Theif on the Cross

[Anonymous]

Ok here is my take on this..
1.) Death bed salvation will never work..God can see who you are down to your soul..seems like the person is attempting to trick God rather then actually repent and believe. It is impossible to truley go from having Satan as your master to switching to Jesus our Lord in a short period of time.
2.) We don't know anything about the thief, so to claim he did a death bed salvation is faulty. Jesus the Christ knows everyone down to their soul. I can imagine he would know if that man was truely a good person and I mean they crucified Jesus and he was totally innocent! Who knows what the thief was crucified for.
3.) Finally it comes down to really how devoted you are..The more you devote your time, mind and body to Jesus our Lord then the more he shall devote to you. Jesus himself said something along the lines of prepare to lose your life and you will gain it. Jesus also tells all of his followers to give up everything and you can't truley follow Jesus without leaving all worldly materials behind. A christian at his death bed, no matter what he had in his lifetime, I feel will have his mind set on Jesus our Lord and not on the worldly material he has accumulated. It is perhaps this mindset which the thief had that allowed him entrance into Heaven. Hard to have someone who values material life over the Christ all his life to change all of a second. I also belief although perhaps somewhat radical that certain people will never be able to follow the word of the Christ because Satan will have a grasp on them which they will not be able to overcome or will not be willing to overcome. The key in all this is MONEY however, oh how many times Jesus our Lord tells us to rid of that which is Satan's and cannot be of God.

[Anonymous]

Vvart,

Thanks for your post and interesting comments on devotion. After reading all of them I had a question that came to mind for you. It relates to a bunch of things you mentioned about the thief and devoting ourselves to Jesus.

Would you happen to consider yourself to be a good person? If so - how come, if not - why?

[Anonymous]

When i said Jesus knows your a good person, I used good loosely and in conjuction with person because only God is truely good but If we take the whole phrase of "good person" then i will express my definition of that phrase. To be good is to be God and to be a person is to be born with sin and therefore not good, but not evil of course. So I'm going to define a good person as someone who tries to be like the nature God which is the embodiment of good, but he can never succeed and needs through Jesus the Christ to obtain that status. Now the Thief and many people at the time didn't know of the Christ, but in their hearts they new a he was coming. When the Christ goes to the well and meets a woman, the woman acknowledges that she is waiting for the messiah and Jesus says, "I am the Messiah!. So back to your question, with the definition ive created, I believe I am a good person because I seek the good nature of God through Christ. That is a quick "how come" but if you need more just ask. This also brings up a controversy because i do believe that you can't be a good person without following Jesus our Lord now that he is here.

[Anonymous]

Sorry, I sometimes assume that everybody kind of reads my mind when I say the words "good person". With regards to being a good person, I wanted to define it meaning 'morally upright'. Not sure if that changes your answer or not...

[Anonymous]

well I wouldn't say it does because as long as I give myself to Jesus, then he will make me new again. Of course being morally upright is not about committing sin and then looking to Jesus for forgiveness, but rather its working with Jesus so that you won't need to sin. We will never succeed, but its the process of allowing Jesus to guide us closer to a righteous(sinless) life. I'm not always morally upright, but what still makes me a good person, i feel, is that I acknowledge I've made a mistake and ask Jesus for forgiveness, trying never to make that same mistake twice. Of course mistakes will be made constantly both new and old.

[Anonymous]

However, I think the best test to prove if one is a good person or not would be too fight off Satan as Jesus did. Good people are those who conquer sin and learn to not commit sin from the beginning whenever they can.

So i would like to propose this question: "You just lost everything you have and you are out on the street. You come by a Rich man who then offers to give you a dollar. You are starving, should you take the dollar?"

[BavarianWheels]

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I'd like to propose you gather your thoughts better and put them in one post...you seem to have this habit of back-to-back posts...every once in a while is ok, but the norm?
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[Anonymous]

Okay, I'll bite.

Yes, I would take the dollar. Is there a reason I should not?

[Anonymous]

sorry, I just constantly have stuff going through my head and they make sense in my head but i have trouble organizing them together. Anyway regarding my question, was just curious if anyone wouldn't take the dollar and why...

