Then there's the whole weirdness about- did god die for a split second....
Why did Jesus tell the convict on the cross next to his, that he would be joining him in Heaven TODAY??
by Faithful Witness 45 Replies latest watchtower bible
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emeth
Like i said before Jesus was not in Heaven that day... according to the King James he was somewhere else....
Acts 2:31
He seeing this before, spake of the resurrection of Christ, that his soule was not left in hell, neither his flesh did see corruption.
- King James Version (1611) -
Island Man
I think it's entirely possible that Jesus said "today you will be with me in paradise". But it does not necessarily mean that he meant it literally. The JW organization, because of its narrow-minded thinking and it's 'disprove the immortal soul' agenda has blinded itself from considering this possibility.
Do you recall that when the young maiden died Jesus told the grieving crowd that she was not dead but merely sleeping? Jesus often spoke figuratively. I think this is possibly the case here as well.
Jesus could have told the man "today" because from the perspective of the dying thief, he will be raised up the same day. How so? When the thief dies he will be unaware of the passage of centuries of time until his resurrection. His death and resurrection will seem to him as happening on the same day. Jesus' promise to him would have been comforting and experiencially true.
But it's also entirely possible that Luke meant it literally and this is an example of one of the glaring contradictions in the bible since the bible elsewhere makes it clear that the resurrection doesn't start until christ's future presence.
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InChristAlone
One explanation that I have heard is that during Jesus's death, he was in Sheol (as literally described in Luke 16). The thief would be there as would all who have previously died. This goes along with with the thought of Jesus "preaching" to the spirits of the unrighteous, rising on the third day, ascending to heaven and taking the righteous to heaven with him. ("Taking captive those who were captive" in Ephesians). Following that point, all righteous who died went to the third heaven as Paul described. Just one idea amidst many others.
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villagegirl
Jesus told the thief next to him, he was going to be in
paradise that day, becuase Jesus never read a Watchtower.!!!
AND Jesus was from another dimension. Physics folks, other dimensions,
96% of the universe is matter and energy that is seen to effect us
and planets and behaviour of all we can see, but we can only see 4%
of what exists, so Jesus had a different agenda than the "organization"
The Watchtower is a CULT, or did we fail to mention that ?
The matter and energy that was this man, (his life force) left him and
remained in the cosmos in another form, Jesus knew that, and he knew
a lot of things he said he couldn't explain because we wouldn't understand.
Its not all explained in the Bible and Jesus said it wasn't.
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cantleave
Stop applying physics to supernatural mubo-jumbo VG. Go back and revisit what you learned on your one day course at uni.
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Rattigan350
No, Jesus was just dead when he expired. Nothing to do with reading a Watchtower or punctuation.
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darthfader
Simple....
Lets eat Jesus!
Lets eat, Jesus!
Basicaly the comma is there so that no one would eat Jesus...
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Cold Steel
Faithful Witness: Since Jesus took this guy with him to heaven immediately, would he be considered "anointed" and qualified to sit as a judge with Christ, even though he was a criminal who "deserved" the death penalty?
Yes, it’s all about the placement of the comma. In short, the Jehovah’s Witnesses render the scripture: “I’m telling you today, you’re gonna be with me in Paradise!”
But there are a number of basics one must consider before one begins a reasonable exegesis of the scripture. First, “Paradise” is not heaven. Jesus said when he was resurrected: “...for I have not yet ascended unto heaven.” Also, that figure of speech, “I’m telling you today,” is not found anywhere in the New Testament.
What is Paradise? It’s the world of spirits, to which all men go when they die. The early church father, Origen, wrote about this specifically: “After death,” he writes, “I think the saints go to Paradise, a place of teaching, a school of the spirits in which everything they saw on earth will be made clear to them. Those who were pure in heart will progress more rapidly, reaching the kingdom of heaven by definite steps or degrees.”
So where did Jesus go during the time he died and the time he was resurrected? He went to Paradise, to preach to the spirits there. Peter writes: “For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit: By which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison, which sometime were disobedient when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by water.” (1 Peter 3:18-20) He also writes: “For for this cause was the gospel preached also to them that are dead, that they might be judged according to men in the flesh, but live according to God in the spirit.” (1 Peter 4:6)
Paradise is thus a holding area where the spirits of men who lived on the earth await the judgment and the resurrection. The gospel is preached to the dead so they can be judged like men in the flesh, yet live according to God in the spirit. Thus it makes sense that Jesus was simply promising the malefactor on the cross that he would go to a place where he could be taught the gospel, where, again, he could ultimately be judged as if he’d accepted the gospel in the flesh, yet live as a spirit. It was not a free ticket to heaven.
Design: Then there's the whole weirdness about- did god die for a split second....
By “death” do you mean ceasing to exist or the separation of body and spirit? Jesus never for an instant ceased to exist, just as you will never for an instant cease to exist. But yes, his spirit left his body. As he, himself, said, only he had power to lay his life down and then take it up again. If he had ceased to exist for just a fraction, he never would have been able to take it up again. For example, reach down now (if you’re working on a desktop) and just briefly hit the reset switch. Did your computer retain its memory and functions, or did it lose everything, requiring a complete reboot? Such a thing would completely remove everything from memory, and if you didn’t allow your computer to reboot (or to relearn everything that’s read into it from the hard drive), it would simply be a boat anchor.
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emeth
@Cold Steel
What does 1 Peter 3:19, 20 mean? “In this state [in the spirit, following his resurrection] also he [Jesus] went his way and preached to the spirits in prison, who had once been disobedient when the patience of God was waiting in Noah’s days, while the ark was being constructed, in which a few people, that is, eight souls [“souls,” KJ, Dy; “people,” TEV, JB; “persons,” RS], were carried safely through the water.” (Were those “spirits in prison” the souls of the humans who had refused to take heed to Noah’s preaching before the Flood, and was the way now open for them to go to heaven?
Comparison of 2 Peter 2:4 and Jude 6 with Genesis 6:2-4 shows that these spirits were angelic sons of God that had materialized and married in Noah’s day. At 1 Peter 3:19, 20 the Greek word for “spirits” is pneu′ma·sin, while the word rendered “souls” is psy·khai′. The “spirits” were not disembodied souls but disobedient angels; the “souls” here referred to were living people, humans, Noah and his household. What was preached to “spirits in prison” must therefore have been a message of judgment.)
What is the meaning of 1 Peter 4:6? “In fact, for this purpose the good news was declared also to the dead, that they might be judged as to the flesh from the standpoint of men but might live as to the spirit from the standpoint of God.” (Were these “dead” the people who had died prior to the death of Christ? As already shown, the dead are not “the spirits in prison.” Those spirits were disobedient angels. And preaching would not have benefited physically dead humans because, as Ecclesiastes 9:5 says, they “are conscious of nothing at all,” and Psalm 146:4 adds that at death a person’s “thoughts do perish.” But Ephesians 2:1-7, 17 does refer to persons who were spiritually dead and who came to life spiritually as a result of accepting the good news.)