. It depends, of course, 
     on what you think "paradise" stands for.
     
     The thought that struck me is - are we to interpret Christ's use of 
     'Paradise' in this verse by contemporary Jewish thinking, or by the 
     use of the word in the New Testament? The book of Revelation clearly 
     places Paradise in a post-resurrection, new heavens and earth, time 
     frame. It occurs in the promise of Rev 2:7, describing the place where 
     the 'tree of life' is located, which is the New Jerusalem (22:2).
     This is of course a theological issue rather than NT Greek. 
     
     Nick




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