[Anonymous]

What is the doctrine pertaining to the thief on the cross who ended up in paradise with Jesus after the day was done? (Luke 23:43).

Sorry, but that's wrong. The thief did not end up in paradise "with Jesus after the day was done" for the simple fact that Jesus did not go up to "paradise" on that very day (Friday??). This is clear in John 20:17 and Acts 1:3 where Jesus said in John 20:17 that He has not yet returned to the Father and that He remained on earth for 40 days (acts 1:3) before he finally returned to heaven. Therefore, the correct rendering of Luke 23:43 should be:

"Truly I say to you today, you shall be with Me in Paradise." The comma is AFTER "today."

[Kurieuo]

Christ used that phrase (i.e., "Truly I say to") many times, but never added "today." And it's kind of irrelevant to say "today" as such would be obvious he didn't mean tomorrow or the previous day, especially to someone on a cross who would have to exert much more effort. It was a nice solution though, but perhaps there is a better one?

Kurieuo.

[Anonymous]

Even if Christ did not use it somewhere else does not negate the validity of the argument. Shall we belive then that Jesus lied when he said he will bring the converted to heaven that very day when he himself did not go to heaven that very day?

It's not irrelevant because the Ancient Near East People have different way of expressing thought. Perhaps it's irrelevant for us, but not to them. For example in Proverbs 22:19 we have this:

"So that your trust may be in the LORD, I teach you today, even you. (NIV)"

Notice that the comma is also placed after today. Should we say this is irrelevant since?

[Jac3510]

Third, see my first reply on this subject. The comma goes before "today."

As for your argument, there are two equally possible answers depending on what your particular theological framework happens to be. First, from a purely trinitarian perspective, Jesus IS God. Therefore, even if the Logos stayed on earth for forty-three more days, God was still in Heaven. Jesus is God, therefore, the thief DID go to be with Jesus in paradise THAT DAY.

Secondly, let's be careful to differentiate between paradise and "heaven." As I've mentioned before, we have this bad habit of thinking that when we die we go to heaven forever, but that's not true at all. We go to "paradise," until after the Great White Throne Judgment and the creation of the New Earth. That will be everlasting, and it is there that we will live forever. Of course Jesus didn't say the thief would go THERE. He simply said he would go to paradise, which is where Jesus would be. Jesus died the same day, so, again, no problems here. (We could take this particular line of thought deeper, but I'm just suggesting a few answers to your "problem.")

The other major answer comes from if, like me, you hold to a static view of God's relationship to time. I don't believe that God experiences time on a moment by moment basis. For God, all moments, past, present, and future, are all "present." Jesus, again, is God. So even if I completely conceded to your point (and again, I don't, but for argument's sake here), it STILL wouldn't matter because the moment the thief died, he would have gone on to paradise. Lo and behold, there Jesus would have been, which is where He has been for all of eternity past and will be for all of eternity future, as Eph. 1:4, Heb. 4:3, Rev. 3:18, etc. notes.

Considering this, as well as my previous post, I see absolutely no exegetical reason at all to put the comma after "today." It best fits before.

[Anonymous]

As for your argument, there are two equally possible answers depending on what your particular theological framework happens to be. First, from a purely trinitarian perspective, Jesus IS God. Therefore, even if the Logos stayed on earth for forty-three more days, God was still in Heaven. Jesus is God, therefore, the thief DID go to be with Jesus in paradise THAT DAY.

Well, it was the man Jesus who said: “You WILL BE (future) with me in paradise.” The thing was not happening yet. To assert that since Jesus is God therefore the thief DID go to be with Jesus in paradise that day is to confuse the matter altogether. How could he be with Jesus in paradise that day when Jesus did not go there but was here on earth for 40 days? You are saying perhaps that the thief was with the FATHER or with the HS that day if he really went there that day. But it was not the Father or the HS who said, “You will be with ME...” It was JESUS who said, “you will be with ME...” But Jesus was not there.

Secondly, let's be careful to differentiate between paradise and "heaven." As I've mentioned before, we have this bad habit of thinking that when we die we go to heaven forever, but that's not true at all. We go to "paradise," until after the Great White Throne Judgment and the creation of the New Earth. That will be everlasting, and it is there that we will live forever. Of course Jesus didn't say the thief would go THERE. He simply said he would go to paradise, which is where Jesus would be. Jesus died the same day, so, again, no problems here. (We could take this particular line of thought deeper, but I'm just suggesting a few answers to your "problem.")

