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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