Well, “paradise” and the “third heaven” are used interchangeably by Paul in 2 Cor. 12:24:

1 I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago--whether in the body I do not know, or out of the body I do not know, God knows--such a man was caught up to the third heaven.
2 Cor 12:3 And I know how such a man--whether in the body or apart from the body I do not know, God knows--
2 Cor 12:4 was caught up into Paradise and heard inexpressible words, which a man is not permitted to speak.

But of course this does not mean that when a Christian dies he goes up immediately up there. It was a privilege given to Paul (the man he was talking about). Again, Jesus did not go to heaven that VERY DAY, therefore, he could not be saying to the thief that he would be with Jesus in paradise that very day (i.e., “today”)

The other major answer comes from if, like me, you hold to a static view of God's relationship to time. I don't believe that God experiences time on a moment by moment basis. For God, all moments, past, present, and future, are all "present." Jesus, again, is God. So even if I completely conceded to your point (and again, I don't, but for argument's sake here), it STILL wouldn't matter because the moment the thief died, he would have gone on to paradise. Lo and behold, there Jesus would have been, which is where He has been for all of eternity past and will be for all of eternity future, as Eph. 1:4, Heb. 4:3, Rev. 3:18, etc. notes.

That's very simplistic, I guess. Jesus, the man on the cross, who speaks to the thief, “you will be with me in paradise,” was not there in paradise/heaven that very moment. He was on the cross!

Considering this, as well as my previous post, I see absolutely no exegetical reason at all to put the comma after "today." It best fits before.

A simplistic solution does not appeal to the inquisitive mind. The truth is, the Greek does not have commas. Tradition came teaching that Christians who die go immediately to heaven. That traditional doctrine gave way to translators to put the comma BEFORE “today” ignoring a simple fact that Jesus did not go to heaven that very day.

[Jac3510]

How much Greek have you taken, Third?

The truth is that the original NT manuscripts didn't use punctuation, vowels, lowercase letters, or even spaces between words. For instance, the original manuscript for John 1:1 would have read:

ENAPXHHNODOGOS

(note, you have to read those as captial Greek letters, not as English transliterations, with exception to D,G and S. A transliteration would read as follows:

ENARChEENOLOGOS [lower case 'h' purposeful])

So, your argument about the lack of punctuation carries absolutely no force, assuming, of course, that you read an English translation (or even a modern Greek one at that!), because you must equally accept all kinds of things that "weren't in the original text."

As for your other arguments, if you read them carefully, you didn't refute anything. All you did was offer other explanations, which is fine by me, because the burden of proof is on you. So far as logic is concerned, I expressed a few reasons why your arguments are fallicious. You have not shown a single fallacy in my reasoning, and until you do, your argument is unsupported. In fact, your last "argument" attests to this fact, where you say:
[quote=TO]A simplistic solution does not appeal to the inquisitive mind.[/quote]
This is very close to an argument of incredulity. There is nothing wrong with simplicity. Take the Atonement. It is a perfect picture of the simplicity. Jesus died on your behalf. Bingo, there you have it, the entire Gospel in five words. Now, as you start getting under the hood, so to speak, of those five words, the detail and complexities begin to show, but the argument itself is short, sweet, simple, and to the point. My understanding of Jesus and His place in the Trinity and the ramifications this has on such events as the one under discussion works in exactly the same way. It is not suprising to me that you don't accept them. In your few posts, you have shown that you reject the Trinity and are an open theist. If you are not already, then, you inevidably MUST take the route of process theology, which inevidably leads to egalitarianism and other heresies.

In other words, you have bigger fish to fry than the placement of a comma

As for my positive arguments, I refer you, again, to my original post in this thread. None of these have been answered, and this context provides more than ample support for the placement of the comma before "today." Secondly, the "pre-today comma placement argument" cannot be held without first adhering to a soul-sleep position. This makes your argument incredibly circular if you try to use this to prove soul-sleep! This isn't at all the case if one holds to the standard grammer given the precendent set by the Gospel writers themselves.

God bless